Reading

Sidewise Award Announcement

The Sidewise Award for Alternate History is looking for new judges to join the award committee.

This is the first time in the 30 year history of the award that they've made an open call for awards judges.

Apply here.

Entry tags:

Five User-Friendly Rulesets for Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Not every gamer finds joy in wildly complicated, esoteric, hard-to-learn rules...

Five User-Friendly Rulesets for Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Aurora Award Livestream

Watch on YouTube

Hosted by Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Liz May Anderson.

Sunday August 10 at 5 PM: Livestream broadcast of the 2025 Aurora Awards, Canada’s annual English-language Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards.

Hearts of Wulin by Joyce Ch'ng & Lowell Francis

Righteous characters pursue great justice in this wuxia TTRPG.

Hearts of Wulin by Joyce Ch'ng & Lowell Francis

The Old World Character Generation

More details later but it seems the group is essentially Don Quixote in the form of a Brettonian knight's bastard who has completely bought into chivalric ideals despite the fact no true knight considers him worthy to have such ideals, and an assortment of hangers-on who see him as a meal ticket.

Which is to say, the group is centred on someone who will seek out adventure.

! Seen in email

Based on the photometry and orbital properties, the planet candidate could have a temperature of 225 K, a radius of 1-1.1 and a mass between 90-150 , consistent with RV limits.

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The Integral Trees (Integral Trees, volume 1) by Larry Niven

Climate change provides a tribal leader a pretext to dispatch his least favourite tribe members on an ill-fated expedition from which none will return.

The Integral Trees (Integral Trees, volume 1) by Larry Niven

I guess I have to stop reviewing current and upcoming Viz manga

Manga tech startup Orange Inc. (not to be confused with the animation studio Orange) raised ¥2.92 billion (~$19.5 million) in 2024 to enable a capacity for Japanese-to-English “localization” of up to 500 manga volumes per month via its app emaqi. Among its investors? Shogakukan, publisher of the manga magazine Shonen Sunday, which recently launched NOVELOUS, a light novel reader app powered by AI translations. Shogakukan is also a co-owner of VIZ Media, which has recently come under fire.

(no subject)

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bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: Fight With Spirit

Fight With Spirit, the sports drama tabletop roleplaying game from Storybrewers Roleplaying (Good Society).

Bundle of Holding: Fight With Spirit

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Blue Eye of Horus, volume 2 by Chie Inudou

With her brother/husband Seti off crushing Egypt's enemies, future Pharaoh Hatshepsut expands her power at home by freeing slaves, alienating priests, and inconveniencing a homicidal concubine. Results are mixed.

Blue Eye of Horus, volume 2 by Chie Inudou

Entry tags:

meetpoint,
review

The Tree of Swords and Jewels (Ealdwood, volume 2) by C J Cherryh

In which the bill for an audacious gambit in the previous volume is presented.

The Tree of Swords and Jewels (Ealdwood, volume 2) by C J Cherryh

Discovered while looking for something else

All nine episodes of Star Cops.

Entry tags:

bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: The Expanse & Modern AGE (from 2020) T

THE EXPANSE RPG and MODERN AGE corebooks + many supplements

Bundle of Holding: The Expanse & Modern AGE (from 2020)

Happy Civil Holiday!

Living as I do in Ontario, a province run for and by assholes, the Civic Holiday is an "optional" holiday that employers may either observe or spend beating their employees with a stick no thicker than Andre the Giant's thumb.

Clarke Award Finalists 2008

2008: Norovirus is a smash hit with three million-plus Britons, an avoidable market collapse relieves boredom, and Boris Johnson’s election as mayor of London surely is not a harbinger of dark days to come.

Poll #33463 Clarke Award Finalists 2008

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

Which 2008 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Black Man by Richard Morgan
10 (43.5%)

The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
7 (30.4%)

The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod
10 (43.5%)

The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter
0 (0.0%)

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
4 (17.4%)

The Red Men by Matthew De Abaitua
1 (4.3%)

Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2008 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Black Man by Richard Morgan
The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod
The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
The Red Men by Matthew De Abaitua

Entry tags:

The Holmes-Dracula File (Dracula Chronicles, volume 2) by Fred Saberhagen

Holmes and Dracula team up to save London.

The Holmes-Dracula File (Dracula Chronicles, volume 2) by Fred Saberhagen

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Queen Demon review

Woke up to a fantastic review of Queen Demon in the August Locus. Here's an excerpt:

This is a fantastic novel, set in a fascinating world with truly compelling characters. It is shot through with grief, with the reverberations of destruction and the aftermaths of trauma: While the past timeline gives us emotional focus on the characters’ griefs, immediate traumas, and desperate choices, the present makes plain the extent of the Hierarchs’ destruction of the rest of the world, the scars in the landscape, in societies, in the vanishing of entire cultures. New societies have built themselves out of the ruins, in the shadow of what was lost and in its absences. While we see it particularly from Kai’s perspective, understanding his losses and his wounds, his scars and his griefs, and what healing has been possible for him between the past and the present, it’s not unique to Kai, either. Loss with all its jagged edges looms over this fragile recovery. These scars wear not only upon the main characters but upon their allies and opponents, too: Trauma, both personal and generational, is a strongly motivating factor and a weight that influences most of the personal relationships and many of the political interactions that we see.
-- Liz Bourke, Locus August 2025

Queen Demon is the sequel to Witch King, and it will be out in ebook, hardcover, and audiobook (narrated by Eric Mok, on October 7

Books Received, July 26 to July 31 belated poll

Poll #33455 Books Received, July 26 to July 31

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Laundry Roleplaying Game: Operative’s Handbook by by David F Chapman, Calum Collins, Christopher Colston, Alister Davison, Michael Duxbury, Warren Frey, Gareth Hanrahan, and Elaine Lithgow et al (Q4, 2025)
22 (44.0%)

The Laundry Roleplaying Game: Supervisor’s Guide by Anthony Boyd, Greg Buchanan, David F Chapman, Calum Collins, Christopher Colston, Alister Davison, Michael Duxbury, Warren Frey, Gareth Hanrahan, Derek Johnston, and Elaine Lithgow et al (Q4, 2025)
22 (44.0%)

You do know at least one person in the group needs both books, right?
26 (52.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
2 (4.0%)

Cats!
44 (88.0%)

Entry tags:

books received

Books Received, July 26 to July 31

Just two items this week (although maybe two halves of one thing). Both cosmic horror, both part of (or related to) a series.

Books Received, July 26 to July 31