Reading

Entry tags:

The Four Wishes (Cheon of Weltanland, volume 1) By Charlotte Stone

War crime survivor turned expert swordswoman and student sorcerer Cheon resolves to obliterate the nation responsible, make herself queen, and find a like-minded woman to court.

The Four Wishes (Cheon of Weltanland, volume 1) by Charlotte Stone

Entry tags:

bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: Ironsworn-Starforged

Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles, tabletop roleplaying games of perilous fantasy, space opera, and seafaring adventure by Tomkin Press.

Bundle of Holding: Ironsworn-Starforged

Entry tags:

clarke award

Clarke Award Finalists 2009

2009: The Horrible Histories TV show debuts, Britons are treated to a Giles-worthy winter, and police decline to investigate the cash for influence incident so that they might better focus on the custard-tossing scandal rocking the nation.

Poll #33480 Clarke Award Finalists 2009

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

View Respondents

Which 2009 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod
1 (3.2%)

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
26 (83.9%)

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
9 (29.0%)

Martin Martin's on the Other Side by Mark Wernham
0 (0.0%)

The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
6 (19.4%)

The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley
7 (22.6%)

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

Which 2009 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Martin Martin's on the Other Side by Mark Wernham
The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley

With an * on the McAuley because it was too grim and I didn't finish it.

Entry tags:

aurora

Congratulations to the 2025 Aurora Award Winners!

The winners are:

Best Novel: The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed, Solaris
Best YA Novel: Heavenly Tyrant, Xiran Jay Zhao, Tundra Books
Best Novelette/Novella: The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed, Tordotcom
Best Short Story: “Blood and Desert Dreams“, Y.M. Pang, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 408
Best Graphic Novel: Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio, IDW Publishing
Best Poem/Song “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka“, Y.M. Pang, Invitation: A One-shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction
Best Related Work: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two
Stephen Kotowych, editor, Ansible Press
Best Cover Art/Interior Illustration: Augur Magazine, Issue 7.1, cover art, Martine Nguyen
Best Fan Writing and Publication: SF&F Book Reviews, Robert Runté, Ottawa Review of Books
Best Fan Related Work: murmurstations, Sonia Urlando, Augur Society, podcast

Entry tags:

Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg

Two Americans set out for Venus. Only one returned. Where is the missing man? Evans knows but Evans is not a reliable witness.

Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg

I don't think any of my Old World players frequent DW

A book I'm thinking of having play an important role in the campaign is Heinrich and Moritz Tod's Morally Uplifting Tales for the Edification of Recalcitrant Children, the Tods being the Old World analog of the Brothers Grimm. Uplifting Tales is an important cultural artifact and also the sort of book you'd read to kids at bed time if you wanted them to cry themselves to sleep.

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.

Entry tags:

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)

Entry tags:

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

Entry tags:

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