Every time the government or the media bangs on about Stay Alert I can't help thinking of that old, old, joke...

Be Alert!
Britain needs more lerts! 

I know corvids often pull the tails of other creatures, sometimes to harass them away from food. Sometimes just out of sheer mischief. When I worked at the NHU, I saw footage of corvids tweaking the tails of a perching kestrel, a sleeping fox and a wallaby drinking at a waterhole.

A local magpie seems to have taken it a stage further. It sauntered up to a group of pigeons feeding on spilled seed from my bird feeders, grabbed a tail feather and hung on. The pigeon flapped frantically to get away and the tail feather ripped out. The magpie then spent several minutes pecking away at the feather. Mainly at the root, so I guess it was getting little bits of flesh from inside the end of the shaft?

It then sneaked up on the pigeons again and tried to repeat the action, but this time the pigeon broke free without losing a feather.

The pigeons are now rather nervous of the magpies! :-)

FICTION

1. Earth 2788 by Janet Edwards (YA science fiction). Anthology of stories from the Earth Girl universe.
2. Earth & Fire by Janet Edwards (YA science fiction).
3. Earth & Air by Janet Edwards (YA science fiction).
4. Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon (science fiction). Vatta’s Peace volume 1.
5. Into The Fire by Elizabeth Moon (science fiction). Vatta’s Peace volume 2. Interesting in places, but suspension of disbelief vanished in others and there were chunks near the start which were a bit of a slog. Not going to bother with any future volumes in this series.
6. Night School by Lee Child (crime). Jack Reacher #21
7. The Midnight Line by Lee Child (crime). Jack Reacher #22
8. Past Tense by by Lee Child (crime). Jack Reacher #23
9. Blue Moon by by Lee Child (crime). Jack Reacher #24
10. Gullstruck Island by Francis Hardinge (YA fantasy). I still can’t believe how much politics and the like Francis manages to sneak into her children’s books.
11. Deeplight by Francis Hardinge (YA fantasy).
12. Lancejack by Philip Richards (military science fiction). Union series volume 2.
13. Eden by Philip Richards (military science fiction). Union series volume 3.
14. Crossing the Bridge by David Wake (thriller). Funny and satirical. The only beef with it was the Scottish guy who starts every sentence with “Och”.
15. Capture or Kill by Tom Marcus (thriller).
16. Invader by Simon Scarrow & T. J. Andrews (historical). This is five novellas collected into one novel, and it feels very bitty.
17. In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart Macbride (crime). A Logan McRae novel.
18. The Blood Road by Stuart Macbride (crime). A Logan McRae novel. Number 11 I think.
19. Birthdays for the Dead by Stuart Macbride (crime). Oldcastle #1. I’m re-reading these because I want to use Oldcastle as the setting for a Vampire the Masquerade game. The place is full of corrupt cops and serial killers, so it is very World of Darkness!
20. A Song for the Dying by Stuart Macbride (crime). Oldcastle #2
21. A Dark So Deadly by Stuart Macbride (crime). Oldcastle #3
22. Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (mainstream).
23. Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (YA fantasy).
24. Light & Shadow by Linda Nagata (anthology, mainly SF). There’s a prequel to The Red series in here.
25. Bad Dog by Ashley Pollard (military science fiction). I’m not a fan of mecha, but this is a mecha book with realistic attitudes to their limitations.
26. Vox by Christina Dalcher (science fiction). Dystopian USA, with nods to The Hamdmaid’s Tale.
27. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (modern fantasy). What do you call a book which is ‘urban fantasy’ but is set mostly in the countryside or very small towns? Interesting. Might buy the sequel when the ‘to read’ pile shrinks a bit.
28. Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente (science fiction/humour). Enjoyed this a lot. However the style is tiring to read, so it got read in fits and starts.
29. Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (magical realism).
30. The Eighth Day by Harold Coyle (thriller). Features some of the characters from his ‘Scott Dixon/Nathan Dixon’ series.
31. Outside by Gustavo Bondoni (science fiction). Quite good. But I guessed the big reveal ages before it happened, and my suspension of disbelief about how the virtual reality world worked kept falling over. E.g. the virtual reality heroine calls in sick to her virtual reality work. Did she have a virtual flu bug???
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams (YA animal fantasy). I wanted to re-read it after seeing the CGI telly version on the BBC at Christmas. Most of it stands the test of time, except the occasional sentence about rabbits being like ‘primitive peoples’ which are a bit racist.
33. Semiosis by Sue Burke (science fiction). Fantastic first contact story – with an alien plant as one of the main viewpoint characters.
34. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (science fiction). Loved this. Will definitely buy the sequel.
35. The Green Man’s Heir by Juliet McKenna (urban fantasy… or should it be called rural-urban fantasy as it is set in the countryside?). Loved this too. It’s really two stories set in two locations, with a plot thread linking the first and second half of the book.
36.The Green Man’s Foe by Juliet McKenna (urban fantasy). Just as good as the first one.
37. Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon (science fiction). I almost gave up on this. I only finished it because it is a very thin book. There are two plot strands: one is a present day character being dragged through a ‘tell don’t show’ tour of a Utopian future society and (eventually) discovering some secrets. The other plot thread is interminable soap opera about two 1960s neighbouring families doing such thrilling stuff as… going to the shops, looking after the kids, going bowling, etc. I think the message in the soap opera bits might have been that if men babysit or cook it will mean the collapse of civilisation as we know it. But I’m not really sure.
38. How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? by N. K> Jemisin (fantasy, science fiction). Anthology. There are some terrific stories in this and the writing is lovely. Will look out for more by this author.
39. No Time to Cry by James Oswald (crime). Slow start, but enjoyable.
40. Natural Causes by James Oswald (crime). Inspector McLean vol 1. Strays into another genre, but saying which one is a spoiler!
41. My Name is Monster by Katie Hale (science fiction).
42. A Stallion Free & Wild by John ??? (western).
43. Ghost Marines: Integration by Jonathan P. Brazee (military science fiction). Vol 1 in the series. Contains boot camp, but it was actually interesting because it skipped over the usual stuff and concentrated on the culture clash and racism suffered by the main character.
44. Ghost Marines: Unification by Jonathan P. Brazee (military science fiction). Vol 2 in the series.
45. The Strike of Midnite by John Peel & Andrew Skilleter (science fiction). The Doctor Omega Chronicles Vol 1.
46. Lucky Legacy by Joshua James (military science fiction). Lucky’s Marines vol 2.
47. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (science fiction).
48. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (fantasy).
49. Star Path by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O’Neal Gear (prehistorical). People of Cahokia Vol 4. Ends on a cliffhanger – dammit! Now I’ll have to wait for book 5.
50. Sky Dragons by Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey (science fantasy). Dragonriders of Pern volume n. Meh. Too much dialogue, not enough description. The dragons have no discernible personalities, and lots of potentially interesting scenes, such as 90 dragon eggs hatching out simultaneously are not described. But we do get to read a scene about washing nappies.
51. A Gift of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey (science fantasy anthology).
52. Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham (crime). Enjoyed this. Might see if there are more with this character.
53. Outpost by W. Michael Gear (science fiction). Donovan volume 1.
54. The Tiger & the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky (fantasy). Very cool ideas in this. Had me thinking it would make a nice setting for an RPG… even though I don’t really like fantasy RPGs.
55. Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (science fiction). Cephalopods in spaaaace – hurrah! I always enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books. I must read more.
56. The Stallion by Helen Gould (science fiction).
57. Tracker by C.J Cherryh. Foreigner series volume 16. Nothing really happens in this book. Lots of recap about the previous volume, lots of anticipation about what’s going to happen in the next volume. So it doesn’t really get going until the final third, when there is a crisis involving the kids on the space station.
58. Murder by the Book by Susanna Godfrey (crime). Seemed to have a lot of padding and took a long time to get around to the actual detective work.
59. Breach Team by J.R. Handley & Chris Winder (military science fiction). Marines versus endless waves of killer maintenance robots, so it got a bit repetitive. The intriguing stuff about who built the weird automated ship and why there were war heroes from centuries ago in cryotubes in its cargo bay was never resolved.
60. The Best of Us by Karen Traviss (science fiction). Nomad #1 (Galaxy’s Edge shared universe). I disliked some of Anspach and Cole’s Galaxy’s Edge books (Star Wars with the serial nubers filed off). But Karen Traviss writes terrific stuff so I bought this. It doesn’t disappoint. Good post-apocalyptic stuff, and set centuries before the ‘Star Wars’ era of Galaxy’s Edge. I shall be getting the rest of the series.
61. Speak Gigantular by Irenosen Okojie (anthology, with some genre stories). Nice writing, but because I read the whole collection in a week (it was due back at the library) I got a bit fed up of the characters who
62. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (thriller). This is a fun thriller and I enjoyed it. But it wins this year’s prize for most bollocks science in a novel plot… when the hero takes a couple of antique mirrors and develops their silver nitrate backing into photographs…
63. Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin, writing as Jack Harvey (thriller).

NON-FICTION

1. Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson.
2. Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lane. Highly recommend this. It isn’t an easy read because of all the horrific stuff covered, but it is fascinating and enlightening.
3. Witches, Witch-hunting & Women by Silvia Federici. Collection of essays.
4. M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle 1983-1995 by Steven J Zaloga & Peter Sarson.
5. Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World by Nick Lane. Terrific pop science book.
6. War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott
7. Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Consciousness, octopuses and cuttlefish.
8. Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray.
9. Armoured Warfare: A Guided Tour of an Armoured Cavalry Regiment by Tom Clancy.
10. Animal Powered Machines by J. Kenneth Major.
11. Painting the Sand: One Man’s Fight Against the Taliban Bomb Makers of Helmand by Kim Hughes GC.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Bitch Planet: Extraordinary Machine by Deconnick & De Landra.
2. Haunted Tank by Frank Marraffino & Henry Flint. I’d been to Tankfest, so re-reading this was the obvious next step 
3. Gender Queer by Maia Cobabe.
4. War Mother by Van Linte, Segovia, Giorello & Dalhouse.

BOOKS I DIDN’T FINISH

1. Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin (fantasy). This is a ‘history’ of the Targaryen Kings. However I found it a slog to read. I want character viewpoint in my fiction. I want analysis and context in my history. This had neither.
2. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (fantasy). When the characters got on with the plot it was good. However, there were large chunks where the protagonist bickers and squabbles with travelling companions, lovers, relatives… basically with everyone and anyone he meets. Eventually I got fed up reading those bits.
3. Lost Gods by Micah Yongo (YA fantasy). Too many viewpoint characters, some of whom have no discernible personality. And despite being about assassins, there is zip, zilch, zero about what the young trainee assassins think or feel about being sent to kill random people. No sense of duty, no hint they feel proud or have doubts or have been brainwashed, no joy in the kill or ‘it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it’. The action is described nicely, but on an emotional level they may as well have been doing their tax returns or stacking shelves in Tesco.
4. Lightless by C.A. Higgins. The terrible world building and nonsensical plot kept squashing my sense of disbelief. Like no-one on the heroine’s spaceship notices another ship approach and enter their docking bay. Because. Hacking. Or the captain on a tiny ship with a crew of 3 having to ask his computer expert how many entrances and exits his ship has. Or the computer expert being unable to stop a hacking attack by an escaped prisoner (which she can see taking place on CCTV) because she doesn’t know what the serial number of the particular terminal he’s hacking into is, and there is no way of working it out even when you can see it is the one in corridor C, just down from the galley and opposite the toilets…
5. Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and its Peoples by Barry Cunliffe (history/archaeology). I might try this one again, but was struggling with the writing style being a bit of a slog to read.

RPG BOOKS READ IN 2019

Battleship Alamo
Archives of the Sky
Blue Rose
Summerland (2nd ed)
Vampire the Masquerade 5th ed (re-read)
Anarch sourcebook for VTM5e
Camarilla sourcebook for VTM5e
Role Play Relief: The Beginners Book (ed by Simon Burley)
Role Play Relief: The Expert Book (ed by Simon Burley)
Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars by Joshua Fox
The Expanse
Afterverse

 I'm having deja vu after seeing this 'Conference Question' cartoon: 

 Stabcon this year just hit the spot for me. I always enjoy it, but this year it de-stressed me nicely. 

Friday: I played the worker placement game Evil High Priest. Liked it a lot and may buy it. There was enough variety of stuff to do that I never felt I got stuck, or had to waste workers on pointless actions.

I then scooted off to run Vampire the Masquerade 5th ed. Only 2 players*, but that made little difference to the scenario. They steamed efficiently through the investigation, recruited some supernatural assistance and headed off for the big showdown. Lots of comments from one player about how he liked the new VTM5e system - hunger dice, 3 round combats and so on.

Saturday: In the morning, I ran Summerland 2nd ed, using the published Fire scenario. I was worried that the scenario was a bit rail-roady in places, so I'd added a few extra elements to diverge from the main thread, and I rolled with the flow and let the players invent a derelict Little Chef to pillage for supplies. While the 2nd ed system (Open d6) is far better than 1st ed, I'm not convinced it fits Summerland's mood. Twice Roger's character killed someone with one punch, which feels more martial arts/superhero genre than 'eerie post apocalypse with mystical elements'. 

In the afternoon I chatted with folk, but lack of sleep on the Friday night (too much caffeine, too much heat) meant I wilted mid afternoon and retreated to my room to grab an hour's sleep.

Saturday evening was the fantastic Valkyrie 9 adventure for The Cthulhu Hack, run by Simon Burley. We were all maintenance robots on a moonbase, wondering where all the humans had gone. This is hands down the most fun I've ever had in a Cthulhu adventure. 

Sunday: The morning session I ran United Earth Defence: You are the Resistance, with one no-show out of 5 players.**  I was worried that a resource based game mechanic (if you roll a dice it is spent) might be troublesome if the players didn't grok it and ran out of dice. However, they pounced on the opportunities to do tactical stuff and rack up bonuses before they rolled, so they made every spent dice count. Plus they scavenged for more supplies etc, to refresh some of their dice pools.

A lunchtime chat with one of my best friends, then I scooted off to play the military science fiction Operation Felix run by John Parr. I was the only player to turn up, so it ended up being a one on one game. I had a whole platoon to myself, so it played out as part RPG, part skirmish wargame, and was great fun.

I was staying the Sunday evening after the con was over, so I met up with Peter and we went to a local pub - the Puss in Boots - for an evening meal. Good food, nice staff and a nice chat about roleplaying, Ancient Greek mythology and a novel Peter is writing. 

I love Stabcon. The organisation is a well oiled machine. Michelle and Hammy who run it are lovely folks. A good pool of RPG players and a metric ton of boardgames to play if none of the RPGs take my fancy. The hotel delivers pub food with very generous portions to your gaming table and the staff are all great. 


*Lack of players seemed to be a feature of this year's Summer Stabcon - several RPG games with few or no players. Perhaps fewer RPGers are coming? I think it clashed with Volcon, so that might be a reason.

** No-one had signed up in the reserve slot, which again makes me think there were fewer RPGers than normal at Stabcon. 

 The second North Star Con was even better fun than the first. Cool games and a nice, friendly bunch of people to play them with. 

SATURDAY GAMES
The first game I played was The LEGO Way Home (Traveller), run by Richard. We were a bunch of Lego minifigs on an Imperial Scoutship, stuck in the middle of nowhere because my forgetful character had lost the jump tapes. Shenanigans ensued as we (mostly incompetently) tried to find the tapes, deal with a Sith Lord, and argued what to do about a black hole, a black monolith and a crashed DeLorian. It was delightfully silly.

Slot 2 was my first ever game of Genesys Android. I'd been put off buying this because of the need for funky dice. However, it is a nice system, and the mechanic where you can hand any advantages you've rolled onto the next player as bonus dice is a cool one. The GM was John Ossoway and the scenario (Frozen Assets) was a cyberpunk investigation into the death of an investment banker and where millions of missing credits have gone. Lots of nice twists and turns, which kept our suspicions shifting from suspect to suspect. I'd certainly be up for playing more of this system and setting.

The evening slot was Beyond Neptune (Ghost Ship), run by Dr Mitch, about the uploaded consciousnesses of dead people being used to run a spaceship on a 40 year voyage to investigate an anomaly in the Kuiper Belt. Dr Mitch kept apologising for the slow pace of the game, but I felt it was perfectly paced for a bunch of tired people who wanted to debate various actions and various game mechanics (how many dice from our pool to spend on task X or task Y). Intriguing plot, nice mechanics of using character memories for re-rolls and 'damage' being your character becoming less and less connected to humanity and your past. A good choice for a con game. 

SUNDAY GAMES
In the morning I ran Doctor Who, using my UNIT Cold War Afghanistan scenario. This time Sir Humphrey Appleby and Sarah Jane Smith were the crack diplomatic team who dealt with Soviets, the CIA, alien technology and trying to prevent World War Three. 

The afternoon was a playtest of 3rd edition Blue Planet, run by Dom. The scenario (Trouble in Paradise) will be included in the re-boot of Blue Planet. The system is similar to BP 2nd ed (roll 1 or more d10 and try to get under a target number), but had a re-roll mechanic and a lot of contacts/social stuff which I don't remember from 2nd ed, plus Fate-style descriptive tags which came into play during combat. There are also 'Tracks' - your connection to family, organisations, etc. However, since the pre-gens are all starter characters, those were all set to zero and had no in-game effect. 

The scenario was entertaining, though I think we ended up being slightly more murderous than the Russian Mafia thugs we were up against. Dom kept things moving along nicely when we bogged down in debate about the next part of our Cunning Plan. After the game we suggested that it would be useful to have what your Initiative roll is written on the character sheet, suggested that some of the skill trees were clear and useful, while others were a bit vague as to what the hell you could use them for (e.g. Warrant Officer), and seemed more like character background than actual skills. I was also puzzled there was no social stat, since Psyche seems to be more about Willpower than the usual charisma or social status type stats. 

Since I own all of  Blue Planet 1st ed and 2nd ed, I will no doubt also buy 3rd ed! :-)

Happy New Year to all. Here is the usual tally of books...

FICTION

1. Netherspace by Andrew Lane & Nigel Foster (science fiction).
2. Wilderness by Roger Zelazny & Gerald Hausman (western/historical). Contains fictionalised accounts of two real life stories, including Hugh Glass – the guy the movie The Revenant was based on.
3. Extinction by Kazuaki Takano (science fiction).
4. Grunt Traitor by Weston Ochse (military science fiction).
5. Barjack by Robert J. Conley (western). Very funny.
6. No Need for a Gunfighter by Robert J. Conley (western). A sequel to Barjack, but I think this is volume 3.
7. The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor (science fiction).
8. Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor (science fiction).
9. Binti: Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (science fiction).
10. The Last Good Man by Linda Nagata (military science fiction). I think this is my fave mil sf of the year. The only thing which is missing is some explanation of why hackers never target the autonomous drones.
11. The Enclave by Anne Charnock (science fiction).
12. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (historical). Gripping. Not sure it deserves the SF&F label though, as it only really has one fantastical element… Which makes the rest of the stuff which happens all the more horrifying.
13. The Lightbearer by Alan Richardson (fantasy). Set against the backdrop of D-Day. In turn funny and moving, as we encounter all the guilty secrets of the inhabitants of a small French village, including a coven of witches and a priest convinced he has to track down and defeat a demon. I have issues with one bit but it is too spoilery to mention.
14. A Lovely Way to Burn by Lousie Welsh (thriller/science fiction). Vol 1 of the Plague Times. I’d found volume 2 in the library and enjoyed it. 1 and 2 are both standalone books, with a different cast of characters.
15. No Dominion by by Lousie Welsh (science fiction). Vol 3 of the Plague Times.
16. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (science fiction). Nothing very much happens, but it is still a delight to read.
17. The Stones Remember by Patrick Todoroff (military/thriller). Only a short story in length, but packs an emotional punch.
18. Nine Fox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (science fiction).
19. Embers of War by Gareth L.Powell (science fiction)
20. Rookie in the Middle by Jools Louise (urban fantasy/romance, where romance = badly written porn). Volume 1 of Blue Platoon. Reads like bad fanfic with allies suddenly turning out to be enemies for no readily explained reason, and the author is utterly clueless about, well, pretty much everything. For instance, being shot off your motorcycle during a car chase is a minor inconvenience rather than potentially fatal, and the good guys file plans of their secret bunker with the local council planning dept!
21. A Cat, A Hat and a Piece of String by Joanne Harris (anthology). I loved the Faith and Hope stories about the rebellious old ladies in the care home. Some nice fantasy and ghost stories too.
22. Humans by Robert Sawyer (science fiction). Vol 2 in the Neanderthal Parallax series.
23. Legionnaire by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (military science fiction). Galaxy’s Edge vol 1. Thoroughly enjoyed this until I reached the epilogue, which was long, dull, self-indulgent and – merely by existing – detracted from the impact of the actual ending.
24. Galactic Outlaws by by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (science fiction, definitely not military SF). Galaxy’s Edge vol 2. WT actual F? Volume 1 was great. This is Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off. There’s a Han-Solo-a-like. Boba-Fett-a-like. C3PO-a-like. Chewbacca-a-like. Millennium Falcon-a-like. And a Darth Vader-a-like. The only characters I liked were (1) Ravi, the hologram with the Red Dwarf style hard-light drive and (2) the cute kid adopted by the Boba-Fett-a-like. The plot dragged and I only kept reading because they hinted that Ravi had a mysterious backstory (which was never revealed). Oh, and I was on a three and a half hour bus journey...
25. Kill Team by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (military science fiction). Galaxy’s Edge vol 3. I hated Vol 2 so much I would normally not have bothered to read this, but I started it in the final throes of the three and a half hour bus journey, and it turned out to be much better. It is a prequel to Vol 2, and is partly military science fiction and partly John Le Carre’s The Night Manager. A nicely written in the 2nd person, science fiction version of The Night Manager, but same characters, same plot, same plot elements. The arms dealer’s psycho second in command even has the same rank, Major. The Night Manager with the serial numbers filed off is a million times better than Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off, but all it has done is make me wonder what they filed the serial numbers off in Volume 1?
26. The Night Manager by John Le Carre (thriller). Read partly to compare with the TV series and partly to compare with Kill Team.
27. Rider by Joanne Hall (fantasy). Art of Forgetting vol 1.
28. Pelaquin’s Comet by Ian Whates (science fiction). Nice, rollicking space opera.
29. The Ion Raider by Ian Whates (science fiction). Okay but not as fun as the first volume.
30. Babylon’s Ashes by James S. A. Corey (science fiction). Expanse vol 6.
31. Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey (science fiction). Expanse vol 7.
32. After Atlas by Emma Newman (science fiction). Really enjoyable SF murder mystery.
33. Drowned Worlds edited by Jonathan Strahan (anthology, science fiction). Some nice stories in here, but also lots of character portraits without any discernable plot.
34. The Devourers by Indra Das (fantasy/horror). Werewolves in India.
35. Para Spectral: Hauntings of Wraeththu ed by Storm Constantine & Wendy Darling.
36. Voices of the Silicon Beyond by E. S. Wynn (science fantasy). 3rd in the Gold Country series in the Wraeththu Mythos universe.
37. Mind Fuck by Manna Francis (science fiction/crime). The Administration volume 1.
38. Shelter by Dave Hutchison (science fiction). I really liked this. And Adam Roberts is writing the second volume in the series, which should be interesting.
39. Who Runs the World? by Virginia Bergin (YA science fiction). Loved this. Will look out for more of her books. This book was everything that Naomi Foyle’s Astra should have been and wasn’t (see Books I Didn’t Finish).
40. The Stolen Stallion by Max Brand (western).
41. The Best of Beyond the Stars ed by Patrice Fitzgerald (science fiction). Anthology of space opera short stories.
42. Phantom: The Outlaw Stallion by Keith Milligan (western). Meh.
43. Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman (thriller). Is it a technothriller if it is set in the 1950s?
44. The Final Battle by William C. Dietz (military SF). Legion of the Damned vol 2.
45. A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride (crime). My favourite Oldcastle book so far.
46. Locked Up by G.B. Williams (crime). Liked this. Will probably read the next in the series.
47. Hunter’s Moon by David Devereux (horror/urban fantasy).
48. Gentleman Jole & the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold (science fiction). Slow and not much plot – lots of romance and family stuff. I am boggled that everyone in it seems to want to have half a dozen children.
49. Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold (science fiction). This was much better fun than Gentleman Jole.
50. Terror Tree by Ashley R. Pollard (military science fiction). Short, but good. Will look out for more by this author.
51. People of the Songtrail by W. Michael & Kathleen O’Neal Gear (historical). Vikings trying to set up a colony in North America. Not nearly as engaging or interesting as their prehistoricals, westerns or thrillers.
52. Sun Born by W. Michael & Kathleen O’Neal Gear (prehistorical). Cakokian Quartet vol 2.
53. Moon Trail by W. Michael & Kathleen O’Neal Gear (prehistorical). Cakokian Quartet vol 3. Politics and conspiracies, in both the real world and spirit world. Can't wait for volume four!
54. Windswept by Adam Rakunas (science fiction). Enjoyed this a lot.
55. Stark’s War by Jack Campbell (military science fiction). Enjoyed this. Will probably read more in the series. However it definitely falls in the category of SF where One Simply Does Not Mention any effects of gravity with the potential to challenge the manly, macho image of the veterans (male or female). Namely the guys who have been stationed on the Moon for six years snigger at newbies from Earth who don’t know how to walk properly in the low g. The implication is that should a bar brawl break out, the old hands would win because the new blood will bounce around embarrassingly. No mention is made of how folk with muscles and bones attuned to Earth gravity will rip veterans with muscles and bones attuned to Lunar gravity into small messy chunks. I suspect a later volume will involve the Lunar guys invading Earth. I eagerly await any mention of snapping bones, thrown backs, over-strained hearts and sudden strokes/aneurysms… :-)
56. Juno Rising by Patty Jansen (military science fiction). ISF-Allion vol 1. The chapters about the guy who has lost a chunk of his memory (and is trying to hide that fact) are intriguing and engaging. The ones which are largely folk filling the reader in on backstory are not. The technical and astronomy bits of world-building are good. The social and political world-building is not, especially when the author bangs on about the military hating the Allion Corporation just because it was founded and run by women from Third World countries. There are 2 rival factions in the military and one lot may be about to declare their chunk of the solar system an independent nation. However, this is only ever spoken about in terms of the two rival generals personal ambitions. The soldiers under their command will apparently just go along with whatever their boss says. Apart from the hero, of course.
57. A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan. Volume 1 in the Memoirs of Lady Trent.
58. The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan. Volume 2 in the Memoirs of Lady Trent.
59. Lucky’s Marines by Joshua James (military science fiction). Funny and entertaining. I've bought the next in the series.
60. 61 Hours by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 14.
62. Worth Dying For by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 15.
63. The Affair by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 16.
64. A Wanted Man by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 17.
65. Never Go Back by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 18. Interesting to see how the book differed from the movie. I like both of them.
66. Personal by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 19.
67. No Middle Name by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher – short story collection.
68. Make Me by Lee Child (crime/thriller). Jack Reacher volume 20. Enjoyable, but another one where I'd figured out what the bad guys were up to a long time before the characters did.
69. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (historical).
70. C.A.T.-mas 1-2-3 by Rosie Oliver (science fiction – short anthology).
71. Phosphorus: A Winterstrike Story by Liz Williams (science fiction).

NON-FICTION

1. Boots on the Ground: Britain and Her Army Since 1945 by Richard Dannat (military history/politics).
2. Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences by Cordelia Fine (biology/neuroscience).
3. Crash Override: How Gameregate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life & How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate by Zoe Quinn (autobiography).
4. Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken by War by Jake Wood (military history/autobiography).
5. Gender Identity & Sexuality in Current Fantasy & Science Fiction ed. by Francesa T. Barbini
6. War and Film by James Chapman.
7. What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurb, Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.
8. Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society & Science Fiction by Lars Schmeink. Interesting, but I would have preferred if it analysed or gave examples from a wider variety of books, films and games. Each chapter only uses one or two, so the book is less “this is what biopunk is about” than “these elements of this specific film fit my biopunk thesis”.
9. Farewell to the Horse by Ulrich Raulff. A strange mixture of the influence of the horse on economics and on art history.
10. Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep by Matthew Walker (biology/neuroscience). This is fascinating. A science book on what is happening in your brain when you sleep, and why not getting enough sleep is really bad for physical and mental health: everything from its effect on obesity to your probability of developing Alzheimers. It has data from lots of medical studies and facts and figures from business and police sources. Including alarming ones like the heart attack rate spiking the day after the clocks go forward because of that hour of missed sleep. Or that sleep deprived people have trouble distinguishing between hostile, neutral and friendly expressions. Sleep deprived people such as emergency services personnel who work long or unsociable shifts…
11. Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot by Vera Tobin (cognitive science). Why some plot twists delight and others outrage and what our brains are up to when they do…
12. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling & Ann Rosling Ronnlund. (Economics, healthcare, demographics, statistic) Best book I’ve read this year. I’d seen Hans Rosling present a telly prog about how the world is getting steadily better. This is all that and more. People of all nationalities, education levels and economic strata consistently pick pessimistic answers to questions about poverty, education etc across the world. So much so that a chimpanzee armed with a pencil would get more of the multiple choice questions right! I got this from the library but want to buy my own copy.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Low: The Delirium of Hope by Remender & Tocchini (science fiction). Volume 1 in the series.
2. Low: Before the Dawn Burns Us by Remender, Tocchini & McCaig (science fiction). Volume 2 in the series.
3. Low: Shore of the Dying Light by Remender, Tocchini & McCaig (science fiction). Volume 3 in the series.
4. Beowulf by Santiago Garcia & David Rubin.

BOOKS I DIDN’T FINISH

1. Someone To Watch Over Me by Tricia Sullivan (science fiction). Too old fashioned a version of cyberpunk. Couldn’t get into it.
2. Abendau’s Heir by Jo Zebedee (science fiction). Didn’t really engage with it. Felt like fantasy with spaceships.
3. Astra by Naomi Foyle (science fiction). The Gaia Chronicles vol 1. Really slow and unengaging, and when the plot finally arrived it wasn’t that interesting. Plus 8 year old girls learning to masturbate is way out of my comfort zone. If I’d recognised Naomi Foyle’s name I wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place, as I disliked her Seoul Survivors.
4. Crossover by Joel Shepherd (Cassandra Kreshov volume 1). Meh. Why should I care about this person?
5. Nunslinger by Stark Holborn (western). Started out quite fun, but there is a cliffhanger every half dozen pages and since the book is 600 pages long it all got very wearing. Partly because there are only about 4 cliffhangers, repeated endlessly: the bad guys unexpectedly turn up; the heroine throws herself off a cliff/into a river to escape them; a friend of hers is killed (he gets better – twice); she’s captured. The plot does not advance in any discernible way.
6. The Tetra War by Michael Ryan (military science fiction). It kept destroying my suspension of disbelief. Like the Arctic expedition which has lost half its members due to the cold (off screen – only a throwaway line or two to explain where they’ve gone). Or the scene where the hero’s girlfriend has the choice of being killed by a landmine, committing suicide or running around naked for several chapters, because there are no other possible options. Or the giant lizards which have such tough scaly skins that they are more difficult to kill than troopers in power armour.
7. Pride of Lions by Mark Iles (military science fiction). First off, Boot Camp. Meh. Then the plot centres round the political dissident heroine and some other folk who are sent to a penal brigade… and then trained as officers and given a warship and let loose with no supervision by anyone other than their fellow political dissidents/condemned criminals… No-one in government seems to think training political dissidents to run entire brigades is a bad idea. At the point I gave up, none of the political dissidents had twigged that next time they want to try to assassinate the queen, they could use a warship and a regiment of marines instead of a couple of assassins with a pistol…
8. Chatelaine of the Guild by James Odell (steampunk fantasy). Flatly written, unengaging and committed the cardinal sin of only giving names to upper class people and wizards. Everyone else, was “her maid”, “the butler” etc., even when the heroine presumably interacts with her servants on a daily basis.

Cross-posting a re-edited and expanded version from UK Roleplayers...

Cold And Dark Roleplaying game: a science fiction horror game from Modiphius/Wicked World Games
Did some pre-gens and ran a one off. Overall a decent game, but with some minor speed bumps (see below). I think my regular Monday group would like this game, and I'll run a tweaked version of the scenario at Summer Stabcon.

THE RULEBOOK
Pro: Atmospheric art.
Con: Bit too much boobplate for my liking, and there is one topless woman. However, as she fits into the 'mad as a sackful of stoats' category, with an axe-murderer vibe, it can sort of be forgiven. Sort of. Funny how it is never menopausal women with saggy tits who appear topless in RPG rulebooks?!

Pro: Generally a good layout. A few typos and a couple of things I'm putting down to translation errors. The in-game fiction is well-written and actually interesting! Bonus!
Con: They slacked off and went to the movies on the day they were supposed to be cross-referencing or making a decent index. For instance there is stuff you need know for combat in the skills chapter (what strategy does) and in the Health chapter (what a critical hit does). And it took me ages to find out where they’d hidden the base Durability stat for armour – it’s in the Gear chapter, but NOT as a stat for the different types of armour, or in the descriptions of the different designs of armoured suit. As a result of all this I’ve been pencilling in the margins and on the index, and have post-it notes scattered throughout the book to help me find all the stuff I need. Plus I did some cheat sheets.

Pro: Nice spread of character templates from social types to techy types to shooty, stabby types. There are even two different kinds of engineer, and a xeno-archaeologist. Character gen is simple points spend until...
Con: ...you get to the bit about all the gear and gadgets your environment suit (COG) contains. That requires constant flipping to and fro in the rulebook and would be a nightmare if you have lots of players and only one copy of the book. I’ll be racing to photocopy those pages if I ever run a campaign of Cold & Dark.

Neutral: Not sure why they decided to have so many stats (aptitudes) – there are 8. I was perpetually confused by the difference between Quickness and Reaction. Quickness is only for physical stuff (basically it is dexterity), whereas Reaction can be a speedy physical or mental response. But given that Gut Feeling (hunches and instinct) covers that speedy mental stuff and is also used for movie style crazy stunts or risk taking (e.g. Gut feeling + Driving would pretty much be the only skill used in a Fast & Furious movie), then I think Reaction is a bit superfluous. The other stats are Attention, Brains, Brawn, Clout and Cool.

Con: They really, really like their TLAs (three letter acronyms) in this rulebook. Thank grud there’s a glossary, as I was losing track at times of all the diseases, corporations, organisations and technobabble. One of my players asked why he had a skill in Greater London Council (GLC)! That’s Ghost Line Calculation, or as we mortals know it, hyperspace navigation.

GAME MECHANIC
Pro: I like the core mechanic – it’s simple and has some nice twists. It’s a d8 dice pool system with 7 and 8 as a success. 1 success lets you do the thing you intended. Extra successes are amazingly worthwhile in combat (extra damage) or in time critical tasks (cracking the safe before the security guy turns up) but don’t really do anything in most other situations. There are 2 mechanisms for an automatic success – spending a story point (called a Save point) or having a dice pool of 7 or more in a non-stress situation.

Pro: Cold & Dark also gets over the buckets of dice problem that many dice pool games have, by saying you never roll more than 8 dice, no matter what your pool size is. So if you have 10d8 in your pool, you roll 8 of them and the 9th and 10th dice count as two extra successes if you make the dice roll. I really like that mechanic.

SKILL ROLLS IN ACTUAL PLAY
Pro: No-one failed a non-combat dice roll in my trial scenario. Even Brian, whose dice traditionally hate him and do their best to fumble in every game he plays. If the PC is doing the thing they are good at (e.g. the medic is doing first aid), they’ll likely have about 6 (or more) dice in their pool and the probability of rolling a fail is small. If they do fail, then they have 3 Save points to spend to retcon the failures. Or they can spend the save point in advance and not even bother rolling, and instead narrate how they succeeded. On top of this, every character template has a skill which you’ll get bonuses for and which you cannot botch.

I’m totally happy with the above. But one of my players (not Brian) was complaining that he’d never failed a roll! It takes all sorts, I suppose!

Neutral: The never failing thing also applied to Cool rolls, which are the sanity mechanic, earning you first Cold points, then Dark points. The rules read as if the game should be constantly chipping away at your stiff upper lip (Cold), and eventually tip you over into paranoia and delusions (Dark). However, since:
(a) All it takes to make the roll is a single success,
(b) Mr Average will have a dice pool of 4d8, and
(c) Your character can get Cold points back by spending 5 minutes in a safe place...
...then I think this must be a campaign thing, not a CoC going stark raving bonkers in a 3 hour, one-off, con-game thing. For con-games I might house rule that you roll against Cool, not against Cool x 2, as is normal for an attribute roll.

As a side note, a large source of sanity rolls in my scenario was when one of the players decided to systematically murder everyone in the colony on the grounds that they might be infected with chestburster type aliens… despite the fact that the Medic had a tricorder/scanner which could instantly prove the NPCs were/weren’t infected!

COMBAT
Pro: Is quick and fun. We only did really did firearms combat in the scenario I ran, with a smidgen of alien creatures pouncing on people. It did become clear that the standard stats for NPC human beings makes them waaaaaaay tougher than some of the alien gribbly things. Mainly because they have oodles of hit points (14 + Brawn score, so Mrs Average is 16), and take no dice penalties until they’ve taken 8 points of damage. Some of the gribblies, wolves and big cats only have 12 hit points, and most of the PCs take dice penalties at 6 points of damage. I guess the critical hit rule – you can do an instant kill if you do 10+ damage in one hit – is the way they get around slowly whittling down the HP. Some of the gribblies have the special ability that they are immune to critical hits.

So if it had come down to a knife fight or bar-room brawl, I think combat would be more of a grind. It certainly took several shots with a pistol to kill unarmoured NPCs. If you want to kill the Queen Alien from Aliens, bring anti-tank weapons with you!

Con: One discovery was that it doesn’t take much armour to render most pistols and knives (almost) useless. This is because of the damage mechanic – getting 1 success does base damage (e.g. 2 for a wimpy pistol, 4 or 5 for a heavy pistol), and then each extra success would add +1 or +2 to that. So the marine PC who had armour value of 5 requires 6 damage to actually hurt. That means you need 5 successes with a wimpy pistol. Since the marine’s defence subtracts from the attacker’s dice pool, Mr Wimpy Pistol Owner needs a minimum dice pool of 7 to damage the marine… and in reality the probabilities mean that Mr Wimpy Pistol requires 10+ in their dice pool. My players quickly switched to fully automatic and using unfeasibly large amounts of explosives!

Seen on the side of a can of Sainsbury's tuna: Our ingredients: Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) (Fish), Spring Water.

This is their eco-friendly (pole and line caught, sustainable stocks) tuna. I guess they are serious if they name the species - that can be tested by folks in labs!

They are also one of the few supermarkets who still do LARGE (340g) cans of tuna. I've got several recipes (e.g. tuna curry) that I hardly ever make, because I don't want the waste packaging from opening several piddling little cans.

We've been told collectively at work that we are a bit too casual/scruffy and have to smarten up a bit. They don't like that I wear cargo pants, for instance.

So I went clothes shopping. (We hateses clothes shopping, so we does). Smart, work-suitable blouses, shirts, tops - not a problem. But trousers? Frakking hell. Women's trousers apparently come in 2 varieties:

1. Smart trousers WITHOUT POCKETS. If you are lucky there might be small hip pockets which you could get a credit card into, but won't be big enough to shove your hands in to keep them warm, or to carry anything practical like a wallet or keys.

2. Non-smart trousers (for instance jeans) with pockets. Though even these often have a pocket fail, because the pockets are teeny (as for smart trousers, above) or not numerous enough.

Then of course there are the fake pockets. That's where there is a flap or sewn outline to make you think the trousers have pockets, but in fact there is nothing there. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

Way back in the 80s, I was once told by a drunken guy in a bar that I shouldn't put wallet/keys etc into the back pockets of my jeans because it spoiled the look of my arse. I guess Mr Drunken Twat went on to a career in the fashion industry? Or perhaps he hires hitmen to assassinate anyone who designs women's trousers with functional or numerous pockets?

Guess it is back to the outdoor clothing store and hope they have something which can pass muster as 'smart'? Or ask the menswear dept if they are okay with women taking men's trousers off to the women's changing rooms to try on???

I hateses the fashion industry!