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reviews

2022

Running Monster Care Squad
··2086 words·10 mins
Articles reviews gm tips ttrpg
I wrote recently about receiving my backer copy of Monster Care Squad, which is a Ghibli-inspired RPG about the people caring for the magical monsters that once protected their communities from a terrible illness.

2019

The Terror of a Future America in Vigilance
·407 words·2 mins
Articles books reviews
Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett In his latest novel, Vigilance, Robert Jackson Bennett shows us the plausible terror of an America which has utterly given up preventing gun violence and instead embraced it.

2017

The Delirium Brief: the magical deep state is here to save you
·429 words·3 mins
Articles books reviews
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross ⭐️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ It’s hard not to love Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series as a concept. A clandestine government agency of computational demonologists defend the world from horrors beyond space and time, all while trying to keep up with their expense reports.
Star.Ships: Your ancestors were smarter than you think
··553 words·3 mins
Articles reviews books
Star.Ships by Gordon White ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ Gordon White’s exercise in using data analysis to speculatively reconstruct ancient belief systems is a mind-bending journey through our most ancient history. In this book, he tracks our species’ first departure from what we now call Africa, and the beginnings of both the Laurasian mythological “novel”, as well as the Gondwana “grandmother myths” that came with us.
Review of The Night Ocean
·487 words·3 mins
Articles reviews books
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ This is a book where my opinion of it has changed the longer I’ve been away from it. It’s a strange book, and honestly its structure was nearly its undoing for me.
River of Teeth, or why the hippo is my new spirit animal
·283 words·2 mins
Articles books reviews
River of Teeth In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source.

2015

Using Ulysses
·1041 words·5 mins
Articles writing tech reviews ulysses ios mac
Let’s get something out of the way first, shall we? There Is No One App to Rule Them All> There Is No One App to Rule Them All # I struggle with the notion of app-evangelizing.

2013

Exploring the Ninth World: A Few Thoughts on Numenera
·1281 words·7 mins
Articles numenera ttrpg gaming reviews monte cook
Welcome to the Ninth World As I’ve been running my D&D campaign, I’ve become interested in the alternative role-playing systems that came about after my initial foray into gaming. It all started because I was looking for inspiration for fun rule tweaks I could incorporate into my games that would foster more role-play and streamline combat.
The DM’s Adventuring Kit
·2627 words·13 mins
Articles gaming featured reviews d&d ttrpg
I recently wrote about my return to Dungeons and Dragons, and promised another post where I would share what tools our group is using to facilitate our long-distance games. It’s really critical to make sure that game groups are well organized, or many campaigns will fizzle out due to the amount of work involved.

2011

What I'm Listening To: June 2011
·1363 words·7 mins
Articles reviews podcasts
If you had asked me a year ago what kinds of podcasts I was listening to, you would have seen a clear theme: technology. I would have listed off a lot of TWiT shows, a couple CNET shows and miscellaneous other shows featuring the same hosts.
Review: Super Doesn't Pull Any Punches
·1297 words·7 mins
Articles reviews movies
"Shut up, crime!" I just finished watching the film Super, written and directed by James Gunn. I’m having a hard time characterizing how I feel about it. Normally, if I were going to write something about a film, I would spend some time trying to develop the best way to get across my opinion of the movie.
Review: 750 Words
·1140 words·6 mins
Articles reviews writing software
There’s a well known theory that keeping a journal, or at least writing daily, improves your day-to-day life. My anecdotal experience has shown that to be the case for me as well.

2010

Review: Linode
·1018 words·5 mins
Articles reviews hosting assorted geekery webfaction linode linux
Well, after many years of posting my nonsense on the internets, I have finally made the transition from shared hosting to a VPS. This last week, I migrated this site over to a Linode VPS, and I must say that the whole experience has been pretty painless.
Review: Chew: Taster's Choice by John Layman & Rob Guillory
·542 words·3 mins
Articles comics reviews
My wife gave me Chew: Taster’s Choice as a gift, and having never heard of either the comic or the creative team before, I had no idea what to expect. I was intrigued by the description on the back though, and eagerly sat down to read it the next morning.
Review: The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan
·1030 words·5 mins
Articles books horror reviews
I recently read The Strain by the creative team of Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan on a recommendation from a friend. I didn’t know anything about Chuck Hogan but I was of course familiar with the films of Del Toro, which I had enjoyed.
Review: I Am Not A Serial Killer & Mr Monster by Dan Wells
·721 words·4 mins
Articles books horror reviews
A review double-feature! Excitement abounds! I just recently finished reading the second book in Dan Wells’ clever and compelling John Cleaver series, and since I’ve had an unfinished review of the first book sitting in my draft folder for the last few months, it seems like a fine idea to merge the two together into one post.
A Very Lovecraft October
·836 words·4 mins
Articles assorted geekery board games books games lovecraft reviews
There’s something about Halloween that always draws me back to H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. I’m not alone in this, of course. My good friend Quentin Lewis has taken to releasing recordings of himself reading stories from Lovecraft each Halloween as a podcast, which I highly recommend you check out.
Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
·1128 words·6 mins
Articles assorted geekery books epic fantasy fantasy reviews
What’s that you say? Another epic fantasy by Brandon Sanderson? Sold. I swear, the rate at which Brandon Sanderson produces his massive books is a bit intimidating. The added fact that they are so consistently good marks it as an indicator of an almost terrifying amount of talent and skill.
Review: Sandman Slim
·658 words·4 mins
Articles books reviews richard kadrey
What do you get when you combine the genres of hard-boiled detective noir, spaghetti-western and urban fantasy set in L.A.? You get Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. This book was recommended to me by my friend Quentin, and my fiancé had also mentioned to me that she had read a promising review of the novel.

2009

October Braindump
·2027 words·10 mins
Articles braindump development django personal reviews
I have not been posting here much of late, which is partly due to the amount of stuff I’m working on, and partly due to the fact that I’ve been writing and posting stuff in other places around the web, since it is easier.