Thanks to the inimitable Alex Schroeder, I followed a link to this excellent 2005 essay by Michael Andre-Driussi: Deciphering the Text Foundations of Traveller. Here’s Driussi’s thesis: “The creators of CT wanted the anarchic, amoral, and violent adventure of fantasy role playing translated into a science fiction setting. They also wanted a kind of science […]
Traveller’s literary sources Read More »
After I posted about Devil Ghost’s character generator for Classic Traveller, Frank Filz mentioned that he hosts the same generator on his site — and that he’s made it user-configurable. I tried it out, and it rocks. To get a character, just open the generator page. For a new one, just refresh the page. Easy
Frank Filz’s excellent Classic Traveller character generator Read More »
This Classic Traveller character generator on Devil Ghost is a hoot. The visuals are a perfect match for Traveller, and it couldn’t be easier to use: just refresh to get a new character.[1] Here’s my favorite character I’ve rolled up so far: Just look at this dude: he spent five terms — 20 years —
A spiffy online Classic Traveller character generator Read More »
The more of GURPS Time Travel (paid link) I read, the more I love this book. Pound for pound, it’s one of the best gaming books I’ve read, GURPS or otherwise. Leaving aside the “idea nuggets” scattered throughout, Time Travel offers up six settings. Time Corps is brilliant, and does more in 13 pages than
GURPS Time Travel’s four mini-settings Read More »
Thanks to a G+ post by Greg Gorgonmilk, I checked out the weird, colorful world of The Astralnauts over the weekend. Created by artists Alex Pardee and Matt Richie, the Astralnauts are a team of spacefaring ghost-hunters who track down extraterrestrial spooks. If you read that and immediately thought “campaign setting!” then I like the
The Astralnauts roam the galaxy hunting alien ghosts Read More »
I wrapped up my second 2016 Hugo Awards finalist novel, N.K. Jemisin‘s The Fifth Season (paid link), yesterday, and it was awesome. The Fifth Season is post-apocalyptic fantasy, which is unusual enough to pique my interest, but it’s doubly unusual: Its setting, The Stillness, experiences recurring apocalypses — Seasons — that can be decades or centuries
The Fifth Season’s recurrent apocalypse Read More »
I’ve been reading fantasy and sci-fi for as long as I can remember[1], but this is the first time I’ve ever become a member of the Hugo Awards voting pool. (A voting membership costs $50, and members also get to make nominations for the 2017 Hugo Awards.) My faithful Kindle Paperwhite (paid link) is already
2016 Hugo Awards: “So join. Read. Vote.” Read More »
I’m currently reading Neal Stephenson‘s Seveneves (paid link), and it’s blowing my mind. (This post is spoiler-free.) The larch Stephenson is one of my favorite authors, and Cryptnomicon (paid link) is both my favorite Stephenson book and one of my favorite books period. Quite apart from “just” being fucking amazing in every way, it sparked my
Seveneves is roaring through my brain Read More »
I love Dyson Logos’ cartography and coil-bound gaming books, so the Dodecahedron 2015 Cartographic Review is right up my apple cart. It more than earns its starred entry on my big list of Lulu RPG recommendations. The Cartographic Review is a big book of maps, running close to 90 pages with a map per page.
Glorious old-school maps: the Dodecahedron 2015 Cartographic Review Read More »
I finished Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest (paid link) today, and it blew me away. I wasn’t sure he could follow The Three-Body Problem (paid link),and the first 80% of the book was a solid four stars — I thought that was about the best I could hope for, given how amazing and surprising and wonderdul
