Nov 20 2024

One-Shot Wonders by Sam Bartlett, Beth Davies & Destiny Howell

With the caveat that I’m reviewing the sample set handed out for Free RPG Day 2024, which I must say feels fairly representative of how the book must be as a whole!

I’m actually finally coming around to writing a review of this because I got a chance to use a sample for one my own RPG sessions. I’ve been running Ghosts Of Saltmarsh as an overarching campaign for my local RPG group, dropping in the occasional one-shot between chapters for both cohesion and funsies. Interestingly, most of the adventures included in the GoS book don’t actually take place in the town actual, so I’ve been forced to look for outside materials to help build up Saltmarsh and its citizenry. One-Shot Wonders’ Fishy Business adventure was the perfect way to help do that!

And small wonder that it’s the adventure from which the cover illustration is taken. Over the course of a mere two pages (including the wonderfully evocative art,) Game Masters are given a comprehensive blueprint for an adventure that includes roleplay, investigation and two stages of combat, in an easy to follow layout that requires few additional notes. Important Characters are grouped in one section, with Quick Stats next to that, then Key Locations are provided on the facing page. Even tho there’s plenty of information available at a glance, nothing is crowded together. I ran the adventure with this two-page spread open in front of me (but behind the DM’s screen one of my players helpfully brings to each of my sessions,) with my phone for reference alongside and a notebook to jot down names as I made them up on the fly, often with input from my table. There’s a reason four of the sailors are called Summersby, Wintersby, Fallsby and Monsoonby, lol.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/20/one-shot-wonders-by-sam-bartlett-beth-davies-destiny-howell/

Nov 19 2024

Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan

I can see what Lindy Ryan was trying to do here, given my steeping in world mythology, but I think it needed a little more explaining so that the average reader can figure out what’s actually going on in this horror novella of guilt and grief.

Just a few weeks ago, Derek Sinclaire died, falling off of the roof while putting up Christmas lights. His wife Christine has been guilt-stricken ever since: at her inability to save him, at her insistence on getting the lights up so soon, at all the things that aren’t her fault but that she blames herself for anyway. She feels like her fifteen year-old son Billy would much rather that she had been the one to die, as that’s pretty much what she feels, too.

Unable to take the suffocating sympathy of her neighbors any longer, she packs up Billy and their cat Haiku and takes them up to the mountains where Derek had made reservations for them to have a Christmas getaway out in the snowy wilds. The lady at check-in is kind of a bitch, but does warn Christine to look out for moose. She also tells her where to find the Wi-fi information, which Christine immediately palms in a futile effort to get her kid to talk to her instead of staying glued to his phone the entire trip. Still addled by grief, Christine finds that she packed over-well in some cases and poorly in others. And that’s before the lights start shattering in their remote mountain cabin and a strange horned figure begins to lurk outside.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/19/cold-snap-by-lindy-ryan/

Nov 18 2024

The Weirn Books, Vol 1 and 2 by Svetlana Chmakova

I was so chuffed to receive a delightful box with the first two books in Svetlana Chmakova’s Weirn series just before Halloween! Deeply grateful to JY, an imprint of Yen Press, for sending not only the two volumes but also a cute selection of pens, bookmarks and posters, some of which found their ways into the baskets of trick-or-treaters who couldn’t have candy that holiday. Unboxing video will post soon at my Instagram, @DvalerisActual!

The first book, Be Wary Of The Silent Woods, does a terrific job setting the scene for this middle-grade urban fantasy series. Told from the viewpoint of young Ailis Maeve Thornton, Volume 1 describes a coastal New England town where the local vampire, shapeshifter, mermaid and weirn kids go to school at night, in more or less the same building where the human kids study during the day. Magic, ofc, is what helps accommodate both groups, and is primarily wielded by the Weirns, who are witches born with Astrals, demon guardian spirits bound to them for life.

Ailis is a weirn, and your typical middle school kid otherwise. She lives with her grandma over the latter’s shop while her parents are away, and has a crush on Russ, the cute werewolf who used to pick on her when they were both smaller. Her neighbor is another weirn, Jasper, who has a crush on her cousin, Na’ya. Na’ya is obsessed with dragons, and isn’t thrilled that she constantly has to help look after her (adorable) little brother D’esh.

Most school evenings, Ailis walks over to pick up her cousins, dropping off D’esh at day care before heading into school with Na’ya. Their path takes them through the silent woods where tragedy once struck at a schoolhouse the local kids are all forbidden to go near. The cousins are happy to obey, even when a light goes on one evening at the supposedly abandoned structure. When curiosity gets the better of them on a subsequent evening, however, will they be able to face the horrors of the old schoolhouse and emerge unscathed?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/18/the-weirn-books-vol-1-and-2-by-svetlana-chmakova/

Nov 17 2024

Das Lied von der russischen Erde by Michael Thumann

Any book about current events eventually becomes a book about history, and a bit of a historical object itself. If it’s a good one, its insights will transcend the immediate period of its writing, illuminating its subject over a longer period, showing readers how the long term looked at a particular time. Michael Thumann’s Das Lied von der russischen Erde — Song of the Russian Soil — was finished in late 2001, when Vladimir Putin was still Russia’s new president, when questions of that country’s future seemed far more open than they do today. More than 20 years later, the book is still well worth reading, both for comparing now and then, and for seeing how much is unchanged.

Das Lied von der russischen Erde by Michael Thumann

Thumann, whom I have not met but with whom I share friends and acquaintances, gave this book the subtitle “Moskaus ringen um Einheit und Grösse” — “Moscow wrestles with unity and size,” though it could just as easily be “Moscow wrestles with unity and greatness.” The book, which is admirably manageable at 250 pages, delves into how Russia’s rulers have struggled to actually rule the lands that their armies and explorers conquered. The volume is historically informed, but it is mostly about post-Soviet Russia, with four-fifths of it devoted to the years from 1991 to 2001.

Even in 2001, Thumann saw a touchstone of Vladimir Putin’s time in the Kremlin. He writes, “Today Vladimir Putin embodies this new gathering of the Russian lands. He is strengthening central power and is attempting to gain the greatest control possible over Russia’s regions.” (p. 8) More than 20 years later, it is clear that Thumann was more correct than he knew. Not only has Putin effectively controlled the regions and bent local rulers to his will, he has tried to take up the mantle of earlier conquerors. By waging a war of aggression against Ukraine he is attempting to put into practice his view of “gathering the Russian lands.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/17/das-lied-von-der-russischen-erde-by-michael-thumann/

Nov 16 2024

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

Sir Robert Carey is the very model of an Elizabethan courtier; he has skills equestrian, pedestrian and deductional. He’s met the Queen of England and he’s won the fights he chronicles, in England and in Scotland, and some in Lands Debatable. He’s well acquainted, too, with matters barely ethical; he understands corruption, both the venal and the gentry’s style.

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

Chisholm begins A Season of Knives with a character suffering from what modern readers will recognize as allergies, but which his wife thinks is something between laziness and dissipation. At any rate, his condition keeps Long George Little away from making hay — even after sundown — and in the streets of Carlisle, where a shortcut in down an alley turns out to be fateful for a surprisingly large number of people. Not least Sir Robert, who is nowhere near the alley at that time, being engaged in an evening of cards in Carlisle Castle, with his brother-in-law the Warden of the Western March, his mortal enemy Sir Richard Lowther, and various other members of the city’s highest society.

Long George discovers several of his cousins lying in wait in the alley. They have been hired by one Jemmy Atkinson to deliver a beating and a warning to Andy Nixon, who has been cuckolding Atkinson. They take care not to kill him, but leave him in the alley mud, hurt and unable to stand. Unfortunately for nearly everyone except Nixon, Carey’s servant Barnabus discovers him in the alley and, having pity, drags him through the doorway Nixon had been crawling toward. Being not entirely reformed from his London ruffian days, Barnabus takes the opportunity to cut Nixon’s purse.

Unfortunately for practically everyone in the story, some time between paying off his hirelings for beating up Nixon and late the next morning, Jemmy Atkinson is murdered, his throat slit nearly from ear to ear.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/16/a-season-of-knives-by-p-f-chisholm/

Nov 15 2024

Tantalizing Tales — November 2024 — Part Two

It has been one of those fortnights where time ceases to have meaning, dear readers. I can scarcely believe that it’s the middle of November already. And even at the rate of covering one book almost every work day, I’m still working my way through October, woof.

It’s actually an October title that leads this mid-month reading round-up, as I’ve somehow managed to lose it from my email, argh. I can count on one hand the number of books I’ve mislaid in this way, and am deeply sorry that I missed the opportunity to cover its truly fascinating subject.

The children’s book in question is Sharon Mentyka & Shelley Couvillion’s A Flash of Color and Light: A Biography of Dale Chihuly. Aimed at young readers, this picture book features watercolor illustrations that chronicle the renowned glass artist’s history, from the challenges that beset him from a young age — including losing the sight in one eye — through a lifetime of resilience, hard work and optimism to become who he is today. The backmatter includes additional biographical information as well as a brief history of the evolution of glassmaking. I love reading and writing about art and artists, so hope to eventually snag a hard copy of this gorgeous book for my home library.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/15/tantalizing-tales-november-2024-part-two/

Nov 14 2024

Vintage Birds: A Guidebook And Matching Game by Roger J. Lederer

For someone who’s not terribly outdoorsy, I really enjoy birds. I love bird art and have somehow, over the years, amassed a shocking amount of knowledge for someone who’s never really studied birds outside of appreciating their artistic depictions. I mean, I recently made it to the Championships of the latest Birds Mini League on Learned League, against some really smart people who’ve probably researched birds quite seriously! Is this all Howard Norman‘s fault? Who can say?

So when I was offered this matching game with accompanying guidebook, I was all in. I’ve been desperate to impart my love of reading and of birds to my kids, so this seemed like the perfect way to do both! We’re definitely still working on the reading part, but I do feel that I’m making gains on getting them to appreciate avian beauty, especially with the help of this charmingly illustrated deck and its beautiful renditions of vintage art by two of the most well-respected bird artists in history, John and Elizabeth Gould.

There are 50 sturdy tarot-sized cards in the deck, featuring 25 of the most beautiful birds in the world. The deck comes with an 80-page guidebook in a gorgeous foiled presentation case that elevates this to a truly luxe gift standard. The interior of the box is done up in red and white art deco botanicals: not perhaps the most fitting scheme, but still a lovely choice that offsets the deck and guidebook’s primary colors of tan and green.

The matching game can be played as simply or complexly as you’d like. My kids and I play the most basic version of it, ofc, and have had lots of fun pitting our memories against one another’s as we race to collect as many pairs of cards as we can. The pictures and names help keep things memorable, tho I will say that 50 is rather an odd number for a matching game: you can only really split that into 10 rows or columns of 5, which is kind of a pain on a card table, or a more standard 6×8 with two outlying cards, which is what we usually went with. That aside, this game was a joy to play, and my kids certainly enjoyed sharpening their mental skills as they raced to beat dear old Mom.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/14/vintage-birds-a-guidebook-and-matching-game-by-roger-j-lederer/

Nov 13 2024

Detective Beans & The Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen

I am all about the comfort reads this week, and I’ll be blessed if I read anything as charming as this graphic novel is anytime soon!

Detective Beans is a young cat obsessed with being a detective, even if that usually just takes the form of acting out his favorite movies for his mom and his best friend Biscuits. While he dreams of fighting crime and helping his community, his most pressing case at the moment is the mystery of whomever is leaving little post-it notes with sweet messages of encouragement on his belongings for him. The handwriting doesn’t match Biscuit’s, and Mom swears that it isn’t hers either.

That case is put on hold, however, when Beans realizes that his beloved fedora hat has somehow disappeared. As he begins tracking it down all through town, he soon finds himself embroiled in greater mysteries than he’d ever dared imagine. Will he be able to reclaim his hat, while proving himself as resourceful as any “real” detective?

This delightful romp through a fictional anthropomorphic town is peak cozy reads, as Beans bounces from one small adventure to the next on his quest for his hat. Li Chen peppers her narrative with gentle humor and a genuine sweetness that is balm to this adult reader’s rumpled heart. When we find out at the end who the post-it writer is, I awwed aloud.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/13/detective-beans-the-case-of-the-missing-hat-by-li-chen/

Nov 12 2024

Sticky Notes by Matthew Eicheldinger

subtitled Memorable Lessons from Ordinary Moments.

I’ve been kind of a mess these past few weeks, even before the dismal US election results and definitely after, so this book was a wonderful antidote for despair. It isn’t entirely perfect — the vignette about Hiking Boots made me go “yeah, sure, he wound up going back to what he wanted to do all along, but I’m pretty sure he gained a lot of valuable life skills and tools along the way” — but it’s pretty darn close. Heartwarming and inspiring, this is a great book for reminding ourselves of the basic decency of most human beings, if we just care to stop and consider the fact of our shared humanity.

Matthew Eicheldinger is a middle school teacher whom I first encountered via his touching short videos on social media. He talks about the lessons he’s learned from his students, on a myriad of topics including patience and compassion and just showing up. Some of the stories can get a little schmaltzy and some of them seem to trail off instead of actually ending but they are, overall, a celebration of the kindness and generosity of middle school kids, not a demographic traditionally known for such.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/12/sticky-notes-by-matthew-eicheldinger/

Nov 08 2024

A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman

I don’t know if this is the perfect complement or counterprogramming to my eldest child and I watching and really enjoying Agatha All Along together. Probably a little of both — tho my kid will likely have little interest in this book, alas.

That might be for the best tho, as it’s A Chilling Tale for Dark Days and Long Nights, and I think my kids consume too much horror content as it is (even if the YouTube stuff they gobble down is hilariously terrible, with absurd special effects and wooden acting.) In this horror novella, a bestselling self-published suspense author and her teenage son live in a fairly remote cottage in the Somerset Levels. Angie is a single mom with a penchant for wordplay and a devotion to Christmas passed down through her family, but in a wry sort of manner. She and her son Rust put up offbeat DIY ornaments, change the words in Christmas carols to turn them into Christmas “cruels”, and engage in inexplicable but harmless rituals, like stuffing their mince pies with too much mince and putting broken biscuits in a long-disused pet bowl for Santa’s reindeer.

In the manner of countless teenage boys of the 21st century, Rust has a podcast. His focus is on local paranormal phenomena. Angie hates the idea but tries to be supportive, tho Rust can’t help but notice that some of her jokes are meaner than others. Still, they’re pretty close for a mother and son, and look forward to engaging in the usual Christmastime customs.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/08/a-christmas-ghost-story-by-kim-newman/