Book 10: Call of the Wild + Free by Ainsley Arment. Very accessible book about the how of homeschooling, but especially the why. I found it compassionate, unusually respectful of kids as people, insightful. Not perfect, but a worthwhile read.
#2021books
#2021books
Book 11: Who Fears the Devil? by Manly Wade Wellman—hillbilly fantasy short stories, with old-fashioned monsters and hoodoo greed and a skilled balladeer w/ a silver-strung guitar and a good heart to face 'em down. The earlier stories were stronger than the last few. #2021books
Book 12: Owl Hoot Trail (RPG) by Clinton R. Nixon & Kevin Kulp. D&D streamlined, comparable to Into the Odd, but different. It’s really good, despite the problematic Shee (Elves)-as-First Nations folk thing. I’m not big on Westerns, but I’d use this to run something*! #2021books
*For example, I think one could probably run a great Owl Hoot Trail game set in Manchuria, inspired by this “Kimchi Western," with yokai (요괴), sanshin, alchemists, Boxers & bandit gangs, mudang, ghosts, magical trains, automata run amok, sanjeok...
Book 13: Molly Gloss's Wild Life. Took me a while to really get into it, but that was me, not the book. It's a great novel about... bigfoot? hallucinations? writerly liberties? trauma? A lot of things. But it's Molly Gloss, so of course it's great. #2021books
Book 14: My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir by Chris Offutt. A wonderfully written memoir (exorcism?) of an unenviable childhood & exorcism of a very painful and weird father/son relationship. Loaner from @JustinHowe (thanks!)
#2021books
#2021books
(Offutt's father was a writer known to me from his contributions to the Thieves' World anthologies. I'd heard he'd also written porn. I hadn't known it'd been the majority of what he'd written, or such a big part of his inner world.)
Book 15: Black Butterflies by John Shirley. Spatterpunk short stories rooted in dark sexuality bound up with death and violence. Got to be a bit much for me, though the story "Cram" was profoundly horrific and haunting.
#2021books
#2021books
Book 16: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. A book on trauma, how it works, its effects on people, as well as new forms of treatment and they the time's come to take seriously what the author argues is an epidemic of trauma in modern societies.
#2021books
#2021books
Ha, been terribly remiss on this thread, but not because I haven't been reading. Picking up where I left off:
Book 17: One of Us
An RPG zine about running D&D except it's a postapocalyptic carnival. Very adaptable to a dustbowl, Carnivale-styled game with any system (not just DCC), and pairs well with Owl Hoot Trail). (For a partial hack for ItO/EB, see here: gordsellar.com/2021/05/27/one…)
An RPG zine about running D&D except it's a postapocalyptic carnival. Very adaptable to a dustbowl, Carnivale-styled game with any system (not just DCC), and pairs well with Owl Hoot Trail). (For a partial hack for ItO/EB, see here: gordsellar.com/2021/05/27/one…)
Book 18: Trash Planet Epsilon
Another RPG zine: a sci-fi hack of Electric Bastionland, set on an interstellar landfill—more an idea generator than an adventure, but a fun springboard for a weirdo space junktrawl game w/Electric Bastionland's ruleset.
olobosk.itch.io/trashplaneteps…
Another RPG zine: a sci-fi hack of Electric Bastionland, set on an interstellar landfill—more an idea generator than an adventure, but a fun springboard for a weirdo space junktrawl game w/Electric Bastionland's ruleset.
olobosk.itch.io/trashplaneteps…
Book 19: Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling
Wild, flamboyant alt-history ride through a real, strange moment disturbingly relevant to the now, especially in how it interrogates what attracted (& attracts) people to fascism and powermongering tech assholes.
Wild, flamboyant alt-history ride through a real, strange moment disturbingly relevant to the now, especially in how it interrogates what attracted (& attracts) people to fascism and powermongering tech assholes.
Book 20: On the Origin of Species and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim
Nice to read work by a friend—though disclosure, we have a story in this. It's now up for an award. We weren't properly credited, by publisher/editor error, though. :/ Lots of post-human extinction tales here!
Nice to read work by a friend—though disclosure, we have a story in this. It's now up for an award. We weren't properly credited, by publisher/editor error, though. :/ Lots of post-human extinction tales here!
Book 21: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Fun book arguing the Mongols weren't that bad, but my enjoyment was tainted by a certain distrust of the author's (seemingly uncritical) use of apocryphal/mythic text as a primary historical source.
Fun book arguing the Mongols weren't that bad, but my enjoyment was tainted by a certain distrust of the author's (seemingly uncritical) use of apocryphal/mythic text as a primary historical source.
(If D&D's (via Tolkien's) orcs are rooted in Renaissance European exaggerations of Mongols' barbarity, Weatherford's depiction would be a good inspiration for rehabbing D&D humanoids culturally: foreign, different, tough, maybe baffling, but with lessons to offer their world.)
(Not that we *should* model orcs on any one real ethnic group (!) but Weatherford's text shows one way to unpack a maligned group as a long "misunderstood" and "misrepresented" group in-world, in order to move away from the frankly racist roots of the "evil orcs" fantasy trope.)
Book 22: Master of Space and Time by Rudy Rucker
A rollicking gallop through alternate worlds accessed via a silly gizmo... some bits maybe haven't aged so gracefully (surprised it wasn't edited for the republication in 2015), but it's mostly a kooky tumbling adventure.
A rollicking gallop through alternate worlds accessed via a silly gizmo... some bits maybe haven't aged so gracefully (surprised it wasn't edited for the republication in 2015), but it's mostly a kooky tumbling adventure.
Book 23: Tombs ed. Peter Crowther & Edward E. Kramer
A White Wolf fiction anthology from 1994. First time reading the whole thing. It's a mixed bag, but a few stories stood out for me, especially:
A White Wolf fiction anthology from 1994. First time reading the whole thing. It's a mixed bag, but a few stories stood out for me, especially:
Ian Watson's "Amber Room"; Kathleen Goonan's "Butterfly Effect"; Lisa Tuttle's "White Lady's Grave"; Ian McDonald's "The Time Garden"; "God's Bright Little Engine" by Stephen Gallagher; "Land of the Reflected Ones" by Nancy Collins; & Storm Constantine's "Blue Flame of a Candle."
Book 24: The Searing by Peter Coyne
This 80s horror paperback starts with spontaneous orgasms, "magical autism" (🙄), and—ta-da!—a dead baby. And it gets more ridiculous as it goes on. Not really my thing, but it has to be read to be believed.
This 80s horror paperback starts with spontaneous orgasms, "magical autism" (🙄), and—ta-da!—a dead baby. And it gets more ridiculous as it goes on. Not really my thing, but it has to be read to be believed.
Book 25: The House of War and Witness by Mike, Linda, and Louise Carey.
A slow burn ghost story set in a haunted manor on the border between Prussia and Silesia in 1740. Lt. Klaes bored me, but Drozde made up for it. Took a while to get started but felt worth it in the end.
A slow burn ghost story set in a haunted manor on the border between Prussia and Silesia in 1740. Lt. Klaes bored me, but Drozde made up for it. Took a while to get started but felt worth it in the end.
Book 26-29 (cheating? eh): Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa Modules 5–8: The Yuthlugathap Swamps (5), Barrens of Carcosa (6), Jungles of the K'naanothoa (7), The Mountains of Dream (8).
Loaned from @ahimsakerp, who's right: these give a somewhat clearer snapshot of Carcosa as adventuring site than I got from the hardback version of the setting book. I liked #5 and #8 best, and can see myself throwing locales from all of them into any weird exploration RPG.
Book 30: Crimson Blades Dark Fantasy RPG by Simon Washbourne
OSR retroclone w/interesting classes, neat powers to the Sorcerer (all-purpose spellcaster), and actually-workable cinematic (heroic PC-action-focused) mass combat rules. Can't see myself running, but pilfering? Yes!
OSR retroclone w/interesting classes, neat powers to the Sorcerer (all-purpose spellcaster), and actually-workable cinematic (heroic PC-action-focused) mass combat rules. Can't see myself running, but pilfering? Yes!
Book 31: Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.
Somewhat disappointing & tedious anti-hagiography. Gives every question about Mao the same answer: "He was a conniving sack of turds. Also, bad hygiene. #%@* that guy!" This one is why I read so few books this year.
Somewhat disappointing & tedious anti-hagiography. Gives every question about Mao the same answer: "He was a conniving sack of turds. Also, bad hygiene. #%@* that guy!" This one is why I read so few books this year.
(Not that I necessarily want "both-sides" "balance" re: Mao—he was awful—but this feels a bit simplistic and doesn't explain systemic reasons why this sack of turds did so well for himself for so long. DNF. Maybe I just need another multi-year break from it.)
Book 32: Far North by Marcel Theroux.
A dark, meditative Western in a global-warming-ravaged future Russia, about people struggling to survive and/or rule. Bleak, but well-written and thoughtful. Less horrific than The Road, but more onscreen awfulness. Thanks, @theotherjustin!
A dark, meditative Western in a global-warming-ravaged future Russia, about people struggling to survive and/or rule. Bleak, but well-written and thoughtful. Less horrific than The Road, but more onscreen awfulness. Thanks, @theotherjustin!
Book 33: Year of the Nurse: A 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic Memoir by Cassandra Alexander.
Appropriately rage-filled, incandescent memoir of nursing during the pandemic. (And a damage assessment for nurses, hospitals, and America.)
Appropriately rage-filled, incandescent memoir of nursing during the pandemic. (And a damage assessment for nurses, hospitals, and America.)
Book 34: Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel K. Gardner
Very much a bird's eye view and history: I was looking for something a little more detailed but this still was interesting and useful snapshot of its development. Sympathetic but honest about the darker side.
Very much a bird's eye view and history: I was looking for something a little more detailed but this still was interesting and useful snapshot of its development. Sympathetic but honest about the darker side.
Book 35: The Mothman Prophecies by John A. Keel
While I'm baffled that anyone took this stuff seriously, it's entertainingly pharma-grade nonsense.
Tulpas, MIB, UFOs, garudas; this feels a lot like ground zero for 70s conspiracy theory nonsense's injection into pop culture.
While I'm baffled that anyone took this stuff seriously, it's entertainingly pharma-grade nonsense.
Tulpas, MIB, UFOs, garudas; this feels a lot like ground zero for 70s conspiracy theory nonsense's injection into pop culture.
Much higher-grade lunacy than the grim-and-evangelical UFOlogy we got a decade later. (Especially Streiber, which I grew up reading.)
Was surprised to see how incredibly racist Keel's description of the ("Mongoloid," and "foreign faced" and "dark, not Negroid") Men in Black was.
Was surprised to see how incredibly racist Keel's description of the ("Mongoloid," and "foreign faced" and "dark, not Negroid") Men in Black was.
That MIB stood in for overtly racialized xenophobic anxiety seems to have been forgotten as MIB have become emblematic of Big Government or whatever, which is odd.
Book 36: The Adventures of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers. A big fat greasy cheeseburger of a book, shlocky and weird, but I loved it in middle school and it was fun enough this time that I'm planning to read the rest of the series just for fun. The art is half the fun (or more).
Book 37: More Adventures of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers
Another Samurai Cat book. Actually a little better than the first? Samurai Cat visits warped versions of King Arthur's Court, Barsoom, and the Star Wars universe.
Another Samurai Cat book. Actually a little better than the first? Samurai Cat visits warped versions of King Arthur's Court, Barsoom, and the Star Wars universe.
Book 38: The Manhattan Projects Volume 1: Science Bad by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra.
A loopy, dark alternate-history exploration of the intersection of weird science, the military, and personal insanity.
A loopy, dark alternate-history exploration of the intersection of weird science, the military, and personal insanity.
Whew, that's a lot but I have a few more to add before I'm 100% caught up. More tonight.
Book 39: Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman
Thoughtful, challenging, discomfiting, but worthwhile exploration of the mislabeling conflict as abuse and vice versa—
Thoughtful, challenging, discomfiting, but worthwhile exploration of the mislabeling conflict as abuse and vice versa—
—and how both errors obscure truth, stifle our person and collective growth, *and* prevent us from recognizing/addressing real abuse. Not everything here worked for me, but enough did to make me rethink the tension between interpersonal idealism vs. cynicism I feel today.
Saw in @ContraPoints' (great) video on J.K. Rowling's recent ugliness:
Book 40: The Tale of the Incomparable Prince by Tshe Ring Dbang Rgyal, trans. Beth Newman.
Sadly, I was rather surprised how bored I was by this 17th century Tibetan novel that is sort of Ramayana/Buddhist Jataka/Mahabharata fanfic. Bits shone, but mostly I found it a slog.
Sadly, I was rather surprised how bored I was by this 17th century Tibetan novel that is sort of Ramayana/Buddhist Jataka/Mahabharata fanfic. Bits shone, but mostly I found it a slog.
Book 41: Sleepaway by Jay Dragon.
A "Belonging Outside Belonging"-styled RPG about camp counselors, work, identity, magic, and a horrible supernatural threat. It's a pretty amazing design, with some actually moving poetics and mechanics. I'm impressed. possumcreekgames.itch.io/sleepaway
A "Belonging Outside Belonging"-styled RPG about camp counselors, work, identity, magic, and a horrible supernatural threat. It's a pretty amazing design, with some actually moving poetics and mechanics. I'm impressed. possumcreekgames.itch.io/sleepaway
The (free) Stretch Goals have more playbooks and also a lovely recipe/game compilation by Jeeyon Shim, which is unusual in having recipes I actually want to try—a first for RPG recipe collections I've seen
possumcreekgames.itch.io/wanderhome-str….
possumcreekgames.itch.io/wanderhome-str….
Book 42: Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A disturbing novel of, well... hunger. It's kind of an eating disorder-as-allegory-for-existential dread, artistic struggle, hopelessness, loneliness, self-humiliation, (?) trauma, and how modernity sucks. About a writer who rarely writes—or eats.
A disturbing novel of, well... hunger. It's kind of an eating disorder-as-allegory-for-existential dread, artistic struggle, hopelessness, loneliness, self-humiliation, (?) trauma, and how modernity sucks. About a writer who rarely writes—or eats.
Book 43: Goose of Hermogenes by Ithell Colquhoun.
Trippy modernist occult book full of startling imagery. Reminds me of other modernist occultists like HD, Pound, and eve Eliot, except Colquhoun's using Hermetic magic and alchemy as mill-grist.
Trippy modernist occult book full of startling imagery. Reminds me of other modernist occultists like HD, Pound, and eve Eliot, except Colquhoun's using Hermetic magic and alchemy as mill-grist.
(Which is to say, I got the feeling I was missing a lot of references, in part because of the ones I managed to catch. There's allegory based on the Magnus Clavis ("Great Work") of alchemy, but I think there's more I missed, too. Thanks @theotherjustin!)
Book 44: External Containment Agency written by Eric Brunsell and Michael Elliot.
An odd-duck crowdfunded FitD game zine designed for playing games of paranormal investigation & bureaucracy. (Feels incomplete, has some odd rules.)
kickstarter.com/projects/mythi…
An odd-duck crowdfunded FitD game zine designed for playing games of paranormal investigation & bureaucracy. (Feels incomplete, has some odd rules.)
kickstarter.com/projects/mythi…
Book 45: The Nightless City: Geisha and Courtesan Life in Old Tokyo by J.E. de Becker.
This (v. late 19th century) book started out vaguely interesting with (fair) scoldings of hypocritical Western moralists, but soon descends into lists and lists and lists plus minutiae.
This (v. late 19th century) book started out vaguely interesting with (fair) scoldings of hypocritical Western moralists, but soon descends into lists and lists and lists plus minutiae.
Book 46: Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber.
Finally back to reading Fafhrd & Gray Mouser after many years. "The Cloud of Hate" makes it easy to see how Leiber inspired D&D, and "Adept's Gambit" was interesting, but I best liked "Lean Times in Lankhmar."
Finally back to reading Fafhrd & Gray Mouser after many years. "The Cloud of Hate" makes it easy to see how Leiber inspired D&D, and "Adept's Gambit" was interesting, but I best liked "Lean Times in Lankhmar."
Book 47: Scurry 3: The Shadow's Curse by Mac Smith.
This was a solid conclusion to this posatpocalyptic mouse adventure series, which ends with a promise of future adventures. I got it for my wife, who likes stories featuring small, cute creatures.
This was a solid conclusion to this posatpocalyptic mouse adventure series, which ends with a promise of future adventures. I got it for my wife, who likes stories featuring small, cute creatures.
Book 48: Into the Aether by Richard A. Lupoff
It's a rollicking, absurdly creative proto-steampunk novel from 1974, written in what sounds like Mark Twain's style. Unfortunately, immediate, overt racism of the characters and narrator made it almost unreadable (for me, anyway).
It's a rollicking, absurdly creative proto-steampunk novel from 1974, written in what sounds like Mark Twain's style. Unfortunately, immediate, overt racism of the characters and narrator made it almost unreadable (for me, anyway).
Book 49: The Starry Wisdom Library: The Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time edited by Nate Pederson is a great idea—the detailed catalogue from an auction of fictional Lovecraftian grimoires—but I'm enjoying it snippets, as suits the format.
One fascinating thing is that the authors' identities are half-concealed. You can look up initials and see who wrote what, but it takes a page flip and some hunting. The result is interesting, and one I'd honestly like to see in more short story collections.
Book 50: Hyperborea by Jason Bradley "Mockman" Thompson.
A great, short, vividly hallucinogenic single-issue comic book adapting a grim and nasty little Clark Ashton Smith tale. (Also, hooray for the inspiration taken from Una Woodruff's Inventorum Natura!)
A great, short, vividly hallucinogenic single-issue comic book adapting a grim and nasty little Clark Ashton Smith tale. (Also, hooray for the inspiration taken from Una Woodruff's Inventorum Natura!)
Book 51: Old School & Cool (An OSR Zine), Vol 2. by Ahimsa Kerp and Wind Lothamer (Knight Owl Publishing)
A fun postapocalyptic mashup toolkit zine: you got your Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Gamma World, Car Wars... a fun grab bag for any wasteland game.
A fun postapocalyptic mashup toolkit zine: you got your Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Gamma World, Car Wars... a fun grab bag for any wasteland game.
Book 52: The Worm Witch: The Life and Death of Belinda Blood by Wind Lothamer & Ahimsa Kerp
A weird, worm-centric OSR setting with a lot of icky fun and also some cool ideas and locales I can easily see worming their way into less-gonzo settings.
A weird, worm-centric OSR setting with a lot of icky fun and also some cool ideas and locales I can easily see worming their way into less-gonzo settings.
Book 53: The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
The last volume of the trilogy offered some major surprises but also a great deal of sorrow and loss, and I found it a tough read given the "current unpleasantness" —all the sorrow and loss in the real world these days.
The last volume of the trilogy offered some major surprises but also a great deal of sorrow and loss, and I found it a tough read given the "current unpleasantness" —all the sorrow and loss in the real world these days.
Book 54: Paranoia: The Iceman Returneth by Sam Shirley.
A module for Paranoia 2nd edition. It's from late in the West End era, and was fine for what it is, but didn't stick with me much. The more I look at pre-XP era Paranoia, the less I feel like keeping them in my collection.
A module for Paranoia 2nd edition. It's from late in the West End era, and was fine for what it is, but didn't stick with me much. The more I look at pre-XP era Paranoia, the less I feel like keeping them in my collection.
Book 55: Gari Ledyard's The Korean Language Reform of 1446. A fairly dry book on the history of the Korean alphabet, aimed at clearing up some purported misconceptions common around the time it was published.
I'm sure a few with curious ideas about how creativity works were enraged by the idea, but personally, I think it's cool that Hangeul might be a distant third-cousin of the ancient Phoenician alphabet (and a fifth(?)-cousin of the Roman alphabet). It's a small world after all.
(Which is to say, yeah, it seems some Mongolian letters did get remixed into some Hangeul letters. But that's only part of the story, of course.)
Book 56: The Day After Ragnarok (Fate Edition) by Kenneth Hite with Leonard Balsera.
This is an over-the-top campaign toolkit for a crazy historical post-apocalyptic world ruined by Nazis summoning (and death) of the Midgard Serpent late in World War II.
This is an over-the-top campaign toolkit for a crazy historical post-apocalyptic world ruined by Nazis summoning (and death) of the Midgard Serpent late in World War II.
I especially liked how Hite explicitly laid out a range of potential campaign concepts and types for the same setting. I feel like if you're prepping a campaign toolkit, it's a good model to study. :)
Book 57: Jack Vance The Killing Machine (Demon Princes #2)
I realized the Demon Princes books are basically James Bond in space while reading this. It was fun and mousetrappy and very brisk, though very much a product of its time...
I realized the Demon Princes books are basically James Bond in space while reading this. It was fun and mousetrappy and very brisk, though very much a product of its time...
(But the ending is telegraphed so hard that it's difficult not to realize what's coming quite a while before the big reveal.)
Book 58: Jack Vance The Palace of Love (Demon Princes #3)
... and that holy crap Vance's villains in Killing Machine and Palace of Love are basically intergalactic Manosphere proto-Incels. Creepy, nasty scenario, but well-written. You can see Vance developing here.
... and that holy crap Vance's villains in Killing Machine and Palace of Love are basically intergalactic Manosphere proto-Incels. Creepy, nasty scenario, but well-written. You can see Vance developing here.
I actually think a TV adaptation where Kirth Gersen is hunting incel/red pill-type influencers across the galaxy (and the evil worlds they end up ruling) might actually work pretty well. With a more diverse cast and more varied galactic culture, it could work!
Book 59: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath & Other Stories by Jason Bradley "Mockman" Thompson. A wild, feverish graphic novel of Lovecraft's Dreamlands novel along with "The White Ship," "Celephais," and "The Strange High House in the Mist." Dizzying, ornate, and worth a read!
I got this (after a long wait unfortunately entirely my own fault) with the Dreamlands map, which is also lovely and will adorn a wall near me sometime, soon.
That's probably it for the books (and zines and things) that I read in 2021. I read less than I'd hoped, and especially less fiction than I'd hoped, but... well, that's what pandemic life does to my brain, it seems. I think I'm getting my groove back, though... maybe next year?
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