What do you get when you put together friends, Indianapolis, and a love for board games? You get a trip to GenCon 2017 – so I made my way to Indianapolis on the weekend of August 18th to meet Nika, Danny, Brad, Steph, and Not-a-Good-Boy-Ben and play board games. I had never been to GenCon …
Girls Made of Snow and Glass (Melissa Bashardoust) – The writing is elegant, as are Bashardoust’s interpretations of the elements we all know so well, mirrors and apples and snow. Mina, the “evil queen,” has power over glass, which I found especially clever, and Lynet, the “snow white” has power over snow. The magic is …
The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang are a matched pair of stories, and I figured that whichever I read first would change the way I read whichever I read second. So I did what any good D&D player would do and rolled a die. Even red, odd …
Everfair by Nisi Shawl is an alternative history set in the Belgian Congo during King Leopold II’s reign. Instead of years of slavery, racism, and genocide a congregation of Fabian Socialist from Great Britain and African-Americans form their own nation called Everfair and resist Leopald’s subjugation and return to slavery. Though alternative history is not …
Spellbook of the Lost and Found – Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s debut, The Accident Season, was a quiet roar of a book that used suspenseful magic to get at some extremely heavy issues, and her second book is no different, except that it’s even better. It follows three groups of teenagers who collide after a party where …
The Penny Arcade Expo is, by design, a grind. Noise and sound and free things and kids and adults and cosplay and super-bad-for-you food. After two days, you feel it in your legs. After three days, your back. After four days, your soul. But if you wait in just the right lines and chug just …
One of the most unexpectedly enjoyable elements of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the cooking system. Link, during his journeys through Hyrule, can collect all manner of ingredients that he can combine over a cookfire. The results are innumerable meals and potions that can restore health, restore stamina or grant all sorts …
Annapurna Interactive is responsible for publishing what may well be one of the most visually beautiful and emotionally stirring video games of the last decade in What Remains of Edith Finch. They’re also the publisher for Gorogoa, a visually beautiful and emotionally stirring grid-based puzzle game. And they’re preparing to publish Kentucky Route Zero, a …
How do you top Nevernight, a book that’s basically Harry Potter for assassins, complete with magical, stairway-shifting school accessible only by diving through something that really shouldn’t be dived though? Well, actually the second installment does involve a diary and a giant snake, but that’s where the similarities end. Mia Corvere murders people to further her …
Assassins are popular these days. His Fair Assassin trilogy, which I thought was going to be stupid but which was a dazzlingly well-researched historical and religious drama, and Godsgrave, which was a crazy-cool assassin rock concert at full blast. Hit is about corporate assassins, and Throne of Glass is a competition for the best assassin. …