The board game market has become saturated with small bluffing games; One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Love Letter, Coup, Kobayakawa, Ca$h and Guns. Bad Beets is a game that deserves to be in your collection, and I would say should even replace many of those listed previously. Fast play, fun theme, and creative bluff calling …

Angels are tricky. They’re not like vampires or werewolves (obviously): their motivations are opaque, and their weaknesses are practically nonexistent. They make poor monsters as a result, and even poorer heroes, prone to perfection as they are. Even worse, they’re often portrayed as extensions of a greater force; it’s not even clear if they have …

I have never been what one might call “artistic.”  In the 3rd grade, when we had to make an animal out of clay, I made an alligator that looked more like some sort of spiky worm. My best drawings all involve men and women made of very intricately detailed lines known as “stick figures.”  Needless …

Perhaps no other book has influenced my thinking about freedom of expression and the power of art as much as The Merro Tree. Yet when I tell people that, I get blank stares.  It’s positively criminal that this book isn’t up there with Fahrenheit 451.  Then again, Fahrenheit 451 is the kind of book that you …

People complain that they’re sick of vampires, that they’re overdone or just done, and I can understand that. There have been a lot of (ahem) pale imitations of Stoker and Rice, far more than good and original vampire fiction. But I’ll never really get tired of vampires, the same way I’ll never get tired of dragons …

Full disclosure: I am a librarian. (Among other things.) Librarian stereotypes are largely mild, often going so far as a severe, buttoned-up woman who shushes people and no further. But of course, then we have the Sexy Librarian, most notable for nearly breaking up Troy and Abed that one time… …and the eager naïf, perhaps …

One of the most common ways to build a fantasy setting is to base it on some certain aspect of the real world and then make as many–or as few–tweaks as possible. For a long time, all we got were variations on medieval England.  Then, slowly, other times and cultures began to trickle in. We’re …

Welcome back to Magic Gatherings! It was only a little over a month ago that we were talking Modern Masters 2015 Edition. Sorry for my long hiatus! I was getting married, you see. It’s hard to believe, but Magic’s next expansion is already fast approaching: Magic Origins. To celebrate, I’ve got two articles. In this …

Starting in the 17th century and continuing to this day, a debate has raged over who, exactly, is the father of calculus. Owing to favorable historical circumstances, or maybe to strange providence, Newton and Leibniz were both working their way toward it, sniping at each other along the way. One way or another, calculus was …

To be an Archivist in Wasp’s world is a far more coveted position than in our own. For starters, those who don’t make it are killed. And those who do gain possession of the only items known to ward and capture ghosts. They also gain the grudging tribute of a town barely scraping by, ensuring …