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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-21 02:17 pm
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Bundle of Holding: Awfully Cheerful Engine



The complete Omnibus with the rules and eight settings for Awfully Cheerful Engine, the cinematic action-comedy tabletop roleplaying game.

Bundle of Holding: Awfully Cheerful Engine
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-21 10:09 am
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Five SFF Works About Meddling, Mystery-Solving Kids



Darn kids, always battling ghosts and exposing conspiracies and making a mess...

Five SFF Works About Meddling, Mystery-Solving Kids
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-21 09:14 am
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Bundle of Holding: OSE Treasures 2



Recent third-party tabletop roleplaying adventures for Old-School Essentials.

Bundle of Holding: OSE Treasures 2
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-21 09:06 am
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-20 03:53 pm

Well, crap

Got a notice from Campus Health that I may have been exposed to measles in Hagey Hall on the 8th, between 5 PM and 11 PM.

Oddly, that's not a one-to-one correspondence with my shift on the 8th. My shift started at 3:45 PM. The client's company was there before me, so if they were the source, the warning should begin earlier. I wonder what time Plant Ops evening shifts begin?
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-20 09:01 am

That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone



A horny but pious Mormon and a hot but godless scientist witness the wrath of an angry god.


That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-19 01:58 pm
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Bundle of Holding: Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Bundle



Rulebooks, Adventure Anthologies, + 4 adventures for the Old-School Essentials tabletop roleplaying rules set from Necrotic Gnome.

Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Bundle
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-19 12:21 pm
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-19 10:15 am

Clarke Award Finalists 1997

1997: The UK wins Eurovision, the BBC foolishly embraces that passing fad known as the internet, and Tony Blair wins a razor-thin 179 seat majority.


Poll #33137 Clarke Award Finalists 1997
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32


Which 1997 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
3 (9.4%)

Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
17 (53.1%)

Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper
9 (28.1%)

Looking for the Mahdi by N. Lee Wood
4 (12.5%)

The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
11 (34.4%)

Voyage by Stephen Baxter
5 (15.6%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 1997 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper
Looking for the Mahdi by N. Lee Wood
The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
Voyage by Stephen Baxter
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-19 09:36 am

Work

I made a positive contribution to work by proposing a sign for the perennially-blocked door 10 that warning people that door is an emergency door and not to be blocked. Door 10 is in a short corridor next to a change room and people keep commandeering it to store stuff. Specifically clients. I think I may have annoyed the client last Friday by informing them I wasn't going to open the theatre until that exit was cleared.

Of course, nobody will read the sign but at least it will be there.

Not as annoying as the time the Hack the North kids decided the best place for a pile of duffle bags was against the outside of door 8, one of the two main balcony entrances.

The legion of house managers got a long form of things that we're expected to do, each section of which we had to initial before returning it. I was not the only one who read it looking for sections that might have been inspired by something I did or did not do.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-18 08:48 am

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury



Guy Montag and his wife Millie live comfortable, conventional, middle-class lives. Millie finds purpose in an endless stream of television entertainment. Guy burns books.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-17 09:03 am
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Books Received, May 3 — May 16



16 works new to me. 8 fantasies, 1 horror, one mainstream, one mystery, one non-fiction (about SF), and four science fiction... although it wasn't always clear into which category works fell. Only 11 works are clearly identified as series, 11 do not appear to be part of series, and there are 3 for which that question does not apply.

Books Received, May 3 — May 16


Poll #33131 Books Received, May 3 — May 16
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad (January 2026)
11 (20.8%)

Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud (October 2025)
4 (7.5%)

Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories by Terry Bisson (October 2025)
20 (37.7%)

A Fate So Cold by Amanda Foody & C. L. Herman (November 2025)
2 (3.8%)

The Last Vampire by Romina Garber (December 2025)
5 (9.4%)

Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibanez (January 2026)
4 (7.5%)

Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff (November 2025)
1 (1.9%)

The Monster and the Last Blood Match by K. A. Linde (June 2025)
3 (5.7%)

Westward Women by Alice Martin (March 2026)
10 (18.9%)

Dead Fake by Vincent Ralph (January 2026)
0 (0.0%)

The Unwritten Rules of Magic by Harper Ross (January 2026)
7 (13.2%)

The Bone Queen by Will Shindler (February 2026)
3 (5.7%)

This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne (November 2025)
8 (15.1%)

A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (October 2025)
20 (37.7%)

Trace Elements by Jo Walton & Ada Palmer (March 2026)
36 (67.9%)

Good Intentions by Marisa Walz (February 2026)
2 (3.8%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
35 (66.0%)

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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-16 10:35 am
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Fabula Ultima: the characters

Alarmed by the frequency of magic-related calamities, five anonymous benefactors funded the Walman Hanton School of Mana Research. Its mandate: to seek out and deal with "burners", magical trouble-makers, and to document and where possible neutralize the sorcerous version of superfund sites.

The first Walman Hanton vigiles team was selected on the basis of their superlative magical skills. Their replacements were chosen for their demonstrated talent for surviving magical calamities.

Read more... )
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-16 09:04 am

A Quiet Teacher (Quiet Teacher, volume 1) by Adam Oyebanji



Calderhill Academy is one of Pittsburgh's most prestigious schools. Why then is there a murdered woman down in the basement?

A Quiet Teacher (Quiet Teacher, volume 1) by Adam Oyebanji
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-15 10:09 am
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Five Stories About Time Travel and Bureaucracy



What's the fun of time travel without a regulatory body to enforce the rules?

Five Stories About Time Travel and Bureaucracy
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-15 09:18 am
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Sky Pride, volume 1 by Warby Picus



A forsaken orphan reinvents himself as a formidable warrior.


Sky Pride, volume 1 by Warby Picus
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-14 07:21 pm

(no subject)

It is a vile calumny that I run ttrpgs as an excuse to create play-aids, he said as he emailed a five page document of frequently used tables and rules to the players.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-14 04:08 pm
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Bundle of Holding: Dungeon Dressing



Seven hundred pages of tables from Raging Swan Press.

Bundle of Holding: Dungeon Dressing
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-05-14 09:01 am

People From My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami




The narrator lives in a town filled with marvels, marvels they are determined to share with the reader.

People From My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami