Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
Oct. 16th, 2025 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
The tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios.
Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
james_davis_nicollThe tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios.
Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
Oct. 16th, 2025 08:47 amjames_davis_nicoll
The American orbital transfer station offers employment to Byron McDougall, a chance for Charlie Bond to search for an alternative to MAD, and for Diana Osborne, escape from her violently abusive father.
The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
⚰️🚂 Playthrough/Review: You are Roadkill
Oct. 15th, 2025 10:01 pmsolo_knightPlaythrough/Review: You are Roadkill
( Game Description )
This actually was one of the first games I played, chosen at random. On the positive side, you don’t need to know anything about solo roleplay to play this.
On the negative side, this is depressing as fuck.
This taught me something about solo gameplay; I don’t want to play it again.
( Game Description )
This actually was one of the first games I played, chosen at random. On the positive side, you don’t need to know anything about solo roleplay to play this.
On the negative side, this is depressing as fuck.
This taught me something about solo gameplay; I don’t want to play it again.
Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse
Oct. 15th, 2025 10:13 amjames_davis_nicoll
Growing up is hard enough without the entire world falling apart around you.
Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse
The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Oct. 15th, 2025 09:19 amjames_davis_nicoll
Why do Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital patients keep plummeting from the 6th floor, and why do none of them bleed when they hit the tarmac? The explanation is outside Detective Suyeon's field of expertise.
The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Random snippet of life, Silicon Valley edition
Oct. 14th, 2025 10:34 pmbrooksmosesI had somewhat of an annoying morning this morning, but the way it was annoying was so excessively Silicon Valley that the humor substantially outweighed the feelings of annoyance.
Specifically, on my commute in to work, I was delayed by a traffic jam on 101 because a Google Bus had rear-ended a Tesla on the exit ramp onto 237, and this meant that I arrived at work too late to get my free breakfast at the office cafe.
Specifically, on my commute in to work, I was delayed by a traffic jam on 101 because a Google Bus had rear-ended a Tesla on the exit ramp onto 237, and this meant that I arrived at work too late to get my free breakfast at the office cafe.
Review: Fall Baking
Oct. 14th, 2025 10:05 pmysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
booksTaste of Home Fall Baking: 275+ Breads, Pies, Cookies and More!
Paperback – September 13, 2022
by Taste of Home (Editor)
( Read more... )
Paperback – September 13, 2022
by Taste of Home (Editor)
( Read more... )
🪅 Playthrough/Review: With Iron Teeth
Oct. 14th, 2025 11:08 pmsolo_knightPlaythrough/Review:
With Iron Teeth
( Game Description )
This is a very short game of chance. I did write out the narrative, but very briefly; there are no prompts for individual cards, just for the suits.
This is a quick game – I think it took me half an hour all in all, including reading the rules and finding a miniature that looked a little vampiry – and it was fun, quick, and brainless.
This looks like it could fill the niche of short video games - you have twenty minutes before you need to do something else, you don’t want to brain, you don’t want to sink into anything meaningful, and there’s a little tension and a little strategy.
This is Indie gaming at its best. It doesn’t have to be epic, it doesn’t have to be polished, it just has to be fun.
With Iron Teeth
( Game Description )
This is a very short game of chance. I did write out the narrative, but very briefly; there are no prompts for individual cards, just for the suits.
This is a quick game – I think it took me half an hour all in all, including reading the rules and finding a miniature that looked a little vampiry – and it was fun, quick, and brainless.
This looks like it could fill the niche of short video games - you have twenty minutes before you need to do something else, you don’t want to brain, you don’t want to sink into anything meaningful, and there’s a little tension and a little strategy.
This is Indie gaming at its best. It doesn’t have to be epic, it doesn’t have to be polished, it just has to be fun.
Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
Oct. 14th, 2025 08:53 amjames_davis_nicoll
Fallen Woman turned private investigator Sarah Tolerance is hired to recover a fan. Carnage ensues.
Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
📓🎩 Playthrough/Review: The Disguised Frog
Oct. 13th, 2025 10:00 pmsolo_knightPlaythrough/Review: The Disguised Frog
( Game Description )
That was unexpected. Wrote just under 1300 words, guided by the Tarot cards I pulled and the vague suggestions provided. My brain went down some very unexpected – but ultimately very hopeful – tracks.
There is, of course, a pattern to journalling games: I write out the beginning of a story, not its muddle or end (there’s always a muddle in the middle where you have to stop throwing new content into a story).
I have always struggled with writing exercises and find these games (as long as they provide enough substance and enough inspiration) extremely inspiring. Combined with the archetypes and meanings of the tarot, which I happen to know quite well by now, this was a blast.
The resulting story was weird and wonderful and I don’t know whether I shall ever write more of it and take it further, but this is the fourth game of this kind that gave me a meaningful experience.
I have not marked this as retired because I intend to play it again. Not any time soon, but this one will stay on my hard drive.
Short RPGs like this are a great way of unsticking creativity. I spend around two hours writing and rolling dice and pulling cards, there’s a definite end point, and the stakes are very low - you can’t really do this wrong.
( Game Description )
That was unexpected. Wrote just under 1300 words, guided by the Tarot cards I pulled and the vague suggestions provided. My brain went down some very unexpected – but ultimately very hopeful – tracks.
There is, of course, a pattern to journalling games: I write out the beginning of a story, not its muddle or end (there’s always a muddle in the middle where you have to stop throwing new content into a story).
I have always struggled with writing exercises and find these games (as long as they provide enough substance and enough inspiration) extremely inspiring. Combined with the archetypes and meanings of the tarot, which I happen to know quite well by now, this was a blast.
The resulting story was weird and wonderful and I don’t know whether I shall ever write more of it and take it further, but this is the fourth game of this kind that gave me a meaningful experience.
I have not marked this as retired because I intend to play it again. Not any time soon, but this one will stay on my hard drive.
Short RPGs like this are a great way of unsticking creativity. I spend around two hours writing and rolling dice and pulling cards, there’s a definite end point, and the stakes are very low - you can’t really do this wrong.
I ran an errand
Oct. 13th, 2025 03:21 pmjames_davis_nicollDuring which I encountered:
* A person supine on the sidewalk, having apparently been struck by a car exiting the expressway. There were EMTs so I didn't interfere.
* A person driving their RC car on the LRT tracks as the train was approaching, who seemed put out that I told him to get off the tracks.
* An angry screaming apparently deranged guy between me and where I needed to be to catch the bus.
* A person supine on the sidewalk, having apparently been struck by a car exiting the expressway. There were EMTs so I didn't interfere.
* A person driving their RC car on the LRT tracks as the train was approaching, who seemed put out that I told him to get off the tracks.
* An angry screaming apparently deranged guy between me and where I needed to be to catch the bus.
Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry
Oct. 13th, 2025 01:57 pmjames_davis_nicoll
This all-new Huckleberry Bundle presents Huckleberry, the mythic Wyrd West tabletop roleplaying game about tragic cowboys in a world doomed to calamity – unless you save it.
Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry
Clarke Award Finalists 2018
Oct. 13th, 2025 10:51 amjames_davis_nicoll2018: Tories vote to pitch the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, PM May’s Brexit progress is strangely uneven, while Prince Harry and Meghan Markle conduct an experiment to determine the depths of British racism.
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
American War by Omar El Akkad
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
Poll #33722 Clarke Award Finalists 2018
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7
Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View Answers
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
1 (14.3%)
American War by Omar El Akkad
2 (28.6%)
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
5 (71.4%)
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
0 (0.0%)
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
1 (14.3%)
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
1 (14.3%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
American War by Omar El Akkad
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
Sanders' High School Reader
Oct. 12th, 2025 11:49 pmmarycatelli posting in booksSanders' High School Reader by Charles Walton Sanders
The final reading program with more elocution exercises. The standards by which the choices were made are laid out in the preface.
So again the interesting thing to the modern reader is probably the choices. Scientific, religious, political, historical -- poems, speeches, essays --
The religious is sometimes generically theistic, sometimes Christian, sometimes specifically Protestant (in a passage where it is explicitly stated that the contemplative vocation is non-existent).
The final reading program with more elocution exercises. The standards by which the choices were made are laid out in the preface.
So again the interesting thing to the modern reader is probably the choices. Scientific, religious, political, historical -- poems, speeches, essays --
The religious is sometimes generically theistic, sometimes Christian, sometimes specifically Protestant (in a passage where it is explicitly stated that the contemplative vocation is non-existent).
Interview Towa Elder Charlie Toledo
Oct. 12th, 2025 07:45 pmlabingiI wanted to share the interview I did for Sufficiency and Wellbeing with Charlie Toledo, the amazing director of the Suscol Intertribal Council in Napa, California. I feel deeply honored that she took this time to share her thoughts about effective activism and finding hope and joy in our troubled times.
Recent Reading: The Originalism Trap
Oct. 12th, 2025 05:19 pmrocky41_7 posting in booksThis one is not likely to be of much interest to non-Americans. This weekend I blew through The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People can Take it Back by Madiba K. Dennie. This book delves into the originalism theory of constitutional interpretation, why it's far more ahistorical than its adherents want you to believe, and some tracks we could take to counter it.
If you aren't familiar, "originalism" is a theory of constitutional interpretation that says in order to understand the Constitution, we must interpret it as closely as we can to how the original writers would have interpreted it. It posits itself as the most true-to-history and unbiased way to interpret the Constitution. It was also a fringe theory for decades, until relatively recent political winds brought it to the forefront.
Originalism traps us in the mindset of 18th century wealthy white men and refuses to let us progress any further. Originalism says if we didn't have the right then, we can't have it now. Originalism cherry-picks its history to conveniently arrive at a conservative goalpost no matter what the real story is. I wrote an essay in grad school on why originalism is horseshit, so this book was of particular interest to me.
Dennie does a great job making this book accessible to everyone. I would strongly recommend this as a read for any one in the legal or legal-adjacent professions, but I think anyone can read and pick up what Dennie is laying down here. She summarizes the history of originalism as well as deep-diving into its most recent developments (this book was published in 2024, so it's quite recent).
Originalism has a way of making itself seem inevitable, but Dennie reveals with researched ease how untrue that is; she shows the hypocrisy and insincerity of the theory over and over.
Dennie doesn't stop at "here's what's wrong" either--she has proposal and suggestions for how to counter the outsized influence of this once-disfavored theory and what we as citizens can do to push back against it. On the whole, while there is obviously anger and frustration in this book--feelings I share!--there is also a lot of hope and optimism. Dennie calls herself an optimist at heart, and it shows. This is not a doom-and-gloom book foreseeing an indefinite miserable political future for liberals and anyone who wants to expand rather than contract the depth and breadth of our rights. It is a justified call-out to political opportunists seeking to dress their partisanship up as rationalism, but it is also an essay on how it doesn't have to be this way.
At a brief 218 pages (plus bibliography), The Originalism Trap is easy to recommend to any fellow Americans, both as a way to understand where we're at, and a way forward, hopefully out of this extremist quagmire. Dennie can occasionally be irreverent in a way I feel detracts rather than adds to her argument, but she is also dealing with incredibly dry material that the average reader will probably struggle to stay engaged with, so I can forgive it. Very glad I picked this one up and I left feeling hopeful that there is an achievable alternative to where we are now.
If you aren't familiar, "originalism" is a theory of constitutional interpretation that says in order to understand the Constitution, we must interpret it as closely as we can to how the original writers would have interpreted it. It posits itself as the most true-to-history and unbiased way to interpret the Constitution. It was also a fringe theory for decades, until relatively recent political winds brought it to the forefront.
Originalism traps us in the mindset of 18th century wealthy white men and refuses to let us progress any further. Originalism says if we didn't have the right then, we can't have it now. Originalism cherry-picks its history to conveniently arrive at a conservative goalpost no matter what the real story is. I wrote an essay in grad school on why originalism is horseshit, so this book was of particular interest to me.
Dennie does a great job making this book accessible to everyone. I would strongly recommend this as a read for any one in the legal or legal-adjacent professions, but I think anyone can read and pick up what Dennie is laying down here. She summarizes the history of originalism as well as deep-diving into its most recent developments (this book was published in 2024, so it's quite recent).
Originalism has a way of making itself seem inevitable, but Dennie reveals with researched ease how untrue that is; she shows the hypocrisy and insincerity of the theory over and over.
Dennie doesn't stop at "here's what's wrong" either--she has proposal and suggestions for how to counter the outsized influence of this once-disfavored theory and what we as citizens can do to push back against it. On the whole, while there is obviously anger and frustration in this book--feelings I share!--there is also a lot of hope and optimism. Dennie calls herself an optimist at heart, and it shows. This is not a doom-and-gloom book foreseeing an indefinite miserable political future for liberals and anyone who wants to expand rather than contract the depth and breadth of our rights. It is a justified call-out to political opportunists seeking to dress their partisanship up as rationalism, but it is also an essay on how it doesn't have to be this way.
At a brief 218 pages (plus bibliography), The Originalism Trap is easy to recommend to any fellow Americans, both as a way to understand where we're at, and a way forward, hopefully out of this extremist quagmire. Dennie can occasionally be irreverent in a way I feel detracts rather than adds to her argument, but she is also dealing with incredibly dry material that the average reader will probably struggle to stay engaged with, so I can forgive it. Very glad I picked this one up and I left feeling hopeful that there is an achievable alternative to where we are now.
📟 First Impressions: The Joyride Everlasting
Oct. 12th, 2025 10:40 pmsolo_knightFirst and Last impressions The Joyride Everlasting
( Game Description )
This is an experience I have had with indie games, video edition, (or writers, self-published) before: sometimes a creator comes up with something half-baked that makes perfect sense to them, and it works for them because they hold the other half in their heads.
Third parties will feel baffled, because this is paper thin and in shreds.
So maybe someone with an anime/superhero/mecha background can make something out of this; I cannot.
( Game Description )
This is an experience I have had with indie games, video edition, (or writers, self-published) before: sometimes a creator comes up with something half-baked that makes perfect sense to them, and it works for them because they hold the other half in their heads.
Third parties will feel baffled, because this is paper thin and in shreds.
So maybe someone with an anime/superhero/mecha background can make something out of this; I cannot.
