Category Archives: Uncategorized

Slayground by Richard Stark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A great story told with incredible economy. Sub 200 pages and Stark manages to cram in a complicated web of corrupt cops, an up-and-coming gangster, a mob boss, a platoon of hired guns and- stuck in the middle of it all- Parker, with a bag of stolen cash and no easy way out.

If you’ve seen the movie version of Slayground, with Peter Coyote as the Parker character, be aware that this is similar but different. No Mel Smith for a start. Still features a closed up funfair showdown though, with traps and tricks galore.

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Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Incredible. Reads like a Warhammer 40K novel written by Ann Leckie; or possibly an epic sword & sorcery tale with dragons replaced by spaceships and magic spells swapped out for elaborate ritual mathematics. Fantastic background, rich settings, intriguing characters. It reminded me of a lot of things, but they were all good things. Highly recommended.

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Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is glorious. For something so short it certainly crams in a lot of ingredients: gods, monsters, down-at-heel ex-mob chefs, gluttons, gourmands, angry ghosts, colonialism, assimilation, ancient vs modern, a bustling cityscape both bright & wild and grimy-drab…

It’s got everything and all of it is mixed to perfection to produce a noirish yet numinous tale of one strangely compelling not-exactly-hero caught in the midst of a grand parade of terrifying grotesques.

Cassandra Khaw brings incredible depth to her world; a turn of phrase or well crafted image hinting at onion skin layers of history and politics and meaning and mystery, all waiting to be revealed beneath every place and every action. Despite the supernatural subject matter, this reads always as a story of real place, and real (strange) people.

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef rattles along in fast and thrilling style and manages to skip from visceral horror to easy violence to genuine heart-breaker pathos whilst never missing a step or leaving you behind. Highly recommended.

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#RPGaDay question one: Real dice, dice app, diceless or some other resolution method?

Has to be dice, doesn’t it. I’ll get back with some details later. In the meantime, a picture

Over at Chuck Wendig’s blog this week, there’s a flash fiction challenge to
create a character in 250 words or less, and then let someone else run loose with it the following week.

Here’s mine:

Never try to hang a magician.
That should be a law or something. Save everyone a lot of time and
inconvenience for a start. Remove a share of panic, and struggle, and pain.
These are the thoughts that tumble through Isbel’s broken head as the noose tightens around her throat, as the rough rope bites. Breath slowing to a choking burning halt, heart beating hammers as the world darkens all around the edges of her vision.
Her trembling feet kick and jerk.
The mutts around her smirk and snort. Their mocking laughter spills
across her eyes as stripes of red and blackened light.
Planning on doing something, best make it soon, she says.
Don’t make me tell you twice, she says.
I aint kidding here.
Do it, she says.
Do it now.
A flare of brilliant white. Narrow like a blade and slicing deep
across the rope high up behind her head… and then she falls.
The laughter stops as she drops heavy and hits hard and rolls and
stands in one fluid movement. A broken black winged bird, rising up to fly again, she is, with hands still tied behind her back, noose still strung around her bruised neck, eyes cold blazing blue.
These would be killers stare at her with mouths gone slack and stupid.
She locks eyes with each of them in slow and steady turn and wishes
them all dead. It doesn’t do anything, but it sure makes Isbel Blake
feel better.