About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about how my kids got themselves (and, by extension, me) into Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted to reflect on how far I’ve come since then and where I might go in the near future. Starting off with a quick recap of the linked blog post, my brother David had introduced the kids to D&D via Muk, a module for introducing your kids to D&D....
This morning I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Decoder Ring. The most recent episode had a very interesting title: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…Will he want a Welfare check? I don’t remember this book from my childhood, but I do remember reading this one (and others in the series) to my kids. The podcast explores the fact that, starting around 2015, this book started to become known by conservatives as an allegory against the welfare state....
I’m a bit late to updating the list this year. There aren’t too many new entries, but there are a few changes. Politics 5-4 Pod – Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics....
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros My rating: 4 of 5 stars When I saw that this book topped the lists for most checked out book in 2023 in multiple library systems my curiosity was piqued. But it was this episode of Our Opinions are Correct that pushed me over the edge into getting this book. Boy am I glad I did! How to describe this book? One of my thoughts was Ender’s game meets Harry Potter, but with college kids....
Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since the first season and I can’t imagine that I would find this collection if my kids hadn’t gotten me into D&D a year or so ago....
Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes My rating: 4 of 5 stars Valerie Valdes continues the Gen X/Millenial pastiche that the Chilling Effect in this third, and final, entry. A few of the references across the trilogy: - Voltron - Portal (from previous books) - Smash Bros (crash sisters) - Death Star-like weapon - Solid snake reference? - Transformers - Pokemon (in previous books) -Captain Planet Sometimes the references are just in the chapter titles and other times they are important plot points....
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 114, November 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars Science Fiction ——————— The Concubine’s Heart (Matthew Bright) - I could not even Begin to predict the turn the story would take. It was quite a fascinating story. I wonder at the culture (a sort of sci-fi Chinese culture) that would lead to the events in the story. Very well done. Her Appetite, His Heart (Dominica Phetteplace) - a continuation of the world we first saw in “One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit” back in Lightspeed #111....
Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m usually not a fan of the middle books in planned trilogies. They often can’t resolve anything because most trilogies are just one gigantic book split into three. While that’s also somewhat true in this book, McClellan has done a great job giving us a mini try/fail cycle that makes this book pretty satisfying on its own. We learn a TON about Ka-Poel....
First off, I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy listening to the science fiction short story podcast Escape Pod. Today I listened to episode 949, A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls. Large Language Models (LLMs), what we have colloquially called AI for the past few years, have been a giant source of wonder and consternation in the world. AI in general has long been a topic for science fiction, but this short story tackles the current LLM version of AIs....
Last weekend I decided to try the Humblewood D&D campaign setting with the kids. For the past year (give or take) we’ve had a lot of fun playing DnD Adventure Club campaigns. Our one major foray in to regular D&D, Dragons of Stormreck Isle, was a failure. I think there were a few reasons for that. First of all, I was fairly new to DMing and so probably not doing as good of a job as I am a year-ish later....