C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 9

Song of Carcosa by Josh Reynolds review

    SONG OF CARCOSA is the third of the Countess Zorzi series by Josh Reynolds. I’m a huge fan of these books and their Catwoman-esque protagonist. The Countess is a multi-dimensional protagonist who straddles the line between the upper class of the 1920s as well as the increasing social tensions of the working class. She’s an ex-con woman and cat burglar but has made her fortune through multiple generations of her family being very good at both. It makes a fascinating sort of character t...

Call of the Sea (2020) review

    CALL OF THE SEA is an exploration based game that is perhaps appropriate to refer to as a “walking simulator” but that would be more of a pejorative than it deserves to be done so as. It’s similar to MYST from way back when in which the game is mostly just about visiting the very lovely locations and solving some very light puzzles. There’s no chance of dying and very little character interaction but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s also a game that if you figure out its prima...

Civil War (2024) review

    CIVIL WAR (2024) by Alex Garland is a movie that a lot of people prejudged before they watched it. This is a tumultuous time in the United States of America, hardly the first time, but the prospect of a second American Civil War has occasionally popped up in political discourse. Usually, the individuals speaking are either joking or the absolute most extremes of the Far Right. The movie based around the premise of that finally happened was either viewed as taking advantage of sensatio...

Vampire: The Masquerade: Clan Brujah Trilogy: Slave Ring by Tim Dedopulos review

Warning – This review of the novel about vampires and slavery will touch on slavery and sexual assault.

    SLAVE RING by Tim Dedopulos is the first book of the CLAN NOVEL TRILOGY: BRUJAH: series. This is one of three trilogies that serve as loose sequels to the CLAN Novel series from 1999. These were the last books to be released before the TIME OF JUDGEMENT series ended the Old World of Darkness until its reboot. The series stars Theo Bell, archon of the Camarilla, and the setting’s rough...

World of Darknss books re-released by Crossroad Press (May)

Crossroad Press has begun re-releasing the original White Wolf fiction produced in the Nineties. They re-released the Dark Age Clan Novels, Clan Novels, and Grail Covenant Trilogy a couple of years ago but now have the contract for all of the books. Recently, they've started re-releasing the rest! I thought I'd share what's now available.

Clan Novel Anthology by Various

Clan Novel Lasombra Trilogy 1#: Shards by Bruce Baugh

Clan Novel Lasombra Trilogy 2#: Shadows by Bruce Baugh

Clan Novel Laso...

[Book Sale] Moon Cops on the Moon and Tales of the Al-Azif on sale for 99c

A pair of sales are ongoing for the last bit of Summer for those people who still want to pick up some of my lesser known works. MOON COPS ON THE MOON and TALES OF THE AL-AZIF (Books of Cthulhu #1) are on sale for 99c from May 27th to the 31st. The tale of a corgi cop and his human partner (or maybe it's the reverse) in a cyberpunk humor setting next to a bunch of pulpy action tales including a Cthulhu Armageddon one.

Blurb: "Welcome to the moon!"

Neal Gordon screwed up his assignment on Mars and...

Shadows of Pnath by Josh Reynolds review

    SHADOWS OF PNATH by Josh Reynolds is the second of the Countess Zorzi novels and part of the Arkham Horror series. The Arkham Horror series is a loose spin-off of CALL OF CTHULHU by Chaosium now published by Fantasy Flightr Games with the books published by Acnyte books. A corporate web that I'd honestly love to know the exact circumstances regarding but I suspect would cause me to lose SAN. The Arkham Horror novels are a pulpier, more action heavy version of the Mythos with a slight chance ...

The Division: Compromised by Thomas Parrott

    COMPROMISED is the second of the OPERATION: CROSSWORDS series for TOM CLANCY'S THE DIVISION franchise by Ubisoft. The premise for that series is that the Dollar Flu AKA The Green Poison has spread through the world and wiped-out ninety percent of the planet. The survivors of humanity are fighting over the remainder of the world's resources with most of them running out within a few months of the events. Humanity, or at least America's, only hope is the brave soldiers of the Strategic Homelan...

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw review

    HAMMERS ON BONE by Cassandra Khaw is a rare gem in what I’ve always felt should have been a larger genre: the Cthulhu Mythos detective novel. I’ve played a few video games with the premise like Dark Corners of the Earth, The Sinking City, and Call of Cthulhu (2018) but I feel like it’s something that should have been as popular a genre in paperback fiction as the Dungeons and Dragons novel was in the Nineties. I feel like Chaosium and other parties could have made some serious bank on th...

Fallout: A Tale of Mutation review

    FALLOUT: A TALE OF MUTATION by Erwan Lafleuriel is a book available on Kindle Unlimited that details the creation of the first four Fallout games (no real information on Fallout 76 or the series, which is a shame). This is basically a book discussing how each game came to be and some general discussion about their themes as well as world-building. It's nothing that hardcore fans wouldn't already be familiar with.

    The premise of the book is that it details the origins of Fallout as a propo...