Jeff Grubb's Blog, page 6

The Political Desk: Judgement Day

So, State Supreme Court Judges. We have one open slot  with multiple candidates this time, as Susan Owen must retire since she is over 75 (yes, we do that out here). Four contenders, each with their own take. All sound like solid, professional folks. Their write-ups are in the Voters guide, but Crosscut summarizes that and add material from other sources and their own interviews.

(And this is where I once regret the loss of Voting for Judges site and the Municipal League. Ah, well.)

OK, one more thing - if one candidate gets 50% plus, the get the job. No playoff round. But this time, given four candidates, that's unlikely. Here goes:

Todd A. Bloom comes out of private practice with 20+ years of experience and ten years as a tax attorney. He's running with the encouragement of the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors. He didn't respond to Crosscut's questions. 

Sal Mungia is a litigator with 40+years of experience, and a lot of backing - 8 of the 9 current current justices, Gov. Inslee, the Stranger, and Candidate Bob Ferguson. He's successfully pitched changes to the state's jury selection process. He's got an impressive resume and an embarrassing amount of cash.

David R. Shelvey has the least experience of the group with 9 years as a lawyer and come primarily from the business side, as well as a radio personality. In his bio, he also mentions double-checking with God before making decisions.

Dave Larson comes from the Judge-side of the equation, with 16 years as a judge and 23 years as a trial attorney. He believes strongly is therapeutic sentencing, and many of the reforms have been made into law from the bench. 

Four pretty solid candidates, with a low (mostly) percentage of dog whistles. I would like to have to make the choice between Sal Mungia and Dave Larsen this fall. But force me into a corner, and I'll go with Sal Mungia.

And that wraps up my ballot. I will post a summary, and after the primary, post the results.

More later, 

The Political Desk: Our Boring Local Elections

I don't have much to say about the State Senators and Representatives races, because there isn't much of a race going on here. Grubb Street is located in Legislative District No. 11. The district curls around the southern end of Lake Washington, and represents most of Renton and chunk of Kent. We're in the lower right-hand corner of this ornate, crenelated district.

And we're kinda boring this time out. Our State Senator, Bob Hasegawa, is running unopposed, as is our State Representative Position No. 1, David Hackney. Lucky for us that they're good at their jobs. For Position #2, we have two candidates who are guaranteed to go on - Incumbent Dave Berquist and Libertarian Justin Greywolf. And I favor Dave Berquist in this one, but I do note that we have 28 people running for Governor, 24 of which are not going to get more than 1% of the vote. It is almost like most of the gubernatorial candidates are about sending in their resume to the largest number of people, and fewer want the experience and responsibility of smaller job.

And for the city of Kent? Nothing. Nada. Zip. OK, I can live with that. We've got enough on our plates right now. 

More later, 

The Political Desk: The Rest of the State

 The entire State Government Executive Branch comes up for election this year. Here's what we got:

Lt. Governor: This role oversees the State Senate, breaks ties, and fills in for the Governor when he's out of town. While not overly powerful, it is probably one of the more colorful offices in the state, and its primary requirements are to not blow things up and not embarrass the voters. And we have had a spate of excellent Lt. Governors, even though the bar may seem low. The current one, Denny Heck, had an original campaign slogan ("Give Olympia Heck!") and has failed to blow things up or get himself immersed in scandal. This is job interview - he's fine. His likely competition is Dan Matthews, who is a bag of Trumpian dog-whistles. So yeah, Denny Heck.

Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing the elections, and I am very much in favor of Steve Hobbs, for no other reason that he plays table-top RPGs. He's been very supportive of D&D and the tabletop industry which is kinda a big deal out here, to the point of accompanying a trade delegation to Japan with some colleagues of mine. But that same favoritism also makes me look harder at what he's done in his time in office, and, yeah, he's actually a worthy successor to Kim Wyman in protecting our elections. Good job, Steve.

Attorney General: Nick Brown has copped endorsements from both the Times and the Stranger, and has the qualifications as a US District Attorney as well as a deep knowledge of navigating state law. Manka Dingra comes out of the criminal prosecutions, which is also excellent, and I would look forward to having the make the decision between the two in November. For the moment, go with Nick Brown. 

Commissioner of Public Lands: This position oversees our state forests, and concerns a lot about lumbering and wildfires. A lot of candidates here, but two stand out. Department of Natural Resources Director Patrick DePoe gets the Times' nod, while former (local) legislator Dave Upthegrove has ability dealing the legislature (plus, cool name for taking care of trees). I'd like see both of them on the ballot, but for the moment, I think Patrick DePoe will do an excellent job. 

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Chris Reydal is the incumbent. Has been doing a good job. Yeah, let's keep him.

Insurance Commissioner: Does what it says on the tin - oversees our sprawling insurance industry. Mike Kriedler has held the position for years, but is stepping down after it was revealed he wasn't particularly good to his employees. That's the thing about elections - you screw up, you lose your job. Refreshing, isn't it? Patty Kuderer comes out of the legislature, is pro-renter, pro-single-player healthcare, pro-consumer. Her chief opposition is a self-declared progressive but fundraises and votes Republican. OK, then. 

And that fills out the State Executive Positions. Yeah, I'm blowing through them at a good clip. More later. 

The Political Desk: Guv'nor

 There are 28 candidates on the ballot for Governor of Washington State. Of them, there are four that have any sense of support. Of those, it will be former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert versus Attorney General Bob Ferguson in the Finals. I'm calling it here.

Bob Ferguson has been a big noise for the past decade, an aggressive legal voice who has been fighting against corporate malfeasance and Trumpian nonsense. He's got the funding, the endorsements, and the attention. And yeah, he's got the proven competence to be Governor.

Mark Mullet, the other recognized Democrat, is frustrating. A moderate, he's got a good provenance as well (State Senator for a decade), as well as ground-level endorsements (local mayors, firefighters), but has just flamed out as far as the campaign is concerned. But, if you hate Ferguson, Mullet is a good alternative, and I would be very comfortable with a battle between the two in November. Such is unlikely, sadly.

Dave Reichert should also be doing better, though it is likely that he will be Ferguson's competition in the Big Show due to name recognition from his time as King County Sheriff a couple decades back (Yeah, I know, everyone is OLD. It's thing). But, he failed to get the endorsement of both his own party and of the Seattle Times, which has traditionally been in the tank for him. It seems that he was saying one thing to the Times in interviews, and something completely different to his supporters on the other side of the Cascades. Apparently they didn't like that much.

Semi Bird DID get the official GOP endorsement, and does embrace the Trumpian nonsense. He lost his job as a school board commissioner for opposing mask updates in a recall election, and in the GOP tradition has been failing upwards ever since. He also never mentioned he had an ancient criminal record (misdemeanor bank larceny, thirty years ago), which makes him a typical Republican candidate .

And the rest. As elsewhere, some are perennials, some are well-intentioned newcomers, some are single-issue candidates seeking to front their particular concerns/grind their proverbial axes. And there was some hijinks, in that a Republican operative went out and found some OTHER Bob Fergusons to run for office, in hopes of confusing the issue. And then bragged about it publicly. When it was pointed out that this was specifically a felony, his chosen candidates dropped out, and the GOP weasels complained about how unfair the system was that wouldn't let them cheat.

So yeah, Bob Ferguson for Governor.

More later, 

The Political Desk: National Offices

 Let's start at the top - US Senator and House of Representatives. Like the rest of the country, we get two Senators, and one is up for re-election. Our neck of the woods for the US House is District 9, a narrow district straddling Lake Washington with bits of Seattle and Bellevue, and running south to Federal Way.

Senator: Maria Cantwell has been our junior senator for 24 years now, and is still chugging away. She's one of the engines behind the CHIPS act that kept semiconductor jobs here in the US. Yeah, wonky stuff, but still effective. The other candidates on the list make it a point of pride to not have held a previously elected office, and run the gamut from the well-meaning to the regular also-rans to the ones desiring a soapbox (which is cool, since the bulk of them are underfunded, such that the Voters' Guide is the only place they can reach out). Her likely opposition is Dr. Raul Garcia who is ... not horrible in Republican terms. But yeah, Maria Cantwell for Senator.

US Representative: Adam Smith has been serving in Washington for longer than Ms. Cantwell, and has experience and incumbency on his side. Usually he emerges from these primaries with a conservative talk-show host challenging from the right and cruises to re-election. But this time, there is a viable and more liberal candidate available in Melissa Chaudry, who wowed the Stranger board with her depth and width of knowledge and proposals, and even got good marks from the Seattle Times.  Downside? She's light in elected experience. Smith, though, was one of the ones pushing for Biden step aside because of his age, a bold stance for someone approaching 60. So for the Primary, check out Melissa Chaudry.

More later, 

The Political Desk: The Primary Is Upon Us

 August 6th will be the Washington State Primary, and it will be a big one. We have a US Senator, US Rep, Various members of the State House, Governor, and the entire executive wing of the state government up for grabs. That's a lot. 

Making matters more complex, Washington State has a top-two election strategy. That depowers (somewhat) the traditional political parties, in that we have a general scrum of the position, and the top two-vote-getters, regardless of allegiance, go on to the main event in November.

It's not a bad system, but like all systems, it can be gamed. Assume you have two Republican candidates and four Democratic candidates vying for a particular office. Say that Dems and GOPs are split evenly. and each candidate gets an even share of their side. So your four Democrats get 12.5% of the vote, and the two Repubs get 25%. So you can end up with two Republican candidates on the final ballot. This sort of thing has happened in the past, and can happen again. 

Also, you the candidate can declare your party own allegiance (referred to as "Preference") as you the candidate sees fit. So we usually have a party-approved candidate and not party-approved candidates flying under the same banner, and occasionally people sailing under false flags. You can also create your own party, so we see a lot of ... creative ... names for parties over the years. There is a lot of potential for shenanigans here, but more of that when we get to the Governor's race.

Two large matters loom over this primary which are not on the ballot. One is a set of cynical initiatives launched by some conservatives to help their main investors (the wealthy) at the expense of everybody else (that would be you). These initiatives are not on the ballot, but will be there in the fall. For the moment, we can put it aside, but the prime reason for these initiatives is to get out the vote on the conservative side, in hopes of it helping more conservative candidates. 

The other large matter is the Presidential race. At the time of this writing, the ballot will be most likely Vice President Kamala Harris versus Former President/Convicted Felon Trump. The former is taking over for President Biden due to inner party doubts about his age and health. The latter also has concerns about age and health, and in addition is an anchor around the neck of every Republican candidate, since they can endorse Trump and have people laugh at them every time they say "Law and Order", or they can distance themselves from Trump and  have the right-wing chunk of the party turn on them. Or they can be vewy, vewy quiet, which seems to be the course in general. Yet that's going to have an impact of this vote as well.

The Washington State Voter's Guide for King County is here. The Seattle Times has been doing its due diligence here, and has surprisingly swung more liberal/center than normal. The Stranger has grumped its way through the candidates, disappointed that they don't check all their required boxes. The Urbanist, talks about a lot of races I don't cover here, and refuses to recommend any candidate that did not meet with them (which is fair). The Cascade Advocate (a progressive blog) has an article comparing The Stranger and Times lists, and finds that they mostly agree. The Washington State Standard summarizes some of the races here, but does not make specific recommendations. Voting for Judges and the Municipal League sites, previously good places for info, are now shut down and available from GoDaddy.

Since this is a top-two primary system, I will be sometimes mentioning a second-choice as well. The Political Desk tends to lean left, but ultimately I want competent people in office. Elections are not a beauty contest or a two-team game, though there are components of both those things. It's a job interview - yeah, imagine that you have to re-interview for YOUR job every two/four/six years.   

Usually, I do a deep dive on these, giving even the minor candidates their time in the spotlight. This time, not so much. I've got a convention looming at the end of the month (GenCon) and don't have much time to savor the races. Some races are pretty obvious, some are going to very interesting. So when you hear the bell, turn over your papers and begin. 

More later,

Book: Which King? That King!

 Witch King by Martha Wells, Tordotcom, 2023

Provenance: Christmas gift from the Lovely Bride. She also got me a copy of the latest Murderbot book, by the same author, but I went with this one first. And while I have a lot of other books in the reviewing queue, I thought to jump this one forward while it is still fresh in my mind.

Review: This was a very enjoyable, challenging and rewarding read. It is a fantasy novel, but it bends (but not breaks) a lot of the traditional tropes, creating a distinct world and and engaging story. I'll admit, this was the bedside book for several months, and was put aside three times due to its complexity, but always lured me back.

The story is told in two parts, a present and flashback. Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House, is a demon, a otherworldly race that takes over the recently deceased to live in this world. In the past narrative, his plains-dwelling adopting people were overrun by powerful invaders, the Hierarchs, and he was taken prisoner. The story there is his escape of bondage how he helped create a rebellion. In the present, some 60 years later, the Hierarchs have been defeated and a new empire is rising, Kai awakens from being imprisoned again by persons unknown, alongside Zeide Daiyahah, a Witch. In order to figure out what is going on, the two need to find Zeide's wife, who is a Marshall of the Blessed Lands, and has also vanished without a trace.

That's about as organized as I can make it. Wells has created a world with extremely diverse peoples and types of magic. The demons can drain life, and Kai learns to transfer between bodies as well. Witches are the progeny of Demon/Mortal mating, and have elemental powers. The Blessed are angelic figures pulling from a central power core for their spells.  And the conquering Hierarchs use as similar central well of power, but pull from death magic. And that's pretty much the reason for invasion, which eliminates a host of unique cultures, and gives them more power from their deaths. 

Kai is our viewpoint character, in that we only learn about the world through him, and he shares only as much as he needs to. There is not a lot of exposition here - no explanation of a timeline, no lecture on how the world came to be, no moment when one character turns to another and say "As you know ...". There is a list of Dramatis Personae at the front of the book, a needed tool since there are a large number of allies and enemies for Kai and Zeide. And there is a map, is a bit more perfunctory than your standard issue fantasy, giving me general locations with a lot of space in between.  

And we are dealing with two Kais, here. In the past, Kai is swept up by the Hierarchs' assault. In the present, the Hierarchs have been overthrown and a new Rising World coalition has formed, verging on becoming its own empire. But you have to put that together, and that requires a bit more from the readers than your standard fantasy. Even the intro italicized excerpts from in-world histories fronting the chapters makes little sense in and of themselves, and only when I finished the book did I go back and re-read those sections, just to get a handle on what the world-building was. Wells shows and not tells, and what she shows is often colored by Kai' viewpoints in the two eras.

And there are two eras to Kai's personality as well. Past-Kai is a junior demon coming to terms with his role among his people, and as such more innocent. Present-Kai has lived through an empire's rise and its fall and is much more cynical and untrusting. You can see how the character had grown (and been harmed) over the interim. And it is not impenetrable as, say, aGene Wolfe novel but it takes some awareness to understand.

Magic is similarly not explained, but demonstrated. Spells are intentions, magicians are expositors, constructs are amalgams or chimera. Its more than just a renaming, but rather a reconfiguring of traditional tropes, and you the reader are expected to keep up. 

AND Wells turns a couple fantasy-tropes upside down, literally such as when Kai talks about the Top of the World being the south pole. Pale-skinned folk come from the colder southern islands. There are a lot of matriarchies, which are not presented as exceptions but as norms. Gender preference and identity is fluid. Women in Kai's orbit are the majority, not the token minority. 

And, all this works. Wells is fantastic writer who has created an involved world with a complex story to it. She skips of the epic bits - how the Hierarchs specifically captured Kai, and how the new alliance drives out the Hierarchs. It concentrates on the important bits for Kai - survival in the past, and discovery of a conspiracy in the present. As I said, I put the book aside several time, but each time I re-engaged, I found myself swept up in it. 

This one is up for a Hugo, and yeah, I can see that. It is a doorstop fantasy novel, and I am relieved to know that it is (currently) only a solitaire. While I really like Wells' shorter, more contained works, the presentation of world and the flow of the narration is excellent, and I would not be surprised if it took the award this year.

But yes, it does put demands on you, the reader. And it rewards them. 

More later. 

Theatre: Season's End

 Clyde's by Lynn Nottage, Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, Arts West, June 6-30, 2024

Jinkx Monsoon & Major Scales Together Again, Again! Created by Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales, Original Music by Major Scales. Seattle Rep, 31 May-23 June,2024

The Lovely Bride (herein known as the LB) and I have season tickets to local theatres Arts West and the Seattle Rep, but rarely do the stars align such that we have plays at both the same weekend. On this particular sunny Seattle weekend, we did, and so the entire weekend became theatrical in nature. And eating. Lots of eating.

Friday we set out for West Seattle on the far side of the industrialized Duwamish river for dinner and show. The dinner was at the Phoenicia, our go-to place in good weather as we like to eat on the patio outside. They know us there by now - we're the older couple that orders way-too-many small plates and defeats the lot of them. Olives, pita, hummus, burrata, manila clams, green beans and lamb chop lollypops. Baklava to go. This time, for once, there was no parking weirdness. 

On to the play. Clyde's is a truck stop restaurant on the off-ramp to purgatory run by Clyde (Tracy Michelle Hughes), literally the boss from hell, who torments a kitchen crew of ex-cons that no one else will hire. The kitchen staff in return have banded together into a demi-family who trade fantasies of sandwich combinations and try to create that perfect bite. Montie (Reginald Andre-Jackson, last seen tearing up the stage in the Rep's Fat Ham) is the zen master of sandwiches, and the only one who doesn't seem afraid of Clyde. Rafael (Jacob Alcazar) is the acolyte, seeking to learn from the master. Tisha (Deja Culver) tries, but is too weighed down by her reality. And Jason (Joe Moore), is the new guy, whose racist tats are scribed on a very sensitive flesh.

The dialogue is as rapid-fire and intense as a kitchen in the weeds. The character laugh, yell, argue, and fume at full volume. The actors throw everything into it, and leave nothing in the tank afterwards. Hughes' portrayal of Clyde is that of head devil, rampaging in make everyone's life miserable, knowing that her staff has nowhere else to go. The set itself is an intensely detailed kitchen, its walls stained by smoke and pain. 

The LB says it was the best play of the season, and I would agree, though I will note that the entire season from the Arts West was excellent. English was very good, Born with Teeth was excellent, and Matt & Ben was OK in a weird, quirky way. Hedwig didn't work for me, and I am filled with Christmas charity for the cheesy, breezy Snowed In. In General, Arts West had more hits than misses, and is a strong season of seriously good performances. 

So, that was Friday. Saturday, after the last practice session of our Tai Chi class (we get three weeks off) and poke (from Big Island in Renton), we decamped for Seattle Center. This year they moved the matinee performance up to noon, so we decided to stay in town overnight as opposed to rushing around on Sunday morning. So we stayed overnight at the Mediterranean Inn, a nice 3-start hotel caddy-corner from Dick's Drive-in (and with that, everyone in Seattle knows where I am talking about). Most of clientele are families going on cruises, gathering in Seattle before heading off to parts unknown. Nice rooms, but the strong recommendation is the rooftop patio, which gives a sweeping view of Queen Anne Hill, the Needle, Rainier, the docks, West Seattle, and the Olympics. The LB and I spent the afternoon and early evening on that deck, reading (Demon Copperhead for Kate, while I finished up a Raymond Chandler novel (more on that sometime later). I got takeout from our fave place in the area, Racha Thai - calamari, fresh rolls (for her) chicken satay (for me), bananas in coconut milk (desert for her) and black sticky rice (for me). So yeah, we've been eating out a lot this weekend.

Breakfast was at the Mecca Cafe, a bar that serves all day breakfast. Denver omelet and hash browns for me, oatmeal and ham for the LB. One of the two elevators in the hotel broke down, so all the guests going on cruises with all their luggage had to manipulate the surviving lift (the younger couples took their luggage down multiple flights of stairs instead). We spent the late morning on the roof again, which the cruise people had abandoned. The LB had gotten some advance parking in a lot a few blocks away, and to my surprise, everything worked. Has the curse been lifted? (OK, the lot was a little too far from the theater, and the LB had to take the walk in stages, but we still got there in plenty of time - she is a little brilliant that way).

So, the Rep. I can honestly say we has seen Monsoon and Scales back in the before-time, before she won RuPauls' Drag Race a second time and got to be a Doctor Who villain. I likes the performance then. This one? Not so much. The conceit of the show is that this is the final reunion of vocalist Monsoon and pianist Scales in a dystopian future where the sun has burned out and gelatinous aliens are in charge.  Fun times. And both characters have seen better days, as Monsoon Norma-Desmonds her way through memories and songs, while the age-makeuped Scales is equal parts provocative Larry David and subservient Renfield. There's not much of plot, rather just a framework for the songs, most of them about the perils of getting old. Maybe that's what frustrates me, as a bonified, card-carrying old person. A lot of references to Drag Race, which I had never watched and so the references went over my head (but landed firmly with the quartet of young women behind us). Monsoon's voice is amazing and Scales keyboard work was great. In the intimacy of a cabaret show, or even the smaller Leo K theater, all this probably could work, but up on main stage of the Rep, not so much. Monsoon made the best of it interacting the decidedly less-than-full-house on that way-too-early-matinee, but it was just OK.

And I think "just OK" is the final judgement I have to throw at this Rep's season. Passengers was another not-quite-a-play but was another good performance. Islander was good. The queer-themed Little Women had challenges living up to the original text. Same with Fat Ham, thought the end result was much better. And ditto Quixote Nuevo, which had the additional sin of using puppets.  Sanctuary City was probably the best of the season and was darn good. So yeah, there have been better years, and this season had a brace of solid performances. But were this baseball, we would be talking about it being a building year. Next year's agenda looks much stronger. 

And that was our weekend. We headed home, got a couple small pizzas from the local Romio's, and collapsed in the hanging chairs overlooking our back yard. I think I've had enough activity for a little while.

So how was your weekend?

More late,

Book: A Conventional Murder

 Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov, Fawcett Crest paperback edition, 1976

Provenance: Half-Price books down in Tukwilla, picked up before a trip to the MisCon convention in Missoula, Montana. When I fly, I tend to read old paperbacks. They are small, light, and, if forgotten on the airplane, easily replaced. They also, I believe, are slowly going extinct, replaced in the first-run bookstores with larger trade paperbacks. So there is a whiff of nostalgia and slowly decaying pulp about them. I like 'em.

This particular volume belonged to a John Braschler, and had as a bookmark a ticket to see Doctor Strange in 3D at the Pacific Science Center on 11/19/2016. Add to that a bookmark from Half-Price, and a sticker from SKS Props, another guest of the convention, given to me by owner Steve on the plane trip back from Missoula, Montana, so the physical book has its own history.

It is kind of strange, reading a book about a murder at a convention over Memorial Day weekend, while I was traveling to and from a convention over Memorial Day weekend. Such is life.

But what about the book? Well, I didn't care for it much, but decided to bull through it (and then write about it). Another advantage of old spinner-rack paperbacks. Even if you don't like 'em, you can still power through them.

Review: Isaac Asimov is known primarily for his SF and nonfiction science, but wrote mysteries as well. His best-known were about the Black Widower Club, where a bunch of writers gather for dinner, are presented with a  mystery, cast about options and opinions, then have the waiter solve it for them (usually the mystery revolves around someone mis-hearing or misunderstanding something). And in this case, Asimov was hired by Doubleday to write a full mystery novel set at the American Bookseller's Association, which was held in 1975 in New York City (he never identifies the city in the book, but Asimov says he attended the 1975 convention to pick up local color). 

And I attended ABAs and ALAs (American Library Association) about a decade later, when they had reached their apex such that the attending editors would bring along their assistant editors as sherpas to carry out all the free books offered. And Asimov gets the ambience and panels and celebrities and hurley-burley pretty correct. 

Supposedly Asimov based his main character, Darius Just, on fellow writer Harlan Ellison (who he dedicates the book to). And it's a pity that he didn't use more Ellison, who carved his own trail through SF as a brilliant writer, a complete mensch, and a raging pain in the butt, all at the same time. Darius Just is simply a height-deficient midlist writer, successful with a bad movie adaptation, as was Ellison in the mid-70s. That portrayal lacks the fire, irritation, ego, and lyrical verbal swagger of the original version's public persona, even in those days. Asimov's Ellison-clone is a wan, fatalistic figure who believes in the immovability of fate in addition to his own personal culpability in that fate. That's a shame.

Oh, OK, the plot. Darius Just is a semi-popular midlist writer asked to do an interview at the ABA by a friend. Also at the convention is Giles Devore, who Just mentored. Devore's first novel was a huge hit. Devore has become a complete jerk, his infantile obsessive-compulsive nature offending all around him. Just finds him dead in the bathtub and we're off to the races. And because Devore is so obsessive-compulsive, Just suspects murder.

And to be honest it plods a bit.  Mind you, Asimov's fiction tends towards the bloodless - people talking and thinking as opposed to people doing. And that style is evident here as Just rolls through suspects and prospects throughout the book. Asimov takes his time getting to the point - we are about a third through the book before the deserving victim finally croaks.

In addition, the book is filled with liberated 70s sexism, that Playboy-era mindset where equality meant that women had the right to have sex with you. Darius Just comes off a horndog, and Asimov (who writes himself into the novel, working on a book called Murder at the ABA - very meta) self-identifies as a lecherous flirt (and is praised for it). Add to that the fact that almost every female character in the book is described is sexual terms (bustlines and body-shape are a major factor here). And victim Devore has his own personal kinks. The end result is, as kids today say, cringe. 

The mystery is mechanically OK. I tagged the murderer early on, primarily in terms of the book's pacing (non-important suspects drop away from the narrative, but the true murderer keeps popping up). I also tweaked to the key clue. But I missed the full rationalization for the crime, in part because writing technology has changed from the mid-seventies.

Ultimately, the book comes off as dated and my eyes rolled many times in the reading - Stan! was traveling with me, and noted that I would read a few pages, then close the book and look into the middle distance for a short time before returning to the text. It's not great Asimov, but more on the level of his other mysteries. I would've liked to see Harlan Ellison as a main character as opposed to this dry-veined doppelganger. He'd have been an interesting detective.

More later, 

Recent Arrivals - North Texas Edition

 Along with the usual bunch of new arrivals from Kickstarters and convention purchases, this write-up includes candidates for the North Texas RPG Con's Three Castles award, which I and others have been asked to judge. As a result, a big box of stuff arrived that I spent several week-ends pawing through.

The excellent North Texas RPG Convention and its awards are very much OSR, and for the awards I judge primarily on that basis. But because I am judging, I dig a little deeper into the works than I normally do with my other  "Recent Arrivals" entries. The judging has rules which stress heavily originality and presentation as well as textural content, so I'm looking at that as well in the final judging. But it also means that I may like a product for one of the applicable categories, but find that it comes up short in the other areas. Such is the nature of judging.

Looking at the candidates for the Three Castles, we have:

Splinters of Faith by Gary Schotter and Jeff Harkness, Frog God Games, 454 page hardback, 2022. This massive campaign adventure was originally ten earlier adventures which are now reunited into one thick volume. High quality, lotta maps, lotta handouts, including postcards (!). Set in the Lost Lands, the adventure is a grand tour of various temples and holy sites, and its through-line involves restoring the Scepter of Faiths in order to face the final baddie. The adventure starts with missing chickens (hey, it's first level) and ending up around 14th level in battle with a death-priest of Orcus. 

Shadowdark, by Kelsey Dione, The Arcane Library 326-page digest-sized hardback, 2023.  This is the one in corner with the silver beholder/eye tyrant/sphere of eyes on it. I talked about it here. And after doing a deep dive on it, it pretty much stands as I originally described it - if you turned 5th edition into an Old School product, this would be it, with a lot of cool table rules. I liked it a lot. My copy from the review package went to Stan!, who is running in a campaign that uses the game.

Three Curses for Sister Saren by Mike Pike and Levi Combs, Planet X Games, 54-page hardback,  2023. Previous Planet X releases tended to keep its tongue firmly in its cheek, but this one is actually a pretty solid, straightforward adventure. Here's the backstory - In order to defeat bandit raiders, the town leaders brought in demons. In order to get rid of the demons, they trapped them in the body of a pious cleric, chopped her up, and separated the parts. Now the body parts are leaking demons, with worse to come. Tidy little adventure where the players have to figure out exactly WHAT happened and HOW to deal with it, and combines both a linear plot with a sandbox setting. 

Megadungeon Monster Manual by Greg Gillespie, OSR, Greg Gillespie. I've run through Gillespie's dungeons with Steve Winter as my DM - Barrowmaze and Forbidden Caverns of Archaia. Therefore I've met some of these beasties first-hand, and suffered accordingly. This compiles the monsters from those books, along with the other books in the series. Art is at the original Fiend Folio level, which means it is pretty darn good. Monsters that have appeared in core (1st edition D&D) books get some tweaks for the OSR derivatives of the Open Gaming License, (Morale in particularly nice add). Excellent for those looking at the old-school monster books.

Dark Places & Demogorgons 1980s Retro Roleplaying Game Eric Bloat and Josh Palmer, 304 page digest hardback,  Bloat Games, 2022. System uses the Old School Rules from Necromantic Gnome. There is a subgenre in RPGs called Kids on Bikes. The ET movie was a good example (they played D&D after all), but it really bloomed with Tales of the Loop and of course, Stranger Things on Netflix. It is about High School Students (think Buffy) combating the weird stuff in a small town in Kentucky. Class-based, with the classes like Party Animal, Geek, Final Girl, and Most Excellent Dude (or Dudette). Digs deep into the Reagan-Era 80s, complete with satanic panic. Even has its own Upside-down, called the Otherside. Oddly, I am not sufficiently nostalgic for the era, but it is a good take on the media presentations of the times (When MTV actually played music videos).

Zeta Complex: Mankind's Lost Hope A Dark Humor Setting by Ben Burns, New Comet Games, 102-page digest Softbound, 2023. This one actually bothered me. On one hand, it uses Savage Worlds, but on the other hand it is little more than a reskin of the classic Paranoia from West End games. The Alpha Complex is the Zeta Complex, the Computer is the Authority, the Trouble-Shooters are now Operatives and you still get multiple clones. The art is cartoons plus last-year's Midjourney AI - dark and muddy. The end product actually makes me want to dig out the original game. 

Whisper & Venom by Zach Glazar, John Hammerle, and Edwin Nagy, 132-page hardback with fold-out map, Necromancer Games, 2023. This is a nice small-town setting - a small community filled with internal plots and conflicts, threatened by mutated goblins. One main adventure, a couple additional ones. It has nice maps, but could use some tags on them to make the GM's life easier (where IS that Monastery? - oh, there, in the far corner).

AND THE AWARD GOES TO: I'll tell you when I find out.

Meanwhile, some other things have crossed over the transom:

The Restless Dead by William Wandless, 24 page staplebound zine,, and A Puppethand's Guide to the Rainy City by Anred D. Devenney, 16 page saddlestitched zine, Superhero Necromancer Press, 2024, Kickstarter.. I think I've mentioned that I am a fan of zines, and the Rainy City series has been exceptionally good. The central conceit centers on the last city of a flooded world, which has a surprising amount of puppet shows and an unsurprising amount of ghosts. Presentation is sharp, the art evokes old woodcuts, and vibe is very much like Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. I like them. 

Eat The Reich by Grant Howitt (words) and Will Kirkby (art), 72-page full-color squarebound book, and an  big envelope filled with stuff - a character and map sheet pack, stickers, patches, bookmarks, and postcards, Rowan, Rook, and Decard, 2023, Kickstarter. You are a team of vampire commandos infiltrating occupied Paris to find Hitler and drink his blood. That's it. A lot of necromantic Nazi-punching. This is very much an art game, where the presentation overwhelms the mechanics, and has all the hall-marks of edgy production values - dutch angles for blocks of text, reversed-out text headers, and red on black backgrounds (did White Wolf teach us nothing?) A lot of DMing advice as well, which boils down to "Yeah, you're running Nazi's, but don't feel too bad when they die. Messily." Very much Magnificent Bastards meets Dracula. Surprised not more people are upset about this. 

Cthulhu Awakens Mythos Roleplaying Across The Weird Century by a veritable host of talented people (sorry, 13 credits are a bit much for even me), 288-hardback, Green Ronin, 2024, Kickstarter. Kickstarter version is the one with the gold foil cover. Production values are up to GR's standard excellence, and the system is their AGE (Adventure Gaming Engine) system, 3d6 where one die is a different color and called a stunt die, which determines degree of success and stunt points available (stunt points are special effects, actions, and bonuses). A lot of recent games have recognized the hard-baked bigotry of HP Lovecraft, but this one has gone the furthest in pulling it completely away from the original creator - The Elder Gods are now Outsiders, Insanity is replaced by Alienation, and the text pulls the mythos out of Lovecraft's racist clutches. The Outsiders as a result are truly uncaring cosmic beings, which pushes the nihilistic nature of Lovecraft's cosmology nicely in a new way. Most of the action (in two attached adventures) shows that their minions have their own agendas as opposed to being malicious for the sake of maliciousness, and the destruction they wreck being often just collateral damage. Its an excellent take on the mythos, and again, I'm surprised that few people have noticed. The Kickstarter came with the Dreadcrawls zine, Issue Zero (by Jesse Heinig, 28 pages), which sets the stage for Cthuloid hotspots, but can be used with any system.

Eberron, Rising from the Last War, Gold Edition, by Jon Ciccolini, Matthew Lillard, Bill Rehor, Charlie Rehor, Paul Shapiro, Big honking 2" deep box of stuff, 2020,  Beadle & Grimm,, Gary Con. This was a leftover from Gary Con, where they offered it as a freebie for folk working the con, and I was interested in what went into a B&G version. The answer is a lot. They carved the original E:RftLW hardback into 6 booklets, making them easier to pass around the table. DM Screen, campaign maps, battle maps, player handouts, magic item cards, oversized Encounter cards, some Bonus Encounters, and Pre-gen characters. rub-on dragonmark tattoos, a metal feather token, and some plastic dragonshards. The end result carries a LOT of weight to it. Intriguing, but the hardback would probably meet my needs well enough.

Vecna, Eve of Ruin by Amanda Hammond (lead designer) and others, 256-pages and full-sized map. 2024. Wizards of the Coat, purchase at Miscon. Presentation values are the industry-leader and industry-standard. This is a "Crisis on All The Planes" adventure for the very high level adventurers. Vecna is trying to reboot the multiverse and you need to stop him. The adventure is a grand-tour of the old TSR settings - Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft and the Outer Planes all get a chapter (though not the later settings like Theros, Ravinca, or Strixhaven). The Rod of Seven Parts provides the McGuffin for the through-line, and there are more than a few thing I created that show up (insert Leo DiCaprio meme of pointing at the screen here when they name-check Habbakuk). It is interesting, and I'd like to see how it would perform in play at high levels. It also feels like the last product in the line, sort of a send-off to the earlier edition and that Post 5.5/6.0/Beyond D&D could abandon the entire hardback-book route and go entirely on-line. But maybe that's just me. Then again, if it happens, you read it hear first.

More later,