Justin Howe's Blog, page 44

Ur Undone?

[image error]

Dan McPharlin’s “Year One”

It’s been almost a year and a half since the Vaults of Ur game began and it’s now looking like it’s winding down. The core players mostly want a break to play other games, not to mention the one player who’s been emotionally traumatized by what the ruins did to his character. I kid. I kid. But only sorta.

It was a fun year and change, and a good time getting back into the groove of running a game. I still don’t know what I’m doing and could certainly do it better, but...

Cartoon Animals Always Look So Happy About Being Eaten

April Books

Last Dragon – J.M. McDermott

A strange bit of epic fantasy that’s ambitious in style but lacks a certain cohesion, so there are parts I enjoyed but other parts that didn’t quite click together. That said, it was certainly refreshing to read secondary world epic fantasy that wasn’t simply one damn thing after another for six hundred plus pages. This reminded me a bit of Peter Beagle’s Innkeeper’s Song. That didn’t in any way attempt to be epic. This did and suffered for it, but still was a curi...

One Book, Four Covers: Guy Endore’s The Werewolf of Paris

This book is pretty terrible, but it’s Fantomas terrible (if you read it fast enough, it’ll give you a contact high) so there’s something to be said for that.

Long considered the werewolf novel, Guy Endore’s The Werewolf of Paris reads like a mash-up of Les Miserables with the works of the Marquis De Sade. The novel centers on the plight of one Bertrand, afflicted from birth with lycanthropy. His step-uncle knows what Bertrand is and tries to curb B’s worse tendencies. But to no avail. Bertran...

Popeye Panels Daily

There’s a whole tumblr devoted to E.C Segar’s Thimble Theater (where Popeye came from). This makes me immensely happy.

On a side note, what exactly is tumblr for? I mean besides teaching me about contemporary TV through the medium of animated GIFs?

What a crazy week – my family was all worried about me getting caught up in some Korea crisis, when actually the crisis was back with them in Boston.

It’s always spooky when events happen because you know statistically the chances of people you know b...

Journey Planet 15

I have a short piece in issue 15 of the fanzine Journey Planet. Click that, scroll down, and download the free PDF. It’s the “write stuff” issue edited by Lynda Rucker and includes articles by Lynne Thomas, Jason R. Ridler, Kameron Hurley, and plenty of others.

My piece is a dandied up version of this blog post. For the record I’m no longer reading slush in any fashion.

North Korea, Our New Couch, and Me

I think my mom has emailed me more this week than she has in all the years the Internet, she, and I have existed on this planet together.

The US Embassy sent out an email yesterday that opened with:

“The U.S. Embassy informs U.S. citizens that despite current political tensions with North Korea there is no specific information to suggest there are imminent threats to U.S. citizens or facilities in the Republic of Korea (ROK). The Embassy has not changed its security posture and we have not reco...

March Books

I started grad school and am much busier this year than I have been in a while. The blog is likely to be the least of my priorities.

Here’s the book list for last month:

Alchemy and Alchemists – C.J.S. Thompson

Interesting and esoteric the best chapters are full of anecdotes from the lives of various alchemists.

Trafalgar – Angelica Gorodischer

Reads a bit like sitting in a cafe with your grandmother’s youngest brother, the great uncle that traveled everywhere and never seems to stop smoking, drin...

The Splendid and Profane Courts of the Abyssal King

The Abyssal King draws champions to his realm with the promise of glory and renown. It is a twisted, broken land, dotted with castles, towers, and ruins, scattered amid craggy peaks and thick, gloomy forests. Only the bravest, most daring, and ruthless can ever hope to win a place at the Abyssal King’s table. Others must wins service with the lesser lords and ladies, or carve a domain for themselves out of the wilderness where fearsome beasts dwell. And beneath it all the Moldrig wait, the cu...

The Other Book

The book I’ve been reading started to piss me off so I’ve started another, a reread of Fremder by Russell Hoban. The book’s a beautifully lean, but sloppy mess. I love it.

You know how it is when you’re sitting in a bar somewhere dark and quiet just breathing in and out and maintaining neutral buoyancy and a stranger starts talking to you and after a while he brings out of his pocket a letter coming apart at the creases; he brings out this letter to show you that at one time he mattered more t...