As with other posts in this series, I’m posting about books sometimes weeks after reading them. In this case, I’m actually waiting to post this until after I’ve played the game, since I happen to be playing in a one-shot trying it out this weekend. Wanderhome is a relatively rules-light, fantasy RPG featuring anthropic-animal player characters who wander around, expressing and enacting care towards others, expressing their personality while keeping their secrets and staying attentive and open to the world and to those who cross your path. It’s cozy, pastoral, rules-light, and… has no mechanics for violence. If you’ve played many …
Month: February 2022
Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 3, by Various Artists
Just like with the previous volumes of this series, I read this book in a single sitting to my son, who was enthralled all the way through. I’d never read him anything that he was so interested as to insist on returning to it every day till it was done, the way he was with this series. (However, he is now similarly enraptured by David Weiger and Terryl Whitlatch’s The Katurran Odyssey. Expect a post on that at some point.) I know I praised the second volume of Legends of the Guard for embracing a wider variety of styles and …
Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses and The Anti-Racist Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
Before I discuss these books, I want to note that I was able to borrow both in ebook form from my local library: that is, the National Library of Korea’s Sejong branch. I didn’t expect them to be available, but to my shock they both were! (If you’re in Korea, Libby connects with the National Library—or at least your local branch—pretty much seamlessly… at least for English-language books.) Anyway, as always, I’m sharing this at some remove after reading the books I discuss. I actually read these way back in early January, but it took me a while to collect …
Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2, by Various Artists
Like with Volume 1, I read to my eager and happy son, who loved it as much as the first, and was just as eager to get to the third volume. (We finished it long after his bedtime and he was yawning but still was upset when I told him we’d do the third book the following day.) I liked how the range of styles and approaches expanded. One of the “tales” is in the form of a song, and I am curious to try see if I can figure out a way of making a nice recording out of it! …
Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1, by Various Artists
My son took an interest in this boxed set, which I got for my wife a couple of years ago. So… I sat down and read Volume 1 to him in a single sitting. He adored it, and was crestfallen that we couldn’t read Vol. 2 immediately. (But by that point—after about an hour and forty minutes straight of doing voices—my throat was getting a bit hoarse and it was his bedtime.) This series consistes of short Mouse Guard-related tales by other authors. They’re lore set in the world, but aren’t canonical events so much as folktales, legends, and fairy …