Scroll down this post for the latest updates. For roundups of my 2023 activities in podcasting, gaming, videos, etc., please see here and here. Activities from before then are listed further back in my blog.
AUDIO: The SFFaudio Podcast #767 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Charwoman’s Shadow by Lord Dunsany, published Jan. 1, 2024. I discussed the novel with Scott Danielson and host Jesse Willis. I really enjoyed this old-fashioned fairy tale set in Spain. The audiobook is 7 hours, 40 minutes, and our discussion follows, bringing the podcast up to a total of 9:37:39. I haven't had a chance to review our discussion yet, but I certainly enjoyed exchanging thoughts about the book.
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio-podcast-767-audiobook-readalong-the-charwomans-shadow-by-lord-dunsany/
UPDATE 2/7/24:
GAMING: On Wednesday, Jan. 17, I played a Call of Cthulhu one-shot on the Shadows of Nox Discord channel (video and audio). I thought it was being taped, but it hasn't been released as of 2/7/24.
On Saturday, Jan. 20, I played another session of the Stargate RPG, with Andrew Pontious as the DM. As always, I had a lot of fun. It was private, as usual, so it wasn't recorded. I STILL NEED TO EDIT OUR FIRST SESSION, THOUGH.
UPCOMING: I have a private Star Trek Adventures game set for Sat., Feb. 10, and another Stargate game set for Sat., Feb. 17.
CONVENTIONS: I went to Capricon in Chicago Feb. 1-4 and came back Feb. 5. I played my first game of Traveller with the Fan GOH, Victor Raymond, and attended a lot of panels. Very pleasant!
UPDATE 2/9/24:
VIDEO/AUDIO: I was on The Skiffy and Fanty Show's Looking Back, Looking Forward discussion last Friday, where Shaun Duke, Paul Weimer, Brandon O'Brien, Daniel Haeusser and I discussed Books, Media and Other things that we'd enjoyed in 2023 and that we are anticipating in 2024. Currently the VOD is on twitch.tv/alphabetstreams (Shaun Duke's Channel), but eventually this will be edited into a podcast.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2058256572
(Update: This was posted on the Skiffy and Fanty podcast feed on Feb. 17 at
https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/759lookingbackmovingforward/
as a and YouTube video on Feb. 18 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibtWceJvwq8 .)
UPDATE 2/25/24:
GAMING: I played three role-playing games in February: Star Trek Adventures on Sat., Feb. 10, Stargate (by Wyvern) on Sat., Feb. 17, and Cthulhu Invictus on Sat., Feb. 24. All three were over Discord speech/video, and Stargate and CI also used Roll20. Both Paul Weimer and Andrew Pontious are very good gamemasters who do a lot of preparation but roll with it when players strike off in unexpected directions. Zoekitten (who offered the CI one-shot via The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord) is also fun to play under; she used the scenario Akhenaten Unveiled, where we were servants of the old gods taking action against the heretic monotheistic pharaoh.
I'll be playing several more private games during A Weekend with Good Friends, a free online gaming convention organized by The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord channel, this weekend. I'll be playing a science fiction game in the Bulldogs system, a villagers vs. monsters (or aliens) game in the Mutant Crawl Classics system, and a Nahuatl (Aztecs) vs. conquistadors game (we're the doomed Nahuatl) in the Unknown Armies system. And who knows, I may also end up in a pickup game or two!
VIDEO/AUDIO:
Paul Weimer used to do a regular column for Skiffy and Fanty, called "Mining the Genre Asteroid", back before the blog went on hiatus. Now it's been reborn as a discussion and podcast, intended for every month or two. It's being first broadcast live on Shaun Duke's Twitch stream, then converted into podcasts and YouTube videos.
The first "Mining the Genre Asteroid" revival episode, on Feb. 16, had Paul, Shaun and me discussing The Demon Breed (1968) by James H. Schmitz, which featured a female scientist using her planet's ecological expertise to fight alien invaders. Rarely for the time, especially for male writers, Schmitz often wrote using tough, competent female protagonists, usually without even a male love interest. We had a good time talking about this one! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2064916424
The podcast https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/760demonbreed/
and YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvOZQJugbZ4
were both released on Feb. 22.
AUDIO: I'm in The SFFaudio Podcast #774 – READALONG: Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, released Feb. 17, with host Jesse, and Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Jonathan Weichsel. The discussion is almost 3 hours long, and does not include the audiobook. I definitely recommend skipping the audiobook, unless you're a serious genre historian, because there are a lot of vile ideas in this post-apocalyptic exploration. Maybe read Steven Barnes' Lion's Blood instead, if you want to read about an America where Blacks rule over whites (because the Plague killed off 90% of Europe in the Middle Ages). But you may still be interested in our discussion, because we had a LOT to say about this book.
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio-podcast-774-readalong-farnhams-freehold-by-robert-a-heinlein/
UPDATE 3/5/24:
GAMING: I was offered a slot in a Moonlight on Roseville Beach game on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord's A Weekend with Good Friends free online role-playing games convention, on Thursday, Feb. 29, but I had to back out with an hour's notice because one of my freelance science editing projects ran long. However, someone else snapped up the slot within 5 minutes of its availability being posted, so I didn't feel too bad. I've played this game before, and it's fun with a willing crew, and easy to pick up.
As the convention continued, I played 3 RPGs on Saturday, March 2, and every one of them had a no-show. Now, THAT is rude! But, whatever the GMs may have had to do on their ends to adjust threats/balances, things appeared to go smoothly from the players' viewpoints, and we had fun anyway. I won't put other players' names here, in case they expected privacy (games were not permitted to be recorded or streamed).
Slot 9, 10-2 Saturday, March 2: Diverted Through a Nebula, for Bulldogs (FATE system), run by River, with three other players and me (and a no-show). It was a science fiction game, where we were exploring a derelict sending out a distress signal, but it wasn't abandoned after all. I hadn't played Fate before, but I had watched and listened to several Fate-based Actual Plays, and the GM was pretty good at talking us through our options. I played a medic ejected from a military service for triaging people and saving supplies TOO efficiently, and losing too many patients. My goal was to find something worth writing a paper about so someone would buy my contract back into civilization from the fringes. I enjoyed my RP, and so did the GM (who found something nice to say about everyone). Good game!
Slot 10, 3-7 Saturday: Temple of the Sk'wik for Mutant Crawl Classics, run by Blythy, with two other players and me (and a no-show). It started out with me, playing a sentient plant, with a human and a rat-mutant with a gun, all defending our village from gun-wielding wormy invaders, but took several unexpected technological turns. Not much RP, but a ton of fun action!
Slot 11, 7:30-11:39 Saturday: A Bed of Roses for Unknown Armies, run by mellonbread, with two other players and me (and a no-show). This was set during the fall of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), and we were struggling against the conquistadors. Again, I hadn't played Unknown Armies, or watched/seen it, but our GM talked us through it, and I had a fantastic time once I got the hang of it. I was extremely satisfied with my glorious Flowery Death that saved my son to fight another day! The GM has a wonderful write-up of the one-shot here:
https://bellenmred.blogspot.com/2024/03/unknown-armies-bed-of-roses-playtest-two.html
UPDATE 3/22/24:
GAMING: I played another really fun game of Star Trek Adventures on March 9. What had been planned as mainly a medical research/rescue mission turned out to have a lot of political angles, at least in the mind of my acting captain. We found a cure for the plague, but then various territorial/warlord wars heated up on that planet, and now numerous people are asking our ship for asylum.
On March 16, I played "Trailer Park Shark Attack" on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord. It was a lot of silly fun. I forget the system, but it was pretty simple to pick up. The venue was Owlbear Rodeo, which only requires the GM to have an account.
VIDEO/AUDIO:
On Friday, March 1, I streamed on Shaun Duke's alphabetstreams Twitch stream with him and Paul Weimer, discussing Science Fiction Empires. That discussion was released as a podcast on March 10 (https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/762sfempires/)and on YouTube on March 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnZqbxVymZQ).
AUDIO:
I was on The SFFaudio Podcast #778 – READALONG: Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr., with host Jesse and Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel, released March 18. It's a grim but extremely well written novella from 1976, about a group of astronauts who return to Earth and find out that all the men there had been wiped out by plague long ago. Our discussion was very lively.
UPDATE 3/30/24
GAMING/VIDEO/AUDIO: On March 26, I played "Cats of Catthulhu II: The Wraith of Chan" on Shaun Duke's Twitch stream (https://www.twitch.tv/alphabetstreams). Cats of Catthulhu is a very light-hearted, light-on-rules role-playing game, unaffiliated with Call of Cthulhu or any other cosmic horror game as far as I know. But there IS weird/eldritch horror, as seen, reacted to, and affected by cats. Part I of this game was played privately on Discord a few months ago. In Part II, my character, the adorable Abyssinian Tora-Chan, had, unknown to themself, acquired an evil twin named Tora-Khan. Congrats to Paul for successfully Catherding us to a conclusion in less than 2.5 hours!
Currently, the game is on Twitch, but I'm hoping that it will eventually be posted to Shaun's YouTube channel.
In case it doesn't, I made some clips:
https://clips.twitch.tv/FaintVastBillTBCheesePull-oDWdWd1xJD5fLw9U (Tora-Khan-I-Do-The-Eating)
https://clips.twitch.tv/UnsightlyToughOysterWoofer-LsK_ZsjAdUigb2-C (CalamityButtonsAndMoonChildArgue)
https://clips.twitch.tv/FurryCrypticWombatVoteNay-8DWJ5AmRm0Lx85nn (WeShouldTakeTheVesselWithUs)
https://clips.twitch.tv/SuccessfulArtisticPeanutNerfRedBlaster-g34GPEXDoa4kuYeV (Tora-ChanVsMoonChild)
https://clips.twitch.tv/HelplessGoodAnteaterTwitchRaid-WWEulJMClIKHogE- (MoonChildEatstheSacredBean)
https://clips.twitch.tv/TardyDependableMeerkatFrankerZ-Q_QtSaP85fHdSWix (DrownTheBookAndPissOnTheGrave)
VIDEO/AUDIO:
On March 29, I was on the Skiffy and Fanty Show's Torture Cinema episode discussing Meteor (1979), starring Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Martin Landau, and a bunch of other people. It was honestly better than anyone expected, although the pacing was bad. Shaun Duke hosted the discussion on his alphabetstreams Twitch channel, and it should eventually be added on YouTube and as a podcast.
Meanwhile, here's a clip that ConfigurationQueen made of Shaun and me singing the "Meteor" theme that CQ wrote during the show: https://www.twitch.tv/alphabetstreams/clip/FlaccidSmokyMuleOptimizePrime-FU4vOZYW1o9uD7l1?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time
Unfortunately, our singing was out of sync due to the lag, but you'll get the idea.
(UPDATE 4/15/24: Here's the podcast: https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/766meteor/
and here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siz-ZLLVZfs )
AUDIO: I was on the Hugos There podcast released on March 27 that was a tribute episode to Vernor Vinge, who died March 20. Seth Heasley hosted, as always, and the other guests were Rich Horton, Olav Rokne, and Russ Newcomer. https://hugospodcast.com/podcast/vernor-vinge-tribute-episode/
On March 29, Andrew Pontious, David Schaub and I released an episode of Stargate SG-Fun that we had recorded in 2021 and finally got around to editing. This one, "Horse and Serpent Guards," was a deep dive into two episodes from Season 2, "1969" and "Out of Mind." Also, David attached pictures of Vancouver, where the show was filmed, from "1969" and the real 2021.
https://sgfun.space/horse-and-serpent-guards/
GAMING: I played a prompts-based science fiction game on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord server on March 30. It was a playtest for Foretold: From Earth, which should be available on itch.io next month. It doesn't use dice or character sheets; it's more like a one-shot that is a Session Zero where each player reacts to a prompt drawn randomly from a list (that's the only mechanic), and then everyone else yes-ands their ideas, expanding from what they've said to extend the worldbuilding. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but it needs to be played with a group of thoughtful, creative people, or it could end in stagnation or quarreling.
UPDATE 4/23/24:
GAMING: I played Call of Cthulhu: Poetry Night, a one-shot RPG, on Thursday, April 18, on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord. I played an arts-focused Twitch streamer who had permission for the first time to stream a poetry night from the Lakeside Coffee House, a tavern in Colorado. Unfortunately, someone chose to recite something from a forbidden tome. Most of the four characters made it back, only to find the world had changed. Lots of fun role-playing here. The keeper was Joseph.
I also played the Stargate RPG on Saturday, April 20. Andrew Pontious had set up a really fun two-part "season finale" for our team of five players, following the premise that each session of play represented a TV episode. As usual, this was over Discord with audio and video. Everyone got something to do that pulled on our strengths -- for instance, my Aturen character Jileria pulled apart Dr. Anderson's glasses to turn them into lockpicks so we could escape from a Goa'uld holding platform, but that's OK because Dr. A is a secret Tok'ra who doesn't really need glasses and just wears them for show.
AUDIO: About six months ago, I participated in The SFFaudio Podcast #783 – READALONG: Ill Met In Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber with host Jesse Willis and guests Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, and Jonathan Weichsel. It's an extremely well-crafted urban fantasy novella from 1970. However, some aspects of the characters and plot annoyed me, so soon after that, I reread S.M. Stirling & Shirley Meier’s novel, Saber & Shadow (1992). I compared and contrasted the two works for Skiffy and Fanty in "BOOK REVIEWS: ILL MET AND WELL MET" on Oct. 30, 2023. Now, on April 22, the podcast has finally been released. I haven't had a chance to re-listen to the discussion yet, so I can't guarantee that it won't have any annoying or stupid parts itself, but I do remember enjoying the discussion.
UPDATE 5/7/2024:
GAMING: On April 24, I played "CoC Pulp Cthulhu: Waiting for the Hurricane" on
TGFoJE Discord, set in Key West in 1935. It was fun, but it was a private game, so there's no link. I have a couple more private games coming up this Wednesday and Friday, should be fun! In PLAYTEST - Pulp Cthulhu: A Night at The Monolith, I'm playing a parapsychologist in 1935, and in Deep Freeze (Pulp Cthulhu), I'm playing an "egghead professor" in Alaska in 1936.
STREAMING: On May 3, Paul Weimer and I discussed Suzy McKee Charnas' Walk to the End of the World on Shaun Duke's Twitch channel for the Skiffy and Fanty Show. I had remembered it as basically a feminist rant from 1974, and it's certainly angry, but there's also a lot of interesting worldbuilding and really good writing craft. Here's the Twitch link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2136600063
Eventually there will be a podcast, too. UPDATE 7/31 I forgot to post this when it came out, but here's a direct link to the podcast, Skiffy and Fanty #776:
https://ia600401.us.archive.org/34/items/sand-f-776-charnas/SandF_776_Charnas.mp3
Also, here's the YouTube video, which came out in June:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xBPZ7zU9dU
AUDIO: The SFFaudio Podcast #784 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard. The podcast starts with the book being read by Connor Kaye (4 hours, 5 minutes), then has a discussion with Connor, host Jesse Willis, Alex, Jonathan Weichsel, and me.
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio-podcast-784-audiobook-readalong-skull-face-by-robert-e-howard/
UPDATE 5/11/24:
GAMING: I played 2 pickup one-shot RPGs this week and one in a campaign. Wednesday afternoon was "PLAYTEST - Pulp Cthulhu: A Night at The Monolith" on TGFoJE Discord, run by Zander, set in the 1930s. The setup was that a hotelier in the Appalachians had discovered a mummy and called in a bunch of experts to examine it. My pregenerated character was a parapsychologist. The game was limited in scope but interested; my biggest challenge was that with just voice and nothing to look at except occasional rolls in the text chat, pure theater of the mind, my attention kept wandering anyway.
Friday afternoon I played "Deep Freeze (Pulp Cthulhu)" on TGFoJE, run by Morpheus, also set in the 1930s but in Alaska. This one had a lot more elements going on, starting out with a car chase across the ice, pursuing Russian mobsters, then a boxing match, then in-town investigation, then a final confrontation at a secret base/temple. It ended up running an hour past the stated end time, although the Keeper said he'd already cut some stuff to shorten it to a one-shot. However, I had a lot of fun. Everyone was really engaged in it. My pregen character had an Irish background, so I put on an accent and did things like praying to St. Christopher, patron of travelers. It wasn't a *good* accent, but the other players appreciated the effort. This one also was voice with no video, but we also used the Roll20 virtual RPG environment. There weren't any maps, but there were illustrated character tokens and some beautiful landscapes/maps (and a chase counter for the first part). It just helped the immersion a lot.
Today I played Star Trek Adventures for the first time since March. This is an ongoing (sporadic) campaign with three other players, some of whom prefer to remain private, but they are really good gamers. This comprises creativity and ingenuity, LISTENING to the GM and each other (other characters' actions and goals), yes-anding them, passing the ball, and remaining engaged.
Today the GM originally intended a quick trip to the political center of the cluster and then on to the next mission, but we went off the rails pretty quickly. My character, Brevet Capt. t'Hrienteh (a Romulan, secretly a Rihannsu from Diane Duane's The Romulan Way alternate universe), held an officers' meeting for evaluations and assessments following our medical mission of mercy that ended up sparking war on the ailing planet. It became clear that NPC First Officer Gordon, who was transferred here at the same time I got my brevet promotion, had been foot-dragging and doing the minimum. This is affecting morale, including that of my new NPC XO, Faust. At the PC Ship's Counselor's recommendation, I ran training exercises, partly to give the First Officer opportunities to either shape up or screw up enough for me to act against him. Meanwhile, the PC Medical Officer, with whom I had a fair amount of friction during the medical mission, has been hovering on the brink of insubordination, but the Counselor appears to be drawing him into a plot against the FO, which helps me. Since the Counselor appeared to be gunning for ME at the beginning of this campaign, this is a little bit of a surprise, but he said to Dr. Siq'Suq that I've been doing a good job as a captain. None of this is helping me to get ready for the diplomacy on Meetpoint Station, though!
UPDATE 6/3/24
AUDIO: I forgot to mention before that on April 28, we at Stargate SG-Fun released Episode 14, "You Don't Have to Choose Your Favorite Child." In this, we ended our Season 2 discussions of SG-1 with an overview, picking our favorite and least-favorite episodes.
https://sgfun.space/you-dont-have-to-choose-your-favorite-child/
GAMING: On Friday, May 31, I wrapped up a two-part Pulp Cthulhu, "The Uncanny! Curse of Sekhmet" that started with my character and others confronting a bank robber on a plane in Italy, continued with rescuing a professor from a band of thugs, and ended with a scenario in Egypt reminiscent of the first Indiana Jones movie. This was GMed by Morpheus, on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord and Roll20, and as usual, I enjoyed the art that came with this adventure, which helped with immersion. Also helping with the immersion were the other characters, who threw themselves into the RP, as I did.
