What are you reading in 2024?

[prabe]

I also love the novel. I wonder if you could use a game like Girl Underground, but tweak the setting and playbooks for January

I was hoping for something more conventionally structured--PbtA kinda fails to work for me. I'll poke around and see what I see.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I was hoping for something more conventionally structured--PbtA kinda fails to work for me. I'll poke around and see what I see.

Honestly, I'd love for it to be a parallel solo game, wherein there are agreed upon touchpoints, and then at some point it merges to become a duet game. It could be something that replicates oh so many "met on the train, realized we loved each other - but never shared anything about each other" type romance stories/tropes

 

[WayneLigon]

In the Shadow of Their Dying - Michael R. Fletcher, Anna Smith Spark

Grimdark fantasy novella - Tash, the third best assassin in Sharaam, Pitt, the merc crew leader, and Iananr the Bound, demon - trapped in Sharaam as a massive army lays siege to it with alchemical weapons of terrifying power. Let me tell you, reading this really got the RPG worldbuilding juices flowing. There are dozens of easily-stealable ideas in this book. Most of them horrible, horrible things to do to people.

This was short, good, and got right to the point. It's a grim and dark tale of bad people trapped in a worse situation that gets a lot worse when Tash is hired to kill the king and instead runs into into the king's bound demon protector who now has his scent. I don't think it's a big stretch to tell you 'don't get super-attached to anyone in this book'.

I'm going to need a palate cleanser after this one as well. Fortunately the latest Murderbot book is right there.

 

[overgeeked]

I’m reading the Game Master’s Book of Proactive Roleplaying and it’s fantastic so far. I tend to run player-driven, open-world sandbox games so a bit of this is old news to me, but the bulk of the book is packed with solid GM advice. The premise is basically to design your adventures around the players, the PCs, and their goals. Start with a session zero where the players come up with several short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Then build out factions, villains, etc that would naturally get in the PCs’ way. It’s great advice so far. Lots of details. Charts for generating ideas and goals, etc. I’m only about 40% done with the book and I’d already recommend it.

 

[bmfrosty]

Right now it's books nominated for this year's Hugo awards. I need to have an opinion if I am to vote.

 

[Richards]

I'm now reading Lisa Jackson's After She's Gone, about a woman looking for her little sister; they're both actresses (and daughters to a famous actress), the younger sister's really outshined the older one (causing feelings of resentment), and now the younger one's gone missing - after an "accident" on set wherein the younger actress's stand-in got shot and almost killed when someone snuck a real bullet into the gun used to shoot her character. (Yeah, I know, real-life shades of the "Rust" situation with Alec Baldwin, but this was published back in 2016.) So naturally, the older sister's on the suspect list, and she's out to try to find her missing sister and what happened to her. According to the blurb on the back, there will be other people dying and it looking like she did it, so she'll have her work cut out for her.

Johnathan

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

In the Shadow of Their Dying - Michael R. Fletcher, Anna Smith Spark

You ever read Glen Cook's Tower of Fear? The subject matter, tone and general situation are fairly similar, and as one of his rare standalone novels it's an interestingly concise story when compared to the Black Company or Dread Empire series. The epilog of the book is one of the most brutal "Ozymandius moments" I've ever read, but getting to that point is an enjoyably grim and twisty journey. Probably deserves to be better known, but with Cook (as with George RR Martin) the series tend to overwhelm the solo novels and short stories.

 

[Cadence]

You ever read Glen Cook's Tower of Fear? The subject matter, tone and general situation are fairly similar, and as one of his rare standalone novels it's an interestingly concise story when compared to the Black Company or Dread Empire series. The epilog of the book is one of the most brutal "Ozymandius moments" I've ever read, but getting to that point is an enjoyably grim and twisty journey. Probably deserves to be better known, but with Cook (as with George RR Martin) the series tend to overwhelm the solo novels and short stories.

I one trillion percent endorse this - including your remark about the epilogue. Tower of Fear is in my top few Cook things (with Passage at Arms, Shadowline, and several of his not-recent short stories). I also find his first six Garrett novels and his Dread Empire world building to seemingly be very under rated (even if it is pseudo-earthish).

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Tower of Fear is in my top few Cook things (with Passage at Arms, Shadowline, and several of his not-recent short stories).

His earlier work does tend to get overlooked, unfortunately, but they're some of my favorites of his body of work as well. I wasn't joking around on the Black Company RPG announcement thread when I wished for a game set in the Starfishers/Passage At Arms universe, even if I doubt it'll ever happen.

 

[Cadence]

His earlier work does tend to get overlooked, unfortunately, but they're some of my favorites of his body of work as well. I wasn't joking around on the Black Company RPG announcement thread when I wished for a game set in the Starfishers/Passage At Arms universe, even if I doubt it'll ever happen.

Especially if they get the Starfishers related short stories in there. (Does the one imply a Cook multiverse with Black Company and Starfishers?).