What are you reading in 2026?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I read the Annihilation book, and watched the movie back to back.

Might be the unusual case where a movie is as good or better than the book.

The later books really deepen the setting in, to me, really compelling ways, while continually making sure to add on more weirdness and mystery (rather than solving it all, which too many series do, IMO). I love the movie but I think the Area X novels as a whole are better. But both are fantastic.

 

[billd91]

My wife and I just finished Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire by Don Martin. Now, we've started Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. And on the side, I've started Antony Beevor's The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II, which I just got last night as a belated birthday present from my sister.

 

[jian]

I don't think it's wildly unusual for (say) a movie adapted from a novel to be a better movie than the novel was a novel. I mean, both Jaws and The Silence of the Lambs are, IMO.

My wife really enjoyed this book, and I'll probably be reading it at some point. I'll gesture at the main point of this forum and say I think time loops are one of those conceits that will work better in a novel (or a movie) than in a TRPG--it's one of those things where the differences in the media really matter.

The time loop stuff is definitely well done, and I didn’t see the twist coming about it (to be fair, it’s basically irrelevant to the solution). I think you could do time looping in a RPG adventure and would definitely try it as a GM - anyone remember or played The Last Dance?

Spoiler

One thing that did disappoint me about the book is that as a genre-savvy reader I thought it likely that there were other loopers, for instance the grandfather (who’s telegraphed several times as being so), but this is sadly not the case or even mentioned or considered as a possibility. The Golden Spoon this is not.

 

[Voadam]

he time loop stuff is definitely well done, and I didn’t see the twist coming about it (to be fair, it’s basically irrelevant to the solution). I think you could do time looping in a RPG adventure and would definitely try it as a GM - anyone remember or played The Last Dance?

I've played a Groundhog's Day D&D session as a player that was fun and run a time travel through the Feywild plotline I came up with when running the Reign of Winter pathfinder adventure path that went well tying the PCs into having caused big setting history elements from their personal interactions with past Baba Yaga that I had not scripted out at all but recognized how things could tie in as we went and they made choices in the moment.

In D&D Dragonlance they have it as a setting element PCs can possibly get involved in, late 2e AD&D had the Chronomancer sourcebook, there are a couple time travel third party sourcebooks and modules besides The Last Dance for various editions of D&D, and there is the whole Doctor Who RPG line, among other non-D&D RPGs (Transdimensional TMNT, Terminator RPG, etc.).

Time travel in RPGs has a lot of potential to go either way, to be really fun or to just not work.