Under a Black Rainbow

JANUARY  (7 books | 2,036 pgs) 01.) The Game Master's Book of Villains, Minions, and Their Tactics (Game Manual, 256 pgs) | 4/5 02.)  The Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons (Game Manual, 256 pgs) | 4/5 03.) Loteria by Cynthia Pelayo (Stories & Poetry, 344 pgs) | 3/5 04.) The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (Novel, 528 pgs) | 2/5 05.) Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (Graphic Novel, 384 pgs) | 3/5 06.) Root Rot by Saskia Nislow (Novella, 140 pgs) | 3/5 07.) The Undead by Johan Egerkrans (Art, 128 pgs) | 4/5 *     *     * I am late in posting my monthly reading list and personal updates. The new job is full of wonderful people and challenging work, but I often feel like my productivity is being used inefficiently. There are ways to mitigate this, and I'm working on it.  But this struggle makes for a crowded headspace. After being in the office all day most of the week, I yearn for the silence of...

I've had a strangely large number of conversations in the last two weeks about the nature of authenticity, itself a comment on truth as a whole.  Because so much of what life has thrown at us in recent years is composed of digital falsehoods pushing nonsense, linguistic labyrinths meant to confound, and a wholesale weaponization of language forcing ideologies to clash against each other...it can be hard to find the authenticity in life sometimes.  The internet was lauded early on as some great bastion of learning. It was also touted as a way to further connect people of differing backgrounds and ideas. Though presented as a kind of great technological, cosmopolitan symposium like those held in ancient Greece among statesmen and politicians and philosophers, it has become simply another great example of our idealism outshining the reality of what would actually happen. Rather than being a pure way of spreading truth and knowledge, we've basically polluted the digital ocean in t...

SEPTEMBER  (5 books | 1,175 pgs) 35.) Death My Own Way by Michael S.A. Graziano (Novella, 130 pgs) | 3/5 36.) The Goth House Experiment by S.J. Sindu (Stories, 209 pgs) | 3/5 37.) Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Stories, 284 pgs) | 4/5 38.) Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison (Novel, 168 pgs) | 2/5 39.) Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (Graphic Novel, 384 pgs) | 3/5 * Light month of reading, but I've been hyper focused on revising my resumes and cover letters, submitting to open work positions, and handling some family stuff in the background.  The only book I really enjoyed this month was Thomas Ha's Uncertain Sons and Other Stories . More sci-fi-leaning than I typically enjoy, but man that guy can worldbuild his ass off. Great collection of super punchy, vibrant places in some very similar wheres in some very similar whens, albeit VERY, VERY different. I'm shocked it's his first collection.  * Slight movements being made on the next ...

A few months ago, I noticed a new woman in the neighborhood. It's possible she's not new and that she only started appearing out in the street within the last several months.  Regardless, I live on a dead end street and I started seeing her on a daily basis. She plods down the middle of the road carrying this child like a giant, limp starfish. Based on the size of the child, I'm guessing they're anywhere from 8 to 10 years old, which seems a little older than should be carried by most parents.  Plus I've seen her out there in 100+ degree heat, stalking up and down the hot blacktop with the dead weight of this child strapped to her chest. She walks to the end of my street and then takes a right, heading down the longest street bisecting my neighborhood. Her walk is not a short one and it occurs multiple times a day.  The child is rarely ever moving much, if at all. My writing partner believes there is some kind of neglect at play, having seen the child in little othe...

  Wild year to come back to this series, but I'm glad it's back to allow a little escapism for those of us with darker hearts in need of filling.  And the latest season mostly delivers. Certainly more so than season 6 did, but here's how I ranked those episodes:  S6E1: "Joan is Dead" - This one was fine, if a bit over the top in moments (necessarily so). I give this one a solid 4/5.  S6E2: "Loch Henry" - Loved this one for the tension. It's dark, no one wins, and the use of tech is present in a fun way. My second favorite episode of the season: 5/5. S6E3: "Beyond the Sea" - My absolute favorite episode of this season. Great storyline, great worldbuilding, absolutely brutal ending that's so earned. A super enthusiastic 5/5 for sure.  S6E4: "Mazey Day" - Absolute nonsense. This felt less like a Black Mirror episode and more like a creature of the week thing. The only episode worse than this one was the final one. Barely a 1/5, b...

  MAY  (7 books | 1,232 pgs) 07.) Francis Bacon, by Martin Hammer (Phaidon Focus) (Art, 144 pgs) | 4/5 08.) We Live Inside Your Eyes by Kealan Patrick Burke (Stories, 277 pgs)| 2/5 09.) Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (Novel, 209 pgs) | 4/5 10.) At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca (Novel, 227 pgs) | 3/5 11.) Inscrutable Cities by Julian K. Jarboe (Game Manual, 82 pgs) | 5/5 12.) We Were Called Specimens: An Oral Archive of Deity Marjorie (Stories, 139 pgs) | 3/5 13.) Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazeterrica (Stories, 154 pgs) | 2/5 * I made mention in my last post about putting a pause on the work for An Atlas of Bone & Sorrow , my hybrid collection of fiction and nonfiction pieces addressing my own personal grief and how it affected my creative life (and my life in general). I did so because I felt a very serious creative momentum building up within me that had nothing to do with the project; my focus had shifted, as had the energy requir...

  Another trip to Ypsilanti, MI; another week of debauchery and horror gaming with some of the best to do it.  My first two years, I volunteered so that I could meet new people. Now I've met a ton of the regulars and show up a few days early so we can find ourselves congregated in the hotel bar, regaling each other with stories of prior gaming sessions or other Chaosium Con shenanigans from prior years.  The hotel bar provides a perfect nexus of a meeting point: you can see people enter the hotel from the front entrance, you can see them exiting the hotel side of things while heading out the entrance or to the convention center, or you can see people leaving the convention center to head back to the hotel. It's a perfect place to catch literally anyone at the con if you haven't seen them yet.  The first few days before gaming, vending, or panels begin is a good time to stock up on supplies from the HoD or Kroger's, and snag some grub from other local restaurants that...

  MARCH  (1 book | 266 pgs) 05.) The Genocide House by Robert Kloss (Novel, 266 pgs) | 2/5 * March remains an incredibly tough month for me; mom's birthday comes at the beginning of the month, mine in the middle, then the anniversary of her passing near the end. There is no part of the month where her absence is not felt despite my trying to simply get through it all.  But this month has been especially tough, both personally and professionally. I won't expand on the personal stuff, though it weighs relatively heavy. But professionally, I'm getting my ass handed to me on a daily basis. The education I'm getting is good; the realization that I'm still not at the level I want to be...is frustrating. And that's all on me, I'm finding.  There is a mountain of things I need to learn in order to be half as good as I want to be at my job. And though I still love the work, it has been a really, really hard month. Some of that is work related, a fair amount remains e...