New Intergalactic Mixtape!
06.03.2026 15:58
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I am of course very excited to play it but just thoroughly amused about the path from the base game to this expansion.
The score pad, for Flamme Rouge Grand Tour. It has multiple sections taking 6 teams across finishing points, cumulative time, the green sprinters jersey, and the polka dot climbers jersey.
Let's play Flamme Rouge, it brilliantly stimulates the feel of cycling while only requiring you to play a card and move your rider that many spaces.
Let's play Flamme Rouge Grand Tour:
A bumper load of essays and reviews: our March link round-up is live!
Westminster Meeting House raided by Metropolitan Police again. Statement: “For Quakers, faith and action are inseparable. Peaceful protest, prayer and nonviolent action are integral parts of many Quakers' religious life. Whilst we take the planning of criminal acts very seriously, we believe that this incident is a deliberate targeting of committed young people who want to make our country a more equitable place. This raid is part of a systematic stifling of dissent. That this is the second time in a year that the police have raided our meeting house dramatically illuminates the broader trend in the UK of cracking down on those who disagree with the government. The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy. It's a key part of how people make their voices heard between elections.” – Oliver Robertson, Head of Witness and Worship Quakers in Britain, 5 March 2026
Yesterday evening, for the second time in a year, the Met Police raided Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young nonviolent activists.
STATEMENT: www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Decided I might as well give Slay the Spire 2 a go in early access.
Run 1, Ironclad: Die to the first map boss.
Run 2, Silent: Complete all three maps with ease.
#roguesupremacy
#whatifIjustthrowalotofpoisoneddaggers
part who-knows-what of an ongoing conversation with myself, in column form! these are not final, authoritative thoughts, partly because I am just not that interested in final, authoritative thoughts, but I do authoritatively feel that an us vs. them approach to genres is a mistake
I've always had a soft spot for the History plays and both of the Richards take the lead there.
Richard III gives the lead such a fun role and there's just some lovely language scattered all through Richard II.
2027 looking like it might end on a bang.
Book Review: The Salt Oracle, by Lorraine Wilson
Beware ghosts looking for a home says @stewarthotston.com at the NOAF blog:
www.nerds-feather.com/2026/03/book...
Who's a big fan of @readingtheend.bsky.social? The whole internet, that's who.
Really pleased Jenny is back at SH with this review on a curious romcomantasy (it's her term, don't @ me).
"Is this a good book? I don’t know. What even does it mean to be good?"
Book Review: China Mountain Zhang
A stone cold classic of future lives which holds up more than 30 years after it was written.
@dreddieclark.bsky.social has our review at the NOAF blog
www.nerds-feather.com/2026/03/book...
because I keep forgetting to mention it: LITERALLY ANYONE can nominate books for this prize! yes! that means you! you have until march 31st!
My favorite Critical Friends in a minute - I'm constantly banging the drum that style, the actual words on the page, is something we need to be talking about much more in speculative criticism.
Decided to write about one of my favourite novels - and a 90s SF classic - for @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social this month.
China Mountain Zhang is a prescient, brilliantly drawn collage of a China-dominated future from the perspective of people living that future at ground level.
Is there something in the air or is it just the Bader-Meinhof Effect?
In any case have just come across this delightful LOTR based project due to a mention on the RTFM podcast, scrolling a few hexes of things you could encounter in the Shire is a great break from the dayjob.
This week eminent gamesmaster @kierongillen.bsky.social and I got to talking about Mythic Bastionland, which, by sheer chance, we've just played a campaign of!
Hit or *myth*?
I make that joke several times, so please enjoy the repetition.
Today is a dark day for anyone who believes in sanctuary in the UK.
People who've fled war and torture should be able to rebuild their lives in peace and security - not live under a constant threat of removal.
We must not stop fighting these appalling anti-refugee laws.
It's time! Nominations are now open for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which will be given to a work of imaginative fiction, published in 2025, that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.
When There Are Wolves Again is a BSFA finalist! 🐺 Utterly delighted and in amazing company too. Congratulations to all the finalists!
www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...
Congratulations, thoroughly deserved.
Good Morning Womble.
I'm currently reading Luminous by Silvia Park. Currently lots of interesting things being touched on.
3D render of Colourfields by Paul Kincaid - a rainbow-coloured cover with white text - and a badge that says "BSFA finalist"
Delighted that Paul Kincaid's Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction is on the @bsfa.bsky.social shortlist! Congratulations to all the finalists: www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...
Treebeard The draught of water refreshing them, natural or not, see elves and their drinks A forest suspended in time "what Spring would look like here" Mirkwood vs Fangorn – tree-ish Light vs the dark of Mirkwood,a gap in the forest as in the Old Hello Treebeard, much less like a tree in description than I remember I enjoy the cutting to Pippin's remembrance There remains a whimsy that is effective at cutting through the epic, tonal consistency is overrated if you're good The Ent, echoes of Tom One day there will be a Fantasy unconcerned with names, not this day Young Saruman, Radagast unconcerned with trees, mild sass "And I might have said much the same, if you had been going the other way." We're still concerned with decentring perspective and the sin of the age being insularity. Time passing, struggling to hold it back or accepting change "It is quicker and closer with trees and Ents, and they walk down the ages together" The sadness of Treebeard vs the sadness of Elves, one rather more healthy It's interesting that nothing in Wellinghall is to scale but still it is a place of comfort
Like Éomer, Treebeard is taking in a lot Interesting comparison of responses to Sauron and Saruman Peter Jackson loves a cliffhanger, Tolkien really doesn't We're alas back to race speak and inherent evil Always fun to find dialogue used for the movies elsewhere Do love a bit of preparation and planning Chekov's Entwives will be staying on the mantlepiece thank you very much An almost reverse gender dynamic to Tom and Goldberry, doesn't take away from the intense gender of it all though Do you have thoughts about decline and the passing of time? Do Ents communicate like whales? There is a dignity to the Entmoot, it feels meaningful Ent on Ent sass Amongst it all there is still joy, and anger at its destruction Again the importance of resistance, whether successful or not, even in the face of loss It's also interesting that the match of the Ents is talked of as a fait accompli, Ents roused therefore war won. The chapter posits it more like Ragnarok then victory lap.
The White Rider And we return to the three Hunters, looking for meaning in events they cannot, at least yet, know The Hobbits, we shall know them by their snacking Aragorn plays Sherlock to Legolas' Watson We come again to Legolas for the eerie landscape report Even in these times, in a strange wood, we should not shoot a pensioner Who is the old man is held as a point of tension for a while even if clues are there And we go from that tension/surprise to declarative statements "the tide has turned" And again we meet Gandalf after a troublesome journey and the schedule behind all becomes clearer It was Gandalf at Amon Hen Despite all he has been through Gandalf still enjoys sass That Sauron cannot guess the purpose he would not intend remains one of the great lines through LotR "Yet a treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand" Opsec and Intelligence remain a nightmare to all Nazgul Mk II, Electric Boogaloo Saruman was just wandering around, it's a confused time "You are beset by dangers, Gimli son of Gloin" "Hope is not victory." The contrast of Aragorn and Gandalf hits, what is power. Gandalf vs the Balrog is a battle out of time, reported on as if from another story entirely. From Galadriel to Gimli, I liked you enough not to use poetry And now we solve the horse puzzle, also of course there are the lords of horses, why would there not be. And so we leave individual heroics and ride to war.
And next we come to two chapters which feel like a hinge in the events of Book 3, a turning of the tide perhaps.
My Locus piece on 2025 reading, in which I don't really know what's going on with American SF, find some unexpected pairings elsewhere, and have lots of good books to recommend throughout. locusmag.com/feature/the-...
Apologies for the full on thread, that got away from me.
Anyway different games for different tastes, I very much agree it would be lovely to get a boardgame or a TTRPG onto the shortlist but it feels unlikely. On TTRPGs Mythic Bastionland is one of my nominations at present, pays homage successfully to the true weirdness of the original Arthurian stories
Again, not really a case of one way of choosing to engage with the source materials better than the other. Neither can be accused of having a tacked on theme, looking at you Knizia's LotR. But the latter feels rarer, certainly it's less often been done with this much care and attention.
