Reviews by Rak

Dicebox is a slice-of-life sci fi that, somewhere along the way, develops a major plot and a large ensemble cast. The story follows Griffen and Molly, two transient workers in a spacefaring society. They're happily married, but things aren't perfect-- Molly sees disturbing visions, and Griffen's past is coming back to haunt her.

Bonus points: Dicebox treats a vast array of races, classes, genders, orientations, and relationship types as mundane. Life isn't easy or utopian in Molly & Griffen's world, but that aspect at least presents a pleasingly hopeful vision of the future.

How to go from zero to Tolkien nerd in only ~400 pages!

No, really though, this was a fascinating read. The depth of history and the sense of legend imbued in the writing make it worth all the confusing lineages and the fact that you may never again wish to hear the words "light", "shadow", "doom", and "fair" again.

Highly recommended: use a reader's guide; the downloadable one at askmiddleearth.tumblr.com is quite good.

A whole bunch of alien species must live alongside humans in the post-apocalyptic town of Defiance. Ok, fine. But consider: worldbuilding. Cultural conflict. Queer aliens. Queer humans. Mystery. Religion. Found family. Fictional languages done by the wonderful David J Peterson of GoT/Dothraki fame.

And I'm not even going to PRETEND that I don't think Doc Meh fuckin' Yewll is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or that I don't have a massive crush on her and on Trenna Keating.

Basically, please watch this show.

I'll just quote Vaughan on this one: "This is an original fantasy book with no superheroes, two non-white leads and an opening chapter featuring graphic robot sex. I thought we might be cancelled by our third issue."

And that barely even scratches the surface.

Existential horror with a biological bent. Starts with a very bare-bones premise (an expedition into the mysterious Area X, about which nobody seems to know anything), but rapidly develops into something properly monstrous.

Bonus points: nearly all-female cast.

A tense and strategic coop game. When we first started playing, my (masochistic/reckless) friend refused to do anything but the super-hard-mode, so we lost the Earth to disease about five times in a row. But it was always enjoyable.

I'm a little divided on this game. I only played it once, and it was amusing, but felt a little flat-- there's a charm to playing a game where you can pit aliens against robots and such, but outside of that novelty I didn't get much out of either the gameplay or the flavor text.

The only thing more monstrous than the monsters in this game is the gigantic board. Well. And the rule book. I swear, someday I am going to figure out how monster movement works and remember it for more than 5 minutes.

That said, it's a very pretty game, and a good one for a small group of intrepid players. Saving the world might not be easy, but it is satisfying.

Among the Laws of Nerd it is stated that in every social group, at lest one person must own Settlers. I am proud to be that person.

Ok, I own this, but I've barely played it because it didn't make much damn sense on the first try. Somebody wanna try again with me?