Games July 2026

July 31, 2026 8:50 pm

The group completed quests 12 and 13 of our Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall story. Both completed victoriously. Quest 13 was clearly set up as a major battle, but with fortune on our side and complementary decks we were able to deal out 80 damage across the enemy team with just 3 attacks and then mop up the remnants from there.

At a board game meetup I jumped into the tail end of the silly game Hot Streak. The players are compulsive gamblers betting on the outcome of a race of sports team mascots as well as various propositional bets along the way. I lost.

After Hot Streak, we played a game of 7 Wonders. I lost that too.

And closing out that night was a game of the rather odd Frenemy Pastry Party. In this game the only way to earn points is to either bake a cake or help someone else bake a cake. Baking a cake alone is suboptimal as it uses up your own ingredients. Contribute ingredients to someone else’s cake earns you points, but they will earn more points for the cake than you will for the ingredients. So the goal is to try to get all the other players to evenly contribute to your own cakes so the points for ingredients are diffused across the other players and cake points are concentrated on yourself. But once every figures this out cooperation is likely to deteriorate. I lost by a point once another player realized what I was doing and rallied the rest of the table to prevent me from winning.

Books July 2026

July 30, 2026 8:42 pm

Accelerando by Charles Stross

An exploration of a future in which an artificial intelligence singularity has occurred (sentient AI systems self-developing beyond human comprehension). It starts off way too over-the-top cyberpunk, but settles down.

Uses the evolving singularity as an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

Livesuit by James S. A. Corey

A novella set in the Captive’s War universe in between books 1 and 2. Humanity has a new weapon in their interstellar battle, bionic humans who are faster, stronger, and more resilient, but at what cost?

Kind of a parallel exploration of the Spartan units in the Halo universe.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Speaking of bionic humans…this novella explores a bionic, human-based security “drone” which evades its governor module and begins exploring its own free will. “Human based” in that it’s mostly robotic, but uses a human brain to provide the intelligence to the system (the details aren’t fully described in the book).

It wants to protect the people it was hired to protect, but it also mostly just wants to be left alone to watch TV shows.

Wings of Fire books 1-5

During our Pacific-northwest roadtrip we listened to audiobooks of the Wings of Fire series. We got through books 1 through 4 and partly through 5 (which I finished in paper form once we returned home).

It actually lined up oddly well with our trip. We listened to book 2, taking place mainly in the sea kingdom, as we drove up the coast. Book 3, taking place mainly in the rain forest, as we visited Hoh Rain Forest. And book 4, taking place mainly within a volcano, as we visited the Cascade Volcanic Arc including Mt. St. Helens and Crater Lake.

Books 1-5 make up a unified story arc of the “Dragonet Prophecy.” Five dragonets destined to end the Sandwing war of succession and bring peace to the continent of Pyrrhia.

Games June 2026

June 29, 2026 8:36 pm

My campaign group continued our Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall adventure with quests 21, 20, and 11. Victory on all three. Quests 21 and 20 were side jobs which earned us some money and weapons. 11 was a story-line quest. Our group has some good synergies set up and the battles were fun, but not trivial.

Played a game of Hardback with a friend. Close all the way and it came down the final hand of cards. I was leading and pushed my points over the end-of-game threshold giving my friend one last turn. He put together a great word and overtook my score by a few points.

Books June 2026

June 28, 2026 8:07 am

Twelve Desperate Miles by Tim Brady

The story of the SS Contessa, a merchant ship drafted into WWII mobilization, loaded with fuel and ammunition, and sent across the Atlantic to supply the invasion of North Africa.

The titular 12 miles was the trip up the Sebou river from the Atlantic coast to an air field.

It’s an interesting history, but I think it’s oversold. The cover text implies this ship was leading the convoy. It was, in fact, late and traveled alone across the ocean trying to catch up. And while the trip up the river was no-doubt harrowing for the crew; in context of the many horrible things that happened in WWII I’m not sure it rises to the descriptor “desperate.”

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

This is one of Jess’ favorite books, so I read it for her. It tells a story of a social worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Children sent to investigate an orphanage.

A story of acceptance in the face of societal oppression. And a personal journey of finding joy and meaning in life.

The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby

The latest read for the book group at work. This is a story about the current wave in artificial-intelligence research and development which we have all be subjected to whether we like it or not.

Extremely deferential to the people involved and if you were to read this book uncritically you’d believe by the end that the world is now full of sentient, artificial-intelligence systems quickly making humanity obsolete. I found it a bit cloying in its admiration.