@jdnicoll@wandering.shop
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jdnicoll

@jdnicoll@wandering.shop

Essays @ http://tor.com. 5x Hugo finalist. Editor:4x Aurora-nominated Young People Read Old SFF. CSFFA Hall of Fame nominee. Perennial Darwin Award nominee.

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cstross, to random
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One of the least plausible aspects of fantasy as a genre is that sorcerers NEVER seem to get bogged down in creating a new spell then spend the next three or four months muttering "I hate this, it's rubbish" under their breath.

jdnicoll,
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@cstross @KatKimbriel @graydon One of Mercedes Lackey's series features a guy who got himself and the world in trouble by dabbling in an obscure school of magic. Somewhat later, he decides he really needed to learn a second spell to help deal with the consequences of learning the first one. He also decided all the stuff he didn't understand about this school probably won't matter. I was so unhappy that he got distracted before he could carry out his visionary scheme.

jdnicoll,
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@cstross @KatKimbriel @graydon I think the same series asked "if we're all fighting the Big Bad, who is planting crops?" The answer was "Nobody."

jdnicoll, to random
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What is the best slight science fiction novel?

jdnicoll,
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@moira @Lironah Unambitious in a non-negative way. Minor.

jdnicoll, to random
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What is the correct way to shelve roleplaying games? Title? Game system? Author? Publisher?

jdnicoll, to random
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The world still needs the great libertarian space city novel.

(I know Charles Stross mentions one in passing in the Singularity Sky books but I mean a work focusing on the hilarious process of ideology encountering what I will for no particular reason call Cold Equations)

https://onlysky.media/alee/why-libertarian-cities-fail/

jdnicoll,
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@trochee @john_chu Please, surtaxes are commie liberal genderfluid tyranny. It would be a voluntary user fee, for which the alternative is death. Also, it is mandatory.

jdnicoll, to random
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Idea for a Wraith campaign: all the player-characters are the ghosts of Classic Traveller characters who died during character generation.

jdnicoll, to random
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The discovery of a nailed horseshoe in a 3rd Century BC Chinese tomb proved the unexpected:

The Han shod first.

jdnicoll, to random
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Question inspired by a discussion elsewhere in which someone mentioned hating all the books in a particular series: why read books in a series one hates?

I've done it for a few reasons:

It was the 1970s and Ontario book distribution bit donkey balls, so I bought every SFF book I encountered, thus my shelf of Mack Reynolds novels.

I was paid to read them.

I made a commitment to read all of a series.

jdnicoll,
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@Lazarou He was an interesting writer. I just wish his books had been as interesting. And that there'd been less open hatred of Native Americans. Ideally, none. But I guess that was the price of selling socialist SF to JWC.

jdnicoll,
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@Lazarou For example, Black Man's Burden, which is set in Africa and about about underraising an African government able to protect the interests of Africans over those of the imperialist Western and Soviet blocs, has a section explaining why it was necessary to exterminate the Sioux.

jdnicoll,
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@Lazarou Yeah, it was eyebrow-raising to encounter an H. G. Wells off-handedly asserting that many ethnicities are surplus to needs:

From Anticipations:

"Well, the world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. The whole tenor and meaning of the world, as I see it, is that they have to go. So far as they fail to develop sane, vigorous, and distinctive personalities for the great world of the future, it is their portion to die out and disappear."

jdnicoll,
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@Lazarou Anticipations is chock full of stuff like that.

jdnicoll, to random
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How is it Sean Bean has never starred in the film adaptation of Oregon Trail?

jdnicoll, to random
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SFF authors, remember to include one minor detail in your novel that if left out of a TV or movie adaptation will provoke howls of protest from fans but which will cost roughly a hundred trillion dollars to portray effectively on screen and will probably look terrible anyway.

Brought to you by Zaphod Beeblebrox's second head

jdnicoll, to random
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In 2030, people will be astonished to remember we had it this good.

jdnicoll, to random
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I'd like to set a historical novel in 2023 but the texts make claims about the period that are frankly unbelievable and I don't think my readers will find the result realistic.

jdnicoll, to random
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Bundle of Holding: Girl Genius 1

This revived offer once again presents the 13 albums of "The First Journey of Agatha Heterodyne" – more than 1,800 pages of fast, funny scientific-romance comics filled with Sparks, smoke, gears, Clanks, and talking cats.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2023GirlGenius
#bundleofholding

jdnicoll, to random
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If someone new to SFF asked for good, recent books to read, which texts from the 1960s and 1970s should one recommend?

jdnicoll, to random
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Nobody ever asks if the solution is more angry old men, shouting about stuff they don't like.

jdnicoll, to random
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Bundle of Holding: Solidarity

Nobody will send security agents to your door to confiscate the tabletop roleplaying game ebooks in this Solidarity Bundle.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Solidarity
#bundleofholding

jdnicoll, to random
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Publishers! Keep the readers' interest by changing font on every page.

rwhe, to linux

Because it's the first "Universal Game Engine" released under the free #ORC license, the new #BasicRoleplaying is poised to become the #Linux / open source software of the #TTRPG world. You can do almost whatever you like with the text of the book, including copy it, subject to the license.

I love #GURPS too, but it's not free & open the way #BRP is - yet.

Get BRP from #Chaosium or #DriveThruRPG, and pretty soon, all over the web.

@Chaosium @ttrpg

I have no financial link with Chaosium.

jdnicoll,
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@cybergoths @rwhe @ttrpg @Chaosium I am having fun running Dragonbane. Kind of surprised A: how durable the PCs are, given how fragile they are, and B: how fragile the monsters are, given how durable they are.

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