Hotter Than Hell, the latest “Hell” anthology is edited and has an introduction by Kim Harrison. I don’t know if the sexier trend is her choice, a response to market demands, or something else again.
The anthology is thicker than most, with longer pieces–short novellas?–by each of the 13 authors. I read a copy from the library, but it’s one of the few anthologies that I’d consider worth the $7.99 cover price.
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I only encountered him personally once, on a panel the first time I attended a con (Dragon Con, 1988 or so?). I thought he was an arrogant jerk. I’ve heard from others that he could be quite nice, so maybe it was some kind of schtick. I did enjoy all the Thieves World books, despite their unrelenting darkness.
He was scheduled to be at MarCon this weekend, so it seems his death was sudden and unexpected. I wish the best to his family and friends.
I hadn’t ever thought of it this way, but I think the man is on to something.
“One of my pet theories about the popularity of roleplaying games goes like this. Roleplaying is fantasy shopping for guys. That is, men would, as a group, be more interested in shopping if a) it meant never having to leave the house and b) they were shopping for super-powers. In that case, the typical roleplaying rulebook is like a Nieman-Marcus catalog for super-powers. Depending on the game system and character type, these extraordinary abilities might be called feats, spells, schticks, disciplines, skills, high tech gear, psionics, or whatever. For lack of a a better all-encompassing term, I refer to these things as crunchy bits.”
Robin D. Laws, Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering
Anybody going to MomoCon here in Atlanta? I’d never heard of it before today. It’s free, and may be in its second year (I’m not sure). It seems quite small, which could be nice. It’s local, which is a big plus for us. I’m unclear as to whether there’s any gaming happening or not, and there’s no mention of filking that I can see.
Sam has talked about this subject in several of his podcasts, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried to address it. I may fail miserably, but I’ll try.
Sam and I had one of our twice-weekly “date nights” tonight. That means that from about 7pm ’til we go to bed, we do nothing but have fun with each other. The girl amuses herself otherwise, or goes out, and we do whatever we like. Usually, that means we spend some time gaming.
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