In order to catch up to the actual progress of the D&D campaign, I present you with another couple of sessions. These were actually held back to back, on a Monday and Tuesday evening. Session XV Alas, Goatslayer had another lycanthropic transformation… though this time, he ran off into the forest. Unable to find him for now, the party continued onwards… right into the middle of a giant Bandit Ambush. Which was represented on the table by a number of Mackintosh’s Toffees, and in our imaginations by a fierce skirmish within some closely-packed trees. It turned out that these Bandits were bo ..read more

It’s been some time since I properly exercised my poetic muscles. Prose-writing has been where it’s at for me, these past few years. Well, to get back into practice, I thought I’d write the occasional bit of jocular fan poetry, based off Tolkien’s Silmarillion… with this post being a collection of the results, dating back over the past year and a half. Note that, as befits the form of the limerick, some of these efforts are a tad risqué. I also intend to update the collection as necessary. For the Westerosi equivalent: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2020/01/27/collected-a-song-of-ice-and ..read more

Time for another D&D update, concerning my Dhampir Sorceror. Session XIII The party departed the tavern, somewhat hungover. Thence we travelled into a forest – home, apparently, of both a fortune-teller and various formidable creatures. Saqua’s experience with forests is of the kelp-variety, so this was all new to him. Then a manticore turned up. Demanding a toll to let us pass. The thing wound up making off with Goatslayer’s armour as its fee… which did not exactly endear it to our Goliath Monk. It became a matter of hunting it down to its cavern lair. And there we found the puppets. Yes ..read more

My 4300-word historical fiction piece, Daughters of Derbyshire, is now out, via The Lesbian Historical Motif Podcast. Print format: https://alpennia.com/blog/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-283-daughters-derbyshire-daniel-stride Audio format: https://lesbianhistoricmotif.podbean.com/e/daughters-of-derbyshire-by-daniel-stride-the-lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-283/ It concerns seventeenth century English Puritans – at once alien to modernity, and yet also a story written in the grim shadow of 2020 ..read more

I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have become romanticized, quite why is a mystery. Likely it began with film where they were perceived to be sexy, when the truth is that they were never fully intended to be considered as such. In the greatest of Vampire tales, Dracula, the eponymous chara ..read more

Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he has become, though I would note he still has this on his home page, as if in memory of better times: If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way unt ..read more

The other day, I stumbled across a video essay about George R.R. Martin’s inability to finish A Song of Ice and Fire. It is one of those thematic/philosophical video essays, and there is stuff therein I wish to comment on. Hence today’s post. The essay-creator, one Magne Mirare, cites three underlying reasons for Martin’s inability to finish his series: Postmodern Deconstruction Addiction to Complexity Lack of a Mythological Vision I feel ‘addiction to complexity’ is a perfectly valid critique of Martin at this point, but I have issues with the other theses. Let us take the ‘postmodern’ acc ..read more

The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go back to 2022), which ultimately came down pretty sour, but I have never taken delight in the ubiquitous show-bashing one sees online. On the other hand, notwithstanding the appearance of certain rumours about the upcoming season, I have felt very little motivation to chase the updates 2022-style – at least until we ..read more

New story out, as part of the Winter 2024 edition of New Maps Magazine: https://www.new-maps.com/news/2024/03/spring-2024-announcement/ You may recall that The Library of the Ratio is the one set in Central Otago, focussing on the preservation of knowledge in a deindustrial environment. So this one is uncharacteristically local. It’s also notable for being the odd one out of the five deindustrial stories I have had published – the other four have either looked at the immediate social-political ramifications of resource-loss, or else looked at how a far-future civilisation might find our techn ..read more

As in 2023, Dunedin’s Regent Theatre Booksale is no longer held at the Regent Theatre. Nor does it run from noon Friday to noon Saturday, allowing midnight visits. No, it is now held at the Edgar Centre, and runs from 10 am to 10 pm, Friday and Saturday. So it was this week. Yours Truly went along for a look on Friday evening, the 8th. Let’s say that finding a park was pretty hard. I can report that the Science-Fiction and Fantasy section looked more traditional than it had done recently. Plenty of slender 200-page Michael Moorcocks, and thicker Stephen Donaldsons. And Jean Auels in hardback ..read more