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Mar. 21st, 2016 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretReminder, the running and updated list of books I've read that are eligible for the 2016 Hugo for best novel is here: http://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/178852.html
I've read 15 books so far that are eligible, far and away more than usual. This will be the first year in which I will be nominating 5 books in the category.
I went to Lunacon this weekend, rooming withfreeradical42. My first Lunacon, and after the mess where they cancelled last year's event and barely got this year's together with a con chair resigning, I didn't know what to expect. It was kind of a giant organizational clusterfuck, especially the program, but I had a pretty good time anyway. A lot of that was just that I haven't seen freeradical in a few months and it was good to spend time with him. But there were also some cool things at the con.
Highlights included
-"Mission to Mongo", a 16mm fan edit of the third Flash Gordon serial, "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe". The guy who put it together set out to create a single continuous story, seamlessly editing out cliffhangers and adding in material cut from the TV edit, and this was the first time he'd screened it. It was amazing technically, and the serial itself was amazing. When I realized it was over three hours long, I was unsure how long I'd last, but I happily made it to the end. In spite of preposterous special effects and absurd story, it is an excellent space opera. It was also a lot of fun to play spot-the-Star-Wars-inspiration.
-Naomi Novik, writer GOH, reading a story that was basically fanfic of her own Temeraire novels- inspired by the Elizabeth Bennet, Dragonrider fanart that is circulating, Novik wrote a P&P/Temeraire mashup story that was incredibly fun and I can't wait for her to publish it so I can read the ending.
-Learning to play Bunny Island, a modular tile placement and territory holding board game introed by its creator. It was neat. You were dealt a hand of tiles and play moved in a circle laying out tiles to build the game map, which also doubled as an early resource claiming stage like in Settlers of Catan. Then you hopped your bunnies around the board competing to gain carrots and build towns. The bunny flavor was silly and fun and the actual game itself was enjoyable dynamic.
Other board games I played included Splendor, which I've played before and really like despite being terrible at it, because I feel like I'm always one or two games away from breaking through to becoming competent at it.
And Space Sheep, a sort of Star Wars themed timed coop game that we gratefully gave up after sort of making it through a round. There's too many elements and none of them made sense together. It's a logic puzzle game with randomly generated constraints, and that might be fun on its own, but then they made it co-op, so you have to coordinate your plans to solve the logic puzzle with other players. But then they made it timed, so you barely have time to discuss strategy before bad things happen. We took out the timer element and it still took us a long time and a bunch of false starts to figure out how to solve the puzzle, at the lowest complexity level the game supports.
And in general the con was fun and had lots of interesting people to talk to.
I've read 15 books so far that are eligible, far and away more than usual. This will be the first year in which I will be nominating 5 books in the category.
I went to Lunacon this weekend, rooming with
freeradical42. My first Lunacon, and after the mess where they cancelled last year's event and barely got this year's together with a con chair resigning, I didn't know what to expect. It was kind of a giant organizational clusterfuck, especially the program, but I had a pretty good time anyway. A lot of that was just that I haven't seen freeradical in a few months and it was good to spend time with him. But there were also some cool things at the con.Highlights included
-"Mission to Mongo", a 16mm fan edit of the third Flash Gordon serial, "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe". The guy who put it together set out to create a single continuous story, seamlessly editing out cliffhangers and adding in material cut from the TV edit, and this was the first time he'd screened it. It was amazing technically, and the serial itself was amazing. When I realized it was over three hours long, I was unsure how long I'd last, but I happily made it to the end. In spite of preposterous special effects and absurd story, it is an excellent space opera. It was also a lot of fun to play spot-the-Star-Wars-inspiration.
-Naomi Novik, writer GOH, reading a story that was basically fanfic of her own Temeraire novels- inspired by the Elizabeth Bennet, Dragonrider fanart that is circulating, Novik wrote a P&P/Temeraire mashup story that was incredibly fun and I can't wait for her to publish it so I can read the ending.
-Learning to play Bunny Island, a modular tile placement and territory holding board game introed by its creator. It was neat. You were dealt a hand of tiles and play moved in a circle laying out tiles to build the game map, which also doubled as an early resource claiming stage like in Settlers of Catan. Then you hopped your bunnies around the board competing to gain carrots and build towns. The bunny flavor was silly and fun and the actual game itself was enjoyable dynamic.
Other board games I played included Splendor, which I've played before and really like despite being terrible at it, because I feel like I'm always one or two games away from breaking through to becoming competent at it.
And Space Sheep, a sort of Star Wars themed timed coop game that we gratefully gave up after sort of making it through a round. There's too many elements and none of them made sense together. It's a logic puzzle game with randomly generated constraints, and that might be fun on its own, but then they made it co-op, so you have to coordinate your plans to solve the logic puzzle with other players. But then they made it timed, so you barely have time to discuss strategy before bad things happen. We took out the timer element and it still took us a long time and a bunch of false starts to figure out how to solve the puzzle, at the lowest complexity level the game supports.
And in general the con was fun and had lots of interesting people to talk to.