Books
This week I read:
Elric: The Sleeping Sorceress by Michael Moorcock
This one was a bit strange, since only one of the stories in the collection is about Elric. There’s a short story version of The Eternal Champion (which really confused me since there’s also a full book-sized version of that story, but it looks like a Childhood’s End situation), but the single largest story is The Sleeping Sorceress which is about Elric and it returns to the sorceress which Earl Aubec met in the short story which introduced him. There’s also shorter stories about Earl Aubec, Alexander the Great, a German albino magic sword wielder (who may be one of Elric’s dream-manifestations), and a penis joke.
The final story in the book, The Flaneur des Arcades de l’Opera stood out to me for two reasons. Firstly, it’s set in our real world, with secret departments of the UK and French governments working together against extraplanar threats, so there’s this amusing juxtaposition of totally normal police talk with discussion of magic, souls, Law vs Chaos, and the multiverse; and also because there’s this really cool depiction of the Cosmic Balance:
[Begg’s] immediate instinct was to step back. There below them, its blade pointing down into the dancing, obscuring mist, he could see the shape of a gigantic black sword fashioned to resemble a balance, with a cup depending from each arm. Within the metal of the black blade scarlet characters writhed and twisted, the gleaming bejewelled cups moved slowly as they measured the weight of the world’s pain. Multicolored strands of ectoplasm swirled from the bowls. Begg knew instinctively in his soul that once again he did indeed look upon the legendary Cosmic Balance which regulated the entire multiverse, weighing Law and Chaos, good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and death, love and hate, maintaining the equilibrium, and therefore the existence, of all created matter.
Also, Hitler is involved, somehow. In Moorcock’s multiverse, Hitler was thwarted before the war, and turned to magical means…
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
I saw this on the shelves in a book shop a little while back, and it just called to me. The cover is nice and soft, the paper is good quality, and the edges are deckled, it feels like some old artefact. Penguin really outdid themselves with this edition.
The story is a true ghost story. There are no monsters, very little is actually seen, and that which we do see is only from the perspective of one or two characters at a time. The supernatural manifestations could plausibly be explained away as hallucinations—the effects of a weird house and tense atmosphere on the mind—or just coincidences which the characters give additional meaning due to the environment. It felt like I was reading an M. R. James short story, who is the undoubted master of the genre.
But there’s also humour too. I really liked the twist of two supernaturalists coming to the house a few days after the rest of the characters, with all their paraphernalia, and experiencing absolutely nothing conclusive despite everyone else being terrorised at night. Was the house toying with them? Were they just unable to see what was happening before them? Were there actually no supernatural manifestations and everyone else was acting strange? We just don’t know.
Great story, great writing, I couldn’t put it down and read the whole thing over one afternoon.
Roleplaying Games
The Halls of Arden Vul
This week the players continued their delve deep into the Halls, finding two more significant locations (the Inn of the Lost and the Arena), a safe haven inside the dungeon where they can rest and gain XP (the Inn), and learning a little more about the factions and their relationships. They know that the goblins hate the beastmen and have an uneasy friendship with the trolls, that the trolls like stomping on everyone, and that there are Set cultists running around.
The players are now really starting to hurt for money. Everything down in the Halls is expensive, but they’ve been spending almost all the treasure they find immediately on carousing (for additional XP) or on equipment. They’re not broke yet, but they will be if they don’t make a good find soon. And so we ended the session with them heading off in search of a “fancy tomb” they heard about somewhere to the west of the Troll Lifts.
Miscellaneous
It’s hot!
The portable AC unit I’ve got in my bedroom is better than nothing, though as you can see not by much. Sitting in the stream of cool air is nice, but it’s actually not that effective for cooling the bedroom as a whole, even with the door shut and the gap beneath blocked to prevent a draft. And then when the unit is switched back off, the temperature quickly shoots back up.
My sleep has been terrible this week too, I’ve averaged 2 to 4 hours a night. Oh well, only 3 months to go before we get back to a tolerable temperature.