#365
Sep 28, 2025
Books
This week I read:
The Anechoic Chamber a collection of short stories by Will Wiles
Pretty good, I would say A Private Square of Sky was my favourite, but Meat Stream was definitely the most weird. A lot of people kind of went nuts during the pandemic, didn’t they…
Volume 20 of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime by Fuse
Building on what I said when I read volume 19, the series has just got bad now. Very little actually happened in this volume, it’s almost entirely one long fight which doesn’t even get resolved, it ends on a cliffhanger. I’m too far in now to drop it without feeling bad, but I hope the author doesn’t keep dragging this out.
The Reddening by Adam Nevill
I find Adam Nevill a bit hit or miss. This one was definitely better than Cunning Folk, not up to the standards of The Ritual or Last Days, but still pretty good. The main criticism I have is that the villains are a bit incompetent, “mysterious rural disappearances ultimately due to cult sacrifices” is a good premise, but there were too many disappearances, which is what led to their downfall admittedly, but the cult had supposedly been operating for decades without being noticed.
I have seen that his short stories are pretty universally liked, even by those who don’t like his novels, so I should check those out some time.
Roleplaying Games
Dolmenwood is here!
The Halls of Arden Vul
This week the players worked through three more of the Trials of Arden: they’ve now done five of twelve. Really, they’re not that hard for a party as high level and well-equipped as we’ve got, though there are some difficulty spikes coming up: the sixth trial potentially involves wandering a forest for several days, which could prove fatal for an underprepared party; the eighth involves evading a nigh-indestructible golem; the ninth requires fighting through an endless horde of undead (or, alternatively, slaying over a thousand ghasts); the tenth can, if you’re unlucky, involve a lich; and the eleventh requires stealing an egg from two ancient dragons.
The ninth is the real challenge, I think.
And the reward… is a mixed blessing. Upon completing all the trials, the champion can meet Arden herself, now ascended to demigodhood, who presents them with her holy spear and tasks them with purging the heqeti. I say it’s a mixed blessing because we’ve previously said that battling the heqeti would trigger the end of the campaign: it’s such a big, high-stakes, dramatic, narratively satisfying challenge, that any other ending after that would feel much less exciting. Better to end on a high note.
Still, what a way to end things.
Miscellaneous
I watched season 3 of Foundation this week. The show is consistently good, which is nice for an adaptation. I found Demerrzel’s ending quite sad, as she was so close to freedom; and found the twist of the Mule’s identity confusing. I was expecting a twist—there’s one in the book—but I’m not sure how it works given that we see the supposed-Mule using psionics while far separated from the actual-Mule; was the supposed-Mule still a psion, just one in service to the actual-Mule?