For the record, I loved the Netflix series Lockwood & Co., and it was only after getting into it that I realised it was also a series of books. A deep shame is cast on Netflix for not renewing it.

This micro-review is challenging as it’s hard to separate the writing and characters on the page from the TV series. Someone on Bluesky highlighted that the TV series does a lot to flesh out the blank canvas of the characters. Certainly, there is some truth to this, but then, as a starting novel in a series, it is perhaps helpful to have that development stretch across the novels. Whereas the TV series doesn’t have that luxury.

The main element that struck me was the background, the premise of the book. Many decades ago, ghosts became real, attacking and killing the living. Only children and teenagers were able to see or interact with ghosts and so were employed in agencies to counteract this threat. As they became adults, this power deserted them, whereupon they took on management and administration roles in the ghost-hunting organisations.

Thanks to Ian Cooper, the design lead for Questworlds who ran a brilliant playtest of Pioneer Space, his Rocket Punk genre pack, and introduced me to Andrew Norton. I searched out some of Andre’s golden age of sci-fi books. In particular, I was after something from the Solar Queen sequence. Luckily, in Help the Aged, Market Harborough, I picked up a copy of Plague Ship, it’s book two, but you can read them out of sequence.

These books were written in the 1950s, and though there are some dated terms and technology, they do hold their own in the sci-fi adventure stakes. The hero of the story is Dane, a cargo master-apprentice on the Solar Queen, a free trader spaceship currently on the remote planet of Sargol.

The first part of the story concerns the Solar Queen trying to broker a trade deal with the scent-obsessed Salariki, mainly trying to get their gems and find out what they want in return- as it turns out, catnip, of course, as they’re some kind of cat-human hybrid! Whilst they do this, they try and fend off the “eyesies” i.e. I-S, a much larger trading corporation who try and get one up on them throughout the book.

I was looking forward to coming back to the Imperial Radch universe having read Ancillary Justice when it came out and enjoying a unique and thought-provoking sci-fi story on gender, AI and the identification of self, but…

…I’m afraid this was a real letdown, I so nearly gave up on this but struggled to the end.

Now Ancillary Sword worldbuilding is brilliantly realised and there are moments when it teeters on the edge of something grand and important, but even with a compelling and complex character like Breq, there are so many naval gazing moments and internal monologues that it made me want to scream out loud at times.

I’ve got a few George Orwell books on my reading list. Still, this one is new to me. I’ve often been fascinated and appalled by how society treats the lowest echelons and how you can escape from what seems an impossible situation.

The first half concerns Paris as the author takes on the role of a Plongeur, the lowest of the low in the hotel trade; washing dishes, fetching and carrying and generally sworn at and abused. Much of these scenes concern the basic necessity of food and drink, and the destruction of shoe leather to get jobs, for money, to achieve a full belly. There are several at turns sad, humorous and unpleasant events before the author ups and leaves for London. Boris, the Russian ex-soldier, is an excellent character, everyone needs a guardian angel in their lives like Boris, even if he has many weaknesses.

London is less about hotels and more about finding somewhere to sleep, the Spikes, a workhouse or hostel for the homeless. Camaraderie is stronger in London, with bonds being formed and, on the whole, the sharing of what little the tramps have with each other.

I picked up and first read Generation X as a disaffected youth looking for a job. I'd left university and was taking on various McJobs, whilst trying to find a career, a home, a lovelife.

When I read the book first time round, I strongly remember it as a love story, unrequited, between Andy and Claire, latterly Dag. But re-reading I think that was minimal, the bigger life issues lost on someone who hadn't experienced life but it was definitely about finding some kind of love or connection as the final scene highlights.

The book concerns the life of three twenty something's as they try to resolve their place in society, with their family and each other. Inventing stories to try and make sense or just entertain. It's all very matter of fact coolness but has heart stopping moments, laugh out loud lines and quotable, thought provoking prose.

A writer who is still close to my heart, Iain Banks with or without the M left us on 9 June 2013. A massive gap in British literature and a small one in my life.

The Wasp Factory which I picked out to reread this week, was voted one of the top 50 books that helped shape and inspire teenage lives the most as part of a World Book Day poll. It certainly impacted me; shocking, funny, scary, sad and above all cut through with Bank’s rogueish charm and easy-going writing style.

It’s Sunday and I have already finished the book, the most hated word in the English language unputdownable proved apt. I read it through early mornings and late nights entering an immersive virtual world that only the best books enable.

So more goodies coming out from The Raspy Raven members.

Active Campaigns

Nothing this month but congratulations to Jerod and Craig for successful campaigns last month!

Release Highlights

Not exactly hitting “The Wall” but Berling Game was a struggle, I’d envisioned a slightly more modern and action-packed version of The Human Factor, but it wasn’t to be…

My struggle was probably the pacing, which is perhaps my expectation more than anything else. Cold War thrillers are slower-paced and involve more human drama than action-orientated scenes.

There are elements of the British class system, that feel outdated, too many upper-class twits at the top of MI6, actually, maybe it’s not changed too much.

I’m convinced I’ve read this book before, the John Wyndham classic is ingrained in us, or is it? I found myself discovering a fairly new story of grim post-apocalyptic survival.

There are some excellent initial scenes as the protagonist, Bill Masen, awakens in the hospital after an eye operation, unaware of the devastation around him, his gradual discovery of the horrors and their effect on the population of London are well described and lead us into his journey to… happiness?

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

Each month I’ll share the goings-on of various members of my Tabletop Roleplaying Game Discord, The Raspy Raven.

The majority of these folks are solo RPG designers, writers and artists, passionate about the games and cons they put together, largely only able to do this part-time. So if you do have a few pennies to spare please buy or back their games and attend their cons.

Active Campaigns

Honorbound

A play report for a very special Forged in the Dark game, based on the 2000AD strip, The Mean Arena, this time the game is in Watford, Hertfordshire, where Slater’s Slayers come up against Watford Ravenclaws. Many thanks to Dirk the Dice for GMing such an excellent game and all my fellow players!

Sports Report: The Mean Arena Clash at Watford

Teams and Key Players

• Slater’s Slayers: Sourpuss, Napoleon, Screaming Sid and Hangman.

• Watford Ravenclaws: Steelspine, Reggie Regicide, Luthor, Troy, and the Ravenclaws.

Not The Human Torch, as my wife called it, this is a blast from the past, 1910. Written by Algernon Blackwood, he of The Wendigo.

This book has been a struggle, in the main due to the archaic prose and the dealing with fairly abstract concepts. I got it as part of a subscription to the British Library Tales of the Weird, so plenty more oddities on the shelf to check out.

It helped that I got access to this BBC dramatization which explained some of the more obtuse sections.

The Human Factor is a cold war spy novel by Graham Greene. It concerns a leak in M16’s Africa section. Things are quickly complicated by love, loyalty and an unpleasant drooling dog. This is an unromantic, slow burn book, little of the James Bond about this story.

Written in 1978, it perfectly mirrors the likes of Smiley’s People that I watched on telly in the 80s; slow, character-driven, moral choices aplenty and a great array of cold and unfeeling civil servants.

I thought I would struggle with this, but I managed to devour it in five days, a record. Perhaps it was the age of the main protagonist, Castle, and the parallels with myself coming to the end of my career too. It is at times depressing and you have to feel for Davis, but there are also comedic moments and the dialogue is classic Greene; understated, everyone saying less than they actually mean.

Robert W Chambers described The King in Yellow as “…a work of cosmic horror fantasy that explores the sinister nature of human curiosity.”

It is book three and week three of my reading challenge, and this is a triple whammy, to progress the challenge, prepare for a Grognard Files bookclub, and refresh my mind on the Yellow King RPG.

The book is divided into multiple stories, but I focused only on the supernatural ones.

Book two. I’m not 100% sure what exactly it is, it feels at its heart like a love letter to the film Stalker. It’s entertaining, heart-wrenching, insightful and feels important, even when I don’t understand it.

Zona is from Geoff Dyer, Geoff Dyer is an English author, as the Bomb Magazine says, “…our leading master of the undefinable memoir-essay-perambulation on diverse topics: jazz, DH Lawrence, photography, travel, …”

The footnotes need to be mentioned, at times the footnotes take over the prose, a couple of moments when I’m not sure if I’m still reading footnotes or the book. Just imagine there is a constant director’s commentary running through your head, in the background, as you read the main body of the text.

I’m reading a book a week in 2025, there are no rules apart from finishing it and it also has to be a physical book.

This is mainly a TTRPG blog, so I’ll review and assess the books for RPG potential!

Book One is The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo translated by Louise Heal Kawai.

Scene Five

They come. The cops. Nasty and Nastier. They saying nothing grab Leigh, leaving Donnie on the floor. Marched to a hole in the stone floor, bricks lead down, barely wide enough to fit. Shoved into it Leigh almost tumbles head first, puts out her hand on the wall, black liquid, damp maybe, the stuff clings to her, she wipes it on her jeans and descends.

Entering a chamber with a single chair and manacles upon it. A man hooded, mumbling, stumbles then almost warps towards her and back again. Leigh blinks, wipes her eyes. She remembers the black stuff, uses her sleeve, her eyes are dancing with lights. She turns back up the stairs, but it’s dark, something’s been pulled across the top, no way back.

“The Chair, sit.”, says a papery whisper. The hooded man is cast in shadow, only his mouth and jaw visible, teeth blackened and sharp. Leigh terrified goes forward but the hooded man whips around, “No, not yet! Him…” The force of the words has Leigh stumbling back against the wall, edging away. Another figure moves forward out of the dark, trance-like, dressed in a suit, he has to be a Fed. He moves like a puppet on a string, like he’s trying to resist but keeps getting drawn forward until he’s in the chair. He’s terrified. The hooded man returns with some molten liquid, the smell, so pungent, manure or skunk. The fed breathes it in, and starts giggling, eyes glassy then the hooded man forces the liquid down his throat, hissing, burning, the smell makes Leigh gag. The screams echo around the room, it is too much Leigh turns and falls into a side passage, roughly carved, she runs, she doesn’t look back plunging forward into darkness, hands outstretched, scraping and bumping as the passage twists and turns.

Our Discord has recently started a new community area - Story Games. The first of these is Lovecraftesque from Black Armada Games, by Becky Annison and Josh Fox. In it you tell the story of a single protagonist’s descent into madness and terror.

I'll not go too deep into the mechanics, suffice to say there are various rounds as clues are played and the mystery develops, the players take on the role of Narrator (setting the scene, directing the actions), the Witness (responding to the events and horrors that befall them) and Whisperers (adding flavour, answering questions from the Narrator and becoming NPCs).

So on with the story… We Serve and Protect by Ken Hite.

The first game of Cold War season on The Raspy Raven, what better way to kick off than psychics in 1960s Berlin.

A bit of background, it was the day before a speech by President J. F. Kennedy and our precogs had received a chilling vision, Kennedy's death by a sniper whilst visiting Berlin.

We began the mission in media res, on a flying rust bucket on the outskirts of Berlin, smoke filled our nostrils, our ears popped as the plane went into a dive. Entering the cockpit, we found the pilots dead, the cockpit ablaze, hit by anti-aircraft fire. My PC, Pfizer, was calm, reading his notes and observing the ground, this was not his bag, let the others with brawn and muscle fix things.

A few months into my attempt to run five players through a play-by-post game of Alteregomania, the Gumshoe One-2-One adventure that shows Super Heroes in their least flattering light.

How is it going?

I decided to stagger the five players, and in the end, I’ve decided that running one player at a time is most sensible, given that I have a family, work, and more RPGs to run!