Praetermancy January, 2025 Monthly Roundup
The biting chill creeps
Into blood and marrow crawls
Turning hearts to stone
Introduction
Another month has come and gone. My wife is buried under a pile of 1099s like a vampire in it's coffin. Hopefully she will crawl out sometime in the next week. Who knew the end of the fiscal year was so dangerous? Accountants I guess. In the meantime things have been busy at Chateau Exarch. I've read a few books this month and started on a few different write ups for after the Laird Barron Read-along finishes. It's a good time.
Articles
Post Link
There hasn't been much in the way of conversation regarding my Laird Barron write ups which doesn't really surprise me. This month and next month are largely uncollected stories that aren't well read. Still if you are interested here are links to those posts:
Bibliomancy: What I've been Reading
The Escher Man - T. R. Napper
Cyberpunk
Napper has a gift for language and this is a solid entry into his catalogue. I feel confident saying that he is the best modern cyberpunk author out there, going toe to toe with the likes of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. While the themes of this book will be familiar to anyone who's read his other work, there are enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. Is this the best thing Napper has ever written? No. But it's damn close. I didn't cry reading this book, but it was a near thing. The best books tug at our deepest emotions, and this one did.
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Hard Sci-fi
I'm torn on this one. On the one hand it's excellently written and researched. On the other hand, I just didn't enjoy it. While it makes the terraforming of Mars believable, it spends a lot more time on the political and philisophical discussion of it than I'd prefer. I think it's accurate to what would eventually happen during such an endeavor, but it juggled a little too much for me to be truly invested. If you told me you bounced off of it, I'd completely understand.
Dreamer's Throne Book 1 - Seth Ring
Dark Fantasy/Pulp Horror/Lit RPG
This is what you get when you mix Bloodborne with a LitRPG Isekai. Is it good? Debatable. Ring's grasp of the third omnipotent perspective is mediocre at best, relying way too much on visual cues to communicate what a perspective character is feeling, and he has a habit of pulling things out of his ass with no real lead-up. But is Dreamer's Throne fun? Hell. Yes. The story takes a few chapters to get going, but once it does, it's a good time. That said, this is definitely in the category of "fun book." Unlike the two previous entries, you can't expect any literary weight.
Dreamer's Throne Book 2 - Seth Ring
Dark Fantasy/Pulp Horror/Lit RPG
I'm going to have more thoughts on this series and the problems with it going forward, but my short review is this: It's more Dreamer's Throne, but not as tight in the plot and pacing. This leads to it being a more bland experience than the first book. Still fun, but not quite as tight.
Dreamer's Throne Book 3 - Seth Ring
Dark Fantasy/Pulp Horror/Lit RPG
See above.
Days of Shattered Faith - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Dark Fantasy/Literary Fantasy
Holy Hell. This book is so good, tugging on emotions almost from minute one. Tchaikovsky is in some ways an heir to the Terry Pratchett throne, using the same keen sense of wit and poignant observations about humanity to tell a tale of optimistic tragedy. Is it as funny as Pratchett? No. But when Tchaikovsky chooses to deploy humor in this series, it never misses.
Ludus: What I've been playing
Bloodborne - Fromsoftware
Horror Soulslike
I have wanted to play this game for years, and now that I finally have the chance I can happily say it was worth the wait. Gothic Architecture meets beautiful Lovecraftian monsters. I do wish that Sony would start work on a remaster, because some of the graphics haven't aged particularly well, but this is such a wonderful horror experience. I am delighted. This is probably going to show up next month too, just because I don't have a lot of time to play games, and Bloodborne isn't small.
Cinemancy: What I've been Watching (Yes, I know that's terrible Latin.)
Nosfertatu - Robert Eggers
Horror
Romantic vampires are dead, and Nosferatu killed them. This is the vampire as it would be. Horrific, deadly, magical. As an audience member I felt threatened. The cinematography and character work are doing a lot of the heavy lifting though. Pacing was a little rough in patches, with every scene feeling much like every other. There's no sense of rest, no sense of downtime where the audience and the characters can wrestle with the reality of what Count Orlock is. While wonderfully acted, none of the characters have any sense of hope or optimism, instead everything feels kind of inevitable. What should have been a bittersweet ending, felt a little... not cheap exactly, but it didn't land the way I think it was meant to. It's still well worth checking out, if you can stomach the amount of darkness the movie has to throw at you.
Auguary: Looking Forwards into February
Upcoming Articles
February 1st, Laird Barron Read-along: “The Cyclorama”
February 8th, Laird Barron Read-Along: “Conan: Halls of Immortal Darkness”
February 15th, Laird Barron Read-Along: An Atlatl
February 22nd, February edition of Praetermancy
Long Term Project Status
This Encroaching Darkness is still looking for a tentative summer release though as always I reserve the right to change that on little to no notice.
Short stories are still on hold.
The Laird Barron Read-along proceeds apace. I've only got 4 posts that haven’t seen a complete draft, though several more will need another round of review before release.
My Dolmenwood Campaign should be starting up in March as my players are finally assembled and the current game I'm in wraps up. I'm really looking forward to playing this!
Auspices: Things I'm Interested in
Books
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Sci-fi
Really looking forward to this one, even if it doesn't end up scraping the same heights Tchaikovsky has in the past.
Grave Empire by Richard Swan
Dark Flintlock Fantasy
This is one of my most anticipated reads for the year. I'm so happy this is coming out and I can't wait!
Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7: This Inevitable Run by Matt Dinniman
Sci-fi/Fantasy
Yes, the book technically released last year, but the audiobook (which is the definative way to read this book) doesn't release until February 11th.
Threads of Destiny Volume 5 - Yrsillar
Cultivatio/Slice of Life/Progression Fantasy
This series is a personal favorite of mine. While not immune to the issues that serialized fiction has, Threads of Destiny manages to get away with it due to the sheer amount of charm it's characters and world has.
TTRPGs
February is Zinequest month over on kickstarter, but I haven't heard of many projects that I'm interested in. This then is mostly a rehashing of some of the projects that I've previously covered.
.Dungeon - John Battle
This Kickstarter looks pretty interesting, taking the themes and plots of JRPG's and MMO's and turning them into a TTRPG experience. I'm not sure about how the mechanics work out, but it's an interesting thing to build a TTRPG around.
Rycroft - Glynn Seal
This one was mentioned a few times now, but it still hasn't come up yet.
Strange Tales of the Painted Wastelands - Christopher Willet
This is a player facing zine that expands upon the material in The Painted Wastelands. I'm not expecting any massive changes from the initial release that would address any of my complaints (play-testing takes a lot of time after-all), but if you are looking at that book, this zine might be of interest and I recommend at least checking out the Kickstarter for it.
Video Games
February is the month for big video game releases. Yeah, I won't get to play them until mid next year, but I'm still excited for them, so they make the list.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 - Warhorse Studios
I played the first one and wasn't able to entirely get into it, but initial reviews are positive and it seems like they have refined some of the old systems a little.
Avowed - Obsidian Entertainment
I loved Pillars of Eternity one, and enjoyed Pillars of Eternity 2. Now I'm curious as to what a 3rd person action RPG set in the same universe will look like.
Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist - Adglobe
This one has been in early access for awhile, but I really enjoyed the first game and have been eagerly anticipating the second.
Movies & TV
Nothing really interests me on this front this month.
That’s some great book recommends. I can’t wait to check them out! Thanks!