AMAZING NEWS: 2/7/16

(Special Note:  News this week includes news from the previous week)

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (see below for full text)

RPG Newsletter #40; Ariele’s Newsletter

SOCIAL

IOC Rules on Trans Athletes

Ten (among many more) Women Who Changed SF

New Schizophrenia Findings

Intel Releases Diversity Data

More Exonerations This Year Than Last (Our justice system doesn’t work as well as one might think)

It is now CLOSER to Midnight Than Before

Marlon Brando on Diversity in Hollywood

ENTERTAINMENT

SF Author’s Hierarchy of Doubt (brilliant!)

Dinosaur Shovels Snow

The Bookworm (via Arkham Facebook group)

Force Awakens Review

David A. Hardy’s SF Predictions Come True

The Black Bat Returns

Farnsworth Wright Pic

What (some) Fans Want to See in a new Star Trek Show

Whenever I Watch This, I keep Thinking of Werner von Braun

Cats and Books – a thing older than you think

Book Lovers Life (the wife sent this one to me and said “oh yes”)

Vanguard, Ark Royal VII Now Available

Used Book Find

SF Greats Meet in 1937 Pic

Enterprise Gets a Makeover

Don’t Fall Asleep At Work:  THIS Could Happen

Great PaperClip Hacks

The ‘Kitten’ Setting and How to Define Arseholes

1944 FAPA

INDUSTRY

History of the Hugo Awards

L. Neil Smith wins LFS Lifetime Achievement Award

Boskone Mini Interviews:  Jeanne Cavelos & John Langan

An Open Letter to Puppies

NH Renfaire coming in May

MOSF Journal of SF V1 I1 (via Michael Walsh)

Matt Wallace on Authors & Hollywood;  Stephen King on Authors and Hollywood

Mike Zicree’s One Day Class

Non-Compete Clauses in Contracts

Lunacon Is Coming Soon

After Four Years and Four Decades, A Sale to Analog

Luhrs Analyzes the Locus Recommended Reading List

Sawyer Reveals Quantum Night Cover

Kathryn Cramer Shares David Hartwell Photosand the Definition of “Hartwellian”

SCIENCE

Astronaut Mitchell Dead at 85 (6th man to walk on the moon)

Spacesuits, Spacesuits and MORE Spacesuits

Alien Life May Be Killed off by Climate Change (theirs, not ours); another assault on Fermi:  Little Green Men Will Be Cyborgs

Ancient Massacre (seems we have this very bad habit)

Monkies are now on the spectrum

Fast Gas Heading for Milky Way

Mars Rover 360

Home Made Power Armor (lifts a car)

Quotes from Marvin MInsky (“Believing in God is why we’re all going to die. If we had promoted science instead, we would all be immortal now.”)

The Probability That a Hoax Gets Revealed

Powerful Women Buried at Stonehenge

The Earth is Actually Two Planets Rolled Into One

SETI Just Got Bigger

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS

RPGnet Newsletter #40
February 2, 2016

New Columns

We started off last week with Christopher Cecil’s newest Fuzzy Thinking: “Threes’ Company.”

In addition, Brent Dedeaux was back with a great new edition of Tales from the Rocket House: “Classes Are in Session! (Back to Old-School D&D for a Moment).” In this column, Brent undertakes the distinguished task of making up new old school D&D classes.

New Reviews

RPGnet added several new reviews last week:

Threads You Might Have Missed

This week’s first thread is a perennial favorite of discussion in the RPG world: “Games whose rules didn’t fit their ‘fluff’.” Of course, it’s a favorite for a reason: identifying games where this dissonance is a problem and figuring out solutions for it can lead to a much better experience at the table.

That said, talking about the other side of that coin is also valuable: “Games whose rules DID fit their ‘fluff.'”

Not much heavy-duty content in this next thread, but it’s a fun way to spend a couple of minutes: “Weird Out of Context Quotes from Games.” My contribution: “I would still be king if you hadn’t stolen that monkey’s hat!”

Another long-time but always useful favorite can be found in “Ways the Villain isn’t actually dead.” This is a constant problem for GMs (particularly in more simulationist systems) who want recurring bad guys. In post #4, RPGnetter “respite” came up with what is probably the best suggestion I’ve heard in a while: “Give the players an overwhelming need to have the villain alive again, and sit back while they figure out how.”

Sign Off

Have a good week, everyone.

  • Iustum
    Newsletter Editor

###

Ariele’s Newsletter: Some Exciting News and A Cat Meme
Okay, I won’t make you wait.
The exciting news is this: The Clock Winked is free on Amazon! Today through Wednesday, you can download a copy for your library (ALL your libraries) at no cost. The exciting news doesn’t stop there, though. The free book promotion started Friday, and since then, The Clock Winked has been downloaded over 1000 times, resulting in some serious achievement points on Amazon.

What is the reason for this sudden spurt of freeness? Well, The Clock Winked has a new cover design, so I decided to celebrate with a free book promotion. I had no idea it would take off so thoroughly, but I’m thrilled that it did.

For those of you who have already downloaded (or previously purchased) a copy, I can’t thank you enough.

Over the next two months, I will be releasing the new covers of both The Lonely Whelk and The Wounded World. You can read more about it in this blog post. I may do some more promotions, so stay tuned.

And now, for the cat meme:

Cat News
There’s not much new on the cat front these days, except for the fact that it’s winter. This means Wilfred is out of his mind crazy, running up and down the walls, climbing the curtains, catching mice, and freaking out over generally nothing. Goblin got a new rug, which she loves, and it’s been so warm out that Rowan has even been outside a few times.

Rutherford News
Everyone keeps asking when the next Rutherford book is coming out. Short answer: I’m working on it! The next book is called Rutherford the Unicorn Sheep Makes Pancakes, and I am extremely excited about it. However, due to a surge in contract work in addition to taking over the financial reponsibilities of my HOA, I have been hard pressed to find time to work on it. It’s coming, though, I promise!

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