At Nerdarchy.com: Dungeon Crate

Are you familiar with those subscription box services? For a price a box full of goodies is mailed to you each month. There are tons of these services for just about everything, from chocolate to beer to toys, etc. In some circles they are still called gift-of-the-month clubs. Well, finally there is one for tabletop role players, called Dungeon Crate, and I write a little about it over at this week's Nerdarchy article.

At Nerdarchy.com: I skip D&D editions

Even though I've played D&D for at least 35 years now (wow, that sounds like a long time), I've not played every single edition, or at least I've not played very much of some editions. Why? Find out more at my weekly Nerdarchy.com article.

Books read in 2016: No. 1 -- Twilight

by Stephenie Meyer

Started: Jan. 1
Finished: Jan. 11

Notes: Evidence I'll read just about anything? Stop your laughing. My late wife left this one behind, and she didn't have good things to say about it though she did like the movie. A lot of people have not had good things to say about this one, but I prefer to judge it myself. With all its sales and popularity, this book and series must have done something right, even if it might be something in which I myself am not interested. Either way, if I do have bad things to say, at least they will be based upon experience and not just because others have said so.

Mini review: Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed to say this, but I found this a delightful read. No, it's not Faulkner or Hemingway or even King, not by a long shot, but it kept my attention more than a lot of modern novels I've read. And it was funny, making me chuckle more than once at some of the vampire humor. Nowhere near as pretentious or moody as the movie, though there's a touch of that here and there. Yes, it's somewhat juvenile, even immature in parts, but it's a first-person tale told by a 17-year-old girl who is experiencing her very first crush, though that crush happens to be a vampire, and I wouldn't expect it not to be juvenile and immature at times. I also feel the Bella character has gotten a bad rap (probably more because of the movie than this novel) because she actually shows a fair amount of bravery here, though by no means is she an action-driven character. Some of the things from the movie which did not make sense to me were better explained here, especially concerning the character motivations of the vampires. And then there's the sparkling. I freely admit the notion of sparkling vampires is downright silly, but it's actually a very small portion of this book, maybe three pages, so I can overlook that to some extent. Will I read on to other books in this series? Hmm, probably not, or at least I won't go out of my way to do so, for this really isn't my kind of thing, but if somehow I ended up with free copies, yeah, I might give them a go. Okay, you can start laughing again.

At Nerdarchy.com: English not your first tongue?

This week my Nerdarchy article offers some suggestions for tabletop role players who do not have English as a first language. The gist is that they should view it as a strength, not a weakness.