EPISODE EIGHT: SEASONS GREETINGS
Tis the season to roll jolly lots of dice
What I’ve been reading in December
The Twelve by Liz Hyder is a very atmospheric contemporary tale set on the wild west coast. When a midnight trip to a local church tower on the Winter Solstice goes wrong, Kit’s sister is seemingly wiped from history, as if she never existed. Kit teams up with a local boy called Story, and guided by the mysterious Nia, has to get her sister back before time itself unravels. Alan Garner vibes, based on old myths and folklore, but with a modern twist.
Running by B.B. Taylor is a short, pacey novel about genetically enhanced Mairi’s attempts to escape from a shadowy organisation. She saves the life of an elite government task force agent and decides to stop running for one final confrontation with her pursuers. A new take on the Jason Bourne genre of super-spies.
I got the D&D Players’ Handbook for Jolabokaflod this year and have been diving into it ever since, comparing this latest edition of the rules to previous incarnations. I grew up on the 2nd edition rules in the 1980s, and then about twenty years ago got back into it with the 3.5 edition rules. A lot has changed over that time. Not sure if I like all of the changes but that’s probably to do with my age (!) though it’s clearly a more stream-lined simpler game now. Looking forward to trying it out soon.
My Own Scribblings
I’m still working on my new writing project – an adventure series aimed at teenagers along the lines of Alex Rider and Silverfin. I finished the first draft in time for my 1-2-1 with Linas Alsenas, an editorial director at Penguin Random House. He said some lovely things about the first few chapters and had some great ideas for tweaking the plot to make it more commercial. I’ve been working on those things ever since.
The school visits calmed down as we approached Christmas. One school postponed my event at the last minute, so I only visited one this month but it was a very sweet little local school. Fiona and I attended a school fair as well. Unfortunately, we were on an outside stall and it was a very windy afternoon. But Fiona’s books went down a storm (pun intended)! Next month is busy again, with five events lined up for me to kick off the New Year.
Don’t forget you can order your copy of my latest book, Pax & The Forgotten Pincher here: https://bit.ly/3XN5G4N or here: https://bit.ly/3U5xuPh
Sport Billy
Not much tennis this month, unless you count the Foxhills’ Tennis end-of-year drinks! I played a bit of padel, went on several runs as well as my usual weekly outdoor circuits. Squeezed in a round of golf at Sunningdale Heath on Boxing Day. I’m hoping to get a bit of surfing in before the end of the year. And one of my Christmas presents has been a surfer’s balance board. It’s very tricky, much harder than an actual surfboard!
Boardgames
With our daughter back from university, there has been plenty of gaming action this month. We had a nice game of Ticket to Ride (Nordic Countries version) when I accidentally kept stealing all the train cards Fiona wanted (oops!). And a game of Machi Koro 2 where you have to buy cards to build the best town for generating income. I was in last place for almost the entire game, until a lucky last-minute role enabled me to steal half of the other players’ money and buy the very expensive Launch Pad landmark, which won me the game.
We also played Agatha Christie’s Death On The Cards (Modiphius), a hunt-the-killer version of happy families and Meeple Circus (Matagot), a great game of balancing mini-figures in the big top.
Our usual pre-Christmas meet-up with Fiona’s side of the family included an overnight stay with her brother and family. Since he’s also a keen board-gamer, I got to play a couple of our more tactical games in between the festive meal and other activities.
We played Village Rails (Osprey Games) which is a lovely tableau game, based on laying train track tiles in the best possible pattern to maximize scoring combinations. As well as deciding where to place a tile you have to decide whether to spend money on picking a better tile and whether to enhance your routes with trips. All packaged in a super neat box with great quality components. Surprisingly deep tactics for a 45-minute game.
We also played Fugitive (Flower Games), a two-player card game where one person is trying to escape while being hunted down by a marshal who has to guess which spaces on the escape route the fugitive is or has been. A fast, fun game.
