This makes me realize that some of the plot (including some characters’ actions), especially at the start of the book, felt like RPG sessions. The characters themselves are well-conceived and -drawn, but most of them seemed pretty blasé about the supernatural.
Really, Lovecraft Country just makes me want to run a Harlem Unbound game of Call of Cthulhu.
Finished reading The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson, about how a wargame hack (D&D) came to be understood as a “role-playing game”, and what that meant to early players and theorists. I can’t recommend this book to you; only you know if you would find this interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed it, of course.
Finished reading The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer, the third book of the series.
This was a faster, more intense, I think better book than the first two, which (aside from the faster part) is saying something. I don’t know if it’s due to my growing familiarity with the baroque setting, the improvement of the author’s craft, rigorous editing on the part of her and her editor, or the plot itself.
Very much looking forward to the fourth and final book, which will be published later this month.
Set aside The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon about a quarter of the way through. I wanted to like this, and probably would have finished it if I’d read it ten years ago, but today it feels more drawn-out and portentous than I’m willing to tolerate.