Category: Dark Fantasy

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Board Game Scenario: Dark Willow

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So over the past several years I’ve posted various scenarios I created for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game, featuring such neglected villains as Angel, Dracula, the Gentlemen, Ethan Rayne, and Glorificus (that last scenario having been created by Jeff Dee, with small modifications by myself). But now, like the show itself, we must come to the end of our run of Buffy episodes. Never having written a scenario for the final Big Bad, the First Evil, I’m wrapping things up one season before the show did, with Dark Willow, the Final Boss of Season Six. And what a bad boss she was.

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Teaser Tuesday: “Railsea”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading Railsea, by China Miéville, author of several of my favorite books, including Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Kraken.

 

railsea
The Little Engine That Could

 

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Teaser Tuesday: “Damnificados”

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

This week I started reading Damnificados, by J.J. Amaworo Wilson, in which terrorists attack a Christmas party in a skyscraper and … No, wait, sorry, wrong story. The actual plot is that a group of “damnificados” — defined by the book blurb as “vagabonds and misfits” — takes over an abandoned building and basically turns it into a vertical city. If this reminds you of the Oakland Bay Bridge from William Gibson’s “Bridge” trilogy, then, uh, you may be me. Or you may be Elizabeth Hand.

damnificados
Damn, I Wish You Were My Structure

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Teaser Tuesday 3/19/2019: “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Recently I upgraded my eReader to one with a larger screen and, like other eReaders I’ve owned, this one came with a selection of public domain works. In this case, one of the works was The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by some guy nobody has ever heard of.

poe
Nevermore

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Teaser Tuesday: “Range of Ghosts”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So this week I was reading Range of Ghosts, an epic fantasy by Elizabeth Bear, which — unlike most epic fantasies I’ve read — is set in what appears to be an analogue of the Mongolian steppes rather than an analogue of Western Europe, which is enough all on its own to make it interesting. Fortunately I also enjoyed the story.

rangeofghosts

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Teaser Tuesday: “Threshold”

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

So this week I was reading Threshold, by Caitlín R. Kiernan, a horror/fantasy novel in which a geology studen gets mixed up with sinister fossils. Or something like that.

threshold
You’re still very pale.

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Teaser Tuesday 1/8/19: “The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland – For a Little While”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So recently I came across a long short story (or very short novella) called “The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland – For a Little While“, by Catherynne M. Valente. This is officially numbered as “Fairyland 0.5” and could be considered a prequel to her “Fairyland” series, inasmuch as it takes place prior to the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and concerns itself with how the missing monarch of that book, Queen Mallow, became Queen Mallow in the first place.

the_girl_who_ruled
Only a one-horsepower engine, but it’s a big horse

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Teaser Tuesday 12/18/2018: “Mortal Engines”

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So this week I’m reading Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve.

 

MortalEngines
I am the eye in the sky, looking at you

 

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Teaser Tuesday 12/4/2018: “All the Birds in the Sky”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So this week I was reading All the Birds in the Sky, the Nebula and Locus award-winning pre-apocalyptic SF/Fantasy mashup by Charlie Jane Anders, in which a small group of witches goes to war with a small group of techies as each tries to save the world in its own particular idiom, which are, unfortunately, sort of diametrically opposed. Or at least that’s what they think.

atbits

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Teaser Tuesday 11/20/18: “Trigger Warning”

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

So this week I’m reading Trigger Warning, a short story collection by some guy named Neil Gaiman. You probably never heard of him.

 

TriggerWarning
Who goes there?

 

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