Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game, the Truth Behind Sci-Fi, the New Nghi Vo, and More SFF Fun!
Hello, my little event horizons! In today’s round-up of recent sci-fi and fantasy links, we’re going to talk about the release of Kurt Vonnegut’s unpublished board game, the new Nghi Vo novel The City in Glass, the truth about The Rocketeer’s butt, and more!
One of Kurt Vonnegut’s Earliest Creations was a Board Game
Just in time for your holiday shopping, Barnes & Noble has Kurt Vonnegut’s GHQ: The Lost Board Game, with an introduction by James S. A. Corey. It’s a tabletop warfare game based on an idea Vonnegut pitched to publishers in 1956, shortly after the publication of his first novel, Player Piano. Game designer and NYU faculty member Geoff Englestein found the letters about the game idea in the Vonnegut archive at Indiana University. Along with the letters were “…an original set of typewritten rules, complete with Vonnegut’s own notes in the margins. With the permission of the Vonnegut estate, Engelstein tells Polygon that he cleaned the original rules up just a little bit, buffed out the dents in GHQ’s endgame, and spun up some decent art and graphic design.” Little is known about Vonnegut’s thoughts on the war game he designed early in his career since it was never made in his lifetime. So it goes.
That’s No Moon: The Truth About Time Travel, Demonic Possession, and Light Sabers
If you watch sci-fi movies and shows and wonder, “Could that really happen?” then the video podcast Does It Fly? is for you. It’s definitely for me, because I do that all the time, so I am glad Science News brought the show to my attention. Started in April of this year, the hosts of Does It Fly?, astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi and actress and writer Tamara Krinsky, discuss a concept in famous sci-fi and the real science behind it. Episodes have included What Beetlejuice Gets Right About Demonic Possession, Does Back to the Future Time Travel Work?, and Wouldn’t He Burn His @$$?!?, a look at The Rocketeer.
Seanan, and Baker, and Grant, Oh My!
In case you didn’t know, award-winning author Seanan McGuire not only writes amazing fantasy books under her real name, but also writes under the pen names A. Deborah Baker and Mira Grant. It was with great excitement that Tor Nightfire recently announced it will be publishing two new books from McGuire writing as Mira Grant. The first will be arriving in May of 2025, called Overgrowth, and is being pitched as “Annihilation meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse.” And according to McGuire, the story includes a cat named Seymour, who does not die. That’s the best news, especially for Seymour. The second yet-to-be-named book is expected in 2027.
10 Recent Sci-Fi Shows That Didn’t Deserve To Be Canceled
I am always behind when it comes to watching shows and movies, usually streaming things years after the shine has worn off. (For example, I am currently watching The Mentalist, lol.) And I admit I am less inclined to check out a show when I hear that it was canceled, especially if things go unresolved. (I’m probably scarred from watching Soap as a little kid.) So I have not seen any of the shows that ScreenRant thinks should have been given more seasons, but if I were to check out one of them, which one do you think I should pick?
Here’s Your Next Great Fantasy Read
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo, is about an angel, a demon, and the fate of a city. It’s easily one of the best fantasy books of the year, and Reactor thinks so too. Alex Brown breaks down what makes it wonderful. “Vo has that rare talent of not only coming up with thoroughly unique stories but structuring them with prose so beautiful it almost reads like poetry or a song…” (Please note that Reactor is owned by Tor, the publisher of the book, but I am sharing it because it really is a great book.)
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and on Instagram.
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