Reviews

5 January 2026

Shakespeare in the mud

What strange fate has had me slumber upon this gem for two decades? The subject of my thoughts is Deadwood, a TV show first aired in 2004. Being almost 22 years of age does not impede its qualities at all, on the contrary, it is still as valuable as the gold which is cause for its genesis. Deadwood tells the stories of a colorful array of characters as they establish themselves in a camp in the Dakota territory during the gold rush in the 1870s, started first as tents on a muddy patch. The camp quickly turns into a prosperous […]

19 December 2025

Stephen Fry’s Greek Mythology Books

Greek Mythology and I have a complicated relationship. I definitely learned about Greek myths in school at some point, and to this day I still have a fairly basic book on Greek Mythology on my bookshelf. Then came my “wild phase”, and I thought that Norse Mythology was sooo much cooler and more metal than Greek Mythology! In part, my former favorite novel American Gods was also responsible for that. Then a couple of years ago I started playing in a Greek-inspired DnD campaign. That’s when my interest for Greek Mythology really surfaced, because even though I was vaguely familiar […]

11 December 2025

TTRPGs beyond DnD and fantasy (II)

In my previous post, I posted mini-reviews about roleplaying games that I’ve played that are not DnD, but that are mostly fantasy. This post is part two of that post, and lists RPGs I’ve played that are mostly not fantasy, at least not in the traditional medieval fantasy sense. Most of them are still full of fantasy elements or are straight up urban fantasy though. Brindlewood Bay: This is a cozy Miss Marple inspired adventure in which you play a group of old ladies solving murder mysteries. What’s different about this compared to other adventures is that there is not […]

4 December 2025

Fantasy TTRPGs beyond DnD (I)

I’ve been playing DnD for quite a few years now and blogged about my DnD characters about a year ago. A lot of roleplayers are currently going through a bit of DnD fatigue – and while I agree that the combat in DnD can be tedious and frustrating, I still think it’s one of the best systems for long, epic campaigns because the sense of progression you get in DnD is excellent. However, ever since I have started running a regular roleplaying event, which massively contributed to the rapid rise of a local RPG community, I’ve been getting to play […]

27 November 2025

Good and Evil: Baldur’s Gate 3

Is there even a point in blogging about Baldur’s Gate 3? This game is over 2 years old, and surely it’s old news by now? Perhaps, but I’m probably not the only one still playing it, and this game is just something else entirely. I have 467 hours in this game of 4 full runs, but judging by some of the BG3 subreddits those are rookie numbers. I’ve been a big fan of Larian’s games long before BG3 – my favorite game was Divinity: Original Sin 2 before it, and in some aspects, I still think that DOS2 is the […]

7 November 2025

Chief of War: An Accomplishment for Pacific Islanders

I love to watch historical TV shows, especially those that are a bit gritty and not stereotypical period dramas. Vikings is one such examples that comes to mind. This year a new show in the same spirit was released, but focusing on a completely different culture from the other side of the world: Chief of War, a TV show about late 18th century Hawai’i. So Chief of War, with Jason Momoa in the lead role? Sounds cool! I knew him only from GoT and the first Aquaman, both of which I wasn’t much of a fan, and he didn’t blow […]

25 September 2025

Resurrecting Dexter

Just when I thought I was done blogging about Dexter… they released another new show. Yes, another one! I couldn’t quite believe it myself when I saw Dexter: Resurrection popping up a couple of months ago. Skeptical, I read a few opinions about it, and people say it’s actually really good? Well, guess I’ll have to watch it then. The first episode definitely required a bit of suspension of disbelief if you know what happened at the end of New Blood, but they tried their best to make it believable. Regardless of that, the show pulls you right in with […]

10 September 2025

In and out of the reading slump

I’ve been having a terrible book hangover ever since I finished reading the Realm of the Elderlings series, about which I extensively blogged. It was such a great series and a deeply emotional reading experience, that I struggled really hard with most books I’ve tried to read ever since. I’ve probably had the worst reading slump I ever had in my time of actively reading books. My first attempt was The Immortal Investigation by Michael Cronk – a very lighthearted, humorous book, and debut novel of an indie author. I realized pretty fast that this is neither my style nor […]

15 July 2025

Death of the Author: Life after Gaiman

I’ve been a fan of the works of Neil Gaiman since roughly 2003, when I read American Gods. During the 00s, I read most of his published works, including Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, The Sandman, and various short story collections. I even went to book readings by him, first in 2007 in Cologne (weirdly, it took place inside a car dealership), and then again in 2014, also in Cologne (but in some more author-appropriate location). I always loved how dreamy and philosophical Gaiman’s works were, and how they weave something magical into something utterly ordinary. Especially their concepts of religion and […]