I bumped into Jeremy on Facebook. I'm not a stalker or anything; Facebook provides a nice opportunity to get a voyeuristic window into the lives and current projects of writers I like. Those writers have friends that are writers, and maybe Facebook recommends more to you, and so on, and so on.. so on. To be utterly honest, I had some inkling of Jeremy's existence in advance, as a writer that sometimes pops into CEMETARY DANCE magazine, and I have heard his name whispered in association with something called "Bizzaro Fiction", so I croaked "Oh! That guy!" and sent him a friend request. Most writers will friend you on Facebook, that's nothing special.. it's just another way of making word of mouth happen. Jeremy seems like a nice chap, though, and ran a little "Status Update Murder Mystery" where the people on his friends list would grill him for clues and they would eventually figure it out, three minute mystery style. I liked that-- it's fun and accessible. So when he sent out a status update asking "anyone want to review VACATION and SHEEP AND WOLVES (short stories)? There' s a couple of free PDFs in it for you!" I figured, why not?

VACATION grabbed me with the first sentence, and that's a capricious enough way to get a review started in my book. So that's what I'm reading now. I hope to have it done over the weekend; we'll see. I'm trying to kill off ANATHEM for my book club one of these days, so I can't promise I'll get to SHEEP AND WOLVES quickly, but I think I can plow through VACATION quickly enough.

Stay tuned, this looks like fun.

Not your Daddy's set-collecting game

Atlas Games has had its hits and misses with me. The company has some good (possibly great) concepts and has managed to have a couple of winners-- notably GLOOM (a card game the Adaams Family would have liked) and CTHULHU 500. Atlas is a company with a focus on humor that could be considered somewhat dark... as is evidenced by their games LUNCH MONEY and even ONCE UPON A TIME (a somewhat less than satisfactory storytelling game). The problem with "dark" humor is that the humor must be sustained throughout the game (and not just a sporadic "hey, he made a funny!") or failing that, the mechanics of the game have to hold up by being something totally new and original. For example, the cards in ILLUMINATI do not contain jokes that would make Shecky Green worry at night, but there's something so funny about situations like the Boy Sprouts controlling Big Oil which in turn controls the Secret Masters of Fandom that the concept stays silly (and fresh).

So it was with some trepidation that I tried LET'S KILL! by Atlas recently. The price was right and I was looking for a time-killer, so I figured what the heck.

I was pleasantly surprised. The subject is very nihilistic and it's fairly hypocritical that I would enjoy it so much, given my self-avowed leanings towards non-violence. There's such a cartoony exuberance about the game, I couldn't help it.

Where to start? Let's Kill is not for kids. The game is a game about killing. It treads the same tragicomic ground that has been covered by another favorite of mine, Suburban Slasher. You are cast in the role of a horror movie serial killer, collecting "scores" on victims. This doesn't seem like it's ground for comedy, but it's actually hugely funny. The crass, childish stick art underscores the basic inhumanity of the concept, yet is simultaneously very funny at the same time.

The game itself is not going to give anyone anyone any wrinkles. At the root of it, this is a simple set collection and scoring game not unlike a dozen other vaguely rummy like games published by CheapAss and other poverty row publishers. The game is (in this case) sustained almost entirely by the card art and writing. The original designers (Sancho Games.. this is a reprint) were quite clever in invoking some horrific horror themes whilst mitigating them with childish stick figure art and liberal doses of red ink representing.. well, you know.

I enjoyed Let's Kill. It made me laugh and is fairly clever and very funny in places. It has a very minimal utility for me as a game, as it is not something I can play with my kids-- so it's only going to be pulled out at conventions or at local game days for a while, until my children are at least age 13 or even older. The game is appropriately labeled as being for mature subjects, and I applaud Atlas for using caution. Like as not it will tumble Suburban Slasher from my Top Ten List of Humorous Games in time, as it handles the subject matter in a far superior fashion.