‘Baba Yaga’s Assistant’ was geared towards the young adult audience, but at the same time had some pretty adult themes of the death of family members, while discussing the importance of finding one’s own life path based on the values and wisdom established by multi-generational households.

I read book 3 of ‘5 Worlds’ this past week. I continue to enjoy the character development and storyline. I am particularly pleased to see how the evolution of each main character happens at a different pace. For example, in the first book the main character discovers her hidden power; in the second book, the android evolves into something more; in the third book, another main character is starting to grow.

The main plot of this African Science Fiction story starts with four alien races splitting up the earth into their own territories. Parallels to colonialism are the message and allow the reader to be educated on our world history. The presumption of the colonizers being welcomed along with the clash of technologies allows for the beginnings of a compelling story.

This is a middle-grade graphic novel series, but Siegel can tell a story that I believe is more well written than many adult fantasy epics that try to evoke a similar level of world-building. Others do it at the expense of character development, but Siegel weaves both internal and external conflicts for the heroes in a way that seems natural.

It was a fun read and one thing that Caleb is good at too is making sure the title is reflecting what the story is about. Issue one gives the reader a taste of where the overall story is going while throwing in an engaging origin story of the main character along with the origin story of the world he has created.

I backed Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos’ Kickstarter a couple of months ago, ‘Zine100: How Not to Be Colonized By Outreach Programs’. It was a fun and educational mini-zine that was handmade by Stephanie. Her passion and experience in community-based health advocacy are apparent and appreciated in the booklet. She tackles a challenging subject that is also not widely known with an approachable and accessible narrative and art style.

I have always loved Neil Gaiman’s stories. They possess an accessible amount of horror and whimsy while making incredibly niche settings easy to understand by any reader. There is no level of condensation to his narrative, and this book is a great example of it.

The story turned out to be a melancholy post-apocalyptic world where the three protagonists wandered around a destroyed world for food.

For me, it read like an episode of the show instead of a self-contained story.

It was a very fun and quick read, and much like all children’s books, it had a nice moral to its story.

I really enjoyed how Perreault weaved minimalistic frames with more detailed pictures. His style is also accessible enough for a reader to emulate.

Erica does such a great job developing the personalities of the three sisters in the book, allowing them all to have their own distinct and relatable journeys and emotional story arcs.

I have always been a cat person, so I found the game itself a delight to read. I do not know Bellingham personally, but it is greatly apparent that he loves cats and the magic system he created for cats is fun and creative.

It is amazing to see how true to the story that Shanower is in a comic format, and Young’s art is beautiful, personalized, and true to the imagination of how the characters are described. It is clear that the creative team is avid fans of L Frank Baum’s work.

On the surface, the similarities between both systems are player-driven and are heavy into creating consensus in telling a story.

Where the FATE system has strength is in its simple dice system of plus and minus and allowing the player to build their character, allowing them to fully understand who their character is at the beginning of the game.

The game is part of the original White Wolf ‘World of Darkness’ game line. The players take on the roles of ghosts and try to navigate the horror and hope of finding purpose and peace in the next stage of existence.

Although it was written in 2000, and much like political cartoons, some references are dated, I have enjoyed seeing that some of the commentaries of Vermont politics remain unchanged.

Lords of the Cosmos is a quintessential homage to 80’s culture. On the surface, it appears to reference ‘Heavy Metal’ and influenced by the artwork of the bands of Iron Maiden and Metallica.

As I read more of the story, it was fun to see also inspirations from the 80’s cartoons and toys as well.

Erika Chappell did a fantastic job designing the game and she did a great job putting in the intricacies of aerial combat in the rules-light system. The book is 300 pages long and is an amazing example of a steampunk setting.

I got on interlibrary loan the 1984 children’s book, “Trouble for Trumpets.” The book has never been reprinted and is incredibly hard to find. When I do find it on Amazon or eBay, it usually runs for around $800.

More for nostalgia's sake, I dug out my reference book I purchased back in 1995, “The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamer’s Bible” by Sean Patrick Fannon. The book is such a fun resource for those who want to discover old-school games and also great for folks who want to learn about how to get into role-playing games.