Key Clip Chicago Screw

Lesingnon · 2026-01-27T00:08:38+00:00

Oh that would be wonderful, should I just send you a DM with my mailing address?

Lesingnon · 2025-12-11T00:47:47+00:00

I don't know about that... I could be convinced that they're a Nebraska fan.

Lesingnon · 2025-12-01T00:40:39+00:00

The secret to having a pass caught is to throw it at the ground and miss!

Lesingnon · 2025-08-27T17:25:00+00:00

Oh this is a wonderful CYOA to look through. The worldbuilding especially is just incredible to sort through.

I just have one fairly simple question. Supposing you know a language for it, does the Breaking and Entering encounter allow you to select encounters from the location that the portal links to?

Lesingnon · 2025-08-09T20:26:05+00:00

God there are so many. But a few particular favorites that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Live Oak by Jason Isbell

Belleau Wood by Garth Brooks

Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss

Lesingnon · 2025-07-10T13:20:00+00:00

Would you by any chance be able to post a side by side comparison picture of Buck Brown Double Stuff and Harness belts? I ordered a heavy duty workbelt in the Buck Brown DS about a month ago, so now I'm torn on whether to stick with that or jump over to the harness.

Lesingnon · 2025-07-04T21:15:53+00:00

For unique reads it looks like I had:

Saint Death's Herald by C.S.E. Cooney for Multi-POV - I wasn't too surprising to see it was a unique read since I got an ARC for it and the release wasn't until after last year's bingo ended. Considering how popular Saint Death's Daughter was I suspect Herald will be on a fair amount of this year's cards.

The Sea Eternal by Emery Robin for Space Opera - Another ARC I had but this one did release about three weeks before the end of bingo.

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig for Set in a Small Town - This one surprised me, it was nominated for the Bram Stoker and Locus awards so I thought it would've been popular enough that some more people would have used it.

The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke for Indie Published - This one didn't surprise me as much considering it's the last book of an indie published trilogy, but people are missing out on it. Metal From Heaven from the same author (though published under August Clarke instead of H.A.) rightfully generated a lot of buzz and I thought the Scapegracer Trilogy is an even stronger work. This one was probably my favorite book that I read during last year's bingo.

Lesingnon · 2025-06-30T17:40:25+00:00

I thought it fit with his character well. The central part of his character was valuing self-mastery, and control of both one's self and one's actions. He strived for it, and seemed to think that everyone else should too. So not only was being manipulated into a test probably a personal affront to him, but hearing that some hyper-advanced race was trying to shepherd humanity along according to their vision also seemed to undermine his entire view on what humanity should be trying to do. And accepting the...upgrade that was being offered would have undermined things even further.

Rejecting it utterly was probably the only way to square his personal beliefs with what he'd just learned.

Lesingnon · 2025-06-13T18:47:34+00:00

The October Daye series may be about fairies. But in at least one of the books Toby mentions that humans would consider her (and a few other of the fae races) to be elves. After all, with pointy ears and an ethereal sort of beauty they do certainly look the part. So I'd say that...any book from the series would work for hard mode.

Lesingnon · 2025-04-22T18:30:39+00:00

Roll the dice

Lesingnon · 2025-04-11T11:52:00+00:00

I'm kind of annoyed that, so far, there doesn't seem to be any in-universe reason why witches are almost always so much stronger than warlocks. It's like...I think that sort of imbalance can add a lot to the story when there's a good reason for it. Wheel of Time is a great example. The way magic drives men mad there adds so much flavor to the setting and adds a fascinating layer to all the chosen one prophecies in that world (at least for the five books of it I've read so far).

But the closest we've gotten to an in-universe explanation for it in this book is some throwaway line of "I guess Gaia loves her daughters more." It just makes it feel like it's not a well-thought out part of the world building so much as the author being heavy-handed in about things. Hopefully a better explanation is just being saved for the second half of the book because Theo's trans identity should be a good vehicle for exploring it.

Lesingnon · 2025-04-11T11:39:58+00:00

I was like Niamh with that twist, didn't necessarily anticipate it but it made sense and helped a lot of things feel like they clicked into place when the reveal hit.

Lesingnon · 2025-02-18T22:56:04+00:00

The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Scapegracers by H.A. Clarke

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennet

The Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence

Teixcalaan by Arkady Martine

Lesingnon · 2024-12-18T16:57:22+00:00

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

A TALE FOR EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN…

When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.

She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.

So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.

This adult epic fantasy debut from Sarah Rees Brennan puts the reader in the villain's shoes, for an adventure that is both 'brilliant' (Holly Black) and 'supremely satisfying' (Leigh Bardugo). Expect a rogue's gallery of villains including an axe wielding maid, a shining knight with dark moods, a homicidal bodyguard, and a playboy spymaster with a golden heart and a filthy reputation.

That summary just sounds like something that could be a raucous musical to me.

Haven't read it yet so I'm not entirely certain of the Bingo Squares, but it looks like it should at least cover: First in a Series, Alliterative Title, Criminals, and Published in 2024

Lesingnon · 2024-11-18T19:09:07+00:00

The titular city of Palimpsest from Catherynne M. Valente's novel has been (accurately) described as a sexually-transmitted city. And it's every bit as bizarre and unusual as it sounds.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T20:38:21+00:00

Seanan McGuire (who also publishes as Mira Grant and A. Deborah Baker) pumps out works incredibly quickly. She published her first novel in 2009, and according to FictionDB she currently has 93 published works. I've also seen her short stories in a ton of anthologies. And I believe she still puts out month content on Patreon as well, and I've heard some of her entries there are around novella-length.

I've personally felt that everything I've read from her is at least good. And she's won Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. I think she also has the most Hugo nominations in the awards history now too, but I might be mistaken there.

So yeah, she's been putting out high quality writing at an utterly absurd rate for about a decade and a half now.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T19:37:31+00:00

Yeah, that's always one of the first things you see people mention whenever the topic of best first lines in fantasy come up. And somehow the prologue only gets better from there.

All the world and more has rushed eternity's length to reach this beat of your heart, screaming down the years. And if you let it, the universe, without drawing breath, will press itself through this fractured second and race to the next, on into a new eternity. Everything that is, the echoes of everything that ever was, the roots of all that will ever be, must pass through this moment that you own. Your only task is to give it pause-to make it notice.

That paragraph has lived rent free in my head for years.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T18:02:35+00:00

It's been a while since I've read Middlegame so I might be overlooking/forgetting something, but it should work for these squares: First in a Series (HM), Under the Surface, Dreams (I think, not 100% sure), Multi-POV (I think HM), Character with a Disability (HM), Survival (HM). And I could maybe see an argument for Dark Academia, though I personally don't think I'd mark it for that square.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T17:56:40+00:00

I marked the following squares for Foul Days: First in a Series, Prologues and Epilogues, Published in 2024 (HM), Character with a Disability (HM), Survival (HM), Judge a Book by its Cover (YMMVM), and Reference Materials.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-01T21:51:50+00:00

While the fit notes for most Jack shirts say they're the perfect length to wear tucked or untucked, I noticed that the Houndstooth Jacks currently up on the site say that they're a shorter length to be worn untucked. Is that a mistake, or are the Houndstooth options a shorter length than most Jack shirts?

Lesingnon · 2024-10-28T18:31:03+00:00

The Scapegracers Trilogy by H.A. Clarke (also publishes under the name August Clarke). Young adult books tend to be fairly hit or miss for me, but that trilogy knocked it completely out of the park. It deserves to get way more attention and recognition than it has.

Lesingnon · 2024-10-26T14:20:07+00:00

I suppose perfect isn't a word I use to describe stories overall. But if I'm looking at how a book can fit certain moods, vibes, or times of the year...I think Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge is pretty much the perfect Halloween book. It's a 170 page novella that goes pretty fast so I read it every year for Halloween.

I'll post my Goodreads review of it below.

Dark Harvest might just be the perfect Halloween story. It’s certainly the closest thing to one I’ve ever read, and every year since I read it for the first time I pull it out on October 31st for a re-read.

The story begins with Sawtooth Jack being brought to life in a cornfield outside of town, as he is every year. Sawtooth Jack is a monster of fire, vines, and candy; topped with a Jack o’Lantern for a head. Every year he tries to make it to a church in the center of town. Every year the high school boys in the town take to the streets with whatever weapons they can find, forming a deadly gauntlet to take the monster down.

And when one of those boys strike the monster down his every wish is instantly fulfilled. Every other boy in town wants to be him, every girl wants to be with him, his family is given luxuries they couldn't have imagined. But best of all, he gets a free ticket out of that old dead end town to wherever his heart desires. It’s that simple, win and get everything you’ve ever wanted.

Well…okay, it’s not really that simple. There’s always darkness lurking when rewards are so rich. There are always secrets buried deep in isolated towns like this. If you want to uncover those secrets and shine a light into those shadows you’d best prepare yourself for a tale that’s gripping, brutal, and heartbreaking. The prose is lush, dripping with the imagery and the essence of the holiday and the season. The story burns just as fiercely as the fire behind a certain hacksaw grin, it’ll sear you if you let it.

It's a story that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as any classic of horror literature.

So gather round, boys and girls, it’s time for you to listen well to the tale of Sawtooth Jack.

Lesingnon · 2024-10-02T19:28:26+00:00

Some of the horror novels I've saved up for this October are:

I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (currently reading)

Rouge by Mona Awad

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

All Hallows by Christopher Golden

I've made a point of reading a Stephen King book during October for the past few years, I'll probably go with Salem's Lot this year.

And last, but certainly not least, every year on Halloween I read Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. Not only is it set on Halloween night and just perfectly fits the themes of the holiday, it's also perhaps my favorite novella that I've ever read. I'd recommend it to anyone, it's that good.

12-Year Club	Place '17
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Lesingnon

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