User blogs

#SixWordStories is a thing.

Xan is an expert.

Here’s my first shot at #SixWordStories.

And then the sun went nova.

- by Larry Heyl CC-BY

There’s a website.

Six Word Stories

And a Flickr group.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/sixwordstory/

Prefaced by “Just as a reminder here is the story that started it all. For sale: baby shoes, never worn. “.

Cross posted from SFF Short Stories.

https://sffshortstories.com/?x=entry:entry200727-052139

Gamer+ News January 20, 2020

Tonight! On Inspired Unreality! It's the Related To Geeks Book Club.

We are reading "The Tower Of The Elephant" by Robert E. Howard. One of the first Conan stories.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600831h.html

There's still time to read it. It's a short story.

Coming up in February and March we will read.

February 17 - Little Brother by Corey Doctorow
https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

March 16 - The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Available on Overdrive and at libraries and booksellers everywhere.

If you have ideas about what you want to read after that we have a group for that.

https://gamerplus.org/groups/28

You are invited to join and participate.

Imspired Unreality is held in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. It's a book club and a podcast so we will be recording.

We posted two podcasts last week recorded on Inspired Unreality.

Related To Geeks - 2019 Geek Agenda
https://anchor.fm/relatedtogeeks/episodes/Related-To-Geeks---Season-2-Episode-5---2019-Geek-Agenda-ea77l4

Ask The Glen anything (about cyberpunk)
https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/ea9k16

Back at work organizing If You Play You Win actual play podcasts. Spark wants to run a game. Anyone else?

https://gamerplus.org/groups/26

I now have three Mini Zines up at DriveThruRPG/Fiction. "Just Quest" is a very minimal OSR rule set. "Chaos In The Eye Of God" and "Yon Rogar’s Hat" are super shorts. They're free on DriveThru and on my Mini Zines website.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/15994/MiniZines

https://www.drivethrufiction.com/browse.php?author=Larry%20Heyl

http://minizines.cc

What have you been doing? Let me know. Let us all know. Post your links to Gamer+ and I'll include your project in Gamer+ News.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

9:00 PM Central Time in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. Everyone is welcome. Click above for Links below.

January 20 - The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600831h.html

February 17 - Little Brother by Corey Doctorow

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

March 16 - The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Available on Overdrive and at libraries and booksellers everywhere.

To make suggestions for April, May, and June join the Related To Geeks Bookclub group.

https://gamerplus.org/groups/28

Show notes for Fantasy and Science Fiction Reads

We discussed:

Universe Unleashed by RobboG

Star Wars: Edge Of The Empire

Dread

ARPGCON
https://tabletop.events/conventions/arkansas-rpg-con

Home School Game Club at Game Goblin

Dragon Truck

Isaac Asimov

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein

Greek Tragedies

Shakespeare

Edward Dunsaney

Gilgamesh

Beowulf

Honor Harrington

Martha Wells - Murderbot Diaries

Isaac Asimov - The Robots Of Dawn

J. Jacques - Questionable Content
https://questionablecontent.net

Chrome

Sylvain Neuvel - Sleeping Giants

Nicky Drayden - The Prey of Gods

China Mieville

Neal Stephenson - Seveneves

Jim C. Hines - Janitors Of The Post-Apocalypse

Ann Leckie - Imperial Radch

Clarks Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Poul Anderson - The Chapter Ends
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41064

Neal Schusterman - Arc Of The Scythe

Yu Godai - Avatar Tuner - Digital Devil Saga

C.S. Lewis - The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

Pratchett, Gaiman - Good Omens

Chuck Palahniuk - The Fight Club

Tamora Pierce - Tortal

James S.A. Corey - The Expanse series

Nicholas Eames - Kings Of The Wyld

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit, The Trilogy

David Eddington

Terry Brooks

Jack Vance - The Green Pearl, The Dying Earth

Anthea Sharp - Feyland

Fritz Lieber - Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser

Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

Fred Saberhagen

Dungeons and Dragons

Edgar Rice Burroughs

L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt

Robert E. Howard - The Tower Of The Elephant

Jon Peterson - Playing at the World

George MacDonald - The Princess and the Goblin

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels

T.H. White - The Once And Future King

E.A. Wyke-Smith - The Marvellous Land Of Snergs

Capetta, McCarthy - Once and Future

Brandon Sanderson - The Emperor's Soul, Mistborn, Wheel Of Time, The Edgedancer, Steelheart, Skyward

Robert Jordan - Wheel Of Time series

Rick Riordan

Cressida Cowell - How To Train Your Dragon

Hairy Larry's Super Shorts

http://sffshortstories.com

William King - Trollslayer, Skavenslayer - Gotrek and Felix

David Gemmell - Legend - Drust

Terry Pratchett - Good Omens, The Last Hero, Guards Guards, Tiffany Aching, The Wee Free Men, The Witches, Wintersmith, Equal Rites, Soul Music, The Monsters Regiment, Small Gods, The Luggage, Rincewind, The Hogfather, Mort, Going Postal (books and characters discussed)

Earthbound

Undertale

Neil Gaiman - The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, A Study In Emerald, American Gods

Gene Wolfe

The Wheel Of Time Companion

Max Gladstone - Three Parts Dead

Samuel R. Delaney - Nova

Hillary Bell - A Matter Of Profit

William Morris - The Well At The World's End

Andrzej Sapkowski - The Witcher Series

Douglas Adams

George R.R. Martin - Game Of Thrones

by Larry Heyl

"For a while there the universe was clockwork. All cause and effect. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction."

Dr. Shengwei was lecturing his class. Physics 101. He hadn't started in on the math yet.

"But the more we tried to describe the more complicated the descriptions became. The systems outpaced our equations. We could no longer make valid predictions. Since we saw chaos we described it as chaos. Chaos Theory became the new thing. But it was more of an excuse for why our predictions were failing than a way to make predictions."

"Is the universe clockwork and completely predictable? Or is it a chaotic mess with no prediction possible? Or is it both? 'It can't be both!' you say. But we are looking through the eyes of man. Maybe the human mind is the limitation here. Maybe in the eye of God chaos is simple."

He could tell he was starting to lose them. He could see the big question forming behind their eyes. What does God have to do with physics? They were expecting math but they were getting theology. Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe". The students were getting anxious. Uncomfortable. He would have to start on the math soon. Then they would wish he was still talking about God.

"Godel proved that in any formal system complex enough to describe itself, even systems as simple as axiomatic algebra, There would be statements that can't be proven or disproven and statements that hadn't yet been proven or disproven. Godel also showed that there was no way to distinguish between the two. Only God would know whether a statement that hadn't been proven could be proved or not. At least until a man or woman could prove or disprove it."

Dr Shengwei turned to the board and started in on the math. When he looked out at the class the uncertaintly and anxiety was gone. This was what they had been expecting. Now the uncertainty and anxiety was replaced with confusion.

Behind every pair of eyes there was a chaotic system known as a human brain. Was the human brain essentially chaotic or was it only chaotic as perceived by the human brain? In the eye of God even the human brain is simple.

---

Originally published at SFF Short Stories

sffshortstories.com/?x=entry:entry190109-101203

I just turned this into a Mini Zine.