this show's irresponsible scenes of woolly mammoths

Today's randomly surreal subject line irresistibly recalls my DMing days, which were characterised by a tendency to drop sudden, random woolly mammoths from a dizzy height onto uncooperative characters. Somewhere I still have the picture Thak drew for me... My late, not particularly lamented Falkenstein game actually managed to recreate the woolly mammoth effect for real, during the undersea Atlantis adventure, and courtesy of khoi_boi's darned mage character. It was a fairly horrible and splattery end for an innocent prehistoric pachyderm understandably grumpy about being unexpectedly released from time-stasis. At least the DM's ironic and castigatory version never harmed any actual mammoths.

I suppose every DM has their woolly mammoth equivalent. I retain a certain fondness for wytchfynder's deep chasm which materialised every time anyone tried to leave the quest path. Characters had to struggle up the sides, their hands bleeding from sharp rocks, while horrible monkey-creatures pelted them with filth, reaching the top only to collapse into a puddle of rhinoceros urine. Great days, great days...

In the Department of Random Book Reports, I thoroughly recommend John Varley's Titan, which I read yesterday in default of actually doing any work. Fascinating, vivid, slighly mind-blowing stuff: NASA manned probe discovers enormous, enigmatic structure orbiting Titan, is sucked into its environment. Adventure ensues. I think his sexual politics may be a bit dodgy at times, but it's an amazing novel. Also, a new one by Susan Cooper (she wrote the Dark is Rising series, which is simply the best young adult post-Arthurian fantasy I've ever read): King of Shadows is a Shakespearian time-travel story, featuring a young actor involved in a modern production at the Globe. It's not only a marvellous evocation of Elizabethan times, it has an emotional authenticity I really enjoyed.

In other news, today is the Evil Landlord's birthday, which I am announcing to the world at large in a deliberate attempt to sabotage his usual attempt at stealth birthday wossnames. Have bestowed upon him a random copy of Eckwall's dictionary of British placenames, as a temporary measure until the actual present - Season 3 of Babylon 5 - actually arrives. (Gave him Season 1 for Christmas; my mother gave him Season 2 as a thank-you for her three-week stay with us. We've been watching a lot of Babylon 5. I have to say, Season 1 is exceptionally clunky compared to later seasons - rather wooden acting in a lot of places, and the writers are earnest but rather simplistic. I confidently expect things to get a lot better when the Shadow war gets going.)