I spent much of this past weekend bedridden and near-delirious, no doubt aggravated by lack of sleep. It was probably just a 24-hour (or so) flu sweeping through. But it did get me to rethink my commitment to posting to Substack twice each week because I was helpless to write anything worth reading for over a day. When the paywall goes up, I will probably use a few weasel words to soften my promise to post 4 paid-only posts and 4 free posts each month.

In the meantime, it’s almost Christmas and I have nothing in the queue even though I owe you another post soon. I do have some thoughts on how the holiday season seems to affect the core gaming hobby differently from the rest of the retail economy that I will share, but otherwise I might as well shut it down until after Christmas Day. I will have Christmas-y things to do and by the same token, you will have better things to do than read this blog.

However, this does not mean that I lack ideas for new posts — quite the opposite is true. I’m still playing Mohawk Games’ Old World, so I will write a review in spite of what posted a while ago about how they’re constantly updating it. I also have a short post in mind about how AI-generated art and text has affected the business of games, especially on Kickstarter. In addition to all that, I see that Rise of the White Sun is on sale in the Steam store right now; it’s an indie roleplaying/strategy game about Modern China’s Warlord Era, which makes it interesting in and of itself. Buy and review.

On top of all of that, I have a plan for getting into book reviews by way of laying a foundation for the paywall: I have been re-reading Adrian Goldsworthy’s biographies of six famous figures from the Classical Era — Philip II and Alexander III of Macedonia; Julius Caesar; Mark Antony and Cleopatra; and Augustus — and I plan to write a review of each one. After that, I may revisit Margaret MacMillan’s authoritative book on the Versailles Treaty; my initial reactions to it just popped back into my mind while driving around town the other day, but I never wrote them down. It’s probably time to commit them to record.