Book: Dreams of a Strange House

 Strange Houses by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion, HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2025, original Japanese 2021.

Provenance: Browsers Bookshop in Olympia. A nice, well-staffed bookstore in downtown Olympia. Purchased on a whim, in part because the front cover had a house blueprint on the front with Japanese icons on it.

Review: Long ago, before I became a author, game designer, and general worldbuilder, I was a civil engineer. And as a result, I have always had a fascination with buildings and how they work and grow over time. In particular, I find blueprints and floor plans interesting, in what they say about the house and people who live there.

Strange Houses is set in modern Japan. The narrator, an author of macabre fiction is approached by a friend who is homebuying with his spouse. And they found a excellent modern house, but there was just something off-base about it. And they sent the floor plans to the author, who quickly noticed some things that were off-kilter. He brought in an architect friend and together the two start unspooling a mystery, which quickly turns disturbing and horrific. 

The book produces the house plans, as well as other house plans as the story unfolds, along with family trees and timelines. And these are presented in the running text as well, allowing the reader to discover the evidence as the author does.  Now, I read a lot of old detective novels from the 20s and 30s, and in such venerable tomes by Christie and Van Dine, they provide floor plans as well. In fact, putting a map or house diagram on the back of paperback editions was a thing back there. So that's not much of a surprise, but what the book does is that was they learn more about the house(s) they make changes to the house plans to reveal new ideas. 

So there are clues in the house plans, which is cool, and I noticed most of them before the two investigators spelled them out in text. But, I also noticed stuff that they left uncommented-upon. In the plans, there is one large room on the second floor without any exterior windows. OK, that's odd (though my first thought was to ask if there was a skylight). But (and this is the weirdness they don't address) there also is one toilet on the floor, and you'd have to pass through the windowless room to get there. It is a little strange that the investigators that are looking really, really hard at the house don't call it out. 

I've mentioned this before in my comments on various Call of Cthulhu products, where the maps don't line up with the text, or have their own discrepancies,  like chimneys that are prominent on the first floor and disappear on the upper floors, or locations of kitchens and bathrooms that would be logistical nightmare regarding the pipes. So I'm sensitized to such things, and in this case seeing stuff that the (real) author would prefer me to miss. And if fact, at the time I wrote it off as simply "Well, they lay out houses differently in Japan", but I went to the trouble of looking up Tokyo floor plans (thank you, Internet), and nope, the ones here look like they make no sense.

In any event, the investigators make some immediate assumptions, which turn out to be mostly true, but the logic leaps are a bit much. And then they find a second house, where the family had previously lived, which also had some odd features. And then there's the family house, of more traditional design, which had its own sense of weirdnesses.

And all of this is presented in drawings and conversations between the investigators, and interviews with various people. It is all presented as evidence, in a fairly bloodless fashion (though there is blood in many of the descriptions and conclusions). In this way it feels a lot like Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu", where nothing really happens to the narrator as he goes through the files of his deceased uncle and comes to a chilling conclusion. Same here, though there are more questions than answers in the final tally.

The clinical approach of the investigators left me cold, and the fact that things are (maybe) not wrapped up neatly bothered me. The (real) author is a mystery figure whose photograph is a black robe and a white mask (very Studio Ghibli). The books (there are more in this style) are huge in Japan. I want to say that it is the cultural differences that ultimately frustrated me, but I think the translation is on-target.

It is ultimately a case that I bring too much to the book. I know too much about a subject and it brought me in conflict with the reality presented in the novel. And the ultimate loose ends and unreliable testimonies frustrate me, particularly in comparison with the venerable "The Call of Cthulhu". Strange Houses is a short, compact read (given all the house plan illos), but I can't really recommend this even to friends who have spent time in Japan. It was a misfire, though apparently a very successful one.

More later,

Theatre: Life in Wartime

 Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi, Directed by Nagmeh Samini, a co-production with Seda Iranian Theatre Company, Arts West, through 5 July.

There's a weirdness in watching a play about Iranian women during wartime at the moment in time where we're at war with Iran (or we're not at war. Or we are and its not a war. Or its a ceasefire but we're still shooting missiles at each other. Or, wait, it is a war after all, depending on what day you're reading this). 

But its a play about war as a backdrop - actually its a play about friendships, and women and how time claims all those forced to live in it. Five close female friends are together on one of their number's wedding day, making final preparations, fretting about beauty, and being intimately raunchy about their vaginas. There's the religious one, the nerdy one, the dumb one, the stylish one, and the exotic (Jewish in a mostly-Muslim state) one. And they preen, hug, insult, and argue their way through the wedding prep. They have a moment. They hug. And then the news comes in that Shah has booked out, and a little later that Iraq has invaded. 

And the world changes around them, and little by little their world collapses on them. The Jewish one disappears and may/may not have fled with her family. The nerdy one goes to school in Indiana and does not return. The religious one dies in a horrifically ironic manner. And with each loss the survivors cling to each other, break up, have more weddings and funerals, argue, drift together, drift apart and bemoan the lack of the others as connective tissue. The revise their feelings and histories in real-time as they pick their way through a now-uncertain world. 

And as a play, it is really, really good. Sanaz Toossi wrote English from a couple seasons back, which was also performed in in this space in conjuration with the Seda Iranian Theatre Company, and with the same director. The dialogue was natural and honest, though with the cross-talk you're often catching up on what they're really talking about. The five actresses (plus a sixth, who is the new one) are excellent in defining their personalities, differences, and unities. Yeah, I can see these five women coming together as force, with their future ahead of them, and what happens next. Think of the Big Chill with a more authoritarian state. 

I liked this so much I didn't lead with talking about where we ate before the show. This time, we returned to Phoenecia, an excellent Lebanese place a block over the the theater. It was a warm Friday here, and so we sat on the small patio and had too many small plates, great entrees (The Lovely Bride brought her seafood back in the doggie bag) and too many drinks (The LB experimented with mocktails, while I had to abandon my last of my second Moscow Mule in order to make the show on time). It was a good start to the evening and very good show.

More later, 

Scams

 We are awash in scams these days. Mysterious Docusign demands. Emails claiming to be from the Geek Squad or PayPal announcing that someone purchased a iPad in your name. Other emails that claim to be from the Lovely Bride, saying "Here are the pictures you wanted!" with emojis and an unknown link (and the sender has a Bulgarian email address).

In addition to the cybercrime, we recently had some physical burglary activity in the neighborhood, in an empty house across the street. Some folk in a white truck boosted a construction trailer from a site in the valley (They have videos of the theft), stashed it there overnight while they emptied the trailer of equipment, and for good measure, broke into a shed on the property and took some other, older tools. I saw the truck at the time but did not think twice, because the previous owners had a white truck and had been emptying the house, but since finding out about the break-in I've been keeping an eye out ever since (and chatting with the original owners whenever they WERE on the property).

That's all background for the new scam we encountered. The Lovely Bride got a phone call on her phone, asking for me, under my rarely-used first name (which I only use for official documents). The caller claimed to be Sgt. Jason Cooke of the King County Sheriff's office, and would I call back. She called back and after a rather suspicious phone tree, got ahold of that officer, who wanted me to call him back as soon as possible. The Lovely Bride had some very pointed questions and he was not forthcoming as to reasons.

And there were a buncha flags here, so the Lovely Bride called a friend of ours who IS a King County Sheriff, and he determined that no, there was no one on the force by that name. And he called the number in question and they hung up on him. Twice. So, yeah, it sounded extremely some scam we had not heard about yet. 

In any event, just in case it was legit, I did call the number back, got the sketchy phone tree (which identified itself as being the King's County Sheriff), went through another secretary and got ahold of Sgt. Cooke. And he said I had a federal affidavit in my name and I should have gotten a letter. I informed him I had received no such letter and pointed out that I had a colleague who was a REAL Sergeant in the King County Sheriffs, and that he would be interested in talking to him. And Sgt. Cooke explained that they were in different divisions and shifts, which sounded just barely credible to be true.

And we chatted some more and he asked if I would come downtown to provide a signature. Again, weird but just borderline credible. He gave me an address and an office number, and the address was the King County Courthouse (I checked while I talked to him). So took a long lunch and drove downtown, trying to go over in my mind any sin, crime, or misdemeanor which would require a federal affidavit and a visit to the police (and why King County was dealing with federal affidavits was yet another red flag, but there were more red flags here than May Day during the Khrushchev era). Oh, and I could come down anytime during the day - he'd be in (Ding! another red flag).

So I went downtown, paid too much for parking, and went through the metal detectors at the courthouse, and found the office, right there on the first floor by the entrance. Couldn't miss it. And rang the bell. No one answered, but one of the people on the front desk came by with lunch. And I explained the situation, and that person explained that no, there was no Sgt. Cooke there and yes, it probably was a scam. 

So I went to Pike Place Market, bought some Earl Grey tea from Market Spice and a loaf of sourdough from Three Sisters, and some hum bao from Meesum Pastries for lunch, so the trip wasn't a total loss. 

But I have to admit that Sgt. Cooke and company really committed to the bit. The fake phone tree, the waiting music, the conversation all sounded reasonable at first blush if you didn't have any interaction with the King County Sheriff's Office. And he was extremely calm and well-mannered when confronted with the fact that no one seemed to know him. Didn't spook him for a moment, and he gave himself a good escape from the conversation. 

AND after this is all said an done, I did an internet search on Sgt. Jason Cooke. And it looks like he's a very busy officer, with reports coming on all over the country of this scam, where the bogus officer named Jason Cooke calls up and says there is an arrest warrant out for you but you can avoid it by sending him a gift card. 

The only question in this case is ... why? I mean, it was a pretty elaborate setup, and nothing was ultimately asked of me other than to come downtown for a fictitious appointment. I wondered if the thieves wanted me out of the house when they came back to the empty property across the street. That sounds really Nero Wolfe, but when I returned, the shed door was open again, which I didn't notice it at the time when I left. I called the former property owners (they're local), and they found out that the NEW property owners had stopped by and left doors open. So, nope, no prob.

But still -  I'm a little nervous about the whole thing, and keeping my eyes even further open, but frustrated that this sort of thing is ongoing.

More later, 

Recent Arrivals: The North Texas Report

 What, already?

Yes, I promised to go onto a game-buying fast until I bull through some of the games I have already purchased. But a large box arrived from the folks at the North Texas RPG Con down in Irving, Texas. Each year, they present the Three Castles Award. Candidates are submitted and reviewed by a committee of several wise, sage, heads. For the past few years, my colleague Steve Winter and I have been among those wise, sage heads. We read, we review, and we vote. At this point I don't know who the winner is, but if you disagree with my comments, you can yell at Steve, since he'll be down at the convention.

There are also a couple things that have come over the transom, and one that was purchased from my local shop, but first off, let's look at the nominees for the Three Castles.

Denizens of the Blood Sands, a Science Fiction Bestiary by Zac Goins, RPG Ramblings, 56-Page digest-sized hardbound, 2025, Three Castles Award Candidate. This is a nifty little monster manual in full-color, designed for Old School Essentials version of D&D, and packs a lot of potential for "sword-and-planet" style settings like Dark Sun or Empire of the Petal Throne, as well as post-apocalyptic settings like Gamma World (in all its variable rule sets). There are desert dwellers and host of lost technologies rolling around here, along with mutations in the desert (This year's crop of candidates has a LOT of mutations in it, for some reason). I found it charming. 

Dark Visions, ALSO by Zac Goins, RPG Ramblings, 86-page digest-sized hardbound, 2025, Three Castles Award Candidate. This is a third-party expansion for Shadowdark. Our Monday-night RPG gang is playing Shadowdark right now and having a good old time with it. And Arcane Library, the publisher of Shadowdark, has been very accommodating in letting others use their system and trade dress (the way it looks). The Shadowdark layout is normally clean and clear, and ditto here. This volume primarily builds off the idea of cults, both to the major gods of SD, but adding seven "lesser" gods who are the centers of cult worship. Cults look like they are smaller, more zealous, and more violent than your standard-issue religions. Three new classes are introduced (one cultist, two anti-cultist), along with new spells and two adventures (a third is mentioned, but available separately). Some of the mishaps for cult-spells are career-ending (1d4 limbs melt off the bone, for example), so caution is advised.

Meet Yer Maker by Eddie Bartlett, The Long Con Press, 32-page squarebound, 2024, Three Castles Award Candidate. Early in the age of RPGs (1987), TSR published Treasure Hunt, an adventure for 0-level adventurers (the adventure you have before you decide to be an adventurer). This type of adventure as been embraced in recent years as a "gauntlet" or "funnel", where you throw potential PCs without much differentiating abilities into the maw of danger and those that survive get to go on to 1st level. Sort of expanding the character-creation minigame into a full-fledged game. Anyway, this one kicks off with a Old Western start and goes elsewhere from there, and its very difficult to say you're avoiding spoilers without sending up a flare that spoilers exist. So I'll stop there.

Forgotten Tomb of Acererak by Troy Alleman and William Henry Dvorak, Cannibaal Publishing, 72-page squarebound, 2024, Three Castles Award Candidate. This is distributed through the DM's Guild, which allows access to D&D trademarks in exchange for a healthy cut of the take. In this case, the author is presents an entry-level adventure in Greyhawk featuring the legacy of the S1 - Tomb of Horrors bad guy, the lich Acererak. This particular tomb was Acererak's starter home, which they started digging, discovered something nasty, and hied off to quieter corners of Oerth. You mission (as an entry-level individual) is to locate the tomb and find out what scared Acererak off. And its a solid adventure, very much in the old school Greyhawkian style, and brings in cavefolk and the Flan goddess of nature, Beory. The presentation is solid and clean, and gives you a excellent jumping off point for adventures. If you use the DM's Guild (this writer does not), this is the sort of thing that's really worth checking out. 

Nebulith by Zak S. with Alex Hopson. Lamentations of the Flame Princess, 298-page digest-sized hardbound, 2025, Three Castles Award Candidate. Lamentations of the Flame Princess has a weird Jekyll/Hyde nature, in that it can produce extremely high-quality, RPG-dense material as well as cringy edgelord stuff.  An example of the former from Last year it was A True Relation of the Great Virginia Diastrum. This year it is Nebulith, a beefy Asian (Okinawan) adventure setting that feeds into the weirdness that LotFP does so well. The Nebulith is a volcano magically halted mid-eruption, so it is a huge frozen stone cloud hanging over the island of Awa Nikko, and serves as the "dungeon" for this setting. The setting is rich in lore, changing the euro-centric LotFP rules to adapt to samurai, ninja, and martial arts. This is the first Asian-themed product I've read that beats out the venerable Oriental Adventures from TSR. I love the art, I love the lore, I love the game design. My big challenge is that the graphic design is pretty but often involves hand-drawn lettering and 8-point type, which is hard on these ancient eyes. Worth reading, even if the reading is slow.

The Music of Ericha Zann by James Edward Raggi IV, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, 32-page digest-sized hardbound, 2025, Three Castles Award Candidate. This is the flip-side of LotFP - transgressive, hard-edged, and uncompromisingly bizarre. This sort of thing is much more of a descendent of such ancient and now-mostly-forgotten tomes as Arduin Grimoire, where you turn things up to 11 and don't think about what tomorrow would bring. Anyway, it's a rethinking of the Bard class, not as the high-charisma, social creatures they've evolved into in D&D, but rather as a controllers of cataclysmic cacophony and madness. Their songs rend the world. rip the dimensions, and tear the flesh, and have the potential to destroy your campaign in a single roll. The art shows bards wrecking havoc with alpine horns and triangles, and yes, that is a maiden with a trombone on the cover. And it definitely shows the personal opinions of the designer right on the surface. Music has a lot of interesting ideas within the slim volume, but I would not allow it near my table. 

And for other recent arrivals:

All the Cardinal's Men by M. Bill Heron, Nightfall Games, 128-page hardbound digest, 2025, Kickstarter.  This is a sequel to the excellent Call of Cthulhu adventure Musketeers vs. Cthulhu from a few years' back, the story continues with the Courts of Chaos seeking rule France from behind the scenes. In this case, you get to play members of the Cardinal's Guard, who are the opponents (perhaps "frenemies" is a better term) of the Musketeers in the original Dumas books. Your mission - rescue king and cardinal from the clutches of Chaos and save France! 

DIE the Roleplaying Game Quickstart Edition by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, Image/Rowan, Rook, and Decard,52-page saddle-stitched softbound, 2025, Midgard Comics. A while back, I read the first issue of the comic book (also by Gillen and Hans), and was not charged up enough about it to continue. The idea (and this may be familiar) was of a group of gamers who suddenly find themselves in the fantasy campaign they played as kids. So in the game you're playing a real-world persona who finds himself in a fantasy world. Sort of like the D&D Cartoon where the Dungeon Master is a bigger jerk. The quickstart itself feels influenced by Powered by the Apocalypse, and lays out the characters, the basics of combat, and a short scenario. I gotta say, it doesn't move me towards picking up the full game, but it was good checking it out.

The Howl of the Chimera by Albert Estrada Zambrano, Shadowland Games, Boxed  Game Set with 212-page hardbound volume plus handouts, 2025, Kickstarter. The content of this one is really tough to talk about without providing clues and spoilers. Action takes place in a country estate where ... well, spoilers. There's a lot going on here, and a lot of background information. The set is a deluxe box containing huge hardbound book in addition to a collection of handouts (which is good, since handouts tend to go to the four winds in my office. Its a lot of material for a scenario they say should run only 4 hours or so, but it is very well presented.

And the winner of the Three Castles Award is: Nebulith, which does not surprise me. It got the most points (yes, out judging had numerous subcategories which had point totals) by a larger-than-usual margin. It is worth hunting down, particularly if you are interested in Asian-themed RPGs.

More later,