SPQR V: Saturnalia

Just finished Saturnalia, the fifth of the SPQR books by John Maddox Roberts. I checked it out from the library and, alas, it had the faint smell of Lysol on all its pages. The trials and travails of library books!

Back to Rome! And some variety in the series. Our hero, Decius, is starting to get some respect from his peers. His father actually calls him in to look into this murder, the apparent poisoning of one of his kinsmen. Though we do get some of the same 'ole "we can't prosecute because of politics", when Decius actually figures out what's going on in the end ... he takes things into his own hands. It's good to see both the evolution of Decius' character and his relation with others.

There's also a surprising amount of continuity. A lot of the situation and the mystery comes out of setup in earlier books. I kinda wished I remember them better ...

Another Gamer Gone

So this was John's last week of gaming. Brody brought him into our little Thursday night group a couple of years ago, and he was another great person to have around: always good-natured, great taste in games, and a serious opponent in most games.

He's moving on to London, which sounds totally cool to me. He thinks he'll probably be back in the area a couple of times a year, and I've told him I hope he comes by for Thursday games when he's here.

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I made sure we played games of his request tonight, so the main affair was one of his favorites, Shadow Over Camelot. He came in saying that he hadn't won yet, and so we didn't use any of the nastiest stuff from the Merlin expansion ... but I ended up being the traitor and won the game with a 6-6 finale.

It was a nailbiter. I managed to waste a good chunk of the game for a few players at the Grail Quest, which somehow never quite got completed, and I was happy to suggest or go along with other things I thought were inefficient, but I never overtly showed my hand, so when the game ended 8-4, I got to flip two swords from white to black.

(Of course I also blew up two catapults in a game that had 10 catapults at the end and I played 5+ grail cards on a quest that got down to its last grail card at one point, so maybe I did more good than harm; it's sometimes hard to say in the kind of rickety old game that was largely the start of the whole traitor/co-op mechanic.)

There was also a Race for the Galaxy game, which I think I've finally learned how to play. (Last week I got what I expect was my all-time high score, with 69 points, while today I won again.)

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So we're now down to 4 Thursday/review players. Christopher has suggested someone as a new player and we'll see if that works out. If not I have a few folks I'd like to invite.

I'm surprised at how many people have moved in and out of this group. Sure it's been 7 or 8 years, but still it's a pretty small group of people. Nonetheless, we've had Chris V., Mike C., Lance, Brody, and John all come and go. Heck, we've had Mike A. come, go, and return.