Petra is beating me so badly at Desktop Tower Defense.  I'm not sure if you can see the group (lj_dcu) without playing a game, but it's not even funny.

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ibarw is making me so encouraged for the state of humanity.  Last year I kind of had the impression that a large group of people had an anaphylactic reaction to discussions of race.  This year there's so much thinky going on that I despair of ever ensmartening myself enough to contribute.  That said, if you only read one IBARW post, read this one.

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Here's a book review I published at the Hathor Legacy's book blog, slightly tailored to the interests of my flist:

Point of Honour, by Madeleine E Robins

I've been looking for a copy of this book since I first read a preview chapter online, several years ago. After such a long delay, the risk of disappointment is high, but this book met my expectations. Point of Honour is a period piece set in a period that never existed: Regency England where Queen Charlotte, not the Prince, was Regent.

Our Heroine is Sarah Tolerance, called Miss Tolerance throughout the book, a woman whose reputation has been ruined, and is therefore fit, according to society, for nothing but exchanging sex for money and a man's protection. Miss Tolerance, however, sets herself up as an 'investigative agent', relying on her wits, her discretion, and her short-sword to earn her living in the world, even though she faces pressure from everyone, men and women, to succumb to the pull of society's expectations.

The book is an enjoyable read. Miss Tolerance is a compelling character, smart, but shaped by the attitudes of her time period, even those attitudes she struggles against. The mystery intrigued me, and Robins played fair with it, leaving me with the same clues she gave Miss Tolerance (who solved it before me.) There was a romantic sub-plot which I enjoyed because it was presented as a complex, and far from idyllic interlude; I especially liked that becoming involved with a man in a higher social class did not simplify Miss Tolerance's situation, but rather complicated it. Most readers are probably familiar with the tendency for romantic involvement with a rich man to be both the heroine's aim, and the solution to her problems. Without spoiling the novel, I will say that that was not this case in this book.  I also liked watching Miss Tolerance come up against her prejudices.   She doesn't reform herself for the education of the reader, but she's capable of critical self-reflection.

My one problem with this book is not a problem with the book per se, but its contribution to a trend. ( Spoiler: Evil/Dead Gay )

Remember this game when the sound came out of a PC Speaker and it was controlled by the keyboard?