#benjamin rosenbaum

[plausible-fabulist]

So... have I mentioned I'm about to release a 450,000-word Jewish historical fantasy interactive fiction game? Here's an interview I did with my publisher, Choice of Games, about it.

[exponentiate]

Only a few chapters in, but The Unraveling (Benjamin Rosenbaum) is killing me.

“It’s not that I think I’m very [other gender]-like, but I also don’t feel very [gender]-like.” (paraphrased)

I’m. suffering lmao

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Unraveling - Benjamin Rosenbaum

I'm pretty sure this book was intended to make A Statement - probably about gender roles and nonconformity, maybe about the wisdom of rebellious youth, I don't know. Unfortunately, the author got so deeply into building this ?future? world and its theoretically sort of human inhabitants that he (ve? ze?) never really got around to telling a story. After I'd finished it - mostly through dogged determination, surely not enjoyment - I discovered a glossary at the back. That might have helped make some sense out of it while I was reading; but by the time I got to it, I didn't even care enough to do more than glance.

Here are the things that can be said with some certainty about this tale: it's set in a future. Maybe ours, maybe not; it's hard to tell. The characters, with one exception whose exceptionality is never made clear, are humanoid - that is, they have arms and legs and faces. But in this future or whatever it is, they have developed the ability to not only alter their appearance on a whim - purple skin with flaming orange eyebrows aren't just for Thundercats anymore! - but also to have multiple (?cloned?) bodies, which all share the same consciousness. More or less.

And oh yes - gender has been completely redefined. And I do mean completely. Aside from one parent whose birthing apparatus is rather amazingly still a womb, cervix, and vagina, there are neither men nor women in this world. Instead, the two genders consist of Staids and Vails. Neither adheres to what we might recognize as 'masculine' or 'feminine', but gender roles seem more rigidly defined than our own era. Staids are apparently the custodians of the lore/knowledge/traditions of this culture; they pass it along via something called the Long Conversation, much as rabbis devote themselves to the Torah. Vails, on the other hand, are strictly forbidden from knowing anything about this Conversation, to the point where references to its obscure and complex commentaries cannot be spoken in their presence.

And then along come our heroes(heroines?) to shake everything up. Do they fall in love? It seems so, but then again, this seems somehow taboo. Do they get involved in some sort of artistic endeavour that changes everything? Well, the cover says so; but aside from an overly descriptive and rather impossible-sounding parade, we never learn much about that artistic statement. Instead, we get descriptions of designer genitals. We get names that are as silly as they are long, and never any hint of what the names mean. We get far too many whining, petulant arguments amongst Fift's parenting cohort - couples are no longer A Thing in the future, I guess; everyone lives in some variety of polycule. In short, we have absolutely nothing to serve as a touchstone, nothing familiar, nothing we might relate to other than the woes of young lovers.

How did this society get to be the way it is? Dunno. Why are Fift and Shria's actions so shocking? Because the author said so. Who is the alien, what makes them alien, how can anyone even tell when people are scarlet and silver and have beards and breasts? Ya got me, champ. Reading this book was like wading through a muddy bog with shoulder-high weeds on every side. It takes forever to get anywhere, and when you do, it looks no different from where you started. If there was an intent behind setting this in such a society, it got lost the first time someone took out a spoon for no reason we're ever allowed to know. If you subscribe to spoon theory, be advised it will take more of them than you may have to spare to make any sort of sense out of this one. I recommend giving it a miss.

[snapbookreviews]

Spring 2023 Behind the Scenes

This spring I read a wide range of genres, such as xianxia and Western fantasy, classic and classic-feeling literature, post-apocalyptic ttrpgs and more.

Soooo…… I have some big, exciting stuff coming up in the next few months. Patrons are aware, but it’s going to be impacting my reading habits pretty significantly, likely starting with the Summer 2023 quarterly reading post, which will cover June-August. I should also be able to announce it by then! In more relevant notes, I’m thinking I’m going to start having the substacks take a back seat, I…

[fellamarsh]

#3. The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum

"O person! O child of fate! Have you wondered if This is the World For You? Why not find out?"

In the far distant future, Fift Brulio Iraxis finds zirself caught in the middle of an art piece-turned-revolution, zir teenage struggles suddenly thrust to the forefront of zir rigid society. Torn between zir family's safety and staying true to zir feelings and zirself, whatever choices ze makes will ripple outward and effect zir entire world.

Take Karhide from Left Hand of Darkness, turn it into a circus, and shove it into a kaleidoscope, and you'll be close to the world of The Unraveling. Chock-a-block with new scifi terminology, neopronouns, and rapidly shifting perspectives (most characters have two or more bodies!), it can be a bit hard to wade into, but if you give it a chance it is an incredibly rewarding, deeply heartfelt read.

My Top Five Books of the Year

#5. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

I absolutely adored this book. The visuals, the environment, the dreamy quality to it all... the slow unraveling of the mystery of the House and its inhabitants... the metaphysical themes... Piranesi was haunting and exquisite and I highly recommend it. 

[sinceileftyoublog]

Jake Xerxes Fussell Live Show Review: 10/17, Empty Bottle, Chicago

Jake Xerxes Fussell

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Over the years, Jake Xerxes Fussell's repertoire and sound have expanded, though he's never lost sight of his exploratory ethos. On his self-titled debut and sophomore effort What in the Natural World, he introduced himself as a contemporary troubadour, an interpreter who used original arrangements to surface the universal meaning out of old songs. 2019's Out of Sight was his first record with a full band, 2022's Good and Green Again his first to combine traditional songs with wholly original compositions. In July, Fussell brought it all together on his debut album for Fat Possum, When I'm Called; it's an album featuring a murderer's row of collaborators and songs that Fussell constructed backwards, coming up with melodies and riffs before adapting them to folk songs that fit.

On When I'm Called, legends Fussell knew who may or may not have met each other, like cowboy artist Maestro Gaxiola and painter, musician, and folklorist Art Rosenbaum (a mentor of Fussell's who passed away in 2022), are intimate bedfellows. Fussell lifts from the public domain, Benjamin Britten, and found poetry on a scrap of paper. Returning are close collaborators like James Elkington, in the producer's chair and playing seemingly everything from synth to harmonica, as well as Joan Shelley, singing alongside Fussell's baritone on "Cuckoo!". Uniting with Fussell for the first time are guitar luminary Blake Mills, whose abstract tones nestle between Fussell's acoustic guitar and Elkington's pedal steel on "Going to Georgia", and Hunter Diamond, whose woodwinds pop up just when you need them most, like a consistent smiling face around the neighborhood. In general, on When I'm Called, more than ever, the band gets room to meander, to take in their surroundings.

Fussell & Ben Whiteley

How, then, would Fussell, who usually plays solo, adapt the arrangements not just to a live stage, but for a crowd who has had months to take in the recorded versions? Indeed, Thursday's show at the Empty Bottle featured the youngest crowd I've ever seen at a Fussell headlining show. Some of that, perhaps, had to do with the venue itself and the start time of his set (after 10 P.M.). But something tells me, at this point, people are less inclined to hear beloved old songs and more amped for Fussell specifically, the guitar player who picks bright-eyed on "Jump for Joy", the singer who belts, "Well, wake up woman, take your big leg off of mine," on "Have You Ever Seen Peaches Growing on a Sweet Potato Vine?". (I went to get a beer at the bar as he sang, passing by a crowd member cackling, turning to their friend and declaring, "I love that line!") Well, for one, Fussell didn't play solo this time. He was always accompanied by bassist Ben Whiteley, who plays on When I'm Called. Whiteley's steady plucking eased us into "Michael Was Hearty", and his rhythms buoyed Fussell's chugging guitars on an unexpected, but great cover of Nick Lowe's new wave classic "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass". As we were in Chicago, Elkington, too, joined Fussell on stage for a number of songs, providing contrasting guitar textures on "Cuckoo!" Even The Weather Station's Tamara Lindeman, all the way from Toronto, was in the crowd and came on for backing vocals.

Fussell

It's easy to say that what is usually a lonesome affair turned into a party, given that the number of people on stage at any given moment quadrupled from its usual number. The more I thought about it, though, whether it's four musicians crowding around each other or just Fussell perched on a stool, his shows are always communal. On Thursday, the most affecting and memorable moments of the night were spontaneous. Out of Sight's "Jubliee" started as a singalong and felt like a full-on hymnal towards the end, the crowd repeating, "Swing and turn, Jubilee / Live and learn, Jubilee," like it was a mantra of keeping-on. And then there was "Donkey Riding", a traditional song which does not (yet) have a studio version, inspiring the biggest, and somehow still most polite sing-and-clap-along of the night. The moment the crowd seemed to get a tad too rowdy, we shushed each other so we could hear one last instrumental flourish, one last guitar lick from the artist who continues to give us gifts we didn't even know we already had.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played DREAM ASKEW / DREAM APART ?

Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum

Queer strife amid the apocalypse and Jewish fantasy of the shtetl. Two games about belonging outside belonging that use only tokens and are GM-less. No dice no masters, PbtA.

[lgbtqreads]

Hi! I’m working on a project at work, and we’re looking for books featuring nonbinary characters/characters who use neopronouns where their queerness isn’t a main focus of the book. Do you have any recs?

Hmm, I think In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu and The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley would fit that nicely, as would The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum, though maybe the latter is a little more gender identity-centric. I'll also throw The Lifeline Signal by RoAnna Sylver out there - it's technically the second in the series, set in the same locale as the first, but I don't think you need to have read the first one, seeing as they have different casts.

[aaronsrpgs]

A new episode of RTFM! @maxwellander and I continue our quest to find the cure for "D&D Brain." This time, our delicious medicine is Dream Askew/Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum.

[choiceofgames]

NEW GAME - The Ghost and the Golem

We are pleased to announce our newest game! "The Ghost and the Golem." On sale until August 15th.

Confront mystic perils and revelations, pogroms, and your own wild heart in this Jewish historical fantasy set in the violent spring of 1881 amid bandits, betrothals, klezmers, and kabbalists! Can you save the shtetl…or do you long to escape it?

https://www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-the-golem/

When the czar is blown up by anarchists on a St. Petersburg bridge, the Jews are blamed, and a wave of anti-Semitic riots spread throughout the Russian empire. Though they haven't quite reached your sleepy little market village on the border of Poland and Ukraine, tensions are rising, and otherworldly portents foretell approaching doom. Can you delve into the mystical secrets of the Unseen World, investigate the underlying causes of the brewing pogrom, or make alliances with the local Christian peasants, the Czarist garrison, or the bandits of the wild forest? And let's not forget that Mamma is itching to get you married! Will you embrace the match that she and Gittel the matchmaker have arranged? Or do you have other plans?

In the tradition of the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and the particularly zany parts of the Talmud (as well as modern authors like Michael Chabon, Naomi Novik, and Helene Wecker), The Ghost and the Golem lets you experience a magical nineteenth-century Jewish Eastern Europe. Surrounded by an often hostile Christendom, by wild forests in which anything might creep, and by the invisible creatures of the Unseen World—angels, demons, ghosts, and spirits—the Jews of the shtetl feud and reconcile, bargain and gossip, celebrate and mourn, and snatch a little joy and love where they can. Life in the shtetl is sweet as raisin pastries and bitter as horseradish: may it be the Divine Will that it endures another season…

"The Ghost and the Golem" is an interactive fantasy novel by Benjamin Rosenbaum, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—450,000 words and hundreds of choices long, without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

[annleckie]

Here to recommend The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Like, I think some of y'all would seriously enjoy it.

[exponentiate]

Thank you for articulating this; it’s something that bugs me in a lot of recent speculative fiction. Like it’s not even that your story has to be ABOUT queerness and oppression, but when people are touting a book as like “it’s a super fun story, it’s EXCITING, it’s QUEER,” and it manages to completely avoid talking about issues of identity AT ALL?? In this day and age?? I like space laser battles as much as the next guy, but your story’s not “queer” just because you picked one character to have a wife at home (not pictured) while she’s off doing space opera things, and another character to go through and change all the she/her pronouns to xe/xyr. Even the commonly-applied label “queernormative” feels very silly to me, like, is it queer or is it normative?

I feel like a sentiment growing in popularity is that queer people want stories were queerness is incidental, because they're tired of stories about struggling against oppression and want something more escapist. But I've been reading some speculative fiction recently where the queerness of characters is completely unremarked upon, and finding it deeply unsatisfying. It feels less like like escapism to me and more like a gaping hole in the worldbuilding. It's not an issue that the societies depicted are queer-neutral or queer-positive, it's that there is like nothing addressing what those societies think about sexuality, gender, and family systems at all. There's a lot of interesting ways you can write about third genders and same-sex societies/relationships in speculative culture and ignoring all of it entirely to plaster over a surface level modern queer culture veneer is just tragic, in my opinion

[sincerelymayebelles]

Hello everyone, A friend and I are thinking of starting a Wanderhome game with a little bit of Tolkien mixed in!! We are currently looking for players, and have the discord for the most part set up to go!! if this sounds like something you'd love to be apart of, feel free to message me!!^^

It will most likely switch between me and them dming as well!!

A bit about Wanderhome:

Wanderhome is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine.

You might be a tamarin who dances with small and forgotten gods, a leporine mail carrier who relies on moths to get packages where they belong, a little lizard with a big heart and a mysterious past, or a near-endless number of other thrilling possibilities. No matter what, we’re always travelers—animal-folk who go from village to village and get to see the length and breadth of all the world of Hæth. The seasons will change as we play, and we will change with them.

Wanderhome is built on the Belonging Outside Belonging engine by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum. That means there’s no dice, no math, no Game Masters, and no complicated rules. It’s all about getting you into game as smoothly as possible, and filling your imagination with richly developed worlds and evocative text.

The game is designed for any length of session, and with any number of folks. Whether you’re sitting down with a couple of friends for a cozy after-dinner hangout or throwing a party for a decade-long campaign, Wanderhome always has space for your experiences and needs.

On top of all this, we are very lgbtq+ friendly, and wanting to make this game as cozy an safe feeling as possible!!

I look forward to hearing from you^^

Art by @fairydropart

[synoddiane]

Books I read in 2024, and awards

This includes some but not all novellas and webfic, based on a vague sense of how booklike they felt to me. Webcomics, manga, and graphic novels aren't included, even when they're really long ones.

In chronological order of when I finished reading them (ordering them by when I started reading them would be fairly different):

China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh

Cleveland Quixotic, by Bavitz

Summer Fun, by Jeanne Thornton

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler

The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Unraveling, by Benjamin Rosenbaum

The Employees, by Olga Ravn

The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente

OKPsyche, by Alan DeNiro

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (volume 1), by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Trouble the Saints, by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Gameshouse, by Claire North

Lyorn, by Steven Brust

Ethan of Athos, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn

The Two Doctors Górski, by Isaac R. Fellman

Her Voice Is a Backwards Record, by Ozy Brennan

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson

Brothers in Arms, by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker

Checkpoint, by Nicholson Baker

The Hands of the Emperor, by Victoria Goddard

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik

Derring-Do for Beginners, by Victoria Goddard

Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov

House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski

The Wish List, by Eoin Colfer

The Memory Theater, by Karin Tidbeck

Tell Me I'm Worthless, by Alison Rumfitt

Three Eight One, by Aliya Whiteley

Bone Dance, by Emma Bull

Mirror Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud

Watership Down, by Richard Adams

Komarr, by Lois McMaster Bujold

A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Hexarchate Stories, by Yoon Ha Lee

Downbelow Station, by C.J. Cherryh

The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

Awards:

Most Clone Shenanigans: Mirror Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold Runner-up: Brothers in Arms, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book I Most Obviously Should Have Read a Long Time Ago: House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski Runner-up: Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov

Most Uses of the Opening of The Haunting of Hill House: Tell Me I'm Worthless, by Alison Rumfitt Runner-up: The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

Hardest to Recommend Without Spoiling It: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler Runner-up: The Employees, by Olga Ravn

Most Constrained: Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn Runner-up: Three Eight One, by Aliya Whiteley

Best Mosaic Novel: China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh Runner-up: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

Most Serious About Games: The Gameshouse Runner-up: Hexarchate Stories, by Yoon Ha Lee

Best Weird Gender Planet: The Unraveling, by Benjamin Rosenbaum Runner-up: Ethan of Athos, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Most Fascinated with Containers: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson Runner-up: The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker

There were so many strong candidates for Least Reliable Narrator that I was unable to pick any one of them out as the winner.

[ancillary-review-of-books]

On the latest episode of "A Meal of Thorns", ARB's critical book-club, author and game designer Benjamin Rosenbaum joins editor Jake Casella Brookins to discuss Laurie J. Marks' FIRE LOGIC, first in an inventive and subversive fantasy series: https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/02/10/a-meal-of-thorns-17-fire-logic-with-benjamin-rosenbaum/

[ladytabletop]

Game Roundup 2023: Part 4 (The Final Part)

Okay, this final post is going to be (unfortunately) mostly just a list of things I've read because it turns out I've read A LOT this year! First, let's highlight a few things.

FIST: Ultra Edition by CLAYMORE

This game is mechanically tight. Play all your action team/spec ops/military sim without too much sim fantasies! It's already spawned a ton of additional content and hacks!

Slugblaster by Mikey Hamm

Teens! Dimensional skateboarding! Goopy creatures! What DOESN'T this game have? It's Forged in the Dark but honestly it iterates on that system in a way that is perfect to me. Really slims things down AND makes downtime better with built-in character arcs to pursue. Plus a thriving fan community that's made a lot of cool content (yours truly included).

Voidheart Symphony by Minerva McJanda

This was pitched to me as Persona the TTRPG. (I have not played Persona). The thing I find fascinating about it is that you're using different rules depending on whether you're in The Kingdom or The City. It's gorgeously laid out, and I'm excited to run it!

Dream Askew/Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum

I had to pick up the OG Belonging Outside Belonging game(s) at GenCon and I waasn't disappointed. One game has you playing a bunch of queer post-apocalyptic survivors. The other has you playing an alternate history of a Jewish settlement.

CBR+PNK by Emanoel Melo

Another one I picked up from GenCon! The design on this one is TIGHT. if you have the chance to get a physical copy, do it! The presentation is unrivaled. This is cyberpunk FitD.

Other games I've read (and I'm sure many many many are missing!)

Inevitable

Running Together, Leagues Apart

Spellchitects!

Badger + Coyote Duet RPG

Three Kobolds in a Trenchcoat

Unreality/Strictness -- The Single-Page Version

Totally Real Human Adults

The Dark Below

Memories by Moonlight

Wild Duelist

Hack the Planet!

Have You Heard About the Beast?

Wizardry and Bureaucracy

Spire

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Here's to more reading next year!