Lucas Barlow reviews science fiction and fantasy novels and tabletop games -- what he actually finished, what he actually thought, no review copies and no consensus padding.https://lucasandthevoid.com/en-UShttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-dashboard-is-doing-some-of-my-thinking/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-dashboard-is-doing-some-of-my-thinking/A dense philosophy book I picked up almost by accident changed how I think about a wall of monitors I've been staring at five nights a week for four years.Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/ready-player-one/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/ready-player-one/I went in braced to roll my eyes at the nostalgia and came out having stayed up later than I meant to, which is its own kind of review.Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTReady Player OneLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/river-of-gods/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/river-of-gods/Nine viewpoint characters in a fractured future India, and for most of the book I couldn't put it down, right up until the point where I could.Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTRiver of GodsLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/marcus-and-the-break-room-deck/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/marcus-and-the-break-room-deck/Six years ago I thought board games meant Monopoly and family arguments. Then a coworker started bringing a travel-sized deckbuilder to break room downtime and ruined me for anything else.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-night-renata-flipped-the-table-for-real/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-night-renata-flipped-the-table-for-real/I mentioned once that I can predict who's going to flip the table strategically. I did not mean it literally until one specific Tuesday changed that.Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/gloomhaven/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/gloomhaven/The box weighs as much as a toddler and the setup can eat forty five minutes, and I still put it on the table more than anything else I own.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTGloomhavenLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/what-eight-hours-of-daylight-does-to-you/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/what-eight-hours-of-daylight-does-to-you/Four years on nights and I've stopped fighting it, mostly, except for the specific ways my body still refuses to believe two in the afternoon is bedtime.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/oathsworn/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/oathsworn/The companion app's voice acting alone builds more atmosphere than most full campaign box's rulebooks manage on their own.Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTOathsworn: Into the DeepwoodLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/malazan-book-of-the-fallen/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/malazan-book-of-the-fallen/Nobody explains anything to you in this series and I loved that more than I expected to, once I stopped fighting it.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTMalazan Book of the FallenLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-thursday-group-that-meets-on-tuesdays/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-thursday-group-that-meets-on-tuesdays/Everyone else's schedule is normal. Mine runs backwards. We've been calling it the Thursday group for two years even though we haven't met on an actual Thursday since spring.Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/aeons-end/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/aeons-end/Somebody called this the best of the Dominion clones, which is like winning a hot dog eating contest, and I laughed and then I agreed with them.Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAeon's EndLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions/This isn't a book you finish so much as a book you start noticing everywhere afterward, the word paradigm ruined for me in the best way.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Structure of Scientific RevolutionsLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/unmatched-tales-to-amaze/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/unmatched-tales-to-amaze/My wife has never once wanted to play head to head Unmatched with me. She'll play this version every time.Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTUnmatched: Tales to AmazeLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/thunder-road-vendetta/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/thunder-road-vendetta/Mad Max as a board game, dice-drafting chaos, actual table presence, and a base box that basically dares you to buy the expansions.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThunder Road: VendettaLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-lord-of-the-rings/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-lord-of-the-rings/Somebody in the reviews called it an RPG without the interactive element, and once I read that I couldn't unsee the whole book as a campaign log.Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Lord of the RingsLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/leaving-sacramento/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/leaving-sacramento/The job posting didn't mention there'd be no windows. I found that out on the tour, and took the job anyway, and I still can't fully explain why.Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/root/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/root/Every faction at the table is playing something structurally different, and getting everyone speaking the same language across all of them is the whole trick.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTRootLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/clank/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/clank/Every noisy card you play is a small bet against a dragon that isn't even paying attention to you yet, and that quiet dread is the whole game.Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTClank!Lucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/why-i-dont-reread-books/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/why-i-dont-reread-books/I said it almost as a throwaway line in a review recently and got two messages asking me to explain it properly, so here's the actual reasoning, such as it is.Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/never-let-me-go/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/never-let-me-go/I spent two hundred pages waiting for these kids to run, and the whole quiet horror of the book is that they don't, and Ishiguro never once explains why not.Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNever Let Me GoLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-night-the-floor-actually-mattered/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-night-the-floor-actually-mattered/Most nights I watch dashboards that say nothing is wrong. One night, everything was wrong at once, and I found out what I actually do for a living.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/blindsight/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/blindsight/A first contact novel that ends up arguing consciousness might be a design flaw, and I have not stopped thinking about it since.Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTBlindsightLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/i-rate-everything-now-and-i-cant-stop/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/i-rate-everything-now-and-i-cant-stop/It started with games and books because that's what this site is for. It did not stay contained to games and books, and my sister has noticed.Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/chaos/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/chaos/I picked this up right after Kuhn and the two books started talking to each other whether I wanted them to or not.Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTChaosLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/magical-athlete/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/magical-athlete/A roll-and-move game with a philosopher and a troll racing each other, and by all rights it shouldn't work, and it kind of does anyway.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTMagical AthleteLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-handmaids-tale/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/the-handmaids-tale/I went in expecting a lecture and got something closer to a held breath, three hundred pages of a woman keeping her own mind a private country nobody else is allowed into.Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe Handmaid's TaleLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/moon-colony-bloodbath/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/moon-colony-bloodbath/The person who wins is just the person who failed the least, which is either the funniest premise I've seen in a card game or a real design problem, and I still can't decide which.Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTMoon Colony BloodbathLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/supersizing-the-mind/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/supersizing-the-mind/Andy Clark argues your notebook, your phone, even the physical layout of your desk are doing part of your thinking for you, and once he says it you can't stop noticing it's true.Thu, 25 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTSupersizing the MindLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/where-the-name-came-from/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/where-the-name-came-from/People assume the void in the site name is a bit, some kind of edgy branding decision. It isn't. It's a specific night, about two years back, out past the last streetlight on the road to work.Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLucas Barlowhttps://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/ankh-gods-of-egypt/https://lucasandthevoid.com/articles/ankh-gods-of-egypt/The setup is a genuine chore, pieces scattered across half the box's inserts, and then you play a round and remember exactly why you own it.Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTAnkh: Gods of EgyptLucas Barlow