Cole Everett, a taxidermist and natural-history preparator in Providence, Rhode Island, reviews speculative fiction books and board games, plus the odd personal essay.https://oddmentsandthings.com/en-UShttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/blood-on-the-clocktower/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/blood-on-the-clocktower/Werewolf, completely fixed, with one massive asterisk: the whole thing lives or dies on whoever's running the table that night.Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBlood on the ClocktowerCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-rings-of-saturn/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-rings-of-saturn/A walk along the Suffolk coast that somehow becomes a book about the silk industry, Rembrandt's anatomy lesson, and a matchstick Temple of Jerusalem, and never once feels like a detour.Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Rings of SaturnCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/guards-of-atlantis-ii/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/guards-of-atlantis-ii/MOBA on cardboard, done properly, but only if the four other people at the table actually show up next week too.Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTGuards of Atlantis IICole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/kemet/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/kemet/A war game that rewards throwing your troops at each other from round one, dice-less combat, and one glaring kingmaker problem nobody's fixed yet.Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTKemetCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-mount-i-took-apart-and-started-over/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-mount-i-took-apart-and-started-over/Three weeks into a commission, I looked at it fresh one morning and knew it was wrong, and had to decide whether admitting that was worth the extra month it would cost.Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-rating-i-went-back-and-changed-after-a-second-mount/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-rating-i-went-back-and-changed-after-a-second-mount/I gave Diaspora a fair shake the first time and rated it accordingly. A second read a year later changed my mind about what I'd actually missed.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-drawer-system-i-never-finished-labeling/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-drawer-system-i-never-finished-labeling/Forty-some drawers of tools, bones, and reference material, half of them labeled properly, and a confession about why the other half probably never will be.Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/peteys-bag-versus-my-deck-argument/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/peteys-bag-versus-my-deck-argument/A running argument at the table about whether a cloth draw bag actually matters, which I keep losing on logic and winning on the merits.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/earthborne-rangers/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/earthborne-rangers/A relaxed, deckbuilding open-world LCG that trades combat for noticing the terrain, which is exactly the trade I wanted.Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTEarthborne RangersCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-cyberiad/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-cyberiad/Two near-omnipotent robot knights-errant, a machine that builds anything starting with N, and intellectual slapstick with real philosophy under it.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe CyberiadCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-owl-i-almost-ruined-rushing/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-owl-i-almost-ruined-rushing/A game night I was late for, a barn owl I wasn't paying attention to, and the exact moment I remembered why I don't rush this kind of work.Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/out-of-control/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/out-of-control/A beehive is a single superintelligent creature wearing forty thousand bodies, and once Kelly makes that case you can't unsee it anywhere.Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTOut of ControlCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-ibis-trilogy/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-ibis-trilogy/Three books, one ship, and a trade in flowers that turns out to mean opium, empire, and a genuinely enormous cast of indentured lives.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Ibis TrilogyCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/diaspora/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/diaspora/Legos made of colliding universes, sentient software arguing about math and art, and a glossary you'll need more than the plot.Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTDiasporaCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-body-in-pain/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-body-in-pain/A philosophy book about the thing you can never actually describe to another person, and why that failure of language has a body count.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Body in PainCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/marisols-one-rule-about-borrowed-specimens/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/marisols-one-rule-about-borrowed-specimens/The one rule at the museum that isn't written down anywhere, and the one time I found out the hard way why it exists.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/hyperion/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/hyperion/Seven pilgrims, seven ghost-written genres, and a book that ends the moment it should be starting.Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTHyperionCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/nemesis/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/nemesis/A dozen good minis and one very ugly truth: nobody at this table is actually on your side, and the ship doesn't care either way.Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNemesisCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/what-providence-winters-do-to-a-reading-pace/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/what-providence-winters-do-to-a-reading-pace/The workshop gets too cold to do detail work by December, which is either a problem or the reason I get through two extra books a winter, depending how you look at it.Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/magical-athlete/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/magical-athlete/A roll-and-move race game that everyone agrees is dumb and nobody can stop grinning through, on account of the draft doing all the real work.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTMagical AthleteCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-log-i-keep-that-isnt-for-anyone-but-me/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-log-i-keep-that-isnt-for-anyone-but-me/Every specimen gets a catalog card. Turns out every book and game I finish gets one too, and I only just noticed how much that says about me.Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/candide/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/candide/A three-hundred-year-old attack on a guy named Leibniz that still lands, mostly because the cruelty it's laughing at hasn't gone anywhere.Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTCandideCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/why-my-table-only-sits-four/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/why-my-table-only-sits-four/I get invited to the bigger game nights around here and I still say no most of the time, on purpose, and I've stopped apologizing for it.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/lotr-duel-for-middle-earth/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/lotr-duel-for-middle-earth/7 Wonders Duel wearing the Ring, and the theme does more real work here than a reskin usually gets credit for.Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earthCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-smell-that-never-fully-leaves-the-workshop/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-smell-that-never-fully-leaves-the-workshop/Borax and hide paste have a specific smell that I stopped noticing years ago, until a new game reminded me I hadn't.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/dune-imperium/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/dune-imperium/A knife fight in a phone booth, worker placement grafted onto deckbuilding so cleanly it should be studied, and one brutal lesson for anyone's first game.Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTDune: ImperiumCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-extended-phenotype/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-extended-phenotype/The idea that a beaver dam is as much a gene's handiwork as a beaver's teeth, buried under two hundred pages of Dawkins settling old academic scores.Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe Extended PhenotypeCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/cthulhu-death-may-die/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/cthulhu-death-may-die/A dungeon crawler for people who claim, correctly, that they hate dungeon crawlers, built around the very good idea that your investigators start insane instead of ending that way.Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTCthulhu: Death May DieCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-dispossessed/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/the-dispossessed/A physicist trying to work within the limits of two flawed societies at once, and a utopia that's honest enough to show you its own cracks.Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe DispossessedCole Everetthttps://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/seti-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence/https://oddmentsandthings.com/articles/seti-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence/A rotating rondel that actually rotates the game plan out from under you, dressed up in a theme that could've been breeding chickens and nobody would notice, except it isn't.Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTSETI: Search for Extraterrestrial IntelligenceCole Everett