Mallory Keaton writes about the books she reads and the board games she plays, plus the occasional personal essay about the life around both.https://mallorykeaton.net/en-UShttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-blood-on-the-clocktower/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-blood-on-the-clocktower/A social deduction game that needs at least seven people and completely earns the ask. Not a two player rescue, and I'm at peace with that.Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBlood on the ClocktowerMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-this-war-of-mine/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-this-war-of-mine/A survival game that made me sit with a decision I didn't want to make for a full minute before the table let me move on. That's the review.Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTThis War of Mine: The Board GameMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-name-of-the-wind/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-name-of-the-wind/The innkeeper who's secretly the most famous man in the world tells his own life story to a scribe. The Tarbean chapters are the best thing here.Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Name of the WindMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-scythe/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-scythe/Alternate-history 1920s mech combat that's mostly an engine building euro wearing a war paint job, and I mean that as a compliment.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTScytheMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-why-i-wont-play-a-game-solo-to-learn-it/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-why-i-wont-play-a-game-solo-to-learn-it/A small, slightly stubborn opinion about the right way to learn a new box, and why I've turned down a genuinely good solo mode more than once.Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-spreadsheet-i-keep-updating-wrong/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-spreadsheet-i-keep-updating-wrong/I built a game log to settle an argument with Priya. Six months later it's settling arguments it was never designed for.Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-teaching-my-dad-a-game-he-hated/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-teaching-my-dad-a-game-he-hated/I brought Scythe home for Thanksgiving, certain it would be the thing that finally got my father into board games. It was not that thing.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-vast-the-crystal-caverns/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-vast-the-crystal-caverns/Five completely different games stapled into one box, and somehow it mostly works. Teaching night was a nightmare I'd happily repeat.Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTVast: The Crystal CavernsMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-master-and-margarita/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-master-and-margarita/Satan and his entourage descend on 1930s Moscow, and somehow that's the funny half of the book. I want a gang like Woland's.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Master and MargaritaMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-magic-the-gathering/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-magic-the-gathering/Thirty years old, still setting the pattern every other card game copies, and I still think about it in terms of dollars per hour of actual fun.Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTMagic: The GatheringMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-gormenghast/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-gormenghast/The castle is the main character and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give a book this stubbornly overdescribed.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTGormenghastMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-recommendation-i-take-back/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-recommendation-i-take-back/I told Priya Anathem would be right up her alley. She got sixty pages in, called me, and I had to admit I'd recommended it to the wrong person for the wrong reasons.Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-ark-nova/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-ark-nova/A zoo building card engine that eats a whole evening at four players and shines as a solo puzzle when you don't have four hours to spare.Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTArk NovaMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-i-dont-trust-a-rating-i-give-too-soon/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-i-dont-trust-a-rating-i-give-too-soon/A small, stubborn rule I've started following: no star rating within 48 hours of finishing a book. It's cost me a couple of clean first impressions and I don't regret it.Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-star-maker/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-star-maker/A man lies down on a hill in England and ends up touring the entire history of the universe. No dialogue, barely a plot, and I couldn't put it down.Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTStar MakerMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-manufacturing-consent/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-manufacturing-consent/Dense, dated in its specific case studies, and still the clearest explanation I've read of how self censorship works without a single memo being sent.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTManufacturing ConsentMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-hunger-games/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-the-hunger-games/I came in braced for a beach read and came out having stayed up until two in the morning on a work night.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Hunger GamesMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-development-as-freedom/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-development-as-freedom/A Nobel economist argues freedom is both the goal and the mechanism of development. The argument is good. The book could have said it in half the pages.Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTDevelopment as FreedomMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-cloud-atlas/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-cloud-atlas/Six nested stories, six voices, and a structure that shouldn't hold together but does. My favorite kind of difficult.Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTCloud AtlasMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-seti/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-seti/A crunchy euro that fits the theme better than most, once you accept the aliens are ultimately just another way to feed the engine.Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTSETI: Search for Extraterrestrial IntelligenceMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-permutation-city/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-permutation-city/Digital consciousness, cellular automata, and an argument so unsettling it kept me up doing math I don't actually understand.Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTPermutation CityMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-teaching-kemet-over-lunch-breaks/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-teaching-kemet-over-lunch-breaks/A coworker asked what I do on weekends. I made the mistake of answering honestly, and now half my department knows what a power tile is.Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-what-a-denied-claim-taught-me-about-reading/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-what-a-denied-claim-taught-me-about-reading/Six years of matching billing codes to chart notes changed how I read a dense book, and I didn't notice until someone pointed it out.Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-dwellings-of-eldervale/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-dwellings-of-eldervale/Worker placement that turns into a dudes-on-a-map skirmish once the monsters show up, and somehow doesn't buckle under its own ambition.Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTDwellings of EldervaleMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-why-i-still-read-with-a-pencil/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-why-i-still-read-with-a-pencil/Sticky flags are faster. I've tried them. I keep going back to a pencil, and I finally sat down to work out why.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-night-vast-almost-ended-game-night/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-the-night-vast-almost-ended-game-night/Five people, five different rulebooks, and about forty minutes of table silence before anyone actually understood what they were doing.Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-thunder-road-vendetta/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-thunder-road-vendetta/Ram your friends off the road, launch a car off a ramp, and don't ask this game for a strategy layer it never promised you.Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTThunder Road: VendettaMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-tulsa-doesnt-get-enough-credit/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/essay-tulsa-doesnt-get-enough-credit/People hear I live here and assume it's a layover town. It's where I found my actual reading life, in a used bookstore that shouldn't exist anymore and somehow does.Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-anathem/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/book-anathem/Nine hundred pages of monks, made up words, and math as religion. I loved most of it and resented the rest.Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTAnathemMallory Keatonhttps://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-kemet-blood-and-sand/https://mallorykeaton.net/articles/game-kemet-blood-and-sand/A troops-on-a-map game that streamlines the original without losing its teeth. Beautiful minis, and the box knows it.Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTKemet: Blood and SandMallory Keaton