issue 28 // vol 44

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Chairman of the Board: With friends

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> ‘Shadows over Camelot’ board game review

Ed Appleby
Senior Columnist

 

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ho doesn’t want to team up

with their friends and do battle
against the unspeakable evils making
their way across the land? In this age of
massive team-up movie blockbusters,
it’s the perfect time step into the shoes

of the original ragtag band of heroes.
Shadows Over Camelot (2011) is a
cooperative game for three to seven
people designed by Bruno Cathala and
Serge Laget and published by Days of
Wonder. In the game, players take turns
going on quests and defending Camelot
by moving their hero around the board
and earning white swords. On each
player’s turn, they choose whether to
take damage, add a siege engine to the
army surrounding Camelot, or draw a
card that may move the quests closer to
defeat. The game is won by succeeding

in enough quests to have more white

swords than black on the Round Table.
Like many cooperative games, there
are a lot of different ways to lose—too
many siege engines, too many black
swords, or everyone simply dying.
However, Shadows Over Camelot has
another infamous mechanic in which
one of the players might be a secret
traitor to the Round Table. Unlike
other traitor games like Fury of Dracula
or One Night Ultimate Werewolf, the
players don’t actually know if there
is a traitor among them. This adds
to an atmosphere of suspicion in an

already tense and complex game.
This game is a blast to play.
Turns are fast, with players only
being able to move or act upon a
quest, but not both. This can cause
a lot of strategic maneuvering and
discussion as the game progresses.
The theme of the game is very strong,

and the gameplay is challenging.
The one downside to the game is

that its complexity can be a bit much

for new players. Though the rules are

 

simple, there are plenty of chances
for thrilling heroics—as some quests
have to be attempted by only one
hero at a time—but working together

as a team is the key to winning.

Illustration by Ed Appleby

I would recommend this game to
any group of friends, though it would
definitely be advantageous to have more
experienced players, or at least those
who can guide others through the game.

A circus of magical mysteries in ‘Sleight

> Local author releases long-awaited debut novel

Cheryl Minns
Senior Columnist

 

Aw Jennifer Sommersby knows
very well how much patience and
perseverance writing requires. She has
tried her hand at journalism, medical
transcription, and editing, but her dream
of being a young adult novelist wasn’t
achieved until this April, when her
debut YA fantasy novel, Sleight, finally
hit shelves after years in the making.

“It’s taken a long time to get
here,” she said in an interview
with the Other Press.

Sommersby’s journey to getting
published began when she enrolled in
The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser
University in 2007. While in the
writing-intensive program, she wrote
a short story about a 13-year-old girl
named Frankie who lives with her
aunt and uncle in a traveling circus
and has a pet frog named Hamlet.

“The workshop group that I did
the story in said, ‘This ends really
abruptly. This is more like the beginning
of a novel,” said Sommersby. “Then
I thought, ‘Oh! That’s a good idea.’ I
started writing the novel in 2009. |
knew I needed [the lead girl] to be
older to be able to handle the things
that would be coming at her.”

Sleight follows 17-year-old
Genevieve Flannery, who has grown up
in the Cinzio Traveling Players Company
with her mother, Delia, and other circus
performers. Her story begins during a
special New Year’s Eve Gala performance
that the players hope will bring in lots
of funding for the upcoming year.

But during aerialist Delia’s routine,
she becomes distracted by a ghost
only she can see and then falls off
her aerial hoop to her death. This is a
crushing blow to Genevieve, who has
a magical healing gift and can repair
injuries with the touch of her hand
but isn’t able to save her mother.
“I knew I wanted something
a little bit different, where there’s
magic and unexplainable things
happening,” Sommersby said.
While she was researching magic
for her novel, she discovered the
word Avrakedavra, a healing spell
that magicians used in ancient times
when they were considered healers.
She decided to use Avrakedavra in
Sleight, the first book in the Avra-K
duology, but not in the form of a spell.
“T needed something they could
chase. You can’t chase down a spell,
so I turned it into a book,” she said,
referring to a magical book that
becomes a vital object in the story.
Sommersby self-published an
earlier version of Sleight in 20u1, but it
was discontinued after HarperCollins
Canada purchased the Avra-K duology in
2012. Six years later, a revamped version
of Sleight was published in Canada by
HarperCollins Canada on April 3, and in
the US by Sky Pony Press on April 24.
Sommersby celebrated the Canadian
launch of Sleight with a book signing
event at Chapters in Coquitlam’s
Pinetree Village Shopping Centre on
April 3. The signing featured an event
banner, cake for the guests, anda
table full of Sleight-themed props—
including old-fashioned skeleton keys,

       

elephant figurines, and circus items.
“I walked in and I saw the
banner with my name, my book,
and Indigo Chapters on it. I started
crying because I had a real banner.
That was pretty great,” she said.
Sommersby’s next book signing
event will be at Chapters in Metropolis
at Metrotown in Burnaby on May 18,
with Dawkins scheduled to appear.
The author will also be signing books

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Photo of Jennifer Sommersby provided by Jennifer Sommersby

at Indigo in Park Royal Shopping
Centre in West Vancouver on June 22.
“It’s good for readers to see writers
in the flesh because then they see there’s
a person behind the book,” she said.
The second book in the
Avra-K duology, Scheme,
will be released in 2019.
For more information on
Sommersby and her books, check out her
official website at JennSommersby.com.