Miles Keaton's board game and book reviews plus personal essays — one game or one book at a time, finished before it gets a number.https://mileskeaton.com/en-UShttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-rejection-letter-i-almost-sent-my-game-group/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-rejection-letter-i-almost-sent-my-game-group/My actual job is telling inventors their claim isn't new. Apparently that habit doesn't stay at the office.Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-paper-log-one-line-at-a-time/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-paper-log-one-line-at-a-time/Everyone who sees it asks why I don't just use an app. I've never had a good answer that wasn't also a confession.Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/outline/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/outline/Rachel Cusk writes a narrator who barely speaks for herself and somehow the whole book is about her anyway.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/what-thirty-below-does-to-a-reading-log/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/what-thirty-below-does-to-a-reading-log/Duluth in January isn't scenery. It's a variable in how many books actually get finished that month.Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/too-many-bones/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/too-many-bones/The Trove Chest alone justifies the price. The campaign underneath it justified keeping the box on the shelf permanently.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/sentinels-of-the-multiverse/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/sentinels-of-the-multiverse/A superhero card game with real charm in the art and a rules-overhead problem that never fully went away for our table.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/dune-imperium/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/dune-imperium/Deckbuilding and worker placement shouldn't fit together this cleanly, and a Dune license shouldn't feel this earned.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/the-body-in-pain/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/the-body-in-pain/Elaine Scarry's argument that pain resists language took me the better part of a month to get through, in the best way.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/the-quantum-thief/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/the-quantum-thief/A heist novel dressed in post-singularity physics that throws you in the deep end and mostly never lets you back out.Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-night-sky-team-almost-worked-and-then-actually-did/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-night-sky-team-almost-worked-and-then-actually-did/Dana doesn't play games. Dana played this one twice in one evening and asked to play it a third time before I could put it away.Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/rising-sun/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/rising-sun/Eric Lang's dudes-on-a-map game has the best combat screen I've used all year and a rules-to-payoff ratio that never quite balances.Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/seti/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/seti/A heavy euro about scanning the sky for aliens, and the rotating board is doing more work than any single card in the box.Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-two-trips-a-year-i-make-to-the-regional-office/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-two-trips-a-year-i-make-to-the-regional-office/I work from Duluth, technically for an office I visit twice a year, and the trip itself has become its own strange small ritual.Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/a-game-of-thrones/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/a-game-of-thrones/Eight hundred pages, more names than I could track on a first pass, and I still wanted the next one immediately.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/a-fire-upon-the-deep/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/a-fire-upon-the-deep/Vernor Vinge builds a galaxy with different laws of physics in different zones and somehow keeps you oriented the whole time.Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/foreigner/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/foreigner/C.J. Cherryh drops one human translator into an alien political system and lets the misunderstandings do all the plotting.Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/teaching-a-new-player-guards-of-atlantis-and-losing-badly/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/teaching-a-new-player-guards-of-atlantis-and-losing-badly/I know exactly why a MOBA-on-a-table game punishes a first-timer. I taught one anyway, and lost, and I'd do it again.Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/dwellings-of-eldervale/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/dwellings-of-eldervale/A worker placement fantasy game that explains itself in under fourteen minutes and then eats three hours anyway.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/sky-team/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/sky-team/Two people, four dice each, one airplane, no talking about the actual numbers. I did not expect to love a co-op this much.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/his-dark-materials/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/his-dark-materials/The Golden Compass earns its reputation. The trilogy it belongs to spends its last two books arguing theology instead of finishing its story.Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/why-i-wont-play-a-heavy-game-solo/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/why-i-wont-play-a-heavy-game-solo/I own solo modes I've never opened. I don't think that's a waste, even though it sounds like one written down.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-five-i-gave-too-fast/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/the-five-i-gave-too-fast/I sit on a rating for a day before it's final. Except once, and I've been quietly correcting for it ever since.Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/river-of-gods/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/river-of-gods/Ian McDonald builds a near-future India out of nine characters and a fight over what counts as a person, and mostly the density earns itself.Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/small-gods/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/small-gods/Terry Pratchett puts a god in the body of a one-eyed tortoise and somehow ends up writing the sharpest thing I've read about belief.Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/andromedas-edge/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/andromedas-edge/Same bones as Dwellings of Eldervale, dressed up as a space dance, and mostly it's the better game for it.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/why-i-still-buy-the-physical-book/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/why-i-still-buy-the-physical-book/Not a stance against ereaders. Just an honest account of why the annotation habit won't transfer, no matter how many times I've tried.Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/guards-of-atlantis-ii/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/guards-of-atlantis-ii/A tabletop MOBA that translates the genre honestly instead of just borrowing the aesthetic.Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/townsfolk-tussle/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/townsfolk-tussle/A cooperative boss battler with a Cuphead-adjacent look and a random nature that runs harsher than the box lets on.Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/reviews/blood-meridian/https://mileskeaton.com/reviews/blood-meridian/Cormac McCarthy writes a Western with almost no punctuation and somehow it's the most controlled prose I've read all year.Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTBooksMiles Keatonhttps://mileskeaton.com/essays/reading-the-rulebook-before-anyone-touches-the-box/https://mileskeaton.com/essays/reading-the-rulebook-before-anyone-touches-the-box/New game arrives, and it sits sealed for a day while I read the whole rulebook alone first. Nobody at the table loves this about me.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTPersonalMiles Keaton