A personal blog of book reviews, board game reviews, and short essays, written by Erin Callahan.https://erinontheradar.com/en-UShttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-sea-salt-and-paper/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-sea-salt-and-paper/This tiny card game hides more bluffing than a box this size has any right to, and the origami art almost undersells how sharp it is.Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTSea Salt and PaperErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-three-body-problem/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-three-body-problem/Liu Cixin opens during the Cultural Revolution and ends somewhere near the edge of physics itself, and the video game in the middle is doing more work than it looks like.Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Three-Body ProblemErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-what-my-reading-log-looks-like/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-what-my-reading-log-looks-like/It's a spreadsheet, obviously, and it tracks a number most people would find deeply unnecessary.Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-2312/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-2312/Kim Stanley Robinson's vision of a colonized solar system three hundred years out is a genuinely impressive tour, i just wish the tour guide cared more about the passengers.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT2312Erin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-ficciones/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-ficciones/Jorge Luis Borges packs more into ten pages than most novels manage in three hundred, and I needed a dictionary open the entire way through.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTFiccionesErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-moon-colony-bloodbath/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-moon-colony-bloodbath/Donald X. Vaccarino built a shared deck that fills with poison and a title that undersells nothing, and the person who fails the least wins.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTMoon Colony BloodbathErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-lost-ruins-of-arnak/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-lost-ruins-of-arnak/This is a worker placement game and a deckbuilder that actually feed each other instead of sitting in the same box out of politeness.Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTLost Ruins of ArnakErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-frosthaven/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-frosthaven/It fixes nearly everything people complained about in Gloomhaven, and then hands you a puzzle book and a two-player balance problem as a thank-you gift.Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTFrosthavenErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-ancillary-justice/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-ancillary-justice/Ann Leckie's narrator used to be a starship with a thousand bodies, and now she's down to one, and I could not stop thinking about what that loss actually costs.Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAncillary JusticeErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-sea-salt-and-paper-almost-ended-us/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-sea-salt-and-paper-almost-ended-us/It's a fifteen-minute card game in a tin box. Dana still brings up what I did to her in round three, and it's been months.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-spreadsheet-that-ended-a-rules-fight/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-spreadsheet-that-ended-a-rules-fight/Nobody at Thursday game night wanted to hear that my day job had an opinion about a boarding dispute in Thunder Road, but it did, and it was right.Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-lotr-fate-of-the-fellowship/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-lotr-fate-of-the-fellowship/Matt Leacock treats Sauron's influence spreading across Middle-earth exactly like a Pandemic outbreak, and once you see it you can't unsee it.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Lord of the Rings: Fate of the FellowshipErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-race-for-the-galaxy/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-race-for-the-galaxy/Tom Lehmann took the bones of San Juan, put it in space, added a wall of tiny icons, and made something that still eats an evening every time I bring it out.Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTRace for the GalaxyErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-six-years-no-bike/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-six-years-no-bike/This is apparently the most controversial fact about me to anyone I meet here, more than the board games, more than the spreadsheets.Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-teaching-priya-race-for-the-galaxy/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-teaching-priya-race-for-the-galaxy/I picked the worst possible first game to introduce a coworker to the hobby, and somehow it worked out anyway.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-chinook-wind-reading/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-chinook-wind-reading/Nobody warns you about chinook winds when you move to Colorado, and they've cost me more reading afternoons than any bad book ever has.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-forecasting-model-vs-tent-season/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-forecasting-model-vs-tent-season/I build the model that predicts how much gear we'll need before a season turns. Once a year, the weather makes a fool of me anyway.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-book-of-the-new-sun/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-book-of-the-new-sun/Gene Wolfe's Severian tells you everything and nothing, and it took me two tries to figure out which parts to believe.Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Book of the New SunErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-the-tracking-sheet/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-the-tracking-sheet/I built it to make fun of myself for backing too many campaigns. It's now the most-used spreadsheet I own that isn't actually for work.Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-kickstarter-i-regret/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-kickstarter-i-regret/I have a spreadsheet for tracking delivery estimates. I don't have one for tracking which of these campaigns I actually wanted the game inside.Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-diaspora/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-diaspora/Greg Egan's digital-consciousness far future is so dense with real physics that I had a browser tab open the entire time, and I loved it anyway.Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTDiasporaErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-thunder-road-vendetta/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-thunder-road-vendetta/Restoration Games took the 1986 original and gave it more chrome, more chaos, and about fifty percent more playtime, and I'm mostly fine with that trade.Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTThunder Road: VendettaErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-grace-of-kings/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-grace-of-kings/Ken Liu's silkpunk epic tells you the events of a rebellion the way an actual chronicle would, and that's both its best trick and its biggest hurdle.Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Grace of KingsErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-why-i-dont-play-solo/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/essay-why-i-dont-play-solo/Half my shelf has a genuinely good automa built in. I've used maybe three of them more than once, and I've finally figured out why.Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-master-and-his-emissary/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-master-and-his-emissary/Iain McGilchrist's book on the divided brain is not really about left brain versus right brain, it's about what happens when one half stops listening to the other.Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe Master and His EmissaryErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-elder-scrolls-betrayal/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-elder-scrolls-betrayal/Chip Theory Games took the Too Many Bones system, put it on a real hex map instead of a 4x4 grid, and made the thing I actually wanted the whole time.Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second EraErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-a-fire-upon-the-deep/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-a-fire-upon-the-deep/Vernor Vinge builds a galaxy where physics itself changes depending on where you stand, and somehow that's the least strange part of the book.Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTA Fire Upon the DeepErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-sleeping-gods/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-sleeping-gods/Ryan Laukat's exploration epic is basically a choose-your-own-adventure book you play with a crew, and the box-says-1-to-20-hours claim on the cover is a flat out lie.Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTSleeping GodsErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-townsfolk-tussle/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-townsfolk-tussle/It's Kingdom Death Monster's showdown phase wearing a Cuphead costume, and unlike KDM you can actually finish a campaign in one sitting.Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTTownsfolk TussleErin Callahanhttps://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-schilds-ladder/https://erinontheradar.com/articles/review-schilds-ladder/Greg Egan built a wall of new, physically consistent vacuum that's eating the galaxy at half the speed of light, and yes I needed a background in physics I don't have.Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTSchild's LadderErin Callahan