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sOne striking similarity I have observed across wargames is that they are organized around dice and a puzzle-esque amalgam of differing pieces, units, or types or applications of the same. Despite the Occam’s Razor of presumption that they evolved from a common ancestor or copied one another in a large part, I am of the […]
SUPERVERSIVE: “The Princess and Curdie” by George MacDonald
Tuesday , 19, April 2016 Book Review 3 CommentsWhile Anthony and I are dealing with the end of our semesters, Ben Zwycky, a fellow superversive author, will be holding down the fort. I’ll be back in a few weeks with something relevant, because I don’t think this is the right blog for a discussion about the filioque controversy. Without further ado, Part 3 […]
Last week, I touched on why it’s so hard to carry on a substantative discussion about RPGs. Thanks to a marvelous synchronicity, Zak S. was ruminating on that at almost exactly the same time as I was. (There must be something in the air!) So really… why is it so danged hard to actually talk about RPGs? I’ve […]
In the 1960s and into the early 1970s, there were genre specific anthologies that had Weird Tales reprints. The two genres are Cthulhu mythos and sword-and-sorcery. I mentioned in the previous post how the Arkham House anthology, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos was my gateway to Weird Tales in general. The first paperback edition was […]
Short Reviews – Mists of Mars by George A. Whittington
Friday , 15, April 2016 Book Review 1 CommentMists of Mars by George A. Whittington appeared in the Summer 1945 issue of Planet Stories. Whittington does a good deal better, I feel, with this Planetary Romance than with his space thriller A Battlefield in Black; with fewer characters, he’s able to bring more life to them without too much taken up by the […]
Dr. Jerry Pournelle Wins the National Space Society Robert A. Heinlein Award
Thursday , 14, April 2016 News Leave a commentCastalia House is pleased to report that the 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award has been won by Dr. Jerry Pournelle: This award is presented once every two years for lifetime achievement in promoting the goal of a free, spacefaring civilization. The winner is decided by the vote of the entire NSS membership, not by the […]
Science Fiction Hall of Fame Opens Noms and Awards to Public: or 2016, The Year Popular SF Recognition Became…Popular
Thursday , 14, April 2016 Uncategorized Leave a commentYet another means of recognizing achievement in Science Fiction has turned to the consumers of Science Fiction for insight. This time, it is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Founded in 1996, the Hall of Fame was relocated from the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to […]
SENSOR SWEEP: Ignoring the Past, Total Pariahs, Rakish Charm, and Dramatic Identifications
Wednesday , 13, April 2016 Sensor Sweep 6 CommentsBooks (The Mantle) Viewing Narnia through a Hindu Lens — “I do not imply that Hindu readers will ‘get’ any messages such as I have described from reading the Narnia books. They won’t any more than Christian readers will always spot the Christian symbolism. Books that sermonize are generally not enjoyed. The story is everything — […]
GTD’s The Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns
Wednesday , 13, April 2016 Wargames Leave a commentGTD’s Napoleonic Wars game is… Different? Ambitious? Impressive? Innovative? Clunky? I hardly know how or where to begin.
While Anthony and I are dealing with the end of our semesters, Ben Zwycky, a fellow superversive author, will be holding down the fort. I’ll be back in a few weeks with something relevant, because I don’t think this is the right blog for a discussion about the filioque controversy. Without further ado, Part 2 […]
Charles Akins had an interesting post on an rpg campaign that fell apart. Here’s what happened: Last night I was reading Twitter, as one does, when I ran across one of the role-players in my feed talking about the game he was running. Apparently he was under the impression that the game he was running […]
Coloring Outside The Lines: Frank Miller’s Ronin Rōnin was written and drawn by Frank Miller, colored by Lynn Varley, and lettered by John Costanza. It was published by DC Comics as a four episode series, in 1983 and 1984, and collected into a single volume in first in 1987, then reprinted several times, including a […]