Monthly Archives:
sFrom Pulp to the Gaming Table: Running Short Fiction as RPG
Friday , 24, March 2017 Game Design 9 Comments“The Third Reich has fallen, but one of its chief scientists, a Dr. Karl von Mark, has been on the run. He was tracked down to somewhere in Africa where he left Earth on a rocket ship. A crack team (you guys) has been sent to pursue him in its own craft. The team followed […]
Back in the mists of time, I went to college, in Fairbanks, Alaska. While there, I met a scientist, a biologist, who studied bears. I didn’t know him well but, he moved in the same circles I moved in. He was an impressive guy. He was the sort of guy who drove his snow machine […]
Jon Mollison has the lowdown on Castalia House’s latest monster hit: The Amazon blurb brags that, “Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimovian than Asimov himself.” I wouldn’t go quite that far. The Corroding Empire fails as an Asimov pastiche (tribute?) in a few ways. It features a long string of characters who are well rounded […]
Over at National Review, classicist Victor Davis Hanson explains why millions of people are dropping out of contemporary culture in order to read or create books like those on Gary Gygax’s Appendix N list: The fall-off in movie viewership is not just due to the advent of cable television and streaming video over the Internet. Nor […]
Valerian and Laureline: Ambassador of the Shadows
Thursday , 23, March 2017 Comics, Fiction 12 CommentsIn the 1960s, while working in America, writer Pierre Christin and illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières met to collaborate on their next bande dessinée (BD) comic serial. Both men originally wanted to draw a Western, but the market in France had already been saturated with such stories. Instead, they turned to their other great American literary love, science fiction, […]
This is really, really good. Now… I’m necessarily going to be inclined to say that and not just because Jon Mollison is a friend of mine. Take a look back at the sort of thing I criticize harshly whenever I discuss fantasy and science fiction since 1980. I could not find anything that I normally object […]
WARGAME WEDNESDAY: Pursuit of Perfection: Chaos in the Old World
Wednesday , 22, March 2017 Wargames 4 CommentsLike the previous article in the series, this one looks in-depth at a Wargame, trying to find elements that are interesting or good, which can be used to learn because the best games are yet to be made. The game for today is Chaos in the Old World, and was published in 2009 by Fantasy Flight […]
New ACKS Supplements Featuring Heroic Fantasy and Pulp Fantasy!
Tuesday , 21, March 2017 Appendix N, Tabletop Games 4 CommentsA lot of people have asked me what “Appendix N: The Game” would look like. I usually just joke that we already have one: it’s called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition! The thing is, people have been arguing about this for decades. Open up early issues of The Dragon and you’ll find longwinded letters […]
SUPERVERSIVE: Why “The Incredibles” is Better than Great
Tuesday , 21, March 2017 Superversive 10 CommentsI’ve already talked about “The Incredibles” once, but I think it’s worth talking more about it. Because here’s the thing. “The Incredibles” is not a good movie. It’s not even a great movie. It is a brilliant film. It’s one of the best movies of all time – and I am dead serious. It really […]
1980 is often used as a dividing line between the time when a reader could pick up a rocketship book and expect science fiction and the time when he could pick up a rocketship book and get…something…else. The year comes up repeatedly, whether in comments on the Castalia House blog or through talk of Appendix […]
It’s Monday! Which can only mean one thing: DADDY WARPIG IS BACK TO WIN ENEMIES AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE! Now, I make people mad. (You may not have noticed.) But, really, this isn’t my fault. I’m such a polite and mild-mannered guy.
GUEST POST: Chivalry Versus Courtly Love by Rick Stump
Thursday , 23, March 2017 Jeffro Comment 22 CommentsLots of people make a series of errors when talking about chivalry, and the most common (and egregious) is conflating Chivalry with courtesy and Courtly Love. Chivalry is ‘Bravery in war; warfare as an art; the military qualities expected of a noble knight; a body of armed men’. Courtesy is ‘the showing of politeness in […]