Monthly Archives:
sIndie New Releases – January 2017
Thursday , 9, March 2017 Appendix N, Book Review, Fiction 3 CommentsWhile an invading empire shells planets into volcanic glass all around him, a cloned space captain must decide whether he will take on the memories of a fallen war hero – and his military command. In Britain’s third space war, the Royal Navy must strike deep into the territory of the alien Foxes to bring […]
There was a time when I didn’t know what sword & sorcery was. I sort of assumed that if it was old or pulpy that it had to be lame. And yet… cruising through the game blog scene when D&D blogging was going through an explosion of growth…? I could tell that there was something […]
WARGAME WEDNESDAY: Elements of Wargaming: Education and Games
Wednesday , 8, March 2017 Wargames 1 CommentI have previously discussed the educational element of Wargames and their usefulness for all manner of extra-entertainment pursuits and virtue-building, but I would like to approach from an inverse angle this time: What can Wargames take away from games which are designed for education and classroom environments? What can Wargamers and designers learn from students’ interactions […]
When Fantasy & Science Fiction LOST ITS DAMN MIND
Wednesday , 8, March 2017 Appendix N, Pulp Revolution 12 CommentsSuppose, at one point in time, Hollywood suddenly decided that the only fiction movies worth making were fictional documentaries—documentaries about events that never occurred. A little license was granted in what fictional events could be at the core, but after that ONLY STRICT REALISM. In specific, Action Movies were ABSOLUTELY VERBOTEN. And this decision was […]
Here’s Kevin Siembieda in Palladium Fantasy second edition answering this age old question: That’s up to the Game Master. Many role-playing games allow players to reroll a particularly bad attribute or to roll two or three characters and pick the one they want. Personally, I don’t have a problem with any of this, although I suggest […]
There’s been a lot of lively debate the last few weeks about the relative merits of things like pulp vs no pulp, and why the devil would you ever want to drink orange juice without pulp? Or worse, strain wonderful apple cider of all its suspended pulpy particles and turn it into apple juice…. Or, […]
SUPERVERSIVE Retrospective: “Castle in the Sky”, Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Tuesday , 7, March 2017 Superversive 14 CommentsI was going to call this a review, but considering that it’s a film from the 80’s universally considered a classic it would sort of be like writing a “review” of “Casablanca”. It’s obviously not on quite that level (though certain Miyazaki films might be – if you haven’t seen “Spirited Away”, do so right […]
Deadpool sucks. And not in a small way. It’s a repulsive pile of vomit that is nonetheless a very skillfully made movie. It’s notable not for any virtues to be found therein, but because it manages to make a cruel and brutal man into someone the audience genuinely roots for, genuinely cares for, and wants to see […]
I remember THE GATE as the movie I didn’t get to see when I was a kid. Instead, I was dragged to an excruciatingly bad kids’ comedy that shall remain nameless, a comedy that I was forced to watch on three separate occasions. Almost thirty years later, I realized I never did get around to seeing THE […]
SENSOR SWEEP: True Science Fiction, Hooligan Ways, Systematic Destruction, and Loser’s Transcendence
Monday , 6, March 2017 Sensor Sweep 37 CommentsMeanwhile… (Nerdette) The Past, Present And Future Of Sci Fi With N.K. Jemisin — “Science fiction has, for years, allowed a fairly vocal subset of its readership to declare that the only true science fiction is stuff that was written 50 or 60 years ago, that the pulps of the ’40s is what the genre is all […]
I came across this through Kevyn Winkless’s Pulp Revolution community on Google Plus: a panel discussion from 1968 on H. P. Lovecraft and the pulps with Jack Williamson, E. Hoffman Price, Emil Petaja, Edmond Hamilton, Fritz Leiber, and Robert Bloch. There’s some really good stuff here! First hand accounts of what H. P. Lovecraft and […]
In early science fiction criticism, James Blish (1921-1975) is generally ranked right behind Damon Knight as one of the pioneers. Blish was part of the left wing leaning “Futurians,” a group of New York based science fiction fans in the late 1930s, though Blish was apolitical or possibly right wing. He broke into science fiction […]