Monthly Archives:
sCall of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper Rulebook Chapter 1: Introduction
Wednesday , 26, April 2017 Tabletop Games 4 CommentsThis is a very large game. It positively exudes gravitas. It’s among the most revered and most talked about rpgs of all time. The people with epic stories of awesome game sessions that came out of playing this system are legion. This is not something I’m just going to spontaneously pick up and run with, so I’m […]
Short Reviews: Cichol’s Children, From “Pulp Nova”
Wednesday , 26, April 2017 Book Review, Short Fiction 10 CommentsPulp Nova represents James Desborough’s attempt to recapture the spirit of the Golden Age of Science-Fiction. Written back in 2013, Desborough recognized even back then that the self-publishing made possible by changing technology was creating a publishing environment similar to that of the pulp era. The easy cost of production gives free rein to writers […]
SUPERVERSIVE Review: “The Savage Boy”, by Nick Cole
Wednesday , 26, April 2017 Superversive 6 CommentsBack behind the scenes in our super-secret superversive headquarters located deep in the Misty Mountains, somewhere south of the Hundred Acre Wood and east of Oz (Narnia, of course, can only be accessed via Wardrobe), we had a discussion once about whether or not there could be such a thing as a superversive tragedy. The […]
Superversive Roundtable: The All-RPG Episode!
Tuesday , 25, April 2017 Superversive, Tabletop Games 1 CommentThe Superversive Roundable from this past Saturday was all about RPGs. This was a really interesting show for a lot of reasons, but I have to say the most mind blowing thing about it is that John C. Wright has been playing role-playing games for decades… without ever playing the ones that everybody else on the […]
Modern Comics: Misery-Inducing Piles of Grimness and Suck
Monday , 24, April 2017 Comics 17 CommentsWhy is it modern comics suck so badly? It didn’t used to be this way. I recently had cause to read several issues of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man from 1983, and they were AWESOME. Sure there were WAY cheesy things happening—a girl with a secret crush on Peter discovered he’s Spider-Man, Black Cat (his current […]
How Not To Write Pulp: Brood of the Witch Queen
Monday , 24, April 2017 Before the Big Three, Book Review, Fiction 5 CommentsAs noted in a recent article, Sax Rohmer managed to write one of the greatest pulp novels ever, The Insidious Dr.Fu-Manchu, as well as one of its worst, Brood of the Witch-Queen. While I examined the former in-depth, I didn’t do so for the latter. Well, I believe any negative opinion of a book deserves a full […]
SENSOR SWEEP: Raffish and Déclassé, Freewheeling Roots, Terrible Purpose, and Chunky Salsa
Monday , 24, April 2017 Sensor Sweep 32 CommentsBooks (Quintus Curtius) Why Every Man Should Read “Robinson Crusoe” — “Never before had English readers seen a story like it. Instead of telling a tale of man against man, Robinson Crusoe deals with that far more common circumstance: man against himself. While most of us will never be shipwrecked on a deserted island, we will […]
ON THE TABLE: “The Sector Capital” with Talon from GMT Games
Sunday , 23, April 2017 Tabletop Games 17 CommentsThis is the big one. There’s five ships to a side in this one. The Terrans have a total of seven hard hitting anti-matter torpedoes on their ships. The Talon have not only five seeking weapons on their ships and countless disruptors, but also the awesome “space shotgun” that is the fusion canon. Now… if every […]
Last year, I speculated if military fantasy had enough good writers to make it a viable sub-genre. Operation Arcana is another Baen Books anthology offering of military fantasy. Baen Books published the trade paperback in March 2015. The mass market paperback came out in September 2016 at $7.99. John Joseph Adams is the editor. The […]
The Pulp One-Hit Wonder: Sax Rohmer
Saturday , 22, April 2017 Authors, Before the Big Three, Book Review, Fiction 14 CommentsAt first glance, it seems strange that Arthur Henry Ward, writing under the pseudonym Sax Rohmer, doesn’t garner more attention on this blog. After all, he wrote the enormously entertaining, successful, and influential The Insidious Dr.Fu-Manchu. But upon further reflection, it makes sense. The book in question is not fantasy or science fiction. And as we […]
ON THE TABLE: “Convoy Ambush” with Talon from GMT Games
Saturday , 22, April 2017 Tabletop Games 3 CommentsThis is our seventh scenario with the game and it’s still the #1 game on our shelves. (So many awesome games gathering dust… because of Talon!) This is the first one that I didn’t really care for and I’ll get to why in a second. First, though… I’ve got to say, this game gets so […]
There’s sort of an unwritten rule in rpg discussion. There’s several of them, really: System doesn’t matter; it’s the GM that makes the game. There’s no reason to really be doctrinaire about which edition of a game is best; whatever works! The only wrong way to play rpgs is to tell people they’re doing it […]