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sTHROWBACK SF THURSDAY: The Secret of the Sinharat and People of the Talisman by Leigh Brackett
Thursday , 25, May 2017 Appendix N 16 CommentsMy exposure to Brackett had been all of one short story, but for some reason I’ve long associated her with Edgar Rice Burroughs. After reading these two novellas, I think the better comparison is to Robert E. Howard (more on that in a bit). Whoever it is, I have no doubt that Brackett deserves to […]
Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper Rulebook Chapter 5: Game System
Thursday , 25, May 2017 Tabletop Games 6 CommentsRole-playing games can be played without reference to the rules. People have character sheets. The game master has a rough idea of a situation. And things just coast along somehow with the the numbers on the character sheets being used however the mood strikes him. If combat is not engaged, little more than a tithe […]
Cast your mind back to the late 1930s, a world in transition: The world was finally emerging from a crushing depression, Europe was in turmoil following the Great War and a series of socialist and other revolutions, Hitler’s Germany was on the rise, having successfully annexed both Austria and Czechoslovakia while the great powers dithered, […]
ON THE TABLE: Talon Scenario 12, “The Battle Line”
Wednesday , 24, May 2017 Tabletop Games Leave a commentThis was the big one. After ten or so scenarios of all sizes that get you up to speed on all the ships, weapons, and tactics of the game… the developers finally throw you into the biggest monster space battle in the box with the highest stakes imaginable: the fate of Earth hangs in the […]
The tramp freighter plying the star lanes, struggling to make ends meet, taking on illicit cargo, avoiding the law while trying to stay one jump ahead of debt collectors…is there anything more iconic in science fiction? This is a well-tapped vein that shows up everywhere from Northwest Smith to Han Solo to Mal Reynolds. It’s […]
I just got some interesting feedback from David R. Megarry on an old post: I fail to see why nobody looks at the journey through the Caves of Moira when they do a comparison between Tolkien and D&D. The description is a perfect example of a dungeon crawl. It is the image I had in […]
If I were to draw a Venn diagram of the artistic inspirations of the new video game Prey, there’d be a big blue circle marked “Bioshock” and a big red circle marked “Dead Space 2” and where they overlapped, all that purple space would be marked Prey. Now, I’m not saying Prey is ripped off from […]
SENSOR SWEEP: Regard for the Past, Mimetic Revolution, Infectious Fun, and Myth-Illiterate Comic-Fan Writers
Monday , 22, May 2017 Sensor Sweep 1 Comment#SpaceOperaWeek (SuperversiveSF) When New Is (Not) Best–The Degradation of Grand Master Anne McCaffrey — “I don’t know what is more shocking to me: That this person who supposedly reviews SF spoke so lightly of this Grand Master who changed the field and who still sells today. That a person who is so old-fashioned as to […]
I’m not alone in my fascination for all things Appendix N. Author Colin Anders Brodd is as taken with the subject as anybody and is undertaking his own survey of the fantasy and science fiction canon: So what is the point of all this? Well, in part, it is “getting in touch with my roots” […]
I reviewed the first Swords of Steel anthology earlier this year. A second volume came out in 2016. Swords of Steel III had a release of Friday, May 19th. Dave Ritzlin sent me a file of the book to review. Good timing for me. Seems like life is full of putting out fires constantly leaving […]
#SpaceOperaWeek — Delany and Heinlein are not Space Opera!
Saturday , 20, May 2017 Appendix N 33 CommentsTime and again we’ve seen it this week. People weigh in on the topic of space opera and then… somehow start talking about something entirely different that has nothing to do with it. It’s baffling really. But it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about alternative marriage arrangements in Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17 or the ultimate obsolescence […]
My Favorite Conan Story: Shadows in Zamboula
Saturday , 20, May 2017 Appendix N, Authors, Book Review, Fiction, Short Fiction 9 CommentsI don’t profess to be an expert on the excellent Robert E Howard. In fact, it was over two decades after Conan the Barbarian became a favorite character of mine that I read Howard’s stories about the Cimmerian! My first exposure to the pulp titan was in the form of Saturday morning cartoon Conan the […]