Blog Archives
sMax Kolbe and Brian Niemeier on Ideological Atheism & Science Fiction
Friday , 22, September 2017 Appendix N 4 CommentsThis is positively mind blowing: “The Science Fiction Age, as we have known it during the past few years, is over. Definitely over and done with. Dead, gentlemen, of intellectual bankruptcy.” That’s John B. Michel in 1937. 1937! If you came away from QuQu and Dan Wolfgang’s The Ideological Conquest of Science Fiction Literature wanting to know more […]
I was wondering if perhaps I had overstated my case in claiming that most people wrongly assume that D&D sprang from Tolkien’s approach to fantasy… but no, it really is par for the course: Let’s review, shall we…? The OD&D three-point alignment system, the AD&D Paladin class, and regenerating trolls were all lifted wholesale from […]
Why Middle Earth is Foreign to Fantasy Role-Playing
Tuesday , 19, September 2017 Appendix N 14 CommentsMost people lack the capacity to comprehend anything Gary Gygax said about his influences in the development of the Dungeons & Dragons game. The reason for this is that most people’s concept of fantasy goes something like this: In the beginning, there was The Lord of the Rings. From this great work sprang all that […]
Heroines, Then and Now
Saturday , 9, September 2017 Appendix N, Authors, Before the Big Three, Fiction 20 CommentsA frequent criticism of older stories, pulp or otherwise, is that they feature a “damsel in distress”. That the woman in question is nothing more than a prize to be won. This is considered bad, and earnest leftist writers of today seek to correct this horrible injustice by creating “strong female protagonists”. Right away, one […]
The complete transcript of the long awaited meeting of the minds between Jon Mollison and “Grim” Jim Desborough is finally here! (Heck, the audio is here, too. And despite what you’ve heard, it’s perfectly listenable as far as I’m concerned!) One bit that I want to home in on here is this confusion surrounding characterizations […]
Heightened Brain Talent: Tabletop Role-playing’s Debt to Brian Aldiss
Thursday , 24, August 2017 Appendix N, Tabletop Games 6 CommentsOne of the first role-playing games I ever owned was third edition Gamma World from TSR. For those of you that missed it, it’s a weirder, crazier variant of D&D featuring all manner of mayhem in a wild post-apocalyptic future. Instead of fighters, clerics, thieves, and magic-users, players take on the role of pure strain […]
RETROSPECTIVE: “Outpost on Io” by Leigh Brackett
Tuesday , 22, August 2017 Appendix N, Pulp Revolution 2 CommentsI recently pointed out how the moral element of pulp-style stories absolutely saturates them, driving not just the structure of their plots, but also defining the likability of the characters on a scene-by-scene basis. I would even go so far as to say that this is what makes old school pulpy thrills even possible. In […]
Daddy Warpig’s Guide to Pulp Superstardom!
Monday , 21, August 2017 Appendix N, Pulp Revolution, Superversive 40 CommentsMass Effect: Andromeda is a failure. A massive failure. A failure so large, the company shuttered the “Mass Effect” series entirely and even shut down the studio that made it. You see… It only sold three million copies. Three. Million. Copies. Of a game that costs $60 apiece, and requires a $400+ piece of equipment […]
Cirsova Editor Alex Kimball has a great find from the May 1943 issue of Planet Stories: Jane, if the Vizigraph were but the length of one letter, yours would be printed! By golly, we’ve waited years for somebody to brag about our yarns, other than ourselves– and you’re our adopted fan club as of this […]
Not too long ago I finally got through Sterling Lanier’s Hiero’s Journey. Although it undeniably put forth some creative and inspiring ideas, I wasn’t overly impressed. Jeffro’s noted that the book was one of the primary influences of Gamma World, and though I’ve never played it, reading the basic description of the game’s setting is indeed evocative […]
(Confederate) Women have ALWAYS written Science Fiction.
Tuesday , 15, August 2017 Appendix N 4 CommentsWomen have made some truly astonishing contributions to fantasy and science fiction. First wave feminist author Francis Stevens wrote so much like the man that would later become known as “The Lord of Fantasy”, she was often mistaken as being one of his pseudonyms. Andre Norton pioneered the style of post-apocalyptic mutant adventure that would […]
This recent conversation from Twitter is one I’ve seen play out many, many times: Sarah Edelweiss: Fire Emblem is making me want to reread The Lord of the Rings trilogy. TLotR was the grandfather of the RPG genre. Kiefer: I like to think of it as the father of the entire modern fantasy genre in […]