Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

Comments 3 comments
Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016
Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016

The Best Four Days in Gaming has come to Indianapolis, and again I’ve made my way into the dragon’s den to seek out new and interesting games. The scope of GenCon has definitely expanded over the decade or so that I have been attending and covering it, largely swallowing up downtown Indianapolis. This year, the Lucas Oil Stadium used by the Indianapolis Pacers has become the newest participant, becoming home to the popular “True Dungeon” live dungeon crawl adventure (which, one of these years, I will actually participate in). Even the types of games have expanded. Though in the past, Pokemon has had an incredibly sparse presence at GenCon, two giant inflatable Pikachu’s dangling from the ceiling have indicated a change in that trend.

In addition to the convention expanding in size, the number of games has become truly dizzying. The game company iEllo, best known for their breakaway hit, the monster-ravages-city game King of Tokyo (and its sequel King of New York), hosted a party on Thursday evening that I was fortunate enough to be invited to, and I ended up sitting next to Eric Summerer of The Dice Tower podcast. He discussed just the sheer difficulty generated by the volume of games being produced, and how it affects not just individual game consumers, but also those of us who spend some portion of our time trying to make sense of which games to discuss. What is the best way to present information about quality games, when the general quality across the industry has become so high and there are so many publishers seeking to get the word out on their new products?

One overwhelming trend in the gaming industry is expansions and sequel games, and that’s going to be the focus of my “part 2” review. For now, I’m going to focus on brand new games, as I think they deserve a bit more attention. And by “new games” I mean brand new games. There are some fantastic new games in the Legendary series from Upper Deck, for example, but since they largely apply an existing game mechanic, I’m counting them among the sequels. Definitely watch for that.

Now, on to some of the new and upcoming games …

…

Read More Read More

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

Comments 1 comment

MOKF19Master of Kung Fu #19 was the final issue scripted by Shang-Chi’s creator, Steve Englehart. While the idea of a guest appearance from Marvel’s swamp creature, Man-Thing was an offbeat idea, the issue is more notable for the influence of the television series, Kung Fu. This influence is felt strongest in the philosophical discourse on pacifism conducted throughout the issue by Shang-Chi and his fellow Chinese visitor to  the Everglades, Lu Sun (a character clearly based on Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu). Shang-Chi admires the pacifist philosophy but the unremitting pursuit of a pair of Si-Fan assassins, (an Asian and Arab double act known as Jekin and Dahar) make it impossible to put it into practice.

Shang-Chi’s memories are colored by the realization of his father’s immorality. The childhood flashback (a familiar conceit from the Kung Fu television series) employed here serves to underscore the point that as the pieces of the puzzle come together for Shang-Chi, he is left more fragmented than before. This conundrum is one that Steve Englehart was leaving for future issues to build upon.

An intriguing sub-plot sees Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Black Jack Tarr launch an assault on Fu Manchu’s convoy of trucks as he abandons Florida following Shang-Chi’s successful sabotage of his operations in the preceding issue. While the casualties on the side of the Si-Fan are heavy, the mastermind makes his escape in the Everglades leaving Sir Denis facing another hollow victory. The Man-Thing is almost superfluous to the plot, but his position as an unwitting pawn in others’ games mirrors Shang-Chi’s own place as a man who strives for peace on a battleground.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Western Noir – Hell on Wheels

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Western Noir – Hell on Wheels

Comments 4 comments

Back in November of 2011, AMC debuted a gritty new western, Hell on Wheels. Anson Mount played Cullen Bohannon, a former Confederate soldier out for revenge against the Union soldiers who had killed his wife and son and burned his farm. His pursuit takes him to the camp of the Union Pacific Railroad, which is headed across the central plains under the leadership of Thomas Durrant (Colm Meany: O’Brien of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame).

While the series starts out as a revenge tale, Bohannon abandons that quest after he kills the wrong man and instead focuses on helping build the Transcontinental Railroad. The series becomes the story of the various employees and camp followers who move along as the laying of track progresses: the mobile community is ‘Hell on wheels.’

I’m writing about this series, which wrapped up weekend before last, because it is a Western Noir: And a darn good one. I had never seen Mount in anything before, but I’m telling you, he was made for this part. He’s the protagonist, but he’s not a white-hatted cowboy. Roy Rogers need not apply. He develops his own code of honor as the series progresses, but he’s a ‘get it done guy’ who rises from swinging a pick to the most important person in the Transcontinental’s story. And as he demonstrates many times, he isn’t afraid to use a gun.

…

Read More Read More

Time to Railroad: Still On The Train

Time to Railroad: Still On The Train

Comments 4 comments

VU1Last time I was talking about the idea of there being a time to railroad. In other words, that there’s a time when the supporting technology, or maybe just the zeitgeist, allows for a concept or invention to finally flourish. The railroad itself is the ultimate example of this idea technologically, and you can look at my last post for examples of TV or movie concepts whose time to railroad popped up in the last ten years or so.

But I also wanted to take a look at a couple of TV shows that got derailed because – maybe – they were ahead of their time.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least touch on two related works, The Princess Bride, and Firefly, both of which “failed” at the time of their production, and both of which have become cult classics since. To be honest, I don’t think either of these was before their time. Above, around, beyond, maybe, but not before. Princess Bride was marketed badly – like trying to find only one shelf for a cross-genre book. The studio just didn’t know what to do with it. Firefly suffered more, I think, from lack of backbone – I mean to say, patience – on the part of its network. Either that or the audience which seems so huge to us in the Fantasy and SF community is actually quite small when compared to the population at large. Maybe Firefly would have flourished if it had been on another network, where the numbers would have looked better.

…

Read More Read More

Jerry Springer through the Time Portal! Tom Holland’s Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

Jerry Springer through the Time Portal! Tom Holland’s Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

Comments 3 comments
Tom Holland Dynasty
The heir to Harold Lamb?

The wildest period of Roman political history — from the rise of Augustus, through Tiberius, Caligula and C… C… Claudius, to the demise of Nero — is also the hardest to follow.

There are just too many unfamiliar names and too many repeated names — thanks to Roman naming conventions, there are, e.g., more Julias than you can shake a stick at. Worse, people don’t just marry for politics, they divorce for it, and even adopt for it.

Thus you have Emperor Tiberius, son of Emperor Augustus’ second wife Livia by her first husband but adopted by Augustus (originally called Octavian, by the way) adopting his nephew Germanicus who then marries Agrippina (the first: there are two Agrippinas ) daughter of Julia by her first marriage with Marcus Agrippa.  Julia, of course, was the daughter of Augustus by his first wife Scribonia, and not to be confused with Julia’s grandmother, daughter or granddaughter of the same name.

I hope you’re following that?

But really, you’re probably having difficulty hearing me over the sound of a million Ancient Romans chanting, “Jerry! Jerry!”

Because it is like a Jerry Springer show, except with more exiles, more murder, and more death by starvation or ritual suicide.

Despite, or because of this, the period is a favorite fictional setting. Robert Graves’ I, Claudius is the classic, but Simon Scarrow’s excellent Eagle series romps through the military thread. And of course we have the screen adaption Graves’ book plus the more recent BBC Rome.

Personally I have difficulty following even fictionalised renditions of this mayhem! For this reason I was intrigued to get a review copy Tom Holland’s Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar.

…

Read More Read More

The Pirates of the Canary Islands

The Pirates of the Canary Islands

Comments 2 comments

closeup

El Castillo de Santa Barbara, built in the 15th century to protect
the port of Teguise from pirate attacks. It was extensively rebuilt in the 16th century and
now houses a piracy museum. Photo courtesy Almudena Alonso-Herrero

When I told Black Gate‘s editor, high guru, and overall generalissimo John O’Neill that I was headed to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and would visit a castle that had a piracy museum, he was over the Moon. What fantasy blog wouldn’t want an article on that?

Unfortunately for him, I spent my week eating, swimming, and learning to play Grand Theft Auto 5 with my son and nephew. When I finally got around to driving out to the castle, it was closed. Yeah, I failed in my job as a travel writer because I enjoyed my vacation too much.

But the island itself is worth a look, and its history is fascinating. Lanzarote lies in the Canary Island chain just off the coast of Western Sahara. It’s volcanic in origin, with a dramatic coastline ringing an interior that looks like something from a post-apocalyptic movie.

…

Read More Read More

Solitaire Wargaming: B-17 Leader

Solitaire Wargaming: B-17 Leader

Comments 2 comments

b17 More and more I think John O’Neill is right — we’re in a golden age of boardgames. And not just the familiar sort where it takes a room full of friends to play, but solitaire wargames, such as those produced by Victory Point Games, White Dog Games, and Dan Verssen Games, or DVG. Given the dearth of nearby board gamers, it was these solitaire games that most interested me, and I’ve played and reviewed a number over the years. Eventually I began to loiter on the periphery of some boardgame sites, most regularly Board Game Geek, where I noticed that there were some great game tweaks to DVG’s U-Boat Leader game by a fellow named Dean Brown.

We struck up a friendship, and when I saw he was developing his own game for DVG, I signed on as a playtester. I wasn’t actually that curious about B-17 bombers, or airplanes in general, but it didn’t matter: the game’s turned out to be a blast. Tuesday it launched as a Kickstarter, so I sat down yesterday and talked with Dean a little about it and his history with gaming.

…

Read More Read More

Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey E. Barlough

Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey E. Barlough

Comments 11 comments

oie_265522dm2u1J6BLooking back, I’m not exactly sure what made me buy Dark Sleeper (1998), the first volume of Jeffrey E. Barlough’s ongoing Western Lights series. Perhaps it was the Tim Powers blurb on the front cover, but I’m thinking it was more the Jeff Barson painting of woolly mammoths pulling a coach across a dark, snow swept landscape. Whatever the reason, I’m happy I did, as the book turned out to be a very strange and often funny trip through a weird and fantastical post-apocalyptic alternate reality.

In Barlough’s fictional world the Ice Age never fully ended. With much of its north covered by ice and snow, medieval England sent its ships out around the world looking for new lands. Some of the most successful colonies were planted on the west coast of what we call North America. Devoid of people, it is instead home to great megafauna such as smilodons, megatheres, teratorns, and mammoths.

With great cities such as Salthead and Foghampton (located around the same places as Seattle and San Francisco), the western colonies flourished and expanded. Then, in 1839, terror struck from the heavens: “Then it was a great disaster struck, a tragedy of near-incomprehensible proportions.” Something crashed into the Earth, and almost instantly, all life except in the western colonies, was obliterated and the Ice Age intensified. Now, one hundred and fifty years later, the “the sole place on earth where lights still shine at night is in the west.” For a fuller, more detailed explanation, just go here.

Dark Sleeper opens on a very foggy night; a deliberate homage, I suspect, to the equally mist-shrouded opening of Bleak House.

Fog, everywhere.

Fog adrift in the night air above the river, creeping in through the estuary where the river glides to the sea. Fog curling and puffing about the headlands and high places, the lofty crags and wild soaring pinnacles, fog smothering the old university town in cold gray smoke. Fog squeezing itself into the steep narrow streets and byways, the roads and cart-tracks, into the gutters and shadowy back-alleys. Fog groping at the ancient timbered walls of the houses — the wondrous, secret, familiar old houses — and at their darkened doors and windows, filling the chinks and cracks in the masonry and coaxing the tightly fastened surfaces to open, open.

Not your common ordinary fog but a genuine Salthead fog, drippy and louring…

…

Read More Read More

Hear John Goodman Give a Speech Straight Out of Lovecraft in Kong: Skull Island

Hear John Goodman Give a Speech Straight Out of Lovecraft in Kong: Skull Island

Comments 0 Comment

Among the many fascinating trailers shown for the first time at Comic-Con this weekend (including those for Justice League and Wonder Woman, which we showcased here, and the first official trailer for Dr. Strange) was a special Comic-Con trailer for Kong: Skull Island. Produced by the Legendary team behind the latest film version of Godzilla (see Ryan Harvey’s rave review here), the film is also a set-up for the upcoming Godzilla Vs. Kong megapicture.

All very cool. But this most interesting part of the trailer for me (next to the peek at actress Brie Larson, who’s just been cast as Captain Marvel) was John Goodman’s brief speech, which is straight out of H.P. Lovecraft.

This planet doesn’t belong to us… ancient species owned this Earth long before mankind. I’ve spent 30 years trying to prove the truth. Monsters exist.

You tell ’em, Goodman! The world needs to know this stuff. Also, you should let everyone in on the giant insects of Monster Island.

Kong: Skull Island is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and stars Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Mitchell, Corey Hawkins, Toby Kebbell, Tom Wilkinson, Terry Notary, John Goodman, and John C. Reilly. It is scheduled for release on March 10, 2017.

Was Homer a Historian After All? A Look at The Trojan War: A New History

Was Homer a Historian After All? A Look at The Trojan War: A New History

Comments 6 comments

The Trojan War A New HistoryImagine if the Trojan War happened pretty much as Homer described it? How would modern archaeology, scholarship, and our understanding of war help us understand the events of the Illiad?

Yes, on the face of it, Barry Strauss’s The Trojan War – A New History is an odd book. It’s a bit like John Morriss’s Age of Arthur, which took Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth more or less at their word, much to the derision of other Dark Age historians.

However, this isn’t a Dark Osprey flight of fantasy; Strauss is well aware that he’s doing a “just suppose” kind of history and he does make a good argument as to why we should at least consider Homer as more journalist than fabulist.

For a start, Homer was (probably) based on the coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey was the home to many Greek colonies), and may have had access to local historical sources, including traditions reflecting the Trojan point of view.

The interventions of the gods mirror the rhetoric of numerous Middle Eastern inscriptions in which kings and Pharaohs do mighty deeds while the gods hold their hands in person. The Trojans and their allies also feel authentic to “Asia,” and the rhetoric and political landscape matches what we now know of the milieu.

…

Read More Read More