Exploring Degenesis Rebirth: Primal Punk

Exploring Degenesis Rebirth: Primal Punk

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Degenesis Rebirth is an RPG that keeps calling me. It’s an ear worm of the imagination. The developer, SIXMOREVODKA, has launched a fabulous website that features an interactive map, timeline, stories, audio clips, and more. It is as rich and in-depth as the books themselves and also, like the digital copies of the game, all free. The world is so rich, in fact, that one struggles at times to deal with it all.

Degenesis Rebirth is a post post-apocalyptic game. In 2073, Earth was bombarded by a number of asteroids that was as close to an extinction event without quite doing the human species in. The people of this world call the event the Eshaton. For hundreds of years, humanity struggled with the new reality and sudden shifts in the world. The game focuses on Europe and North Africa, so we know that the plummet in temperatures set off another ice age. The drop in sea levels cut the Mediterranean off from the Atlantic. The Adriatic Sea between Italy and Croatia largely disappeared. The Sahara has bloomed with vegetation and life.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Rejecting Bushido (Part One)

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Rejecting Bushido (Part One)

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Chushingura: The Loyal 47 Retainers (or 47 Samurai). Japan, 1962.

After militant nationalism in Japan during the Twenties and Thirties led to the disaster of the Forties, many Japanese blamed the country’s march to war on an excessive reverence for bushido, the samurai’s martial code of honor. Media that glorified Japan’s military history was prohibited during the American occupation, but in the 1950s movies and TV shows featuring heroic samurai began returning to the mainstream. However, a significant segment of Japan’s creative community regarded this as a woeful development, and nonconformists opposed to the innate conservatism of Japanese society began making alternative samurai films that, subtly at first and then openly, accused bushido culture of oppression and cruelty. Let’s take a look at how this played out on the screen starting with two films from 1962: Chushingura, which extols the virtues of samurai honor, and Harakiri, which is a virtual mirror image of the first, examining the same themes through a different lens and reaching diametrically opposite conclusions.

Chushingura: The Loyal 47 Retainers (or 47 Samurai)

Rating: ****
Origin: Japan, 1962
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Source: Image DVD

The tale of the 47 ronin is sometimes called Japan’s national epic, as it epitomizes the samurai virtues of courage and loyalty unto death. In Japan it’s been filmed at least six times, with countless other dramatic adaptations, but Inagaki’s sumptuous 1962 movie is probably the best-known retelling to Westerners. The film’s subtitle for its English language release was “The Loyal 47 Retainers,” but in the original Japanese version it’s “Story of Blossoms, Story of Snow.” Not blossoms as of budding flowers, but the fluttering petals whose day is over, and that fall as a harbinger of the death symbolized by the coming of snow.

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I Watched the New Mortal Kombat Movie So You Don’t Have To (But You Might Want To)

I Watched the New Mortal Kombat Movie So You Don’t Have To (But You Might Want To)

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Last weekend, I splurged a little and bought myself a ticket to see the new Mortal Kombat film. Film is giving it a bit much, to be honest. I saw the new Mortal Kombat movie. Here is my review:

Silly nonsense that was nonetheless very entertaining. I do not regret the splurge.

Look, this movie isn’t great. It’s barely good. I’d so so far as to say that it’s bad. However, it’s precisely because it’s bad that it’s good. Hear me out.

One of the best things about Mortal Kombat is that it leans heavily on its own silliness. It doesn’t shy away from the ridiculousness of the video game premise: that there are multiple realms, and every realm sends forth champions to fight in a high-stakes tournament. As part of the rules, if one realms loses enough times, another realm has permission to annex it. The film opens with Earthrealm (us) on the verge of invasion from Outworld. If we but lose one more tournament, it’s over for us.

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Strange Alien Invasions and Orbital Salvage Teams: May/June 2021 Print SF Magazines

Strange Alien Invasions and Orbital Salvage Teams: May/June 2021 Print SF Magazines

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Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction & Fact for May/June 2021. Cover art by Shutterstock.com

Sam Tomaino at SFRevu raves over the latest issue of Asimov’s.

The May/June 2021 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is here and it has two Hugo-worthy novelettes!

“Reclaiming the Stars” by James Gunn. This is the fourth and final story in a series that features the adventures of Harry and Lisa George, who as of the previous story, were physically long dead but survived as personalities in black boxes on an Earth… The story begins with Harry and Lisa working at recreating human life with Lisa more comfortable with that than Harry, who has nightmares about a future Adam being killed by a sea monster. He wonders if there is something wrong with him. But when Lisa has a nightmare of her own about their progeny dying. They speculate that these visions are coming from an outside source. Who or what? Could it be a “ghost” of the AI that they defeated in the first story in this series?

Harry and Lisa have one last adventure and the series concludes in a perfect way. This story will be on my shortlist for consideration for a Best Novelette Hugo Award next year.

The issue concludes with the novelette, “Flattering the Flame” by Robert Reed. The Great Ship has two possible routes, the Prudent or the Impetuous. The Impetuous takes them through a very ancient developed system inhabited by the people known as the Flame. The Flame knows of the coming of the Great Ship and plan to take it for their own, led by their captain, Fierce. But Washen, the Great Ship captain, has other ideas. Another wonderfully rich tale from one of the genre’s most unique writers.

The May/June Dell magazines also contain stories by Neal Asher, Lettie Prell, Dominica Phetteplace, Ray Nayler, David Moles, and many others. Here’s all the details.

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What I’m Reading: May 2021

What I’m Reading: May 2021

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I’ve been taking advantage of listening to some audio books throughout the day – I only listen to unabridged versions, unless it’s a book I’ve read before, and know well enough that leaving parts out is okay. I don’t really care for abridgments – in addition to the usual reading. Helps the day pass faster, and lets me get to more things.

DORTMUNDER (Donald Westlake)

I think that Donald Westlake is one of those authors who is more respected than popular. He wrote a lot of good books, but he’s not generally well known. But people ‘who know’ like Westlake. I’m most a fan of his caper/heist books. I think he is to those what Ed McBain is to police procedurals.

Westlake can write over-the-top comedy, and understated funny. And he can mix the two in the same book. John Dortmunder appeared in fourteen books between 1970 and 2009, as well about a dozen short stories. Dortmunder is a pessimistic thief who continually runs into amusing (though not to him) obstacles. Exasperated, he continues forward, moving inexorably towards the next speed bump; or concrete wall in the road. The humor is not overtly screwball, but Dortmunder’s exasperation can be laugh out loud.

Dortmunder usually puts together a team, and the recurring characters add to the series. I love how Murch describes the route he is going to/did drive; even if it’s just coming from his house to a meeting. Dortmunder and group are after an emerald in the first book.

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Mad Shadows: Andrew Paul Weston reviews the series

Mad Shadows: Andrew Paul Weston reviews the series

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As the Black Gate watch warned you, Joe Bonadonna’s Mad Shadows series had a recent release (Book III: The Heroes of Echo Gate). So it is timely to review the entire series, and for that esteemed author Andrew Paul Weston steps up. Incidentally, Mr. Weston is no stranger to Black Gate, or Hell for that matter (check out his Bio below). So I pass the microphone over to him so he can recap each entry.

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Future Treasures: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Future Treasures: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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A Dead Jinn in Cairo (Tor.com, 2016), The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Tor.com, 2019),
and A Master of Djinn (Tor.com, 2021). Cover art by Kevin Hong (left) and Stephan Martiniere (right two)

I get a lot of email from Black Gate readers. Stuff like, “Hey John, I’m boarding a five hour flight to LA , what should I put on my Kindle?” Seriously? Come on, people. I have a life. I don’t have time to drop everything to be your personal librarian.

Ha-ha-ha-ha. I know, right? Like I have a life, outside of being your personal librarian. So let’s get to this. Got five hours? Here’s what you do: You download P. Djèlí Clark’s novelette “A Dead Djinn in Cairo,” (originally published at Tor.com), and his Locus, Nebula, and Hugo-nominated novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015, set in the same alternate fantasy Cairo.

And then when you land, you can pre-order the next book in the series, Clark’s debut novel A Master of Djinn, on sale from Tor.com on Tuesday. Here’s the details.

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A Gothic Story: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

A Gothic Story: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

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The history of the novel in the West is long, complex, and complicated. Suffice it to say, by the middle of the 18th century the novel was a popular form of entertainment no longer confined to aristocratic readers. The romances of the Middle Ages and Renaissance had been largely supplanted by more realistic tales, but with the advent of Gothic literature, romantic fiction rose again in popularity, proceeding directly from Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto.

Gothic fiction is defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica as “European Romantic pseudomedieval fiction having a prevailing atmosphere of mystery and terror.” The deliberate admixture of realistic and fantastic elements in Otranto was a huge success. While Gothic fiction’s popularity has ebbed and flowed over the years, it has never receded completely. Horror fiction, as well as certain strains of romance and thriller writing, all trace their roots to this era.

Walpole was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, the first real prime minister of England. His time at Cambridge led to skepticism of certain aspects of Christianity, a strong dislike for superstition, and, in turn, the Catholic Church. Walpole was elected to Parliament multiple times from assorted rotten boroughs (electoral districts that had lost most of their populations but still sent an MP to the House of Commons — and which he never visited) and his father secured several adequately remunerative sinecures for him over the years. A Whig, Walpole opposed efforts he saw as supportive of making the monarchy more powerful. On the death of his nephew in 1791, at the age of 74, he became the 4th and final Earl of Orford.

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Goth Chick News: Finally, We Get to Personally Make Vampires Cool Again

Goth Chick News: Finally, We Get to Personally Make Vampires Cool Again

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As you know, I’ve been beyond irritated at the trend of changing vampires from life-sucking creatures of the night, into angsty, emotionally tortured emo kids. It started with the Twilight book series of course, which then became excruciating films. But it didn’t stop there. Instead, we were treated to Twilight spawn such as The Vampire Diaries, The Vampire Academy and Fallen, to name but a very few. Vampires lost interest in Victorian costuming, or even leather-clad rock star chic, and instead started looking like L.L Bean models. They agonized over their attachments to their food source rather than eating with erotic abandon like the blood-thirsty creatures of the night that they were.

They went to high school.

wtf.

So, this week’s news could not have come at a better time.

Thanks to Stunlock Studios, we can all finally put this right by becoming the undead bad-asses they were meant to be. The talent behind Battlerite have just announced a new role-playing game entitled V Rising, which allows players to be vampires out to build an empire.

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New Treasures: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

New Treasures: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

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Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts was one of the breakout books of 2017, listed as a best book of the year in The Guardian, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and others, a finalist for the Locus, Lambda, Tiptree, and John W. Campbell Awards. Faer latest novel Sorrowland was published this week, and Bookpage calls it “terrifying… a truly powerful piece of storytelling.” Here’s the publisher’s description.

Vern — seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised — flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future — outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

Sorrowland was published by MCD on May 4, 2021. It is 368 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover, $13.99 in digital formats, and $50.99 in audio formats.

See all our recent New Treasures here.