So, very sick family ensured that I would miss SurvivorCon. I can’t tell you how saddened I am about that, especially since it sounded like such awesome fun. Honestly, I was kind of depressed all weekend long, thinking about the gaming coolness I was missing. In order to try to make myself feel better, and maybe get some kind of gaming/fantasy fix, I decide to crack open my copy of the Sword and the Sorcerer, a super-cheesy fantasy film from the 80s.

I couldn’t finish it. Not at all. I got about 30 minutes in and then just had to shut it off. I remember it being cheesy, but it was beyond that. Yes, it was bad. Really bad. Can’t enjoy it on any level bad.

It’s funny, because I re-watched Krull a couple of years back and still enjoyed it. Of course it’s not very good. I’m not going to say it was bad, because that is now reserved for the Sword and the Sorcerer, but of my nostalgic 80s fantasy movie trips, it was one of the better ones.

The best of them is Dragonslayer. It doesn’t have the level of action and adventure that most of the others have, but it has a much stronger story, characters, and a kick-ass Dragon vs. Wizard showdown at the end. It really built up to its climax. And you know what? Vermithrax Pejorative still stands up today as a great movie monster.

Ladyhawke would be the best, except for that goddamn, stupid synth-pop soundtrack. Seriously, who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Well, I suppose it could be done, because I actually really like Toto’s soundtrack for David Lynch’s Dune.

Stop laughing. It’s good.

Shut up.

Shut your stupid face.

Anyway, the Alan Parsons Project is apparently no Toto . . . or really a soundtrack artist of any note. Ladyhawke has a great story, amazing acting, wonderful characters, and some cool action. It would be the absolute pinnacle of 80s fantasy, but I can’t get through the fucking music.

Can we get a cut of Ladyhawke with a new soundtrack? Please?

And I can’t talk about 80s cheese fantasy without Hawk the Slayer. If you are a fantasy RPG geek like me, and you haven’t seen this, find it and watch it. It is bad, but bad good. It is what I thought the Sword and the Sorcerer would be. It is stupid, but the action is great and the inspiration for gaming is soaked into it. The mindstone sword, the repeating crossbow and the dwarf with a whip all way out-cool the silly, three-bladed monstrosity Talon gets.

And where are the cheesy fantasy movies these days? Sadly lacking, I’m afraid. I can think of two off the top of my head that I will watch again, and have watched a couple of times each.

The first is the Scorpion King. This is as close in spirit to the 80s fantasy movies I loved as a kid as I expect anything is going to get. It also has a much better cast and much better production values than the vast majority of the 80s movies. Dwayne Johnson AKA the Rock has real screen charisma, and I hope someone figures this out and starts using the guy.

The second is Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. This is so much better than that absolute piece of shit Dungeons & Dragons by Courtney Solomon that it actually allows me to forget the incredible hackshittery of the first movie. D&D2 actually understands that D&D is about a group of characters, each a specialist with specific skills that are called upon during the adventure. It also threw in tons of references us D&D geeks would catch. Like Hawk the Slayer and Krull, it’s not great, but boy does it scratch that fantasy itch.

Given the current state of film technology, I would have hoped that the Lord of the Rings movies would have birthed another renaissance of cheesy fantasy movies, but no such luck–unless I’m just missing them all.

I was lucky enough to get a review copy of Alephtar Games and Cubicle 7’s Rome: the Life and Death of the Republic. This supplement is a licenced product for Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying, about which I know nothing. I warned Angus at Cubicle 7 that the best I could do would be a review of the flavour text. Since I got the review copy, it is apparent he agreed to that.

Thankfully he did so. I love this book.

Those of you who know me, or have followed the podcast—especially Collateral—know that I am a fan of Roman history. If you’re planning on doing a military campaign in ancient Rome, I’ve got you covered with episodes about the Republic and Carthage, the Civil Wars, and the Principate. Guess what? Rome: LDR covers two out of those three. Coincidence? You be the judge.

But now that I’m done pimping my own stuff, I’m going to pimp Rome:LDR.

Pros
There are a lot of these.

First is the very breadth of the book. It covers the Monarchy to the fall of the Republic. That’s a heck of a timeframe. It looks at Roman culture, society, religion, games and festivals, the military, and the city itself. It also looks at characters, and magic and superstition—using the Basic Roleplaying System. There is a lot of ground to cover, but this book has over 215 pages of content.

Second is the depth of the information. It just happens to be enough. There isn’t so much that it drowns you, but it isn’t too shallow that you can’t dive in. It gives the game master enough information to present these eras of Rome in a game environment. More likely won’t be necessary, but there’s a very nice bibliography in the back if you need a kick start researching any topic further.

Third is the writing itself. Pete Nash has done a great job. The prose is never heavy. It’s crisp and carries just enough weight. I don’t know whether Mr. Nash is just a very talented writer or if Lawrence Whitaker is an extremely aware editor. Perhaps both. The text is free of the glaring errors that have been so common recently in gaming texts, even from companies that should have the funds to pay for top-notch editing.

This does not read like a text book, even though it is giving us the kind of information one might usually find there. The text seems aware of its purpose, that this is a gaming supplement, that this is part of someone’s escape, someone’s entertainment. I actually think that the flavour portion of this supplement might  better serve kids in high school learning Roman history.

Even with the breadth and depth to which I’ve alluded, the book never loses its core, and that is the city of Rome. Much of this information could be applicable should one play a campaign in one of the provinces—if one is playing in an era with provinces, of course—but the book specifically and consciously aims to discuss the city of Rome (the expansive title aside). That central point provides a lens to help keep the topic focused.

I could continue to gush, and I do on Collateral 29, available from the Accidental Survivors. Leave me to say that this is a great text, one I enjoyed reading, and one that Pete Nash, Alephtar Games, and Cubicle 7 should be proud to have published.

However, nothing is perfect.

Cons
The only complaint I have is the plethora of quotes from primary sources. The vast majority of topics in the book includes quotes from contemporary writers such as Livy, Plutarch and Pliny. The book overflows with them. Now, being a student of history, I am as enamoured of primary sources as the next history grad, but I do think that like salt, they are useful for flavouring, but should not overwhelm the meal. I felt that here, we have a little too much of a good thing. I can understand a writer’s enthusiasm for sharing the words of the people who lived in Rome, but a few quotes on select topics could have done so. I just feel there was too much.

And that’s it. That’s the only con.

So, as you can imagine, I wholeheartedly endorse this product. However, because there is so much information in here, if the players are not as well informed as the GM, a game might come off too much like a lesson. There is nothing wrong with learning as long as it is secondary to the fun. One way of doing this that occurred to me is having the characters be outsiders—perhaps Gauls or Greeks, perhaps even Spaniards—so that as the players learn of the city, so do the characters.

In any case, if you wish to hear more, go listen to the aforementioned Collateral episode.

The cover price on this book is $34.99 USD. That isn’t particularly expensive for the page count, and this book is extremely high quality. Given that I am a cheap bastard, the price would likely make me flinch. I think, though, that if you regularly spend as much on gaming books, that this one certainly matches anything out there. You’re getting a lot of bang for the buck.

I give this one 4.75 gladii out of 5. Outstanding.

I’ve been going on and on about sword noir, and I’ve been referring a lot to film noir movies and sword & sorcery books. One thing I decided after re-watching the Maltese Falcon recently is that I wanted to read some of the hardboiled writers that inspired noir movies.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I haven’t been reading that much fiction recently. When I have been reading fiction, I haven’t been finishing it. When I have been finishing it, it has taken an exceptionally long time.
Read the rest of this entry »

The other afternoon, the wife and I got the chance to see the first movie together in a theatre since Serenity. The children have put a damper on our social life together, but we finally have local friends who are willing to babysit and who did a great job.

We went to see Green Zone, starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass, the duo that brought us the last two Bourne movies.

Matt Damon plays CWO Roy Miller, leader of a Mobile Exploitation Team, searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction a month into the Iraq War. Frustrated with constantly coming up empty, even with “verified” intelligence, Miller begins to dig deeper, allying with veteran CIA operative Marty Brown and opposing neo-con Pentagon star Clark Poundstone.

In general, this was a great thriller and good actioner with perhaps just a bit too much politics thrown in there.

To summarize, the conspiracy is adequately complex and important to make the stakes high. The Miller character is perhaps a little too “white hat,” and—unfortunately—the villains veer a little too much into the moustache-twirling variety. This is easy to overlook, though, since all the performances deliver the goods, the action is tense and exciting—even though it is in the Greengrass shakey-cam style of the last two Bourne movies—and though complex, the plot is not too labyrinthine to lose viewers.

The whole WMD issue is bound to be contentious, given that the movie basically says that the US government knowingly lied about WMDs. The real facts are not so clear cut. The thing is, I don’t think it’s possible not to question the WMD justification, given the paucity of actual WMD finds. Still, I would have liked the villains to maybe justify their actions a bit better. The actual poor intelligence seems a case of trusting a single source too much. We are all susceptible to confirmation bias, in which the information our mind receives is perceived in a way to confirm already accepted beliefs. But it seems the writer and/or director wanted something a little easier to condemn and revile.

If one can get around the political message, the rest of the movie is fun, tense, and exciting when needed. Sure, there’s a few heavy-handed messages thrown in there, but the Freddy character is great as an Iraqi everyman. Maybe Miller is so white hat so as to portray the USA as it sees itself. This allows Freddy to be the voice of the Iraqi street. That interpretation kind of works.
I think if you enjoyed the last two Bourne movies, you’ll like this one. Miller is not superhuman like Bourne, in fact he gets his ass handed to him in the first instance of fisticuffs. He is smart, capable and determined. The CIA operative he allies himself with, Marty, is seen as a dinosaur by Poundstone, portraying a chickenhawk bureaucrat trying to be a power behind the throne, and ignoring anything that doesn’t agree with his view of the way the world works.

I’m not about to say that this wasn’t exactly how it fell out, but it is certainly interesting that the military guy and the CIA spook are suddenly the good guys. It wasn’t that long ago that the CIA were always the bad guys. The situation as represented in Green Zone is certainly believable—as is, unfortunately, that handlebar moustache on Jason Isaacs’ Special Forces badass (hello to Jason Isaacs).

All in all, I was very pleased with the movie. My wife and I both really enjoyed it. The movie delivered as a thriller with a fair amount of action. I’d give it 4 out of 5 SF moustaches.

I should probably do more reviews. Honestly? I’m lazy. But here’s a quick one that got wrung out of me due to a discussion on the Circus Maximus forums.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

My cousins just returned from Korea with the DVD of Kim Ji-Woon’s the Good, the Bad, the Weird. It is awesome.

This is basically a western set in 1930s Manchuria, an interesting choice for a location, considering it was pretty lawless. Since this is a riff on Sergio Leone’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, it’s also fitting to have some armies lying around to get involved and heighten the tension. The three main characters become involved in a search for a treasure and its attendant map. Action ensues, as do many Western tropes, either straight up or with a Korean cultural chaser.

I’m not going to say this is a work of art or will be known for generations as a watershed moment in cinema, but I really did I laugh my butt off at parts and I really enjoyed the action. This is by no means anything like the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. That movie had some dark humour, but it was–at its core–a serious movie. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is certainly an homage, but it is an action comedy with a serious movie lurking around the edges.

Also the action is shot from enough distance, and with a steadi-cam or tracks, so no wobbly “WTF is going on?” action. Yes, I’m sure that’s “just how it feels” to be in the middle of the action, but that would also entail bleeding, pain, and possible bodily harm, none of which I am fond of either.

If you have seen Korean action movies like Shwiri, I will say this is a step above that. I found a lot of the action in Shwiri to be dull, in the kind of 1980s “mow down tons of baddies with one sweep of the sub-machine gun” way. tGtBtW, on the other hand, has some honestly fun set-pieces, as well as great characters. In action, it’s closer to Nowhere to Hide, which remains my favourite Korean actioner. Unlike that movie, though, tGtBtW has a much stronger plot and story (Nowhere to Hide is mostly cool scenes stitched together with a bare minimum of story).

Also, it keeps moving, and I can’t remember any moment when I wasn’t glued to the screen.

Granted, I’ve only seen it once (over 3 nights . . . damn kids and their damn colds), so I’ll need to see it again before I form any strong opinions. Given that I am looking forward to watching it again should tell you something.

I’d give this 4.5 bandoliers full of bullets out of 5.

Just in case you’re interested, I’ve tried to unload my thoughts regarding my top ten books from the interview in On Spec. In that post, I mention the Sarantine Mosaic is my favourite Guy Gavriel Kay work—and of the two, I’d have to choose Lord of Emperors.

Now I’ve loved everything I’ve ever read by Guy Gavriel Kay. I found him through reading the Fionovar Tapestry, but became a huge fan through reading Tigana. I’ve been lucky enough to meet and chat with him twice, once before Tigana was released and once during the release of Lord of Emperors. He’s a fascinating person, extremely intelligent, personable, and with vast knowledge of mythology.

The Sarantine Mosaic was something different for me. First off, the period is after the fall of Rome, but it is before the dark really descends on the Dark Ages. The main characters are not sword-swinging heroes, but an artist and a physician. The action is mostly social and political.

Now, given that right now I’m digging on something called sword noir, and that I’m in the middle of a modern action/adventure/fantasy serial, this might not hit you as something that I would love.

Here’s the thing: Kay does it right. He hits all the right notes. The characters are engrossing. The setting is fully realized, and the text allowed me to build this world in my head. Kay knows Byzantium, he’s done his homework. Just like a jazz musician, because he is so supremely confident, he can riff on something and create a thing of beauty. This is not Byzantium, but there’s enough of our world there to quickly situate oneself. I know this place, but it holds secrets and surprises.

It’s also not that the Sarantine Mosaic does not deliver on action and adventure, because it does, but action is not the driving force of this story.

I hear a lot about how “Eurocentric” fantasy is, and how readers are looking for something different. The funny thing is that while—especially in this period—Byzantium could be considered part of Europe, the society and attitudes illustrated in this work are alien to us. This is something different. It is a different culture in a different book inhabited by different characters.

So, if you love your fantasy, but you are ready for something different, check out Guy Gavriel’s Kay the Sarantine Mosaic.

Oh, but first, go buy the current issue of On Spec if you have not already.

Reason # 6? To read the results of Fraser being totally blindsided by a simple question about top ten books.

So looking around at possible markets for the writing I’m not doing, I found Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, subtitled “Prose. Poetry. Pulp.”

Promising.

I decided to check out a story, just to see in what they might be interested. The first story I came across was “the Hand of Afaz” by Euan Harvey. Rather than a quick sample, I read the whole thing at one sitting. It is one excellent yarn. It also presents a very high bar.

Remember when Sword’s Edge used to have free fiction. Yeah, me too. I’m overwhelmed by nostalgia. Thing is, those days won’t be coming back. But fear not, because Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is free, and it really delivers on its name. Sweet, sweet heroic fantasy.

I honestly haven’t read anything else at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, but I’m recommending it simply based on “the Hand of Afaz.”

Go check it out. I’m pretty darn certain you’ll thank me later.

This review is from the Accidental Survivors forum.

Next runner up in the long line of stylized zombie movies is Zombieland.  This fun little movies stars Jessie Eisenberg as our focal point and narrator, Woody Harrelson as our ass kicking, gun toting, one liner dropping hero and our two not so distressed damsels Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.

The movie takes place just after the Zombie Apocalypse in which a variant of mad cow disease drives a majority of the population into flesh eating zombies and the other half of the population to dead.   It’s an action/dark comedy more heavy on the action and gore as opposed to say Shaun of the Dead which is more heavy on the comedy.

The movie trucks along in typical zombie fashion where the heroes mus search for resources fend of zombies and deal with the stress of the other survivors in the group.  It’s nothing really new or inventive but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.  There’s really not much else to say.  The movie looks good, has it’s own style, the actors look like they were having a blast and the whole thing will keep you entertained from start to finish.

It’s a great popcorn flick for sure and it’s one I’ll gladly watch again when it comes out on DVD.  Overall it’s not quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but I think that really comes down to personal tastes as to where your sense of comedy vs action lie.

I highly recommend this movie to fans of the genre.  If you think the trailers look good then you won’t be disappointed.

4 out of 5 a bullet to the head.

So, I just finished the Originals by Dave Gibbons. I picked it up because I like Dave Gibbons work, and after a quick view through, it seemed to be something based on futuristic mods. Having dabbled in the mod revival in high school, this caught my attention.

Now, the story is a good one. The characters are believable, their actions understandable, and nothing in it strains one’s willing suspension of disbelief. The plot, as related on Wikipedia:

Lel and Bok are two friends who have recently finished school. Their greatest aspiration is to become members of The Originals, a smartly-dressed gang who ride on floating scooters, called Hovers. Their greatest enemies are the gangs of leather-clad bikers, which they call “the Dirt.”

Lel and Bok become members of the Originals after helping the gang in a fight against the Dirt. Lel starts working as a drug dealer for the gang’s leader, and the pair soon have enough money for fashionable clothes and Hovers of their own. However, as the violence between the two gangs escalates and the police (”the Law”) begin to crack down on gang activity, Lel begins to realize that being an Original is not all fun and games.

Here’s the thing: I was always under the impression that in speculative fiction, the speculative should be more than window dressing. Science fiction, especially, needs to be more than a story which happens in the future, there needs to be a compelling reason why it must be in the future.

I was constantly wondering why this wasn’t set back in the 60s, or even in the late 70s and early 80s, during the revival. There was no reason to set it in the future. All it does is distance us from the story itself. Was this an editorial requirement, in order to make it palatable to the DC/Vertigo readers? If so, stupid move.

Setting this story in the future led me to expect the future technology, culture, or setting would have a direct impact on the story. I was waiting for it. It never came. It left me unsatisfied. You know that old quote from Chekov? One version of which is: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there”

I always prefer the misquote: “If there’s a pistol on the mantel in the first act, it should be mentioned in the second and used in the third.”

In this story, the future setting was the pistol on the wall. The problem was, nobody fired it. It served no purpose, except to distance us from the story and provide expectations that were never met.

What was worse, this wasn’t a terribly original story, which is woefully ironic. It’s basically a riff off Quadrophenia. That’s not so bad, and it’s a good story, but it seemed like the science fiction backdrop was put there to try to hide its lack of originality.

So, unfortunately, I have to give the Originals a pass. It’s not that the story wasn’t compelling. It was. It’s a good story, though not a great one. I would have enjoyed it more if it had been set in modern times. Some kind of original twist would also have been appreciated.

So in the end, the Originals simply wasn’t.

I really don’t know Ken Newquist, but I do. Thanks to Nuketown: Radio Active, I know a fair amount about Ken’s work, family, and games. Unlike a lot of the geek podcasts to which I listen, Nuketown: Radio Active is as much about Ken as it is about geek topics. And that’s cool. Ken and I have a lot in common. I enjoy hearing about Ken’s family as much as I enjoy hearing about the geek topics. The show would honestly be diminished, in my mind if Ken kept to just geek topics. And Ken is a a great host, with a great “on air” persona–which I would imagine is actually just Ken, on air.

Do I need to mention the language is work safe? It’s toddler safe too.

Pros: Great host with enjoyable delivery; amusing and insightful personal anecdotes as well as geek related info.

Cons: Time between episodes–yes, I’m going there. Give us more, dammit!

Nuketown: Radio Active is another of those “first in the queue” podcasts. If you’re a geek dad, you’ll likely enjoy this podcast as much as I do. If you aren’t, listen anyway–Ken’s got his fingers in a lot of geekery.

Fraser’s Rating: 4.75 out of 5 (’cause nobody gets the 5, and we need weekly episodes . . . twice a week would be good too!)