The New Year, 2024 Edition

One of my problems is the breadth of my interests. The things that interest me have always pulled me in multiple directions. I focus on one interest for a while, then my love for something else pulls me in that direction.

Gaming has always been a passion. First lining up my old plastic Airfix soldiers and throwing pieces of plastic at them in crude IGOUGO contests, then slightly more sophisticated miniature gaming when I saw and was bought a copy of Wargamer’s Digest (May 1978 if I remember correctly). That lead to hex and counter games, and shortly after that the abstract world of Dungeons and Dragons and precise battles of Melee and Wizard.

These were all informed by my reading. World War 2 history and fantasy fiction being the prime interests here, with science fiction a close ally.

These have all remained lifelong passions for me.

Music is also a burning interest. Originally as a consumer, but I learned a little guitar and bass after college, and have been writing music ever since.

So it has always been hard for me to stay focused on a single topic. I love all of this, and more.

It will not get any easier from here on out. I am 57, and our time on this pale blue dot is limited. I have already experienced so much more life than the majority of humans. I am truly blessed to have the life I do.

But there is still a lot I want to accomplish, in fiction, gaming, and music.

The music will likely never be more than a corollary on this blog. Currently, I am making music that blends shoegaze and punk. I have made music with my best friend for nearly 30 years now, and hopefully that will continue.

I also want to do something with all of my Advanced Squad Leader materials. I am way behind on releases for the system. I want to get the Saint Mere Eglise and the Manila historical modules, and the last few Journals.

My project for ASL this year is going to be a solo campaign. Maybe one of the above modules, maybe break out Red Barricades and roll some dice in Stalingrad, maybe something else. There are still a few people around here who play the game, but not like 20 years ago when I was in the heart of a competitive group (the Tidewater ASL Gamers). Almost all of my gaming is solitaire now, so that is not a big deal, and the system is so cool, and I miss it. Maybe I will document that here, maybe not.

Regarding fantasy gaming, we will see. I have been in limbo with the Greywater Chronicles for a year and a half now, as the data on my dead hard drive lies fallow (and hopefully still able to be retrieved). Until I can afford to have it extracted, it will probably remain in limbo. I can still probably move forward, replaying issue 27 and creating the comic anew, and then use that as a jump off point. Maybe I should do that and try to bring the narrative to a conclusion.

Or I could go in a different direction. Create a new world and story line. This is very tempting. It would still be in a similar vein (i.e. lots of violence and a narrative that does not take itself too seriously). I’d hate to leave behind the characters I’ve created, but on the other hand I’ve always enjoyed creating new characters, for games or fiction.

One of these two paths will become clear in the next month – that is a self-imposed time limit. By the end of January, this bog will either have Greywater Chronicles #27, or X #1.

I also need to get back to my gaming company, Dark City Games. My partner has waited patiently for a couple of years now for me to produce something. We have a niche, programmed adventures. But honestly, I want to move beyond that now. Maybe we can innovate something similar for solitaire play. I recently acquired Five Leagues From the Borderland. The combat mechanics are not particularly impressive, but the narrative mechanics are. Maybe that can be a springboard to make something better.

As far as fiction, I have not written any sword and sorcery for quite a while. I have read very little recently. I think there are a few reasons for this, which I may or may not keep private. The problem with discussing anything in our polarized society is that it is all viewed through a political prism, no matter how innocuous. Suffice to say that while we are in a renaissance of sword and sorcery quantity-wise, I am not impressed with the quality. Maybe more later.

So as I stand on the ridge overlooking the approaching year, that is what I am bringing with me. A rather diverse assortment of interests. We’ll see what I can create with these tools.

May you all be blessed with the best year of your lives in 2024!

Bret

Some Projects on the Table

I’ve got a few things game-wise I have gotten over the past few months that I am working on.

It was nice to see the last of my pieces from the Rampage kickstarter finally show up. These are about 5 years late, I think. I really liked the pieces I got from them before, and they painted up great. This last batch was comprised of water pieces – for which I will use a different color of water than my Dwarven Forge pieces – and some walls of skulls. Here they are primed:

I also got a house from Amazon, a printed Hagglethorn Hollow house. I liked the look of the Hagglethorn Hollow line, and almost pulled the trigger on their kickstarter. That was another significantly delayed fulfillment, but they eventually delivered. Evidently they licensed out the designs to be 3D printed, and I think this model was from Ender Toys. Not sure what colors I will use yet, but I am thinking it would look glorious with some purples. Here it is primed:

As usual with printed stuff, there are some rather prominent lines from the printing process, but it still looks pretty nice.

It will be another week or two before I get this batch of stuff done. Most of my time is taken up by my job, and the little spare time I have has been dominated by my music recently. But I want to return to gaming very badly. I have some vacation coming up early next year, and I hope to be rolling a lot of dice during those days.

I also have some reading to get done, most prominently the collected volumes of Howard Andrew Jones’ Hanuvar tales. I have read some other stuff, and may or may not publish a few quick reviews here.

Thanks for reading, I hope you are all well!

This Place in Time

Long time no post, blah, blah, blah.

Hard to believe this blog is 5 and a half years old. It has seen a lot of posting at times, and very little at other times. I have tried very hard at various points to make it interesting, and a success. For various reasons I have never sustained notable momentum.

I appreciate everyone who has read and left comments.

Not the spammers, though. Since May of this year, I have moderated 12,000 comments – every one of them spam.

Last month Bluehost wanted me to lock in rates with unlimited storage space at $27 a month. I have no idea why my blog requires so much expense. Supposedly they are the best WordPress hosting site, but it is hard to communicate with them. It definitely is not raising any revenue for me. All my passive income schemes have failed.

I am not bagging this blog. I have another 6 months to revitalize it and establish a firm direction. Since I cannot afford to have the data extracted from my older, dead hard drive, the Greywater Chronicles is in Limbo. A shame as I really loved the characters and deadly silliness. I could proceed from this point, but I feel strange losing all the past issues. They are still on the site, but filled with typos. I really wanted to edit the issues, and maybe offer them as pdfs for a nominal charge (“Still only 25 cents!”).

Maybe I’ll start something else up, and make sure it is backed the hell up! We’ll see.

Anyway, just wanted to say that I appreciate everyone who has read a post on this blog and slightly more those who have left comments, critical or otherwise. Hope you’re here for a few more posts, whatever they may be.

Thanks!

I hope you are all well.

Bret

Thoughts on the New Upcoming Babylon 5 Animated Flick

So this is not Sword and Sorcery. But B5 was a great television series in the 90’s. It was groundbreaking in having a defined story arc for its entire run, and the tightness of the continuity during that run. With very few exceptions, you can tell where any given episode falls in the timeline of its 5 year span, because the status quo on the show changed every few weeks.

That was why I loved it from the first season, when it was still rough but you could see that it was not just hinting, but building toward something epic. Ultimately, it all felt rushed toward the end of the fourth season, when it was not going to get renewed for its last year and the show’s creator, Joe Straczynski, moved events forward and compressed them so that the main storyline would be resolved, and the fans would not be left hanging.

The fifth season was ultimately renewed, on a different network, and a rather disappointing series of storylines rounded out the saga as it all felt like filler. But that might be fodder for another time.

There had been a few projects after the main series wrapped up, and some of them were OK, but none matched the granduer of that initial 4 season run.

Fast forward 30ish years. There were a few teases and hints there was something else in the pipeline, and a few weeks ago the trailer for a new animated movie dropped. I watched it on youtube, and saw a few reactions.

It is the easiest thing in the world to be negative. And I am about to do the easiest thing in the world.

The premise of the movie is that John Sheridan, the central character from the series, has become lost in space-time and must find his way back to his own reality through a series of alternate realities and what if scenarios.

This stinks.

The basis of the series was that every episode counts. It all happens, and it all affects the larger storyline. That was what made the show great.

This movie is going to be filled with meaningless scenarios with no impact on the greater story at all. We know what happens, we already saw the culmination in the last episode of the series (which had actually been filmed as the last episode of the fourth season, but got pushed to the end of the fifth upon the season’s renewal).

Sheridan lives.

There is absolutely no chance he will be lost in space time, and absolutely no chance any of these what if scenarios will matter to the B5 universe.

I get it, we get to hear his voice, and those of the surviving actors in their iconic roles again. And that is worth it to a lot of people.

But to me, this is a flaccid, meaningless coda to one of the greatest series that ever graced the small screen. It goes against everything that made the series what it was.

Greywater Chronicles Annual #1

So I am undecided on what to do about my dead hard drive, and all the issues of the Greywater Chronicles on it. I will probably see if the data can be retrieved, as there is a lot of stuff I want on there, but it will be a while still before I can afford it.

As mentioned previously, issue #27 was just about done. I have struggled with either replaying the events of that issue, or waiting until I can have the hard drive examined. I guess at this point I am leaning toward replaying the issue and doing it all over.

In the meantime, I took some other plot threads in the megadungeon and created another issue. This is in the grand tradition of the Bronze age of comics, when there would be an Annual, featuring events separate from the current story lines of the relevant comic.

So without any further whining, here is the Greywater Chronicles Annual #1!

Edit: Now with click to embiggen! So click on the pages for larger versions!

Continue reading “Greywater Chronicles Annual #1”

Review: Rocannon’s World by Ursala K. Le Guin

This is a short novel. It follows the adventures of an imperial surveyor on a world with bronze-age technology, now being terrorized by another interstellar power. It is evidently the first of her Hainish cycle of stories. It was first published in 1966. My copy is an original Ace paperback from that time.

As usual, any significant spoilers will be put in parentheses (like this).

Events from a half-century ago bring Rocannon the surveyor to the unnamed planet to study its people. He settles in with the descendants of a woman he met that half-century ago that left an impression on him – his life having been extended by being suspended in multiple interstellar voyages. The nearest planet from the League of All Worlds is 8 years away.

After having been on the planet a short time and befriended some of the natives – an apparent feudal-like warrior culture – his team and their ship are destroyed, along with several other native settlements. So he sets of on a quest to a remote area of the planet to get to the base of the enemy, and send a message out to the League.

The journey is what would be today considered a fairly typical quest storyline, involving long travels and misfortunes and encounters with mysterious figures and races. It is solid storytelling, and it can be read in a single sitting, though I broke it up into a chapter each night, so about a week it took me.

Nothing is particularly groundbreaking here. There are some observations on race and class and heroism. None of the mysterious beings encountered are particularly explained, but that does not detract from the story.

There is a pervading sense of sadness, and impending doom for some characters. Even the hope is tinged with gloom. I didn’t feel this detracted from the read, though.

Everything is sketched broadly, from the native cultures to the interstellar civilization. The League, and their nemesis in the book which constitute the enemies, are ill-defined. So is the technology that requires years of sub-light travel, but instantaneous communication and missile/weapon strikes. In fact, the “ansible” – the device that made instantaneous interstellar communication possible – was first used as a device here and has since been used in wider science fiction.

I think I remember the author scoffing at grouping the Hainish novels as a tight vision. Some of the other works in the series include The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Word For World is Forest. I read the last of these titles in college, many moons ago. I remember its characterization of the interstellar League to be similarly sketchy. This is not really a weakness, as these entities affect the story just as needed.

One other thing I want to touch on is the quality of the prose, which is very good. Writing of this nature is a lost art. Sometimes it is difficult to know what she is saying, and a few passages I had to re-read to understand the action or whatever was being conveyed. I think this is a good thing. There is no extra verbiage to fill things out. What needs to be said is said in an artful way. This can sometimes lead to a certain distance between the reader and the story that modern readers may not relate to. The writing is certainly not a visceral as the better of modern authors, but that is not a bad thing.

Overall, a good read. This is essentially a high fantasy book, or science fantasy, though such distinctions don’t really matter. I recommend it.

On the Table: Painting

Finished up some evil dwarves. They’ll be making an appearance soon. Still haven’t recovered my crashed hard drive, and uncertain when I will attempt it. It will most likely be SalvageData I send it to. Expensive, but seem to be good at it.

So Greywater #27 is still in Limbo. Probably will run a game with the Rat Bastards and make a comic out of it, as threatened earlier. Been a long time since I have chucked dice. these guys will be involved, I’m pretty sure.

There are also some other guys and gals and things getting paint in the background.

As mentioned in reply to a comment on my previous post, I am reading Rocannon’s World by Ursala K. LeGuin right now, a chapter each night when I get home from work. The most striking thing is how much better of a writer she is than any writer in the last several decades. The prose and the way images and action are conveyed outshine everything modern I’ve read.

Back to the grindstone!

Review: The Lost Empire of Sol

Been a long time since I posted, blah, blah, blah.

I had been wanting this book for a few years, since it was first announced. This is an anthology of new Sword and Planet stories. It went through a phase of developmental hell before finally reaching daylight sometime last year. Picked it up around Christmas and finally got a chance to read it.

Overall, it’s pretty good. I like the concept better than any of the actual stories, so the sum is greater than its individual parts. Essentially, there was at one time in the past a great Empire of Sol that spanned our Solar system. These stories take place in the remnants of that Lost Empire, one on each planet (including one on the planet that became the Asteroid Belt).

There is a certain air of disjointedness to the collection that may be a reflection of the changing editorial situation, or simply the looser editorial framework. It is not as tight as the Thieves’ World books, for instance, where the stories (for the most part) all fit together. These tales are largely independent of each other and the concept as a whole.

Anyway, to bring myself back up to speed as a blogger, this review will be short and sweet. As before, any major spoilers will be in parentheses (like this).

There is a forward describing how the concept originated and developed by one of the editors. This is followed by an introduction by John O’Neill of Black Gate fame. Both are solid and set up background and expectations.

There is a prologue and a later epilogue that serve as framing devices for the stories. A great world-devouring entity (think Vger from the first Star Trek motion picture) enters the edge of our solar system where it encounters an old space station. The Emissary, who runs and/or monitors the Leviathan, reconstitutes the station’s captain to extract memories from her. He is intrigued to discover that the station was here awaiting the Leviathan’s arrival. The following stories are essentially memories of events from the long-dead captain.

Pretty cool set up. Drawn in right off the bat.

The first story is “To Save Hermesia” by Joe Bonadonna and David C. Smith. Hermesia is Mercury, and the technology that made it livable in the earlier Empire of Sol era is breaking down. The heroine, a stout warrior, must travel with a sage to a lost facility and hope they can get a message off to anyone of the Empire still alive and in power, hoping to restore the dying world. The story’s pretty good, with solid action and plotting. Tense until the end. A nice start.

This is followed by “The Lost Princess of Themos” by Tom Doolan. Themos is Venus; we are going outward from the Sun with each story. A princess survives the destruction of the airship she was on, and encounters some terrors trying to survive. She is saved and befriended by a kind of native giant. He has been sent to meet her, for there is a peril she is the key to stopping. The writing features some interesting telepathic contact, presented in a unique way. A decent story.

Next is “What Really Happened at the Center of the Earth” by Christopher M. Blanchard. The story is essentially an interrogation of a survivor of an expedition to locate lost technology from the lost Empire of Sol. I like the adaption of the classic Hollow Earth trope, which embraces the pulp roots of the Sword and Planet genre, as does the use of Atlantis. There was some decent action and nice reveals. The frame of it being a retelling of events seemed to lessen its intensity for me, though.

Then comes “A Sand-Ship of Mars” by Charles Allen Gramlich. An all-woman crew of a trading sand-ship encounter an oddity from the stars. The description of the sand-ship and how it functioned was kinda hand-waved, so it was hard for me to visualize the story as it unfolded. The hull is described as frictionless, but whether from substance or magic is not told. One of the few descriptions of the ship says it is broad-bottomed, but more wetted surface of a hull causes more drag and therefore friction, so being a sailor this made me inherently more critical here. The ending was bit too convenient. But I liked the enemy and the pressure on the heroine. A good but flawed story.

Howard Andrew Jones wrote the next story, “Whispers of the Serpent.” This takes place on Tharsia, the planet followed too closely by a sister planet, and the eventual asteroid belt. This starts of with the heroine and her companion crashing their ship and reviving (10,000 years in the future). Despite the time gap, the being they originally were going to save is still in contact with them. There are several Jonesian twists in this one, and the usual solid action and pacing. A strong story.

After this is “Outcasts of Jov” by Mark Finn. This opens up with a battle between royal airships and sky pirates. The daughter of the general who was going to become the ruler of Jov (Jupiter) survives, and is rescued by different pirates, who see an opportunity. The central viewpoint continually switches between the characters in the story, and it becomes a comedy. The mystery of the Red Spot is addressed, but there is a nonsensical aspect (as there is a secret society within it, which no one on Jov knows about, but evidently some of the societies on Jov’s moons know about and interact with, but this is somehow kept secret from everyone on Jov?). Not a fan of this one, but humor is subjective.

Next up is “Written in Lightning” by Keith J. Taylor. It starts of in catacombs on Themos before going through an old imperial gate to Cronesh (Saturn). This story really makes an effort to present the planet as a unique environment, more than any of the other stories, which I really liked. There is an intriguing bit of mystery, but the story fizzles out after an anti-climactic scene in which nothing that is built up is resolved. The story ends with the pair of heroes – a male thief/pilot and a female warrior – realizing they are here on Cronesh to stay, which is supposed to carry great weight. But nothing that the words and actions of their hosts on the planet is building toward is even attempted to be resolved. I love the world building, but it’s ultimately disappointing.

“Survivors of Ulthula” by E.E. Knight is next. The planet of Ulthula (Uranus) is incidental to the story, simply a refuelling place. Instead, it takes place aboard a couple of spaceships between the planets, and involves a lost ship and more space pirates. A decent story, featuring a bit of gruesome medical horror, but only tenuously Sword and Planet. Nice shout-out to Alien at the end as the survivors make a log entry.

After this is “Hunters of Ice and Sky” by David A. Hardy, taking place on Neptune. There is some more solid world building here, with esoteric descriptions the planet’s make up and industry. It moves along quickly, and picks up too much speed as global events unfold in rapid succession and the action is almost allegorical rather than described. This story was pretty good.

The last story is “A Gate in Darkness” by Paul R. McNamee, set on Pluto, of course. A broadly sketched tale with airships and imperial ambitions and spreading darkness and betrayals. There was nothing specific about this story being set on Pluto, though. It wasn’t even mentioned, which is a bit of contrast to the other stories; it could have been on any world anywhere, aside from Earth which is glimpsed in the titular Gate briefly. A decent tale, though.

Last in the anthology is the epilogue, after the Emissary has drained the dead captain of her knowledge and he reflects on the information. He brings his concerns to a trio of deity-like beings, and they see the handiwork of their ancient enemy in humanity, guiding it. They decide to end the threat, and the Emissary plots which world to destroy. This is either a set up for a sequel, or maybe an explanation for the asteroid belt (rather than the sister planet smacking Tharsia)?

In writing this review, I guess I liked the stories more on reflection than I did actually reading them. I had set the bar pretty high in my mind, being a fan of Sword and Planet, but there just ain’t no more Leigh Bracketts. That shouldn’t hurt my enjoyment of what is out there now. But while some of the stories were good, none struck me as being great.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on this book. I think you’ll like it.

I’ll have another couple of posts soon. Hope you’re all well!

No Rest for the Wicked

Just a brief update, as it’s been over a month since I spewed insight across the Web…

My friend could not recover my old hard drive, so it is going to have to go to a professional recovery service, and that means a thousand bucks or more. It will still be a few months before I have that kind of disposable green stuff.

So that begs the question of whether I want to restage or even refight the events of Issue 27 and get it finally done (for those catching up, that issue was lost on my hard drive crash), and get the Greywater Chronicles moving forward again.

Time is an issue here (as it is for most people). I was pretty happy with the way the issue was turning out, and the battle was pretty cool. So I am inclined to put that theoretical time to redo the issue into a different one, either featuring those figures I recently was gifted, or maybe even doing an adventure for the Rat Bastards. It would be kinda cool to do an “At last! In their own comic!” blurb on the cover.

Reading has slowed down. I got bogged down through an issue of Magician’s Skull – not that the stories were bad, just not grabbing me. I have since received another issue of the mag, so I have some reading to catch up on. And the To Be Read pile is still pretty sizeable. See the Time reference above.

My music is hopefully taking a better turn. My bandmate and I just cannot get our schedules to line up, so I recently got a program to work on my computer (Studio One from PreSonus). Now we should be able to record our parts and send them back and forth, though I greatly prefer us recording together, as we tend to push and bring out better performances in each other. The learning curve is going to be pretty steep. Scott has the same program, however, so maybe we can get together and get me on track in the next couple of weeks.

A recent comment to an old post on this blog reminded me that I did not adequately follow up on my quest in reconstituting Ral Partha paints that had dried. I’d like to post on that, and try it with a few more paint pots. My Ral Partha Flesh was restored, and I do use it often again.

If only I did not have a job, I could get stuff done.

OK, time to go to work. I’m going to try to get back to posting at least once a week, even if it is only a bit of navel-gazing (now that I have lost 40 pounds, I can actually see it).

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday (for those who observe Turkey Day – we actually had Shabu-shabu and kim chi), and that you are all happy and healthy!

Bret

A Close Look at My Recent Haul!

I mentioned last week that I received a large batch of figures from a friend, who had received them from someone cleaning out their son’s old stuff. This was a major score. Nearly all of the figures are larger than my true 25 mm scale, but there are enough of them that I have a large base of the 28-32 mm scale now (particularly if I ever get around to painting my various Reaper Bones figs from the Kickstarters).

Anyway, I decided to show everyone the contents of the haul. And I did it in comic book format, to brush up on my skills.

I will need to figure out how to do the “click to embiggen” thing with the new WordPress software…

Hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “A Close Look at My Recent Haul!”