Otaku – Page 151 – Robot Claw

I’m Your Fan

October 1, 2009

(In the spirit of AW’s frequent summaries…)

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I’m your fan, Kim Newman

Like many others, I got ‘into’ your books with the wonderful The Bloody Red Baron, an alternate history novel featuring a vampiric Richtofen. It is wonderful stuff, and the several sequels only showed its brilliance was far from a fluke. But your skill as a writer had been around for longer than I knew, as the reissued Genevieve novels showed me. I ate them all up and demanded more. And then came Richard Jesperson and your reimaging of Conan Doyles Diogenes Club. Only now it was a secret English society of espers (aliens and future men?) tasked with saving the commonwealth from all manner of outlandish threat. I recently read Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club and it was the best short story collection I have ever read. Not only did it contain the best Lovecraftian tale not written by the master himself (Richard Riddle, Boy Detective) and the best superhero story ever (Clubland Heroes) but the tour-de-force at the end, Cold Snap was an unbelievably complex balancing act of wild ideas (the villian, amazingly a Doctor Who reference!), outrageous characters (essentially everyone in it), unexpected twists (the professor is…!?!) and just plain page-turningly-good writing. I’ll never forget to expect that that your books, Mr Newman, are required reading, and I will continue to expect they continue to get better and better.

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I’m your fan, Emily from Skins

Yes, we’re late to the party, but BBC America recently started showing the drama Skins and KLS and myself are completely hooked! We’ve always been suckers for (good) teen drama, but this one just destroys anything made on these shores. The language is bleep-a-minute (for USA TV) and the situations (frequent sex and drug use amongst underage teens) enough to surprise me BBC shows it at all but we couldn’t be happier. The tale of a 9 disaffected teens may be wild, crazy and even stereotypical, but the characters are real and likeable (even loveable) and the writing so good we were sucked in immediately. In my opinion Emily – both in character and because of her story – steals the show, and it’s a lucky bonus she’s so cute. Even better: she’s one half of twins, both on the show! The series is almost at an end, but we loved it so much we’re certainly getting the first two seasons (featuring a different group of kids) on DVD and keeping an eye on the listings in the hope BBC shows the upcoming season 4 as soon as possible after the UK.

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I’m your fan, Supernatural

Best show on TV, no question. Season five is upon us, and what started as a monster-of-the-week drama about brothers hunting demons has evolved into a full blown apocalyptic tale involving the forces of good and evil and the aforementioned Winchester brothers (Sam and Dean), both of whom have pivotal roles to play in the apocalypse. This series representation of angels (such as Castiel, above) is unique and refreshing and just… clever, and the way they present the machinations of Heaven and The Principalities, coupled with the return of Lucifer and his armies is powerful and extremely watchable TV. One of the creators of this show (Eric Kripke) comes from the lineage that gave us The X-Files and Millenium and it shows. But he has honed his art well beyond those older shows, and created something of a modern-day classic here in Supernatural. Highly, highly recommended.

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I’m your fan, Alphaville

25 years this year! And to think I got into this band as a fluke (a German cousin sent a cassette). Since then I’ve managed to get everything, including first issues of Dreamscapes (autographed!) and Crazyshow. You’ve been my go-to music for (literally) decades now, and I never get tired of any of your material. Other bands come and go, and while I have others I love dearly, it’s true for me there is no band quite like Alphaville. In fact, I recently told KLS I wanted a particular Alphaville song played at my funeral. If that’s not an endorsement, well what is?

Fighting Fantasy Redux 2

September 24, 2009

Almost four years ago now, after a trip to Australia, I decided to recollect all the Fighting Fantasy books I was a great fan of in my youth. In a matter of months I had obtained many of them, and as the years went by I would continue collecting. Not only the old books (from the 1980s) but also the new reprints by Wizard books, including the few new adventures (Howl Of The Werwolf, Bloodbones) they have put out.

In four years my collection has become near complete. I am missing only 3 actual gamebooks, those being Deathmoor (#55), Knights Of Doom (#56) and Revenge Of The Vampire (#58). On the rare occasions when any of these are offered for auction on ebay they are invariably very expensive or in the UK. Just yesterday I missed a winning bid on a copy of Deathmoor. My highest offer was $21 and it went for almost $60…

Other items I would like to have, in the interests of completing the collection, would be the last FF RPG ‘manual’ Allansia. I doubt I’ll ever have it though, for it’s one of the rarest FF-related items ever printed and routinely goes for hundreds of dollars at used book vendors. I’d also like to get the two-player gamebook, Clash Of The Princes (that I once owned) and any of the other peripheral books, such as the Zagor gamebooks, Goldhawk novels or the colour puzzle books (Tasks Of Tantalon, Casket Of Souls).

I remain optimistic I may be able to pick up one of more of such items in my upcoming Australia trip.

Anyway, the true purpose of this post is to report that Wizard books is once again rebranding and re-releasing the FF gamebooks! Renumbered re-releases of Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, Citadel Of Chaos, and Deathtrap Dungeon are already out (in the UK) and a brand new FF book – Stormslayer – is due in October!

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Furthermore, they will continue to release older books but seem to be planning to prioritize new titles. The next confirmed new book (due early 2010) is called Night Of The Necromancer, and future planned titles seem to include Escape from Oblivion, Claw of the Fleshless King, The Cold Heart of Chaos and Assault on the Fortress of Evil.

I must admit I was a bit leery when I heard about the rebranding a few months back. But this seems like good news indeed – the series must be popular for them to be planning so many new entries! Unfortunately the books will not be available in the US at all, so I’ll have to turn to my usual contacts for sustained FF goodness 🙂

In related FF news, the iPhone game is due in October, and the DS game is due in 2 weeks!

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You can be absolutely positive I will be getting this. However I may wait until my plane trip to actually play it 🙂

Warcraft No More

August 19, 2009

Today my World Of Warcraft account expires.

I quit for many reasons, primary amongst them that I played too much and the game is a distraction I don’t need going in to what promises to be my busiest teaching semester yet (I am teaching two different courses). Plus, I have to somehow write a PhD thesis during this semester as well.

Secondly, I’ve been playing for 4.5 years. The game is still good; is still fun – in fact WoW is perhaps better now than ever. But over the last couple of months and particularly weeks it was beginning to feel more an obligation than entertainment. Having played hundreds (thousands more likely) of games to completion it’s typically obvious when it is time to put a game down and start another. Warcraft has no end, and will continue to evolve until the servers shut down in 201x. So one has to make their own end to the game, and it’s possible that now I have done just that.

Of course an expansion will be announced mere days from now, which promises to reveal a wealth of new content to get excited about. My hope is to resist the allure. Time will tell.