Yearly Archives:
sSUPERVERSIVE Full Review: “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
Tuesday , 22, November 2016 Fiction, Superversive 4 Comments(My quick review is here.) I have a love-hate thing going on with J.K. Rowling. On one hand, her personal and political opinions are obnoxious, nasty, contemptible, and make it very, very clear that she hates and despises people who think like me. And that’s not even to TOUCH the “Dumbledore is gay” controversy. ON […]
When I surveyed the inspirations for the original tabletop role-playing game, I was repeatedly astonished by the extent to which elves had been dumbed down, diluted, and de-awesomed over the past few decades. With each volume I covered, I took extensive notes on just precisely what it was that made old school elves so different […]
Of any member of the Lovecraft Circle, Robert Bloch was arguably the most successful. As the author of Psycho and a couple of Star Trek (original series), just about anyone would have some vague knowledge of his work. Bloch sold his first story (“The Secret in the Tomb”) in July 1934 right after graduating from […]
Short Reviews – The Envoy, Her, by H.B. Fyfe
Friday , 18, November 2016 Uncategorized Leave a commentThe Envoy, Her by H.B. Fyfe appeared in the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org. “His Illustrious Sublimity the Lord Vyrtl, Viceroy of Terra, Emperor of Pollux,” yadda yadda yadda, is on Klo, the moon of Jursa, awaiting the envoy from the planet where the imperial armada has […]
A Conversation with P. Alexander: Cirsova Magazine
Thursday , 17, November 2016 Interview 2 CommentsScott Cole: From the Cirsova zine submission guidelines: “Original short stories between 2000-7500 words, specifically those in the vein of Leigh Brackett, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard” What other old school authors do you enjoy and hope influence the content? P. Alexander: One of the reasons why I list […]
WARGAME WEDNESDAY: The Scheldt Campaign by Hollandspiel Games
Wednesday , 16, November 2016 Wargames 3 CommentsFans of World War II history, asymmetrical warfare, and microgames will rejoice: Brian Train’s The Scheldt Campaign is back! The Player’s Aid has the full scoop; what I find so intriguing is the Staff Card system: Each player has a C2 Level which represents the maximum number of Staff cards he may have in his […]
SUPERVERSIVE: Why “The Incredibles” is the greatest superhero movie ever made
Wednesday , 16, November 2016 Fiction, Superversive 14 CommentsI have a lot of respect for animation, and the highest respect for Pixar. Animation is the one genre where you’re allowed to take real risks since the critics are never going to give you the respect you deserve anyway, so why try to please them? Children’s animation especially tends to take more risks than […]
It’s positively baffling how hard it’s become for anyone to make a straight ahead adventure story these days. First classic Westerns like Rio Bravo and El Dorado evaporated and the old school leading man with them. An echo of that sort of thing lived on with Luke Skywalker, Alex Rogan (The Last Starfighter), and Billy […]
August Derleth was a member of the Lovecraft circle from the late 1920s until Lovecraft’s death. He was also one of the first to make use of the Cthulhu Mythos (with Lovecraft’s blessing). He remains controversial among Lovecraftians for his handling of Lovecraft’s legacy and especially for his Mythos fiction. A review of Derleth’s Mythos […]
Short Reviews – The Star Saint, by A.E. Van Vogt
Friday , 11, November 2016 Book Review, Uncategorized 2 CommentsThe Star Saint by A.E. Van Vogt appeared in the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org. The Star Saint is the first story I’ve read by A.E. Van Vogt; it’s a deconstruction of the Raygun Romance, and I hated it. A ship full of colonists is on its […]
SENSOR SWEEP: Political Agendas, Vapid Nonsense, Screen Misogyny, and Boring Things
Wednesday , 9, November 2016 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsTraveller (Tales to Astound!) TRAVELLER: Out of the Box–“Giants of the Imagination” — “In particular, the tales that inspired early RPGs (books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, and countless others) were never about one definitive setting, obsessed with the defining the top-down organization and structure like some obsessive compulsive gazetteer. Instead, […]
SUPERVERSIVE Review: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin.
Tuesday , 8, November 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 10 CommentsI don’t hate fantasy novels, I just generally prefer science fiction. I have my tastes, y’know? We all do. Mine usually run to things with spaceships and antimatter torpedoes and Ominous Dark Things from Beyond the Stars, but every now and then, it’s good to branch out. Get a change of pace. Get some elves […]