Doc Savage’s secrets revealed at last! And by a villainous mind of insatiable greed!

A new Rasputin, called John Sunlight, escapes from a Siberian prison camp in an icebreaker, only to run aground next to the big blue dome of Doc Savage’s Fortress of Solitude. After a brazen theft, Sunlight is selling the weapons Doc Savage has locked away from the rest of the world. Now Doc Savage and his Iron Crew must stop Sunlight and retrieve these weapons before chaos is unleashed on the world. But John Sunlight is that rare individual, a man to match the Man of Bronze himself.

In the “Fortress of Solitude”, Lester Dent gives a peak into one of Doc Savage’s most enduring mysteries, the shrouded Arctic refuge only known as the Fortress of Solitude. In doing so, he gave Doc Savage his only enduring nemesis, and the only villain to ever return to plague the Man of Bronze: John Sunlight. Sunlight would return in “The Devil Genghis”, and the Fortress of Solitude would enter that great mélange of comics and pulp legosity only to reappear under new management of another Superman, a Man of Steel, not Bronze. 

Like the adventures of a man named Buckaroo, those borrowings from Doc Savage are in the future. Today’s borrowing, of a weapon that reduces men to windblown ash, is more pressing upon the Man of Bronze. For while the murder of a Soviet diplomat may start as nothing more than a Golden Age mystery for Doc Savage to puzzle out, Sunlight has set his own crew against the Man in Bronze. And while Savage is the leader of a crew of men each worthy of their own pulp series, the fearsome Sunlight drives his own followers to similar acts of bravery. Might the key to breaking this stalemate rest with two strongwomen searching for their kidnapped sister? Read More

Ozark fantasy, mercenary guilds, and swashbuckling provocateurs grace this week’s new releases.

Anvil Dark (Backyard Starship #3) – J. N. Chaney and Terry Maggert

The guild is under attack, and Van is right in the middle of it all.

When Master Yewlo is abducted by unknown forces, the Peacemakers are thrown into chaos as the rescue mission begins. Finding Yewlo will be hard, but the search reveals secrets the guild might not survive—secrets about a system so corrupt, it will take Van and his team’s best efforts to untangle the truth.

And they might not like what they find.

On the grimy station known as Halcyon, Van will track and confront thieves who deal in stolen lives, all in order to save a Master who might not have the guild’s best interest at heart. With Sorcerers and Cloaks and every other kind of criminal, Van, Torina, Perry and Icky learn that friends come in all shapes and sizes—and so do enemies.

From the depths of space to Iowa, join Van as he fights to save his guild, free stolen lives, and discover that money makes the universe go around—money and lies, that is.

And Van will find the truth, no matter what the cost.

Aurora: EV-01 (The Frontiers Saga: Fringe Worlds #1) – Ryk Brown

A new ship…
A new crew…
A new crisis…
A friend at risk…

The Confederated Systems Alliance has spread to dozens of systems, creating the first true interstellar alliance dedicated to bringing peace and prosperity to all inhabited worlds. Unfortunately, some see this new alliance as a threat to their own seats of power, and would do anything to stop it.

After a well deserved rest, Captain Nathan Scott is once again called into action. This time, it is not the fate of the galaxy that is on his shoulders, but the life of one of his dearest friends.

But not all is as it appears.

Darkness Stirs (The Renewed World Saga #1) – Luke Kramarz

The Jarl’s raiding party is missing, winter closes in, and an enemy long thought dead has returned.

With his father gone, the son who was left behind has a decision to make. Will Bjorn venture into the unknown? Or will he continue to wallow in the shame of past defeats…

A messenger washes up on shore.

The Jarl and his warriors are alive, but only just. Something pulled them into the desolate West, a land overtaken with horrors that Bjorn could barely imagine. The same horrors that had brought about the Decimation and ended humanity’s Golden Age.

Seeking to rebuild his name, Bjorn sets out into the unknown in search of a father that may be far past saving. Read More

I previously reviewed on here Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Ultra Sun, the fan game Pokemon Uranium, and Pokemon Sword and Shield. I am a longtime fan of the series, so on opening day, gift card in hand to cut the cost down by a cool 20 bucks, I got my copy of Shining Pearl. Yet as I play through it I have one question going through my mind:

But…why though?

Don’t get me wrong. Shining Pearl – the version I got – is a very, very good game. In fact, it’s so much better than Sword and Shield it’s retroactively embarassing.

The chibi style is a…choice…and I still think a poor one, BUT it doesn’t actually look bad. Backgrounds, mostly, look absolutely great.

Just…why chibis? Why? Why use chibi models in the overworld and go to more detailed, normally proportioned – and really good looking, by the way – character models when pokemon battles start? The aesthetics clash.

The answer is “To look like an updated version of Diamond and Pearl, which used chibis then switched to regularly proportioned models in battle 13 years ago”, and yes, true. They did indeed do that. But they had a particular idea in mind when they did that. The overworld was supposed to be a representation of what the “real” world looked like, which you’d get a glimpse of in battles. But in this game the chibi models are themselves so detailed it just looks like a jarring switch in art styles, because it is. And the reflections in the floors, the little animations of doors, and even the water are so realistic looking it clashes with the chibis, and it doesn’t help that in cutscenes we zoom in on their plasticine faces.

It looks…not bad. Not bad at all, in fact, just off.

Weirder still is that most of the battle backgrounds actually look fantastic, easily the best the series has ever looked. I don’t know if they redid a lot of the animations or they just implemented them with the pokemon models better, but even move animations look really good most of the time. Sure, certain moves are still a swing and a miss, but with hundreds of moves you’d expect that. The point is that mostly, and frankly for the first time since the games moved to the Switch, battles look really good…most of the time.

For whatever reason when you battle in towns, but not in buildings, the background disappears and you battle in a void. I can only assume that due to time constraints they made the choice not to create battle backgrounds that matched the individual towns, since you only rarely battle there, but it is jarring. I also am not a fan of the generic background they use for team Galactic battles, but since you battle them in the same spots as other trainers that’s clearly an aesthetic choice rather than a technical limitation.

Still, I can’t help but think that Pokemon on the Switch has still never looked better than it did in the Let’s Go games, and I would ultimately have preferred that art style.

The Underground has been upgraded into the Grand Underground, and is indeed improved from the original Diamond and Pearl. Now there are various biomes full of rare pokemon dotted throughout the Underground, giving you more incentive to explore and cool things to discover. The way pokemon interact in these areas is a little bland but ultimately this is a fine addition to the game. It also gives you access to pokemon that were in the Platinum Pokedex, thankfully lengthening the paltry Diamond/Pearl Pokedex.

Aha. There’s the word. We’ve reached the elephant in the room: Pokemon Platinum.

The biggest and worst change is the decision to make the EXP All mandatory and not update the level curve from Diamond and Pearl. In fact, this is such a bafflingly stupid decision I genuinely wonder who made it and how they came to that decision.

The level curve of Diamond and Pearl is already way too low – something Game Freak had already realized 13 years ago, when they upgraded the level curve in Pokemon Platinum, the first remake of Diamond and Pearl.

Now not only does Game Freak go back to the already too low level curve of Diamond and Pearl, they ALSO make it so that leveling up is trivial. I am actually okay with the EXP All in concept, but the level curve needs to be updated to match with it properly. They not only don’t update the levels – which is really what they should do if they implement a feature like this – they don’t even use the higher level curve of Pokemon Platinum!

Why? Why make this decision. Seriously. Somebody help me understand. I truly don’t get it. The upshot of all of this is that the game is trivially easy, absurdly so. If you thought Sword and Shield was easy, this game is easier (in fairness, until the Elite 4, which has the same level curve but upgraded movesets and stats that make them much more difficult).

More than that, the game implements none of the changes that made Pokemon Platinum so much better than Diamond and Pearl. Platinum updated the story to give the villain more presence and make it make more sense. None of that is here. Gyms were redesigned, in nearly every case for the better. None of that is here. The upgraded level curve isn’t here. Platinum upgraded the pokedex so there were more options as you moved around Sinnoh. This was implemented only in the Underground area, which is a huge missed opportunity. Why not use the pokedex of Platinum in the main campaign and use the Underground to add in DIFFERENT pokemon?

Worst, of course, is the loss of the Battle Frontier. That is a massive amount of missing content. It has been replaced by…nothing. It just isn’t there.

There is no distortion world, another Platinum feature, which is a mixed bag at least. The distortion world sounded great conceptually, but in practice it was HORRIBLY implemented. In Pokemon Platinum the boss battle with Cyrus, the main villain, takes place after you climb all the way to the top of Mt. Cornet then navigate through an escher-esque dream world called the distortion world.

This all sounds great and like it would make for a great climactic battle, but it’s ruined by the fact that if you lose the battle with Cyrus – who is pretty difficult! – you don’t respawn just before the battle or even just before the distortion world, but back at the last town you visited, meaning to rematch Cyrus you need to climb Mt. Cornet and navigate the distortion world AGAIN, every single time you rematch him. And suddenly what should have been great is an infuriating slog.

Best of all would have been to fix this, which is as simple as adding a teleport point that allowed you to warp back immediately if you lose to Cyrus, but if you’re not going to do that taking it out is an objective improvement. Still, isn’t a remake supposed to improve on what we have, not take stuff out?

Also, and while this comes off as an aside it really isn’t, it was a massive mistake to go back to random encounters instead of overworld pokemon, probably the best update to the series that has come out in a very long time. They’re better in every way, and they’re not here. Why? I don’t know. They definitely CAN do it the new way, since they do in the Grand Underground. They just…don’t.

So that’s where we end at. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are very good games, easily better than Sword and Shield and the best games Pokemon has come out with since the gen 7 Ultra games. The art style is a little weird but it does look good, and battles actually look great. They are certainly better than the original Diamond and Pearl, if for no other reason than that they fixed the famously slow engine of those games.

But I struggle to recommend anyone buy them when a remake of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl already exists in Platinum, can be easily emulated for free, and is objectively better in virtually every way. Unless you really, really like some specific aspect only available in these games, just play Platinum. I don’t know – like I genuinely don’t understand – why they didn’t remake Platinum instead of Diamond and Pearl. I don’t understand the choices they made with this game. I just…don’t get it.

I’ll be getting Legends Arceus, though. For the first time since the physical/special split in generation four it looks like Pokemon has finally overhauled the whole system, and I am VERY much here for it! You can await your review here. Hopefully it’s a good sign Game Freak spent all of their time on that and outsourced BD/SP.

The figure was fifteen inches in height, and carved from that ancient ivory that comes down to China from the islands off Siberia. The image was that of Kuan-yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, protector of shipwrecked sailors, and bringer of children to childless women. It lay upon the sand near Teo’s outstretched fingers, its deep beige ivory only a shade lighter than the Hawaiian’s skin.

Tom Gavagan finds an old family friend dead, shot in the back. The only thing out of place is a statue of a goddess foreign to the Hawaii islands, a statue worth more than the old Hawaiian’s other possessions. But as Gavagan checks up on Kamaki, the man’s son and last surviving man in the family, he finds that Teo and Kamaki were caught up in the events surrounding a four-year-old art heist. Can Gavagan pry Kamaki free from the schemes ensnaring him? Or will both men, now stranded sailors, end up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?

Louis L’Amour pens a satisfying and straightforward adventure in “The Hand of Kuan-yin”. While L’Amour is now best known for his Westerns, he brings the same eye for location, detail, and verisimilitude to Hawaii. Written in 1956, three years before Hawaii’s statehood, “The Hand of Kuan-yin” was part of a trend in Hollywood of shifting from the imaginary islands of tiki bars to the real paradises of Hawaii. Beau L’Amour writes, in the afterward to May There be a Road:

“The Hand of Kuan-yin” was written in 1956 and was sold with the intention of its being the pilot episode for a television show called Hart of Honolulu. I have no idea if this show was even shot, or, if it was, if it ever aired. Louis wrote the story in the weeks after he and my mother acquired an ivory Kuan-yin, the first piece of valuable art they ever bought (not as valuable as the one in the story by a long shot).

Indeed, the pilot was filmed, but the show remained unsold. A recording of  Hart of Honolulu remains, for the moment, on YouTube as one of those hobbyist curiosities found from the archives.

As mentioned, the story is a straight-forward crime adventure, with the hero Gavagan cut from the same mold as the Sacketts. The chinoiserie elements around the Kuan-yin stature are understated, serving more to emphasis that Hawaii is a fault line between native, Eastern, and Western cultures. Kuan-yin also allows for a nice fatherly character moment surrounding old Teo.

“The Hand of Kuan-yin” may not shine among the jewels in the crown of L’Amour’s best works, but even an average L’Amour story is worth the read. Especially when it trades L’Amour’s beloved deserts, prairies, and Rocky Mountains for new lands.

The Legion returns, alongside pixy monster hunters, western canine scouts, and refugees from alien attacks in this week’s new release.

Convergence (Galaxy’s Edge #13) – Jason Anspach and Nick Cole

As the galaxy marches headlong toward the greatest threat to peace since the Savage Wars, the flames are lit in the most unlikely of places.

Trapped inside a Savage mini hulk, Prisma faces a future where little is as she expected it would be, and a past that is even more troubling than she knew. Aboard a Cybar ship, Andien Broxin fights for her life with the most unlikely of allies at her side. And on the Kimbrin home world, Masters joins a Legion Special Operations Group tasked with checking a resurgent MCR… only to find himself embroiled in the flashpoint that will again plunge the galaxy into war.

Goth Sullus has fallen. Tyrus Rechs is a memory. But those who are enemies of both men are now set to step forth and reveal themselves on the galactic stage—unless the Republic, and the Legion, can answer the call to sacrifice.

The Houndsman – J. Pal

Build his Fortress. Grow the Pack. Save the Realm.

After serving two terms in the Iron Army’s Building Division, Flint Woodson is done with it all. With his four-legged friend at his side, he wants nothing more than to find a remote settlement, work as a guard or a builder, and find a wife.

He doesn’t care about filling his remaining nodes with Skill Stones or wasting his life looking for a Class. Wyldbloods like him aren’t destined for greatness.

But the realm is at war. The Fae are sick of humankind violating their treaties, their Wyld armies taking to the fields.

And Flint’s plans go out the window when the Diskverse sends him a Life Quest.

Saying “no” isn’t an option when the quest involves the word ‘Champion’. Not if Flint wants to save the realm and have somewhere left to one day to live out his dream.

In the Service of Luna (The Lunar Free State #4) – John E. Siers

On-the-job training can be hazardous to your health…

Lorna Greenwood hopes the Lunar Free State’s Fleet Academy will prepare her to follow in her grandmother’s legendary footsteps. Her roommate Nova Sakura has already spent time in the LFS Marines and wants to move up to the officer ranks.

First, though, they have to survive four years of training. Military service gets real for Lorna when the assault carrier Omaha Beach comes under fire during her first year training cruise. Nova’s first year cruise aboard the light cruiser Hydra seems pretty routine, until she’s called upon to take charge of a squad of Marines boarding a ship full of murderous pirates.

And nothing prepares them for the challenges they face after graduation, when they’re both assigned to the same ship and find themselves facing an alien enemy in a distant star system, in what could be the start of another interstellar war.

Two young women put their lives on the line in the service of Luna…even if that means leaving family, friends, and their hearts behind. Read More

Débrouillard is what every plongeur wants to be called. A débrouillard is a man who, even when he is told to do the impossible, will se débrouiller-get it done somehow.

-George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

Brawn versus brains.

It’s an old complaint about adventure and science fiction stories by a certain audience more comfortable with rules, systems, and other forms of red tape. This superficial frame tends to ignore the cunning associated with those looked down upon for their brawn. It also tends to ignore the absurdities brought about by slavish adherence to the rules thought up by the “brainy” types. In short, the real conflict is between cunning and book-knowledge. And it is one that interplanetary diplomat Jame Retief, or “Retief of the Mountain of Red Tape”, knows too well.

Retief is a man of action and cunning in an organization caught up in academic rules, one too caught up in its own cleverness to understand when its diplomats are being insulted. A débrouillard, useful only for taking credit for his results. Not that his senior ambassadors would interpret Retief’s actions as anything other than slavish obedience to their own plan–even as they would be aghast if they ever watched Retief’s methods. If this sounds familiar to any real word organizations, it may be quite deliberate. Retief’s author, Keith Laumer, was a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. And the same mind that gave us thundering siege tanks known as Bolos now takes a scathing eye to matters of diplomacy.

And in a universe of various and divergent levels of technologies, scientific understandings, and sophistications, the biggest bumpkins of all are the “professional” diplomats.

Well, most of them.

Read More

Space cadets, genetically unmodified supermen, and a lucky dungeon master feature in this week’s new releases.

Dungeon Core Online #2 – Jonathan Smidt

War is coming.

DCO’s latest patch has finally made it possible for dungeons to interact with one another. This can mean only one thing: it is time for some player vs player action. More importantly, it means James and BLANK will finally be able to settle their score on the Fields of Battle. Only, there’s a lot more riding on this than pride – if James loses, he will be forced to leave DCO for good.

With everything on the line James and Rue must prepare for the onslaught and grow their dungeon as fast as possible. Which may mean doing things James isn’t proud of, things that involve a lot of dickens…

BLANK may be formidable, but the Random dungeon still has a few tricks up its sleeve. James has unlocked an entire new floor, and with it, the most powerful and terrifying Random mobs yet.

Well… hopefully; it is Random after all. But seriously – how bad could it be?

E-Day II: Burning Earth – Nicholas Sansbury Smith

E-Day: The moment the machines evolved and humans nearly went extinct. In the chaos, one million people escaped Earth and fled to a secret colony on the dark side of the Moon. Deep beneath the lunar surface, in the cold, they wait for the inevitable–a second attack that will wipe humanity out forever.

Sergeant Tadhg Walsh is tired of waiting. He wants to fight back and return to Earth to search for Shadow Squad. But he has new orders from the Lunar Defense Corps: protect the colonies at all costs and forget about any survivors back home.

Captain Akira Hayashi is one of those survivors, forced to heal from his injuries in a submarine while the planet burns. Shadow Squad won’t be hiding for long, but before they can don their armor again, they must find a safe haven to plan their attack. When they locate a research station in the Mariana Trench, their submarine heads into the depths. What they find in the darkness changes everything they know about E-Day.

On the Moon, the LDC will do everything in its power to keep the truth about survivors on Earth a secret, even if it means sacrificing the few for the many. On Earth, Shadow Squad will have to make tenuous alliances with old enemies to stand a chance against the enemy. If they can unite, they might just have a chance of stopping the machines from wiping out humanity on Earth and the Moon.

Gold Glamour’s Ghost – Neil Adam Ray

Carter Quinn might be Tarnation’s premiere scoundrel, charlatan, and snake oil salesman, but at least each of his overpriced promises of false hope comes with a good story pegged to it. All the man claiming to be Lucas Linden offers with his lies is a brief dance at the end of a short rope.

After studying the art of the scam for decades, Quinn knows a fraud when he sees one. Sure, the legendary gunslinger’s revolvers weigh down the stranger’s belt and he’s got the folk hero’s signature smile stretched across his face, but the real Lucas Linden disappeared thirty years ago. For him to come back after so long without a single wrinkle or gray hair, he’d need a hell of a lot more than a healthy diet—he’d need the kind of magic that only exists in stories more outlandish than those of Lucas Linden himself.

The fake Lucas Linden seems harmless at first, but when he appoints himself sheriff and claims to have discovered enough gold to reanimate the dried-up mining town, the simple townsfolk fall for the con hook, line, and sinker. They feed off the fervor of the lawless, godless hangings, growing more manic by the day, and it falls on Quinn and his soft-headed sidekick, Ron Chesterfield, to stop the grinning ghost before his festering evil consumes Tarnation and spreads its black tendrils to the rest of the world. Read More