Elric of Melnibone (Pseudo Review)

Michael Moorcock's "Elric" stories are slowly graduating from "between good books fillers" to good books in their own right as I read through them.

If you like dark fantasy with some sword and sorcery action, you might try one of Moorcock's short novels about this brooding and tragic character.

The early Elric stories are very short and even the novels themselves feel like anthologies of short stories. This is due to the fact that the Elric tales were originally published as short stories in magazines.

This makes them easy to pick up and use to fill some time without getting you stuck in a book you have to finish before moving onto what you may REALLY want to read.

Elric is a very flawed anti-hero, haunted by his sentient sword's need to feed on the souls of its victims. Additionally, unless he lets his sword(called "Stormbringer") feed, Elric becomes weak from a natural condition that has made him feeble his entire life.

Moral dilemmas show up often during these stories and you sense the author working through his own frustrations and questions about the nature of the universe and the existence and character of God(despite the story-world being polytheistic).

The world, concepts and plots are fairly interesting, but it isn't until much later in the series that Moorcock spends some needed time on Elric's inner character. Very little time is spent revealing the thoughts of any characters until later books like "Stormbringer" and the "Fortress of the Pearl". These books are closer to traditional novel length, and so lose the ability to easily drop and pick up at whim, however the added character development makes them worth the extra time.

To get a taste of Elric, I'd recommend "Elric Of Melnibone", the first book in the series. You can likely find a dirt cheap copy online and it's worth a shot if you're looking for a new author, or just something to pass the time between other books.

Although I haven't finished "Fortress" yet, or the other two books that were published after it, I'd offer the following estimation of the series-

Quality: 8.0

Veracity:8.0

My Movies!!

After several hours this weekend, I THOUGHT I had successfully transferred all the movies I made with friends during college to DVD. Alas, I was wrong and I'll have to redo them all. Fortunately it won't take as long this time since half the time was spent finding where they were at on all the old video tapes.

If I can figure out how to put them on this blog (maybe via a YouTube imbedded player?) I'll probably start posting them in chronological order over a period of time. They suck. And suck bad. But they'll give a little insight on my brain, which is what this blog is all about I guess, right?

Anyway, when I have something, you'll find it here first. I'll probably mention it on the podcast, too.

What's that? You don't know about my podcast? Well jump over quick to http://paeter.libsyn.com and get caught up!

And if you really wanna be cool, use your computer's microphone to leave me a recorded message by clicking on the red button at the bottom of this screen!

How to make "Bionic Woman" better...

This is a pretty neat show, although I'm not sure it will be good enough for me to stay with.

The first problem is that Jaimie Summers, the lead character, is not terribly interesting. Katie Sackoff's "evil" bionic woman(Sarah Corvis) is much more complex and fascinating.

Hopefully, Sarah will be a regular cast member for at least the length of Season 1. That should give writers and producers enough time to flesh out Summers and make her more worthy of a show centered on her.

Something else that would really help the show is a new approach to the action sequences. Right now, she's kicking and punching and throwing people around, and that's cool and all, but the original "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Bionic Woman" shows were known for their slow motion sequences during action bits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting a return to slow motion running and fighting whenever bionics are used. But a cool throwback to the original series would be to use the "bullet-time effect" made popular by "The Matrix". Not all the time, but maybe roughly once per episode. It's been the better part of a decade since the effect was used in "The Matrix" and I'm sure they could design a couple cost effective, portable camera rigs to take to various locations, where they can create a cool modern version of the classic slow motion effect that the characters are known for.

However, even if they don't go this route, I think the way this show is shot needs to be altered considerably to hold my interest. When you've got a show like "Heroes", showcasing similar or BETTER powers, something else needs to pick up the slack visually if you want to compete.

The show has promise, and I'll keep watching for now, but only time will tell if they can make the appropriate "upgrades".

Simon Dark #1 (Review)

DC began a new book this week called "Simon Dark". The title character is a mysterious one. He doesn't remember who he is, but has a very high intelligence and superhuman strength and reflexes. He's a homeless drifter who wears a mask made of badly stitched leather (or some other type of skin?) and uses piano wire to deal out decapitating justice on the murderers of Gotham City.
The tone of writing is thought provoking and serious. The art matches with a grey, smudged style of painting.

The quality of the first issue is very impressive and has made my purchase of #2 a sure thing.

Simon is different from Gotham's primary protector in one very obvious way. Simon kills. This brings about an interesting moral issue that could stimulate discussion of justice and moral absolutes among readers. It will be interesting to see what happens when Batman runs into Simon, although I hope they wait a good long time before having the two vigilantes cross paths. I'm interested in getting to know Simon on his own terms, without making quick comparisons to other DCU characters.

Quality: 9.0/10

Veracity: 8.0/10

Is Superman A Christian?

Well, let's start out by saying this is a pretty dumb question. Superman is obviously fictional. Jesus didn't die to pay for Superman's sins. Jesus doesn't love Superman either. Superman is fictional.

But through the years, even in the hands of various writers, Clark Kent was clearly raised in a "Christian" environment. (For one example you can read the trade paperback "A Superman For All Seasons".) And although the issue number doesn't come to mind, I distinctly remember Martha Kent commenting that she and Jonathan had raised Clark using the Bible as a moral centerpoint.

But more than any of that, I'll tell you what I like about this picture. We think of Superman as being the ultimate representation of ourselves. Morally upright, self-sacrificing and most of all... powerful. An invincible man that can level mountains. And while this alteration of another painting may have been done as a joke, I look at it and as a hugely geeky Christian think, "If Superman WERE a real person, even HE would be relieved to be supported and welcomed by the INFINITELY powerful and loving arms of Jesus." No matter how strong anyone may be, in the end we ALL need Jesus.

Yeah, I know. I'm weird. But today, that's what's on "my brain".

Doom: The Boardgame (Review)

Last night I started feeling an itch to play "Doom: The Boardgame" again. If you haven't played this game, but enjoy "questing" boardgames, then you might really like it. Fantasy Flight Games released this gem about two years before "Descent" and used the same game mechanics, although in an unpolished form.





One player controls all the aliens that appear on the board and one or more other players control individual marines. The game story is set on the planet Mars, where scientists have been studying a dimensional doorway they've discovered. But, as these things typically do, everything goes wrong. The dimensional rift is opened and evil creatures invade our dimension, killing everything they see. Like all Fantasy Flight games, the board pieces, tiles, tokens, and figures are wonderfully detailed and help create the ambience of dark action and alien horror intended for players to enjoy.





At a game convention I attened over a year ago, I overheard someone refer to this game as "broken". I'd been playing the game for at least a year and knew a little of what he was referring to first-hand.
The question of "balance" in games like these seems to come up often, I think, because everyone has a different idea of what makes a "balanced" game. Personally, I enjoy playing the bad guy with the game weighted somewhat in the good guy's favor. It feels like GMing and there's no pressure for me to compete with anyone. But many like a perfectly even chance to win no matter what role they play in a "questing" game.
The game makes an effort to self-balance by changing the number of monsters that appear depending on how many marines are in each game.




Since I've only played this game with one other player, I can't speak to the balance of the game with multiple marines in play. But I can say that I've removed a couple skill cards that, when used in a one-player game, make it ridiculously easy for the marine to win. (Primary example being the "Recon" card, which allows marines to move through enemy figures and obstacles. If you don't have to help anyone else travelling with you, this card allows you to simply "run" through the entire mission with little to no combat. Not a fun way to play.)





FFG released an expansion pack for the game that fixes a few of the balance issues and gives some optional rules to help you adjust the balance to suit your playing style. The great thing here is that the new expansion set rules are available to download for free in PDF form at the FFG website. So if you have the basic game and don't want to buy the expansion pack, you can still get the rule "fixes" for free at the website.





Although it seems clear that FFG worked all the bugs out when they modified the same mechanics of this game for use in "Descent", this game is still a lot of fun to play and scratches the "sci-fi/action" itch that this typically fantasy themed type of boardgame normally doesn't.





In terms of Veracity, this game is way off the mark theologically, depending on how you look at it. The creatures you are fighting come from another dimension that feels like the traditional description of Hell. Some of the monsters also bear a resemblance to folklore renditions of demons. Of course, tradition and folklore, even CHRISTIAN tradition and folklore, often leave the Bible out of the loop when it comes to demons and hell. We have no reason to believe that demons look anything like the creatures in this game. Additionally, the creatures are all said to be from another dimension and the hellish theme seems to represent a "shorthand" description that the characters in the game developed to describe creatures and things far outside the norm.





So if the Hell theme is troublesome to you, it need not be. After all, if these were real demons, a shotgun wouldn't do much, would it? Secondly, playing this game may open up opportunities to discuss the true nature of the spiritual world as described in the Bible.





If you see a copy for a price you're willing to pay, I'd recommend picking it up. Most of its flaws are fixable with a little extra time on your part, and your gamer buddies will dig the action and atmosphere that this game delivers.





Quality: 8.5/10
Veracity: 7.0/10

Descent Day!

I spent today trying to kill my brother-in-law. For hours on end I tried to kill him. I used sharp blades, arrows and magic fireballs, but he continued to survive despite my terrifying barrage of fury.

He managed to fight his way through a living "Wall of Bone" and recover "The Robe of Time and Space". Of course, he doesn't get to keep this fabled artifact of immense power. Otherwise his current quest would be far too easy.

We were only able to start the next quest before having to pack up and resume our mundane lives. (Well, *I* resumed my mundane life. He went to something called a "play-off" game for the "Cubs" tonight in Phoenix. Some people have strange hobbies, huh?)

However, when we next meet, he will have to descend into the bowels of an active volcano, fighting through a gauntlet of fiery evils in his quest to seal the burning mountain and save the nearby village.

Yep. He's seriously screwed...