Review of Shattered Legions ed. by. Laurie Goulding

I am a fan of Imperium Secundus books. They have their own internal conflicts and arcs, have major consequences to the overarchign HH storyline, and resolve themselves in meaningful, unpredictable fashion—at least mostly. But little is said in them regarding the other large group of loyalists out there, the remnants of the group ambushed on Isstvan V. Hoping Shattered Legions (2017) ed. by Laure Goulding, an anthology of shorts focusing on said loyalists would fill the gaps, I picked it up.

Shattered Legions kicks off with “Meduson” by Dan Abnett, aka the orgin story of the famed Iron Hands captain, Shadrak Meduson. In the aftermath of Isstvan V, the Iron Hands attempt to deal with the loss of their primarch. One outspoken captain, Meduson, argues with clan lord's about the necessities of battle. Dialogue in this story is superb, and the overall story introduces the anthology well. (Meduson plays a role in a number of the selections.) “Unforged” by Guy Haley is the improbable but brief story of a group of untested Salamander marines investigating a suspicious homing beacon deep in a planetary ravine. A homing beacon of a ship supposedly of their own kind, they learn the truth behind it and the meaning of fate in battle.

Review of Corax by Gav Thorpe

I'm forty books deep in the Horus Heresy, and yet there are still legions and primarchs out there I have yet to encounter in any substantial fashion. Corax of the Raven Guard is one such primarch. A leader with special ops skills, Gav Thorpe's Corax (2016), a book somewhere between collection and novel, looks to shed more light on the enigmatic primarch and his legion.

From the truest nerd perspective, Corax is an interesting specimen of fiction: collection or unfinished novel? Containing six pieces of interconnected fiction, there is an argument to be made for both (though arguments for 'novel' need to preceded by 'unfinished'). The stories are discreet, some with chapters in them. The book's parts feels disparate. Yet a through-line is visible most of the time. Cohesion lingers on the periphery. Like I said, interesting.

Review of Legion by Dan Abnett

Like many readers of Horus Heresy, Dan Abnett has proven to be my favorite author flavor. There are no huge differences in quality among the various writers who have contributed to the series, but the edge has to go to Abnett. His stories are typically the most distinguished from the perspective of setting. He sets scenes wonderfully. And he creates visual spaces in action while sacrificing little of the characters' humanity. Legion (2008), seventh novel in the Horus Heresy, introduces a couple of key aspects to the series, and is another reason why Abnett is the best.

Legion starts on the planet of Nurth in the late stages of the Great Crusade. The mysterious Alpha Legion, headed by its even more mysterious primarch Alpharius, have been assigned to the planet to break it. The native Nurthene are resistant to compliance in ways few others species have been and the Emperor has commanded the Legion to bring them to heel, by force. Unbeknownst to Alpha Legion, another figure plays his own games, John Grammaticus. A member of a group calling themselves the Cabal, Grammaticus has important news for the Alpha Legion that has consequences for all of humanity.

Cardboard Corner: Review of Android: Netrunner

There are a few holy grail albums on my music shelf. In a strange paradox, however, they rarely get play time. I resist listening too often in order to prolong my enjoyment—at least so I tell myself. What are likely unfounded fears (or perhaps an unwillingness to postpone the inevitable), I think that by listening to these albums again and again they will lose what makes them special. Weird, but true. The medium of this review is table top games, so you're probably wondering why I'm waffling about music. The reason is I've put off writing the review of my favorite game for some time for the same reason. By dissecting Android: Netrunner (2012) I'm afraid it will lose its luster. But by doing so, perhaps it brings new players to the table?

Android: Netrunner is cyberpunk card play for two players. An asymmetrical game for two players, one player takes the role of the Runner—a computer hacker trying to infiltrate and steal from a corporation, while the other player takes the role of the Corporation, a shady business entity trying to protect its assets and implement its devious agendas. If the Runner is able to steal seven agenda points, they win. If the Corps scores seven agenda points, they win.

Review of Wolfsbane by Guy Haley

Horus Heresy novels like Prospero Burns and Scars have not offered readers a nuanced view of Leman Russ—the Emperor's executioner and primarch of the Space Wolves. Good things come to those who wait, however. Here, at the 49th book in the series, readers finally get a look inside the head of the Russ. Accordingly, let's take a look at Wolfsbane (2018).

Wolfsbane opens on a moment in pre-Heresy history when the Emperor, accompanied by a young Horus, go to the ice planet of Fenris to an up and coming leader, one Leman Russ. Primitive, atavistic, brutish—Russ possesses little grace or etiquette, just an animal's mind reveling in battle and feast. Horus is put off by Russ' demeanor, but the Emperor informs him that Russ is his primarch brother, and that the two will need to work together in the future as part of the Great Crusade. Horus accepts Russ and puts his grudge aside. But its a grudge that must eventually be resolved. In Wolfsbane, it may decide the fate of the Heresy.

Cardboard Corner: Review of Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn Red Rains expansion "Corpse of Viros"

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn (aka Ashes Reborn in its 1.5 incarnation) is one our favorite expandable card games. It's checks a lot of boxes. Great concept and art. Super tight design. Unique mechanisms. And fun back and forth gameplay. Recently, having reached a natural pause point in content production, the game's producers decided to take Ashes in a new direction, a popular direction of modern gaming—regardless board, card, or video. That area is PvE (person vs environment), and the new release is Red Rains: “Corpse of Viros” (2023).

“Corpse of Viros” kicks off the Red Rains PvE series. One release is planned for each of the seven dice types, with “Corpse of Viros” featuring Charm dice. In this new mode, one to two players take on the game-controlled Viros and all its aspects. Knock its hit points to zero, and the phoenixborn win. It kills a phoenixborn, and Viros wins. From 10,000 feet, it's that simple.

Time to Move On from Tom: Alternatives to Magic: The Gathering

Is Tom Cruise starring in the latest Hollywood action drama you'd most like to see? Sorry, but it's time to move on—and this coming from someone who grew up with Cruise. He had his day, even ruled it, and now he's just milking it. And I would say the same about Magic: The Gathering. If you don't know what Magic is, don't bother reading further. It will be meaningless rambling. If you do know, do care, and do perhaps consider Magic the Greatest TCG of All Time!! <trumpets tootle>, then have a read. I'm going to do two things: dismantle the myth around Magic today and offer a view forward. Tom Cruise, no matter how good the botox and hair dye, is past his prime, and so is Magic. Time to move on, and here's why and how.

Before getting our coffin nails out, let's give credit where credit is due: Magic: The Gathering is a monumental success. Firstly and singularly, it has the most superlatives of any expandable card game/trading card game/collectible card game/whatever you want to call the business model which sells randomized packs of cards at varying rarities, which in turn can be played in a duel with a friend within a ruleset that is expanded upon and toyed with by each new card released. Richard Garfield created Magic in 1994, and the gaming world literally has not been the same since. Magic has significant presence on the collector's market (let alone the trading card market) and has significant presence on the tables of numerous tournaments and millions of homes. Magic is the first, the biggest, the most successful, the longest lasting card game still producing fresh content on the market. Kudos and congrats to Wizards of the Coast, the game's producer, on this success. It. is. deserved.

Review of Joe's Liver by Paul Di Filippo

That thimbleful of readers who regularly visit Speculiction know that it prefers the strong undercurrents of fiction, undercurrents that go largely unnoticed by the mainstream yet are more original, more sophisticated than what flows on the surface. Paul Di Filippo is a fish who swims in these waters. Impossible to pin down to a particular current, however, Joe's Liver (2000) is yet another book that can't be summed up in a word or two. (Presciently thigh-slapping? Naww, no justice there...)

Joe's Liver is the story of a guy named Reader's Digest from a fictional Caribbean island nation (that really likes nutmeg). Yes, his name is Reader's Digest, a name given him by his mother, a woman who loved the American periodical, and who instilled a similar love in her son. (Don't worry, he quickly becomes Ardy in the story, i.e his initials.) She instilled the love to the point Ardy has made the decision to travel to the US to visit Reader's Digest HQ. Trouble is, he doesn't have a visa to enter the country. The novel thus opens with Ardy making a border run from the Canadian side, a run that quickly spins out of control. Ardy's path to his goal waylaid, the obstacle course of American culture awaits.

Review of Past Crimes by Jason Pinter

Every human on Earth has some fascination with true crime. Fortunately for the human race, more people look on with atavistic fascination than look to actively generate new stories. Capturing this fascination in NY Times bestselling thriller fashion is Jason Pinter's Past Crimes (2024).

Cassie Wells is an employee of VICE, a broker that licenses people's tragedies and crimes to entertainment syndicates like Past Crimes. The most popular thing going, Past Crimes makes virtual shows that reenact crimes for people's viewing pleasure as well as virtual participation. The majority of existence having moved online, nearly all interactions in Cassie's 2037 USA take place through avatars (called wraps), including meetings with clients/victims to get them to sign over the rights. One day, after asking people to choose between the moral dignity of their tragedies vs. financial compensation for their tragedies' exploitation, disaster occurs to Cassie. Spinning her life in an unexpected direction, she is forced to confront the real world impact of Past Crimes on society.

Review of Old Earth by Nick Kyme

I know not everyone is enamored by the Salamanders/Vulkan story thread in the Horus Heresy. I partially understand why—partially. Vulkan's character is one of the most straightforward, monochromatic of the primarchs. He is unfailingly loyal and believes in the value of life. In a grimdark setting, I can see how some might find this 'boring'. For me, however, Vulkan and the Salamanders occupy a symbolic role that has nuance—only a degree of nuance, but nuance nonetheless. If Vulkan Lives and Deathfire have shown us anything, then it's that mortality is not black and white. Old Earth (2017) by Nick Kyme, 47th book in the series, looks to take the Salamander/Vulkan storyline one step closer to resolution, to Terra, and to link it further with the meaning of human existence.

Old Earth begins by confirming (Alert! Spoiler for Deathfire!) Vulkan's resurrection at the end of that novel. Emerging from the fire and ash, he collects his wits and meets happens upon a group of his closest officers who had been looking for him. Knowing that he must abandon his Legion for a mission of the utmost importance (for mystical reasons after his resurrection!), Vulkan takes this small group of Astartes on a harrowing mission through the planet's lava core to... that is for the reader to find out.

Review of Ruinstorm by David Annandale

Of all the back cover blurbs in the Horus Heresy, Ruinstorm by David Annandale (2017) has perhaps the least chance of inspiring interest. Various legions of space marines encounter Chaos in the Warp, blah, blah, blah. Bolter porn if ever there were, yes? Only seemingly. The 46th book in the Horus Heresy series manages to be engaging for the individual storylines it progresses as well as the criticality of the waypoint it achieves in the overarching story arc. And for those worried by my intro, don't. There is a strong dash of bolter porn, as well.

With the collapse of Imperium Secundus in Angels in Caliban, the three loyalist legions—Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Ultramarines—get in their ships and head to Terra to defend it. Problem is, the Ruinstorm—that massive cyclone of Chaos unleashed on the universe by the Word Bearers—blocks their traversal. With no choice, the three Legions, led by their storied primarchs Sanguinius, Guillaume, and the Lion (with Cruze imprisoned in the hold), enter the storm. They do not exit the same as they entered.

Cardboard Corner: Review of "NeXt Evolution" expansion for Marvel Champions

Marvel Champions has made it. It has gotten through the difficulties of launch, through the obstacle course of gaining momentum, and is now flying high. Sales have been great through dozens of hero packs and six deluxe campaigns. But some may say that now is when the going really gets tough. How to sustain success? Let's see how the seventh deluxe expansion, NeXt Evolution (2023), handles it.

NeXt Evolution returns to the lore of the X-Men introduced in the previous deluxe, Mutant Genesis. Nothing unique to this expansion, I struggle with the lore. It's the same as last time, and the time before, and the time... The heroes of the moment sit around relaxing; bad guys commit surprise attack; heroes jump into action and one by one thwart the villains' nefarious scheme; heroes win. NeXt Evolution is exactly the same; just replace old faces with new. I know Marvel Champions is not a vehicle for story, just hero vs. villain scenarios with story pasted on. It's still difficult for me to muster the energy necessary to create a story introduction when it has become so repetitive.

Review of Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

It is the dismay of people learning the English language everywhere to discover the fact that they must, in fact, learn two languages: the signed (written) and spoken (verbal). For whatever reason, we have 'to', 'two', and 'too' while writing, but pronounce all the same. There are few other languages for whom spelling bees are as dynamic. Literally embracing this fact to tell of a post-apocalyptic future is Russell Hoban's brilliant 1980 Riddley Walker.

Riddley Walker is set an unknown amount of time in a post-nuclear future of England. Shit hit the fan, and the bombs went off. Enter young Riddley Walker. Son of the group's soothsayer, he faces tragedy early when his father is crushed while excavating a large machine from the mud. But more ominous omens occur, including Riddley being attacked by a pack of dogs. He is forced out of the group and into the wilds. Journeying the ravaged, primitive lands, he runs into all manner of people, trying discover a new place for himself.

Review of They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton & Frank Riley

There are many patterns observable in human social behavior. One is copy cats. A person needs look no further than Chinese industry to find millions of people beavering away to recreate Western products in an attempt to make a buck. Not being critical, that's just humans being humans. If the situation were reversed, the West would do the same. And the same is, of course, true in writing fiction. One writer makes a big splash on the reading scene and inevitably a line of writers will queue up to do something similar. Published two years after Alfred Bester's successful The Demolished Man, cue Frank Riley and Mark Clifton's They'd Rather Be Right (1954).

They'd Rather Be Right is the story of Joe Carter and the cybernetic brain he and two university professors create. The brain is nicknamed ”Bossy” and is capable of inferring advanced intelligence and immmortality. Naturally, Bossy becomes much sught after for it. So excited, in fact, the government shuts the Bossy project down. Just as naturally, this pushes Bossy underground where its powers can still be utilized. But while there are many people who want the powers Bossy offers, are they willing to give up what Bossy asks in return?

Review of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

A decade+ ago I was trying to catch up on everything that had been happening in speculative fiction. After years and years away, I consumed just about everything I could get my hands on. From popular books to forgotten books, well known authors to niche, I was open to anything. The internets had a lot of positive things to say about Brandon Sanderson, so I jumped into the Mistborn trilogy. I climbed out, dismayed. Colorful, engaging ideas but poor, unedited technique. Style, syntax, and execution are important. I was put off. A believer in second chances, however, I recently picked up another popular Sanderson offering to see if a few years could improve technique—to convert those nice visuals into well written story. Let's look at The Way of Kings (2016).

Putting both feet onto the road paved by George R.R. Martin in A Game of Thrones, The Way of Kings is a multi-viewpoint, multi-faction, first entry in a lengthy epic fantasy series. Set in a generic, medieval secondary world called Roshar, it tells the stories of a handful of people who call the land home. One is a female scholar with a secret mission to steal an arcane object from a renowned magician. Another is an assassin wielding magical weapons on the run but trying to find direction in life. And still another is the son of a surgeon. Now a slave, he fights oppression from the bottom up. These characters have lives separate from one another, but binding them together is a lore featuring shardblades—magical swords that cut through anything (lightsabers?), thus granting the bearer supreme status. Everybody wants one...

Cardboard Corner: Review of Star Wars: Unlimited

Poke around this blog a little and you will see a fair bit of content about expandable card games (CCGs, TCGs, LCGs, etc.). I own a dozen and have played twice that. But it was with trepidation I purchased Fantasy Flight Games' return to the TCG market: Star Wars Unlimited (2024). FFG's pedigree and the art had me interested, but looking over the rule set and seeing a couple sample games didn't give me a feeling the game had an edge—an intangible something to distinguish it from the dozen or so other TCGs being released around this time, let alone dethrone some of the great TCGs that are already out there, dead or alive. Me being a sucker for such games, however, I had to have a try.

Unlimited does not revolutionize expandable card games/CCGs. Two players bring their decks to the table: 50 cards each based around a single Star Wars hero/villain. The decks are comprised of units (characters, vehicles, droids, ships, etc.), upgrades (lightsabers, blasters, grenades, etc.), and events (one-time effects). And these cards are deployed based on a very simple resource system. All is as you would expect from a TCG, with each player's goal being to reduce their opponent's base from thirty to zero hit points. First player to do so, wins.

Review of Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson

Paul Theroux is a well known writer of both fiction and non-fiction. While I personally find his fiction more compelling than his non-fiction, undoubtedly there are readers who feel his travelogues stand taller. Having literally seen the world, he has a lot of insight to offer in his travel writing. When giving opinion about the West's stance on Africa, for example, Theroux said (I paraphrase) that Africans are capable of solving their own problems, the West's interference unnecessary. Taking this to heart in the context of American race relations is Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain (1988)*.

A work of alternate history, the Jonbar point for Fire on the Mountain is John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. The raid successful (having failed in reality), it triggers a slave rebellion and ultimately paves the way for the American South to become a free nation. Called Nova Africa and ruled by blacks, it is a free nation which participates and contributes to mankind, including space travel.

Review of Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald

Millennials catch a fair amount of guff from older generations, much of which echoes criticisms previous generations had of previous generations had of... The wheel of time spins. But one thing that Millennials (even Gen X) have minimal awareness of is living in the shadow of nuclear war. Putin's rhetoric over Ukraine has put people on alert, but it's nothing compared to live news feeds showing the destruction of Hiroshima or warheads being deployed in Cuba, pointed at the US. Capturing the anxiety and folly of this atmosphere is Mordecai Roshwald's Level 7 (1959).

Level 7 is set in an underground arcology, built as a massive nuclear bunker for half million people. It is told through the eyes of X-127, a technician whose only job is to stand in front of a panel of buttons that launch nuclear missiles, and push when directed. Living on level 7 in the arcology, he interacts with other technicians, teachers, psychologists, engineers, etc. who share the level. X-127 settles into his role quite easily, his emotional expectations minimal. And with no wars happening, his life goes smoothly. There are no buttons to be pushed. That is, until the klaxons sound.

Review of The Master of Mankind by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

“Meanwhile, back in the Emperor's throne room...”

To date I'm twenty-two novels deep in the Horus Heresy series, yet the Emperor, the character on which the series pivots, has primarily existed offstage. Like the king in chess, his early movements have been minimal. Almost all the action in the series has been through the bishops and rooks, queens and pawns. Considering the Emperor is the piece Horus is trying to topple, the metaphor is real. Castling the rook to bring the king into the field of battle, Aaron Dembski-Bowden's The Master of Mankind (2016), 41st book in the HH series, looks to raise the series' stakes and peel back the curtain on what has been happening on Earth meanwhile.

A lot has been happening. Extending directly from the events of A Thousand Sons, The Master of Mankind takes the reader into the webways between worlds and the ongoing intrusion of Chaos there. If there were a similar scene in reality, it would be that of a mother returning home with groceries, opening the front door, and discovering a raging chaos of a dozen children—swinging from the chandeliers, throwing water balloons, drawing on the walls, etc. The Master of Mankind is exactly this, just with chaos demons and chaos space marines roaring around. This is what has been happening on Earth while the events of Isstvann III and V went down and the Imperium Secundus attempted to keep the Emperor's mission alive. The novel describes precisely what the Emperor is doing in response as he is attacked from the webways.

Review of Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick

There are a few genre defining science fiction films out there, and one is The Matrix. About a man unknowingly living in a virtual world, one day he has the curtain pulled back to reveal the dark reality beyond. It is the poster child for brain-in-a-vat stories. The film is likewise candy for paranoids and conspiracy theorists everywhere. It's true man, it's true! And was there any more paranoid a writer in science fiction history than Philip K. Dick? Time Out of Joint (1956) says 'no'.

Time Out of Joint is the story of Ragle Gumm (brilliant name). Gumm makes a living in the most extraordinary way: he plays the lottery, guessing where a green alien will appear next, and does so with extraordinary success. He lives in a classic 50s American suburb and is friends with the neighbors around him. Considering his life dull and boring, however, Gumm starts exploring ways of making it interesting, starting with attempting an affair with a neighbor's wife. The attempt leads him to some interesting variations in reality—glitches in the matrix as it were. Gumm eventually notices enough of the variations to begin pushing beyond, to learn the whys. In doing so discovers why he is so successful at his job.

Review of Towing Jehovah by James Morrow

1950s science fiction featured proportionately more satire than does the current landscape—an interesting fact considering the sheer volume of sf being published today. Writers like Frederik Pohl, William Tenn, C.M. Kornbluth, Wilson Tucker, and others used speculative situations to comment on the times, often in subtly eviscerating fashion. James Morrow, for as little known as he is in 2024, was one of the few writers keeping the satire torch alight in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Towing Jehovah (1994) is not Morrow's sharpest blade, but it gets its point across in wildly imaginative fashion.

Nietzsche was right: God is dead, and at the beginning of Towing Jehovah Morrow manifests this in reality by having the elder one's massive body fall from the heavens and land in the ocean stone, cold, dead. The Vatican the first to learn of his death (natch), they dispatch one of their most ambitious priests to commission a ship to tow the corpse to a secret location where they can study and attempt to revivify it. A ship and unlikely group of mariners is pulled together, trouble is, it may end up getting in its own way more than effecting the mission.

Starcraft II - 2023 Year in Review

With IEM Katowice 2024 now in the rearview mirror—the defacto Blizzcon, we can take a look back at what made 2023 a year in Starcraft 2. We'll look briefly at the state of play, the best players, the best series, and other relevant things (balance!!).

State of Play

SC2 in 2023 should not have happened at the scale it did. But thanks to crowdfunding and unexpected injections of cash, the competitive scene declined but did not die. We lost one of the seasonal premiere non-Korean tournaments and GSL was reduced in size (number of participants). Viewership dropped overall. Up and coming RTS games Zerospace and Stormgate started to distract viewers' attentions. And there was not a rotation of talent. Perennial names remained at the top while zero new names emerged as contenders.

But the SC2 scene stayed alive. It has only half a foot in the grave. On and offline tournaments continued to be organized—most importantly at the premiere level. Some decent prize pools and one giant one were awarded (at least outside Korea). People continued to attend live events and watch online. And perhaps surprise of all surprises, the game got a balance patch.  It helped, at least a little. The community seems split on the health of the game, but one thing for sure is that, if two years ago someone would have said that in 2023-2024 things are as they are, most people would be satisfied. At least I hope so.

Review of Hotwire by Simon Ings

Making the reader feel uncomfortable is inherent to body horror fiction. The author wants you to squirm in your skin through primeval situations and visceral exposition. As a result, body horror is coconut fiction: you either like it or not, no middle ground. Simon Ings Hotwire (1995) is body horror in cyberpunk form. Let's see which side of coconut you fall on.

Hotwire is nicely edited to jump between varying scenes and circumstances, but all feeds the story of Ajay. Ajay once had a nice job working for the Haag Agency, a company which creates intelligent cities, but he is convinced to betray the Agency, and at the outset of Hotwire has been tasked with stealing a bit of exotic technology from a wetware expert named Snow who has an AI daughter named Rose. Ajay's quest for this tech anything but A-B-C, Ings takes the reader through the messy, bloody side of body augments in seeing whether or not Ajay can conclude his mission—alive.

Review of Double Star by Robert Heinlein

In 2012 the Library of America released a two volume set American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s. Naturally, I checked who had been chosen and how many I'd read. At the time it was about half, and so I set a goal to read all in order to comment on the set. Twelve years later I've finished all nine. I will save my comments on the two-volume set for a separate post, but here are my comments on the last but not least of the nine, Robert Heinlein's Double Star (1956).

Double Star is the story of a rogue actor who finds himself in a bizarre situation imitating a politician. Lorenzo Smythe is a down-on-his-luck performer who knows his skills are excellent but can't seem to find the sponsors he needs to become properly famous in the galaxy. That is, until he is approached by a small group of men who want him to pretend to be the famous Mars politician John Bonforte. Kidnapped and held hostage, Bonforte's associates do not want the show to stop, and so they are able to convince Smythe to step in for just one speech. One speech becoming a television presentation becoming a... eventually things come to a head and something must give in Smythe's double life.

Review of Angels of Caliban by Gav Thorpe

A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeill and Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett are two early Horus Heresy novels. Conceived as a pair, the novels complement one another by describing the same moments in time from two different points of view. Repeating this concept are Pharos by Guy Haley and the subject of this review, Angels of Caliban (2016).

Where Pharos is set primarily on Sotha, a perimeter planet where only bits and pieces of Ultramarines and other loyalist legions perform guard duty, Angels in Caliban is primarily set in and around Macragge, the heart of Imperium Secundus. As the Night Lords descend on Sotha to attempt to take control of the Pharos beacon, so too do they look toward Macragge—to further Horus' aims by taking out the Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels stationed there. But not all is well in loyalist land. Internal conflict festers quietly in the Dark Angels, while Sanguinius broods over Conrad Kurze's surprise attack in Pharos. Cracks appearing in Imperium Secundus, the time may be ripe for Horus to attack.

Review of Sandkings by George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin's name is synonymous with A Game of Thrones, and likely always will be. But decades before he became a cultural phenomenon, he was a middle-of-the-pack writer of science fiction and fantasy, jostling elbows with the other genre writers of the 70s and 80s for success. And he was solid, even sometimes good, at short fiction. Sandkings, a collection published in 1981, offers a good sampling of his shorter, pulpier stories.

The collection kicks off with one its lone ideologically motivated story, however. “The Way of Cross and Dragon” tells of an inquisitor sent to reprimand a heretic. Set in a vastly populated galaxy, the story offers a thinly veiled piss-take on Catholicism. There is extremely little plot meat on the bones, and lacks beautiful skin to make up for it. Moreover, the story's end point, despite its logic, could have been more artfully presented. I know other people like this story, but for me there are more sophisticated take downs of religion out there. “Bitterblooms” is about a woman who runs an ice wagon on a snowy planet overrun by vampires. Martin does his best to humanize the woman, but the pulp mode and the pulp-ish denouement leave the story without the sparkle it could have had if Martin had decided to go deeper into her character.

Article: Coddling Readers: Spengler May Be Right

I have read the four novels of the Chinese canon, which includes Outlaws of the Marsh (aka Water Margin) by Shi Nai'an. The novel is a tragi-comedy about a group of outlaws who build an underground rebellion against a corrupt government. It's my least favorite of the canon, but seeing that S.L. Huang recently wrote an alternate take called The Water Outlaws, I looked into the reviews. Wading through I encountered the following publisher disclaimer:

“Wuxia Novel so includes Violence, Torture, Cannabilsm, Sexual Assault, as well as values that may disturb the modern reader.”

Exclamation points shot up above my head. What is going on here? Since when has this type of thing existed in the adult book sphere? Why are readers being so coddled? I think I need to take a step back...

Review of The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw

As is obvious to everyone except the people who believe in the value of sff awards, popularity does not automatically equate to literature that transcends it's era. Accordingly, many if not most of the nest sff books of the past century lie outside that matrix. And it's that type of book I hope to find exploring those strange byways of literary history. I have heard a few whispers that Bob Shaw is a name virtually lost to genre history worth a read. Let's take a look at The Ragged Astronauts (1986).

Land and Overland, sister worlds separated by only a few thousand miles, are the setting of The Ragged Astronauts. Things begin on Land, a planet with no metals. Technology and industry plant-based, but the manner in which people organize themselves remains familiar. Although the first quarter of the novel takes its time settling in, it eventually does on the character Toller, a rebellious but natural reader employed in menial labor for the Philosophers, a group of people who speculate on and research the latest scientific breakthroughs. Slowly depleting itself of resources, the monarchy Toller is a reluctant part of makes some drastic decisions to fix its situation, his role in the transformation soon to be more than menial.

Review of Pharos by Guy Haley

In Act II of the Horus Heresy, a couple strong symbols emerge. One is most certainly Vulkan's immortality; his body can be killed time and time again, but he keeps coming back to life in one form or another. Another clear symbol is Pharos, the beacon of light shining in the Ruinstorm that the loyalists use to withstand Horus' attack. Guy Haley's book of the same name (2015) takes the Heresy to the beacon's location to see which direction the needle of power swings in the aftermath.

Pharos is a novel firmly in the Imperium Secundus phase of stories. With Guillaume and El'Johnson holding down the loyalists' fort in Macragge (see Angels of Caliban), bits and pieces of Ultramarines and a scattering of other legions hold the perimeter, including the alien beacon on Mount Pharos. Watching in the shadows, waiting their moment for a surprise attack, are the Night Lords. Pharos' light leading Konrad Kurze's men to the fight, the secrets of the one thing mysteriously keeping the Loyalists connected are finally revealed.

Review of Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop

Spend enough time in the world of book reviews and you regularly encounter words like 'mainstream' and 'core' and maybe even 'vanilla'. They refer to books which stick closer to commonly known devices, stereotypes, and other tropes more than experimental or unqiue ideas. Michael Bishop's wonderful novel Brittle Innings (1994) is anything but mainstream, core, or vanilla. With the American south in WWII, minor league baseball, and Frankenstein as the novel's prime ingredients, Bishop produces something fantastic in more ways than one.

Brittle Innings is a few months in the life of one Daniel Boles. His father a soldier support the war in Alaska, seventeen-year o ld Boles is living with his mother and enjoying backyard games of baseball when a recruiter shows up and pays his way to a minor league team in Georgia called the Hellbenders. The team a true motley crew of men, the new guy Boles has trouble fitting in with most, but not his roommate, the team's giant first baseman everyone calls Jumbo. Over the course of the next few months, Boles finds a place on the team and in the surrounding community. But something constantly burns beneath the surface, and when it catches fire, Boles and the whole team must bear the heat.

Review of Bridge by Lauren Beukes

W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage is cited as a classic coming-of-age novel. About a boy named Philip born with a club foot whose parents die within months of one another, the novel describes his growing up, chasing dreams, and coming to terms with his reality—not growing up, rather “growing up”. Philip's early 20th century London is different than London today, however. Technology has made a difference. There was no Facebook or Instagram to play with his teenage self-conception. There were minimal medical treatments available to help with his condition—to bring his club foot closer to “normal”. Writing a coming-of-age novel in 2023 is something entirely different. Capturing our information-saturated world in literal and figurative means with a genre twist is Lauren Beukes' Bridge (2023).

Her parents having divorced at an early age, Bridget has spent most of her life in the custody of her mother, a woman named Jo who focuses on her career more than her daughter. Bridget is an independent teen for it, and in keeping with the stereotypes of millennials, feels she understands the world backwards and forwards despite the massive struggles of her teen years. But then Jo contracts brain cancer, and dies. Pretending not to care, Bridget starts going through her mother's belongings, including the refrigerator, in which she finds something that will take her life in a new direction. In the mother of all centrifuges, Bridget's life spins into the absurd.

Review of A Stroke of the Pen by Terry Pratchett

Early in 2023 I read Rob Wilkin's fine biography of Terry Pratchett. Putting to bed any theory of a vault of unpublished Discworld stories waiting to be released posthumously, Wilkins describes how the USB containing all of Pratchett's unused story ideas was ceremoniously crushed by a steam roller upon the author's passing. But the one thing the steam roller could not destroy were short stories Pratchett published (under his own name and pseudonyms) in various newspapers as a journalist many years before he became a household name. Collecting those early seeds of Pratchett's imagination is A Stroke of the Pen (2023).

Before getting into the stories, the question hovering on many people's lips will be: is this a money grab? The answer is yes and no. The content itself is weak. When you've had Chinese food in China it's tough to like much of the Chinese food available in the West. In other words, the stories are not on par with the Disc. That being said, it's clear Rob Wilkins, Neil Gaiman, and the other people who worked to pull this collection together did so out of love and a desire to give Pratchett fans something new, something unique—that last little unknown scrap of goodness that exists in the world. A Stroke of the Pen, regardless what else it is, is that.

Review of Communications Breakdown ed. by Jonathan Strahan

Jonathan Strahan is one of the few, old-school sf&f editors still kicking. Commissioned anthologies are not the pillar of genre they used to be.  But Strahan, by staying on top of the political zeitgeist, keeps his work relevant.  And it's for this that, despite my misgivings of his politics, that I regularly check in. His 2023 finger-on-the-pulse anthology is Communications Breakdown.

Communications Breakdown opens with a typical Strahan introduction: a high-falutin' raison d'etre for the title and theme. I say high-falutin' as, Strahan rarely sticks to theme—which is a good thing. But why then the waffling? Regardless, it sets in place the theme of: “when the future doesn't quite make it to your door”. A recipe for victim narratives? Let's see.

Review of Deathfire by Nick Kyme

Iron Maiden song? Latest exhaust system for customized cars? Magic the Gathering card? No! Deathfire by Nick Kyme (2015) is the thirty-second book in the Horus Heresy series!

Deathfire picks up events from the Salamanders' point of view upon the conclusion of The Unremembered Empire. Vulkan's body, with the fulgerite spear still protruding from his chest, lies in a coffin. The dozens of Salamander Astartes who remain alive after the massacre on Isstvan V elect to brave the ruinstorm and return Vulkan's body to Nocturne, to cremate his body in the fires of that volcanic planet. That is, if the war—and Chaos—will allow them.

Console Corner: Review of Nioh

I am of the Nintendo generation. Three lives, and game over. Die at the final boss with your last life? Too bad. Game over. Start again. It's nothing like today's generation of games. The Uncharted series, for example, is positively soft compared to games like Super Mario Bros., let alone Ninja Gaiden, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, or Battletoads, which, in the context of today's games are more akin to Guitar Hero (i.e. the precise sequencing of buttons for an extended period of time) rather than loose “action adventure”, as is the case with so many more modern games—Uncharted, God of War, Assassin's Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc. And then there is Nioh (2016), a fantastic PS4 game in which I relearned what “difficult” video game means.

In some ways, Nioh is the natural evolution of Ninja Gaiden. The player takes on the role of a samurai in feudal Japan and must battle all manner of humans and monsters toward uncovering a plot to takeover the island nation. Extremely nuanced, the game offers a true rpg level of character customization. From weapons to ninjutsu, armor to intangibles, elemental effects to spirit guides, the game offers a phenomenal amount of character customization for such a simple concept of fighting baddies.

Review of Wish I Was Here by M. John Harrison

M. John Harrison has always been an author apart. Sure, he has books which seem straightforward, but closer examination reveals not everything is as it seems. His Viriconium sequence begins on what one might describe as core genre, but three books later, via impressionism and cubism, the reader has arrived at something abstract—fiction anything but genre. Harrison's 2023 (anti-)memoir Wish I Was Here is a look back at his life, muse, the writing “process”, and left-field observations. It may just be the culmination of everything Harrison.

As the title indicates, Harrison sees himself at a distance. Wish I Was Here manifests itself in both life and fiction. He writes openly of “The fight not to be a writer.", as well as strong desire to exist outside the norm.

“I hate concepts. Having a concept isn’t having something to write: having something to write about is having something to write. Never favour plot. Story is fine, but plot is like chemical farming. Closure is wrong. It is toxic. Work into a genre if you like, but from as far outside it as possible. Read as much about Hollywood formalism as you can bear, so you know what not to do.”

Review of The Unremembered Empire by Dan Abnett

Dan Abnett is proving to be my favorite flavor of Horus Heresy authors. He has more subtlety to his style than most of the others writing in the universe, best sets a scene, and perhaps most importantly, deviates furthest from the formula of what HH novels can be. Prospero Burns, Legion, Know No Fear—these are definitively singular books in the series. Which had me asking: what will he do with the continuation of the Ultramarines fight in The Unremembered Empire (2013)?

The Unremembered Empire is a critical juncture in the overarching HH storyline. Conflating a couple key sub-plots, it's unmissable for those sticking to the spine of the series. The story begins on Macragge, Robout Guillaume's Ultramarine powerhouse planetary system—the powerhouse system now that Calth has fallen to the surprise attack of the Word Bearers in Know No Fear. A massive fleet arrives at the doorstep of Macragge, that of Lion El'Johnson and his Dark Angels. Guillaume welcomes their presence, that is, until a couple of surprises occur that set all the balls in the Horus Heresy pinball machine bouncing around, triggering lights and bells that call for major decisions.