Review of Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

I am among the group of people who believe that what is commonly referred to as the Silver Age of science fiction is in fact the Golden Age. What was being published in the 20s-40s is better described as the Pulp era. But I get it. The color nicely complements the image of a sleek, finned space ship pointed skyward, bringing mankind to the frontiers of the unknown, there to continue doing what mankind does best: explore, discover, conquer, and be clever—the optimists' view. Encapsulating that image wonderfully is Hal Clement's innocent Mission of Gravity (1954).

One of the original hard sf texts, Mission of Gravity is set on an oddly shaped planet where gravity is 3x Earth-standard at the equator and 700x at the poles. Populated by a centipede-esque alien race (better to maintain grip on the surface, natch), the novel opens with a human scientist, named Lackland, in need of help from them. A science probe lost deep in the ultra-gravity zone, Lackland embarks on a journey with one of the centipedes, named Barlennan, to retrieve it. Adventure, as they say, ensues.

Cardboard Corner: Review of "Guardians of the Galaxy" expansion for Marvel Champions

Marvel Champions is a fast-paced, combo-tastic, cooperative card game. Every turn is a burst of two, three, four or more moves that reward creative play. While distinctly lacking in narrative (odd for a game based on a comic book enterprise), FFG has done its best to inject what little story it can into the model by releasing campaign boxes. Following in the footsteps of the first campaign box “The Rise of Red Skull” is the second, “The Galaxy's Most Wanted” (2021). Let's see if it evolves the game in positive fashion—as expandable card games should.

The five scenarios and two heroes contained in “The Galaxy's Most Wanted” are centered around the Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the many subsets of the Marvel universe. In timeless fashion, our heroes are just minding their own business when the Brotherhood of Badoon starts to unveil its nefarious plans. Our plucky heroes springing into action to stop them, the galaxy needs protecting. Yeah, quite generic...

Review of Fulgrim by Graham McNeill

I consulted a handful of informed opinions online in looking to go deeper into the Horus Heresy series. All universally defined the first five books as foundational. Decisions on individual novels could be made after, but the first five were necessary. So I pushed ahead. Having now read the first three novels, they indeed contain critical story points. But only 50-60% of The Flight of the Eisenstein, the fourth novel, pushed the core story, leaving me a little skeptical going into the fifth, Fulgrim by Graham McNeill (2007). Are the internets to be trusted?

As the title suggests, Fulgrim focuses on the eponymous primarch. A golden child, Fulgrim leads the Emperor's Children with beauty and power. A perfectionist, he looks to compete for glory with the other Astartes legions by secretly enhancing the geneseed of his space marines. But things take a turn when, leading space marines into battle on a non-compliant planet, Fulgrim discovers an ancient weapon. Too beautiful to throw away, he adds it to his arsenal, and in doing so unwittingly charts a new course for himself into the future.

Cardboard Corner: Review of Sleeping Queens

My son learned basic arithmetic not at school, but playing Karak. He needed to add the results of two six-sided dice to ascertain whether he'd defeated the monsters that pop up in the dungeons. Math was the way victory. That was two years ago, and now our daughter, age six, is also learning basic math. Monsters in dungeons are not really her thing, though. Queens, kings, wands, and potions fit much better. Enter our family's newest tutor, Sleeping Queens (2005).

Sleeping Queens is a card collection card game for 2-5 players. Twelve sleeping queens lie in the table face down. Each has a points value, somewhere between five and twenty. The first player to collect queens worth a total 50 points or five queens in total, wins. The question then is: how to get queens?!?!

Review of Glassing the Orgachine by David Marusek

And the winner of the award for most esoteric science fiction book title of all time goes to... Sorry, envelope's gummed up... Glassing the Orgachine (2019) by David Marusek! <cue orchestra> <David bows to the crows and walks toward the stage> This is David's first award in this category. He was nominated in … But really, what could a reader possibly think seeing those three words together? Google search singularity, hello!! Even readers of the first book in the Upon This Rock trilogy, First Contact, won't know what to make of it.

Which seems fitting. First Contact was, if anything, a singular science fiction setup. Wilds of Alaska, hardcore Christian prepper family, tough park ranger, mysterious object landing from space—those are four ingredients which make a stew the likes of which sf readers have yet to taste. Glassing the Orgachine serves a steaming portion.

Console Corner: Review of Little Nightmares II

There is a sub-niche of puzzle games that I call side-scrolling death dealers. Limbo, Inside, The Swapper, Never Alone, Black the Fall, and others feature a spritely main character who marches sideways across the screen, encountering seemingly impassable situations, and dies repeatedly until the player makes the situations passable. Little Nightmares is one such game. A success, developers decided to dip their toes in the water again, and in 2021 came up with Little Nightmares II.

Little Nightmares II is in almost every way more of the same. Developers changed the motif from quasi-Oriental to small town America, but the game's mechanisms, design, and gameplay loop are the same. For those who wanted more, II delivers precisely that. In fact, you can could read my review for the original Little Nightmares and be well informed about II. Art, mood, and length remain strengths.

Critique: Witcher Witcher Witcher: Third Time Not a Charm

There are a lot of words being bandied about the internets regarding the Witcher series on Netflix, particularly in the wake of Season 3. A lot of the feedback negative, it got my brain gears turning. What follows is an opening of the flood gates where the show deserves criticism, and a curbing of the flow where it should be defended. Things are not black and white.

To get the obvious things out of the way, it is the right of the The Witcher's showrunners to interpret the source material as they see fit. It's just as obvious, however, that audience perception is what determines the show's success. For better or worse, that is the model we in the the West live in, and what Netflix uses in determining the funding of future projects. Season 1 was a huge hit. The showrunners did their job. Additional seasons were funded. Season 2 slipped in terms of commercial success, but another season had already been budgeted and was underway. We are now post-Season 3, and the people have spoken. It's a low point. Season 4 is not confirmed.

Over the three seasons of The Witcher, cinematography has been consistent, personnel consistent, budget consistent, special effects consistent, and the story generally consistent with the novels. So why the downturn in success?

Review of The Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow

The events on Isstvan III shook the human-known universe; Horus pulled back the covers, revealing his grand revolt against the Emperor. The Astartes' legions forced to choose sides, their conception of the world is now in tatters. Offering an alternate viewpoint to events on Isstvan III is James Swallow's 2007 The Flight of the Eisenstein.

Flight opens on a lengthy space marine battle against xenos, lead by Captain Nathaniel Garros. After dealing with the xenos, Garros is called to Isstvan III to help Horus battle a world ostensibly rebelling against the Emperor. Garros is tasked with bombing the planet, but when he discovers what the bombs are, he is forced to choose sides, and choose quickly, nothing certain as the planet burns.

Review of When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Sola

It is, of course, well established that story is one of the tip-top most complex forms of human expression. (19th century philosophical texts might take the blue ribbon.) Not only is there immense variety of purpose, there is likewise large variety of style. And it is distinct from poetry. Poetry is not required to have an arc—a transpiration of events toward a conclusion. What then, when you combine poetic style with narrative arc? Enter When I Sing, Mountains Dance (2023) by Irene Sola.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance floats above the Pyrenees, shining a light on the various members of a Catalan family, as well as the flora and fauna who likewise call the mountains home. The sunbeams casting forward and backward, Sola skips around in time. The narrative is anything but linear as it tells of relationships made, children birthed, mushrooms formed, roe deer leaving the nest, teenage romances, and many other inflection points of existence—mostly human, but plant and animal, too. I hope I'm not cutting too close to the bone, but it is more garden of story than story.

Review of The Bad Angel Brothers by Paul Theroux

I've heard it said that there are only two kinds of fathers: those who build quality relationships with their sons, and the opposite, fathers and sons who end up at a distance from one another. I've observed the same of brothers: they seem to either compete their entire lives or are best friends, little middle ground. Looking at the latter in often humane, sometimes sensational fashion is Paul Theroux's The Bad Angel Brothers (2022).

The Bad Angel Brothers is the slopping-waves-on-the-ocean story of Frank and Cal Bellanger. Born into a small Massachusetts town, Cal eventually heads off into the wide world to make his fortune as a miner and geology expert, whereas Frank stays close to home building a successful law office that has fingers in pies all over town. At odds since birth, the pair subtly antagonize one another in ever subtler ways as they grow older, leading to an event that changes both their lives forever.

Console Corner: Far: Changing Tides

In Polish, the word oko means “eye”. It's thus when I see the name Okomotive that I automatically think “eye motion”. And indeed that is what Far: Lone Sails, the company's first game, is. Players spend the majority of their time driving a steampunk(ish) rig across a dilapidated environment—pushing buttons, pulling levers, and releasing valves to keep the rig moving forward, occasionally solving an environmental puzzle. Doubling down on the idea, Okomotive released Far: Changing Tides in 2022. The eye motion chugs on.

Switching from land to sea, Far: Changing Tides sees one player take on the role of piloting a steampunk(ish) vehicle, in this case a sailboat cum mechanical paddle boat cum steam turbine. Requiring love and care, players raise the sails and feed the vehicle fuel propelling it through a watery, anthropocenic, post-global warming world. Environmental puzzles once again impede the player's left to right progress on the screen. But the rewards of speed and sitting back to watch the world go by, remain.

Review of Things Get Ugly: The Best Crime Stories of Joe R. Lansdale

Joe Lansdale is a capable writer in most genres. Western, mystery, gothic, fantasy, science fiction, horror—the author's oeuvre covers a wide spectrum. And lengths also; he has written flash fiction to novels.  Bringing together a selection of nineteen short stories located around the theme of crime is Things Get Ugly (2023, Tachyon).

And ugly indeed. Sadists, malcontents, deviants, and degenerates populate the stories.  Only occasionally do sunbeams of light push back the evil. It's crime, more often than not from the criminal's perspective. A couple are stomach churning, but most are visceral entertainment to be consumed like candy.