"Somewhere in the heavens...they are waiting."

My Saturdays tend to fall into a pattern: my lovely wife Karli and I enjoy a leisurely morning together, including breakfast in bed, then she often goes shopping or to a movie with her sister Stefanie while I stay at home, do laundry, and play games on the computer.

Today, when I logged into Steam™ to continue my Fallout 4 replay, I was happily surprised to see that Marathon, Bungie’s classic 1994 Macintosh first-person shooter, had been added to the site as a free download - an opportunity which I instantly took advantage of.

First in the eventual Marathon trilogy, Bungie's 8-bit masterpiece holds a special place in the hearts of old-school Apple fans. Developed solely for the Macintosh platform, Marathon provided Mac users with their own version of Doom - and, as with Doom and Doom II, Bungie followed up on their success with Marathon 2: Durandal, and Marathon Infinity, continuing the elaborate storyline established in Marathon.

When I launched Marathon, I was surprised by how much I remembered, considering that this was a game I hadn't played for over 25 years.  Full credit goes to the developers, who created a distinctive environment with dynamic lighting, unique sound effects*, and (for the time) elaborate graphics.  I even had some recollection of the maze-based maps that helped to make the game a challenge.

Bungie might have been a minor entry in the early history of games development were it not for their better-known sequel to the Marathon games: Halo, which became Microsoft’s award-winning flagship game for the Xbox debut in 2001.

Apparently there's an updated version of Marathon being planned, which, sadly, will be a team-based extraction shooter** rather than a first-person game.  Personally, I'd love to just see the original Marathon given the Halo treatment - why mess with success?

- Sid

* The first time I shot one of the alien Pfhor, I laughed a bit - I hadn't heard that combination of sound effects for such a long time.

** In an extraction shooter, your team must successfully make its way to an extraction point without dying in order to keep whatever loot you've collected from either the map or the opposing team. 

You know, the other kind of gaming bugs.

If I have one complaint about the otherwise stellar Fallout series, it's the lack of monsters. I've spent a lot of time in the Wasteland, and it's a LOT more dangerous than it's portrayed in the show.   We only see two monsters - one yao guai mutant bear, and one gulper, and gulpers aren't even from the original game, they're from the Far Habor expansion pack 

Seriously, where are the Deathclaws, the most iconic danger of the Wasteland?  Or the mirelurks? Why didn't we see a single radscorpion?  Bloatflies, bloodbugs, stingwings - even a mutated mole rat or two would have provided some welcome representation from the regular cast of hazards.  

Season Two will apparently take us to the Mojave Desert, and damn it, I'd like to see some fire ants.  But, I'm willing to be reasonable, they can just leave the cazadors out of the show, or else Lucy and the Ghoul going to need some serious plot armor to survive more than an episode or two.

- Sid

"I don't want to set the world on fire..."

According to the Steam™ game management system, I've spent 1,405.4* hours in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout 4, not to mention extensive untracked time in Fallout 4, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas before switching to Steam™**.  (Sadly, my Fallout 76 online experience has not led me to a return visit.)  

As such, it's safe to say that I'm more than a little familiar with the alternative future of the franchise, which fully prepared me to bring a critical eye to the new Fallout series which made its streaming debut on Amazon Prime Video this week.  To my intense relief, the adaptation is excellent, using all the building blocks from the source material to combine drama, humour, action and violence into a clever, gripping storyline.

For readers unfamiliar with Fallout, it takes place in an alternative version of the United States which diverged from our timeline somewhere in the 1950s. Atomic energy has become a commonplace power source, to the point that even cars are powered by small atomic reactor units.

In 2066, China invades Alaska in order to seize its oil reserves, and eventually the conflict escalates into a merciless exchange of thermonuclear weaponry that destroys the world in 2077, leaving behind a legacy of death, chaos, and conflict. The series is set in 2296, just over 200 years after the disaster.

The opening scene in the first episode is a disturbingly realistic introduction to the end of the world, as mushroom cloud after mushroom cloud rise over the future Los Angeles, after which we are taken to the post-war paradise of Vault 33, one of the underground Vaults created by the Vault-Tec Company to preserve a chosen few survivors whose descendants will eventually emerge to rebuild civilization.  

The writers have chosen to focus on characters from three areas of the Fallout world: Ella Purnell plays Lucy Maclean, who has left her secure home in Vault 33 in search of her kidnapped father; veteran character actor Walton Goggins is the Ghoul, a victim of severe radiation poisoning which has left him a damaged and distorted parody of humanity but granted him near-immortality; and Aaron Moten takes the part of Maximus, an aspirant in the Brotherhood of Steel, a paramilitary organization dedicated to restoring civilization by any means necessary.

As in the game, Fallout uses the naive character of Lucy the Vault Dweller, and her quest for her missing father, to introduce us to the post-war Wasteland and its various perils, monsters, inhabitants and communities. The show does a superb job of evoking the look and feel of the game, and is loaded with background Easter egg references: Vault Boy bobbleheads, laser rifles, two-headed mutated Brahmin cattle, raiders, cannibals, and feral ghouls - not to mention the beloved Dogmeat the dog, a stalwart companion for any quest. 

As with the games, the series has stories within stories, plots within plots, and mysteries within mysteries.  The quest-driven nature of the computer versions translates well to the narrative format, combining a larger overall storyline with smaller sidebar interludes.  The episodes alternate between the post-war plot and a pre-war storyline about Vault-Tec, in which Goggins portrays Hollywood cowboy Cooper Howard before his transformation into a mutated monster.

The writers make full use of the same oddball humour that characterizes the game dialogue - and the same level of violence, perhaps more than expected by some viewers. To be fair, the source material is a first-person shooter computer game, but even so, it's a bit more graphic than the standard television fare in terms of gore.

Based on the final episode, Season Two will take its cast of characters to New Vegas, a logical step from the Los Angeles setting of the first season which will allow the writers to integrate material from Fallout: New Vegas, which is generally considered to be the best of the Fallout game franchise. 

And, finally, the season ends on an appropriate note with Walton Goggins uttering the franchise's iconic motto: 

"War.  War never changes."

Let's hope that's true, at least in terms of future episodes.

- Sid 

* To give some perspective to this, if playing Fallout 4 was my job and I worked seven hour days (with an hour for lunch), five days a week, I've spent about seven months living in the Wasteland.

** I actually started all three back in the days of installing from physical media.  (Oh, sorry - for the younger readers in the audience, games used to be sold on discs - originally floppies, later CDs, finally DVDs - all of which involved switching out disc after disc as prompted by the installer, and then requiring that the first disk to be in a drive for the game to run.)

"WARNING: Choking Hazard. Small parts, not for children under 3 years."

The pandemic isn’t really over, but now that it’s become more of an ongoing state of affairs rather than an emergency, I’m enjoying the opportunity to cautiously resume attendance at public events like the Capital City convention that we visited in Victoria or the historical fantasy discussion at the Vancouver Writers Fest.

Earlier in the week, my sister-in-law Stefanie kindly and considerately forwarded an ad for the Vancouver Comic and Toy Show for my consideration.  It's fortuitous timing:  my wife has a social event to attend that will occupy most of her day, leaving me at liberty to do a little comic and toy shopping, so here I am, standing in line at the PNE Forum at 11:00 AM on a seasonally cool and cloudy Saturday morning.  I don't really need to buy anything - to be honest, I feel that my recent Disneyland purchases have fulfilled my toy quota for 2022 - but I'm curious to see what the show has to offer.  I'm also a bit curious as to whether or not it would be a suitable venue for a future sale of the greater part of my book collection.

As a minor sidebar, I save about 10 or 15% off the ticket price by paying fifteen dollars cash as a walk-in.  The ticket's not actually cheaper that the online option, it's just that there are no fees associated with paying at the door, whereas the web site had a couple of mystery charges attached.  It's a shame it's not the other way round, I would have been happy to see that extra money go to the cheerful volunteer who stamps my wrist and wishes me a enjoyable visit to the show, but life is rarely that fair.

The Vancouver Comic and Toy Show is exactly what it says it is: comics and toys. There are a few outliers on display: a handful of t-shirts, one table of trading cards, a lunch box dealer, and some books, but really, people are here to buy comics and toys, and they're serious about it.  (It's also immediately obvious that this isn't the venue I want for selling my books.)

The crowd ranges from hard core collectors down to hopeful children with their parents, although a lot of the merchandise might appeal more to dad than junior in terms of when it originally hit the market.  The choice of dad over mom in that description is deliberate, it's very much a male crowd - not entirely, but female shoppers are definitely in the minority. There's a smattering of costumes, but only a few, again, it's not that kind of a show.

The dealers are equally serious.  There are a lot of professional retailers such as Langley-based Toy Traders, who have an extended multi-stall footprint, ranging down through smaller sellers to an individual with crossed arms and a grim poker face seated at an unlabeled table covered with with about 20 bagged comics. 

There's a certain freedom in attending a show like this without a mandate, it's like wandering around a grocery store when you don't need any food.  As such, I'm able to survey the booths without being captured by their contents, I don't need to stop and obsessively sort through a collection of Hot Wheels cars in hopes of finding the rare 1969 pink Volkswagen Beach Bomb for sale, complete with original surf boards.

If I had to choose one franchise that dominates the show, it would have to be Star Wars, both in terms of current products and various vintage toys from throughout the nearly 40 years of the franchise's existence.  But really, the broad range of toys from all eras that are laid out on the tables demonstrates that fame can be fleeting: yesterday's prized plaything quickly becomes today's abandoned interest - and tomorrow's collectable. 

The toys on display are broken down into little clusters of pop culture: Transformers, Star Wars, Star Trek, The World Wrestling Federation, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, The Simpsons, Hot Wheels, and so on. There's even a display of the classic 12 inch GI Joe dolls from the 1960s, which probably don't even have prices on them:  as the saying goes, if you need to ask, you can't afford them.  Or, perhaps more accurately in the collecting environment, if you want them, you don't care how much they cost.  And there are countless Funko Pop! figures for sale - as their website says, everyone's a fan of something, and the range of choices on display reflects that fact.

It probably shouldn't be a surprise, but a lot of the toys for sale are loose or in plastic baggies rather than in any kind of of original packaging, let alone MOC or MIP (Mint On Card or Mint In Package).  I suppose this speaks favourably to the number of toys that children actually take out of the box to play with.  

There are any kinds of one-offs to balance out the mass market selections:  what appears to be a fully functional Pip-Boy from the Fallout gaming franchise; some quite expensive robots from 1970s Japanese animated series; an equally expensive Elvira statuette; what I think is a Mega Man arm cannon; Gumby and Pokey together in their original packages;  a small herd of Furbys; and a lonely copy of Beatrix Potter's Rabbit Nutkin, that I can't help but feel has just wandered into the wrong neighbourhood by accident. 

I'm a bit saddened to see that there are bins of comic books on sale for a dollar, it's a telling comment on the uncertain nature of the comic book collecting marketplace.  It's a bit tempting to take a look, I suspect that everything in those boxes is selling well below cover price, but fortunately my subscriptions to Marvel Unlimited and DC Infinite eliminate any need for physical copies.  And really, there's no need to add to my current burden of storage challenges if I can help it. 

In spite of the abundance of options, there actually isn't very much on display that speaks to me.  I stop briefly to look at a half dozen or so ranked Macross Valkyrie VF-1 Veritech fighters from the 1985 Robotech animated series, but they look a bit the worse for wear, they don't seem to have their gun pods, and as such I don't really need to spend $80 on one of them. 

I do find one table that catches my eye: it's a selection of art books and comic portfolios, with a massive limited edition copy of The Incal, a graphic novel series written by famed filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by French fantasy artist Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius.  However, my interest is quickly extinguished by the $995 price tag, that's quite a long way over my budget for this sort of purchase.

Just over an hour into the show, and the relatively narrow aisles between booths are virtually impassable.  At this point, I decide that I'm done and make my escape, without having made a single purchase. It's partially because I still haven't seen a lot of toys that match my specific range of interests - apparently I mine a narrow vein of fandom, in my own way* - but the real reason is that I'm just overwhelmed by the massive range of choices.  

Even so, I’m actually a bit pleased with myself for leaving empty handed.  Even if you put yourself on a diet, it’s not easy to go into a candy factory and come out without a single chocolate bar.

- Sid

* Admittedly, it's impossible to make a complete survey of what's for sale, but in my casual walk through of the show I don't see a single toy from my own little collection on display, although my Pop! Tron was probably in there someplace.
 

01.04.2277

This year, WestJet chose April 1st to proudly announce WestJetX, its new affordable orbital passenger service, on Twitter™:  "Taking payloads without making you pay loads."

It's quite elaborate and fairly clever, featuring videos and stills with quite high production values featuring space planes, floating pretzels, and a convincing looking spacesuit, along with some well-written copy regarding pressurized cabins ("for breathability and comfort") and the option of one-way tickets to "cut the cost of spaceflight in half".  

However, I can't quite give it full points as an April Fools event, because it ultimately just becomes a commercial for WestJet, albeit a somewhat tongue-in-cheek one.

By comparison, Ian McCollum's video review of Fallout 3 weaponry has that perfect combination of absolute seriousness and complete randomness that makes for a good April Fools gag.

McCollum, aka "Gun Jesus", is a gun collector, researcher, author, and the genial host of Forgotten Weapons, a YouTube™ channel where he knowledgeably discusses rare and unusual firearms as well as historically significant weapons.  This odd niche has been ridiculously successful, accumulating almost 2.5 millions followers on YouTube.

For April 1st, Forgotten Weapons took its usual detailed look at the Type 93 Chinese Assault Rifle, familiar to anyone who served in the campaign against the Chinese invasion of Alaska and Operation Anchorage, which freed Alaska's capital from Chinese occupation.

I'm just a little disappointed that he didn't feature something more exotic like the Fallout 4 plasma pistol or the M42 "Fat Man" mini-nuke catapult launcher, but I can see how choosing the Type 93, which is in the style of a conventional automatic weapon, makes it less obvious that it's a joke. The casual viewer might not notice at all, although the additional of radiation signage in the background is probably a strong hint. 

I have to give Mr. McCollum full points for earnestly delivering the same degree of scholarly historical detail and in-depth analysis for the Type 93 that he provides for any of the weaponry that he profiles on his channel.  He glibly explains how the Type 93 probably first sees production during the mid 2020s, looks at modifications for enhanced hand to hand combat due to reduced ammunition availability during the Resource Wars of the 2050s, 60s, and 70s that precede the global thermonuclear exchange between the US and the PRC, and even discusses the different versions of the Type 93 that are chambered for 7.62x39mm, for domestic Chinese use, and the 5.56 version covertly smuggled into the United States as part of the planned Chinese infiltration of the Washington DC area.*

The most surprising part of the video is that the sample weapon appears to be a fully functional rifle (supplied to Ian by Elder Alex of the Brotherhood of Steel) to the point that Ian is able to break the weapon down and apparently try it out on the shooting range.  Wow - now I REALLY want to see him do a feature on the mini-nuke launcher.

- Sid

* And the resulting need to modify the original curved magazine to accommodate the straight-walled 5.56 cartridge as opposed to the tapered 7.62 - it really is impressively detailed.

OK Boomer.

I recently installed Fallout: New Vegas on the PC that I use for older games after realizing that, given its October 2010 release date, it qualifies as an older game now - how time flies. The game's age was driven home sharply when I began the Things That Go Boom quest, which involves dealing with a xenophobic conservative tribal group located at Nellis Air Force Base and armed with heavy artillery:  the Boomers, a phrase which has acquired unexpected meaning since the game's debut.

The accidental joke is that, in the context of the game, the Boomers are sort of, well, Boomers: their lives are based on an obsolete and outdated standard, they're gun nuts, and some of them haven't left their insular enclave for over 50 years.

- Sid

The Outer Worlds.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, my wife Karli purchased The Outer Worlds as one of my birthday gifts this year.  The download and installation process are complete - thank heaven we upgraded our internet access when we moved - and I've started in on the game.

Created by Obsidian Games and marketed by Epic Games, The Outer Worlds is a story-driven role playing game/first person shooter, although so far, it looks like more problems will be solved through negotiation than gunfire. (I admit to biasing my stats toward persuasion in the character setup.  This is not my first rodeo, and experience says that there's always someone with more firepower - not a bad thing if you can talk them out of using it.)

The game begins in an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek tone: after being rescued by rogue scientist Phineas Welles from an accidentally extended suspended animation on the Hope, an abandoned colony ship, you're deposited into a landing pod and dispatched to the surface of Terra 2 to meet with Captain Alex Hawthorne, a  smuggler who will help you to find the chemical resources required to rescue the other frozen colonists.  Hawthorne is a "dashing gunslinger, one of a kind ship, that sort of thing.  You'll like him, I'm sure," Welles announces confidently.

Which might well have been the case had the landing pod not crushed the good captain on impact, rather like Dorothy's initial meeting with the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.  It seems that Hawthorne set up the homing beacon and waited beside it rather than moving to a safe distance from the landing site.  As Welles observes, "Shame about the whole 'squashing' thing, nasty way to go."

You then fight your way through some random marauders to Hawthorne's now captainless ship, the Unreliable, which immediately threatens to blow its airlocks and expose you to the fatal vacuum of space. Fortunately, ADA, the ship's AI, is bluffing with no cards - the ship is sitting on solid ground in a field full of rocks on the surface of a planet.

 
After establishing an understanding with ADA, you discover that she's stranded without a power converter for her engines. You leave the Unreliable in hopes of finding one, and members of the local constabulary direct you to Edgewater, the nearest population centre - such as it is.

Edgewater is a classic company town, where everything is part of the Spacer's Choice brand and the contracted workers don't even own their gravesites - they only rent them. The player is immediately thrust into a conflict between Reed Tobson, the town's bowler-hatted manager, and a group of workers who have broken away from the community under the leadership of Adelaide McDevitt.

The stakes are high: both sides have power converters that would restore the Unreliable to flight, but regardless of whether you support Tobson or the rebels, someone ends up starving in the dark.

This introductory plotline illustrates the manner in which the player's moral compass, rather than their quick draw, directs the flow of the game. Nothing is black and white, and both sides argue their case.

The initial portion of the game feels like a bit of a sandbox, in that it's clearly letting me get comfortable with the interface before sending me into the main storyline.  After all, I've got a spaceship - once I solve the question of Tobson versus Adelaide, the rest of the Halcyon System awaits! 

The look of the game is distinctive in terms of both the alien landscape and the vaguely 50’s pulp aesthetic of the ships, buildings and interiors, mixed with the early 20th century industrial feeling of Edgewater – factory town meets Astounding SF magazine cover, if you will.   

I’m enjoying The Outer Worlds so far, although it doesn’t break any new ground in terms of the action/adventure open-world model as established by games like the Fallout franchise: main quests, side quests, dialogue choices that dictate the direction of the story, picking up items for sale or use, buying better equipment, adding companions with different skills, gaining points to level up and improve attributes and abilities, and so on.

But those are just the standard tools from the gaming toolbox.  As with any good narrative, the game's real strength lies in the plot and the character interactions that move it forward, and so far I'm quite pleased with the manner in which The Outer Worlds is telling its tale. Given the number of games where you shoot first and ask questions later, it's a pleasant change to do things in the opposite order.

- Sid

"Fresh from the warp core!"

It’s strange to be having my birthday at home this year without any kind of travel planned in the immediate future.  As previous birthday posts indicate, I often celebrate my birthdays in other countries, or take a major trip shortly thereafter (depending on the circumstances and the flexibility of Karli's workplace) but as you would expect, circumstances have grounded us this year. 

Regardless, it's been a good day.  We had a socially distanced lunch at Harvey's (a favourite since my Ryerson college days, sadly the last outlet in the Lower Mainland is shutting down next month) and barbecue ribs for dinner in memory of my last birthday in New York.

On the gift front, my friend Colin weighed in this year with a great selection of vintage Star Trek collectibles (perhaps inspired by my Star Trek convention program purchases during my last visit to Toronto): movie memorabilia, which included promotional one sheets and programs for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV, and a membership kit for Star Trek: The Next Generation, complete with cast photo* and sew-on patch.  (There’s a membership card as well, but without a Membership Number, I don’t feel that I can legitimately make use of it.)

Thank you for the additions to my little collection, Colin!

In addition to continuing the Star Trek theme with a tin of Pink Peppermint Dilithium Crystals, Karli added to my gaming library by funding the purchase of The Outer Worlds, a plot-driven single-person science fiction RPG game from Obsidian Entertainment, the developers of Fallout: New Vegas. The Outer Worlds was originally released by Epic Games in October of 2019, but I’ve been waiting for it to arrive on the Steam™ gaming platform before making a purchase. 

However, the Steam release has been delayed (for whatever reason), and the game was conveniently on sale at half price from Epic during the week of my birthday, which just seemed too fortuitous to pass up. 

The game has a sort of retro-futuristic 1950s art direction, and relies on a reputation-based system similar to the one from New Vegas, where the player’s actions result in better or worse relations with the local factions. I’m looking forward to playing it - it appears to be somewhat less of an open world than Fallout, but reviews indicate that the storyline has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.  

Thank you very much, Karli, and thanks to everyone for their best wishes!  Let's hope for next year in England!

- Sid

*Wil Wheaton looks so painfully young, doesn't he?

"You faded into the Long Dark."

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”  

― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

In spite of preparing to move to a new apartment last month, I managed to find time to complete the Winter's Embrace gaming challenge in The Long Dark by surviving for 25 days, but couldn't dedicate the time to earn the achievement badge for eating 25 bags of Ketchup Chips and 25 bottles of Maple Syrup before the time ran out.

Since then, I've taken the occasional break from unpacking to try playing The Long Dark at the aptly named Interloper level, the most challenging option in terms of game play: the player starts with a minimal set of resources, and must craft almost all the essential tools for continued survival instead of salvaging them from the wreckage of civilization, with the environment becoming progressively more hostile as time goes on.

To illustrate the relative level of difficulty, until now I've only played at the second level, the Voyageur setting.  As a Voyageur, my longest run in the game has been close to 180 days. At the Interloper setting, I have yet to survive longer than eight days, and there have been lots of attempts where I haven't even made it through the first day without dying.

It's not an accident that all the locations on Great Bear Island where you can forge knives, hatchets and arrowheads are exposed to the elements to a greater or lesser extent, which has made the simple task of equipping myself for survival a fatal one in all of the attempts to date  - when I've managed to get that far, that is.

Karli asked me how much longer this would continue to be fun, and I can see her point: part of the enjoyment of gaming is in overcoming the challenges offered by the game, and if that challenge is insurmountable, why bother? There are a couple of games in my past that I abandoned because of exactly that problem: for example, I never did manage to defeat General Deathshead in the final boss fight of Wolfenstein: The New Order, and I finally got tired of trying.  However, I haven't reached that point yet as an Interloper.

In fact, I'd actually like to see the Fallout series introduce a similarly grueling option. The Survival setting in Fallout 4 is initially demanding, but after the player levels up a few times, it becomes easier and easier to stay alive, and ultimately ends up being very similar to the standard gameplay, whereas the Interloper option in The Long Dark is unrelenting in its assault, requiring constant planning, ingenuity and determination on the part of the player as weather conditions become worse and worse, and resources more and more rare.

Eating ketchup chips was a lot easier.

- Sid

UPDATE: After 30 attempts, I managed to stay on my feet long enough to successfully complete the trip across the challenging Forlorn Muskeg map through a howling blizzard to the Old Spence Family Homestead, survive the 24 hour hypothermia attack that resulted, forge a hatchet, knife, and four arrowheads, and return to the Camp Office beside the lake in the Mystery Lake map, one of the more forgiving locations in the game. Now I can finally harvest the maple sapling required to build a survival bow - provided I can stay alive for the six days that it takes for the wood to dry out first...

 

Geekmas 2019: Trek The Halls.

Although I've already been in discussion with Karli about holiday shopping, I'm also faced with the looming specter of our departmental Secret Santa gift exchange, not to mention friends and relatives* who might be seeking inspiration.

As much as I want to help all those people out, I have to confess that I'm feeling a bit challenged by the whole "here's what I want" thing this year - I'd actually be a lot happier to get a list of things to buy other people than to write one for myself.  However, it may well be that everyone else is in the same state of mind, so here are a few suggestions in the area of seasonal geek shopping.

Books
A small part of me considered not listing any books, given my current and ongoing state of tsundoku.  Then I had a bit of a laugh - I mean, seriously! - and starting to look at book buying options.

The joke is that most of the things that I'm really looking forward to reading won't be out until next year. The final book in the Expanse series won't hit until sometime in 2020, the next Charles Stross Laundry book is on the same schedule, and William Gibson's long-overdue novel Agency is scheduled for January 21, 2020, which is certainly a step up from previous publishing timelines, but no help for Christmas shopping.

So what IS available for the 25th?

It was missing in action during New York shopping, so the new Joe Abercrombie First Law universe book, A Little Hatred, would be a good choice, and at the moment of this writing, it's on sale in hardcover on Amazon.ca™  - although to be honest, I'd rather have the paperback version.

The only leftover book from last year's suggestions is Luna: Wolf Moon, by Ian McDonald, still a good choice, and the third book in the series, Luna: Moon Rising, is also now available.

Let's see, paperbacks ... Made Things, a book about the importance of making friends, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, or Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys (a unique concept, told from the perspective of a Cthulhu worshipper, for whom the whole thing is just the way she was brought up).  Sharps, by K. J. Parker, who I find to be just such a readable author (even if he is really Tom Holt) - in fact, let's put the first volume of Parker's The Two of Swords on the list as well. I'd love to add a hard SF novel, but right now there's nothing on my radar - I'm open to suggestions.

DVDs
Okay, I'm going to keep this dirt simple:  here's a handful of classic Doctor Who episodes on DVD, all for less than $25 on Amazon.ca™, none of which I already own:

The Ark in Space, The Five Doctors, The Beginning (the first three William Hartnell episodes, $25.95, in the interests of full disclosure - not to be confused with the $85 boxed set) The Sontaran Experiment, The Brain of Morbius, The Android Invasion,The Sea Devils, and Warriors of the Deep.

The BBC is methodically cleaning up the early episodes of Doctor Who and releasing them on Blu-ray, but the individual episode DVDs still make for affordable stocking stuffers.  And, really, there's a certain collectable nostalgia to the classic BBC single-episode releases with the classic logo, they were the face of Doctor Who video for quite a while.

Graphic Novels
I've covered off the big three of my requests from last year, but there are some options left.  If you don't want to shop online due to time issues, recommended brick-and-mortar locations would be the Granville and Broadway Indigo, or at specialty comic outlets like Golden Age Collectibles downtown on Granville.  (Sadly, The Comicshop, my normal Kitsilano recommendation, has closed its doors.)

 

Suggested options are:  Batman: White Knight, Flashpoint, Old Man Logan Vol 0: Warzones, and Joker - the Brian Azzarello/Lee Bermejo version.

Gaming

 

I'm probably going to buy The Outer Worlds, the new Obsidian Entertainment Fallout-style role-playing action game, at some point, although generally I like to let the dust settle before I commit - or, in other words, wait for the price to come down and bugs to be fixed.  It's not currently available on the useful Steam™ distribution platform, but I'm hoping that by the time it gets there, both of the above dust-settling events will have taken place. 

The game's current non-Steam™ list price of $59.99 is a bit more than I generally include on my Geekmas lists - workplace Secret Santa tops out at $25 - but with any luck, the Steam™ price will be lower, and as such, Steam™ gift cards would certainly be welcome. 

Merch
And, last but not least, a couple of t-shirt options: first, I've been looking at getting a Canadian Space Agency T-shirt for a while - I have lots of NASA stuff, but it seems appropriate to represent for Canada.

 

I was originally looking for a Weyland-Yutani t-shirt when I found this USCSS Nostromo t-shirt. It's a little over the $25 Secret Santa price range that I normally aim for, but it would certainly be a fun addition to my science fiction t-shirt collection, and I somehow feel that licensed products are slightly better than random knockoffs.  (It's no surprise that the CSA has better standards regarding wrinkled uniforms than the USC.)

XL by preference, thank you!
 

And there's this year's list. As always, feel free to just take a swing at the ball and surprise me, I have a very open mind regarding random gift selections.

And, if all else fails, I've never met a gift card that I didn't like.

Happy holidays!

- Sid

* I have to be honest here, I'm only referring to relatives by marriage, my own family hasn't had a seasonal get-together for several decades.