"Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea..."

I just overheard one of my workplace managers explaining that the recent rash of mystery drone sightings in New Jersey are government aircraft that have been dispatched to conceal and obfuscate the appearance of plasma orbs which have been sent into the skies by aliens who have been living in the oceans for thousands of years. 

Recommended reading would be The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham's 1953 novel of enigmatic aquatic alien invaders.  Hopefully that's not what's happening right now, because it doesn't end well.*

- Sid

* Well, it sort of ends well, in that after everything falls apart, the military industrial complex finally manages to find a way to successfully fight back, but it's a bit late in terms of the global collapse of civilization.

UPDATE: Casual readers may not be aware that I work in training for cargo terminal workers on the West Coast of Canada.  That being established, the Vice President in charge of our department has reassured me that, should aliens start sinking container cargo ships, we would remain open as long as possible.

FREE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY!! (Now that I have your attention...)

Short fiction has always been the backbone of science fiction and fantasy, providing both an ongoing entry point for new authors and a sandbox for established writers to play in - not to mention writers such as Harlan Ellison whose careers were almost entirely based around their short story output.* 

As such, I have found that one of my favourite parts of the monthly Reactor newsletter has been their short story offerings, which have been consistently readable and have introduced me to some new authors, such as Lavie Tidhar and A. T. Greenblatt.

As the year comes to an end, Reactor has released an eBook edition of their best stories from 2024:

https://reactormag.com/download-some-of-the-best-from-reactor-2024-edition/ 

You can also download bundles of their fiction by months, or read any of the stories individually online:

https://reactormag.com/all-of-reactors-short-fiction-in-2024/

And it's all free, very hard to beat free.

Enjoy!

- Sid

* Science fiction and fantasy writers tend to be tagged by their best known novel, regardless of their other output - you know, that part in the review where it says, "Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001..."  For Ellison, although he did produce some long form work, his signature piece is probably his 1967 short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, or possibly A Boy and His Dog. (Maybe The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World?)

Deadpool receives Order of Canada?

Of course it's Ryan Reynolds, who is certainly a well-deserving recipient, but look at how the CBC - the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national voice of our country - decided to report it!  

The strangeness of that aside, it would actually be a fun tie-in for Marvel Comics to have Deadpool receive the Order himself, after all, he IS Canadian...

- Sid

Ex Tenebris Ad Astra.

The Long Dark is one of my favourite gaming experiences, and I'm eager to see how Blackfrost, the followup to the original, will build on the strong foundation that it has built.  But, in a way, I'm also  disappointed by the decision by the game's indie developer Hinterland to do a sequel.  

I realize the attraction of telling more stories in a world you've already created, lord knows I've seen enough sequels, series and spin-offs that were created for that very reason, but in this case I was hoping that Hinterland might decide to do something that was a complete departure from their previous work.

I've always been impressed by the combination of thoughtful creativity and hard work that went into The Long Dark - the attention to detail, the quality of the artwork, the fantastic range of lighting conditions, the incredibly accurate sound effects, the constantly evolving and changing weather, the geographic complexity of the various maps, all the bits and pieces that make it such a playable experience. 

I'd love to see the same people apply the same approach to developing something completely different, like an asteroid belt exploration game for example, something that would take advantage of their experience with survival programming but expanding into a whole new area - resource mining, cargo shuttles, trading posts, space stations, claim jumpers, iceteroids, meteor storms, alien artifacts, the whole catalogue of possibility for what life - and possibly death - in the Belt would be like. Let's face it, there must be some people at the studio who would enjoy a change from animating trees, ptarmigan and blizzards at this point.

What do you say, Hinterland - maybe it's time to shoot for the stars?

- Sid

P.S. In the incredibly unlikely event that Raphael van Lierop, the founder and CEO of Hinterland, should happen to read this and thinks that an asteroid belt game is a good idea, please get in touch, I would LOVE to talk about it.  I work just around the corner past Gastown, we could do lunch.  

On the other hand, maybe it's too much like No Man's Sky.*

* Which may just be the survival version of The Outer Worlds, which is perhaps the poor man's Starfield, which could be considered to be Fallout in space. It's such a slippery slope.

Blackfrost.

Hinterland, the Vancouver-based indie game developers behind the survival masterpiece The Long Dark, recently announced their next game: Blackfrost, a sequel to the original game which takes place a year after the original geomagnetic event that crippled electrical devices and brought a threatening new aurora to the skies.

 

The sequel is set in the northern industrial town of Harmont, and will offer a new set of survival challenges and opportunities.  There are some fascinating hints as to what might take place in the game -  life in an urban environment, the prospect of being able to ride a horse, and most of all the possibility of a functioning nuclear reactor.  The Contamination Zone map in the original Long Dark introduced a variety of dangers related to industrial waste, I can only imagine what a radioactive power source might bring to the table.  There are also some more practical upgrades, such as the scoped rifle in one of the sample screens - that would certainly provide some much needed distance in dealing with predators. (There are also some images featuring a hockey stick, which isn't something that was on my wish list but which will certainly blend in well with the general Canadian feel of the environment.)

The concept artwork and trailer animation show an obvious connection to the look and feel of the original game, but it also shows how much the creative team has learned over the last ten years as they've fine-tuned the game and added onto the gaming experience. 

Although I'm not sure whether it would be a part of survival versus narrative gameplay, the new game will add NPCs to the mix, which, if added to the Survival mode, would certainly give more depth to the story.  There will also be a new co-op feature, an option that would enormously enhance the gaming experience: imagine having allies when being attacked by a pack of timberwolves!  (Hopefully there won't be a PvP option, that would somehow seem to be inappropriate for the survival environment.)  On the other hand, they could add the option of playing as an escaped prisoner from Blackrock Prison - which could well be a feature, it sounds as if there will also be enhanced options in terms of customizing your survival character in terms of skills and traits.

Blackfrost is scheduled to be available in Early Access mode sometime in 2026.  As with the development process for The Long Dark, Hinterland will be involving its gaming community as early as possible - I've already added the Early Access version to my wish list on Steam.

And now we wait.  2026 feels like a long way away, but fortunately, anyone who plays The Long Dark understands patience.

- Sid

Ho ho, ha ha: Geekmas 2024

It's been a couple of years since I've done a Geekmas posting, due to the temporary blog hiatus, but I've received some subtle (and not-so-subtle) suggestions that a little help in the area of holiday seasonal shopping would be in order, now that we're back in production - so here are some hopefully helpful options for Christmas gifts.

Gaming

A Steam™ gift card of whatever denomination seems appropriate would certainly be appreciated - as far as I know, they're now available on those gift card mega-displays that you can find at London Drugs or Best Buy.*  It's certainly something I would use, a reluctance to pay full price is the only thing that's kept me from buying Starfield from Bethesda, or Space Marine II, the popular sequel to Relic Entertainment's Warhammer 40K third-person shooter Space Marine from 2011.

 

Books

 

Initially, I wasn't sure what to suggest for books, but once I started looking, I was surprised how easily I found six options. Sadly, it's all hardcovers or trade paperbacks, both of which seem a bit spendy, but that's the way the market has gone, mass market paperbacks are getting harder to find. (At least on the science fiction and fantasy shelves, I can't speak for the mystery or romance marketplaces). That being said, at the moment they're all under $25 on Amazon.ca, which is fairly standard pricing these days.

The first two options are both posthumous offerings from Terry Pratchett:  A Stroke of the Pen is a collection of short fiction by Pratchett written for newspapers in the 1970s and 80s, and A Slip of the Keyboard is a collection of his non-fiction.  I'm pleased to have the opportunity to read some more of Pratchetts's writing, but it does feel a bit like a record label releasing long-buried demo tapes, it's never too late to make a buck off an artist.** 

Sharps and the first volume of The Two of Swords come to us from the prolific pen of K. J. Parker, aka Tom Holt.  Parker's fantasy never fails to entertain, and either of these two books would be a welcome addition to my little library.  (Although, if I receive the first volume of The Two of Swords and it's enjoyable, that does open the door for two easy additions to next year's list...)

Finally, Arkady Martine's epic Teixcalaan space opera series: A Memory Called Empire, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2020, and its sequel, A Desolation Called Peace,which took the Best Novel Hugo in 2022.  Oddly enough, in a genre overwhelmed by trilogies, Martine explicitly stated in a 2021 Reddit AMA that there will not be a third book in the series, the two books stand alone as a duology.  (Although she also suggested that she has plans for more books set in the Teixcalaan universe, which may well feature some of the same characters, she is adamant that the story told in the two books ends there.)

I have to confess that I've already read both of these books as bootleg digital downloads, and they're brilliant:  creative, astonishingly original and beautifully well-written.  As such, I feel that Martine deserves the support of actually buying the paper editions of the texts - I feel that anyone who exhibits so much originality in a sometimes repetitive genre should get paid for it.

Although I've linked these books to Amazon Canada™, they may very well be available at your local bookstore should you prefer to do a little browsing, something which I can never manage comfortably on the Amazon web site.

 

T-shirts

And to wrap things up, two t-shirts options:  one for Star Wars, one for Star Trek.

I've mentioned the Millennium Falcon t-shirt in a previous Geekmas posting, but it's still in play: conveniently available on Amazon, dark grey and XL, please.

The options for licensed Star Trek merchandise is a little bit less to my taste, they have a tendency to make jokes rather than just represent.  Nonetheless, I was able to find a simple t-shirt for First Contact on Startrekshop.ca - shame that they don't have something similar for Generations.  Again, XL for sizing, for anyone who skipped over the previous suggestion.

If anyone decides to go rogue on the t-shirt front, please PLEASE use the above as guidelines for style.  There are a million science fiction and fantasy t-shirts for sale on the internet - I've got a pretty good collection, but they're all distinguished by being licensed products. I don't want to appear ungrateful, but if you buy me a t-shirt featuring, say, a kawaii interpretation of the crew of Serenity***, I will certainly thank you for your generosity, but sadly, I will be unlikely to wear it unless I'm painting the living room.

And, if this all seems just like too much work, plain old Amazon™ gift cards are the gift that keeps on giving. 

- Sid

Update

We happened to be in the local Indigo on Friday, and I took a quick look in the SF-Fantasy section to see if any of my book suggestions were in fact available.  The bad news is that only two of the books were on the shelves: A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace, although it's possible that the Pratchett books could have been elsewhere.

The good news is that I added a couple of things to my shopping list.  Anything from Hugh Howey's Silo series would be a good option - I don't have any of them in my collection, so let's start with Wool (I assume that anyone who is actually buying me a Christmas gift can coordinate with the rest of the group to avoid duplication.)  I'm also long overdue to read Tamysn Muir's critically acclaimed Gideon the Ninth, which, coincidentally, lost out to A Memory Called Empire in the 2020 Hugo Best Novel vote.

- Sid

* Question: does one company handle all the gift card creation and sales, or did someone see a gap in the marketplace and put together a gift card rack that they sold to LD et al? 

** It's fortunate that Pratchett's daughter Rhianna is in charge of her father's intellectual properties, and has no intention of licensing any of his material to other writers, as with And Another Thing..., Eoin Colfer's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel, or the endless imitations of Robert E. Howard's Conan.  

*** Not a suggestion - or a challenge - but, as per my nephew Chris, you can find anything on the internet, it's like New York only bigger.

Iron Heart*.

Obadiah Stane: Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!

William Ginter Riva: Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark.

Iron Man

During a recent workplace visit to our IT manager's office, I finally broke under the pressure after several surreptitious glances and said, "I'm sorry, but how is it that you have Tony Stark's original heart on your desk?"

After glancing over at the glowing arc reactor sitting peacefully on his desk extension, he gruffly replied, "Heavy late night drinking and easily accessible internet shopping."  Obviously a dangerous combination, but at least that explains why he also has not one but two Infinity Gauntlets on his credenza. 

- Sid

* Not to be confused with the Riri Williams character.

Reading Week 2024: Warning! Warning!

My wife's family has been vacationing in Palm Springs for basically her entire life, and it's always been an opportunity for them to take life easy: lie by the pool, drink margaritas, and go shopping.  I'm not a pool person, and tequila does not speak to me, but I'm at least able to tag along when my wife wants to tour the various retail opportunities in the Coachella Valley, and even buy something now and then.

One of the standard shopping destinations is the weekend Street Fair at the College of the Desert, a market which features a wide range of shopping options: clothing, fashion, hats, tech, art, food, groceries,  sunglasses and so on. Generally we just wander around and browse, but every now and then we do buy something, and yesterday, the purchase of the moment was socks - Lost In Space socks.

These are a surprisingly retro item, when you think about it. The original Lost In Space series that these socks are referencing ran from 1965 to 1968 - I can't speak to their history in syndication, but regardless, the audience from that era is getting smaller and smaller.  Admittedly, the series has been rebooted twice, one in the 1998 film version, and then as a television series again in 2018 (also for three seasons), but these socks are definitely an homage to the 1965 show: it's the original Robot and his patented catchphrases.

However, let's not forget that we're in Palm Springs, the place where kitsch comes to die - or at least, to retire and play golf.  I may be overthinking the whole thing: maybe I just need to wear them ironically, if that's a thing you can do with socks.

- Sid

November 6th, 2024.

- Sid