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.

"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?

Fallout 4: Not to mention Kevin Costner.

I've found four or five people equipped like this in Fallout 4 - hopefully SF author David Brin was amused by the post-apocalyptic nod from Bethesda.  (The bad news is that they were all corpses, which may be the most probable result of running around after the end of the world trying to scam people by pretending to be a postman.)

- Sid

Childhood's End.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."

-J. Robert Oppenheimer

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Harry Truman

The destruction of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th, 1945 took science fiction from playful adolescence into a frightening, frightened adulthood. 

Suddenly the question of what the future might hold, the question of "what if", gained a horrible new importance. Suddenly, instead of looking a thousand years ahead, Mankind was looking at the hands of the Doomsday Clock edging closer to midnight. 

Until that morning, the word "atomic" had been nothing more than a convenient gimmick in science fiction, a buzzword that provided power for everything from cars to robots, from pistols to spaceships. Although Cleve Cartmill had mentioned a chain reaction-type atomic bomb in his 1944 science fiction story Deadline, which led to the FBI investigating him due to concern over a potential breach of security on the Manhattan Project, he and co-researcher John W. Campbell were in no way aware of what was to come. 

Once the Bomb had been used, Campbell's editorial response in Astounding was actually one of near-glee in having apparently anticipated this scientific leap forward. However, in the years that followed, the greater number of authors treated the situation more in the manner of Leahy's comment. 

Science fiction authors are almost unanimous in denying any role in predicting the future - as in my first post, the science fiction author begins with "What if..." rather than "When..." In the post-Hiroshima age, the spectres of the atomic "What if" in science fiction are innumerable, and rarely positive. 

 Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers has power-suited infantry blithely launching "pee-wee" atomic rockets as tactical weapons, but novels such as Nevil Shute's bleak masterpiece On the Beach with its inevitable creeping death by fallout is far more typical of the response to the atomic bomb and the Cold War which it created. 

Science fiction had gained an awful new authority as prophets of the end of the world. Hand in hand with the immediate perils of thermonuclear Death, science fiction introduced the public to the other horsemen of the new Apocalypse: Fallout, Nuclear Winter, and Mutation. 

The latter provided heady fare for the film makers of the 1950's, with screens filled with shambling monstrosities of every shape, size and species. Literary SF concentrated for the most part on the horrifying effects of radiation on human beings and the twisted parodies of humanity that might result. (Not all writers painted with such a large brush: Ray Bradbury's story "There Will Come Soft Rains" quietly describes the exquisitely detailed silhouettes of a family etched into the side of their home by the flare of a nuclear explosion.) 

Over sixty years after the Enola Gay opened its bomb bay doors over Hiroshima, the thought of impending nuclear apocalypse no longer weighs as heavily. We live in a time of more subtle fears: terrorism, global warming, and AIDS. It would be ridiculous to claim that science fiction played any sort of real role in reducing the threat of death by "The Bomb", but the reality of that threat gave science fiction a relevance as a genre that it would never have achieved otherwise.

- Sid

Breakfast of Champions.

My birthday morning breakfast:  bacon, eggs, toast, and, once again with thanks to my good friend Colin, two Doctor Who bobbleheads* and tea in a Fallout mug.

Colin also sent two unique additions to my Doctor Who t-shirt collection: 

In order to safeguard the Fallout mug in its cross country journey, Colin did some innovative repacking, presumably using the resources that he had at hand. However, he was kind enough to annotate the box that he chose in order to avoid inappropriate expectations.

Thanks again, Colin!

- Sid

 * For the uninitiated, David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and Matt Smith as the Eleventh.

"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 2017: Starting Over.

The holiday season is here again, as marked by the inevitable drawing of names for our workplace gift exchange. In order to simplify the process for whichever of my co-workers has pulled the folded paper slip with my name from the traditional red velvet bag - or anyone else seeking seasonal gift-giving inspiration - here's my annual Geekmas Gift Guide.*

This year, I'm the victim of my own success, as it were - thanks to remarkable follow-through on gift suggestions last year, I'm obliged to pretty much start from scratch. My sincere thanks to all of the people who selected items from the list, and to my girlfriend Karli** for managing the process from behind the scenes.

As always, the following list has been selected to fit more or less within the $20 - $25 range applicable to workplace Secret Santas (and Karli's** immediate family). To keep things simple for potential gift-givers, I've tried to source as many things as possible from Amazon.ca or equally accessible retailers - which will make more sense when you get to the Toys section. 

Books
I've had a pretty good year for buying myself reading material, so I had to dig around a bit more than usual for this section.  However, that being said, my first choice here was easy: Artemis, the sophomore work from Andy Weir, author of The Martian.  Early reviews are positive, although there have been a couple of comments that Mr. Weir isn't completely successful in writing a female lead.

 

From the non-fiction aisle, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe (whom you may recognize as the editor of Give Our Regards to the Atom-smashers!, which I picked up during our New York trip.).  If you're at all curious about the background behind Marvel's rise to fame, you may want to buy a copy for yourself, as well - or borrow mine.

A little Cancon to round things out, and a confession:  I've never read Margaret Atwood's classic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale.  There, I admit it.

Other options would be Luna: Wolf Moon, by Ian McDonald; Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch, and The Murders of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson.

By the way, as per the above stipulation regarding price range, paperbacks or trade paperbacks, please, no need to go hardcover.  


Movies
I know that the era of physical media is on the wane, but I'm still fond of my library of movies and TV shows - I think of it as my own little On Demand service. As always, blu-ray by preference - although we're starting to think about a 4K disc player to go with our 4K flatscreen.

 

How could I not ask for a copy of Wonder Woman, 2017's superhero feminist breakout movie? Well acted, well directed, and hopefully a how-to guide for future Hollywood female comic book character adaptations.

On the vintage movie front, I'm going to suggest the classic 1954 black and white SF/horror film Them.  If you're not familiar with Them, three words:  giant radioactive ants.  This movie frightened me beyond words when I first saw it at the age of ten - now I'm more appreciative of the manner in which it overcomes the limitations of Fifties effects technology with an excellent cast delivering excellent performances. (And the debut of the giants ants still scares me a bit.) Alert fans will catch a brief appearance by a youthful Leonard Nimoy as an Air Force staff sergeant. 

Either Rogue One or The Force Awakens would be useful additions to the lineup, although I lean a bit toward Rogue One:  The Force Awakens will probably end up being part of an eventual purchase of the sequel trilogy, whereas all evidence would suggest that there won't be another Rogue One movie.

And, as a wildcard suggestion, any of the DC Animation Justice League series collections.  DC's animated adaptations have been uniformly excellent, with good storylines and superb voice acting.  If you're not certain, yes, Justice League Unlimited is part of the same group.



Toys
Yes, toys. As previously mentioned, toys are a huge part of the fan experience. My current haphazard collection is a bit idiosyncratic compared to the standard approach: it's not specific to a fandom, and I haven't invested thousands of dollars in it.  It's predominantly made up of contributions from other people in the form of gifts.

I don't have any Star Wars toys, and I honestly wouldn't know where to start in terms of recommending something from the list of options available - anyone buying me a Star Wars item has complete carte blanche.  However, if you want to pick up something a bit different, I'd love to have one of the Funko Fallout Legacy Collection toys - either the Lone Wanderer or the Power Armour figure.

 

Funko is better known for their ridiculously comprehensive selection of Pop! figures, but as you can see, they also produce more realistic action toys. To my surprise, the Fallout toys shown above can be found at walmart.ca - who knew? They're currently on sale, too.

And, in all fairness, if reading all of this has just made your head spin, not to worry - I'm completely content with gift cards. 

  - Sid

* To be honest, this isn't an easy process for me. My British mother left me with a marked reluctance to actually ask someone to give me a gift, which makes the whole idea of publishing a list of "I wants" a bit of a challenge. However, I take comfort in the fact that if someone has already made the gift-giving decision (or had it mandated by workplace imperatives), they may well be eager - if not desperate - for some guidance.

** My gorgeous girlfriend, to be accurate.

Geekmas 2017: And to all a good night.

 

It's an interesting exercise to make a list of shopping suggestions for Christmas.  On one hand, it's just a practical thing to do.  People are often at a loss when it comes to choosing gifts for the holiday season, and being able to anonymously read a list of affordable suggestions helps to take guesswork out of the process. 

On the other hand, it closes the door on creativity:  here's the list, choose an option.  But even if someone doesn't want to buy something from the list, it points them in the right direction, just in case they were entertaining ideas involving, I don't know, sports tickets or bottles of top shelf tequila.

With those two options on the table, the most unexpected result is C, none of the above. Karli and I went to a pre-Christmas get-together at her father and stepmother's on the 23rd, and although I was grateful for the gifts I received, they were a bit generic in nature:  socks, gift cards, chocolate, a cell phone charging shelf, and so on.  Given that this was exactly the sort of situation for which I'd created my list, it was a bit of a letdown to see that nothing had made the cut.

And that's where perfect girlfriends come in.  When I unwrapped my gifts from Karli on the morning of the 25th, I was thrilled to see that she'd chosen the items from my list that I most wanted to receive:  The Handmaid's Tale, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story*, a blu-ray copy of Rogue One, and the Fallout Power Armour action figure.

And, AND, she got me a waffle maker!!!  I'd love to say it's a clever tie in with Stranger Things and Eleven's Eggo™ fetish, but really, we just like waffles.** (Thereby proving that going rogue can be just as rewarding as sticking to the wish list.)

Thank you again for everything, Karli. As always, words fail to express how happy I am that you've chosen to be with me. I'd also like to thank the people who gave me Amazon and Indigo gift cards, trust me, they'll be put to good use. And the chocolate, thanks for the chocolate!

In conclusion, I'd like to wish a merry Christmas to anyone reading this - I hope your holiday season has been as happy as mine.

- Sid

* I've been casually skimming through Sean Howe's history of Marvel, and just on the basis of looking at random pages, I'm fascinated - it's definitely next on the list when I finish what I'm currently reading. (More on reading plans in my New Year's posting.)

** And it made perfect, delicious waffles right out of the box, no teething pains or setup issues.

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.

Eye candy.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

Warhammer 40K

My spare time for the last month has been almost exclusively dedicated to a large work project with a short deadline.  Happily, I finished writing and laying out the first portion of the project at about ten o'clock last night, which gave me Sunday off to relax.  (Well, I have to do laundry and clean and go to the gym and so on, but after a month of doing nothing but write content on how to take cargo containers off ships, trust me, that's relaxing.*)

As part of my R&R for today, I took some time to get back into a game that I purchased on the Canada Day weekend - Space Marine, a third-person shooter set in the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K universe.

For those of you unfamiliar with Warhammer 40K (ie, everyone but Donovan, and Colin a little bit), it's one of those almost stereotypically über-geek multi-player games that involves a fistful of 20 sided dice, rulers, and painstakingly assembled and painted miniatures. Originally launched in 1987 as a spin-off from Warhammer, a fantasy-based game in the same style, it has in some ways eclipsed its older sibling.

The interesting thing is that unlike most entertainment involving dice, tabletops, and arguments over whose turn it is, games like WH40K have developed a deeply complex and involved back story to support the gaming experience.  Checkers, for example, has no plot.  Chess, which is one of the oldest strategy-oriented games on the planet, doesn't bother to name the pieces.  And, as much as you may enjoy Monopoly, would you really expect to find Amazon.ca selling novels about the brutality and squalor experienced by the race car during its time in Jail?  (Without passing GO or collecting $200.)

WH40K has all of that, and that's much of the reason that Games Workshop dominates the tabletop marketplace.  The universe in the 41st millennium is portrayed as a place of constant conflict, as Space Marines and the Imperial Guard, loyal to the godlike Emperor, struggle against hordes of brutal green-skinned Orks, life-stealing robotic Necrons, the ancient Eldar and their perverse cousins the Dark Eldar, the expansionist alien Tau, and the forces of Chaos, including the Chaos Space Marines, former fellows in the armies of the Imperium who have been changed and distorted by the Warp. Each of these groups is supported by reams and reams of what is technically known as "fluff": documents, maps, descriptions, diagrams, novels, iconography and histories - everything that anyone could possibly want in order to enrich and deepen the gaming experience far beyond the movement of painted plastic on a table.

I've never gotten involved in the tabletop gaming experience (although I had a near miss with Dungeons and Dragons back in the 70s) but the WH40K phenomenon is just one of those known factors in the geek continuum.  I was quite pleased with the PC strategy simulation version of WH40K, ending up with all four of the expansion modules, and as such when Space Marine and all its expansion content went on sale for $14.99, I thought I'd give it a try.

Ironically, compared to games like Fallout 3 or Bioshock, Space Marine does not present a complicated gaming experience.  It's very much a linear dungeon-style game, and to date there's been nothing elaborate in terms of quests, challenges or puzzles - so far it's all pretty much just an excuse to kill orks in a variety of gory and graphic fashions.

However, full credit for the manner in which the feel of the Imperium has been translated to the game environment.  The Space Marines are very close to a monastic order, and their world is presented as a dark, gothic environment full of memento mori and religious symbolism.  Space Marine presents a gloomy, atmospheric environment full of towering bastions, flying buttresses, ornamental skulls and massive reliquaries containing weapons upgrades.  For me, this has more than made up for any shortcomings in terms of intellectual challenges in the levels.

So, back to the game - I've gotten out of the sewer complex beneath the Manufactorum that contains the mammoth War Titan, reunited with my brothers of the Ultramarines, and I am eager to return to the struggle with the Ork invaders.

After all, I fight for the Emperor - and I WILL KNOW NO FEAR!

- Sid

* On the other hand, I'm a bit sceptical about my decision to follow up a month of intensive writing by catching up on blog posts...

 

Toy Story.

For whatever reason, a substantial part of being a geek involves toy ownership. Toys have always been associated with being a fan - it's tempting to blame it on Star Wars, but as far back as 1934, fans of Buck Rogers mobbed Macy's Department Store in New York to buy the Daisy-produced XZ-31 Rocket Pistol.

My modest personal toy collection reflects my broad interests in the genre.  It's an idiosyncratic collection, based on entirely on whimsy and contributions from other people, which still manages to cover quite a wide range of fandom.

Scopedog, Defender, Warpig

I don't own the XZ-31 Rocket Pistol: my Buck Rogers sidearm of choice is a vintage XZ-38 Disintegrator pistol.  I also have a phaser, a communicator, a Halo UNSC M6 blaster, and a sonic screwdriver.  My treasured 09-ST Scopedog figure from the 1983 Armoured Trooper VOTOMS anime was a surprise stag gift: I had commented to my best man that it seemed unfair that there was a bridal shower but no tradition for pre-wedding gifts for the groom, and he was kind enough to get me something as a consolation prize.

My Spock bust and Dalek were also gifts, and my Major Matt Mason and matching Supernaut Power Limbs were impulse buys, based on childhood ownership.  I have a plastic Defender and a cast metal M.A.C. II Monster from the 1985 Robotech series but sadly, my GBP-1 VF-1J Veritech fighter came to an unhappy end many years ago.  There's a Starcraft Terran Marine "War Pig" figure that I believe was never sold in stores, but was instead a bagged promotional item of some sort, as well as a Batman toy, a Halo sniper that Colin gave me, 10th and 11th Doctor Who bobbleheads that were also from Colin, a wind-up Lost In Space robot, a GoBot, a Gundam figure of unknown origin, and of course, the classic 12 inch toy robot that I received as a fiftieth birthday gift at work.

Oddly enough, I have no Star Wars representation, other than a set of light saber chopsticks from Japan that Karli gave me - great souvenirs, but not toys as such.

Because my status as a geek and collector is a somewhat known phenomenon, one of Karli's co-workers suggested that if I was interested in that sort of thing, we should pay a visit to Toy Traders, located in Langley.  Recent weekend plans took us in that direction, so we decided to make a stop at the store.

For whatever reason, I had pictured a small collector's shop, a few hundred square feet with locked glass displays and so on, and I had hopes of possibly adding to my little Major Matt Mason collection.  When it came to the actual location, I was overwhelmed.

 

Toy Traders is an epic 17,000 square feet of toys, featuring an incredible selection of action figures, vehicles, busts, statuettes, models, games and accessories from virtually every part of the geek and fan spectrum. In addition to its massive and comprehensive inventory, the store is decorated with an astonishing collection of props and collectables: statues, masks, helmets, weapons, and costumes.

Photo by KT

The upper level of the store's warehouse space also showcases toys from Marvel Comics, Star Wars, the Muppets and other franchises in an amazing array of dioramas.

Photo by KT

I suspect that it would be easy for a fan who was obsessed, impulsive, rich (or all of the above) to blow ten grand in Toy Traders without even breaking a sweat - or or having to shop in more than one aisle. As an example, the 21 inch Skeletor statue shown below is characteristic of the pricing for the gorgeously detailed collectibles available at the store.

 

Rare and vintage collectables can be found in the Darkside section, located in a small upstairs mezzanine. I was surprised to see that a lot of the upstairs stock was loose, rather than Mint On Card or Mint In Package - I tend to associate serious toy collecting with toys still in sealed packaging.

I was a little tempted by the Captain Power action figures in the upstairs displays, both MOC and loose.  Not terribly pricey, and an unexpected trip down memory lane to the short-lived Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future series from 1987.*

Impressive though Toy Traders is, it's actually possible to find a few gaps in their inventory. For example, I didn't see any of Blizzard Entertainment's Heroes of the Storm action figures (my main interest is in the Starcraft characters) or any of the Fallout Legacy Collection. However, in the interests of fairness, it's 17,000 square feet of toys, I may well have just missed the right shelf.

After much thought, I decided to buy a Marvel Select Avenging Captain America action figure in the World War II costume from the movies.  I've always been fond of the character, and Marvel is completely unrepresented in my current lineup.  It's a well detailed and constructed figure, although there were a couple of rogue paint marks on his shield, which could either be mistakes or attempts to create the look of field repairs to the shield's finish.  Either way, I find the shield's red to be a bit dull, and may consider repainting it in a more vibrant scarlet.

As I was paying for my purchase, the young woman at the till asked me the pro forma "Did you find everything that you were looking for?" question. I initially delivered the equally pro forma, "Yes, thank you", but then decided to perjure myself, and replied, "Actually, to tell the truth, I was hoping to find some Major Matt Mason toys."

She frowned in a slightly puzzled fashion, but then from my right, a baritone voice replied, "We don't get a lot of Matt Mason toys, when we do , they go upstairs. Did you see the upstairs?  We had his Space Bubble come in recently, but it's gone now."

It turned out that I had attracted the attention of Matthew Purdy, the affable and knowledgeable owner of Toy Traders.  Sensing an opportunity, I mentioned to him that I had a co-worker who had inherited what might well be a quite rare selection of first generation Star Wars toys.  Purdy, who confessed to being a Star Wars collector himself, was obviously intrigued, and suggested that my co-worker contact his assistant to set up a possible meeting. So there may yet be a happy ending to Damon's search for a home for his Star Wars collectables.

Who knows, if all goes well, he might even get me something like a Toy Traders gift certificate by way of thanks - hint, hint.

- Sid

* Weregeek moment:  does anyone else remember Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future? It was an American-Canadian series that ran for one season in 1987.  It was an ambitious but not completely successful attempt to create an interactive TV program - viewers could buy toys that allowed them to shoot at the onscreen villains during combat scenes, and the villain's weapons would produce bright flashes of light that would be picked up by the toys and register as hits. (At one point, someone gave me one of the interactive toy/guns, a Captain Power Powerjet XT-7. I wonder where that ended up?) It was also ahead of its time in integrating computer graphic characters with the live action footage. 

The show had some surprisingly adult themes for a children's show, and the first (and only) season ended on a dark note with the death of a major character.  J. Michael Straczynski, who went on to create the Babylon 5 series, was the show's story editor and a contributing script writer and Jessica Steen, who played the role of Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase, later appeared briefly as Doctor Elizabeth Weir on Stargate Atlantis before Torri Higginson took over the role.