Scientists Dig Tolkien

Did you know:

1. There is a region in Australia called "Mordor Alkaline Igneous Complex"?
2. There are a pair of asteroids named "Tolkien" and "Bilbo"?
3. This is a 900-pound ancient crocodile named "Anthracosuchus balrogus"?

More such info here!

Book of the New Sun: the television series?

I’ve recently posted links to articles on Gene Wolfe and The Game of Thrones television series.  A good friend of mine (this guy), who is a massive fan of Wolfe’s ‘New Sun’ stories, recently explained to me why The Book of the New Sun would make an amazing GoT-style televisions series.  

Here it is:

I really think it would make a great HBO series! Here's why: 

1. It is completely episodic. 

2. The characters are amazing:
• A giant and his fox-faced companion
• The most beautiful woman in the world (until the augmentation-magic wears off)
• A resurrected woman who coughs up the lead slugs that were forced down her gullet to sink her body(!).
• A robot who has repaired himself with found biological human body parts.
• And a professional torturer who turns out to be Jesus, but not before he consumes the flesh of his aristocratic girlfriend and absorbs her memories and personality. And then proceeds to have sex with literally every woman he encounters in the story....and then becomes the king. 

3. The settings are amazing:
• Buenos Aires in a million years is quite a different place.
• The citadel in the middle of the city is actually a spaceship, but no one realizes it.
• The city is surrounded by a mile-high wall to protect it from rampaging giant aquatic aliens who are currently quiescent and laying in wait in the oceans deep.
• The mountain ranges to the north (the Andes) have been under the rule of this particular civilization so long that every single one of them has been carved into the likeness of one king or another.
• Further north the "rotting jungles that circle the waist word' divide our heroes land from the "Ascians", their sworn enemies and Ascia is the ultimate totalitarian state: people may only speak by quoting from a collection of approved texts. 

4. Mysteries abound:
• Is the hero's lover really his grandmother?
• Is the injured robot actually from North Korea in our era (not kidding)
• Is the giant actually a baby version of the giant evil aquatic aliens?
• Is the fox-faced guy actually the giant's homonculus-slave? 

5. And finally, like "Lost"...there are no answers!

Fair enough!  (Although I'm not sure about #5.  Years later, I still get annoyed when I think about "Lost".)

I personally would love to see such a television series.  But I’m not holding my breath…

Gene Wolfe and The Book of the New Sun

There is an interesting (and thankfully succinct) piece on Gene Wolfe in the current issue of The New Yorker.

I vividly recall reading The Book of the New Sun fifteen years ago.  It is probably the most difficult fantasy series I've ever read.  Yet I enjoyed it thoroughly, and am grateful that I worked my way through the five books (the original tetralogy plus The Urth of the New Sun).

Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers: Part V

"The Battle of Five Philosophers."

(Another one from Existential Comics.)

Class Struggle in Westeros

“Wildlings of the north unite!  You have nothing to lose but your cumbersome furs!”

Okay, here is another short post with a slight political philosophy flavour.  Fans of the Game of Thrones television series (and/or novels) may enjoy reading: “Can Marxist Theory Predict the End of Game of Thrones?”  (Don’t worry, gentle readers, you don’t need to be a Marxist [I’m not] to enjoy it.)

This part struck me as especially quote-worthy: 

Westeros needs capitalists – such as those who frown puritanically at us from Dutch portraits in the 17th century. And they should, as in the Dutch Republic and the English civil war, launch a revolution.
But that can’t happen in the secondary world of fantasy fiction…
There is a reason so much fantasy fiction adopts the conceit of a feudalism that is always in crisis but never overthrown. It forms the ideal landscape in which to dramatise the secret desires of people who live under modern capitalism.

‘Secret desires’ indeed!  (Am I wrong for wishing that I could be Jaqen H'ghar more than any other character in the series?  Ah well, "valar morghulis"…)

John Rawls the Orc?!?

A somewhat surprising look for the author of the 20th century's most important work in political philosophy, A Theory of Justice.  I guess that behind the 'veil of ignorance' one simply does not know whether one is an orc, troll, elf, dwarf, hobbit, or human...

(Okay, okay, so this guy is not the same person as this guy...)

Crypts and Things: Remastered and Kickstarted

Kudos to Newt Newport on his ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign for the re-mastered version of Crypts and Things!

I’m proud to have contributed to the original version of C&T, albeit only modestly, and look forward to testing out the new and improved version in the near future.

More information on C&T:R here.

New Stonehenge theory

There is a new theory concerning the function of stonehenge:

The megaliths would not have been used for ceremonies at ground level, but would instead have supported a circular wooden platform on which ceremonies were performed to the rotating heavens, the theory suggests.

Sounds interesting and not entirely implausible (at least to a non-archaeologist like myself).  (Full article here.)

After all these years, I still find thinking about stonehenge strangely magical...

A Blade Runner Sequel? Bad Idea!

So apparently there is going to be a sequel to the 1982 classic science fiction film Blade Runner.

This is a bad idea.

The Director’s Cut version of Blade Runner (the version without the horrible voiceover, without the tacked-on happy ending, and with the scene of the unicorn dream) is pretty much the perfect science fiction film.  It is self-contained, with no loose-endings.  It is visually and aurally stunning.  It is an immersive experience that asks deep questions. (‘What is it to be human?’ ‘What is it to be a slave?’)  And its ending is wonderfully ambiguous – is Deckard a replicant or not?  No answer to this question is given, and the film is open to either interpretation. 

Blade Runner should not be messed with at this point.  As Rob Bricken correctly notes at io9, “Blade Runner 2 Is The Least Necessary Sequel Of All Time.” 

Just. Leave. It. Be.

But no.  Hollywood is so bereft of new ideas, and so eager for easy money, that a sequel is in the works.  And Harrison Ford will be returning.  (Well, I guess that since Deckard lives for another 30+ years after the events depicted within the original film, it’s pretty clear that he is not a replicant after all… *sigh*)

Crypts and Things Kickstarter Now Live

The Kickstarter for the 'remastered' edition of Crypts & Things is now live!

Newt Newport has been posting about C&T quite a bit of late over at his fine blog, Sorcerer Under Mountain.  If you are at all curious about the game -- and you should be! -- I recommend that you check out Newt's blog.

There are some other posts on C&T over at the blogs They Might Be Gazebos!, Tenkar's Tavern, and Swords & Stitchery.

By Crom, I am looking forward to the mighty-thewed remastered edition of Crypts & Things!