Torture Cinema Poll: The first of 2017!
Well, we haven’t done as much Torture in the last year, because we were too busy watching good movies! Isn’t that awful of us? But frankly, we need something to metaphorically shred into tiny pieces. So help pick what we’re going to torture ourselves with!
Book Review: Starborn by Lucy Hounsom
Kyndra is a seemingly ordinary young woman in a nondescript village in the mountains. Her mother runs an inn, and is a sometimes hard woman, even on the day of Kyndra’s Ceremony. This village does have something unusual in it — an ancient artifact, which, when invoked, will tell you your true name and your future. For decades, as children of the town have come of age, the artifact has guided them to their life and future. When Kyndra is presented to the artifact in her Ceremony, however, the artifact unexpectedly breaks, setting in motion events that will send Kyndra across the continent, and to her true destiny. An initially traditional seeming epic fantasy protagonist and world evolve into a much more nuanced and complex tale in Lucy Hounsom’s debut epic fantasy novel, Starborn.
Book Review: The Cold Eye by Laura Anne Gilman
Being the Devil’s Left Hand is not the easiest job that Isobel could have chosen, but she did choose it, fought for it, and has proven herself, so far, to be a solid choice to ride the Territory on the Boss’ behalf. Now that she has some miles done on her circuit, Isobel’s life as the Devil’s Left Hand continues. As before, her partner Gabriel, as per his own agreement with the Devil, continues her training. But even as Isobel is growing into the role, new dangers are arising, dangers that the two of them may not be equal to face. Dangers great enough perhaps to threaten even the Devil himself. The Cold Eye is the second Devil’s West novel by Laura Anne Gilman, following Silver On the Road.
Book Review: The High Ground by Melinda Snodgrass
Her Imperial Highness Mercedes Adalina Saturinia Inez de Arango, the Infanta, the eldest daughter of the Emperor of the Solar League, has a problem. She’s a woman. Her father, the Emperor, has managed, like English King Henry VIII centuries ago, to wind up with no male children to name as heir. The conventions and expectations of his society make naming a female heir a dicey proposition, especially because the Heir is expected to attend and graduate The High Ground, the “star fleet academy” of the Empire. The High Ground, however, has never had female cadets before, and so the attendance of the Infanta is a change too far for many. Thracius Ransom Belamor, to his chagrin called Tracy by everyone, has a different problem. In the aristocratic, near feudal world of the Solar League, being from the middle class and unconnected to the noble Fortune Five Hundred families means that his scholarship to the High Ground is a poor billet indeed. In social circles far beyond his normal station, even aptitude and hard work may be far short of what Tracy needs to survive, much less succeed, at the Naval academy. The High Ground is the first in the Imperials series by Melinda Snodgrass, and tells the story of Tracy and Mercedes’ attendance at the titular High Ground.
Book Review: Red Tide, by Marc. J Turner
Epic Fantasy sometimes takes just a dive into the deep waters to swim around to find oneself. Especially in a summary of a book’s plot. To wit: The Rubyholt Isles, to the south of the realms of the Sabian League and to the east of the burgeoning empire of Erin Elal, is a pirate-dominated tangle of dangerous seas and hard men and women. It’s also in the right position that any force from outside wishing to attach the Storm Isles of the Sabian League or land on the continent in the territory of Erin Elal must come to terms with the Isles, first. The pirates are too dangerous a potential adversary, and too valuable a resource, not to. And so when the head of an expeditionary force from the distant Augerans shows up in the Rubyholt Capital, the Storm Isles and the Empire alike take notice, and are forced to take action, before it is too late. Red Tide is the third volume in Marc Turner’s The Chronicles of the Exile, following When the Heavens Fall and Dragon Hunters.
Game Review: Timewatch, by Kevin Kulp
“History is not written by the victors, it’s written by the people with the time machines.” — Robin D. Laws Time Travel, as one of the earliest streams of science fiction literature, is similarly one of the earliest themes and modes in roleplaying games. From Timemaster to GURPS, to Continuum, and many others, characters acting as adventurers, patrollers, and explorers in the corridors of time and space have been a staple of science fiction roleplaying. Timewatch, written by Kevin Kulp and published by Pelgrane Press, is the latest iteration of time-travel roleplaying games. The default setting of the Timewatch RPG is the familiar line of a Time Patrol who monitors and keeps History on track. The Timewatch have a citadel in the out-of-time-and-space locale just before the singularity event that creates the Big Bang, and it is from that point that they monitor changes to the time stream due to outside agency, and then when one is detected, the agents are dispatched to discover why history has gone off track, and to correct it. Time’s track goes off because of, not usually pure chance as in the matter of Voyagers!, but rather because of other time travelers. Thus the players are pitted against would-be meddlers in history ranging from misguided do-gooders looking to kill Hitler to mutant time-traveling intelligent cockroaches seeking to create the nuclear apocalypse that will bring their species into existence. The opposition wants to change history permanently, and it’s up to the PCs to foil their plans and fix it.
