Hobbit Movie: Production Video Number 5

So, are we getting excited yet?

Magic Realm: Enchanted Weapons

Earlier today, we looked at some of the regular weapons available in Avalon Hill's Magic Realm. We will now review the four enchanted weapons secreted amongst Magic Realm's scattered treasure hoards.

There are four enchanted weapons in Magic Realm: the greatsword, Bane; two broadswords, Devil and Truesteel; and the thrusting sword, Living.

If sold, each of those swords fetch 20 to 25 gold.

If kept instead, those enchanted weapons bestow renown on the possessor and are thus worth additional notoriety and fame. The Devil sword is particularly infamous, and is worth only notoriety. In addition and perhaps more importantly, these weapons are more effective in combat than their non-enchanted cousins.

The greatsword, Bane, can be found in the Crypt Of The Knight, along with a set of tremendous armor and the dead Knight's trusty (and apparently immortal) steed. Perhaps this is Dilvish the Damned's warhorse.

Looting the Crypt Of The Knight for Bane is certain to bring down one or more curses on the interloper, but it is generally worth it, particularly for the White Knight who benefits from the treasures waiting within.

While greatswords are normally heavy weapons, Bane is a tremendous weapon; the only one in the game. Only characters possessing tremendous move and fight chits can wield it. It has the same length (8) as the regular greatsword.

With a speed of 8, when unalerted, Bane is the slowest weapon in Magic Realm. But when alerted, Bane is also the fastest, with a speed of 2. The only creature that has a chance of dodging an alerted Bane is the Octopus; every other tremendous monster is toast. The only danger to the wielder is from missing with this weapon, while it is unalerted.

Devil is found resting within the Toadstool Circle, a potent source of black magic. A lovely place to visit if you are the Witch or Warlock, but generally to be avoided by the other visitors to the Magic Realm.

Questing for the Devil broadsword is verging on suicide. You are nearly as likely to die a horrible death, dragged into the pits of hell (this can and does happen in the game) as obtain this weapon.

Assuming you don't take my advice to avoid the Toadstool Circle, and somehow wrest this sword away from its resting place, Devil is a potent weapon. Being a heavy weapon, with a sharpness star that boosts its damage to tremendous, it can kill most Magic Realm creatures without overswinging. Despite its heaviness, this sword sings in your hand, with a respectable speed of 4 when unalerted, and a blinding speed of 3 when alerted.

Those without a tremendous fight chit cannot derive complete benefit from Devil, but any characters with heavy move and fight chits can still wield it.

In my estimation, the risks in obtaining Devil from the Toadstool Circle far outweigh the advantages.

We now come to everyone's favorite magical broadsword, Truesteel. Found in the Enchanted Meadow, along with a magical pony, you are in far less danger while searching for this weapon. The worst fate you will face is an annoying curse, easily lifted at the Chapel.

Truesteel can be wielded by Magic Realm characters with medium move and fight chits. It is unique for its keen edge, providing not one, but two sharpness stars. Thus, Truesteel is notable for being a medium weapon dealing tremendous damage. When overswung with a H or T chit, it dispatches any tremendous Magic Realm monster.

Truesteel's extra sharpness is a great advantage. Another is that Truesteel does not need to be alerted; its speed is always equal to that of the character wielding it. That is great advantage for fast characters, not so much for slower ones.

The Living thrusting sword and a large treasure are both found with the Remains Of The Thief. Wresting those treasures away from his remains brings down a curse.

Living is a quicker version of a regular thrusting sword. Instead of an unalerted speed of 4, Living is a speed 3. In addition, Living has a speed of 2 when alerted, allowing the wielder to preemptively slay nearly any medium denizen and large unarmored monster.

While Living is much quicker than its non-enchanted thrusting sword cousin, it still suffers from an inability to dispatch armored heavy monsters, an advantage that would have given this sword just the right amount of bite.

Magic Realm: Melee Weapons

In Avalon Hill's Magic Realm, there are a range of weapons available to the characters.

Each weapon has a weight: Light (L), Medium (M), Heavy (H) or Tremendous (T).

Each weapon's weight corresponds to both the strength required to wield it, and the amount of damage the weapon inflicts. Characters can only wield weapons if they can play fight and move chits of the same weight level or higher.

In addition, a weapon can have a "sharpness star" (a five-pointed star beside the weapon's weight) signifying that the weapon does the next higher level of damage. For example, an L-rated weapon does light damage. However, an L*-rated weapon does medium damage (light plus the sharpness star), but is still wielded as a light weapon.

Armor offers partial protection from weapons that do the same or less damage than the armor's rating, and negates the sharpness star of an attacking weapon.

Characters can "overswing" their weapon, by playing a fight chit at a level higher that the weapon's weight. For example, a character wielding an M weapon could play an H or T fight chit to boost the damage to heavy. It does not matter whether an H or T fight chit is played; you can only boost the weapon's damage by one level by overswinging.

Weapons have various attack speeds. Generally, the fastest attack speed is 2, while the slowest is 6. The speed of the weapon varies, depending on whether the weapon is unalerted (white-side) or alerted (red-side). If the weapon has a speed printed on it, that is the weapon speed. If no speed is printed on the weapon, the speed of the fight chit played with the weapon determines the weapon speed.

Each weapon in Magic Realm has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let's have a look at each weapon to see what I mean.First up is the lowly mace, the signature weapon of the Black Knight. With a length of 1, this weapon is the last to strike during the first round of combat (because longer weapons strike first during round one).

The mace inflicts only medium damage (heavy when the mace is overswung using a heavy or tremendous fight chit), meaning that a character wielding the mace can kill only medium or heavy monsters, not any of the tremendous monsters. Since all of the treasure sites are guarded by tremendous monsters, this makes it difficult for any mace-armed character to collect treasure.

The mace is good for something, however. With a speed of 3, when alerted (red-side up), the mace is a fast weapon, in combat rounds after the first. With the mace's superior speed, weilding the mace allows a character to quickly and easily dispense with heavy dragons, heavy trolls, the guards, the patrol, and other human-sized denizens and monsters.

Medium and heavy monsters and denizens have little or no treasure. However, they are sources of fame and notoriety, two potential routes to victory in Magic Realm.
Next up, the axe. With a length of 2, the axe hits before the mace in round one. The axe inflicts heavy damage (medium damage plus a "sharpness star", boosting the weapon to heavy damage) and can inflict tremendous damage when overswung with a heavy or tremendous fight chit. That amount of damage is sufficient to eliminate unarmored tremendous monsters like the giants, spiders, and demons.

However, this weapon is useless against the tremendous armored monsters, who also guard the largest treasure hoards.

The axe is slower than the mace, with a speed of 5 when unalerted (white-side up).

Unfortunately, the tremendous monsters threatened by this weapon either have no treasure (the giants) or have very fast attack and move speeds (spiders and demons). That means your character may be killed before the axe can be brought to bear.
The shortsword has a length of 3. Inflicting medium damage (light damage plus a sharpness star, boosting the weapon to medium damage), the swortsword can also do heavy damage when overswung with a medium, heavy or tremendous fight chit. The Amazon begins the game with this weapon.

The most significant advantage is that the shortsword does not need to be alerted. The shortsword is the same speed as the fight chit you play, regardless of whether the shortsword is alerted or unalerted.

The shortsword's disadvantage is that, with it's L* harm, it cannot kill any of the heavy armored monsters and denizens. Armor reduces the damage by edged weapons by one level. So the shortsword-armed character that inflicts heavy damage cannot kill the heavy armored dragon, since the armor reduces the harm to medium.

The shortsword is useful against other unarmored characters, medium denizens, the heavy spiders and the goblins, but is an inferior weapon when it comes to other monster hunting.
The thrusting sword is the Swordsman's weapon-of-choice.

With a length of 4, and a speed of 4 when unalerted, the thrusting sword is both longer, and slower, than the shortsword. That slower weapon speed is not usually a problem for the Swordsman, as he invariably springs from hiding, weapon alerted, to slay his opponent.

Other than being longer and slower, the thrusting sword suffers from the same malady as the shortsword. It is inferior for anything other than killing other unarmored characters, medium denizens, spiders and goblins.
The Great Axe is the favoured weapon of the Dwarf and Berserker. When the Great Axe is played in combination with those character's tremendous fight chits, they can slay any monster in the Magic Realm. As long as they hit the monster before it eats them.

This weapon is useless to the medium and light characters, as they are unable to wield or overswing it.
The morningstar is a terrific weapon for the heavy characters, like the White Knight, Berserker, Dwarf. With a length of 6, and an alerted speed of 3, this weapon, when played with a tremendous fight chit, can make quick work of all monsters in the Magic Realm.

While the unalerted morningstar speed of 6 is a problem, it is no slower than the greatsword, which the White Knight begins the game with. And the alerted morningstar is much faster than the greatsword.
The broadsword and greatsword are vary similar weapons.

The greatsword is a little slower, a little longer, and does a higher level of damage.

The broadsword has a lot in common with the axe. They have the same speed and damage profiles. The only difference is the length, as the broadsword has a length of 7, while the axe has a length of 2. This makes a difference only in combat round one, but sometimes the first round is the determining one.

Like the axe, the broadsword is useless against armored tremendous monsters. Not so the greatsword. When overswung, the greatsword can finish off any monster, but as mentioned earlier, it is slow when unalerted, and even when alerted you must rely on the fight speed of your character.
Other than it's length of 9, there is little to commend regarding the staff, which both the Wizard and the Pilgrim start with.

Like the shortsword, the staff need not be alerted. The speed of this weapon depends entirely on the skill of the wielder.

Both the Wizard and the Pilgrim are relatively proficient with the staff, but they move slowly and are therefore outmatched when faced with multiple opponents, which is usually the case with denizens that are felled by medium damage.
We come, at last, to the spear. With a length of 10, only the bow and crossbow offer more reach in round one.

An M* weapon, the spear is great for impaling your enemies at a distance. And it can be wielded by the faster medium characters to great advantage in later combat rounds.

But the spear has a unique disadvantage: unlike every other weapon, the spear does no damage when unalerted. Therefore, it is critical that the character wielding this weapon ensure they have a way of readying their spear every turn.

Magic Realm Tutorial

I was mentioning that there is a series of videos that demonstrates how Magic Realm is played.

You can find those videos here (this link points to the video for the Amazon, but there are more character demonstrations in the left-hand column).

Check out the video for the Black Knight as well. He is perhaps the best character to play, when you are first learning how to play Magic Realm.

Some additional play examples can be found here.

Microgame Investment Opportunities

Instead of putting my money in Google shares, I should have bought a container of Metagaming's Invasion Of The Air-Eaters microgames.

In 1979, Air-Eaters retailed for $2.95. According to this top-rated eBay seller, the game is now worth $39.00.

That's a 9% average annual rate of return.

How's your RPG portfolio doing?

Magic Realm: Taking Actions In 2012

As many of you are aware, Avalon Hill's Magic Realm is one of my favorite old-school fantasy RPG boardgames. It is played without a referee, yet has sufficient depth to satisfy your role-playing itch.
We played several games of Magic Realm over the holidays, and were never disappointed with the game play. Hopefully more games will be played in 2012.

For those of you who cannot find a tabletop version of Magic Realm, the free, electronic java implementation, called Realmspeak, is available here.

One of Magic Realm's unique features is the use of action chits to govern what tasks each of the 16 unique characters can perform.

Morritz Eggert of the Westpark Gamers has this to say about Magic Realm's action chits:

"Characters move, fight, cast spells and perform other tasks in Magic Realm utilizing their action chits. Below are the Black Knight's move and fight action chits.

Each action, like moving, fighting or casting a spell comes in Light (L), Medium (M), Heavy (H) or Tremendous (T) versions.

Each action chit includes a speed number, with 1 being the fastest action, 2 being the next fastest, and 8 being the slowest.

Depending on the character you play, some action chits will also have one or more effort stars (* or **), limiting their use, or forcing you to suffer fatigue (rather than wounds) as you overstrain yourself by playing action chits with effort stars.

Playing a combination of action chits that, between them, includes a total of two effort stars, results in one of your twelve action chits becoming fatigued, and therefore taken out of play until your character rests.

The four-tier system of light, medium, heavy and tremendous actions corresponds with everything you do in the game, and is actually very logical and easily understood.

For example, to wear heavy armour, you need to play a heavy move chit, otherwise you won't be able to wear it. Easy, isn't it?

Actually the game is far from obscure or difficult once you play it, and there are no myriad exceptions or special rules like in Advanced Squad Leader.

The best way to learn Magic Realm is have someone teach it to you. I have yet to find somebody who finds the game too complicated when taught to them, because it actually plays very fluidly and logically.

Yes, if you include all advanced and optional rules, you will have a lot to read, but the full game also simulates an absolutely complete and logical fantasy world: seasons; days and nights; weather; warring factions of natives that act realistically, buy and sell items, can be hired, and move around;monsters that have their own life;players that can interact with each other in complicated ways, each with completely different and interesting goals; and a fully fledged magic system that is by far the most interesting of any Fantasy RPG's.

In short, the world of Magic Realm really lives, in the best sense of the word, with a flawless internal logic to it that is far more realistic than the event-card driven games of the "Talisman" school, but can still surprise you at any moment.

Although I have played the game (really often) I still have yet to use every possible spell combination or every available magic item,so many possibilities does this game offer.

In addition, each of the 16 available characters not only has a completely different set of movement, magic and battle chits, but also has 2 special abilities, which makes each character totally unique and forces players to develop different strategies for each of them."

Appendix N Update: December 2011

Abbey, Lynn:

Adams, Richard: Watership Down

Alexander, Lloyd: The Book of Three 1; The Black Cauldron 2; The Castle of Llyr 3; Taran Wanderer 4; The High King 5

Anderson, Poul: Ensign Flandry; Flandry Of Terra; Agent of the Terran Empire; The Long Night; Three Hearts and Three Lions; The Broken Sword; The High Crusade; A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows

Anthony, Piers: A Spell for Chameleon; On A Pale Horse

Ariosto, Ludovico: Orlando Furioso

Asprin, Robert A.: Thieves World I; Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn II; Shadows of Sanctuary III; Storm Season IV; The Face of Chaos V; Another Fine Myth

Barker, M.A.R.: The Man Of Gold; Flamesong

Baum, L. Frank: The Wizard Of Oz, Emerald City Of Oz, Land of Oz

Beagle, Peter S.: The Last Unicorn

Bellairs, John: The Face In The Frost

Bellamy, Francis R : Atta

Bloodstone, John: Thundar Man Of Two Worlds

Bok, Hannes: The Sorcerers Ship

Brackett, Leigh: Eric John Stark, Outlaw Of Mars; The Best Of Leigh Brackett; The Sword Of Rhiannon; The Ginger Star 1; The Hounds Of Skaith 2; Reavers of Skaith

Bradley, Marion Z: Sword and Sorceress Anthology

Brooks, Terry: The Sword of Shannara

Brown, Fredric:

Burroughs, Edgar R.: Pellucidar; Tanar of Pellucidar; A Princess Of Mars 1; The Gods Of Mars 2; Warlord Of Mars 3; Thuvia, Maid Of Mars 4; Chessmen of Mars 5; The Mastermind of Mars 6; A Fighting Man of Mars 7; The Moon Maid; Out of Time’s Abyss; Jungle Girl, Land of Hidden Men; Tarzan Of The Apes 1; The Return Of Tarzan 2; The Beasts of Tarzan 3; The Son Of Tarzan 4; Tarzan and the Lost Empire 10; At The Earth's Core

Campbell, J Ramsey: Demons by Daylight

Carter, Lin: Thongor and the Dragon City; Thongor and the Wizards of Lemuria; Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus; Zanathon; Tower at the Edge of Time; The Black Star; Beyond The Gates Of Dream; Down To A Sunless Sea; Journey to the Underground World; Warrior of World’s End; Flashing Swords 1; Flashing Swords 2; Flashing Swords 3; Flashing Swords 4; Flashing Swords 5; New Worlds For Old; The Young Magicians

Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote

Chalker, Jack L.: Midnight at the Well of Souls 1; Exiles at the Well of Souls 2; Quest For the Well Of Souls 3; The Return of Nathan Brazil 4, Twilight at the Well of Souls 5

Chandler, A. Bertram: The Road To The Rim

Chant, Joy: Red Moon And Black Mountain

Cherryh, C.J.:

Cook, Glen: The Black Company

Daley, Brian: Han Solo At Star’s End; Han Solo’s Revenge; Han Solo And The Lost Legacy

Davidson, Avram: The Phoenix In The Mirror, The Island Under the Earth

deCamp, L. Sprague: The Complete Compleat Enchanter; The Compleat Enchanter; Lovecraft, A Biography; Warlocks and Warriors; The Fallible Fiend; Conan The Barbarian; Conan And The Spider God; Lest Darkness Fall; The Carnelian Cube; The Emperors Fan; The Reluctant King; The Goblin Tower; The Clocks Of Iraz

Derleth, August: The Trail of Cthuhlu

Dickson, Gordon R.:

Donaldson, Stephen: Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Lost World

Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers

Dunsany, Lord: The King Of Elfland’s Daughter; Over the Hills and Far Away; The Charwoman's Shadow

Eco, Umberto: The Name Of The Rose

Eddings, David: Pawn of Prophecy, Queen Of Sorcery, Magician’s Gambit, Castle of Wizardry, Enchanter’s Endgame

Eddison, E. R.: The Worm Ouroboros; Mistress of Mistresses; A Fish Dinner In Memison

Ende, Michael: The Neverending Story

Farmer, Philip Jose: The Maker Of Universes 1; The Gates Of Creation 2; A Private Cosmos 3; Hadon Of Ancient Opar

Fiest, Raymond: Magician

Finney, Charles: The Unholy City; The Circus of Dr. Lao

Foster, Alan Dean: Nor Crystal Tears, Splinter of the Minds Eye; The End of the Matter; The Tar-Aiym Krang; Bloodhype; Orphan Star; For Love Of Mother-Not; The Time Of The Transference

Fox, Gardner: Kothar Barbarian Swordsman; Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse; Kothar and the Wizard Slayer; Kothar and the Magic Sword; Kothar And The Demon Queen; Kyrik Warlock Warrior; Kyrik Fights The Demon World; Kyrik and the Lost Queen; Kyrik and the Wizards Sword; Warrior Of Llarn

Funke, Cornelia: Inkheart

Gardner, Craig Shaw: A Malady Of Magicks

Garner, Alan: Elidor; The Moon Of Gomrath; The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

Gemmell, David: Legend

Goldman, William: The Princess Bride

Glut, Donald F: The Empire Strikes Back

Gygax, Gary: The Samarkand Solution; The Anubis Murders; Infernal Sorceress, Death In Delhi

Haggard, H. Rider: The People Of The Mist; The World's Desire; When The World Shook; She And Allan; King Solomon Mines; She

Hambly, Barbara: The Time of the Dark, The Walls Of Air, The Armies of Daylight, The Ladies of Mandrigyn, Dragonsbane

Harrison, Harry: The Adventures Of The Stainless Street Rat; The Stainless Steel Rat

Heinlein, Robert: Glory Road

Hickman, Tracy:

Hodgson, W.H.: The House On The Borderland

Holmes, John Eric: Mahars of Pellucidar

Howard, Robert E.: Sword Woman; Almuric; The People Of The Black Circle; Red Nails; Shadow Kingdoms; People Of The Dark; Beyond The Black River; The Hour Of The Dragon; Black Hounds Of Death; Conan 1; Conan Of Cimmeria 2; Conan the Freebooter 3; Conan the Wanderer 4; Conan the Adventurer 5; Conan the Buccaneer 6; Conan The Warrior 7; Conan The Usurper 8; Conan The Conqueror 9; Conan The Avenger 10; Conan Of Aquilonia 11; Conan of The Isles 12; Solomon Kane, The Hills Of The Dead; Skull-Face; Black Canaan; Swords Of Shahrazar; Marchers Of Valhalla

Hyne, C J Cutliffe: The Lost Continent

Jakes, John: Brak The Barbarian; Mark of Demons; The Sorceress

Jackson, Steve: Fighting Fantasy

Kline, Otis Adelbert: Swordsman Of Mars, Outlaw Of Mars, Planet of Peril

Kuttner, Henry: The Mask Of Circe; Elak Of Atlantis, The Dark World, Robots Have No Tails

Kurtz, Katherine: Deryni Rising; Deryni Checkmate; High Deryni

Lanier, Sterling: Hiero’s Journey; The Unforsaken Hiero

L’Engle, Madeleine: A Wrinkle In Time

Le Guin, Ursula: A Wizard Of Earthsea; The Left Hand Of Darkness; Tehanu; The Farthest Shore

Lee, Tanith: The Book Of The Damned I; The Book Of The Beast II; The Storm Lord, The Birthgrave, The Dragon Hoard, Night’s Master, Death’s Master

Leiber, Fritz: Swords and Deviltry 1; Swords Against Death 2; Swords In The Mist 3; Swords And Wizardry 4; The Swords of Lankhmar 5; Swords and Ice Magic 6

Lindsay, David: A Voyage To Arcturus

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Doom That Came To Sarnath; The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Shadow Over Innsmouth; At The Mountains Of Madness; The Lurker At The Threshold; The Tomb; The Watchers Out Of Time; Waking Up Screaming; The Dunwich Horror

Martin, George R.R.: Dying Of The Light; A Song Of Ice And Fire

Matheson, Richard: I Am Legend

McCaffery, Anne: The Ship Who Sang; Dinosaur Planet

Merritt, A.: The Ship Of Ishtar; The Seven Footprints Of Satan; The Moon Pool; The Face In The Abyss; Dwellers In the Mirage; Creep Shadow Creep

Miller, Walter: A Canticle For Leibowitz

Moorcock, Michael: Legends From The End Of Time; The Jewel In The Skull; The Mad God’s Amulet; The Sleeping Sorceress; The Runestaff; The Lord of the Spiders; The Masters of the Pit; The City of the Beast; The Warlord of the Air; Stealer Of Souls; Stormbringer; Elric of Melnibone; The Sword Of The Dawn

Moore, C.L.: Northwest Smith; Jirel Of Joiry

Morris, William: The Well At Worlds End I; The Well At Worlds End II; The Wood Beyond the World; The Water of the Wondrous Isles

Mundy, Talbot: Tros Of Samothrace; Avenging Liafail 2; The Praetor's Dungeon 3; The Purple Pirate 6

Niven, Larry: The Man-Kzin Wars; A World Out Of Time; A Gift From Earth; Tales of Known Space; Neutron Star; The Magic May Return; The Magic Goes Away; The Flight of the Horse

Norman, John: Tarnsman Of Gor 1; Outlaw Of Gor 2; Priest-Kings Of Gor 3; Nomads Of Gor 4; Assassin Of Gor 5; Raiders Of Gor 6; Captive Of Gor 7; Hunters Of Gor 8; Marauders Of Gor 9, Tribesmen Of Gor 10, Slave Girl of Gor 11; Time Slave

Norton, Andre: Quag Keep; Exiles of the Stars; Warlock of Witch World; High Sorcery; Witch World; Sargasso Of Space; Lord Of Thunder

Nowlan, Philip F.: Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Offutt, Andrew J.: Demon In The Mirror; Eyes Of Sarsis; Web Of The Spider; Conan, The Sword of Skelos; Conan The Mercenary; Swords Against Darkness I; Swords Against Darkness II; Swords Against Darkness III; Swords Against Darkness IV; Swords Against Darkness V; The Iron Lords; Cormac Mac Art

Piper, H. Beam: Space Viking

Pratchett, Terry: The Colour Of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort

Pratt, Fletcher: Land Of Unreason; The Blue Star; The Well of the Unicorn; The Carnelian Cube

Saberhagen, Fred: The First Book Of Swords; Second Book Of Swords; Third Book Of Swords; Empire Of The East

Schmitz, James: The Witches of Karres

Shea, Michael: Color Out Of Time; A Quest For Simbilis

Sims, John:

Sirota, Mike: Master Of Boranga

Smith, Clark Ashton: Lost Worlds Volume 1; Lost Worlds Volume 2; Out Of Space And Time 1; Out Of Space And Time 2; The Abominations of Yondo; Genius Loci; Poseidonis; Zothique; Hyperborea; Xiccarph; Tales Of Science And Sorcery; Other Dimensions 1; Other Dimensions 2

Smith, L. Neil: Lando Calrissian and the Midharp of Sharu; Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of Thonboka; Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Osean

Smith, E.E. ‘Doc’: Triplanetary

Springer, Nancy: The White Hart

St. Clair, Margaret: The Shadow People; Sign of the Labrys

Stasheff, Christopher: The Warlock Wandering; A Warlock's Blade; Warlock And Son; The Warlock Is Missing; Her Majesty's Wizard; King Kobold

Stewart, Mary: The Crystal Cave; The Hollow Hills; The Last Enchantment

Swann, Thomas: Green Phoenix; Day Of The Minotaur; Cry Silver Bells; Moondust

Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings

Tubb, E.C.:

Van Arnam, Dave: Star Barbarian

Van Vogt, A.E.: The Voyage Of The Space Beagle; Quest For The Future

Vance, Jack: The Languages Of The Pao; The Dragon Masters; The Best of Jack Vance; The Dying Earth; The Eyes of the Overworld; Cugel’s Saga; Rhialto The Marvelous; Trullion, Alastor 2262; Wyst, Alastor 1716; Marune, Alastor 933; The Faceless Man 1; The Brave Free Men 2; The Astura 3; Lyonesse 1; The Green Pearl 2; Madouc 3; The Face 4; The Blue World; Galactic Effectuator; Big Planet; City Of The Chasch 1; Servants of the Wanhk 2; The Dirdir 3; The Pnume 4; Suldrun's Garden

Verne, Jules: The Mysterious Island

Wagner, Karl E: Bloodstone, Death Angel’s Shadow, Dark Crusade

Weinbaum, Stanley; The Black Flame; A Martian Odyssey

Wellman, Manly Wade: The Old Gods Waken; The Hanging Stones; The Lost And The Lurking; After Dark; Silver John; Who Fears The Devil?

White, Theodore: The Once and Future King

Williams, Robert M.: Return of Jongor

Williamson, Jack: The Trial Of Terra; The Legion Of Space

Zelazny, Roger: Nine Princes In Amber; The Guns of Avalon; Sign of the Unicorn; The Hand of Oberon; The Courts of Chaos; Jack Of Shadows; Dilvish, The Damned; The Changing Land; Isle of the Dead; Trumps of Doom; Blood Of Amber; Sign Of Chaos; Knight Of Shadows; Prince of Chaos

Alien: Intruder And Xenophobe

Between the release of Chevski's Thousand Suns and Ridley Scott's Prometheus trailer, 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the science fiction old school renaissance.

Ridley Scott is directing Prometheus, and directed the original Alien movie. H.R. Giger gave us the look of the Alien antagonist, the Xenomorph. The above Giger image inspired Alien's Xenomorph.

That antagonist later makes its appearance in all sorts of unauthorized spin-offs.

The first of those two is the Xenomorph's appearance in a Task Force microgame from 1980, entitled Intruder.

Intruder was designed by Dennis Sustare, known for having designed the much beloved Bunnies and Burrows RPG and Dwarfstar's engaging, if somewhat arcane, Star Smuggler microgame.

Intruder is set in the near future, on the Deep Space Station Prometheus, orbiting the star Sigma Draconis.

An exploratory team brings back an alien life form, and is directed to keep the creature alive for study. When the creature escapes from the lab, this directive proves to be a deadly mistake.

If the premise sounds familiar, it may be because it is. That is the same premise that informs the first two Aliens movies.

The second unauthorized spin-off is a Bally Midway Arcade game from 1987, entitled Xenophobe. Xenophobe is obviously inspired by the Alien movie franchise, as the goal of the game is to rid various ships, bases and planets of alien infestations.



The game allows you to play one of nine different characters. Among them: Dr. Kwack, sporting a duck head; Mr. Brace, with a Quasimoto face; Col. Truth, the spock-eared; Mr. Fogg, crazy scientist hair and a Geordie visor; Dr. Udderbay and Col. Poupon, two female chaaracters; Mr. Eeez, with a green bug head; Mr. Zordiz, the James T. Kirk of the game; and Col. Shickn, with white hair and an eye-patch. The characters wear yellow, blue and red tunics, Some also wear black slacks, given the characters a look reminiscent of early Star Trek attire.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas.

Split Enz: I Hope I Never

A while ago an old buddy of mine remarked how much I looked like Tim Finn from Split Enz. That reminded me of one of my favorite Split Enz songs, I Hope I Never. My other favorite is Iris.

Split Enz would later transform into Crowded House. Anyway, enjoy.