Fantasist’s Scroll

What if Darth Vader were a chick?
Okay, so I saw “Revenge of the Sith” last week Sunday afternoon with a friend and it was good. Not great, but, considering we all knew how it would end anyway, it was pretty good. Special effects were first rate and seeing it on the IMAX screen was, well, like the “old days” of movie going. Well worth the $10.
Anyway, someone said something the other day that got me thinking… How different would all these movies have been if Anakin Skywalker had been, say “Anne” or “Annabelle” Skywalker? How much more tragic would that scene in Episode V have been when Darth told Luke the truth? “Luke, I’m your mother!” After all, mothers are supposed to be the source of all comfort and care and light. Imagine the horror of your own mother turning to the Dark Side and trying to twist you to a path of hate, fear and anger. What a powerful image that is!
Now, do any of you faithful readers, either of you, dare to re-write the Star Wars story with that one twist? I dare you.

My favorite fantasy author is experimenting.
Specifically, Lawrence Watt-Evans is serializing an Ethshar novel called The Spriggan Mirror. Apparently, the fans are clamoring for more Ethshar, but not loudly enough to be heard in the halls of the ivory towers of publishing. So, dedicated author that he is, Lawrence has begun serializing the novel on his website. Every week that he has recieved $100, or more, in donations, he will post a chapter, until the entire book is “exposed”. Of course, if he hasn’t recieved the required donations, he doesn’t post anything that week. So, all you rich kids who like Lawrence Watt-Evans, go spend your allowance on this project, so I can read this fine novel for free.

Oh, you know I’m going to contribute, but it’s Friday, so I thought I’d have a little fun. Now, go read as much of The Spriggan Mirror as you can before the boss catches you!

Wow, there’s been a lot of space-travel news lately.

And, that’s a good thing, I think. It means people are talking about it and doing things about it. Yesterday, I posted a story about India’s moonshot and last week I mentioned a couple of things about the X-Prize and SpaceShip One. Well, now I’ve read about Bigelow Aerospace and their work on inflatable space modules. The article is over at Spaceflight Now and is worth the read. One of the things that is mentioned is that Robert T. Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, says that he’s planning to announce a new $50-million space launch contest called America’s Space Prize. That’s five times the size of the current X-Prize.
What I think is cool about all this is that it’s about private industry working on getting into space. It’s something we really need to do. We’re slowly choking this planet and pushing her resources to the limit, so we need to find more room to expand. And, before everyone starts sending me nasty e-mail, that will also teach us conservation and better resource management. How? A space mission has to use its very limit resources extremely carefully or everyone dies. The improvements in technology will spill over into the private, non-space, sector, just as they’ve done since the first launch.
Also mentioned on the same page as the article is a book that looks quite good: Moonrush: Improving Life On Earth With The Moon’s Resources. It certainly seems like an appropriate topic based on all these news stories. All you budding science-fiction writers better bone up on this stuff!

Is it the most elaborate hoax ever?

Well, according to this article from Scientific American, it very well could be. In fact, it might be the most famous con, too. Experts have analyzed this manuscript, found by Wilfrid Voynich, an American rare-book dealer, in 1912, but haven’t been able to come up with either the code or language in which the book is written. One theory is that English adventurer Edward Kelley may have created the document to defraud the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II who reportedly paid a sum of 600 ducats (about $50,000 today) for the manuscript.)
The article goes into the details, but it seems quite plausable. So, I guess conlanging can be profitable after all!

An you thought you spent a lot of money on gaming?

Okay, I know I must spend several hundred dollars a year on role-playing game junk, of one kind or another, but $17K for a single 20-sided die? Yep, someone paid that for this Roman 20-sided die. Of course, it’s probably the oldest 20-sider that exists, but still… Hey, I’ll have to remember that the next time my wife says something about me buying yet another $40 RPG book!

It’s a crazy world.

Kind of creepy, really.

But, I can see how it would be usefull. This article on the Sydney Morning Herald describes a new way to generate power from blood. Sure, the first comparison is to the Matrix, but it’s more likely to be used like the Six Million Dollar Man. This process really doesn’t create much power, so it can only power small devices. In fact, the article speculates that it will only be used to power internal “devices” or “enhancements”.
So, now, imagine a cell-phone implanted into your jaw and mastoid cavity that’s powered by your own blood flow. I can see it in the near future. Fascinating concept, actually. What else might this enable? What enhancements would you want to see installed? The answers to those questions are science-fiction stories ripe for the picking. Go forth and write!

Okay, here’s a new angle…

Here’s a news story from Yahoo about a guy who claims to be a time traveller who “knows” what the market is going to do. He started with an $800 portfolio and in two weeks made over $350 million! What’s interesting is that no one can seem to find any record of the name this guy is using prior to December of 2002. He’s apparently claimed that he’ll tell us where Osama Bin Laden is and how to cure AIDS as proof that he comes from the future. Well, I’m game!

This does point out, though, why that old sci-fi favorite of travelling back in time to buy the right stocks on the stock market wouldn’t work. You’d have to be pretty darn careful or someone, somewhere would notice. On the other hand, it could just be an interesting plot twist. Of course, there’s still the old lottery gambit. You know, going back and getting a ticket with the winning numbers on it. Hmm… That one has some possibilities. Oh, and combine the two and you’d have an interesting tale of greed! Of course, time-travel is really more the realm of fantasy than science-fiction. Asimov came up with some rules about time travel that seem pretty solid to me. He was, after all, an actual scientist and a genius to boot. Also, he’s still one of the most prolific writers of our time. Still, those time travel stories have always piqued my curiosity….

[ Posted by mail via mail2mt.pl ]

Ah, the quest for the perfect role-playing game!

For me, that would be a whole, complete game with a specifically fantasy setting that included magic and is contained in a single volume. A tall order you say? Not at all. DragonQuest is one such game. In fact, it is the standard by which I rate all other games.
Oh, Dungeons and Dragons is a fine game. Really, it can be said that it was the first true role-playing game. But, even that was broken up into multiple books, each of which cost about what the single DragonQuest volume cost. What’s more, DragonQuest dispenced with such artificial notions of “alignment” and “character classes”. Characters are motivated by the same things people are and few are wholly “good” or “evil”. And, as for the notion of a character class, DragonQuest took the much more reasonable approach of grouping skills into professional classes, but didn’t impose any artificial limits on who could learn what. So, a player could create a thief that was also very good with a sword and could cast spells. All it took was time, experience, and finding a teacher for the desired skills.
The really cool thing, to my way of thinking, was that DragonQuest did all this in less than 160 pages, including illustrations, introductions and a starter adventure! And the cost? $19.95. Mind, this was back in the mid-80′s when the dollar was worth more, too. Of course, there were additional adventures and even an entire supplemental world to adventure in, but all one really need to get started was the one book. A game far ahead of its time.
Of course, TSR bought SPI, who produced DragonQuest, just so they could take it off the shelves. Or, so it has been rumored. Then, TSR was swallowed up by Wizards of the Coast, which was in turn bought by Hasbro. All of which means, I fear, that DragonQuest will never see the light of day again. I treasure my copies of the game.

What got me thinking about this, though, was a rumor I heard on-line today about a game-alike of DragonQuest being released at the upcoming GenCon. I have no idea if it’s true or not, but I sure hope it is.
Stay tuned!