BigJackBrass

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Ah, haven't read that one in years. It has survived occasional enforced weeding of my book collection, though, so I really ought to revisit it soon. I've just completed The Blue-Haired Bombshell by John Zakour, one of the increasingly predictable Zach Johnson P.I. series. The premise is fine - last P.I. on Earth, old-fashioned but has a snooty supercomputer wired into his brain - but after five books the continual appearance of powerful female characters (with the emphasis on "powerful" more than "character" as they're pretty much interchangeable) threatening the world with psionics and superpowers, defeated only by Zach, his smugly superior computer HARV and his telepathic secretary Carol... well, half of the pages seem to be devoted to justifying why someone doesn't just kill Zach first, then get on with their plan. Light reading, then, not anywhere near as funny as it ought to be and yet still fairly enjoyable. The jokes seem a little more tired and rather less frequent than in the earlier books; and the titles have never surpassed that of the first in the series, The Plutonium Blonde. Start there if you have any interest, rather than the later books. Before that I read Greg Farshtey's old Bloodshadows novel, Hell's Feast, fantasy noir detective thriller, with vampires. Every bit as cheesy as it sounds, on top of which it's gaming fiction. I enjoyed it immensely Hmm, what to read next...?

Re: URBAN FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? This is the second RPG forum I've read this afternoon to mention Jethro Tull... which is odd since I'm listening to Songs from the Wood at the moment. Been one of those sorts of days... the fairies are probably tinkering with the stereo...

Re: Death Race

Re: Fantasy Gambling Ideas Kévuk might be worth considering. It's a dice game developed for the world of Tékumel by Professor M.A.R. Barker. The rules are available from RPGnow as a PDF, but you can also the buy special dice used (rather nicely done, too) from Tita's House of Games and there's even a computerised version of the game if you happen to use a Mac. Some links: Tita's: Look under Live Action Role-Playing Props and Other Items of Interest near the bottom of the page. Computer version: MacKévuk RPGNow: Kévuk

Re: URBAN FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Death Race They played the trailer for this when I went to see Hellboy II. I may be mistaken, but it appeared to last for twenty long, long minutes... Well, I might be exaggerating, then. I turned to my girlfriend, who was staring in horrified disbelief at the screen, and said, "I think we've just watched the entire movie." Can't imagine how much else is left, considering that the plot is not exactly deep.

Re: Stronghold Hm, that's what I thought; and yet not a single on-line shop I can find in the UK has a listing for it, despite carrying the rest of the line. I'll have to make some enquiries and see if there is a glitch in distribution over here.

Re: Lost Cities of the Amazon Along with "Did intelligent gorillas ever make it to the Amazon?" There just has to be a secret city of them somewhere nearby, migrated from Africa by biplane

Stronghold availability? The book is in the HERO store, but I can't find it being stocked by anyone else. Has Stronghold actually been generally released? I've clearly missed an announcement or two somewhere.

Well okay... lost towns really, but fascinating nonetheless. As usual the Beeb has the story.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Sheik Yerbouti - Frank Zappa

Re: Doc Savage cover fakes No, just spending far too much time on the Internet looking for pulp goodies, since I've been off sick from work for a rather dull, uncomfortable week. Thank goodness for RPGs to read, eh?

A rather well presented series of "what if?" covers featuring the Man of Bronze: Monsterverse

Re: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Saw it this morning... Roughly on par with the second movie, perhaps a little better due to appealing Chinese historical theme and visuals. Was there any character development at all in this film? John Hannah got the best lines, as ever, but that's all his character is, just a few lines. The only person given any chance to act was Michelle Yeoh (well, I suppose that Maria Bello, Luke Ford and Isabella Leong had the chance to act, but they appeared to lack the talent to take the opportunity) and even her character was given short shrift, with little to get her teeth into once the Emperor and his undead former general had returned. A bit of a disappointment, all in all, given how much potential was there. My girlfriend put it well when she said that there were no surprises in the picture, just an inevitable plot sequence and lots of (often very well put-together) action pieces. Entertaining, but nothing more. There are just too many core characters to focus on, given the miserly way the dialogue was spread around.

Re: Foxbat is up

Re: Foxbat is up Yes, you can allow it for a short time, but after that the homonym period is over... I'll get me coat

Re: Foxbat is up

Not sure if this has been mentioned before (it's not a new story) but here's a link to a story about body armour featuring a liquid component. Interesting stuff for a modern campaign.

Re: Foxbat is up The face is a bit too Zoltar for me (Battle of the Planets / Gatchaman) but overall I like the way Foxbat has been handled. Hopefully he'll be absolutely bonkers in the game itself - superhero games need a bit of silliness now and then.

Re: Western Hero Resources If there aren't then you can find copies at places such as Noble Knight.

Re: Pulp Hero PDF adventures Yikes! I'd entirely missed the last four! Serves me right for not paying attention...

Re: Pulp Hero Resources Something for the Holmes fans, here's a beautiful map of Mr Sherlock Holmes' apartment with or without annotations.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Einstein A Go-Go by Landscape (having a bit of an eighties week, so dug out their album From the Tea-rooms of Mars... to the Hell-holes of Uranus.) Might move on to Japan's Tin Drum next.

Re: The Most Powerful Laxative Known To Man

Re: Dark Champions - Please no Harbinger of Justice... Good heavens! Did someone just teleport this thread back from a pocket dimension?