Knights of Pen & Paper Review NEEDS SPELLCHECK, IMAGES

Few games can offer the grinding glory of a good RPG with the sense of intimate social cohesion of a tabletop board game. Those characteristics require true genius and near-perfect delivery, two characteristics typically lacking in one measure or another from games found on the App Store. Thankfully, Paradox Studios' meta-RPG and tabletop gaming simulator, Knights of Pen & Paper, exists to show us how such a fusion would work. And it does a good job--at least at first.

Author Iain Banks Passes Away

I typically don't write current events news posts, but this one is important to me. One of my most beloved authors, Iain Banks (also known as Iain M. Banks) has passed away today. I knew that this day was coming, after he published a heart-felt preemptive goodbye to readers, friends, and fans in April. Announcing that he was "officially Very Poorly," Banks said, "The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it’s extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last." The Quarry will be published June 25th, 2013.

His most famous works are the incredibly versatile Culture books, which span almost a dozen titles, though he wrote many more science-fiction works and led a double career as a writer of critically-acclaimed literary fiction.

In the last year I've only just begun to immerse myself in his work, but from the titles I have read have stemmed long, intricate discussions with other fans. His first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, blew me away and introduced me to a new level of the literary merits of Science Fiction. He also inspired me to start writing SF again after reading another of his works, The Algebraist, a few months ago.

He'll be missed. I'm grateful for the legacy he left behind though, and I encourage all SF fans and readers who have not been introduced to Banks to put a title on their to-read list. I recommend starting with Consider Phlebas if you're an action-oriented reader, or Player of Games if you prefer a more nuanced story.

My greatest hope is that we, as a society, can be a little more like the Culture as we mature and grow up into the stars.

-Travis

"The Miller's Prince" Now Available on Amazon

If you're a fan of my fiction, I've got a brief PSA for you. Last week, my short story "The Miller's Prince," published in the Great Lakes Review in 2011 and on Abandoned Towers Online in 2012, went up on Amazon's Kindle bookstore. It costs .99 cents, and if you want to read it but don't want to foot the buck, it's still free at Abandoned Towers. But it'd be cool if you own a Kindle or have the Kindle Software on your favorite computer device and decided to go ahead and buy one. 

I'm considering making more of my fiction available via this method. Leave a comment if you're interested in that. (Further released would probably be bundles of stories rather than individual pops).

Click here to jump to the Amazon Listing.

The Knight in History Reflection

Most every little boy knows the legend of Arthur. Fathers (or uncles, or grandpas) pass on the code of chivalry, or at least some modernized, stripped down form of the ancient gentleman's code. In America, where never a knight did stride, knighthood is little more than a romanticized dalliance with fantasy and history that pervades our cultural literature, both genre and otherwise. Heck, even our ideal future is governed by (Jedi) Knights. But how often do we stop to ask, what is it to be chivalrous? Why did chivalry need to be codified? And who were these men that needed to be kept under control with such a strict code? The answers lie in Frances Gies' readable, fact-filled, and terrific exploration of the essence of knighthood, The Knight in History.

Warhammer Quest Review

Originally released as a tabletop board game experience in 1995, Warhammer Quest was, and is, a turn-based dungeon crawling RPG published by Games Workshop. Warhammer titles almost always invoke memories of savage frenzy, but they can also be incredibly alienating to the uninitiated. That means that it comes with a thick rule book and a steep learning curve, and it can easily consume many hours (and beers). Having spent a ton of time with Rodeo Games' new, officially licensed iOS port of the old board game, though, I feel totally safe calling it a one of a kind triumph in streamlining the tabletop experience into a smooth, polished game on the iPad that does a stunning job of presenting itself to new players unlearned in Games Workshop arcana. And it does it without losing any of the gravitas of a proper Games Workshop experience. Gone are the killer rulebooks, replaced with state of the art touch-based play that puts the game right in your hands, managing the back end as you break faces and do battle. This is the kind of re-introduction that is so good it’s bound to draw more people into the hardcore fold.

The Resurrectionist Review

Do you remember when horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction were almost as fringe as the occult studies themselves? Unfortunately for many fans of the grotesque and horrible, the stratospheric rise of franchises like Twilight and Harry Potter have, whatever their individual merits, stripped us of our creepers and crawlers, nightmares and madness, and returned them as a sanitized, sterile, and often vapid caricatures for their former macabre beauty. It can be tough to find quality examples of twisted fiction in today's saturated market with its deluge of zombies, vampires, and dime-a-dozen serial killers, murderous vigilantes, and caped crusaders. But if, like me, you value true fright for the sake of its uncanny allure, if you like gazing over the edge of the abyss into the quivering, cannibalistic recesses of the human mind, I've got some horribl(ly) excellent news for you. The Ressurectionist, by E.B. Hudsperth, is a one-of-a-kind treasure. And it's damn beautiful, too.

Editorial: What Makes Dead Space Worth Playing?

WHAT MAKES DEAD SPACE WORTH PLAYING?

Written by Neale Rooney

"ITS NOT THE DYING THAT SCARES ME. IT'S NOT MAKING A DIFFERENCE BEFORE I DO."

Austin Buckell’s statement in Dead Space 3 could almost be seen as a reference for game franchises as a whole: the Call of Duty's and Halos of the last generation have all "made a difference." These are the multi-million dollar franchises churning out game after game that have defined a generation, OUR generation. DS3 marks the end of a trilogy, and possibly the death of the franchise as a whole. But despite dire straits, in my humble opinion, Dead Space has already made a tremendous difference. Here’s why Dead Space is one of the finest examples of video game art ever created.

Death by Black Hole Reflection

While most of my non-fiction reviews thus far have been oriented around pedagogy, literacy, and cultural criticism, I'm keeping myself sane (and my blood pressure low) by interspersing my studies with some cosmology and astrophysics research. It shouldn't come as a surprise to any reader of this site that I am a huge sci-fi fan. But did you know I'm also an amateur astronomer, and that I tutored astronomy at the college level for nearly three years? I find nothing more appealing than the (second) oldest profession, except perhaps education (the third-oldest?), and I find something undeniably resonant between the two. The latter two. Ahem. May I present to you my reflections on Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Death by Black Hole.

Star Command Review

Build your own starship. Hire your own crew. Explore the universe. Battle alien civilizations across the galaxy. These are the promises, and more, made by War Balloon’s freshman starship sim, Star Command. Released on May 2^nd, the game arrives more than 18 months after finding ample funding on the crowdfund king, Kickstarter, and after numerous delays, community outcries, and controversies. How does it look upon touchdown? Star Command is equal parts funny, tough, and visually stellar; it’s the dream for a Massively Effected Star Trekkie on the hunt for a kick-ass spaceship sim.

Down but not out

Due to an attempt to seize my Google Accounts, I've been locked out of my email for the last few days. Coupled with two weeks of overtime work, I haven't been in the position to fix my account problems, access the website, update it, or schedule forward the regular posts. I apologize for the delay in content, and I am working to get things back and running. Here's what we're going to have coming in the next few days:

-An article by Neale Rooney, the usual co-host of Games as Lit
-A review of Star Command, the new sci-fi roguelike space sim for iOS
-A review of Iain M. Bank's The Algebraist

Also, as a general PSA, it should be noted that over the course of the next few months we're going to be winding down activities as I approach full-time enrollment in grad school and a necessary reduction in extracurricular projects.

T