Eclipse Phase

I am currently getting immersed in the world of Eclipse Phase, it is a post apocalyptic, heavily transhuman RPG. I like this, lots of AGIs, augs, implants, cortical stacks and resleeving. These guys have thrown many ideas into the mix and created something that is both exiting and thought provoking. It looks good too. Recommended.

Spica Career Book 2

Inside you'll find:

• Two alternative methods for generating Background Skills;
• An alternative Injury Table;
• University and Graduate School pre-career options
• Two new skills: Manipulation and Psychohistory, and an expanded Trade ski
• 4 new careers for use in your Traveller game or campaign:

ATHLETE: Striving for accolades, athletes compete in games spanning subsectors. It's the winning that matters!
CHANCER: Lying, cheating, stealing, and deceit: the tools of the trade of the Chancer, who can only win as long as someone else loses.
COMPANION: Whether you're down-trodden and poor, or high-class and rich, everyone pays a price in the oldest profession.
COSMONAUT: Making a living in space can be hard work, with cargo pods to be moved, repairs to be made and people to be rescued!
ENFORCER: Thug, bully boy, heavy: names mean nothing to you. Getting a result for your boss means everything!
INSURGENT: Working within the government, you work in the background, helping those who seek to overthrow the government.
MEDIA PRACTITIONER: Lights! Camera! Action! Whether it's a soap opera, a documentary or a quiz show, you're the one who makes it shine!
MYSTIC WARRIOR: You're searching for the truth both within and without, and enjoying a fight along the way!
POLITICIAN: Greed, money, power, and votes: when you're a politician, you need plenty of these!
PORT AUTHORITY: You make sure the right cargo gets to the right ship, the ships get off the pad and that the taxes on the cargos have been paid!
PRISONER: Whether you're a common criminal, a political agitator or a prisoner of war: behind bars, everyone has one thought - to get out!
PUPPETEER: These alien experimenters are happy to wait to see the outcome of their experiments on other societies.
SECRET POLICE: The Secret Police know what everyone is doing, what everyone is saying and where everyone is going!
SLAVE: Your life is in the hands of your master or mistress, their every wish a command, and every command an order!

Also included are 57 pre-generated characters! Three are from each of the new careers, plus 14 multi-career characters (generated using both the Traveller Main Book and Career Book 2) - all pre-generated and ready for when you need characters in a hurry!

Requires the use of the Traveller Core Rulebook, available from Mongoose Publishing.

It is excellent and is by my mates John, Richard and Nik at Spica so buy it now at DTRPG, why don't you.

Robots for Traveller

I've added in a section to the Traveller gallery for Robots and posted a few illustrations that I had done a while back for Flynns's (yet to be published) Guide to Robots.

It can be found here.

Defying Gravity

I gave seen the first couple of episodes of this and although it has had a bit of critism, I like it. It is trying hard to be a realistic hard sf show within a tv budget and I can forgive the few schoolboy errors that have occured so far because it is trying and has great potential. Also we get so few near-space sf tv programs that I really do want this to succeed. The pros so far are the ship design exterior and especially the interiors, and the storyline, which is building mysteriously and I have no idea where it is going. The cons are the bad science moments (zero gravity is always going to be tackled badly on todays tv so I will have to live with it) and the 'too good looking' crew.
It has a wierd feeling similar to 'Lost' too ( but no spoilers here).
I look forward to seeing how this develops.

WHAT IS IN POD 4?....

Dollhouse

I have been watching Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and really liking it. The fist five episodes were OK which a gave a false sense of security as then it really ramped up and became something different entirely. And then, wow, episode 13, WTF! It seems Joss was a bit pissed at Fox interference in the show so he did his own thing on this one and boy is it good. No spoilers but this episode is top notch dystopian transhumanism that gives you lots to think about until the next series airs.

New BurrowWolf Page

Page 14 of the BurrowWolf webcomic has just been posted. Here.

The final page of chapter 2 will be uploaded soon too.

WIP Page

I have added a new 'Work in Progress' section here.

You can now see the various projects I am modelling up and how very slowly I am doing it.

Torchwood - Children of Earth

Wow this was amazing, dark, gritty, emotional and quite traumatic. Quite the best Torchwood so far. It certainly did not put the british government in in a good light either. But then again the Whoverse never does anymore. I recommend this, though it is not Dr Who style light viewing by any means!

WE ARE COMING...

Joe Abercrombie

I must recommend this guy, Joe Abercrombie is new school fantasy, which is grim, twisted and very very funny.

I have just finished his second novel in the 'First Law' trilogy and am going straight onto the third, great fun!

He has a new hardback just out which is set in the same world as the trilogy so I am happy to see it's a place I will be escaping to again.

New BurrowWolf Page

Page 13 of the BurrowWolf webcomic has now been posted.

Here.

I hope you like it.

Chuck

I have an iPhone, it plays video, and I have an hour and a half train journey each way to my job. This means I watch a lot of TV on my iPhone, normally an entire series end to end over the course of a week or two. My latest entertainment is the first season of Chuck, I am enjoying this it's lightweight comedy spy-fi with a little bit of SF thrown in. The main character is a geek underacheiver who is accidentally involved in the secret agent game and has fallen for a deadly and of course gorgeous ass kickin' assassin. Very clever, you identify with the character and have a bit of fantasy too. Every week he has to save the world and keep it secret from his family, friends and appalling day job in an appliance store.

It is funny and quite cool, oh, and it also has Adam (Jayne) Baldwin who's hard guy act just cracks me up every time.

BurrowWolf Deckplans

I have added in a bit more detail to the (work in progress) BurrowWolf deckplans here.

I have yet to do the lower deck and engineering, one day soon I'll get around to it.

Most things are on hold at the moment as I am currently working on the new ACER book for Spica which should be finished soon, this will be good!

The Sarah Connor Chronicles OST

I have just got the soundtrack to this series by Bear McCreary (who is the composer for Battlestar Galactica). It is very reminiscent of the BSG stuff but it does suit the series well and the treatment of the original Terminator theme is wonderful. Also a great track with Shirley Manson called 'Samson and Delilah'. I believe she stars in the second series, I have only done series one so far and quite enjoyed it. What a shame it has been cancelled after series 2 but that's Fox for you.

I have also recently discovered Bear McCreary's blog here, this really is a fascinating blog, it explains a lot about the way score music is created and how it interacts with the characters, and also how passionate he (and everybody else involved) was with BSG. Well worth a visit.

I also notice that the soundtracks for BSG series 4 and Caprica are about to be released here, so more Bear McCreary coming soon.

Caprica

Just seen the pilot for Caprica, and it's wonderful. Set in the Battlestar Galactica universe 58 years before the fall, this is the at the birth of the events leading to the BSG epic. This is however very different mixing the thriller, mystery and cyberpunk/transhumanism genres.

This could be as good as BSG, here's hoping.

I cannot wait for the series to start airing next year.

Starmap Pro

Its been good weather and pretty cloudless on occasion here recently, so I've dusted off my telescope and been having some good nights stargazing. This led me to download a great little app for my iPhone: Starmap Pro. It's a great planner and reference tool and it's unbelievable how much is packed into it, I cannot recommend it enough. I love my little iPhone and this has made it even more indispensable. Now all I need is a few more dry evenings, (like that is going to happen in the UK).

Age of Conan

Just started playing Age of Conan and am thoroughly enjoying it. It got lots of bad press when it was released a year ago, but I think it is great. It is beautiful to look at and has a true-to-REH viciousness about it. 

I have not played a lot of MMORPGs though I have played WOW in the past and found it too cartoonish (and too many juvenile idiots playing it too). 

Nowadays I still play LOTRO and love it so shall continue to do so, but sometimes it all feels a bit too worthy and of course EVE is the best thing out there, but not one to be played casually which is a problem as I have limited time. God, if only this stuff was around when I was a student instead of Jet Set Willy.

New 2300ad Art

Just posted a new image on the 2300ad page (here). I've been reading my Rotten to the Core Sourcebook recently, and like the cyberpunky feel of Libreville, very William Gibson. I was a big fan of Cyberpunk/Shadowrun/CyberSpace and liked the way GDW integrated the genre into the 2300ad universe (even if it was only a marketing ruse).

Enterprise

OK so the idea is that I will start using this more as a blog and less of an occasional message.

I have a long commute so I use the time reading and watching old TV series and films on my iPhone.

I am currently doing Farscape series 1 and Enterprise series 2 which I had missed (ignored) when broadcast.

Enterprise is definitely a bit 'meh' with too many smug morals and conveniently happy endings. However there is the odd good one in amongst the dross. I have just watched the one where some remnant Borg are found in the Arctic and found it an OK episode - all action and suspense and good at it. As always canon is out of the window and there are too many references to various episodes and films that are there purely to shoehorn it into the official timeline and appease the fans. Oh yes and the old favourite was in there; "If I target our weapons on their EPS manifold captain we can disable their warp drive, Captain." Just like that bloody shaft on the Death Star, stick it on the outside with no protection and hope no one will notice. Pitiful.

Some new Artwork

I have just posted some more interior shots and a 'work in progress' mid-deck deckplan for the BurrowWolf here.

I eventually intend to do a large scale downloadable pdf version of the deckplans both in a black and white vector version an a highly detailed rendered colour version (blatently copying Ryan Wolfe/Ki-Ryn's Future Armada series, but hey, imitation=flattery, etc.).

I have also posted a new scene to the Traveller gallery here. 

Frontier Report Issue 1

Commander Drax has just released the first issue of the Traveller fanzine Frontier Report. This is well worth getting & has a stunning cover by Andrew Boulton. Ninety nine pages of goodies.

He obviously put a lot of hard work into this, let us hope there are many more issues to come.

It is available from his website:

www.the-children-of-earth.org/traveller