Filming of HBO's Game of Thrones concluded on Thursday with a big wrap party. Not that the hard work is over, with weeks of work still ahead involving editing, post-production and the addition of special effects and music, and that's before HBO executives see the final result and can begin pondering the decision on whether to give a full-season order to the producers.
The last week of filming was spent at Ouarzazate, Morocco, where part of the immense Jerusalem set from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven had been redressed as Ilyrio Mopatis' mansion near the Free City of Pentos. Scenes filmed here included the first meeting between Daenerys Targaryen (Tamzin Merchant) and the warlord Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), as well as their later wedding, orchestrated by Ilyrio (Ian McNeice) and Daenerys' brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd) to help further their plan to retake the Iron Throne of Westeros from the usurper, King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy).
The timeline going forward now appears to be that editing and post-production will take place over the next couple of months, possibly with a Christmas break. Modern VideoFilm, an American post-production company used previously on projects such as SyFy's Battlestar Galactica, will be doing some work on the project in February, which might be the final edit and lock. This is backed up by George R.R. Martin's recent comments in Belfast that HBO's final verdict is expected in March 2010, indicating they will see the pilot in February/March and make a decision a little while later.
This timescale is a little longer than first expected, since the two pilots HBO filmed last summer, Treme and Boardwalk Empire, were picked up within about five weeks of filming wrapping on both. However, those two shows are coming from experienced producers with excellent form (David Simon - creator of The Wire - and Martin Scorsese) with a lot less post-production required, enabling HBO to make a decision much more quickly.
If picked up for a first season, it is expected that the series would return to production in the late spring or early summer and would last for thirty weeks, lasting well into the autumn and possibly right up until the end of 2010. That makes a 2010 airing impossible, and also makes January 2011 the earliest possible air date, and it could potentially be the spring of 2011. So we are still way off from seeing the show on the screen, although with True Blood continuing and The Pacific, Treme and Boardwalk Empire all airing in 2010, HBO can probably survive without it ;-)
Westeros.org has a new sub-section dealing with the TV series and have put together an excellent article on the potential post-production and special effects requirements for the pilot here. The SF&F site Airlock Alpha has an overview of the project here. Industry-watcher The Hollywood Reporter also has a highly favourable article here, stating that the pilot will only not get picked up if the pilot is an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, which does not seem to be the case at the moment.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Thirty-eight thousand years in the future, the Galaxy is gripped in a constant state of warfare. The million worlds of the Imperium of Man are under constant attack from hostile alien races. Whilst the billions-strong army of the Imperial Guard holds the lines, it is up to the thousand chapters of the genetically-engineered, highly-capable Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, to take the offensive.
In one small corner of the Imperium is sub-sector Aurelia, the three major worlds of which - Calderis, Typhon and Meridian - are the primary recruiting and base worlds for the Blood Raven chapter of the Space Marines. When the Orks mount a major assault on Calderis, the Blood Ravens respond and discover that the Eldar are trying to trigger a full-scale war between the two factions. Whilst the Space Marines attempt to eliminate both hostile alien forces, a Tyranid Hive Fleet also shows up to infest all three worlds, resulting in an exceptionally bloody battle to save the planets and their billions of inhabitants from certain death.
Dawn of War II takes place in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and is the sequel to the 2004 real-time strategy game Dawn of War and its three expansions, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. Once again, the player takes control of the Blood Raven chapter of the Space Marines and fights against various foes in the single-player campaign, whilst in multiplayer they can also control the Orks, Eldar and Tyranids in battle. The forthcoming Chaos Rising expansion will also add the Chaos Marine faction to the game. Whilst not directly controllable in battle, several missions see the Space Marines fighting alongside the Imperial Guard, who provide fire support and cannon fodder for the enemy forces.
The original Dawn of War was a satisfactorily enjoyable RTS, but it had several key problems: it was very short, the non-linear campaigns of the latter two expansions were dull and repetitive and it was very easy, particularly if you played as the Space Marines. Space Marines in the WH40K universe are one-man armies, each capable of annihilating dozens of enemies from other factions (their counterparts from the corrupted Chaos Marine faction excepted), and Dawn of War seemed unwilling to treat them in this manner or downgrade them fully to the status of just another army, meaning that they fell into a kind of halfway position where they were substantially tougher than most of the other factions in the game but also still weren't as powerful as they should be given the setting's lore. Their sheer toughness also meant they didn't need much in the way of tactics, upgrades or the addition of new units through the game. It was still possible to win the game with just the use of the basic Space Marine infantry type in the final mission.
Dawn of War II intelligently overcomes these problems by changing the single-player game entirely. It's now much more of an action-RPG along the lines of Diablo. There is no recruiting or building of new units mid-mission. Instead, you can order four units into each battle out of a pool of eventually six squads. Each squad is highly specialised in a certain field, with a heavy-weapons Devastator squad capable of laying down vast amounts of heavy fire whilst a jetpack-equipped Assault squad can drop into the midst of the enemy and engage them in heavy melee combat. This move away from strategic considerations - which were really limited in Dawn of War I anyway - to purely evaluating the tactical considerations of each engagement adds a lot to the game. Also, by removing the resource model (holding tactical strongpoints on the battle field) the game becomes one of movement, with the need to hold and defend resource-requisition sectors not slowing down the game as it did before. In addition, squads find 'wargear' (the equivalent to Diablo's loot) which they can equip between missions, such as better armour, heavier weapons or items that increase durability or damage potential. Squads also gain experience between engagements and can improve their fighting capabilities over time.
The single-player campaign is non-linear, with at any one time several missions available to the player on the three planets. If the player chooses to take one mission on one planet, enemy forces may advance on the other two, and in the case of the Tyranids ignoring one planet for too long a period of time may see it overrun and consumed. Whilst it's not exactly Total War, it does introduce interesting elements of strategy to the game. However, to avoid the problem of repetition from the latter two Dawn of War expansions, these semi-random combat and defence missions are frequently interrupted by key storyline missions which advance the overall course of the conflict.
Both the strategic map and the tactical battles work very well, and the game is considerably longer than the original. The number of missions you need to do to complete the game varies, but comes in at between 30 and 40 (contrasted to the original game's 17). You can also play the campaign in co-op with a friend, and there are numerous multiplayer options including a 'last stand' mode where you have to hold out for as long as possible against apparently infinite waves of enemies.
The game has been heavily criticised for moving away from the RTS model of Dawn of War, which I think is unfair. Dawn of War came out in the summer of 2004, between Ground Control II and Rome: Total War, and suffered in comparison to both games, not being as tactically enjoyable and inventive as the former or as strategically impressive as the latter. The game looked great and was fun to play, but it was also a bit lightweight and was far too easy. Relic have proven surprisingly intelligent and mature in realising that the Space Marines simply don't work as a traditional RTS side and constructing a new game concept that makes them shine without becoming too overpowering (since your Space Marines are often outnumbered 100 to 1 per mission, and losses can be incurred if you are not careful). It also allows them to create some extremely memorable characters in the case of the six squad commanders and their interactions with one another and their observations on life and war in the Imperium (although the ultra-cynical Cyrus really needs to get out more and chill out a bit).
There are, however, some other problems. Many of the battles take place on the same maps, which can get a bit boring the third or four time you visit them. There's also a strong sense of repetition to the early battles in the game, in which you have to fight your way across the map and kill a boss. This threatens to get tedious, but fortunately the game opens up into its more freeform stage just after this and the game becomes more enjoyable. If you're a huge RTS fan, than the absence of base-building and unit-construction may be disappointing, but conversely action-RPG fans will find a game that is much more appealing than the original. Slightly more annoying is the fact that you need both Games for Windows Live and Steam running to make the game work. Either one of these would be irksome, but having both running simultaneously takes up valuable memory (annoying with a game this memory-intensive), which is irritating.
Dawn of War II (****) is an enjoyable game with some great ideas and a solid action element to it. It's not the most original of titles, but is a rare example of developers identifying key issues in the original game and taking some pretty big steps to eliminate them. The game is available now on PC in the UK and USA.
In one small corner of the Imperium is sub-sector Aurelia, the three major worlds of which - Calderis, Typhon and Meridian - are the primary recruiting and base worlds for the Blood Raven chapter of the Space Marines. When the Orks mount a major assault on Calderis, the Blood Ravens respond and discover that the Eldar are trying to trigger a full-scale war between the two factions. Whilst the Space Marines attempt to eliminate both hostile alien forces, a Tyranid Hive Fleet also shows up to infest all three worlds, resulting in an exceptionally bloody battle to save the planets and their billions of inhabitants from certain death.
Dawn of War II takes place in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and is the sequel to the 2004 real-time strategy game Dawn of War and its three expansions, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. Once again, the player takes control of the Blood Raven chapter of the Space Marines and fights against various foes in the single-player campaign, whilst in multiplayer they can also control the Orks, Eldar and Tyranids in battle. The forthcoming Chaos Rising expansion will also add the Chaos Marine faction to the game. Whilst not directly controllable in battle, several missions see the Space Marines fighting alongside the Imperial Guard, who provide fire support and cannon fodder for the enemy forces.
The original Dawn of War was a satisfactorily enjoyable RTS, but it had several key problems: it was very short, the non-linear campaigns of the latter two expansions were dull and repetitive and it was very easy, particularly if you played as the Space Marines. Space Marines in the WH40K universe are one-man armies, each capable of annihilating dozens of enemies from other factions (their counterparts from the corrupted Chaos Marine faction excepted), and Dawn of War seemed unwilling to treat them in this manner or downgrade them fully to the status of just another army, meaning that they fell into a kind of halfway position where they were substantially tougher than most of the other factions in the game but also still weren't as powerful as they should be given the setting's lore. Their sheer toughness also meant they didn't need much in the way of tactics, upgrades or the addition of new units through the game. It was still possible to win the game with just the use of the basic Space Marine infantry type in the final mission.
Dawn of War II intelligently overcomes these problems by changing the single-player game entirely. It's now much more of an action-RPG along the lines of Diablo. There is no recruiting or building of new units mid-mission. Instead, you can order four units into each battle out of a pool of eventually six squads. Each squad is highly specialised in a certain field, with a heavy-weapons Devastator squad capable of laying down vast amounts of heavy fire whilst a jetpack-equipped Assault squad can drop into the midst of the enemy and engage them in heavy melee combat. This move away from strategic considerations - which were really limited in Dawn of War I anyway - to purely evaluating the tactical considerations of each engagement adds a lot to the game. Also, by removing the resource model (holding tactical strongpoints on the battle field) the game becomes one of movement, with the need to hold and defend resource-requisition sectors not slowing down the game as it did before. In addition, squads find 'wargear' (the equivalent to Diablo's loot) which they can equip between missions, such as better armour, heavier weapons or items that increase durability or damage potential. Squads also gain experience between engagements and can improve their fighting capabilities over time.
The single-player campaign is non-linear, with at any one time several missions available to the player on the three planets. If the player chooses to take one mission on one planet, enemy forces may advance on the other two, and in the case of the Tyranids ignoring one planet for too long a period of time may see it overrun and consumed. Whilst it's not exactly Total War, it does introduce interesting elements of strategy to the game. However, to avoid the problem of repetition from the latter two Dawn of War expansions, these semi-random combat and defence missions are frequently interrupted by key storyline missions which advance the overall course of the conflict.
Both the strategic map and the tactical battles work very well, and the game is considerably longer than the original. The number of missions you need to do to complete the game varies, but comes in at between 30 and 40 (contrasted to the original game's 17). You can also play the campaign in co-op with a friend, and there are numerous multiplayer options including a 'last stand' mode where you have to hold out for as long as possible against apparently infinite waves of enemies.
The game has been heavily criticised for moving away from the RTS model of Dawn of War, which I think is unfair. Dawn of War came out in the summer of 2004, between Ground Control II and Rome: Total War, and suffered in comparison to both games, not being as tactically enjoyable and inventive as the former or as strategically impressive as the latter. The game looked great and was fun to play, but it was also a bit lightweight and was far too easy. Relic have proven surprisingly intelligent and mature in realising that the Space Marines simply don't work as a traditional RTS side and constructing a new game concept that makes them shine without becoming too overpowering (since your Space Marines are often outnumbered 100 to 1 per mission, and losses can be incurred if you are not careful). It also allows them to create some extremely memorable characters in the case of the six squad commanders and their interactions with one another and their observations on life and war in the Imperium (although the ultra-cynical Cyrus really needs to get out more and chill out a bit).
There are, however, some other problems. Many of the battles take place on the same maps, which can get a bit boring the third or four time you visit them. There's also a strong sense of repetition to the early battles in the game, in which you have to fight your way across the map and kill a boss. This threatens to get tedious, but fortunately the game opens up into its more freeform stage just after this and the game becomes more enjoyable. If you're a huge RTS fan, than the absence of base-building and unit-construction may be disappointing, but conversely action-RPG fans will find a game that is much more appealing than the original. Slightly more annoying is the fact that you need both Games for Windows Live and Steam running to make the game work. Either one of these would be irksome, but having both running simultaneously takes up valuable memory (annoying with a game this memory-intensive), which is irritating.
Dawn of War II (****) is an enjoyable game with some great ideas and a solid action element to it. It's not the most original of titles, but is a rare example of developers identifying key issues in the original game and taking some pretty big steps to eliminate them. The game is available now on PC in the UK and USA.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Red Dwarf VI
Returning for its sixth season in 1993, Red Dwarf underwent the largest shake-up to its basic premise since its beginning. Writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor decided that the crew had things a little too easy living on a five-mile-long spaceship with absolutely tons of supplies, so devised a storyline in which Red Dwarf - and thus Holly - disappears whilst the crew are on an away mission and they have to chase after it in Starbug with not much in the way of food and water.
Psirens introduces the new situation with a cold open with Lister being revived after 200 years in cryo-sleep. Since he is temporarily amnesiac, Kryten has to re-explain the show's premise to him, thus providing a handy jumping-on point for new viewers. The episode has Starbug stumbling across a graveyard of ships and asteroids infested with 'psirens', hideous insectoid creatures that lure passers-by onto the rocks and then suck out their brains ("Just like Ulysses and that ancient Turkish myth!" - Lister). It's a creepy and dark episode with some decent ideas, a few good laughs and some nice guest spots from the likes of Anita Dobson and Richard Ridings (soon to be seen in Game of Thrones), but it feels a bit off. The episode suddenly resets Lister's character back to being the undeveloped slob of earlier seasons as if the last five years never happened, which is weird. On the other hand, there is a long-awaited new job for the Cat, with his superior reflexes making him a natural pilot for Starbug, which is a welcome move.
Legion sees Starbug taken aboard a vast space station whose only inhabitant is the enigmatic, brilliant and eccentric humanoid Legion. Legion is initially friendly, solving the crew's supply problems and giving Rimmer a new 'hard light' drive allowing him to interact with solid matter again, but obviously turns out to be a bit of a mentalist nutjob (what a surprise) whom the crew have to engage in battle. This is a reasonably funny episode featuring some excellent CGI and a good hard SF idea about gestalt intelligences, but is let down by some rather over-obvious slapstick in the finale.
The Emmy Award-winning (no, seriously) Gunmen of the Apocalypse is the strongest episode of the season by far. The crew run afoul of a warship belonging to rogue simulants and engage in a pitched battle to the death (Starbug having been upgraded with laser cannons to give it a sporting chance) that ends with the ship being infested by a computer virus. The crew use a VR interface to go into the ship's systems and battle the virus, a fight embodied as a Wild West showdown. It's a pretty bizarre idea but works brilliantly, with a genuine Wild West re-enactment town in Kent providing some surprisingly authentic atmosphere. A classic.
Emohawk: Polymorph II is the sequel to Season 3's Polymorph although it also sees the return of Ace Rimmer (from Season 4's Dimension Jump) and Duane Dibley (from Season 5's Back to Reality) after the crew enrage a bunch of GELFs, who dispatch a new, more capable version of the polymorph after them in revenge. There's some funny stuff in the episode, most notably when Lister has to marry a GELF to get a vital engine part, but the latter part is less successful simply because the episode re-uses a bunch of gags from those earlier episodes. It's the first in what will later become a worrying trend, namely the recycling of old ideas rather than the pursuit of new ones.
Rimmerworld sees Rimmer forced to abandon ship in an escape pod that crash-lands on a planet 600 years away from rescue (thanks to time dilation). As the pod is equipped with emergency cloning and terraforming equipment, Rimmer is able to create his own verdant paradise world and populate it with, erm, himself. Again, this is a decent episode with some funny lines and a good central premise, but there is also a strong sense of deja vu, as this is similar ground to Season 6's Terrorform.
Out of Time ended the season on a completely jaw-dropping and shocking note back when it first aired. The crew gain control of a temporal drive which allows them to travel in time. They encounter their future selves from fifteen years hence, and discover that the ability to travel anywhere they want in time and space has given them enormous power...and power corrupts. It's an excellent idea which is genuinely unsettling and the episode has an unusually doom-laden atmosphere to it building up to a huge cliffhanger ending.
And then...nothing. Several months after filming of Season 6 was completed, lead actor Craig Charles became embroiled in a major scandal that led to police charges being filed (Red Dwarf had made Charles one of the biggest names on TV at the time, and he enjoyed the rock 'n' roll lifestyle a little too much, something that later came back to trouble him on Coronation Street as well). He was eventually fully exonerated, but it took a long time for him to clear his name. At the same time, the writing relationship between Rob Grant and Doug Naylor unfortunately broke down and their partnership split. Rob Grant left the series to start writing novels, whilst Doug Naylor became the sole writer and flag-carrier for the series.
Eventually, Red Dwarf returned for a new series in 1997, but it was a very different show to what had come before. But I'll be covering that in due course.
This season saw a marked change in the series. Still watchable and still funny with brilliant production values (for a BBC show in 1993, anyway), there was more trading on past glories than the exploration of fresh new ideas, and a much greater reliance on running gags. Lister, having been set up as a pretty canny guy over the previous five seasons, was also reset into a slightly dim slob, which wasn't really fair to the character. However, the performances remained strong, Gunmen of the Apocalypse is a classic episode and the cliffhanger ending is still startling today.
Red Dwarf: Season VI (***½) is available on DVD in the UK and USA.
Psirens introduces the new situation with a cold open with Lister being revived after 200 years in cryo-sleep. Since he is temporarily amnesiac, Kryten has to re-explain the show's premise to him, thus providing a handy jumping-on point for new viewers. The episode has Starbug stumbling across a graveyard of ships and asteroids infested with 'psirens', hideous insectoid creatures that lure passers-by onto the rocks and then suck out their brains ("Just like Ulysses and that ancient Turkish myth!" - Lister). It's a creepy and dark episode with some decent ideas, a few good laughs and some nice guest spots from the likes of Anita Dobson and Richard Ridings (soon to be seen in Game of Thrones), but it feels a bit off. The episode suddenly resets Lister's character back to being the undeveloped slob of earlier seasons as if the last five years never happened, which is weird. On the other hand, there is a long-awaited new job for the Cat, with his superior reflexes making him a natural pilot for Starbug, which is a welcome move.
Legion sees Starbug taken aboard a vast space station whose only inhabitant is the enigmatic, brilliant and eccentric humanoid Legion. Legion is initially friendly, solving the crew's supply problems and giving Rimmer a new 'hard light' drive allowing him to interact with solid matter again, but obviously turns out to be a bit of a mentalist nutjob (what a surprise) whom the crew have to engage in battle. This is a reasonably funny episode featuring some excellent CGI and a good hard SF idea about gestalt intelligences, but is let down by some rather over-obvious slapstick in the finale.
The Emmy Award-winning (no, seriously) Gunmen of the Apocalypse is the strongest episode of the season by far. The crew run afoul of a warship belonging to rogue simulants and engage in a pitched battle to the death (Starbug having been upgraded with laser cannons to give it a sporting chance) that ends with the ship being infested by a computer virus. The crew use a VR interface to go into the ship's systems and battle the virus, a fight embodied as a Wild West showdown. It's a pretty bizarre idea but works brilliantly, with a genuine Wild West re-enactment town in Kent providing some surprisingly authentic atmosphere. A classic.
Emohawk: Polymorph II is the sequel to Season 3's Polymorph although it also sees the return of Ace Rimmer (from Season 4's Dimension Jump) and Duane Dibley (from Season 5's Back to Reality) after the crew enrage a bunch of GELFs, who dispatch a new, more capable version of the polymorph after them in revenge. There's some funny stuff in the episode, most notably when Lister has to marry a GELF to get a vital engine part, but the latter part is less successful simply because the episode re-uses a bunch of gags from those earlier episodes. It's the first in what will later become a worrying trend, namely the recycling of old ideas rather than the pursuit of new ones.
Rimmerworld sees Rimmer forced to abandon ship in an escape pod that crash-lands on a planet 600 years away from rescue (thanks to time dilation). As the pod is equipped with emergency cloning and terraforming equipment, Rimmer is able to create his own verdant paradise world and populate it with, erm, himself. Again, this is a decent episode with some funny lines and a good central premise, but there is also a strong sense of deja vu, as this is similar ground to Season 6's Terrorform.
Out of Time ended the season on a completely jaw-dropping and shocking note back when it first aired. The crew gain control of a temporal drive which allows them to travel in time. They encounter their future selves from fifteen years hence, and discover that the ability to travel anywhere they want in time and space has given them enormous power...and power corrupts. It's an excellent idea which is genuinely unsettling and the episode has an unusually doom-laden atmosphere to it building up to a huge cliffhanger ending.
And then...nothing. Several months after filming of Season 6 was completed, lead actor Craig Charles became embroiled in a major scandal that led to police charges being filed (Red Dwarf had made Charles one of the biggest names on TV at the time, and he enjoyed the rock 'n' roll lifestyle a little too much, something that later came back to trouble him on Coronation Street as well). He was eventually fully exonerated, but it took a long time for him to clear his name. At the same time, the writing relationship between Rob Grant and Doug Naylor unfortunately broke down and their partnership split. Rob Grant left the series to start writing novels, whilst Doug Naylor became the sole writer and flag-carrier for the series.
Eventually, Red Dwarf returned for a new series in 1997, but it was a very different show to what had come before. But I'll be covering that in due course.
This season saw a marked change in the series. Still watchable and still funny with brilliant production values (for a BBC show in 1993, anyway), there was more trading on past glories than the exploration of fresh new ideas, and a much greater reliance on running gags. Lister, having been set up as a pretty canny guy over the previous five seasons, was also reset into a slightly dim slob, which wasn't really fair to the character. However, the performances remained strong, Gunmen of the Apocalypse is a classic episode and the cliffhanger ending is still startling today.
Red Dwarf: Season VI (***½) is available on DVD in the UK and USA.
Jim Butcher unveils official CODEX ALERA map
Fans of Jim Butcher's Roman-influenced Codex Alera fantasy series have been asking for a map of the setting for some time. Now one exists! Go here for much more high-res versions.
An economic truth about writing a bestseller
The io9 website has an interesting article here where New York Times bestseller Lynn Viehl (who writes paranormal romance fiction) discloses her royalties for the previous year and reveals that she barely scratched by above the poverty line. A few hundred sales less and she'd have qualified for American food stamps. And this despite her novel Twilight Fall (not Twilight Fail as I first misread it, thinking it was a Meyer parody) hitting the NYT Top 20 and selling 90,000 copies, which is quite respectable.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest
Julia Stretton is a researcher for the Ridpath projection, a machine that has generated a completely convincing simulation of what the world may look like in the early 22nd Century. In the projection, the south-west of England has broken away from the rest of the island of Britain due to an earthquake and has become something of a holiday resort, tolerated by a communist government in London for the sake of international relations. In this vision of the future Julia finds herself drawn to a man named David for reasons she doesn't quite understand, but in the real world the arrival of her ex-lover on the project's staff causes chaos for Julia and the project...
A Dream of Wessex was originally published in 1977 and was Christopher Priest's fifth novel, following up on the extremely well-received An Inverted World and The Space Machine. Like many of Priest's books, it contains musings on memory, identity, consciousness and reality. The book also describes what looks suspiciously like a prophetic virtual reality cyberspace simulation some years ahead of such things becoming fashionable thanks to cyberpunk.
The novel features Priest's traditional narrative hallmark, namely being written in clear and readable prose through which the author laces several narrative and thematic time bombs that explode in the reader's face at key points (dubbed 'The Priest Effect' by David Langford), including several hours after you finish the book when you suddenly go, "Hang on, does that mean..." and you have to go scurrying back to re-read half the book to confirm your suspicions. Characterisation is excellent, with Julia an interesting protagonist who spends part of the book in fear of her ex-lover, but eventually coming to terms on how to deal with him through internal reasoning rather than a more obvious and melodramatic external form (beating him up or having some big speech, for example). As usual with Priest, what he doesn't say about the characters can be as important as what he does say, leaving the reader with some intriguing interpretive work to do.
However, it's the incredible ending that will sit for the longest in the reader's mind. It maybe isn't as completely mind-blowing as The Separation's conclusion or as deeply haunting and unsettling as The Prestige's, but it's still astonishingly well-written and haunting.
A Dream of Wessex (*****) is a very strong work of science fiction, powerful and thought-provoking and the work of an imaginative author at the height of his powers. What's even more startling is that it isn't even Priest's strongest work. The book is not in print at the moment, although some older copies can be found on Amazon UK and USA.
A Dream of Wessex was originally published in 1977 and was Christopher Priest's fifth novel, following up on the extremely well-received An Inverted World and The Space Machine. Like many of Priest's books, it contains musings on memory, identity, consciousness and reality. The book also describes what looks suspiciously like a prophetic virtual reality cyberspace simulation some years ahead of such things becoming fashionable thanks to cyberpunk.
The novel features Priest's traditional narrative hallmark, namely being written in clear and readable prose through which the author laces several narrative and thematic time bombs that explode in the reader's face at key points (dubbed 'The Priest Effect' by David Langford), including several hours after you finish the book when you suddenly go, "Hang on, does that mean..." and you have to go scurrying back to re-read half the book to confirm your suspicions. Characterisation is excellent, with Julia an interesting protagonist who spends part of the book in fear of her ex-lover, but eventually coming to terms on how to deal with him through internal reasoning rather than a more obvious and melodramatic external form (beating him up or having some big speech, for example). As usual with Priest, what he doesn't say about the characters can be as important as what he does say, leaving the reader with some intriguing interpretive work to do.
However, it's the incredible ending that will sit for the longest in the reader's mind. It maybe isn't as completely mind-blowing as The Separation's conclusion or as deeply haunting and unsettling as The Prestige's, but it's still astonishingly well-written and haunting.
A Dream of Wessex (*****) is a very strong work of science fiction, powerful and thought-provoking and the work of an imaginative author at the height of his powers. What's even more startling is that it isn't even Priest's strongest work. The book is not in print at the moment, although some older copies can be found on Amazon UK and USA.
Red Dwarf V
For its fifth season, Red Dwarf underwent a change of focus. Whilst the set-up and premise is still the same as the previous two seasons, the writers chose to take the show more in the direction of being a drama-comedy rather than a straight-up sitcom. The fifth season still has plenty of laughs, but they are now less prominent than before, with the SF ideas and character relationships come more to the fore. Production values, particularly the more frequent use of CGI, again improve, and the fifth season is arguably the first which still really stands up well in contrast to modern shows.
Things get off to a familiar start with Holoship, which is another Valentine's Day show (for the second season running, the season debuted on 14 February, this time in 1992). The crew encounter the Holoship Enlightenment, a wholly holographic spacecraft which is exploring the Galaxy and is crewed by the cream of the Space Corps, all top guns in their field. In the words of the captain, this is 'a ship of superhumans'. Tempted by a life of intellectual and scientific fulfilment - not to mention the ship's regulation that all crewmembers must have sex twice daily - Rimmer sets out to join their ranks, but encounters a few obstacles (most notably being an intellectual ignoramus with all the social graces of a cockroach). This is a solid episode with a great guest turn by Jane Horrocks as one of the holographic crewmembers.
The Inquisitor is the first of two unusually 'dark' episodes in the season. The crew encounter the Inquisitor, a time-travelling robot from the end of time who has concluded that there is no God and the sole purpose of life is to lead a worthy and fulfilling existence. When he encounters those who have wasted their lives, he deletes them and alters the timeline to replace them with someone more worthy who was never even born in the original timeline. Obviously, the crew of the Red Dwarf are in big trouble when he meets them. After a Rimmer and Kryten-heavy fourth season, this episode is a welcome chance for Lister to take centre stage and shine as he defies the Inquisitor in a battle to the death. This episode takes a great idea and runs well with it.
Terrorform sees Kryten and Rimmer crash on a 'psi-moon' which terraforms itself based on the psychology of the people inhabiting it. By the time Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue Kryten (alerted to their plight in one of the funniest sequences in the entire series) the moon has unfortunately adapted itself into the shape of Rimmer's mind! This is an unusually epic episode, with a ruined temple set, a swamp and a spacecraft crash site amongst its locations, and the 'making of' documentary and the cast commentary reveal just how they achieved the look of the piece on a relatively small budget.
Quarantine sees the crew exposed to a lethal holographic virus whilst on a mission to an abandoned scientific outpost. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't carry the virus anyway, Rimmer has the other three locked in quarantine upon their return to Red Dwarf. Lister's initially cheery view that it's not a problem as they spend all their time together anyway is soon put to the test as he has to spend several days and nights with Kryten and the Cat non-stop. However, even that isn't too much of a problem as the crew are soon confronted by their most demonic and evil foe to date...a psychotic penguin named Mr. Flibble!
Angels and Demons is probably the single most disturbing episode of Red Dwarf ever made. A freak accident with a 'triplicator' blows up the entire ship but creates two identical copies, one consisting of the crew's 'higher selves' (a bunch of super-intelligent peacenik hippies) and the other of their 'lower selves' (a bunch of psychopathic nutcases). As they attempt to unify the two ships together to recreate the original, they have to contend with the machinations of their lower selves who are a thoroughly unpleasant lot indeed. This episode is interesting for the fact that the audience are quite clearly rather uneasy about where to laugh and when not to. Although there are several genuinely funny sequences, there are also some seriously twisted moments, such as when Lister is kidnapped by the lows and put through a highly original method of torture involving a tarantula and a boiling kettle. It's an inventive and intriguing piece that pushes the boundaries of what you can do in a supposed sitcom.
Back to Reality is a classic episode with a brilliant, killer premise, although it loses a little of its power on DVD when you know there's another three seasons after this one. When it first aired the cast and crew were apparently despondent about there being a sixth and said at the time the show was going out on a creative high, although of course this was just to sell the idea that the series might end on as shocking a note as this one. Essentially, the crew are killed when Starbug crashes underwater and discover they've been playing a VR computer game for the last four years. Returning to reality, they discover that Lister is a senior figure in the law enforcement services for the totalitarian government ("Vote Fascist for another decade of total law enforcement!"), Rimmer is his drop-out, deadbeat half-brother, Kryten is a cyborg cop with the name 'Jake Bullet', and the Cat is a hapless, style-free dork named Duane Dibley. The episode continues the series' direction towards becoming more of a drama with some excellent writing and great ideas, although the comedy is kept alive and well through such sequences as how the show portrays our heroes in an epic car chase with the fascist cops on motorcycles carrying rocket-launchers with helicopter gunships in support, despite having no money to do it.
Red Dwarf's fifth season is still quite funny, but the move towards stronger drama and harder SF elements does make it somewhat less well-paced than the third and fourth seasons. The episodes still look great and pack a vast amount of content into their 30 minutes, and there are some nice nods towards continuity: the Inquisitor is referenced as a simulant, a similar type of robot to the one that appeared in Justice, whilst the triplicator was adapted from Meltdown's matter paddle. The characterisation is richer than ever, with Holoship and Terrorform both delving into Rimmer's character again and still finding interesting material, whilst Inquisitor gives Lister a chance to shine. The biggest loss of the season is Hattie Hayridge as Holly, who has very few lines and doesn't have much of a role (despite saving the day in one episode), leading the producers to reluctantly drop the character the following season.
Red Dwarf: Season V (****½) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.
Things get off to a familiar start with Holoship, which is another Valentine's Day show (for the second season running, the season debuted on 14 February, this time in 1992). The crew encounter the Holoship Enlightenment, a wholly holographic spacecraft which is exploring the Galaxy and is crewed by the cream of the Space Corps, all top guns in their field. In the words of the captain, this is 'a ship of superhumans'. Tempted by a life of intellectual and scientific fulfilment - not to mention the ship's regulation that all crewmembers must have sex twice daily - Rimmer sets out to join their ranks, but encounters a few obstacles (most notably being an intellectual ignoramus with all the social graces of a cockroach). This is a solid episode with a great guest turn by Jane Horrocks as one of the holographic crewmembers.
The Inquisitor is the first of two unusually 'dark' episodes in the season. The crew encounter the Inquisitor, a time-travelling robot from the end of time who has concluded that there is no God and the sole purpose of life is to lead a worthy and fulfilling existence. When he encounters those who have wasted their lives, he deletes them and alters the timeline to replace them with someone more worthy who was never even born in the original timeline. Obviously, the crew of the Red Dwarf are in big trouble when he meets them. After a Rimmer and Kryten-heavy fourth season, this episode is a welcome chance for Lister to take centre stage and shine as he defies the Inquisitor in a battle to the death. This episode takes a great idea and runs well with it.
Terrorform sees Kryten and Rimmer crash on a 'psi-moon' which terraforms itself based on the psychology of the people inhabiting it. By the time Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue Kryten (alerted to their plight in one of the funniest sequences in the entire series) the moon has unfortunately adapted itself into the shape of Rimmer's mind! This is an unusually epic episode, with a ruined temple set, a swamp and a spacecraft crash site amongst its locations, and the 'making of' documentary and the cast commentary reveal just how they achieved the look of the piece on a relatively small budget.
Quarantine sees the crew exposed to a lethal holographic virus whilst on a mission to an abandoned scientific outpost. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't carry the virus anyway, Rimmer has the other three locked in quarantine upon their return to Red Dwarf. Lister's initially cheery view that it's not a problem as they spend all their time together anyway is soon put to the test as he has to spend several days and nights with Kryten and the Cat non-stop. However, even that isn't too much of a problem as the crew are soon confronted by their most demonic and evil foe to date...a psychotic penguin named Mr. Flibble!
Angels and Demons is probably the single most disturbing episode of Red Dwarf ever made. A freak accident with a 'triplicator' blows up the entire ship but creates two identical copies, one consisting of the crew's 'higher selves' (a bunch of super-intelligent peacenik hippies) and the other of their 'lower selves' (a bunch of psychopathic nutcases). As they attempt to unify the two ships together to recreate the original, they have to contend with the machinations of their lower selves who are a thoroughly unpleasant lot indeed. This episode is interesting for the fact that the audience are quite clearly rather uneasy about where to laugh and when not to. Although there are several genuinely funny sequences, there are also some seriously twisted moments, such as when Lister is kidnapped by the lows and put through a highly original method of torture involving a tarantula and a boiling kettle. It's an inventive and intriguing piece that pushes the boundaries of what you can do in a supposed sitcom.
Back to Reality is a classic episode with a brilliant, killer premise, although it loses a little of its power on DVD when you know there's another three seasons after this one. When it first aired the cast and crew were apparently despondent about there being a sixth and said at the time the show was going out on a creative high, although of course this was just to sell the idea that the series might end on as shocking a note as this one. Essentially, the crew are killed when Starbug crashes underwater and discover they've been playing a VR computer game for the last four years. Returning to reality, they discover that Lister is a senior figure in the law enforcement services for the totalitarian government ("Vote Fascist for another decade of total law enforcement!"), Rimmer is his drop-out, deadbeat half-brother, Kryten is a cyborg cop with the name 'Jake Bullet', and the Cat is a hapless, style-free dork named Duane Dibley. The episode continues the series' direction towards becoming more of a drama with some excellent writing and great ideas, although the comedy is kept alive and well through such sequences as how the show portrays our heroes in an epic car chase with the fascist cops on motorcycles carrying rocket-launchers with helicopter gunships in support, despite having no money to do it.
Red Dwarf's fifth season is still quite funny, but the move towards stronger drama and harder SF elements does make it somewhat less well-paced than the third and fourth seasons. The episodes still look great and pack a vast amount of content into their 30 minutes, and there are some nice nods towards continuity: the Inquisitor is referenced as a simulant, a similar type of robot to the one that appeared in Justice, whilst the triplicator was adapted from Meltdown's matter paddle. The characterisation is richer than ever, with Holoship and Terrorform both delving into Rimmer's character again and still finding interesting material, whilst Inquisitor gives Lister a chance to shine. The biggest loss of the season is Hattie Hayridge as Holly, who has very few lines and doesn't have much of a role (despite saving the day in one episode), leading the producers to reluctantly drop the character the following season.
Red Dwarf: Season V (****½) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.
Monday, 16 November 2009
The Worlds of D&D: Forgotten Realms
Original Forgotten Realms logo, 1987-2001.The History of the Forgotten Realms
In 1967, the then-eight-year-old Ed Greenwood started writing stories for his own amusement about dragons and elves. Over the next few years the stories gained a coherent setting, a world Greenwood called the Realms, and when he got into the Dungeons and Dragons game a decade or so later, he adapted the Realms as a setting for adventures, and began contributing articles to Dragon Magazine located in the setting, beginning in 1978. Greenwood became a popular contributor to the magazine and fans were soon asking for more information about his home setting.
By 1986 D&D creator and TSR founder Gary Gygax had moved on and the company had decided to put his Greyhawk setting on the back-burner. With the narrative and history-driven Dragonlance setting doing great business at the time, TSR decided there was a gap for a new, large 'standard' medieval fantasy world which could be the setting for many different stories. They called in Ed Greenwood, paired him up with veteran designer Jeff Grubb, and set them to work on delivering the Forgotten Realms to a wider audience. The name was settled on because in the ancient prehistory of the world it apparently had links to our own world, but these gateways and portals closed, so from out point-of-view the Realms were now 'forgotten'. Also, it sounded cool.
Forgotten Realms 1st Edition boxed set, the 'Old Grey Box', published in 1987.The Forgotten Realms, when the setting appeared in mid-1987, was a mixture of Greenwood's home setting and several other existing D&D properties. The popular Bloodstone Lands series of adventures (beginning in 1985) was retconned into the setting, as was the even more popular Oriental Adventures landmass of Kara-Tur, which was bolted onto the eastern side of the Realms core continent of Faerun.
The setting was an almost immediate hit. After the success of the Dragonlance books, TSR decided to launch a range of novels accompanying the new setting. The first novel and Realms product ever published was Douglas Niles' Darkwalker on Moonshae, which appeared a month ahead of the first edition boxed set. Showing the versatility of the setting, this first novel and its two sequels were set on the Moonshae Isles, a Celtic-flavoured society a hundred miles off Faerun's west coast. Greenwood's own stand-alone novel Spellfire soon followed, set over a thousand miles to the east in the Dalelands (a mid-European, Black Forest-style society) and featuring zero references to the earlier work.
The cover to The Crystal Shard, depicting Wulfgar, Drizzt Do'Urden and Bruenor Battlehammer.However, what really took the setting to the next level happened in 1988, when the computer game Pool of Radiance was released. Although previous D&D-flavoured computer RPGs had appeared, Pool of Radiance was the first one to become a really big hit, and was followed up by a series of best-selling sequels in the now-fondly-remembered 'Gold Box' series of games. Even more important this year was the release of a novel called The Crystal Shard by a new, young author named R.A. Salvatore. Set in the frozen subarctic tundra of Icewind Dale, the book charted the coming together of a band of adventurers including the dwarven warrior-chieftain Bruenor, the halfling thief Regis, the barbarian warrior Wulfgar (originally the main character) and, most infamously, the dark elven range Drizzt Do'Urden. The book took off, propelling its sequels into the bestseller lists and beginning one of the major success stories of fantasy in the 1980s and 1990s. The Drizzt books, of which there are now eighteen (plus another nine books featuring related characters and situations), have sold almost ten million copies and are now a staple 'entry point' for young readers looking to get into fantasy fiction.
Four of the Realms' most iconic characters. Clockwise from top-left: Elminster Aumar, Drizzt Do'Urden, the Simbul and Khelben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun, Archmage of Waterdeep.The Realms continued to develop and expand. New expansions and sourcebooks detailed most of the continent of Faerun, from the distant and remote lands of the Great Glacier to the humid jungles of Chult to the depths of the Great Desert of Anauroch to the city-states of the Vilhon Reach. The secretive Black Network of the Zhentarim, the insane Cult of the Dragon and the villainous Red Wizards of Thay proved to be worthy foes for many D&D adventuring parties over the years and new books and products were lapped up. The great city of Waterdeep was detailed and became a fan-favourite location and base of operations for their parties, its iconic status increased by the arrival of the best-selling Eye of the Beholder computer game trilogy. The Realms also proved popular and endurable enough to host 'sub-settings' on other continents. The oriental lands of Kara-Tur were soon joined the Aztec-influenced continent of Maztica across the western sea, whilst the Arabia-like landmass of Zakhara to the south hosted the Al-Qadim setting, heavily influenced by the stories and legends of the Arabian Nights.
To mark the introduction of AD&D 2nd Edition in 1989, the Realms were afflicted by the Time of Troubles, also known as the Avatar Wars, when the gods were cast out of the heavens and forced to walk the Realms as superpowered but still vulnerable mortals. The pantheon was shaken by the deaths of several major deities and the rise of new ones to replace them, the rules of magic were changed and things generally shaken up. Some fans were suspicious of what seemed a bit like a Dragonlance-style Cataclysm, but it actually proved compatible with the basic idea of the Realms as a world where many different stories could be told. The Avatar Wars had many different fronts and many different regions were affected on a small, local level without any interaction with the wider storyline. After the success of this big event, TSR repeated it two years later with the introduction of the Hordelands, a new, Mongolian-influenced sub-setting located between Faerun and Kara-Tur, and the invasion of a horde of barbarians into the eastern Realms. This gave rise to probably the Realms' finest series of novels, The Empires Trilogy.
In 1993 the second version of the Realms boxed set was introduced to codify and tidy up the previous materials, and new versions of old products were published. However, this marked the first appearance of a real inherent problem with the setting. It was simply far too vast for all the different cities, countries, dungeons, ruins and islands to be detailed within the lifespan of any one edition of D&D, and of course the introduction of a new edition and the constant pushing ahead of the timeline would make the extant material outdated quite quickly anyway. A lot of DMs had no problem with this. After all, it was up to them to create games and settings based on the source material, not slavishly following it. However, a tremendous urge to detail every nook and cranny of the Realms now seemed to take root amongst the D&D writers, an ultimately futile and unachievable goal which they nevertheless tried to satisfy.
In 1996 TSR fell into deep money worries, although the Realms, as its most profitable setting, was not as adversely affected as say Birthright, Dark Sun and Planescape (which were all dropped at short notice). A new writer, Steven Schend, came on board at the TSR design team with the goal of really expanding on and developing the deep back-history of the Realms and bringing new depth to the setting. During his watch the Arcane Age sub-setting, which explored the backhistory of iconic fallen Realms empires such as Netheril and Cormanthyr, was developed whilst the long-neglected south-western kingdoms of Faerun such as Calimshan and Tethyr were also radically updated. Schend also thought outside the box, developing an entire undersea setting based on the floor of the Sea of Fallen Stars, complete with sea elf cities and hordes of hostile sahuagin led by a dark god-like force determined to conquer the world. Other writes also expanded on the Realms' pantheon of gods through three classic game products, namely Faiths and Avatars (sometimes argued to be the single finest D&D product ever written, although it has plenty of competition), Powers and Pantheons and Demihuman Deities.
However, whilst the Realms underwent an impressive creative surge, in other areas it was taking knocks. RA Salvatore and TSR had a falling-out in the mid-1990s that led to another writer being brought in to replace him on the Drizzt novels. They changed their minds and Salvatore returned with a new Drizzt novel in 1998, but the resulting lack of his bestselling novels for several years in a row hurt TSR's finances. In addition, the mid-1990s Realms computer games (Descent to Undermountain and Blood and Magic) were notably inferior to earlier games.
The Forgotten Realms 3rd Edition hardcover campaign book, published in 2001 and one of the very best products ever published for D&D.Wizards of the Coast took over TSR in the late 1990s and decided to introduce a 3rd Edition of D&D and, with it, the Forgotten Realms. A wide-ranging revamp of the setting took place. No 'Realms-shaking' war or cataclysm, but some (mostly cosmetic and mostly growing out of the direction of the latter part of 2nd Edition) changes to the setting which made it a more interesting and vibrant place to game. The 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms setting hardcover book remains almost certainly one of the single most attractive and impressive D&D books ever published, certainly the best ever published by WotC, with a gorgeous art style and real attention to detail.
The original cover art to Baldur's Gate, BioWare's first game and the beginning of a series of classic computer RPGs that continues today with Mass Effect and Dragon Age.The Realms' fortunes in other areas radically improved as well. In 1998 a little-known Canadian company called BioWare released a Forgotten Realms computer RPG called Baldur's Gate. Featuring a vast playing area, memorable characters, excellent writing and a faithful but fast-paced implementation of the D&D rules, Baldur's Gate was an instant classic and is still one of the finest computer roleplaying games ever made. BioWare released an expansion called Tales of the Sword Coast in 1999 and a colossal, ambitious sequel called Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn in 2000, concluding the saga with the expansion Throne of Bhaal in 2001. Some five million games in the series have been sold to date. In 2002 BioWare released a new game with an updated engine called Neverwinter Nights, which also enjoyed widespread popularity, whilst their partner studio Black Isle (later Obsidian) released Icewind Dale in 2000, Icewind Dale II in 2002 and Neverwinter Nights II in 2007, all of which were popular if not quite hitting the heights of the Baldur's Gate series. These games introduced a whole new audience to the Realms, to the pen-and-paper game and to the novels.
Throughout the 2000s the Forgotten Realms remained WotC's most popular campaign setting for D&D, generating significant amounts of revenue. However, as with the previous edition, a decision was made to explore the Realms in extreme depth and just as before it turned out to be a futile endeavour, with several key areas left unexplored. As before, fans seemed suspicious of these moves, and there was some grumbling when the mercantile kingdom of Sembia, deliberately left a blank slate in previous editions for DMs to develop as they saw fit, suddenly got 'filled in' by game developers. This problem was now exasperated by the designers' growing obsession with 'Realms-shaking events' (RSEs, as dubbed by the fanbase). After the success of the Avatar Wars and the Horde Invasion, designers now seemed to enjoy blowing up the Realms every other week, or so it felt. The Babylon-esque kingdom of Unther was devastated by flood and famine and then invaded by its Egyptian-style neighbour Mulhorand. The Zhentarim suffered civil wars and realignments. The Red Wizards, somewhat unconvincingly, became a race of magical merchants. A new kingdom appeared in the formerly lawless (and therefore fun to roleplay in) Savage North. Thanks to some time-travelling shenanigans, a bunch of ultra-powerful wizards from the ancient fallen kingdom of Netheril showed up to rebuild their empire. A massive and devastating horde of dragons run amok across the continent. The pantheon seemed to radically change every other week.
The second Forgotten Realms logo, 2001-08. The new edition doesn't have one.These rapid and radical changes to the setting at the same time the designers were trying to describe the setting in insane levels of detail led to both a loosening of focus in the setting and the growing apathy of the fanbase. In addition to these problems, 3rd Edition was an inherently higher-powered game than its forebear, and as a result many, many NPCs and groups in Faerun were now ridiculously high-powered (to stop player-characters being able to kill them at will). With an almost encyclopediac knowledge of the setting now required for any DM wishing to run a canonical game set in the Realms, it is unsurprising that many either gave up or went over to the newer, much more straightforward Eberron setting.
Aware of the growing disenchantment of the setting (although computer game, novel and sourcebook sales remained strong), WotC decided to take a radically different approach when they introduced the 4th Edition of D&D (and, with it, Forgotten Realms) in 2008. Only a single campaign setting and a single add-on sourcebook were released, which would give the DM a bare bones knowledge of the setting they could add onto and flesh out as they wished. They also pushed the timeline of the Realms an additional 100 years into the future and, almost literally, blew up the setting in a magical cataclysm that radically altered the setting right down to its fundamentals.
The Forgotten Realms 4th Edition hardcover campaign book, published in 2008 and one of the very worst products ever published for D&D.Forgotten Realms fans really did not like the changes, at all. With 4th Edition itself proving very controversial, these simultaneous huge changes to the game's biggest setting really earned WotC a lot of ire. Even big fans of the 4th Edition rules seemed to dislike the extent of the changes done to the Realms to make it fit the game. Even before the campaign setting hit the shelves, fans were working on ways of adapting existing 3rd Edition material to 4th without incorporating the nuking of the world. The existing Realms fanbase was resulting shattered between those who hated the changes (a clear majority, at least going by reviews and message board comments) and those who embraced them (plus a new, younger generation of new players put off by the previous edition of the setting's bloat). How this affects things in the long run remains unclear, but the Realms have survived for forty-odd years so far, so I wouldn't be writing its obituary just yet.
The World of the Realms
Canon world map of the Forgotten Realms in late 2nd Edition, before the shrinking of Faerun for 3rd Edition and the nuking of it for 4th.The Forgotten Realms world is called Abeir-toril, and is an Earth-sized planet (know any other kind?) divided into four huge landmasses and many thousands of islands. The main landmass comprises three continents or subcontinents, called Faerun in the west, Kara-Tur in the east and Zakhara in the south. Across the Trackless Sea to the west, beyond the elven home island of Evermeet, lies the continent of Anchorome (with Maztica a subcontinent in the south of this landmass). South of that lies the jungle-filled, secretive land of Katashaka. Far to the east of Kara-Tur lies a large, unexplored continent called Osse.
Between the 3rd and 4th Editions of the game, the subcontinent of Maztica was destroyed in an transdimensional cataclysm called the Spellplague. It was replaced by a new landmass called 'Returned Abeir'. The fate of the neighbouring landmasses of Anchorome and Katashaka is unknown. Many fans of the setting have disregarded this 'official' change.
Map of Faerun in 2nd Edition D&D.Faerun is the principle campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms world. Approximately 3,500 miles across, the continent is based on Europe and the Middle-East in the medieval period, although Faerun is considerably larger than Europe. It has a landlocked sea called the Sea of Fallen Stars which allows relatively rapid transit across the centre of the continent, with its oldest and most formidable nations located on or close to its shores, such as Cormyr (an English-influenced kingdom controlled by a powerful, centralised monarchy), Thay, Chondath and the resurgent Mulhorandi Empire. Whilst all of Faerun is covered in various Forgotten Realms products, a strip of land running west from the Sea of Fallen Stars' north-western shores to the Trackless Sea has received more development than any other part. This area, the 'Heartlands', incorporates Cormyr, Sembia, the rural Dalelands, the forebidding Moonsea (most notably the city of Zhentil Keep, home of the Black Network), parts of the Great Desert and the western city-states of Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep on the exterior ocean. This is the area which Ed Greenwood notably set a lot of his fiction, RPG campaigns and later novels.
RA Salvatore's Drizzt books mostly take place north-west of this area, in the forebidding and mostly uncivilised Savage North.
The slightly shrunken Faerun of 3rd Edition D&D.In 3rd Edition WotC oddly decided that Faerun was too large and shrunk the continent in size by about 15%, losing several areas in the far south of the continent in the process and altering its shape. This was a retcon, with no in-universe reason given for the change. In 4th Edition the continent was almost completely devastated by the Spellplague, with the south-eastern coast destroyed, massive channels connecting the Great Sea to the Inner Sea formed, the Great Desert wiped out, several entire kingdoms drowned beneath the waves and millions of people killed. Quite a few players have disregarded this official change as well and continue to game in the pre-Spellplague version of the setting.
The post-apocalypse, magically nuked, WTF?-ified Faerun of 4th Edition.Unlike Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms has no over-arcing metaplot as such. Instead, the setting is built on the idea that the modern kingdoms and cities are built on the ruins of much older, usually much more powerful and advanced civilisations, with humans as a relative newcomer race on a world where at different times the elves, dragons, giants and lizard-folk held domination. This set-up means that the dungeons and ruins strewn over the world usually have deeper back-stories than some others. These dungeons include one of the biggest dungeons ever detailed for the game, Undermountain (located underneath Waterdeep) and the tantalisingly-described fallen city of Shoonach, once the capital of the most populous human empire in the history of Faerun, sprawling across tens of square miles of above and below-ground sites, but the size of the dungeon defied any kind of detailing in game products.
Whilst there is no world-spanning storyline, there are regional ones. Waterdeep, for example, is a safe and civilised city but there are political machinations as well as hidden threats to its continued survival. The city of Silverymoon in the distant north is a beacon of light surrounded by thousands of square miles of hostile, monster and bandit-infested territory. Cormyr, on the other hand, is a powerful and civilised kingdom which unfortuantely lies between several rival and competing powers who desire nothing more than its collapse, whilst the peaceful rural folk of the Dalelands have been forced into a sometimes strained and uncomfortable alliance with the local elves against the encroaching desires of the Black Network to the north. These more locally-focused stories give rise to greater feeling of realism than some other fantasy worlds where absolutely everything that happens ties in with an over-arcing metaplot in some fashion.
The classic 1991 RPG Eye of the Beholder. In-game, skeletons cannot smash through doors like this. Still a nice cover though.Evaluation
I got into the Realms by playing Eye of the Beholder on my Commodore Amiga in 1992. In the manual was a small map showing the west coast of Faerun (taken from Karen Wynn Fonstad's very fine Atlas of the Forgotten Realms) and the lands within several hundred miles of Waterdeep and I was immediately intrigued by the scope of the setting. When I picked up and read The Crystal Shard in the library a few months later, I realised that all the lands in the book fitted into a tiny corner of the map from the computer game, and I was impressed by that sense of scale. After I started playing D&D in 1995, the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms campaign setting was one of my first purchases, and I went on to purchase dozens of further game supplements and novels over the next decade or so as I ran several campaigns in the setting.
During that time my adventuring parties attacked Waterdeep with an army of infuriated treants (hey, I was young and inexperienced), re-opened the Silk Road between Faerun and Kara-Tur by blazing a trail of violence through the enraged Tuigan clans, inadvertantly joined forces with a vast orc horde descending from the Spine of the World mountains (and ended up besieging their own castle), engaged in a clandestine battle of assassins on the streets of a drow city and helped save Cormyr from the machinations of a dragon-led horde of interdimensional goblins (which, seriously, was from an adventure book and not my own crazed mind). I have lost more hours than I can count to the Eye of the Beholder, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series of computer role-playing games, and still recommend the early Drizzt books for anyone looking for an easy-to-read YA fantasy series (although, seriously, stop after Siege of Darkness as it's all downhill from there).
I always liked the idea of the Forgotten Realms as a world with each nook and cranny, every village and ruin hiding a dozen stories behind it, where people in one town might not give a toss that the dark god Bane was running amok 300 miles away because they were more concerned with solving a spate of local murders or tracking down a lost flock of sheep. Whenever I encounter a roleplayer who says they dislike the Realms I am always somewhat puzzled, as an adventure set in Cormyr should be so different varied from a campign set in Zakhara or Calimshan that they might as well be on different worlds. It's a bit like meeting someone who loathes going on holiday to Bognor and thus concluding that NYC also sucks because it's on the same planet.
Of course, it's easy to get lost in the moirass of details in the Realms setting. The latter 3rd Edition products also unwisely focused on big epic events, which has never been the setting's main purporse, and the prevalence of NPCs like Drizzt Do'Urden, Elminster (worst author-insertion character ever) and Khelben in some campaigns (either directly by the DM or by players playing knock-off characters) is annoying. I am also not a fan of high-powered, high-magic settings and the Realms, whilst not really like that in 1st and 2nd Editions, definitely became that in 3rd, leading to apathy with the setting. The changes and alterations to the world for 4th Edition, however, seem like the equivalent of cracking a walnut with an atom bomb. There were more elegant solutions they could have used to fix what was wrong with the Realms. Certainly my interest in playing in the current incarnation of the setting is very low.
Still, I have to thank Ed Greenwood, Bob Salvatore and the rest of the Forgotten Realms game-designers, computer game programmers and novelists for providing me with many hundreds of hours of entertainment in the setting, and I will continue to keep an eye on it in the future.
Wertzone Classics: Red Dwarf IV
The fourth season of Red Dwarf is interesting in that it is the only one without any major format changes. Some of the behind-the-scenes changes were quite big, most notably the moving of production from Manchester to the far superior Shepperton Studios near London, but otherwise the status quo from Season 3 remains unchanged.
The season begins with Camille, starting a brief two-year tradition resulting from the season beginning on Valentine's Day. In this episode Kryten recovers a female mechanoid named Camille from a wreck, but once back on Red Dwarf it's clear things aren't as they appear, as Rimmer sees Camille as a hologram and Lister sees a human woman. As for the Cat...I'll let that remain a surprise, as it's a classic Red Dwarf moment. It's quite a funny episode based around Casablanca, featuring some ripe misquoting of dialogue and some corny lines, but at the heart of it is some very interesting character development for Kryten, putting him back more or less where he was at the end of his first episode in Season 2, which was probably overdue.
The second episode, DNA, continues the theme of basing an episode around a major SF concept. In this episode the crew discovers a machine that can alter DNA and transform any biological entity into any other one. The upshot of this is that Kryten (whose brain is based on organic technology) gets transformed into a human. Cue some rather Star Trek: The Next Generation Data-esque musings on the nature of humanity and some rather more traditional Red Dwarf musings on how Kryten can cope with his new human sexual organs. This plot thread, though amusing, is thankfully cut short by a far funnier sequence where Lister ill-advisedly runs his mutton vindaloo through the DNA machine, resulting in the creation of a ravaging curry monster.
In Justice a long-standing plot hole is addressed: we learned in Season 1 that Rimmer was (albeit inadvertently) responsible for the accident that wiped out the crew of the Red Dwarf, but this was never really developed. This episode makes up for it when the crew visit an abandoned space prison only for the controlling AI to determine that Rimmer must stand trial for his crime, leading to a classic sequence where Kryten has to prove that Rimmer is innocent by virtue of being an incompetent, deranged and self-delusional half-wit ("If I have full access to your personal date files, I could perhaps put together a winning case by maybe lunchtime,"). This is another very solid episode, notable in the Red Dwarf mythos for introducing the simulants, a human-built race of psychopathic mass-murdering androids who return to plague our crew in future seasons.
White Hole spins off an idea raised in the second Red Dwarf novel, except there it was a traditional black hole causing problems. The episode is also notable as the second (and last) to feature Holly in a major role as Kryten successfully restores her super-brilliant IQ but in doing so radically shortens her lifespan. Events culminate in Lister being entrusted with the firing of a thermo-nuclear device, which is really not a very good idea...
Dimension Jump is one of the series' bona fide classics, introducing a parallel universe where Arnold 'Ace' Rimmer is a test pilot in the Space Corps Special Service, the best of the best, and is entrusted with piloting a faster-than-reality starship across dimensions. Arriving in 'our' reality he makes contact with the crew of Red Dwarf and is rather taken aback when he discovers that 'our' Arnold Rimmer is a rather different character. This is a great episode because is gets back to scouring Rimmer's backstory and psyche to find out what makes him tick, and it works well with Chris Barrier delivering a barnstorming performance as a super-handsome, heroic incarnation of Rimmer (complete with a Top Gun-esque soundtrack and a rather bizarre catchphrase).
Meltdown is another one of the series' unsung high points. Kryten constructs a matter-transmission device which teleports the crew to a planet thousands of light-years away. However, the planet turns out to be a 'Waxworld' where the wax-droid inhabitants have broken their programming and have divided into two factions fighting an endless war. Cue some brilliant scenes where Rimmer takes command of the 'hero' army and puts the likes of Mahatma Gandhi ("Don't eyeball me, Gandhi! Drop to the floor and give me fifty!"), Pythagoras, Jean-Paul Satre and Stan Laurel through advanced combat training with the help of Kryten and his second-in-command, Sergeant Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, Lister and Cat are captured by Adolf Hitler and forced to witness the (thankfully offscreen) execution of Winnie the Pooh by a firing squad led by Al Capone, before being tortured by Emperor Caligula and Rasputin! Events culminate in an impressive (and ludicrous) battle sequence between the forces of good and evil, with a rather unexpected outcome. A completely barking mad and brilliant episode with some of the show's most enduring quotes.
The fourth season of Red Dwarf doesn't rock the boat and happily continues the formulae from the third season, and as it's a formulae that works, this is not a problem. The characters of Kryten and Rimmer are explored in greater depth, but Lister drops into the background slightly more, becoming more of an observer and the viewers' surrogate stand-in for exposition scenes. The Cat has some great lines and scenes but isn't really focused on much. Holly gets her own episode, but there is already a notable reduction in her lines going on, as again much of the show's exposition goes to Kryten. These problems will become more apparent and will be addressed in the fifth and sixth seasons, but for now remain under control.
Season IV of Red Dwarf (*****) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.
The season begins with Camille, starting a brief two-year tradition resulting from the season beginning on Valentine's Day. In this episode Kryten recovers a female mechanoid named Camille from a wreck, but once back on Red Dwarf it's clear things aren't as they appear, as Rimmer sees Camille as a hologram and Lister sees a human woman. As for the Cat...I'll let that remain a surprise, as it's a classic Red Dwarf moment. It's quite a funny episode based around Casablanca, featuring some ripe misquoting of dialogue and some corny lines, but at the heart of it is some very interesting character development for Kryten, putting him back more or less where he was at the end of his first episode in Season 2, which was probably overdue.
The second episode, DNA, continues the theme of basing an episode around a major SF concept. In this episode the crew discovers a machine that can alter DNA and transform any biological entity into any other one. The upshot of this is that Kryten (whose brain is based on organic technology) gets transformed into a human. Cue some rather Star Trek: The Next Generation Data-esque musings on the nature of humanity and some rather more traditional Red Dwarf musings on how Kryten can cope with his new human sexual organs. This plot thread, though amusing, is thankfully cut short by a far funnier sequence where Lister ill-advisedly runs his mutton vindaloo through the DNA machine, resulting in the creation of a ravaging curry monster.
In Justice a long-standing plot hole is addressed: we learned in Season 1 that Rimmer was (albeit inadvertently) responsible for the accident that wiped out the crew of the Red Dwarf, but this was never really developed. This episode makes up for it when the crew visit an abandoned space prison only for the controlling AI to determine that Rimmer must stand trial for his crime, leading to a classic sequence where Kryten has to prove that Rimmer is innocent by virtue of being an incompetent, deranged and self-delusional half-wit ("If I have full access to your personal date files, I could perhaps put together a winning case by maybe lunchtime,"). This is another very solid episode, notable in the Red Dwarf mythos for introducing the simulants, a human-built race of psychopathic mass-murdering androids who return to plague our crew in future seasons.
White Hole spins off an idea raised in the second Red Dwarf novel, except there it was a traditional black hole causing problems. The episode is also notable as the second (and last) to feature Holly in a major role as Kryten successfully restores her super-brilliant IQ but in doing so radically shortens her lifespan. Events culminate in Lister being entrusted with the firing of a thermo-nuclear device, which is really not a very good idea...
Dimension Jump is one of the series' bona fide classics, introducing a parallel universe where Arnold 'Ace' Rimmer is a test pilot in the Space Corps Special Service, the best of the best, and is entrusted with piloting a faster-than-reality starship across dimensions. Arriving in 'our' reality he makes contact with the crew of Red Dwarf and is rather taken aback when he discovers that 'our' Arnold Rimmer is a rather different character. This is a great episode because is gets back to scouring Rimmer's backstory and psyche to find out what makes him tick, and it works well with Chris Barrier delivering a barnstorming performance as a super-handsome, heroic incarnation of Rimmer (complete with a Top Gun-esque soundtrack and a rather bizarre catchphrase).
Meltdown is another one of the series' unsung high points. Kryten constructs a matter-transmission device which teleports the crew to a planet thousands of light-years away. However, the planet turns out to be a 'Waxworld' where the wax-droid inhabitants have broken their programming and have divided into two factions fighting an endless war. Cue some brilliant scenes where Rimmer takes command of the 'hero' army and puts the likes of Mahatma Gandhi ("Don't eyeball me, Gandhi! Drop to the floor and give me fifty!"), Pythagoras, Jean-Paul Satre and Stan Laurel through advanced combat training with the help of Kryten and his second-in-command, Sergeant Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, Lister and Cat are captured by Adolf Hitler and forced to witness the (thankfully offscreen) execution of Winnie the Pooh by a firing squad led by Al Capone, before being tortured by Emperor Caligula and Rasputin! Events culminate in an impressive (and ludicrous) battle sequence between the forces of good and evil, with a rather unexpected outcome. A completely barking mad and brilliant episode with some of the show's most enduring quotes.
The fourth season of Red Dwarf doesn't rock the boat and happily continues the formulae from the third season, and as it's a formulae that works, this is not a problem. The characters of Kryten and Rimmer are explored in greater depth, but Lister drops into the background slightly more, becoming more of an observer and the viewers' surrogate stand-in for exposition scenes. The Cat has some great lines and scenes but isn't really focused on much. Holly gets her own episode, but there is already a notable reduction in her lines going on, as again much of the show's exposition goes to Kryten. These problems will become more apparent and will be addressed in the fifth and sixth seasons, but for now remain under control.
Season IV of Red Dwarf (*****) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.
Friday, 13 November 2009
The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel
France, 1633. Cardinal Richelieu is the most powerful and feared man in France, overseeing the affairs of the kingdom from Paris. His current priority is to prevent war from breaking out between France and Spain whilst France is militarily distracted in the Low Countries. To this end, at the request of the Spanish crown he reforms an elite band of men and women known as the Cardinal's Blades and gives them a delicate mission that will strengthen the ties between the two countries. For Captain La Fargue the restitution of the Blades is a great opportunity, but as he re-gathers his former soldiers it becomes clear that a very complicated game is afoot, designed to see Europe crushed under the dominance of an ancient foe...
The Cardinal's Blades is the first in a series of books recounting the adventures of the titular military force, set in an alternate-history Europe where humans live alongside the spawn of dragons. Originally published in France in 2007, the novel has been translated into English by Tom Clegg, who seems to have done a good job. This is a swashbuckling novel packed with rooftop chases, back-alley swordfights, epic tavern brawls, clandestine roadside meetings in coaches and cool diplomatic exchanges between men of power where what is left unsaid can be as important as what is voiced. It's somewhere between Dumas and The Seven Samurai with a bit of the Dirty Dozen thrown in as well (and, contrary to some earlier buzz on the book, nothing at all to do with Temeraire; these dragons ain't talking sky ponies).
The book is cleverly written. The first third or so of the book sees the introduction of numerous characters, most of whom are pretty shady and disposed to violence. It's clear that this is the 'captain getting his old soldiers back together for a new mission' section, and it's fun working out which characters are the good guys and bad guys (and getting it wrong half the time). In fact, Pevel keeps the reader guessing about that right through the book, as various characters are pulled in different directions and even the apparent heroes' loyalties are sometimes murky. Rapid-fire chapters and changes between location and groups of characters can sometimes be disorienting, but after a while the book finds a rhythm which keeps the pages ticking by nicely as the nature of the conspiracy against France and Spain is made clear and various characters' true loyalties are revealed. The book is rich in historical detail, plunging the reader into 17th Century Paris and its environs quite convincingly, and the fact that sometimes chapters at a time go by with no reference to the draconic storyline can occasionally make you forget that you are reading a fantasy work at all.
There aren't that many problems. The book is quite obviously the first in a series and whilst the main storyline is resolved, quite a few character arcs break off in mid-flow, some just as they're getting interesting. The rapid-fire chapters at the start of the book can be a bit confusing and ironically this is one book that would benefit from a dramatis personae, but doesn't have one. Keeping track of who is who can be a problem, as dozens of characters are introduced in a fairly short space of time. However, as the book settles down halfway through, this ceases to be an issue.
Overall, The Cardinal's Blades (****) is a rollicking good book, full of action, adventure, mystery and some quite delicious intrigue. The book will be available on 19 November in the UK in hardcover and trade paperback, and on import in the USA. A sequel, The Alchemist in the Shadows, follows next year.
The Cardinal's Blades is the first in a series of books recounting the adventures of the titular military force, set in an alternate-history Europe where humans live alongside the spawn of dragons. Originally published in France in 2007, the novel has been translated into English by Tom Clegg, who seems to have done a good job. This is a swashbuckling novel packed with rooftop chases, back-alley swordfights, epic tavern brawls, clandestine roadside meetings in coaches and cool diplomatic exchanges between men of power where what is left unsaid can be as important as what is voiced. It's somewhere between Dumas and The Seven Samurai with a bit of the Dirty Dozen thrown in as well (and, contrary to some earlier buzz on the book, nothing at all to do with Temeraire; these dragons ain't talking sky ponies).
The book is cleverly written. The first third or so of the book sees the introduction of numerous characters, most of whom are pretty shady and disposed to violence. It's clear that this is the 'captain getting his old soldiers back together for a new mission' section, and it's fun working out which characters are the good guys and bad guys (and getting it wrong half the time). In fact, Pevel keeps the reader guessing about that right through the book, as various characters are pulled in different directions and even the apparent heroes' loyalties are sometimes murky. Rapid-fire chapters and changes between location and groups of characters can sometimes be disorienting, but after a while the book finds a rhythm which keeps the pages ticking by nicely as the nature of the conspiracy against France and Spain is made clear and various characters' true loyalties are revealed. The book is rich in historical detail, plunging the reader into 17th Century Paris and its environs quite convincingly, and the fact that sometimes chapters at a time go by with no reference to the draconic storyline can occasionally make you forget that you are reading a fantasy work at all.
There aren't that many problems. The book is quite obviously the first in a series and whilst the main storyline is resolved, quite a few character arcs break off in mid-flow, some just as they're getting interesting. The rapid-fire chapters at the start of the book can be a bit confusing and ironically this is one book that would benefit from a dramatis personae, but doesn't have one. Keeping track of who is who can be a problem, as dozens of characters are introduced in a fairly short space of time. However, as the book settles down halfway through, this ceases to be an issue.
Overall, The Cardinal's Blades (****) is a rollicking good book, full of action, adventure, mystery and some quite delicious intrigue. The book will be available on 19 November in the UK in hardcover and trade paperback, and on import in the USA. A sequel, The Alchemist in the Shadows, follows next year.
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