Saturday 22 February 2014

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

Today's Swiss Army knife post is a book review, a movie preview and a 70s Sci fi scan, because the 70s could only have produced...

Rocket Raccoon


I have been gamely trying to get through this book since I bought it in November and really pushed to try and finish the original comics collected in Rocket Raccoon and Groot. It was one of those titles I had often heard about, but didn't want to spend hours digging for every year the local comic expo rolls around. Marvel has saved me from boxes of dusty newsprint by thoughtfully combining the original Groot comic, Rocket Raccoon comics and part of the new GotG series together in one volume.

Now, part of the excitement is that Bradley Cooper will be providing the voice for the plucky procyon lotor in Guardians of the Galaxy this summer. My anticipation for it has been been up and down - nothing is worse than a bad comic book movie after all - but then I found out Vin Diesel is voicing Groot. Groot is a tree. Let me rephrase that: One of my favourite actors is playing a CGI tree. 

The new trailer is out and I don't know what to think:



But let's dial back to the mists of time, when Groot first appeared in 1960. There's something dorky about a sentient space tree that terrorizes a town, and he meets a predictable, goofy end. Rocket shows up in 1976 with his furry pals, who are the guardians of the Keystone Quadrant and protectors of the Loonies - mentally ill people who...well, I really don't know what they do except bounce around in straitjackets. They all live on a planet called Halfworld, where competing toy companies start a war. Colourful, weird and punny sum up the original comics. At times they were almost unreadable, but then I went through a box of old Thor issues and realized it was just the style at the time - it was I, the reader who had changed! I can appreciate the editorial and creative freedom that abounded.


Even though the 2008-2010 comic version of Guardians of the Galaxy is slicker and well, more coherent in its narrative, it's hard to beat the sheer gleefulness of the 1970s series. Eye popping colour, dynamic action and a whole lot of weird, is something that comics have lost. The whole "dark and gritty" thing can get pretty old. Just look at this scene - killer clown tanks! Banana bombs! What?! There's creating something to send a message, and then there's creating a work just for the sheer fun of it. In that case, it's mission accomplished for Rocket Raccoon :-)

Click on over to Comixology where you can download the issues for your mobile device or just marvel (heh!) at the previews. I suppose I'll be back in a few more months reviewing the movie - until then, I'm going to try and figure out how they're going to make a cross-over with the Avengers ;-)

Saturday 8 February 2014

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

These days when so many parts of our lives are planned and regulated, it's always nice to be surprised. And today's book thrilled me because just when I thought I had read all of Monica Hughes' science fiction books, but it turned out I hadn't read...

Crisis on Conshelf Ten





When Moon-born, fifteen year old Kepler Masterman visits Earth for the first time, he finds heavy gravity impossible to live in. An underwater atmosphere seems to offer the best solution to his problems and friendly relatives welcome him to their experimental community many fathoms deep in the depths of the ocean. But on Conshelf Ten Kepler discovers a sinister situation linked to the mysterious, water-breathing Gillmen, and realises that not only is he in great personal danger but that the survival of the entire Earth is threatened. 





I don't have any complaints about the cover. This is actually her second book, published in 1975, and thankfully it looks very impressive. I mostly want to tell all y'all how wonderful Hughes' books are - my particular favourites are Devil On My Back and the Isis trilogy. She's another author that started writing later in life, and sadly she passed away in 2003. I assumed that she had stopped writing a long time ago, but she actually put out one book (sometimes two) a year. That's productivity to aspire too, not to mention all the reading I have to do now.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

The Bard's Tale

When I had my big January cold, I thought, at least, oh well, I can read something, but I couldn't. My ability to focus had gone out the door with breathing through both nostrils. Was I fated to spend my days staring at the ceiling? Fortunately, as fate would have it, I stumbled across an oldie but goodie game on the Google Play that has been ported over to mobile devices. And just like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I was in for some interactive storytelling as I embarked on...

The Bard's Tale 

The first thing I noticed was how dated the game appeared, from a time when grass was a strange, hyperreal colour and 3D animation was still a novelty. How funny that my home PC back in 2004 was too slow to play the game. Ten years is ten lifetimes in computing. And if you like things super retro, it comes bundled with the original Bard's Tale trilogy.

The Bard's Tale is one big, hilarious send up of the fantasy genre as well as computer role playing games. There's lots to laugh at, from the first quest (kill a rat) to breaking barrels and being besotted with being a "chosen one" which forms the main quest. The Bard, who is never named, is voiced by Cary Elwes, who starred in The Princess Bride. Occasionally The Bard breaks the fourth wall and gets sarcastic with the droll narrator, Tony Jay.

But besides some goofy songs and a compelling story, there's lots of hacking and slashing. Wolves, boars, trees, evil goblins, zombies - oops - all provide a challenge for The Bard and his companions. Yup, such a sad soul The Bard is - he has to conjure up friends like the Mercenary, Electric Spider and the Crone. If there's one thing I can complain about the game is that some levels were pretty dark and hard to see even with the brightness turned all the way up on my 7" tablet. It was distracting.


Here's the best part about The Bard's Tale though - your actions determine the story and the ending. Being the nice person I am, I chose all the "nice" dialog options. On my second go round, I chose the snarky answers. Being snarky had a price though, literally, in some areas, so use with caution!

It's great to see older games can find new life. They're perfect for playing a little bit at a time, and unlike a lot of mobile games, there is so much to them than just collecting coins, launching birds or crushing candy :-D

Saturday 1 February 2014

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

I was getting worried that I was running out of 70s paperbacks - and it turns out that if I do, this column can be renamed 60s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans, because we have lots of those too! While digging through the cache I found another Arthur C. Clarke book. I suppose dreaming of going to the moon is like dreaming of going to Mars for folks today, but back in 1955, Clarke dreamed of...

Earthlight




Like many works published in the 50s and 60s, one could still dream of a fantastic future in the 80s and 90s from the 70s. Today we take the acceleration of technology for granted, wondering why our mobile devices are so slow when 30 years ago teletypes were still chunking away and 20 years ago you had to have a second phone line if you wanted to make calls and use the Internet. Just 10 years ago most cellphones didn't even have a colour display.

I grew up on the tail end of the fantasy that this cover so fondly predicts. Colonies on the moon! Domed compounds! Monorails!! No wonder Futurama wasted little time with Fry visiting the moon in the second episode of the first season (it probably would have been an amusement park by now anyway). There's also something a little weird about this cover. That, uh, moon tree looks a little suggestive. Nothing quite says "We conquered the moon" by imposing a big ol' fertility symbol on it :-D