Dark Tower Canceled

Movies based on Stephen King's books usually suck.  Not always, but it's a general rule.  I can't explain it and I certainly don't blame the source material.  

So with that being said I'm not sure how to feel now that plans to make Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series into three feature films and two miniseries have fallen through.  It seems that despite the promise of the project, the cost is simply too staggering and risky for Universal to commit to.  

If you are a fan of the Dark Tower series who hopes to one day see it appear on screen then not all hope is lost.  Howard's production company Imagine Entertainment is going to be pitching the idea to other studios.  We'll see if any of them feel that Dark Tower is worth a big (and expensive) leap of faith. 

George R. R. Martin Finishes A Dance With Dragons

Writing is not easy, especially when you have millions of fans clamoring impatiently for your next book.  There has been a lot of pressure on George R. R. Martin to finish his series, A Song of Ice and Fire.  Many have feared that he will, "Pull a Robert Jordan" and leave the series unfinished, but Martin has constantly expressed his commitment to finishing the series.   

Today he took a big step toward doing just that by finishing his fifth installment, A Dance With Dragons.  There has been quite a long wait for this book, but I think the wait will be worth it when we finally get our hands on it.  

A Dance With Dragons is set to be released July 12th of this year. 

Roy Dotrice to Read A Dance With Dragons

Good news for all you audio book fans out there.  George Martin confirmed recently that Roy Dotrice would resume his reading of the audio books for A Song of Ice and Fire.  Roy read the first three books much to the delight of fans.  When the fourth book was read by someone else, fan backlash was pretty resounding.  So to please fans (and because he is George's self professed first choice) Dotrice is back for the fifth installment.  

Another reason to look forward to A Dance With Dragons... though I doubt anyone really needed another.

Friday Video: Bram Stoker's Dracula In Under Two Minutes

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a very important and influential book.

It also stinks.

That's my opinion, anyway.  I read it, along with a number of other important pieces of Vampire fiction in preparation for running I6: Ravenloft.  Honestly, that was a waste of time.  I might as well have watched the below video.  That would also have been worthless for gathering inspiration, but at least it would have been funny and short.   

The Hobbit In Under Two Minutes

Always wanted to read The Hobbit but never had the time?  Here is the solution, and it is more entertaining than the Cliff's Notes!

A Dance With Dragons Official UK Release Date

In case any of friends from across the pond are wonder when they will be able to get their hands on A Dance With Dragons, I have some good news.  The British release date is the same as it is for the US, that is to say, July 12th of this year.  Join us in the countdown!

The British Cover

A Dance With Dragon Get's an Official Release Date!

The tittle says it all... Though many doubted that this day would come, it is finally here.  George R. R. Martin himself has confirmed the release date as official.  Why is that signifigant?  Because people have tried to give this book a release date before and he has always staunchly denied it.  Not this time though!  GRRM says he isn't completely finished with the book, but what he has left is so small that they have gone ahead with the date and that date is...

July 12th!

Mark your calendars, folks! 

George said on his website that the book is, "A Monster" comparable to the size of A Storm of Swords.  

Here is a look at the most recent cover design for the book.  Whether they are going to go with it or not has yet to be decided. 

Mazes & Monsters Chapters 1-3

The Blog of Holding has released the first three chapters of the Mazes & Monsters rules.  Mazes & Monsters was a terrible anti-D&D movie from 1982 that I just found out was based on a book.  Now that I know that I have to get the book... I'll also see if I can dig up a copy of another book released around the same time and with much the same premise, Hobgoblin. 

Should make for some hilarious reading. 

Back to the Blog of Holding game; it is both free and frickin amazing.  If you are a fan of the movie you will laugh yourself silly.  I know I did. 

Harry Potter and the Last Airbender's Sorcerer Apprentice

It's only recently hit me how popular the fantasy genre has become in the last ten years.  Setting aside the Vampire sub-genre, which itself has ballooned largely due to the success of the much loved and much reviled Twilight series, Fantasy has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the last decade largely thanks to the success of the Lord of the Rings films and Harry Potter series. 

Thinking back I realized how great we had it in the early 2000s.  In 2001 for example, we saw the release of both the Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone within a few months of each other.  Also released that year was Shrek, a somewhat unconventional Fantasy film, yet a fantasy all the same.  The following year had another the second installment of both the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchise, the last hurrah for how truly great the latter might have been.  In 2003 we saw the conclusion of the Lord of the Rings films and a new franchise burst onto the scene, Pirates of the Caribbean. Curse of the Black Pearl was an amazing film that little hinted at a couple of bad sequels that were waiting in the wings.

Then in 2004 we begin to see a drop in quality.  No, I'm not speaking of Shrek 2, a faithful and well made sequel, or even the awful fairytale film Ella Enchanted, but rather of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  HP3 wasn't nearly as bad as some of the films that would come after it, but it heralded in a new era for the series.  Columbus left the director's chair and in his place came men who cared less for the story and more for the glamor.  Important and fun scenes were cut from the film, a necessity when dealing with very long books I know, but if you have no time for them why waste valuable time with worthless special effects that add nothing to the story?  The reason of course is a shift in priorities, substance was no longer the order of the day, style was.  That is what HP3 represents, the pursuit of style over substance.  It's really too bad Columbus didn't stick around for one more film because PoA is page for page the best book in the Harry Potter series. 

Moving onto 2005 we have a disaster of a Harry Potter movie (Goblet of Fire), but are given a brief reprieve with the release of a new movie franchise, The Chronicles of Narnia.  The first installment of this movie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, was faithfully adapted to screen and though it didn't perform nearly as well it the newer and more popular Harry Potter, it was much better than the tripe the makers of the HP films were spewing out for the general public.  The following year we saw the first of the bad Pirates of the Caribbean squeals, Dead Man's Chest, as well as a number of other fantasy films including 300, Pan's Labyrinth and The Prestige.  300 was good, though slightly over-hyped in my opinion.  Not that I can blame anyone, give the amount of other crap being released people had the right to enjoy a good film when they finally got one.  Pan's Labyrinth and The Prestige were not traditional fantasy films.  I enjoyed the latter and found the former to have been way over-hyped.  The true horror of 2006 though was the film Eragon.  Truthfully, this movie is so bad that I don't trust myself to discuss it here without going into an angry tirade, so it's best to just move on. 

In 2007 bad fantasy films hit a crescendo and we were forced to suffer through what seemed to be bad film after bad film.  Specifically, and in nor particular order they were: Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Shrek the Third, Enchanted, Beowulf, and The Golden Compass. These movies range from bad to God Awful, and suffice to say I wouldn't recommend them to a friend.  However, 2007 did have a single ray of sunshine in it for Fantasy fans, the somewhat under the radar film, Stardust.  It was a quality film that really hearkened back to the immortal classic, The Princess Bride.  Stardust, unlike the other 2007 films all of which had a higher budget, is a movie I would have no trouble recommending to a friend.  

Well we're onto 2008 so you know what that means... Twilight.  Look I'm not going to waste space here bashing Twilight into the ground, it is a series that is very popular with its target audience, the "tweens," but for the rest of us it just isn't worth the time.  The other major fantasy film of 08 was the second installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian.  While some changes were made were made for the worse (Prince Caspian himself is older and FAR more annoying than in the book), this was still a quality film that I enjoyed.  The following year (09) we saw the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (another stinker), the new Twilight film New Moon (another waste of time for non-Tweens), and Avatar (a waste of time for everyone).

That brings us to 2010 and the slew of bad fantasy film on display at present.  I was going to include Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in my clever tittle, but to be honest it wasn't worth the effort.  I fell asleep during that movie, but stayed awake just long enough to lament that it might have actually been good in more competent hands.  More recently the wife and I have watched 3 fantasy films in the last couple of weeks: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1), The Last Airbender, and The Sorcerer's apprentice.  I'm going to start with the Sorcerer's apprentice because that is the movie that I watched last.

The Sorcerer's apprentice is bad.  The script sucks, the acting is terrible, the characters are unlikeable, and I spent the whole movie rooting for Morgana to just end the world and put me out of my misery.  Truth be told this isn't even a Fantasy Film.  That's right, folks!  The makers of the Sorcerer's apprentice decided to go all "Midichlorians" on us and explain that a Sorcerers powers are actually just science.  Nick Cage explains to his apprentice in one seen (that made me want to gouge my eyeballs out with a spork) that though most people can only use 10% of their brains, Sorcerers can use 100% and manipulate the natural world around them. Yep, it's that old myth, used as a crutch once again for bad storytelling.  I guess they never read our article on keeping magic magical.  Sadly as bad as this film is, it isn't even the worst of the three.

The worst movie of the three (dare I say by far?) is by far The Last Airbender (I do!).  I almost can't put into words just how bad this movie is.  The acting is absolutely atrocious, seriously it is one of the worst acted films I have ever seen.  I don't know who cast this movie, but they should be put out to pasture.  The villain is the pizza guy from Spiderman 2!  I shit you not.   The fact is, that everything about this movie is bad save for the special effects.  Once again, we see style trump substance and this time it leads to an unmitigated disaster.  I think the wife and I would have shut the movie off but we were both like a deer in headlights the entire time. Fortunately, it was all downhill from there.

"Fear my flame bending powers, for I shall burn your crust!"

The Deathly Hallows (Part 1) was the best of the three.  It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, though given that I thought it would be terrible this isn't saying much.  This one is still pretty new so I'll leave it at that for now.

So now that we've gone though the recent past and present of Fantasy Films what do I see in the future?  Well given that I've been pretty doom and gloom for this entire article you probably think all I see is darkness and despair, but actually that isn't the case.  Fantasy will see an inevitable dip in popularity next year when the Harry Potter films end, but there is actually a lot coming up to brighten the horizon and it isn't all coming on the big screen.

For starters you have the new Chronicles of Narnia movie (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) which looks promising.  The biggest and best hope is Peter Jackson's return to middle earth for a two part version of The Hobbit.  With Jackson on board, and with the quality cast he has assembled, I am so sure of this films quality that I would bet my house that it will be great. 

Despite some great movies on tap at the movie theater I actually think the future of great fantasy could come on the small screen.  HBO's A Game of Thrones is bound to be some of the best fantasy we have seen in a while, if not ever.  It has that type of potential, given the impeccable source material combined with a commitment and integrity that just isn't seen much on blockbuster films anymore.  Also busting onto the small screen in 2011 is a new Starz series, Camelot.  Camelot tells the story of King Arthur and his Knight of the Round table right from the beginning.  Like HBO, Starz seems to be aiming for a grittier and more realistic fantasy, cut with a healthy dose of political intrigue.  

Though the future of quality fantasy looks like it may be on the rise watch out for landmines such as the World of Warcraft movie, The new Conan film, The Elfstones of Shannara, and other highly questionable projects on the horizon.

A Dance With Dragons Nearly Complete?

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much much, but according to a source George R. R. Martin has completed all but five chapters of the fifth novel in his amazing A Song of Ice and Fire series.  The source, Senior Editor of Spectra, Anne Groell, has said that she would like the manuscript finished by the December.  This would mean an announcement of a release date in January, and depending on how fast the turn around is, we could see the book around March or April 2011.  Hmm... right around the same time HBO will be premiereing its Game of Thrones series.  Sounds like good timing to me!  

George has said time and time again that he will let everyone know when the book is completed so hopefully we'll hear from him soon.  Until we do we should all table our hopes and expectations. 

As much as possible anyway.

A Gamer's Bibliography

"Cite your sources!!!" Mrs. Marsh, my 10th grade English teacher, shouted at us over and over again.  While I'm not doing a paper on Mark Twain anymore that doesn't mean that I'm done with research.  In fact I find myself doing more research for Gaming than I ever did in school, and enjoying it far more.

Research can add depth and a sense of stark reality to your games.  It provides rich details, and insights you wouldn't otherwise have to the setting in which the game's adventures take place.  For my current Caliburn game I've found myself doing a host of research on everything from Knights to the Black Plague.

We are fortunate to live in the information age.  The amount of information we have access to is simply mind blowing if one stops to think about it.  Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is a perfect example of this.  In just a few seconds one can search about nearly anything they want from astrophysics to pistachio nuts. It is a great tool for getting general information and finding refence material to continue your research.  Google books is another great research, with over 10 millions books scanned. 

Here is a list of books I am using for research for my Caliburn game, while they are by no means all equally useful sources they have all had some important information to offer.

Armies and Warefare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience

Sword in Hand

The Archeology of Weapons

The Politics of Enchantment

Medieval England

The Landscape of Britain

Archeology of Medieval English Monarchy

Medieval Castles

Woman in Early Britain

Early Metallurgy

Food in Medieval England

The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic

Ancient Europe

the Archeology of Medieval Ireland Armies

For those with less time or inclination for in depth research you may find some shortcuts.  For example TSR did some really great historical setting books during 2nd Edition's reign.  I've found some very good information in the Celtic Campaign Sourcebook as well as the one for Vikings, Romans, and Crusaders.  Books such as these have done a good deal of the research for you and help save a lot of time. 

Battle Royale

Hermione Granger is getting absolutley stomped by Jamie Lanister in an ongoing Battle Royale over at Suvudu.  I always find these battle royales interesting but I admit this one match up surprises me a little bit.  Harry Potter fans are legion and Hermione is one of the most popular characters.  Jamie Lanister is from ASIF, also a very popular series, but he is far from the most popular character and was villainized in the early books.  That having been said, GRRM (author of ASIF) has "Called the Banners" so to speak and is mobilizing his fanbase and ensuring that the Kingslayer remains firmly in the lead. 

Other matchups in this battle royale include:

Cthulhu vs. Lyra Silvertongue
Polgara the Sorceress vs. Anita Blake
Temeraire vs. Haplo
Albus Dumbledore vs. Vlad Taltos
Raistlin Majere vs. Ender Wiggin
Kvothe vs. Garet Jax
Aslan vs. Eragon

The other matchups are going more like one would expect with Cthulhu having a commanding Lyra and Aslan dominating Eragon.  Harry Potter fans will be happy to know that though Hermione is getting houses Dumbledore is more than holding his own vs Vlad.

Head on over to Suvudu and let your opinion be heard.  You can vote as many times as you like so go over and support your favorite character against the competition.  

A Dance With Dragons Update

GRRM has posted on his blog that A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, has just gone over 1,100 pages. That makes it longer than both A Game of Thrones and A Feast For Crows. He hopes the book is shorter than the 1,521 pages that comprised A Storm of Swords.

While it isn't news that the book is finished it is news that the end may be in sight! GRRM makes reference to finishing a Jon Snow chapter, but says that he hasn't yet worked though the chapter he calls "Meereenese Knot." Best of luck to him in his work!

Gamer Lit: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

A while back I read through Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. What can I say about this short story? Let me start by saying that it is bad. Why this story has endured is beyond me. Ichabod Crane, the story's main character, is a lanky jackass who doesn't endear himself in any way to the reader. The story itself is short, and yet manages to move painfully slowly. When the end does come it offers up the only interesting aspect of the story.

Gaming Inspiration
For those who have not read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and want to, please stop reading as I am about to ruin the end for you. At the end of the tale the fate of Ichabod and the real events that took place the night he was riding home are left ambiguous. Was it really the specter of the headless horseman who attacked Ichabod? Was Ichabod killed, or did he simply run away, so scared that he never returned? The author gives both a lucid accounting of what probably happened, that Ichabod was simply scared away by a rival suitor and was so ashamed and never returned, and a fantastic account that is taken up by the people of Sleepy Hollow, that the Headless Horseman killed Ichabod and carried him away.

That discrepancy between the practical and the fantastic is the interesting part of the tale, and one that would work well in a game. Consider a group of PCs being called to the town. They have people essentially telling two tales of what took place, but they are not sure which to believe. There is evidence to support both theories, but they won't be sure which is correct until they get to the bottom of it. Perhaps they believe that Ichabod was driven away by the rival suitor only to find in the end that they are facing the terrible ghost of the Headless Horseman!

Gamer Lit: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde

I recently completed The Strange Case of Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde. Let me start by saying, it was far from what I had expected. This was my first read of the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, who also wrote the much loved Treasure Island. My exceptions were formed, not from anything I had heard about the book, but rather from film and pop culture. I had seen Jekel and Hide portrayed in films (usually bad ones like LXG and Van Helsing) in a way that was far removed from the way Stevenson portrayed them in his original story. It is worth noting that this story was one of the major influences for Stan Lee's Hulk character from the popular Marvel Comic. The Hulk has in turn influenced modern portrayals, especially of Hyde who is always a hulking, massive, muscular creature. In the story, though he is vicious, Hyde is noticeably shorter in stature than Jekel and not described as overly muscular.

Neither Jekel nor Hyde are the protagonist or the story. Rather the narrator follows Mr. Utterson, Jekel's attorney and friend. Utterson is the one who investigates the dealings of Jekel after the appearence of the much maligned Hyde. Utterson at first believes that Jekel has come under Hyde's power through some type of blackmail, and doesn't learn the dark truth until the end.

The story begins slow and isn't all that engaging, to be honest. The core of the tale, however, of the dual nature of mankind is timeless. Stevenson asserts that within each of us is a dark side that we keep hidden, and explores the notion of a tonic that can bring that side to the surface. It is for that reason that the book is a classic that has survived as long as it has. It is an interesting idea, and one that translates well into an RPG.

Gaming Inspiration

With magic available one doesn't need a scientific tonic like the one used by Jekel to bring Hyde out. Curses of a variety of types would certainly do the trick. One in particular is perfectly suited for the situation, Lycanthropy. The curse that turns a normal man, maybe even a good man into a howling beast is a timless tale for RPGs. The lesson learned from the story though is that, just as the beast is terrible, so to should you make the man a good man. Early in the game this will throw off the scent and deflect suspision elsewhere. When the PCs finally do realize the truth they should have a difficult decision to make. They cannot destroy the beast without destroying the man. You can make the decision even more difficult by having the man be a relative, close friend, business associate, local hero, or gifted healer who alleviates the suffering of the local population. Some GMs are even able to work with one of their players and make THEM the Lycanthrope. This is very difficult to do, but works to amazing effect if done well.

Intro to Gamer Lit

Early roleplaying games were heavily influenced by stories written by Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, Fletcher Pratt, and J. R. Tolkien. Reading is an excellent way to get inspiration for your own game. Much as musicians list their influences when they form a band, people should seek out and be aware of their influences when it comes to RPGs.

I do a lot of reading and often incorporate aspects of stories I have read into my games. For this reason, and because I generally enjoy talking about books, I am adding a Gamer Lit section to my blog. I'll be reviewing some Gamer favorites (R.A. Salvatore, Weis & Hickman, etc) as well as many classic authors that might not come to mind right away when considering books to draw inspiration from (Arthur Conan-Doyal, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, etc). I'll be looking at many aspects of their work including which of their ideas translate well from the written word to the gaming table.