leons1701

10 hours ago, Suzuki Stumpy said:

True. The setting in revolutionary China and the (necessary for Westerners, I guess) explanation of the historical context did detract slightly from the story flow (which is one of the reasons I suspect the Netflix adaptation moves much of it to the UK), but still and incredible piece of work.

Hopefully, the sequels will flow better - primarily because of their length. They’re both far larger volumes than the first…

 

Honestly, the historical stuff was the best part of the book as far as I was concerned. The second book wasn't bad but I didn't like it as much as the first, never got around to the third.

@Eagleheart has it. Figured that one would either go right away or not at all.

Pretty much. I've never even seen the movie, but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw Julia Roberts.

Mystic Pizza.

As I recall it was pretty much abstracted. In the comics it was pretty clearly unpredictable, with the ability to deliberately trigger it with explosive results. It might have had something to do with how much one used the power, but I wouldn't say there was any really solid evidence either way.

So this has been done before (big surprise, I know). Generally the Strikeforce characters can have pretty much any M&M powers. All Morituri have enhanced physical abilities to some degree, primarily strength and endurance. Various Morturi powers from the comics have included: plasma projection, EM-radiation projection, superspeed, super strength, telepathy, projecting fear, breaking down molecular bonds, hyper-intelligence and invention, creating drugs and poisons delivered by skin contact, sound nullification, density control, copying other powers, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and more. I'd say any sort of magical character would be out of the question, but not much else really.

True Names was to my knowledge the first to posit a virtual reality "cyberspace" and thus is one of the earliest precursors of cyberpunk. Within the SF community, he's probably better known for A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky and other related works.

That matches what I recall.

Of course.

I'm let loose, from the noose, that's kept me hanging around.

Baen gets a lot of flack from 'serious' SF fans, but they really do have a significant stable of entertaining authors. (Says the guy who at one time estimated somewhere between 25-30% of his bookshelf was Baen and that doesn't even count the whole Electronic Library).

Watches: I think Boradur has the lowest perception in the party, so probably shouldn't pair with Pendergrast, who likely is even worse. Other than that, no real preference.

Lords of Dogtown?

4 hours ago, Lycar said:

@leons1701 My only contact with the Dune franchise was playing the RTS a bit back when. Never read the book or watched the movie. All I gather is that House Harkonen is the 'bad guys' for reasons. So what am I missing there?

So in the original book version of the Harkonnens, the Baron is a super camp gay pedophile and it is not in the least subtle, Herbert made him the most deliberately offensive caricature of a gay man he could think of. It's pretty well known that Herbert cut off all contact with one of his sons because he was gay, so it was definitely not a coincidence. Even the Lynch movie played with that a bit, with Sting prancing around in a leather speedo. The current movie drops all that, the Harkonnens are evil because they are psychopathic sadistic slavers, do you really need any more reason?

This feels familiar, but I'm not placing it yet.

Re Dune. Herbert had a problem that Villeneuve has managed to avoid so far. His basic message of heroes as flawed and dangerous kind of gets lost when you realize that Paul was acting to prevent the extinction of the entire human race. I assume Villeneuve has very deliberately avoided any mention of the "golden path", at this point it looks like Paul has launched the Jihad mostly for very human reasons which actually conveys Herbert's message better than the books did (at least at this point).

He also pretty wisely removed the whole homophobic angle from the Harkonens.

Zyrel (Ekujae Rogue)

AC: 21 | HP: 34/34 | Perception: +10 (Initiative +2) | F: 5 R: 12 W: 10 | Conditions: none| Class DC: 20| Spell DC: 19  | Sheet

"I hadn't thought of the insect angle, it's unlikely but hardly impossible, particularly since we have no idea just what's drawing the bugs here in the first place. Still, I think it more likely they came looking to broaden their relationships with those outside their tribe. Could also be they know someone here, either Tzeniwe or perhaps another anadi?"

Zyrel has no idea if there are any other anadi at the Magaambya at the moment, but he hardly knows everyone after all. "As for the griffons, had this been an encounter in the wilderness, I would have just assumed they got too close to the beasts nesting area. But I doubt such a simple violation would have drawn the griffons into the city to attack, no, that smells far more like some sort of magical control was in play. Would have to be subtle so Teacher Ott didn't pick it up right away. Unless he did and just didn't say anything to us."