Book Scorpion's Lair

Typewriter

2012-02-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

Can anyone please tell me why I immediately think of murder in some sleepy, otherwise peaceful village? I could have sworn it was used as the title music for Murder, She Wrote, but it wasn't. Nor was it used for any Miss Marple movies, as far as I (and Wikipedia) know.

Oppenheimer

2012-02-08T02:12:00.000-08:00

Oppenheimer and the Bomb is part of a series of short biographies of scientist. Paul Strathern has written a great many biographies and other books about science and history.

The book is easy to read and will give you an overview over the basic facts of Oppenheimer's life, along with an impression of his personality. The style is casual, which makes the book probably attractive for students who need to read up quickly on the subject. Strathern manages to explain the theory of the atom bomb so that it's very easy to understand.

However, he actually mentions the story that J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dresser, which was already discredited at the time the book was written. I admit, it's an image that has a lot going for it, a story that's almost too juicy not to be re-told. But really, I expect more from a book that claims to be a well-researched biography. It's always a fine line between gossip and fact when writing biographies and I enjoy a good story as much as anyone, but at least the author should make it known that he's gossiping (unless you're Truman Capote, in which case it goes without saying).

The whole thing is only mentioned in passing, but it does nothing for my trust in the author's research. The book is a good choice when you need to polish up your knowledge of Oppenheimer and/or the history of the atom bomb quickly. As far as I can see, all the hard facts are reliable. You may do better to recheck the personal stories about the people involved, though.

Third book for the Non-Fiction Challenge

Cthulhu Gaslight: Secrets

2012-02-06T23:52:00.000-08:00

Last time, Dai and Cat ended up at Dai's flat after an adventure that was a bit more than they had both bargained for. Cat is asleep as soon as her head touches the pillow, so at least one of them gets any sleep that night. Dai spends the night wide awake, too high on adrenaline and worries to rest. He's a rather private man and he rarely has guests. Cat's an inquisitive young woman and he knows fully well that his flat holds the key to a great many of his secrets. But so be it. After all, he has invited her to ask about his past before.

*Secrets Revealed*

When Cat wakes up, she needs a few moments to remember where she is. She gets up and finds Dai in the living room. The awkwardness of the moment (they are Victorians, after all) is glossed over by their usual friendly banter and Dai offers to make breakfast. He had been cleaning his revolver when Cat came in and he finishes, obviously a routine for him, so much that he barely has to look at what he's doing.

Dai busies himself with cooking, so Cat has some time to make herself a bit more presentable and to take a look around the living room. A small house altar with some sort of elephant idol catches her eye, it's very clearly not just decoration. There's also a great number of books on all sorts of topics, fiction and non-fiction alike, including some that she cannot read at all and guesses to be written in Hindi.

Over the second cup of tea Cat asks Dai if he has ever been involved with someone, although she puts it much more delicately. He tells her that over the years there have been a few relationships and that the last one ended due to his life as a soldier of the occupying army. Cat misses or ignores the term occupying and still assumes a British or at least white woman until Dai mentions the Indian name Rashi. That raises an eyebrow with Cat... it's not something people do or at least admit to. They end up discussing their different views on the Empire - Dai has come to doubt the right of the British to just march in and declare countries part of the Empire, which is a new point of view for Cat and not one she immediately understands.

From there the conversation steers towards what exactly Dai did during his 25 years of service and that's the moment when he finally shows how very nervous he is about this whole subject. Nevertheless, he values Cat's friendship and her opinion highly and he's done with hiding so much of his past. He used to be a sharpshooter with the Rifle Brigade and he was good at what he did. Cat doesn't see this as very shocking until Dai tells her the exact number of people he has killed.

Things are not made any better when she picks up on the fact that he still takes pride in his skill and that he misses it. Not the killing as such (or, as he puts it, "London would have a problem on her hands"), but the whole experience: choosing a vantage point, waiting for a good target, the thrill of taking the shot. He does not want to be a soldier any longer and he thinks that he had no right to take the life of the people he killed, but that doesn't change the way he feels.

It's all a bit much for Cat to take in. She knew already that there were secrets, but now she feels that there is a completely different person hidden behind the Dai she befriended and she's not sure if she likes that person. She needs some time to think about it all and prepares to leave when the doorbell rings.

Dai opens the door to the mail man and receives a small package, with just his name written on it. He takes it upstairs and finds a rifle cartridge with his name scratched into it. The note that comes with the cartridge tells him that one of his sins has come back to haunt him: he killed the brother of the man who is now out to kill him. Both were soldiers who went over to the enemy's side and Dai knows that the man is not only an excellent marksman, but also a fanatic.

Dai tells Cat the short version of what has happened and asks her to give him five minutes before she leaves the house. In the meantime, he takes his rifle out of its case and loads it, again clearly something he has done many times before. Cat watches with a mixture of fascination, fear and distaste, it's the first look she gets at the rifle, although she had noticed the case before (it was sitting in plain sight after all).

Dai climbs up on the roof and manages to go unnoticed by the at least three people who are watching his flat from across the street. Cat waits the five minutes and leaves, half expecting to be shot when she opens the door, but nothing happens. She does however notice a man who is watching her, even though he is very inconspicuous. Dai sees her leave and has to fight the urge to shoot the men, especially when one of them suddenly moves to leave his observation post (he's the one who is spotted by Cat).

--------------------------------------------------------

The talk between Dai and Cat has been long in the making and I think it has definitely changed the dynamics between the characters. The future will tell how much and in exactly what way. The evening was a lot of fun, basically just a conversation between players, the GM got to lean back and watch the show for the most part.

Yes, I did notice that the package had no address written on it. I'm going to do something about it next time, but I decided that at the moment, Dai was too distracted to pay any attention to it.

I have no idea where the whole vendetta storyline is going, but I can tell you that I had a major "oh crap"-moment when Dai read the note. If he had only himself to worry about, it would be much easier, but with Cat in the equation, things may get very ugly. I'm looking forward to it.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy

2012-02-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

I finally saw Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy last night and it was brilliant. I've been waiting for this movie to come to the big screen for ages, ever since I first found out that Gary Oldman would be playing George Smiley.

Oldman has his first line when the movie is already been going on for 20, 25 minutes and he has been on the screen for much of that time. Even without saying a word, he shows us who George Smiley is and by the time he finally speaks, we already know Smiley well, his dedication to his work, his dismay at losing it, the fact that he leads a potentially dangerous life despite his down to earth-appearance. Towards the end of the film, when he can prove that the source everyone so highly values is nothing but a sham, he cannot conceal his satisfaction at being right, of being good at what he does. Oldman plays Smiley very restrained, hiding his emotions well, but here he really comes to life.

The film has an exceptional cast and they all shine, even when given only a few moments to do so (like Ciarán Hinds) and make the most of the already great scenes they are given. As an admitted Sherlock-fangirl, I enjoyed seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as Peter Guillam. Colin Firth steals every single scene he is in, sometimes without saying a single word.

You need to pay attention to the plot and listen closely or you will get lost. The movie is fastpaced, more so than the book, but I think it's true to the book in all important things (although it's been a while since I've read it).

I've been developing a taste for gritty, non-Bond movie spy movies and fiction. Along with Sandbaggers, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is right at the top of my list of favourites.

Bloodlands

2012-01-31T03:28:00.000-08:00

Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder investigates the fate of the people who were caught between the regimes of Hitler and Stalin, in the area of Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. This area was the location of the majority of the killings and deportations done by both regimes, before, during and after WWII.

I would recommend having a solid knowledge of the history of both German and the Soviet Union at the time in order to read this book, that makes it much easier to follow. Snyder gives a extensive account of the mass murders that happened in the Bloodlands and investigates the reasons for them. Hitler and Stalin cooperated, used mass killings done by the other for their own purposes or used them as propaganda for their own agenda.

Just as often, the killings done by their own regime were used to support it, like the famine in Ukraine. This was very much man-made and planned and could have easily been avoided. Instead, the farmers were accused of refusing to support socialism, hiding food and starving on purpose. When people resorted to cannibalism, the propaganda cited that as proof of their barbarism.

It's not an easy book to read. I found the chapter on the Ukraine famine particularly heartbreaking, maybe because I never read such a detailed account of it. Like the Holocaust, it was a case of people believing so much in a regime's propaganda that they were willing to deny other people their status as fellow human beings. It makes me wonder if I could fall for any idea so much that I would be willing to do that. I hope not, but I'm by no means sure. Snyder discusses this question as well in the last chapter of his book, suggesting that putting oneself in the place of the perpetrators of such crimes, although rarely done, is important and useful for exploring moral questions and understanding of history.

Bloodlands offers a new perspective of the Holocaust as well by not focusing on the concentration camps, where actually only a minority of the victims died (but still a vast number). He explores often neglected facets of the history of the region, like the Warsaw Uprising and the Polish (often Jewish) partisans who were caught between the Nazi and Soviet armies and who had much to fear from both of them. He mentions Tuvia Bielski and I can recommend the movie Defiance for a closer look at this group of Jewish partisans - fictionalised, of course, but still very much worth your time.

I would definitely put Bloodlands on the reading list for anyone interested in the history of the countries involved.

1st book for the Non-Fiction Challenge

20th Century Ghosts

2012-01-30T03:02:00.000-08:00

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill is a collection of short stories. I've been meaning to read Heart Shaped Box, but short stories are my passion, so I picked this book up instead.

Good decision. There were two stories that didn't work for me, but the rest was brilliant - scary, unsettling and sometimes just really, really weird. Stories about a cape that can really make you fly (I didn't see the end coming at all), about a haunted movie theatre, a man who collects last breaths or about a vampire hunter's children.

I loved Pop Art, the story about a boy who is inflatable. The concept is hilarious and freaky at the same time, especially since being inflatable is treated as a hereditary disease in the story - strange, but not utterly impossible.

My favourite is Voluntary Committal, about a boy who builds strange structures from cardboard boxes in his parents' basement, like the forts all children build. Only usually, those forts are not bigger on the inside and don't lead to strange places. I've always liked the concept of doors that open to different places at exactly the right time - or the wrong time, depending on where going through will get you. Such a gateway as a child's toy, with a hint of the Cthulhu mythos thrown into the mix, made this the one story that followed me around for quite a while after I had read it.

Reviews 2012

Shadowrun Rat's Nest: Retreat

2012-01-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

Setting and characters are here
Last time, the characters found themselves trapped by the Picas in an urban wasteland.

We retreat into one of the houses for cover and to give us some time to deal with Slicer's injuries. It becomes fairly obvious that the ganger girl we have captured was no run of the mill street brat, she has clearly had some education and her possessions were just a bit too high class, starting with her commlink and ending with her trode net. Her manners are pure street, however. Oh, and she has a terrier-ish mongrel that follows her around, but he keeps his distance after I aimed a kick at him.

*click for burning ork*

We still cannot raise any of the other groups, but things are getting in motion there. Twitch and Splash leave their rooftop and manage to escape the Picas before they can ambush them. Rivet's and Liz's group are still holed up in an apartment, with Liz trying to get Gilette stable enough to move him.

Rivet decides to check on the Picas and meets a couple of them downstairs. Here's a tip: if you spray an ork with gasoline and set him on fire, you better be damn sure that you run faster than a burning ork. The sight of Rivet, stampeding down the street on fire with one of the Picas held by the scruff of the neck is certainly impressive enough to clear the coast for a few minutes. Particularly since he survives surprisingly unscathed.

The group uses their chance to get on their bikes and drive towards the Rat's Nest, but not without another shoot out. With Picas on both sides of the narrow street, Rivet takes a few of them out by spinning his bike and a few more are taken out by friendly fire. They make it through and head for the Rat's Nest. Gargle had been hit and passes out on the way, so Rivet drives back and simply scoops him up, without even slowing down.

Twitch and Splash have arrived at our hiding place in the meantime and we decide to make a break for it as well. With Slicer taped securely to the bike (not my favourite method of transporting patients, let me tell you), we drive out into the alley. The Picas have taken a few squatters as hostages and are forcing them to walk towards us, hiding behind the adults. That keeps us from firing at them, but it's an obstacle for them as well and we manage to get to the main street, if you can call it that. We're ambushed by the same Picas as Rivet's group, unfortunately for them Kerry is still in possession of her automatic weapon and makes quick work of them.

Back at the Rat's Nest, the alarm goes up – there's a good chance the Picas will come for us. With the clinic's equipment, it takes a few hours, but Slicer and Gargle will be able to walk out of here tomorrow. Maggie, the ganger girl, is unconscious after coming down from whatever high she was on. I make sure the baby is healthy. Well, as healthy as any baby can be under these circumstances. We'll deal with her tomorrow, her commlink and her stuff goes to Splash. The terrier actually kept up with us, he's now outside, snarfing down Jasper's food. Jasper seems more puzzled than anything else by the yipping ball of fur, so I'm fairly confident that he won't eat him while I sleep.

December 1st 2073
Weeelll, more than two hours sleep would have been nice. But we don't do nice here and Splash came by with Maggie's cracked commlink. The data on it is something the Picas will want back for sure, their complete finances and business transactions. They make a surprising amount of money, dealing with drugs, weapons and apparently bioware as well.
That doesn't bode well for Whistler. We know that the Picas have at least his bike and I still haven't been able to reach him, so I tend to believe Maggie who told me that he has been captured.

Not like she was all that eager to talk, but in exchange for her dog, with her diary cracked and with Blaster and Rivet playing very effective bad cops to my good one, she got a lot more talk-active. The last straw was the baby. It's not the first baby I delivered here, but the one I worry most about. He seems healthy, but I'm sure that Maggie's drug use will have at least some effect on him later. At least he won't be sold for spare parts, which is what would have happened to him if Maggie had stayed with the Picas. She had clearly hoped that we would take the baby from her but once she held him, there was no going back for her. Not to mention that the Picas would probably just kill her now that she has been staying with us, however involuntarily.

----------------------------------------------------

The burning ork scene was truly epic. The Picas used Super Soakers to spray Rivet with gas, true to the fact that they are after all just kids, most of them no older than 13 or so.

Here's a closer look at the area where the whole thing took place. Well, not the exact place, but close enough to give you a good idea and we did use that map. Just imagine a few more collapsed buildings.

Fiasco: Small Town Life

2012-01-25T01:15:00.000-08:00

Using the Reconstruction-playset, we played Fiasco again.

We came up with:
Samuel Sommerville, rich wartime profiteer and married to
Rachel Sommerville, even richer than her husband - she owns a percentage and works part-time at the Circus, the brothel managed by
Robert Montgomery, ex-soldier who lost everything during the war and who has an affair with Rachel and unfortunately with
Black Maddy as well, probably his best earner due to her, ahem, area of expertise

Robert's busy balancing the books when Maddy bursts into the room and adds to his worries by complaining that the Judge can't take what he asked for. Considering Maddy's speciality and her enthusiasm for her work, Roberts feels forced to ask if the Judge is alright and she says that he will be, once he comes round again.
And by the way, would he mind getting rid of that bitch? Robert tries to ensure Maddy that he has no idea who she is talking about, but Maddy is having none of that. His slim chances of convincing her crumble when Rachel chooses this exact moment for a visit. Some namecalling and bitching later, Rachel threatens to bankrupt the brothel unless Roberts fires Maddy and he does, reluctantly and against better knowledge.

Rachel promptly drops the the next bomb by telling Robert that she is pregnant and that the child is his. Robert has no intention of marrying her and even less intention of being part of a plan to kill her husband. Rachel loses it and threatens to blackmail him. They have a shouting match that ends with Rachel storming out.

Samuel and Rachel notice people whispering and gossiping about them in church. Samuel knows about his wife's part-time job and he tolerates it because it gets her out of the house and leaves him free for his own dubious activities, but when the whole town knows, that goes too far. When Rachel asks for the key to the weapon cabinet, that raises some extra red flags.

He goes into full panic mode when he finds out at home that a couple of very compromising photographs showing him and Black Maddy are missing. He goes to see Black Maddy at her day job - she's working at a chapter of the Salvation Army. They talk things over and agree that it's best for all concerned when Samuel has Rachel committed to an asylum or at least confined to her room.

He finds that Rachel has already put her own plans in motion: she has spoken to the Judge about the Circus and tries to get it closed down, showing him the photos she stole. She threatens Samuel with his own gun and her knowledge of his dodgy business activities. In a rage, he beats her and locks her in her room. He then returns to Black Maddy.

Meanwhile, Robert has also been to see Black Maddy, asking her to forgive him and offering to dispose of Rachel. They are just done with their makeup sex when Samuel arrives, bearing the bad news that it won't be so easy to get rid of Rachel.

Robert has had it and he offers again to kill Rachel, which would after all neatly solve all their problems. They agree and Maddy suggests that she meets with the Judge who is slavishly devoted to her, she surely can convince him to turn a blind eye.

Rachel has made it out of the bedroom, a simple lock has never been much of an obstacle for her. She receives an invitation from Robert, who wishes to reconcile with her and suggests that they meet in a small clearing somewhere out of town, far away from nosy neighbours. Before she goes there, she tries to alert the local Pinkertons to her husband's dodgy business transactions, but without much success.

So when she meets with Robert, she's on the verge of hysteria and obviously desperate to make up...he thinks. The huge bunch of flowers she's carrying are certainly a nice touch. When she gets close enough, Robert shoots her with his revolver, but she's not dead immediately - she has enough time to detonate the Ketchum grenade she had hidden in those flowers. The blast kills them both.

Meanwhile, Maddy has found that the Judge has his own plans. Apparently, the discovery that he's not the sole customer of Maddy has come as quite a shock. Using all her charm, Maddy can convince him that the Circus would be a much better place with her in charge. To make that happen, Rachel and Robert have to die and the Judge orders her to get him Robert's revolver by sundown.

The Pinkertons have taken an interest in Samuel after all and arrest him, while he's still trying to understand what happened to Rachel. They do find all sorts of weapons in his barn. Maddy is arrested as well since her name has come up. She manages to escape, Samuel is not so lucky and is put on trial.

The expected death sentence for Samuel is turned into life in prison after he rats on his business partners. Unfortunately, that also means that his life is made a living hell by those men and their associates. When he finally is killed in one of those unfortunate accidents that happen to people who talk too much, it's a relieve.
Maddy has left the area and has settled in Washington D.C. where she establishes herself as a very high end madam with considerable influence, all very discreet of course.

--------------------------------------------------

Minor anachronism here with the Salvation Army, but it was such a nice touch. The Ketchum grenade was a souvenir from a satisfied customer.

Fiasco at it's backstabbing best. When things started to get moving, we all ganged up on Rachel's player, but he was very effective at wreaking havoc among us. This is not a game you can play with people who hold a grudge.

We played loose and fast with the things we picked during the set up. Originally, we had "find out about the baby" as a need and the blackmail was tied to Maddy and Samuel. But it didn't quite work out that way, so instead of forcing those elements into the story that was developing, we went where it took us. And it was quite a ride.

Pepys

2012-01-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

The diary of Samuel Pepys is online here. It' being posted one day at a time and unfortunately, it's are almost done, only a year or so to go. But it's a great opportunity for anyone who has been meaning to read those diaries and if you have an interest in history, it well worth your time.

Pepys chronicled daily life and his diary is a valuable resource for historians. It covers the years 1660-1669, with such events as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. The blog has plenty of annotations that will make understanding it much easier, explaining such things as games played at the time, money, food and there are biographies of the people he mentions.

Pepys is on Twitter as well

Bad Monkeys

2012-01-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

Jane Charlotte works for a secret organisation that kills bad people - bad monkeys. At least she thinks so and that's what she tells her psychiatrist. Is she making things up or could it all be true?

I've loved Matt Ruff ever since I read Fool on a Hill and Set This House in Order is one of my favourite books, so I was looking forward to reading Bad Monkeys. I finally got my hands on it in the library and it was every bit as enjoyable as I expected.

The story goes through many twists and turns and you are always left to wonder what exactly is real and what's not. Even the most outrageous moments could have happened as Jane describes them, if you accept her version of the world.

Bad Monkeys can be read just as a thrilling story, but there are more serious things it deals with beneath all that. Like in Set This House in Order, abuse is a major theme here, whether it's the bad monkeys Jane punishes for their crimes or Jane herself as the perpetrator.

I liked the offbeat humour and the way the story takes you captive - it's fast-paced and I found myself reading it almost all in one go. I had to find out if Jane was making it all up or if even stranger things were afoot.
Oh, and the idea of putting cameras/eyes into things with eyes (teddy bears, paintings, banknotes): priceless. I'm so stealing this if I ever going to create a seriously paranoid RPG character.

Reviews 2012

I know that feeling...

2012-01-18T02:00:00.000-08:00

via Geek-Related

I've had pizza boy-moments. Not while talking to strangers, but when being overheard talking to my friends about our RPGs. Particularly because I tend to say I and me when I speak of my character. There's nothing quite like talking about murder and mayhem in the first person while commuting to work. Extra points if you do it dressed as a Goth.

Duel, anyone?

2012-01-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

Look what I've got:

So, anyone up for a duel?

I kid. The only way I can win a duel with this is by hitting my opponent over the head with it. And I'm already too much in love with it to do that.

A Farewell to Arms

2012-01-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

A Farewell to Arms is the first book by Ernest Hemingway I have ever read and I'm in two minds about it. I had a hard time staying involved in this book. The parts that I enjoyed most were the chapters taking place in the actual war, during a retreat and an attack. It's not because there's the most action in those sequences, but they felt most vivid for me. Bleak and depressing, but vivid.

None of the characters really grew on me, except maybe the priest, who struggles to keep his faith in times of war. The women in the novel set my teeth on edge. They are all fairly passive and when they do have outbreaks of emotion, they hurry to deny themselves, saying "don't mind me" or "I'm being unreasonable".

The book fell flat for me, on the whole. I'm going to give Hemingway another try, though, probably with The Old Man and the Sea.

source
Ernest Hemingway in 1918, as an American Red Cross volunteer.

Hemingway was born in Illinois and travelled quite a lot, to Italy during WWI, to Spain during the Civil War there and he was in France during the last phase of WWII. He also lived in Africa for a time and in later life, maintained homes in Cuba and Florida. He commited sucicide with a shotgun in Idaho.
His other novels include For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea.

Here's a first draft of Farewell to Arms and you can listen to Hemingway's voice here.

Although I didn't like the book, I cannot deny that Hemingway's style is powerful. It reads simple, but I think that is because he worked on it until all unnecessary words and phrases were gone, leaving just the bare bones of language.
Here's a well-known quote from A Farewell to Arms that really stood out for me:
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

The book is semi-autobiographical, Hemingway drove an ambulance for the Red Cross for two months until he was seriously injured. It was so successful that he could comfortably live off the money he earned with it. It has been made into several movies as well.

Sources and further reading:
Wikipedia
Ernest Hemingway Collection of the JFK Library - the photos alone are worth a visit
Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure

Third book for the Classics Challenge, first book for both the World War I Challenge and the Library Challenge 2012

Reviews 2012

Fiasco: Deutscher Herbst

2012-01-16T00:14:00.000-08:00

We played another game of Fiasco, with three players and introducing one player to the game. Our playset was Red Front, set in 70s Germany around the German Autumn.

We rolled up characters and ended up with a Stasi officer, an ex-con, who was an informant for the Verfassungsschutz and a (female) hired assassin. The assassin and the ex-con were lovers, the ex-con and the Stasi officer has been in the joint together.

At first we wanted to set the game in Berlin, especially since we decided that 100.000 Ostmark would come into play somewhere, but who would we want to kill there? A brainstorm later we came up with Horst Herold, who was chief of the Bundeskriminalamt at the time and a leading figure in the search for RAF terrorists. And someone who came up with such ingenious methods for locating terrorists is a danger for the Stasi as well, so the assassin had been hired to remove that danger. The game was relocated to Bonn, where Herold was fairly often during that time.

100.000 Ostmark is a pittance, it amounts to between 1000 and 2000 Deutsche Mark - unfortunately, the assassin only heard Mark and was happy to accept, being hard-pressed for money at the time. Shit. So she recruits her lover for this incredibly important political mission, selling it to him as "sending a message to the establishment" and all that jazz. They buy a VW Bus and spend some time observing and trying to come up with a plan, which is not made easier by the fact that their target doesn't have a routine to speak of.

When the Stasi officer wants to have a progress report, he meets up with the assassin at an Aldi market (an ubiquitous discount supermarket chain). They get into it in front of the dairy products, quarrelling about money, involving amateurs and the difficulties of the job. Unfortunately, they are overheard by a police officer who tries to arrest them and is shot by the assassin, who then runs. The Stasi officer stays behind and gives a completely false description of the shooter.

Since she was given a deadline to the end of the week (and was ordered to remove her lover, an inconvenient witness), the assassin makes a spur of the moment decision to use any opportunity the next day. The ex-con tried desperately to contact the Verfassungsschutz and after several tries, finally reaches someone.

The next day, an opportunity presents itself, the assassin manages to get into the car and shoot her target, but unfortunately it's the wrong man. In a hail of bullets, she jumps into the VW bus and shouts at the ex-con to drive, which he does. Once they are a few blocks away, she tells him to stop, they need to change cars. When he gets out, she shoots him, hitting his leg and then shoots him in the head, telling him it's nothing personal. To which he replies "no, it wasn't for me either", so she knows she's been set up.

With what's left of the Ostmark, she leaves the country to France, where work can be found just as well. The Stasi officer has to tell his boss that the whole thing failed and that the assassin has vanished. He's ordered back to the GDR, but he knows what's waiting for him if he returns and he also knows that there will be killers sent after him if he doesn't. He decides to turn traitor and sells all he knows to the Verfassungsschutz in exchange for a new identity.

-------------------------------

The survivors came out of this game fairly well. The Stasi officer rolled up the best possible result, so he has a nice new identity and isn't found out. The assassin may have messed up the job, but she's alive and her reputation is not damaged beyond repair. The ex-con survived the shooting, but when he saw the headlines written about him in the tabloids, it was too much for him.

I noticed that it was incredibly easy to fall into that awful language apparently favoured by students and terrorists alike at the time. Or maybe I've just read too much about the RAF. We all had a fairly good knowledge of the German Autumn, I'm not sure if this playset works as well if you know nothing about Germany during that time.

The new player is hooked, I think, We are going to play again.

January Classic Challenge: Steppenwolf

2012-01-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

photo via Wikipedia
Hermann Hesse in 1927, when he wrote Steppenwolf

Hesse was born in 1877 in Calw in the Black Forest. He travelled a lot and lived in a lot of different places, in Italy, India, Germany, Switzerland. He finally settled in Italy in the small village of Montangnola where he lived until his death in 1962.

Here's a handwritten page of Steppenwolf:

source
He writes a form of Kurrent, old German handwriting. I can read that, but I often have to take a guess at the exact word.

Steppenwolf is probably his best known novel. My favourite Hesse novel is Narcissus and Goldmund
and Siddharta is also popular.
Hesse was also a watercolour artist.

source

Hesse has a much less elaborate style than Thomas Mann for example, so it's far easier to follow him, but that doesn't make his writing simple or undemanding, far from it. I read Steppenwolf once before and I hated it, I was just plain bored by it. This time around I found that I had much more understanding for Harry Haller, who feels like he doesn't belong in this world. He calls himself Steppenwolf, an animal who has just scorn for civilisation and all the things it brings, but he feels drawn to it at the same time, taking residence in a nice middle-class house for example.

The book is very much about Hermann Hesse himself, who was having a serious mid-life crisis when he wrote it. There are many parallels between Hesse and Harry Haller, like the restless life they lead and the love-hate for anything bourgeois. It's probably Hesse's most controversial book because it features quite a lot of sex and drugs - the reason for it's success in the 70s in particular and also the reason for it being banned from libraries for example (and shame on any librarians who did it!).

The Steppenwolf needs to find a balance between his two souls and the first step is to recognise that there are many more than just two - here's the influence of Sigmund Freud's theories. Another influence is that of Buddhism, a topic that Hesse already explored in Siddharta. The book was written between the two great wars, when a whole generation was feeling out of place, but I think that each generation can find itself here, which is why the book is still so popular.

My second book for the Classics Challenge

Reviews 2012

Artworks I'd Steal: Hunters in the Snow

2012-01-13T03:04:00.000-08:00

Photo via Wikipedia

The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. This one has been used over and over again for Christmas cards and such, but if you take a closer look it's far from festive or happy.

The painting was created during the Little Ice Age when winters were very severe and a threat to survival. The hunters are weary and the only thing they caught is a fox. I'm not sure if it will be eaten, but I do know that it was one of three animals peasants were allowed to hunt (along with hares and birds).

The sign of the inn is related to hunting as well, the inn is called The Stag and the sign shows St. Eustache, the patron of hunters. But it's crooked, another hint toward the unsuccessful hunt.

The people in front of the inn pursue another winter activity: the have butchered a pig and the fire will be used to burn off the bristles. Fire is a necessity in winter, but it's also a danger. Follow the gaze of the hunter towards the centre of the painting: a chimney has caught fire. Artchive has a fairly big version where you can see that better.

The people on the ice at least enjoy themselves, they skate and play icestock/curling and another game similar to golf/hockey called Colf. This painting may be the first known depiction of icestock.

The whole thing is not so obviously full of details as some of Bruegel's other paintings, like the Netherlandish Proverbs, but if you know what to look for, it tells a complex story.

Cthulhu: Bitter End

2012-01-11T03:05:00.000-08:00

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Inside the temple, a stairwell leads down into the ground, into the dark and towards screams of pain and fear. At the bottom, everything is bathed in a strange blue light and they find huge empty cages - at least the cages contain nothing they can see. However, there are humans chained to one of the cages and something seems to be feeding on them, judging by the sounds. For the blink of an eye, a white liquid runs out of the bodies.

*down the tunnel*

The group is ignored by the frog monsters and make their way deeper into the temple until a gaunt figure steps into their path. Shane in particular has a moment of fear when the figure pushes back his hood, revealing a face that looks very much like the proverbial devil, horns and all. He says that he is a guard in the temple, but that he admires their courage and is willing to help them. They make a deal: for telling them where the poison is produced, they bring back a vial of it before destroying it with the flower. None of them are comfortable with this, but they don't have much of a choice. Shane wants to know who the guard is: Seamus' brother, who went too far when exploring the occult. Liam shivers, fighting another attack on his mind and Ian starts to hallucinate as well, he sees Seamus gouging Shane's eyes out with a knife.

Their sanity even closer to shattering, they continue on their way. Shane has been given a spearhead by the guard that will hide them from the frog monsters. They have twenty minutes to reach their goal, then the guard needs to let one of the spiders out of the cage. After a few minutes' walk, the light changes to yellow and they see a flight of stairs leading down to a huge cauldron. The cauldron is guarded by frog monsters and Yao Tien is sitting at the far end, filling liquid into vials that are carried off by servants.

A hasty debate later, they decide on a frontal attack and run down the stairs towards the cauldron. The surprise gives Liam the time he needs to fill a vial and to drop the flower into the liquid. Ian attacks Yao Tien with his whip and pulls him into the cauldron. Hunted by the frog monsters, they run for their lives.

Shane is hit by a spear and collapses, mortally wounded. Liam turns to fight, trying to give Ian at least a chance to escape. He is lucky enough to dodge a spear aimed at him and his bullets hit and kill all the monsters. Yao Tien doesn't seem to have died unfortunately, he's climbing out of the cauldron, shouting orders.

Liam has caught up with Ian and they face more frog monsters as well as one of the spiders - only a leg is visible, but it's taller than both of them. Now Liam's desperate enough to use the Elder Sign he's been given by Seamus. He throws it down the tunnel and with a flash of light, their enemies disappear, leaving only an eerie silence.

That silence is broken by the thud of a dagger hitting Liam in the shoulder. He spins around and shoots blindly, hitting Yao Tien, who followed them, badly enough to drop him. When they are halfway out of the temple, Seamus' brother stops them and Liam given him the vial with the poison. For a moment, Liam thinks about asking him what he's going to do with it, he has a thousand questions actually, but he doesn't ask one of them. They find their way to the nearest portal back to the waking world with the help of the fob watch and return.

Ian has kept a hold on his sanity, but it's clear that he's very close to snapping, especially when he sees Shane's body next to him. Liam may be only slightly hurt, but his mind is no longer able to cope, he doesn't react when Seamus tries to speak to him and just curls up, shuddering and moaning. Ian takes Shane's body to the church where he lays him out on the altar and then sits in the front pew, trying to come to terms with what has happened.

Shane has a last moment of consciousness, finding himself in a featureless white room where he is told that he has reach the end of his way and that he's given one last wish. He asks that Ian is told that he's fine and the wish is granted. Things grow dark around him then.

Ian prepares to leave town. When he visits Shane's memorial service, he notices a locket that Shane has never worn before. He picks it up, open it and finds a photo of Shane, with the dedication "To Ian, a brave man"

Liam knew very well that he didn't have a real chance of making it out of the Dreamlands sane and he made preparations. In the afternoon, Seamus receives a letter written by Liam before he left. In the letter, Liam asks Seamus to kill him. He doesn't want to live out the rest of his days in an asylum. Even if there was a chance that he could be sane again, he has seen too much of what is hiding beneath the so-called real world. Liam's just too tired of fighting. Seamus does what Liams asks of him and kills him with a drug overdose.

---------------------------------------------------

I cannot believe I actually made it back from the Dreamlands in one piece. I mean, I did my best to die there without actually committing suicide...not that Liam didn't think about that. The last sanity roll after we came back was a d20 roll and I came up with a 16, reducing Liam's sanity to a total of 16. That was not an unexpected outcome and I had a letter prepared that Liam had written for Seamus because Liam and I agreed that it would suck if he had to spend the rest of his life in an asylum. Especially considering the state of the asylums around here - Liam had had a very close look during his first adventure and he didn't want any part of that, thank you very much.

I miss Liam already. He was incredibly long-lived for a Cthulhu character (two years real time, six months game time) and I grew very fond of him, he's one of my favourite characters ever. I loved every minute of playing him, right down to the very end.

Cthulhu: Flower Mantis

2012-01-11T02:59:00.000-08:00

Part 1, Part 2

Before they can enter the temple, they notice that the human the frog monster just skinned is still alive. They hesitate for a moment and Liam makes a move to go back, but stops when Shane votes for continuing on their way. The choice is taken from them when a second human, dressed only in a waist cloth, appears and stabs the skinned man, killing him. He has seen the group and slowly comes towards them, showing neither fear nor aggression. That encourages Ian to call out to the man and to ask him about the Plains of Leng. The man tells them that they have found the Plains and also says that there are living stones here, but not many. The Master doesn't like them and is trying to destroy them. When Ian tells him that they just want to look at the stones because they have never seen living stones, the man becomes suspicious and suggests that they wait here while he goes and asks the Master for permission.

*Wait? Attack?*

Liam agrees, to the surprise of Ian and Shane, only to knock the man out when he turns his back. He's not dead, but Liam has no intention of leaving him merely unconscious. There's no way to hide a body here and they decide to go back to the statues.
Liam asks for Shane's knife and already has it at the man's throat when Shane calls out and warns them that one of the statues has opened an eye. After a moment's wait nothing further happens and Liam cuts the man's throat. Liam drops the knife and stumbles, almost dropping to his knees. He has killed before, but never murdered anyone in cold blood and he can feel his grip on saity slipping.

When they all feel a bit more steady, they continue in the direction of the living stones and find them without problems. The stones stand together, creating corners and forms that are painful to look at, like nothing they have ever seen before. Every stone carries a black flower that seems to move slightly in the breeze, only there is no wind. Ian grabs one of the flowers, but cannot pull it out, not even when he uses his knife. The flower writhes in his grip and suddenly the whole stone moves, turning into an enormous mantis, about as long as Ian's arm. This is the signal for all the other mantises to attack as well, hundreds of them, and for the group to run as fast as they can.

Ian and Liam make it, but Shane is too slow and is attacked by the insects. He fights back with his sword, which is far more effective than a sword has any reason to be against such enemies. The weapon leaves a bright trail of light in the air when he swings it and the insects seem to shy away from it. Liam has stopped to help Shane, picks up a fallen mantis and lights it on fire after ripping off the flower attached to it. With his insect torch, he sets fire to a couple of mantises and the fire spreads through the swarm, but it's not enough to stop them. After several more attacks, the mantises bring Shane down, ripping clothes, skin and flesh to shreds with their sharp arms and mandibles. Liam uses fire again and this time, he manages to destroy the majority of the swarm, the rest moves back towards the stones and settles down again.

Shane is badly hurt and Liam does his best to help him, but at the same time he seriously thinks about killing him because what's the point, really? Even if they can win this battle, there's no way they can ever hope to win the war, to find peace. Better to end it now, quickly.

Ian has run into one of the frog monsters and has killed it with his colt, making the whole thing explode. After finally noticing that he's alone, he runs back towards the stones and finds Shane writhing in pain on the ground, with Liam just watching. He tries to help Shane and stops the worst of the bleeding, but the priest is barely able to stand up, let alone fight. Not that they have a choice.

Liam has walked away a few steps, fighting his own mind and for now, he wins. He drops to his hands and knees, shivering and gasping for breath. When Ian touches him, he blindly lashes out, but regains his composure quickly. It's obvious that he's in trouble, but he refuses to speak about it and just leads the way back towards the temple. Not only because he wants to end this as quickly as possible, but also because he doesn't want the others to have to turn their backs on him.

Cthulhu: Bad Dreams

2012-01-11T02:49:00.000-08:00

Here's Part One, which has the characters preparing to enter the Dreamlands in order to save Arkham.

They meet up at Seamus' place and are told that they need to neutralise the poison in the Dreamlands, where it is produced and then brought here into the waking world. In order to do that, they need to find a black flower, a single one is enough, that grows on living stones.

Seamus supplies them with a fob watch each that will works as a compass in the Dreamlands, leading them to the nearest portal, and with a coin bearing the Elder Sign that can be used as a weapon. He warns them that if they die in the Dreamlands, they will die for real and that they only have twelve hours. If they are not back by then, their bodies will die and their souls be lost. They agree to meet again in the evening and use the time to bring their affairs in order. Shane writes a few letters and decides to take his sword with him. Ian brings a bull whip and an old Colt 45, along with an authentic cowboy outfit that clearly is of value to him. Liam goes to see Danny Baker and asks him to postpone the raid on the waterworks until the morning.

*Enter the Dreamlands*

Back at Seamus', he gives them an opium pipe to smoke and a mixture of alcohol with some drug. They fall asleep and wake up in the Dreamlands under a violet sky. There's nothing but black basalt rock and they are on a plateau among sharp cliffs, with a path leading higher up. Ian is in a state of shock and Shane tries to talk him down, while Liam goes exploring. He soon wishes he hadn't when he comes upon a bush that grows flowers in the shape of infant's heads that move and cry until they are ripped off and carried away by giant flies.

Meanwhile, Ian has come to the conclusion that everything he sees is real, which helps him cope and they decide to follow the path. After a few steps, Shane feels someone tap him on the shoulder, turns around and comes face to face with himself. His doppelgänger cuts his own throat with the sword, only to regrow his head, but this time with the face of Shane's housekeeper, who again cuts her throat. This repeats itself with changing faces, with Shane watching in horror until he's pulled away by Liam. Their way is blocked by a dwarf playing with a puppet on a string, a little child holding a scalpel. When the dwarf doesn't move, Ian uses his bull whip to knock the puppet out of his hand. The dwarf turns into something that looks like a skinned frog with Doberman teeth and attacks. They fight and finally, Shane can behead the monster.

Further up the path the group reaches a group of statues, uniformed men with their right arm outstretched and a strange sign engraved into the base of each statue. They have to walk right through the statues and do it with reluctance, but nothing happens. Now they look down into a valley, with a fork in the path: one way lead to a temple, vaguely Asian looking, and the other way leads further upwards. From there approaches a group of humans, chained together and guarded by frog-like creatures. When one of the humans stumbles and cannot get up, he's skinned by one of the frogs and left there. The humans and their guards disappear in the temple and the group decides to follow them.

Part 2

Book of Choice: A Long Way Down

2012-01-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

When Martin decides to commit suicide on New Year's Eve, the last thing he expected was that he would have to stand in line to do it.

Four very different people choose the same spot and the same night to commit suicide. They don't go through with it, but instead get talking, spend the night together. Although they don't have much in common or even like each other very much, they keep meeting and try to piece their lives back together, with disastrous and often hilarious (for the reader at least) results.

It's quite an accomplishment to write a book about suicide that's funny, but doesn't make fun of the characters. Nick Hornby has managed to pull it off, with characters you feel you've known after a few pages. None of them are all that likeable, but they grow on you, just as they grow on each other. Sometimes you want to smack them around the head for being so stupid, sometimes you want to hug them and sometimes you want to yell at them to grow up. Things don't really turn out alright in the end, but good enough-ish. Anything else would have spoiled the whole novel.

Reviews 2012

Old Barbed Wire

2012-01-05T02:21:00.000-08:00

Chumbawamba singing a WWI song.. To quote Wikipedia This troop song was not popular with the officer class...

January Classic Challenge: Thomas Mann

2012-01-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

For the January Classics Challenge: Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

Who is the author?
Thomas Mann, considered to be one of the greatest German authors.

What do they look like?
Here's a short film showing Mann and his family, already in exile. You can listen to him speak about Richard Wagner here (with English subtitles). I tend to imagine Armin Müller-Stahl, though, who played Thomas Mann a few years ago in an excellent movie.

When were they born?
1875-1955

Where did they live?
That's a long story with Thomas Mann. He was born in Lübeck in northern Germany, moved to Munich after the death of his father, lived in Italy for a while with his brother and moved back to Munich, where he married Katja Pringsheim in 1905.

They lived in Munich until 1933 when they did not return from a holiday/lecture tour and settled for a time in France. In 1938 the family moved to the United States, first to Princetown and then to Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. Thomas Mann did not intend to return to Europe even after the Nazi regime had ended, but the threats of the McCarthy-Era were serious enough to convince him to leave in 1952. Anyone who had been outspoken against the Nazis was now under suspicion and Mann had certainly done that.
He settled in Switzerland, in Zurich, but visited Germany many times until his death.

What does their handwriting look like?
Here's his signature and here's a handwritten page from Tristan

What are some of the other novels they've written?
Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus

What is an interesting and random fact about their life?
Thomas Mann had six children, all of them gifted, and almost none of them could (or would) escape the shadow of their father.

What do you think of their writing style?
There are not many other authors who have such a command of German as Thomas Mann had. His style is very refined and it's the result of hours and hours of painstaking work. That doesn't make his books easy to read, but it's certainly elegant.

My problem with Thomas Mann is that there's just too much introspection and reflection. In the case of Death in Venice, that was fine, but The Magic Mountain has about 1000 pages of this. I'm not afraid of long books, but after nothing much had happened after 400 pages, I gave up. I may try again now, though.

Is there are particular quote that has stood out to you?
In Death in Venice, the author Aschenbach writes an essay on beauty, inspired by the beautiful boy he has discovered, which is very much admired when it's published. Mann goes on to say that it's probably better that the admirers know nothing of how and why the essay was written because that knowledge would only confuse or frighten them. Thomas Mann's books were always inspired by people he encountered and things he experienced, but here it's very obvious that Aschenbach is a stand-in for himself. It was certainly obvious to Katja Mann.

Why do you think they wrote this novel?
Like I said, Mann took his inspiration from his own life and he did encounter a very beautiful boy in Venice a few years before writing Death in Venice. It's a meditation on beauty and on self-denial, something Thomas Mann did know a lot about. It's also the most fascinating book about obsession, with the possible exception of Lolita, that I know and while Mann was too disciplined to become such a victim of obsession as Aschenbach, it's definitely a popular theme in his books.

How did their contemporaries view both the author and their novel?
Thomas Mann was pretty much a legend in his own lifetime, much admired and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In Germany, he went from bestselling author to persona non grata, as far as the Nazis were concerned - although his books were not burned, unlike those of his brother Heinrich and his son Klaus. After the war, the Germans was at first suspicious and sometimes downright hostile, especially since Mann was not about to feel very sorry for the suffering the Germans had brought upon themselves with Hitler. But soon he was accepted again and celebrated.
There were (and are) of course critics, especially more political authors like Bert Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky and, at the outbreak of WWI, his brother Heinrich, who was much more clear-sighted politically and did not share Thomas' patriotism.

As far as I know, the novella was received just as well as any of his books. Which amazes me to no end, I have to admit, considering the topic.

Books reviewed in 2012

2012-01-03T08:50:00.001-08:00

Just to keep track of things...

1. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
2. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
3. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
4. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
5. Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
6. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

Death In Venice

2012-01-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

I've tried to read Thomas Mann a few times and I always failed. While I love to read about him and his family, his own works were not to my taste. I chose Death in Venice for yet another attempt because the story appealed to me and I found myself enjoying the book a lot more than I anticipated.

The writer Gustav von Aschenbach comes to Venice where an extremely beautiful boy catches his eye. Aschenbach starts to watch the boy as discreetly as possible, eventually following him around, but is content with imagining getting to know him. When cholera breaks out in Venice, Aschenbach chooses to stay, risking his life, rather than giving up seeing the boy.

Death in Venice is a novella, only a little more than 100 pages long and a good choice if you find the sheer length of Mann's other works intimidating. I don't know how well this shines through in translations, but Mann certainly was a master of language and wrote an extremely refined German. It's not something you can read between things, although I did read it on my commute to and from work. A knowledge of Greek myths helps with understanding this book as well, there are numerous allusions.

But never fear, the basic story can be understand perfectly well even when you know zilch about Greek gods. I guess we all can relate to developing an obsession about something or someone. Aschenbach ultimately sacrifices his own life for the sake of his obsession, while never really acting upon it, preferring daydreams and fantasy. I can certainly identify with the latter part.

Even though I have never seen Visconti's film, I kept imagining Dirk Borgade as Aschenbach. The book is actually very much about Thomas Mann himself, who had in fact discovered a very attractive boy during a stay in Venice a few years before writing the novella. It's a revealing story and it played its part in the development of the strange, but strong marriage of Katja and Thomas Mann. If you have never read a biography of Thomas Mann, you really should, he and his family are fascinating. I don't know if there's an English version, but the documentary Die Manns is both highly entertaining and educating.

Reviews 2012

Futile

2012-01-03T04:29:00.000-08:00

...because I just watched The Best of Both Worlds and now I have this song stuck in my head.

The End of the World

2012-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

How do you know that a. you read to much apocalyptic fiction and b. that you're a librarian to the bones?

You dream that humanity has been reduced to a handful of survivors by huge worms. The survivors have taken refuge in a library. The problem is that every damn book that could be useful is checked out.

Seriously, every book I wanted to consult in that dream wasn't there. I think if the dream had gone on longer, I would have resorted to reading dreadful historic fiction (Pope Joan) and bodice busters to the worms to make their heads explode.

Library Challenge 2012

2012-01-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

I signed up for the Library Challenge 2012 hosted by Jessica

The January challenge was to read a book by an author you have never read before. I chose Ernest Hemingway and A Farewell to Arms

Harvest 2011

2011-12-31T08:22:00.000-08:00

About 30 kilos of apples were turned into one cake, 15 litres of apple juice and a lot of raw apple snacks.
Three kilos of Mirabelle plum became one cake, the rest was destroyed during a Cthulhu session.
About a kilo of European Cornell was turned into juice. Next year, I'll go for jelly.
My balcony gave me Swiss chard and potatoes. A wasteland around the corner delivered a huge amount of blackberries. Blackberry crumble - you need to try this.

And to end the year, I picked tea apples today and made jelly and apple sauce. Red apple sauce, how cool is that.

Not bad for someone living in a big city without a garden, I think. As much as I hate the term, but urban harvesting is definitely worth the time and it's amazing what you find if you just look.

Whiteout

2011-12-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

Whiteout is a comic series by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. I already wrote about Rucka's series Queen and Country.

Whiteout takes place in Antarctica, following U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko in her investigation of a murder at McMurdo station. The second part Melt has Carrie return to Antarctica, looking for Russian mercenaries who stole warheads illicitly stored at a Russian science station.

The illustrations are black and white, fitting for the landscape of snow and ice the action takes place in. There's nothing harder to draw than a whole lot of white emptiness and Steve Lieber does it extremely well. I also like his instantly recognisable characters (also not easy to do when everyone is wearing hooded parkas and ice gear) and the attention to detail.

The story is fast-paced, especially in Melt. I did figure out who did it fairly early in Whiteout, but that didn't dampen my enjoyment. It was still fun to see how and when Carrie figures it out and to see what she does with her knowledge. In both books, there's no easy way for her to solve the crime, a compromise must be made. There's a lot of grey in all that white after all.

Whteout is my 51st and Whiteout: Melt my 52nd book for the Library Challenge.

Bjorn Again

2011-12-25T11:01:00.000-08:00

I like the heaven's door-wheel of fortune in particular.

Baader-Meinhof-Komplex

2011-12-25T04:50:00.000-08:00

The German Autumn was before my time, but I do remember the activities of the third generation RAF. The whole thing was pretty much ignored in my history classes unfortunately, so it was when I first saw the brilliant documentary Todesspiel that I learned more about this time.

Stefan Aust's book Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex is a standard work and I've read before, more than once. If you want to learn about the RAF, then this is the best place to start. The book will give you an overview of the chronology, up to the suicides of the Stammheim prisoners, and of the persons involved, on both sides of the law.

It's a surprisingly easy read for such a complex subject and at times, it reads like a crime novel, without being lurid. I value the matter of fact-tone the book maintains, with few exceptions. There are numerous conspiracy theories, outright lies and many books about the subject follow an agenda, more or less obviously. Aust writes fairly neutral, especially for someone who was at times personally involved.

I can recommend the film based on the book as well. There's a scene that tells you a lot about the first generation of the RAF. Baader and Ensslin have their car stolen and Baader totally loses it, screaming obscenities at the thieves who took his (!) car (that he stole). Ensslin stays calm and tells him "It doesn't matter, baby. We'll steal a new one."

Stammheim is another great film, about the trial at Stammheim prison. It's based on the official records made during the trial. You get to see the clash between the justice system and the prisoners who downright refuse to recognise the system - not something the judge or indeed German society as a whole dealt well with.

I found a quote by Gudrun Ensslin made during the trial to be very enlightening as well. "We don't discuss this with you. We will only discuss this with people who agree with us." I think that this is characteristical for the RAF as well: a group of people who always agrees with each other and who looked only for further agreement in other people. Other opinions were not accepted, especially if they came from within the group (rare enough). If you're not with us, you're against us, taken to extremes. I can't help but notice the similarities between the RAF and religious cults.

Der Baader-Meinhod-Komplex is my 50th book for the Library Challenge

Myth Comics

2011-12-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

Happle Tea is a comic about mythology and the first one I saw was this one. How could I not love that? And it really pays to read the author's comments on the comics, they are a quick course in myths, monsters and history.

IQ84

2011-12-21T02:07:00.000-08:00

Huh, I thought I had blogged about the first two parts when I read them. It seems I didn't. Which is just as well, because this is a book that should be read without any long pauses between the parts.

Aomame, a young woman, kills the leader of a religious sect and finds herself in an alternate reality, with only subtle differences (including two moons). Tengo, a math teacher and part-time writer, has heavily edited/ghostwritten a book by a young schoolgirl, Fuka-Eri, who has ties to the sect. Tengo also crossed over into the alternate reality and both he and Aomame are hunted by the sect, who have been hit hard both by the loss of their leader and by the book which revealed some of their deepest secrets.

And now I remember why I didn't blog the first two parts. Even with the whole story read, I find it extremely difficult to summarise the story in any meaningful way. That's always hard with Haruki Murakami's books, but especially so with IQ84.

It's a slow book and if you're looking for action, you'll get very little. You will also have to live with a story that doesn't neatly connect all the loose ends, at the end there are open questions. Which is a lot less annoying than it could be, the story was never meant to be fully explained and that's part of the charm.

It soon becomes clear that Aomame and Tengo, although they have really met only once as children, are meant for each other and the story steers them towards a final meeting with many near misses and coincidences. I liked that, it had the feel of a Greek tragedy, who steer towards an unhappy ending, with many chances to avoid it. Aomame's and Tengo's ending is not a tragic one and possibly a happy one, but typically for Murakami, there are no guarantees.

I liked Tamaru, the bodyguard who protects Aomame after she killed the cult leader. He's a charater who doesn't seem like much at first, but the more he chooses to reveal about himself, the more interesting he gets. He feels like he should have a book of his own.

IQ84 is my 49th book for the Library Challenge.

More Luxon

2011-12-19T23:21:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Luxon again, together with Bill Crofut. Brilliant voices and musicians.

Shadowrun Rat's Nest: Honeypot

2011-12-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

Setting and characters are here.
Last time, the group decided to raid the Picas, a kiddie gang that had been making trouble.

----------------------------------------------------

I said I had a baaad feeling about this whole gang raid thing. Man, I was so right.

Whistler had found out a few useful things about the kiddie gang, like the location of their headquarters. Apart from Splash, Blaster, Kerry, Liz and me, we took a couple of gangers. Whistler would serve as scout. Gargle had a bone to pick with the Picas anyway and as far as the others were concerned, anything for a decent fight. This is especially true for the orcs and so we set out on motorcycles to the sound of Rivet playing war songs on his bagpipes. Yes, that was about as conspicuous as it sounds, but I didn't kid myself that this was going to be a surprise attack anyway.

*It's a trap! Click to spring it*

Splash stayed behind at some distance from the warehouse that the Picas use as headquarters, to set up a drone that would gather additional information for us. By that time, we had already been spotted. I decided to split up, to approach from two sides and from about then, things went downhill fast.

The group that went straight ahead had its way cut off and we heard shots. Blaster, Kerry, the two orcs Rip and Slicer and me went around and promptly lost our way, maps are just not very reliable here. By that time, we had already lost contact with Whistler, but I tried to tell myself that this was the fault of the at best spotty Matrix connection.

Splash assembled a map, but it took her a few minutes. During that time, we discovered the burning bus that had been dragged into the street and that cut off the first group's way back. To get to them, we would have to take a detour.

Rip took off after one of the Picas who shot at us (not that he hit anyone) and dove after the kid through a basement window, where he got stuck. By the time Blaster and Slicer had pulled him out, the kid had already emptied his gun into Rip's face and this time, he had aimed much better. I doubt that Rip would have survived that, the steel bar that rammed into his body when he was pulled out only killed him more quickly. Blaster tossed a stick of dynamite into the basement, so we can probably assume that there were casualties on both sides.

Splash managed to open a connection to Liz and she told me that they had been attacked and forced into a building about 100 meters from us. All of them except Gilette were unharmed, but Liz warned us of a trap. No surprise there.

By the time we had rounded the corner, we could hear a young girl's screams from a small alley. One of the Picas, a girl of about 13 years and highly pregnant, was lying on the ground, covered in blood. Here's why it sometimes sucks to be a doctor: this screamed TRAP!, but there was no way I was just ignoring the chance that she really was hurt.

Kerry offered to come as well to give me cover, but Slicer was having none of that and insisted on driving into the alley with his motorcycle. What seemed to be just a big puddle turned out to be a hole deep enough to swallow both the bike and Slicer and the situation was not improved by the pipebomb thrown out of a window right into the hole.

With Kerry giving us cover, Blaster and I managed to pull Slicer out of the whole. He actually survived the explosion, but he needs some serious medical attention. The girl was still screaming and I inched closer, my gun drawn. When I squatted down beside her, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and was just quick enough to shoot two Picas, killing one of them. I had my back turned on the girl and that was an almost fatal mistake, she pulled a gun and shot me in the back twice.

The armor coat caught the brunt of it, but it was still enough to knock the breath out of me. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, though, and I managed to take the gun from her, putting her in a stranglehold until she passed out. I would have loved to keep her under with a tranq patch, but who knows what drugs she took, she clearly was on something. Meanwhile, Blaster knocked out the Pica I hadn't killed.

--------------------------------------------------

More next time, sometime next year. I have no idea how and if we are going to get out of this mess, but I'm enjoying myself.

When we discovered the girl, I called it. I knew she was going to shoot me when I went to help her. Neil may be a shadow doc, but he still feels bound by the oath he has sworn, so he had to walk into that trap. I dig that kind of stuff, hard choices is a big part of what roleplaying is about for me.

In case you are wondering what kind of a name Pica is: it's the scientific name for the magpie genus and the gangers look like that, with black and white colours. I'm a birder, so I knew that, which earned me a look of disbelief from the GM. Just call me Lady of Random Facts.

Shadowrun Rat's Nest: Masel Tov!

2011-12-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Setting and characters are here

I got a few hours of sleep and a wakeup call at 6am: Kimba, one of our cyber prostitutes, had been plugged in overnight and they couldn't wake her. I'm frankly crap at anything involving the Matrix, so I needed help. Our local hackers were almost all out on business, except Splash and Han Solo and once we had kicked the door to his container down, it turned out Han didn't look much better than Kimba.

We brought Han and Kimba to the clinic and plugged in to find out what went wrong with them. We got help from Caidian, who hangs around with the hackers and managed to trace Kimba and Han. What we found was...sick. Take a look, if you want. You've been warned.

FYI, the hippogrif is Splash, Neon Man is Caidian, Michelin Man Blaster and the dragon tank is a program of Splash's.

*loading sim*

A room resembling a cross between an emergency room and a night club, with a stage where a band of surgical instruments plays Klezmer, Nippon sytle. Across the room, two people are having sex on a huge bed that looks like an autopsy table, while a masked surgeon is performing brain surgery on them. He removes slips of paper from their open heads and puts in new ones, while directing their movements with strings, like puppets.

Entering the room are a huge hippogriff, a stick figure with a lab coat and a medical bag and another figure, shining in neon colours, along with something that looks like the lovechild of a dragon and a tank. They are met by a masked geisha and the hippogriff produces invitation cards, which the geisha accepts with a smile, a bow and a cheery Masel Tov!

For a moment, they just stand and stare at the scene, then Neon Man produces a machine gun and shoots at the surgeon, missing completely. The surgeon turns, showing his face to be a Kabuki Guy Fawkes, but he continues his surgery, ignoring the intruders - who have been joined by Michelin Man.

Lab Coat Man moves over to the bed and starts to cut through the strings attached to the pair. Menawhile, the hippogriff and the tank dragon attack the surgeon, while Michelin Man gets into a fight with the surgical instruments who have turned on the group...all the while still playing Klezmer.

The surgeon is very much unimpressed, but he does flinch when Michelin Man grabs a clarinet from the band and starts first to play counter to the rhythm of the band and then to play into the surgeon's ear. Neon Man gets attacked by more surgical instruments and disappears, while the surgeon is apparently done and begins to close the heads of the pair on the bed.

The continuing attacks on the surgeon by the hippogriff and the tank dragon finally show an effect: the surgeon's shape grows grotesquely distorted until he is sucked out of the room.

Lab Coat man opens up the heads of the pair again and starts to sift through the paper, removing the notes the surgeon put in and restoring the original contents of their heads.

*end sim*

Brain surgery is not my strong suit, but both Kimba and Han Solo woke up and seemed fine. They didn't remember anything except meeting online and a very pleasant feeling. Kimba had a strong craving for vanilla icecream, though, and Han said that he had some words stuck in his head in a language he didn't know. On a whim, I said vanilla ice cream in Japanese and they both flinched, the word was enough to cause a reaction. So I either missed something or the black ice program had already made changes that are beyond repair. We're thinking that it was an attempt at brainwashing them, who knows for what purpose.

And speaking of missed something: Faye`s meat puppet program was activated remotely while we were busy operating. She grabbed a syringe and would have injected me with it if Blaster, who had gone offline already, hadn't grabbed her. She claims she cannot remember anything and I believe her. The syringe was filled with a stimulant and it would have been unpleasant, but not lethal, so that seems like a fairly desperate attempt...considering that there are much nastier things here to use.

The council decided to upgrade Matrix security as much as possible and to keep everyone off the Matrix for tonight. We still have the code that the ice tried to implant into Kimba and Han, but none of use can make any sense of it. A psychology softskill would help and I can get my hands on one, but it will take a few days. Which is actually a good thing because we need some time to get our hands on that kind of money. Carrie suggested a raid on the gang that has been making trouble around here anyway (the ones that Blaster encountered), that would kill two birds with one stone. Although I can't say I feel very confident about being a part of this. It's not that I can't hold my own I a fight, but this is different, planning it like that.

--------------------------------------------------------

The first real adventure for our Rat's Nest gang. If you haven't done so, definitely listen to the Klezmer I linked, it's a vital part of the whole WTF-effect we had.The Mazel Tov-Geisha was finally enough to reduce us to helpless giggles.

It was all very strange, but very cool and I enjoyed playing in the Matrix, creativity and bending the rules is important here. None of us except Splash's player are any good at Matrix combat, but we could still use what was there to reach our goal.

What I really dig about this whole round is that it's not the typical Shadowrun scenario: meet Johnson, accept assignment, do the work, report back to Johnson. Which can be a lot of fun, but I love the whole community we have to move in and the chance to play out daily life for the characters.

Krabat

2011-12-13T01:49:00.000-08:00

Krabat by Otfried Preußler is a version of the old Krabat legend. Krabat is a young beggar who is taken on as an apprentice by the miller of Schwarzkollm. He soon discovers that the miller practices dark magic and teaches it to his journeymen as well. Of course there's a price to be paid for that: once a year one of the journeymen dies, a part of the pact the miller has with the devil. Krabat starts to think about how he can escape from the mill.

The book has the strong, clear language of a fairy tale, fitting for a re-telling of such an old story. It's easy to lose yourself in this book, with its slow rhythm and vivid characters. The miller is a very eerie character, especially since many things are only hinted at when it comes to him and his secrets.

Another thing I like about Krabat are the descriptions of the everyday life at the mill, a life that has been lost for a long time. You can just imagine yourself stepping into the mill...although you may not want to, considering the consequences.

Preußler himself wrote Krabat as a tale about power and its temptations and it can certainly be read that way. But it works just as well as a story about good and evil (there's very little grey in this story) or as a modern version of a simple folktale. Although I always wonder, is there such a thing as a simple folktale? I don't think so.

Krabat is my 48th book for the Library Challenge

Dracula's Guest

2011-12-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

Dracula's Guest is a collection of short stories by Bram Stoker. The most famous one is the one that gave the collection it's title and may or may not be a chapter of Dracula that had been excised from the novel. Whatever the truth may be, it's deliciously creepy on its own.

The Squaw is much more bloodthirsty, very much so considering the time it was written. An American tourist kills a kitten and is later killed himself in an "accident" involving the mother cat and an iron maiden. Gruesome.

Crooken Sand is hilarious, until the twist ending. Roald Dahl would be proud of that story involving another American who decided to explore his Scottish heritage to the embarrassment of his family while visiting the Highlands.

The Judge's House is one of the most creepy stories I know, with a student encountering evil in a rat-filled lonely house. I don't recommend reading that one in the dark. It has its share of purple prose, although that may be the fault of the translation I have read and in any case it doesn't really disrupt the flow of the story.

Dracula's Guest is my fourth book for the Ireland Challenge. You can read it online here

The Great Gatsby

2011-12-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

The Great Gatsby joins the list of books I absolutely recognise as brilliantly written, but didn't like anyway.
There were scenes I enjoyed, the one where Gatsby finally meets his adored Daisy in particular, it's sad and awkward and hilarious all at once. It's also one of very few occasions where the characters actually are (more or less) truthful to each other.

And that's my problem with the novel: here's a bunch of people who don't seem to be capable of not deceiving each other and themselves for one minute, who seems to find it more comfortable to live lies, even if they are unhappy. It really, really got on my nerves and I had very little patience or sympathy for the characters and their problems. I have no problems with characters I don't like, because usually I can relate to them, even to the most evil ones, but I found that extremely difficult with any on the characters in The Great Gatsby.

But at least the lies were lived to their bitter consequence, I have to give the book that. No happy ending there.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is my 47th book for the Library challenge

Oysterband

2011-12-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

We saw the Oysterband last night and as always, they were brilliant. The location was a small one, only a couple of hundred people, and pretty much everyone knew all the words to all their songs. The band seemed to have just as much fun as the audience and the last song was Put Out the Lights, played acoustic. Here's a video from another concert of the same song:

The Oysterband and June Tabor are nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2012 with their new album Ragged Kingdom. If you have the chance to see them live, then do it. They have this energy and love for their music that makes their concerts so very enjoyable, for me they are hands down the best band to see live (along with the very different Deine Lakaien).

Artworks I'd Steal: Green Devil

2011-12-07T01:27:00.000-08:00

My grandmother had a huge bible I was fascinated with and I remember this image in particular. I named it The Devil with the Green Butt and it took me quite a lot of digging to find it again. Let me tell you, those search words turn up some weird result on Google.

It's a painting by the 15th century Austrian artist Michael Pacher and it's usually called "St. Augustine and the Devil" - although some sources say it's St. Wolfgang. The book is the book of vices. It belongs to an altarpiece showing four Church Fathers and it's on the back of the panel showing St. Augustine, so it would have been visible when the altar was closed.

I quite like the unusual, grotesque devil and I've never seen anything quite like it, not even in Bosch's or Brueghel's paintings. Is it me or does he have flames coming out of his ears?

Shadowrun: Rat's Nest

2011-12-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

I recently joined a second Shadowrun group. We play in Seattle (surprise) in the Redmond Barrens and the GM created a squatter's town in the Rat's Nest, the big waste dump in the barrens. We'll call the town the Rat's Nest as well for simplicities sake. It's much more of a community that the original Rat's Nest described in theSeattle 2072 sourcebook.

The people live in cargo containers and the whole thing resembles nothing so much as a mining town in the Wild West. There's an Irish pub, people breed rats and roaches for food and make a living by scavenging for usable stuff among the waste. The place is surprisingly hot in the Matrix, due to a couple of hackers, and there's a ton of AR around, a good way to brighten up this shabby place.

Player characters are:
Blaster, a member of the Hellhounds who was picked up by the very attractive and very talented mechanic Kerry after he crashed his machine on an oil spill (put there by some kiddie gangers, who may live to regret this).

Splash, a hacker who arrived here on the run from the corp she used to work for. She's found work as a hacker, but would prefer to use her talents as a rigger.

Painless/Neil, a shadow doc who has lived at the Rat's Nest for about eight years now. He's a very capable surgeon, but cut short his career with making some bad decisions while being high as a kite. The Rat's Nest now feels pretty much like home to him and he's managed to scrounge, liberate and buy enough for a surprisingly well-equipped clinic. With the help of a medic and a nurse (Liz), he does his best to keep the population of the Rat's Nest healthy. Well, alive. He also has taken in a young man called Whistler who showed a promising talent and interest in working at the clinic.

Neil's Diary - hack at own risk

November 28th 2073
It's raining, but at least the power's up and it's reasonably warm inside. I heard that our newest arrival was willing to sell the ambulance she came in. It cost me less than I planned and Monkeywrench gave me a good deal on turning my van into a much less conspicuous ambulance. The supplies will come in handy as well, of course. Especially since Liz hasn't been able to get any drugs I would be willing to use, presenting me with a bag full of who knows what kind of pills.

And speaking of Liz, I'm not sure how much longer that will last. She's good, there's no question about that, but what use is the best nurse if she's too drunk and high to stand up when I need her?

Anyway. Apart from Splash (Ambulance Girl), there has been one other new arrival - not here to stay, though. Blaster, a ganger, who seems to be Kerry's latest boyfriend...after making the facts of life forcibly clear to another member of his gang (my first patient that night). Kerry did the same for Liz, who's sometimes a bit too frank for her own good and who obviously didn't listen to me when I told her not to use her shock hand when it's wet. Two more patients, but they were only knocked out.

The bar fight later on was much more productive. Blaster handled himself well against one of our local trolls, so that should bring him at least some respect if he decides to stick around. No-one was seriously hurt, although it would have been nice if Liz had been in a condition to do more than giggle drunkenly at the patients (I threw her out).

Ah crap, the power's out. I guess I'm going to bed and I'm hoping for a quiet night, if warm is too much to ask. But what else is new.

----------------------------------------------------

The first session introduced the characters to each other and we had the chance to meet other locals, like Growler, the owner of the Irish pub and leader of the local gang. I imagine him like Brendan Gleeson in Gangs of New York - not someone to mess with. The barfight was a good way to get to know the rules, at least for Blaster's player, who was the only one of the group who did not hide under a table.

It was basically roleplaying with little dice action, just to get a feel for the place and it was a lot of fun. Things are about to get serious next time, though.

Capoeira

2011-11-30T03:01:00.000-08:00

I'm creating a new character for our Call of Cthulhu 1923 round and I decided to give him the martial arts skill. I never had a Cthulhu character who knew anything about martial arts, so that would be something new for me. I thought aloud about what kind I was going to use and Mr Bookscorpion suggested Capoeira.

Cool. It took me a while to come up with a plausible story that allowed the character to learn this and still end up in Arkham, but I managed, a crash course in Brazilian history included. After a further crash course in Capoeira, only theoretical unfortunately, I decided that it would have a very strong influence on the character and his behaviour. Of course it will give him an edge in a fight, but the important element of Malicia in Capoeira will have shaped his behaviour towards people in daily life. I think it will be wise to keep your guard up around this character and not to assume that you know his intentions.

It's fun to see a character go from statistics and a character sheet to a real, well-rounded person. I'm at the point where he pretty much writes himself after I found the element that makes him come alive for me.

More Challenges

2011-11-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year...a ton of new challenges are announced and I'm having a hard time not to pick too many. So in addition to the Library challenge and the Classics challenge, I'm going to add only two more. At least, that's the plan.

The third challenge will be the non-fiction challenge:

I've decided to host a challenge to motivate myself and others to read more nonfiction. To make it more of a challenge, the Non-Fiction Non-Memoir Reading Challenge will exclude memoirs, which seem to be the most read type of nonfiction among the book blogs I follow. Instead, we'll focus on learning about a variety of different topics and discovering new facts. The challenge will run from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012.

What Counts:
- Books can be any format (bound, ebook, audio) but must be written for adults or young adults.
- Books can cover many different topics, including science, technology, religion, sociology, business, biography, politics, economics, history, food, art/design, etc.
- How-to, self-help and travel books are permitted, as long as you actual read them cover to cover, and don't just use them as a reference.
- Crossovers with other challenges are permitted.
I'm going for the Diploma level, 10 books.

1. Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
2. Oppenheimer and the Bomb by Paul Strathern

The fourth one is the War Through the Generations challenge:

War Through the Generation’s 2012 reading challenge will be World War I. The challenge will run from January 1, 2012, through December 31, 2012.

Rules:
This year you have options when reading your fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, etc. with the WWI as the primary or secondary theme.

Books can take place before, during, or after the war, so long as the conflicts that led to the war or the war itself are important to the story. Books from other challenges count so long as they meet the above criteria.
I'm going for three books. One of those maybe All Quiet on the Western Front. It would be a re-read, but it's a brilliant book well worth a second look.

1. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Mao

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've read two Mao Zedong biographies this year. One was Mao - The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and the other was Mao Zedong by Jonathan Spence.

I liked Spence's book better because he's not so involved. Chang and her family suffered under Mao's regime and I got the feeling throughout the book that she felt the need to vilify him, taking care not to say one good word about him.

I've said before that I enjoy it when an author is passionate about his subject and I really do, but it shouldn't stand in the way of facts and objectivity. Mao certainly committed more than enough crimes and his actions can speak for themselves. There's no need for polemics. There has been criticism of the book regarding selective use of facts and evidence. I'm nowhere knowledgeable enough to judge that for myself, but it would fit with the impression I got when I read it.

The Spence biography is much shorter and much more matter of fact. It's a good first choice if you want to learn more about Mao and gives the reader the knowledge needed to better understand this part of Chinese history. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good Mao biography. The book by Chang is not a good choice if you don't have any prior knowledge - at the very least I would recommend getting your hand on some reviews and commentaries regarding the book. That's a good idea in any case when it comes to reading non-fiction both on-line and off-line), especially when it concerns a topic you're not knowledgeable about (sorry, I got librarian-ish there for a moment).

Mao - The Unknown Story is my 45th and Mao Zedong my 46th book for the Library Challenge.

Unearthly Sound

2011-11-26T06:47:00.000-08:00

Listen to this.

Take a guess at what makes the sounds.

I came up with the sounds Saturn makes in the recordings Cassini made. But it's a bearded seal, Erignathus barbartus. That's hands down the most weird sound I have ever heard from any living thing. It's not exactly known why the seals make this sound, but it's probably a mating call or a call to claim a territory.

Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

2011-11-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

A friend showed me this a few days ago and I love it. Benjamin Luxon sings the hell out of this song.

Man with Zither Repels Invasion

2011-11-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

Meet Zhuge Liang, the man who fought back a superior enemy with the help of a guqin and an open gate.
I wanted to write about this guy in my Wargaming with Gandhi post, but I couldn't for the life of me remember the details or where I read about him. Cracked.com of course, where else.

It's in all probability a fictious account, but there have been real uses of this strategy. It made its way into the Thirty-Six Stratagems book, which is a worthwhile read for gamers, wargamers and roleplayers both. Here's a copy in English and French.

Mirageographer

2011-11-22T00:35:00.000-08:00

Mirages are just optical illusions, right? Not so, says Jakub Keskin, head of the mirageographers' society. That's a common misconception. In fact, mirages are byproducts of warps in spacetime and can be used for greatly accelerated travel to the place they show. The only problem is predicting the appearance of a mirage and that's what the mirageographers are trying to do. It used to be a timecomsuming task, with a lot of waiting, but the modern age with the arrival of cameras and videophones everywhere has made it a lot easier.

Jakub inherited his interest in mirages and his spot in the society from his mother Maryam, who was the first to travel the famous and elusive Herðubreið mirage, correctly predicting the exact time and place the mirage appeared. He has concentrated his research on Peru and Chile and has lately come to believe that mirages may allow not only travel in space, but also in time. Jakub has high hopes in the Atacama mirage, which he has already predicted, but not yet travelled, and he is mounting an expedition to do just that. Considering that it may be a one way trip into the distant past, he has had some difficulties finding companions, but he is determined to go. Alone, if he must.

--------------------------

I came up with this after a prompt from Burning Zeppelin Experience and it's been hanging around ever since. Feel free to do something with it, if it inspires you.

Wargaming with Gandhi

2011-11-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

I showed Mr Bookscorpion the video here of Peter Cushing wargaming - and wouldn't it be awesome if we had a video of him playing a game with Christopher Lee?. I also mentioned that I came across an interview with Vin Diesel where he spoke about playing D&D with Karl Urban and Judi Dench, who I didn't think could get any more brilliant, but it seems everything's better with RPGs. And possibly Ninjas.

Aaanyway, we threw around the question who we'd want to invite to gaming night if we could. I'd totally go for Cthulhu Gaslight with Mark Gatiss and for whatever Neil Gaiman would be willing to run. I've seen Neil Gaiman a few times at readings and, aside from being an awesome writer, he also can turn just about anything into a story people get drawn into. If that doesn't qualify someone to be a great GM, then I don't know what does.
Richard Feynman would probably have presented a challenge for GMs because I'm sure he would have come up with creative and outrageous ways to solve problems.
I'm not sure I would actually want to play a game with him, but it would be interesting to see what kind of system and character Siegmund Freud would choose.
I'm not a wargamer, but I can't help but wonder about wargaming with Gandhi. Do the rules handle civil disobedience and passive resistance?

Who would you pick for a game?

A Classics Challenge

2011-11-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

The year's not over and I'm already collecting new challenges. I've already signed up for the Library Challenge and today I came across the Classics Challenge. Here's how it works:

Read seven works of Classic Literature in 2012
Only three of the seven may be re-reads

Instead of writing a review as you finish each book (of course, you can do that too), visit November's Autumn on the 4th of each month from January 2012 - December 2012.

You will find a prompt, it will be general enough that no matter which Classic you're reading or how far into it, you will be able to answer. There will be a form for everyone to link to their post. I encourage everyone to read what other participants have posted.

I haven't come up with a reading list, I think it will be spur of the moment. But I do know that next year A Tale of Two Cities and I will go into a room and only one of us will come out. I'm not a fan of Dickens, but I gave up on him before I ever read Tale of Two Cities and it sounds like I might enjoy it.

1. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
2. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
3. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Odd

2011-11-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman is a children's book set right in the middle of Norse mythology. I have a special liking for that mythology, I always found their gods to be very likeable and the thought that they have to face a destiny just as grim as that of any human fascinating. It may be the darkest mythology out there (I seriously wonder if the weather had something to do with that) and I love it.

Odd is a young boy who one day, during a very long winter, meets a fox, a bear and an eagle in the woods. It quickly becomes clear that the animals are Thor, Loki and Odin who have been turned into animals by one of the Frost Giants who has taken over Asgard. It was Loki's fault. No-one is surprised. Odd offers his help and off they go on a quest to win back Asgard from the Frost Giants.

I loved the bickering gods, who even in their animal form have the feeling of power and mystery to them. The Frost Giant is my favourite character, though, totally surprised by Odd and his carefree smile and willing to listen to him. The solution to the problem is beautiful and simple and satisfying. I also like that not everything is perfect in the end - in Norse mythology it never is - but it's good enough.

The illustrations by Brett Helquist are beautiful, as are the headers of each chapter. There's no need to know anything about the Norse gods to like this book, but if you do, it makes it even more enjoyable.

44th book for the Library Challenge

Cthulhu: Waterworks

2011-11-16T00:13:00.000-08:00

Dramatis personae:
Liam, longtime and astonishingly sane survivor of quite a few adventures. Liam's a professional poker player with ties to the Irish mob. He saw his two best friends die not so long ago...actually, one of them committed suicide right in front of Liam and he killed the other one by accident, in an attempt to save both their lives. Long story.
Let's just say Liam is tired, struggles to keep a grip on reality and basically just wants to be left alone. Especially since his last encounter with the supernatural was just two days ago.

Shane: a Catholic priest with ties to some strange organisation. The parish is plagued by money problems, but Shane has refused an offer by Irish mobster O'Bannion to rent out the cellar of the rectory.

Ian: stuntman and odd job man - too old for Hollywood. Is offered work sometimes by a director friend of his.

The three characters have been through one adventure together prior to this. It all takes place in Arkham in 1923.

NPCs:
Danny Baker: sergeant of the Arkham PD with a lot of experience and street smarts. He has seen quite a bit of Arkham's less pretty side and knows Liam well, but at the moment he would prefer it if he didn't see Liam for a while. Too many strange things have happened.
Seamus: Liam's best friend for the last 30 years or so. Their friendship has suffered a bit when Liam found out not too long ago that Seamus is a warlock (although one who fights evil). They still are friends and Liam trusts him, but it's no longer the blind trust he had before.

Shane's hopes for a quiet evening are squashed when he finds out that one of the nuns. Sister Susan, who work for the church has disappeared. He tries to report her missing, but the officer is very much not interested and tells him to come back when she's still missing tomorrow.

click to read the whole adventure

Liam doesn't get the chance to relax either. He gets a call from McDeath (one of the mob's most feared enforcers) about a body that has been found, McDeath wants his opinion. After all Liam's been through, he's something of the go to-guy for strange things, even though people only know half of what has really happened.
The body looks like it has been suck dry of any moisture and the two fist-sized holes in his chest can't have been good for his health either. Liam notices something like spider webs in the mouth of the corpse and for a moment it looks as though they move. He has never seen anything like this before, but agrees to keep his eyes open. McDeath also tells him that there's a new drug on the streets, something that targets people who were before known to be teetotallers and even children.

Ian gets a job offer by his friend and an invitation for breakfast, along with the lead actor of the planned movie. Both movie and breakfast are cancelled when the actor collapses and dies after two spiders come out of his mouth.Ian manages to squash one of the spiders under his boot and quickly has to get rid of the boot when the spider's blood starts to eat through the leather. Rattled by the experience, he calls Shane.

Shane has just been told by his housekeeper that she accepted O'Bannion's offer after all to finally get the money she needs to keep the church and rectory in shape, not to mention to buy food. He's furious, but not furious enough to refuse the dinner she made. He has too much on his hands in any case because he gets a call by Sergeant Danny Baker, who tells him that Sister Susan has been found dead. Shane goes to identify the body, which looks almost exactly like the one Liam has seen. Danny looks exhausted and seems to have too many things on his mind. He can tell Shane that Sister Susan was fished out of the Miskatonic by a Chinese fisherman and that she was probably abducted somewhere at the docks, where she went to buy fish.

Liam takes a stroll and he does notice quite a few people who seem drunk or drugged. He notices one of them drinking from a bottle and when the man sit down in a doorway in a drunken stupor, it's fairly easy to steal the bottle. The liquid is clear and smells of nothing much. Liam calls in a favour with a private investigator he knows to get the stuff analysed, but it will take some time. In the meantime, there's another body to see, this one with a rambling letter talking about dreams and visions and mentioning the name Yao Tien.

Shane and Ian decide to call Liam to see if he has heard anything and he agrees to meet them at the rectory. They exchange information and come to the conclusion that it would be very easy to mix the drug into the Arkham's water - especially since there have been problems with the water supply and the waterworks are doing repairs at the moment. They decide to go to Danny Baker with their suspicion. Liam says that it might be better if he didn't get involved with Danny just now and waits outside with Ian.

Shane talks to Danny Baker and tells him about Yao Tien - a name Danny knows and he asks why Shane knows it. Before Shane has to lie, Liam and Ian burst into the room. While Danny is not overjoyed to see him, he at least agrees to share what he knows with them and tells them that Yao Tien is probably the one who manufactures the new drug, but the liquid Liam found is probably something different. When he mentions the Dreamlands, Liam goes very quiet, staring Danny down until he sends the others out of the room. Danny has seen a bit too much over the last few months and while he blames Liam for some of it, at least he can talk to him freely.

Danny knows that there are plans to poison the water supply of Arkham, although he cannot prove it. He would be willing to go with them to the waterworks, along with some other policemen he trusts, but he warns Liam that this may well end with the destruction of the waterworks, which would mean a catastrophe for Arkham (the water of the Miskatonic is not fit to be drunk). After some deliberation with Shane and Ian they decide to go through with their plan next night.

Liam goes to visit Seamus to ask him about the Dreamlands and Seamus tells him that he can bring them into the Dreamlands where they could fight their enemies without risking Arkham. Their lives would be very much at risk, though. Liam feels that he hasn't much to loose in any case and wants to go. Shane and Ian are not so convinced when he talks to them and ask to meet Seamus.

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Liam has been my character for a very long time...well, at least for Call of Cthulhu. I've been playing him for almost two years now, over the course of a lot of adventures. He was lucky enough to retain a healthy chunk of his sanity, as far as game mechanics are concerned. But at this moment, he's just mentally exhausted from all the things he has seen. He used to lead a fairly comfortable and secure life, despite or maybe because of his association with the Irish mob. Over the course of the last eight months or so this changed: he discovered that there are very unpleasant things lurking just around the next corner and he feels that he cannot escape. And while he still trusts Seamus, the discovery that his best friend has lead a double life for who knows how long has not helped with restoring his faith in the world.

I have a distinct feeling that Liam will not survive this adventure or if he does, he will be insane. That's actually pretty awesome - I never thought he would last as long as he did and it is such a lot of fun to play his slow slide into madness and chaos. I will probably retire him even if he does survive and stays sane, but I would prefer him to die or at least go mad.

Cthulhu Gaslight: Breaking and Entering

2011-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

They translate the letter and find a mention of a safe deposit box at the Bank of England, instructions on how to find the temple, along with a warning to keep an eye on McKennan - not that they would have needed that. The temple is located right under Westminster Abbey, not the best place for an excavation.

Unfortunately, there's no key to the safe deposit box and so they decide to ask Rachel about it...breaking into Westminster Abbey will be enough illegal activity and as Dai puts it: I draw the line at the Bank of England. Rachel is visibly surprised when Dai asks about the key and he realises he should have kept it to himself, at the latest when he hears her order McKennan to go and look for the key.

Dai manages to turn up at Edmond's house before McKennan and is allowed to look for the key by Edmond's housekeeper. There's clearly no love lost between her and McKennan and she even keeps McKennan occupied when he arrives, allowing Dai to pocket the key and leave via the back stairs.

At the bank, they find yet another letter and a pendant showing a pentagram with flames and a single eye, which they have encountered during their last adventure. The letter tells them what they had already suspected: Rachel is not to have access to the temple and she forced Edmond to write the first letter. Edmond also writes that the temple can be used as a portal and is much too dangerous to be left there. He asks them to destroy it, something he had planned to do himself and to which purpose they will find dynamite at his house.

Dai and Cat meet after dark and manage to slip into Westminster Abbey during Evensong. They find a handy corner to hide in, which is made easier by the size of the church that is also not well lit. Dai thinks he heard something and he suspects that they are not alone in waiting for everyone to leave, but he cannot spot anyone. After the church is empty, they wait for about fifteen minutes more, Dai patiently, Cat less so. When nothing has moved by then, they make their way to the altar with as little light and noise as possible and they do find a loose flagstone that reveals an underground passage. The passage seems to be in use and it's actually lit by candles.

Dai still thinks they are being followed and they wait again. Whoever follows them has no choice but to use the entrance through the flagstone as well and it's a good place for an ambush. Which is exactly what this turns into when after ten minutes or so, McKennan climbs down through the opening, armed with a revolver. Dai has no intentions of waiting for him to get into a position where he can use the gun, especially not with Cat as a target and he shoots McKennan, killing him pretty much instantly.

The sight of all that blood sends Cat into a slight shock, but they continue on their way once Dai has picked up McKennan's revolver. They know that Rachel is somewhere up there, she was behind McKennan when he got shot, but they want to reach the temple as soon as possible now. The instructions Edmond left are very clear and it's not hard to find the otherwise well-hidden place where a sort of pit cage descends. At that time, they both have enough of their hearing back to notice footsteps behind them. They don't relish the thought of climbing into the pit cage and leaving the controls for their pursuer to play with, so they once again hide and wait in the dark.

They cannot see who is coming after them and Dai hesitates, he doesn't want to shoot someone who wandered down here by accident (the way is not hard to find since they didn't take the time to hide their tracks). Cat attacks the person, trying to knock the lantern out of her hands, but fails and almost gets shot. That's the cue for Dai to fire and he kills Cat's attacker with a shot to the head. In the light of his own lantern, he finds that it's indeed Rachel, but he doesn't take much time to dwell on that because Cat is lying motionless on the floor. She's fine when he picks her up, just in shock, but it's still a frightening moment.

While Cat takes a moment to get a grip on herself, they both notice that Rachel's blood is turning black and seems to be moving. They have no idea what is happening, but they are not staying to find out and continue down to the temple. It's impressively big, looking almost like a Maya temple, with some details not found in any Meso-American temple, like the big crystals along every flight of stairs.

They are still busy with preparing the dynamite when a huge black amorphous mass oozes into view and makes a straight line for the crystals. A bullet does nothing to stop the monster, but at least it doesn't take an interest in Cat or Dai, who hurry to light the fuses and then try to get away as quickly and as far as possible. They make it to the pit cage and up to the tunnel before the explosion and get out into Westminster Abbey despite the shaking, crumbling ground. Cat loses her composure when a spectre rises out of the tunnel, like a monstrous jellyfish with big yellow eyes, and she runs out into the street. Dai follows her, hoping like hell that they don't run into a Bobby and eventually she calms down. They return to Dai's flat, Cat doesn't want to be alone now and Dai is not up to explaining to her housemaid why he wishes to stay the night.

---------------------------------------------------------------

To anticipate any questions about the effectiveness of Dai's shots: I rolled an insane amount of damage both times and a critical success when shooting Rachel. Guns are very, very deadly in Cthulhu.
We took a bit more artistic license with the dynamite, at least to my knowledge. It really is fairly easy to handle, but destroying a big building with it would require a lot more planning that we did. Not to mention the effects on Westminster Abbey. But that's a case of not letting facts get in the way of the fun and I'm not complaining. Although it would have been cool to wreck Westminster Abbey.

This adventure brought out the more ruthless side of Dai's character and I'm glad it did. It's something he has never really dared to talk about with anyone, but he does want to. He invited Cat to ask him about his time in India a while ago and we'll get to that conversation the next time we play. The GM is looking forward to leaning back with a drink and just watching the show.

Something that amuses me, although I could have foreseen it: Dai enjoys Cat's company and he likes her adventurous nature, but he's also terrified that something will happen to her. At times, he is tempted to tell her to stay behind, to leave things to him, but he knows fully well that the best reaction he could hope for would be a "don't be ridiculous". This might make for some interesting roleplay later on.

Artworks I'd Steal: Nightmare

2011-11-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

I saw Gothic ages ago and there's a scene that re-creates the painting. I think that the actual painting is also displayed in the house were the film is set. It's about as Gothic as you can get, it has everything the genre calls for: horror, mystery, fear of the unknown (or maybe just your subconscious) and lots and lots of sexual tension.

The nightmare is not the horse and it's not called nightmare because of any connection with female horses. The Mare is a goblin-like creature that will sit on people's chest while they sleep, which causes bad dreams. But the horse is also a nod to folklore, there were tales of people who were visited by horselike spirits. It may be just the Mare's horse, though.

I wonder about the caraffe on the nightstand. In the first version of the painting there's a jar and a small bottle. So what's in there, exactly? It could be just water, but I'm thinking along the lines of laudanum, which was incredibly popular at the time and often used as a sleeping aid.

The reason why I like this painting so much is that I suffer from sleep paralysis, which probably inspired the folktales of Mares, Incubi and Succubi (not to mention alien abduction). For a very long time, I did not know what was going on, until I read about it in Carl Sagan's brilliant book The Demon Haunted World. So I can relate to all the people who had to come up with some explanation why they woke up in the middle of the night, totally paralysed and maybe hearing voices or seeing creepy stuff in the corner of their eye.

Asking for it.

2011-11-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote about the player who blackmailed the GM into accepting his character a while ago. At our latest session, things escalated a wee bit more.
Blackmail player, let's call him Tom, has a reputation in our group for recklessness and for wanting everything to go his way. He's also bad at accepting the consequences of his actions. Oh, and he manages to fall asleep every single time we play.

So we completed our run with a drug dealer tied to the flatbed of one player's pickup - we'll call this player Andrew. We were told to discourage the dealer from continuing to sell his drugs, by any means necessary. So Tom does a great job of intimidating the dealer, but we all see a messy end coming. Andrew warns Tom three times that we a. shouldn't do this in front of our employer's club and b. that he doesn't want anyone getting killed in his truck.

Despite that, Tom's character shoot the dealer right there. So Andrew's character (whom we all know has a violent streak) pulls a gun and starts shooting at Tom's character, killing him. Aaand this was the moment when Tom again picked up his things and left, totally outraged that Andrew had dared to attack his character.

Maybe shooting Tom's character was a bit extreme, but really - what did he assume would happen? Nothing? A slap on the wrist? He went out of his way to ignore what he had been told and he ignored the rest of the group - did so for pretty much the whole evening. It was like having a team of runners plus this guy who sometimes turns up and not in a good-natured "Dude, don't forget about Mark"-way. So on second thought, I can totally get behind shooting the character.

There are a few things that get on my nerve when roleplaying. But nothing is so annoying as people who want everything to go their own way, who confuse roleplaying with the latest computer game and who put their own fun before that of the whole group.
I actually do like Tom, he's a nice guy and he can be a brilliant GM and player if he wants to. But I can't say I'm unhappy that we will be playing Shadowrun without him.

Outland

2011-11-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

Outland remains one of my favourite science fiction movies, I get a kick out of it every time I watch it. I'm not a big friend of utopian science fiction and Outland is about as dystopian as you can get without being downright post-apocalyptic.

Sean Connery is of course awesome as Marshall O'Niel, but Frances Sternhagen steals every scene they have together as the mining colony's doctor (I'm unpleasant, I'm not stupid!). I don't know, if I were O'Niel, I'd think twice about returning to that whiney wife of his.

Outland also has really gorgeous models. You can take a closer look here - the details are amazing. This photo gives an idea how big the models actually were.

You can see them in the movie here:

I love that they animated Jupiter's atmosphere, that's a neat little detail.

If you plan on running a scifi RPG set in a not so glorious future, then Outland should definitely be on your movie list. The crowded living quarters of the miners and the loud, shabby bar hit just the right tone. Space is not the place for privacy or comfort.

Oh, and despite the fact that it doesn't happen when you step out into a vacuum, I dig the exploding people.

History of Private Life

2011-11-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

I was looking forward to Bill Bryson's new book "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" and I was not disappointed. I love this collection of facts about everyday items we use and rarely think about.

The book takes the form of a walk through an old house in the English countryside, with each room giving a chapter its theme. Some of the things Bryson talks about are a bit random, but for me that just adds to the charm. I'm this ninja of random knowledge, my "did you know"s are known and feared and this book added considerably to my arsenal.

Seriously, I learned a lot about likely and unlikely things, I came away from the book with a list of further books to read and I laughed out loud quite a few times. If you don't mind taking a walk through a house with a companion to goes off on a tangent once in a while, then go and read this book.

43. book for the Library Challenge

some other blogs

2011-11-08T23:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some blogs I found that I've been meaning to link to for ages.

Shorpy gives us a vintage photo every day, usually from 1900-1920. It's a great resource and fascinating.

Mirrorshards is really short fiction, a couple of stories every week. Dark, funny and surprising.

Sheila O'Malley writes about books and movies and lately about Elvis Presley. She knows how to aim straight for the heart with her posts. When she writes about an actor, you will want to see a movie with him or her right now. When she writes about Elvis, you may fall in love (so you've been warned).

The Journal I Wish I Kept - just what it says on the cover. Eva has had an eventful life to say the least and her posts are hilarious and sad and touching. I started with Liberace's Love Child and that last photo never fails to make me giggle.

Cold Antler Farm - the story of a young woman who buys a farm and chronicles her adventures with sheep, chickens, horses and farm life in general. I find this deeply satisfying to read because it's so clear that Jenna loves her life. I guess I'm living vicariously here - I'd love living on a farm, but I don't think I'd enjoy all that hard, hard work enough. Or maybe I would. I'm too chicken to just go and buy one to find out, as Jenna did.

Georg Elser

2011-11-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

There were many attempts on Hitler's life, but Georg Elser stands out. He acted alone and he acted very early in 1939, when for example the more famous members of the 20 July plot were still strongly supporting Hitler (in spite of their misgivings and doubts).

For a very long time, Elser was ignored by historians or it was assumed that he had been a pawn of the Nazis. It used to be common knowledge that he was a socially incompetent loner, whom people thought weird long before the assassination. This started to change with Hellmut G. Haasis biography "Den Hitler jag ich in die Luft" (I'm going to blow up Hitler) in 1999.

The author is passionate about his subject and it shines through in the book. This is frowned upon in non-fiction, but I enjoy it, as long as passion doesn't replace facts. Haasis gathered a lot of facts that were ignored for a long time and we're introduced to a very different person: not very chatty, but still sociable and well-liked. The book follows Elser as he decides to act upon his opinion that Hitler is a danger for Germany and comes up with a diligent plan to assassinate him. If you want to learn about Elser, there is no way around this book (go for the revised 2011 edition).

Here's a question: did he have the right to do what he did? Is tyrannicide allowed, is it ethical? Elser also knew that his bomb would kill and injure many more people than just Hitler, but he also knew that all or at least the vast majority would be dyed in the wool-Nazis. is that a tolerable price for getting rid of a tyrant?

My first impulse would be to answer that question hell, yes. Even though it's not possible to say what would have happened, the Nazi party would have lost many of its leaders in addition to Hitler if the bomb had gone off a little earlier and I think it would have collapsed. It was easy to see in 1939 that Germany was steering into a catastrophe and that the regime was about as far from lawful as you can get.

So, how many innocent lives are an acceptable price? There were not only Nazis at the Bürgerbräukeller, but also the people who just worked there (who may or may have not supported the party). Is it worth sacrificing their lives as well? And how many are too many - we can weigh their lives against the millions killed during the war and the Holocaust. But that hadn't happened yet, although it was clear that a war was very likely (and it did start a short while before the assassination) and that the regime was a murderous one.

It is my opinion that Elser did the right thing. He deserves a lot more recognition that he is getting in Germany.

There's a movie about him, Seven Minutes, that I can recommend. It's a good idea to read up on the actual facts, though, since some are changed in the movie. Still, it's worth watching.

42. book for the Library Challenge

Player Blackmail

2011-10-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

So we have started another adventure in our Shadowrun campaign. The GM asked us all to send him the details of our characters and we all did (or let him make characters for us). Which led me to believe that we could start playing without problems.

Muahaha. Naive little me. We could not, because one player decided that he didn't feel like playing the character he had chosen after all and he wanted another character and it should be an adept (someone who used magic). The GM balked at this because we already had one magic using character and he didn't want any more, which he had already said beforehand.

After a bit back and forth the player packed up his things and threatened to leave because he felt that it was unfair that he wasn't allowed to play his character. Another player offered to switch to a non-magic using character and so an agreement was reached, but to be honest, I would have let the player walk out. There is a reason why we all had to choose our character beforehand and I don't see why blackmailing the GM, not to put too fine a point on it, should be rewarded.

Or is that just me overreacting?

City of Stones

2011-10-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

German history is a big hobby of mine, especially the years 1914-1945. So when I saw Berlin - City of Stone by Jason Lutes at the library, I was immediately interested: a comic about Berlin during the Weimarer Republik, very tumultuous years all over Germany and in Berlin in particular.

The story follows Marthe Müller, an art student who moves to Berlin, and Kurt Severing, a journalist writing for the Weltbühne. We also get to know a worker family, a Jewish family and in the second book a group of African-American jazz musicians. Berlin was an exciting city at the time, where you could see and experience things not found anywhere else in Germany. It was also a city of shocking poverty and misery. City of Stones captures both.

We also get to meet quite a few historical characters, it was fun to see who I recognised. Kurt Tucholsky, Carl von Ossietzky and Joachim Ringelnatz (see below) for example.

The Weimarer Republik was never stable and violent fights in the streets were common. One of the worst of such fights, the massacre on 1 May 1929 (Blutmai, Bloody May), is shown at the end of the book and I got a kick out of seeing a DZVR 21, an armoured vehicle used by the police at the time. I saw one at the Panzermuseum and I thought at the time that it must have been a terrifying sight when one of those appeared, especially at a time where cars where not all that ubiquitous and common.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading both City of Stones and City of Smokes and I'm looking forward to the third and final book of the series. For anyone with an interest in that time or someone who wishes to learn about it, I absolutely recommend those books.

41st book for the Library Challenge

Queen and Country

2011-10-29T00:26:00.000-07:00

Shortly after I began watching The Sandbaggers, I picked up a comic at the library called Queen and Country by Greg Rucka. It looked interesting, so I took it home and started having deja vu after reading the first few pages. Turns out Queen and Country is heavily influenced by The Sandbaggers - talk about synchronicity.

click photo to see bigger version
The comic follows Tara Chace in her work for the SIS. There's quite a lot of action, but also a lot of scheming and politics and both are equally interesting.
The artwork is in b/w, nothing flashy, but incredibly effective for the type of story it tells. The style is equally simple - simple as in nothing superfluous, but all that's necessary and the characters are instantly recognisable and alive, right down to their expressive body language.

I haven't read the complete series, but I definitely plan to (Christmas is coming up, after all). I have this thing for stories that don't treat their characters well. Although I do complain just like everyone else when a character (including my own RPG characters) dies or gets really taken to the cleaners, I enjoy it at the same time because it's interesting. Queen and Country is definitely capable of this, just like The Sandbaggers and I love them both for it.

Queen and Country is my 40th book for the Library Challenge

Ernst

2011-10-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

Ernst isn't tame at all, so he panics and flutters when I reach for him. Sshh, I tell him, it's going to be okay. Except it's not.

Ernst has been with me for 13 years, I bought him and and a friend for him soon after I moved to Hamburg. I always had budgies as a child and I missed the chatter. His partner died, I got him a new one - I've had a lot of budgies over the years, but Ernst was always there. He found a partner, a female called Susi, and lived happily with her for years. Susi died earlier this year and Ernst grew more quiet, he didn't try to bond with the new females I brought home from the shelter.

He'd had troubles with his heart for a long time. It couldn't be treated and the vet told me that he probably wouldn't last all that long. That was five years ago and I kept a close eye on him, but he was doing okay. A bit short of breath after flying, but that was to be expected. Last week Ernst couldn't fly any more, he'd drop to the floor and couldn't get airborne again. I knew then it was time.

I don't take the others, it's cold outside and I don't want to stress them out as well. I regret that when Ernst starts calling once we are on our way, loud contact calls. I wish I had brought at least one of the others along. Too late now.
The vet agrees with me that there is nothing more to be done. Ernst screams when he gets the first injection, but I know he's not in pain, it's just the usual protest scream when someone holds him. He falls asleep quickly and after the second injection, it's only seconds until his heart stops. I astonish myself by not crying and I talk a bit with the vet about budgies - my vet's amazing and I know my pets and me are in good hands.

At home, I show Ernst's body to the other budgies. They won't call for him now, but they would if I just took him and never brought him back. And then finally I sit down and cry for Ernst, who was my companion for much of my adult life.

Click Click

2011-10-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

This is a serious trip down memory lane for me. One of the first songs I ever heard at a Goth club. I still love it.

All Hallows Read

2011-10-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I love this, both the video and the whole idea. Also: thank you, Neil Gaiman, for encouraging people to use their local library. We appreciate the support.
I think I'll give away some Edward Gorey for this year's All Hallow's Read.
Why Gorey? Because.
Here's a very nice little edition of this brilliant, macabre and hilarious book.

Stargazing

2011-10-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

The October Draconids meteor shower will be at its maximum this weekend, so take a look at the sky.
Unfortunately, for those of you in North America, the peak will be during daytime, but in Europe, it will be between 16h-22h Universal Time on Saturday night and several meteors per minute are possible (forecasts differ, though). Grab a deck chair or a blanket, some warm clothes and get as far away from lights as possible. Outside the city would be best, although I've been watching meteors in a public park for years now, with trees shielding me from the streetlights.
Here's a maps that will help with spotting the meteors.

The Sandbaggers

2011-10-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

I came across The Sandbaggers via a list of people who vanished in airplanes, of all things. The casual reference was enough to intrigue me and I wasn't disappointed - the series is brilliant.

If you prefer your spies to be Bond-ish, then this may not be for you. If you like John le Carré and possibly Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories, then by all means check it out. There is very little action in the sense of guns and explosions, but it's thrilling nonetheless. You will need to pay close attention, the characters move in a complex net of favours, bureaucracy and unspoken rules and a lot of things are only hinted at. A crash course in all the abbreviations used isn't a bad idea either.

Roy Marsden is excellent as spymaster Neil Burnside. Who is not all that likeable, but definitely fascinating and a lot more fun to watch than any of the no flaws-characters so liked by script writers today.

Oh, and don't get too attached to characters. I'm just saying.

Germany From Below

2011-10-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

Alexander Graf Stenbock-Fermor travelled through Germany in 1930 and visited worker families all over the country. The resulting book is hard to read at times because of the unbelievable misery it describes.
Unemployment was high and those that had work were paid only a pittance that was just enough to starve slowly. Ten, fifteen people living in one room and sleeping in two or three beds was not an exception, but the norm. The rooms were damp, cold, infested with mould and vermin and disease like tuberculosis or syphilis were rampant.

At the time Germany was well-known as a producer of high quality toys and dolls, but there was rising competition from the US and the UK. Families who had earned their living making toys for generations now were fighting for their survival. Child labour was illegal at the time, but without the children helping (sometimes as young as four to sex years old) the families would starve. Retirement was not an option. The woman in the picture was years old and worked 12 hours a day (every day).

I learned about the strikes and riot at the Leunawerke (a huge industrial complex producing ammonia) in 1921, when workers first put down their work and then barricaded themselves at the Leunawerke. The strike was brutally beaten down by the police, murdering 46 workers in the process. The workers were executed pretty much at random, without any kind of trial.

It does shine through at times that the author was well on his way to becoming an active communist, but he doesn't force his political views on the reader. The scenes he describes are matter of fact and heartbreaking at the same time, enough for anyone to draw his own conclusions. It's a book that deserves to be read even now.

My 39th book for the Library challenge

Degra

2011-09-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

I'm re-watching the third season of Enterprise at the moment and I'm intrigued yet again by Degra, the man responsible for building a weapon that is meant to destroy Earth and for a prototype that already killed 7 million humans.

Screams villain, doesn't it? But things are not so easy...the Xindi, Degra's species, act in what they believe is self-defence since they have proof that the Humans will destroy the Xindi in the future. What would we do in that case? It would be nice to believe that we would try diplomacy, but somehow I'm fairly sure that building a weapon for a pre-emptive strike would be just our reaction.

But that big moral question aside, what I really find interesting about Degra is how very likeable I find him. The first time we really get to see a lot of him, it's very clear that while he believes that the weapon had to be built, he still regrets it. And once Captain Archer has managed to at least make him doubt the proof for the attack on the Xindi, he risks everything to prevent the launch of the final weapon.

So I ask myself, how would I feel if I met him, got to know him, as part of the crew of Enterprise? Would I want him punished for what he did or would I be able to forgive him, knowing that I might have acted just the same? And can the responsibility for so many dead be forgiven? Is it enough to to sincerely regret it and to try to make amends? Does it make a difference that he has acted in good faith, convinced that there was no other way?

I think it does make a difference, but as for the other questions, I don't know. But I like being made to ask myself these questions. For me Degra is the most interesting (guest) character the writers created during all four seasons of Enterprise - and they had quite a few very cool characters (coughShrancough).

In the Country of Men

2011-09-26T02:42:00.000-07:00

In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar tells the story of 9 year old Suleiman who lives in Tripoli in 1979. His father is part of a revolutionary movement and we watch things unfold and go bad through Suleiman's eyes.

I picked this book up because the title caught my eye and because I've been following the Libyan civil war since day one. I also would like to read African authors and this seemed like a good choice to start.

Due to the perspective of the child, many things are only hinted at, but I think that this is one of the strength of this novel. Children have a unique view and so many things are just weird to them, but when remembered later, they gain significance.
It's a study of how a regime like Gaddafi's influences the lives of people, how it can corrupt and damage their relationships. The suspicion that someone may be a dissident, even if it's only in thought, is enough to destroy all trust and friendship.
The language is fascinating. My edition has an interview with the author and he says that he believes his "English has an Arab hum to it". I would agree, it makes itself felt through the English words. He also has a gift for describing scenes so vividly that you can feel the hot sun on your skin, taste the delicious mulberry.

My 38th book for the Library challenge

A History of Honour

2011-09-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

I only picked this book up because of the cover. I love Dangerous Liasons and it's actually a good choice for this book because it's a movie very much about honour.
If you had asked me (and not given me time to think about it) I would have said that honour is a slightly outdated concept, at least in Western culture. The more I read, the more I found out just how wrong I would have been.

The author takes us through the ages and shows how the concept of honour changed and adapted, depending on society and often shaping it. The main focus is on Germany, but not only because it is a German book. Duels were very common in Germany and the tradition lasted much longer than in neighbouring countries, although duelling was (and is) illegal in Germany. Part of what kept it alive was the Mensur - it's still practised today, although not as a method of duelling for honour...at least officially.

The part of the book examining honour during the Third Reich and post war Germany was extremely interesting. The Nazis used honour as a propaganda instrument and connected it with the state, the politicians of the GDR tried the same thing. There was an enormous amount of medals and honour people could earn in the GDR, so many that it was no longer an honour to receive them. West Germany gave state honours much more sparingly, trying to avoid similarities with the Third Reich. But the concept of honouring a person for their achievements as a way of motivating them had been recognised and is still widely in use today - it may motivate better than financial rewards even.

I was a bit amused when I thought about my roleplaying characters and if and how they are motivated by honour. Some of them absolutely are - but the vast majority would gladly bow out of a duel or not even see the point. Loyalty is much more important to all of them...but that's a kind of honour as well, isn't it?

My 37th book for the Library Challenge

Begirlich in dem Hertzen min

2011-09-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

Helium Vola - a project of the very talented Ernst Horn. The lyrics are Middle High German, from an unknown author. Here's a translation both into modern German and English.,

Cthulhu: Stranger in a Strange Land

2011-09-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

Dramatis personae:
The Right Honourable The Lord Sebastian Macaulay, gentleman of leisure and ornithologist/entomologist
Frederick Ironmonger, publisher and hobby archaeologist

The time: February 4 1890
The place: London

Mr Ironmonger and Lord Macaulay have decided to spend the evening at the Savile Club, where they meet a friend of their, Robert Padburg, who just returned from an archaeological dig in Egypt. He brought back a small statue he wants to show them, but first they retire to a private room to avoid the attention of Edward Fallon, a most unpleasant man and sworn enemy of both Ironmonger and Macaulay.

click here to read the whole adventure

The statue is made from black basalt, in the likeness of an elephant-headed human, about a hand tall and with mysterious signs engraved into the base. Some of the inscriptions reads like Latin, but more like Latin spoken by someone who only wants to imitate the sound of the language.
It was found near a sarcophagus and judged to be 3000 years old, although it is unknown to whom the sarcophagus belonged. There are rumours of a lost underground city in the area and Padburg plans to mount an expedition, inviting Ironmonger and Macaulay.

Before the explorers to be can make any further plans, Fallon burst into the room, shoving the butler Jacob aside most rudely in the process, and grabs the statue. He's quite disappointed that he has wasted his grand entrance on such rubbish, especially as the statue refuses to do something interesting, like opening a secret treasure vault when he tries to twist its base.

Fallon leaves and the discussion is resumed, but the statue does do something interesting after all: it starts to glow and there is a noticeable drop in temperature in the room. Suddenly shouts are heard from the other guests of the club. When Ironmonger and Macaulay go back into the other room, they find that there are stone walls outside the windows. The front door no longer leads to a busy London street, but to a corridor made from roughly hewn stones. Some further investigation shows that there no longer is a cellar nor any of the upper storeys of the house.

The guests decide to investigate and leave the club. They split up fairly soon into a group led by Fallon and another one led by Macaulay, taking different tunnels leading away from a large cave. There's a noticeable smell of copper in the air and faint tracks of decidedly non-human feet on the floor, along with decidedly human finger bones. In a side-tunnel Macaulay finds a sort of key he pockets and in another big cave the groups comes across a pit filled with blood that starts to boil and move when they get close. They run and things are not helped by the screams of the other group that can be heard echoing through the tunnels.

They decide to return to the club only to find it crushed by boulders. Fallon has had the same idea - he's the last one left of the group and babbles about a monster covered in mouths, but without eyes. Suddenly, a clock strikes six - a grandfather clock has appeared on the far side of the cavern. A dark, viscous liquid starts to run out of the clock, forming tentacles and the group flees into one of the tunnels they haven't yet explored. Fallon stays behind.

The tunnel is a dead end and something is right behind the group. A frantic search reveals a keyhole that fits the key found earlier, but instead of a way to escape it reveals only a small room with a pentagram drawn on the floor. With the omnious sounds coming too close for comfort, Macaulay steps into the pentagram and vanishes in a flash of light. That sight is finally too much for Jacob who runs and encounters whatever is following the group. Padburg and Ironmonger only hear his final scream as they step into the pentagram as well.

All three find themselves in a room shaped like a cross, with several exits and a sort of altar in the middle. There's also a book on a lectern and when Padburg checks the statue, he sees that it has moved and spread its arms. Ironmonger tries to read the book and while he cannot read much of the text, he can read enough to find out that they are in the Dreamlands and that they have to wake the Snake Priest to return again. The statue is supposed to help with this, but it is not explained how.

Macaulay takes a closer look at the altar and manages to open a secret compartment that contains an amulet in the form of two snakes biting their tails. When he takes it out, it leaves a hole in the altar that looks like the statue would fit. They decide to try it since it's better than running aimlessly through the labyrinth and the statue moves again, pointing at the northern exit.

Before they can take it, Mr Ryan, another member of the club who went with Fallon, stumbles into the room and is skewered from behind by a creature that is only dimly visible, except for the scorpion's sting covered in blood. With Ryan clearly beyond help, the group runs through the exit and come into a huge white-tiled room filled with hospital beds and decaying corpses suspended with chains from the ceiling. With the creature directly behind them, they don't have time to think about this (an extremely mixed blessing) and are just quick enough to escape.

Another tunnel leads them into a vault and for some reason the creature doesn't follow them in - but leaving the vault will be impossible since there is a similar creature at every exit. The walls are decorated with reliefs showing snakes and a pillar carved into the form of a snake stands in the middle of the room. The amulet fits neatly into a slot on the pillar and a sarcophagus is raised from underground.

From the sarcophagus climbs the Snake Priest who is enraged not only because he was woken by a bunch of humans, but also because they brought the statue into the Dreamlands. He demands that the group delivers to him either the one who took the statue from its place or the one who is responsible for opening the way into the Dreamlands. Ironmonger and Macaulay choose Fallon and the Snake Priest promises them safe passage for one hour. Padburg has collapsed at the sight of the Snake Priest and stays behind as a hostage.

The statue acts as a sort of guide through the labyrinth and they quickly find themselves in the first cave. Fallon is still alive, but no longer sane. He threatens Macaulay with a revolver, but before the situation can get completely out of hand, Ironmonger manages to convince him that they know a way out of the labyrinth. Fallon comes with them, but they have to knock him unconscious when he insists that he has to take a bath in the pit of blood.

They arrive in the nick of time - the Snake Priest is just about to devour Padburg and doesn't seem all that pleased to see them. He does keep his words - after promising to bring the statue back where it was found, Ironmonger and Macaulay pass out and wake in their club, along with Padburg. Most of the other members have returned as well, except Jacob and Ryan.

I've been to the Dreamlands a few times in earlier Cthulhu adventures and it rarely was more than a hack and slay dungeon crawl - which is not the type of roleplay I like and not really the purpose of Cthulhu. This adventure had just the right mix of monsters, puzzles and suspense to make it a lot of fun and terrifying at times. Grandfather clocks always have this sinister feeling to me and I decided that Lord Macaulay will definitely remove any grandfather clocks from his house, along with any other clock that chimes the hour.

The whole mood of the story, but especially the white-tiled room reminded me of Michael Ende's book The Mirror in the Mirror - if you haven't read it, you really should. It's a collection of surreal short stories, each accompanied and inspired by a drawing of Ende's father Edgar Ende.

This was the first adventure with the characters and it was well-suited to the purpose of getting acquainted with the way the character will react and how they relate to each other. I don't know if the next adventure will be a longer campaign, but I always like adventures that are done after one evening when I'm playing a new character.

Pin-Up with Scarf and Jellybaby

2011-09-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

Fourth Doctor pin-up by =caycowa on deviantART

This is a virus and you've been infected. Try watching the Fourth Doctor now, you'll see what I mean.

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: Books...with pictures

2011-09-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of Speak out with Your Geek Out and I really wondered about what to write. Not because I have no geeky interests left, but because there are way too many of them. Doctor Who, Star Trek (or science fiction series in general), toys, history... But I didn't write about books. I'm an avid reader and I'm a librarian, so books play a huge role in my life. That is one huge topic, so I choose one section of it that I like in particular. Books with pictures.

As in comic/graphic novels and as in picture books. I'm not the typical comic book geek (if there such a thing?) - I didn't read all that many comics as a kid and I never really got into superheroes or manga as a whole. But I love, love love comics.
I can totally geek out over the gorgeous drawing in Blacksad or the beautiful simplicity of a Peanuts strip. There's this scene in Astonishing X-Men when Wolverine comes out of a rather childlike state that I fell in love with - it's just two panels, but it's masterfully done. It's art, pure and simple.

When the Wind Blows makes my cry every single time I read it. I love the sneaky story of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Maus can be hard to read, but it's so worth it. Calvin and Hobbes take me back to my own childhood. There's a Peanuts strip for every occasion. Asterix taught me history (and Latin and how to read Gothic print). I could go on here, but let's just say that I'm a geek for comics and now go and read some. Take a look at French comics, there are a lot of brilliant ones.

Picture books can be works of art as well. Shaun Tan will take you on a beautiful visual voyage in his books. And so will Sven Nordqvist, especially with his Pettson and Findus series about a grumpy old Swedish farmer and his cat. Take your time with the drawings or you'll miss a lot of what is going on there. If you would ask me to recommend one single picture book, it would be Diary of a Wombat - it's hilarious and the illustrations are simple, but spot-on.

The best picture books can be read by adults and children and both will get something out of it - not necessarily the same thing, though. So go ahead, pick some up the next time you're at the library.
And while you're at it, check out the books by Scott McCloud Understanding Comics and Making Comics. Even if you don't plan to draw a comic, they are worth reading and you'll learn a ton of new things, about communication and how we look at things.

Here's to hoping that Speak Out With Your Geek Out will be back next year as planned. I loved every minute of it!

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: Heavy Machinery

2011-09-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is an obsession my mom started: submarines. My mom loves Das Boot and we watched it just about every time it was on TV. I don't know when I first saw it, but I was quite young. I have seen it many times since, so often that you could wake me up at night and ask me to quote the lines from any given scene.

U995, Laboe

I love submarines. If you want to make me happy, you take me to see a sub - which is exactly what Mr Bookscorpion did on our first date, on a Tango class here in Hamburg. I've seen the majority of all museum subs in Western Europe. The USS Pampanito was pretty much the first thing I visited in San Francisco.

I also love tanks and battleships. Mr Bookscorpion and me visited the Panzermuseum a while ago and while I wasn't the only woman there, I certainly was the only interested woman. I'm not that much into technical specs, but I know enough to fudge my way through a conversation and often get a look of total disbelief. Because it's still weird to many people that a woman would know stuff about tanks - and I'm a history geek as well.

I'm not exactly sure what it is about them I love so much. But I have a weak spot for big machinery in general, whether it's a submarine, a tunnel boring machine or a particle accelerator. They just have this elegance and beauty (even when they are machines of war, which I'm well aware of, in case you are wondering).

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: RPGs

2011-09-13T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've been a woman, but mostly I have been a man.
I fell in love with men and women and I married (a woman).
I stood my ground against powerful enemies, but I also turned and ran to fight another day.
I was hurt many times. I went insane and I died (quite a few times). I came back from the dead. Twice.

I know how to fire a cannon, a crossbow and a blunderbuss, I can use a sniper rifle, but at other times I can't hit a barn door at five feet. I know Kung-Fu and I can use a lariat and a whip.
I've been a hero, a scoundrel and sometimes a coward, but usually I'm a survivor. I tend to be very loyal to my friends and God help you if you mess with them.

I've flown an airship and several spaceships, I've driven a steam powered carriage with eight legs, a 1935 Buick and I know my way around a sailing vessel.
I can ride a horse (but I prefer a mule), I know how to ride an elephant and I know how to get a herd of cattle where I want them. I can speak to rats.

I've been shipwrecked on a lonely island, I have travelled by dog-sled through the Arctic, I have crossed deserts and I got stranded on a planet light years from home. I have been hunted by the Inquisition. I've disarmed a bomb, with the countdown at 0:01.
I've fought vampires, werewolves, demons, aliens, things straight out of nightmares - but the scariest enemies often were the normal humans.

I have been a vampire, a ghoul, a mage, a cowboy, a scientist, a doctor, a pilot, a soldier, a merchant, a hunter, a smuggler, a professional poker player, a reporter, a diplomat and once I was a ghost.

I play pen and paper role-playing games.

-----------------------------------

Second post for Speak Out With Your Geek Out

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: Bugs

2011-09-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

I love bugs. To be precise, I love invertebrates, insects in particular and true bugs most of all. I think it all began with the pond my parents had in their garden – there always was something to see. Pondskaters, backswimmers, a leech, lot of beetles and dragonflies – I loved the dragonfly larvae in particular. They are fierce hunters, like their parents, and if you catch one with your hands, it can give you a surprisingly hefty punch with its jaws.

My parents taught me about the animals I encountered and they never said that any of them were ugly or gross – although I do know that my mother is afraid of spiders and earwigs. I started to keep woodlice as pets, my father built me a terrarium for them and I soon had a busy colony. I remember watching a woodlice give birth (the eggs hatch in a pouch underneath the mother’s belly) and I found the tiny little woodlice every bit as adorable as a puppy or a lamb.

My love of true bugs began with a pair of assassin bugs (Platymeris biguttata) I bought at a reptile expo. Despite being predators and able to deliver an extremely painful sting with their beak, they are docile, very social and fascinating to watch. They look like little aliens and of the many invertebrates I have kept as pets, they are my favourites, along with my land hermit crabs.

Invertebrates never cease to amaze me with their sheer variety. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, along comes a totally outrageous creature that looks or behaves in a way that makes my jaw drop. Take a look at the bombardier beetle, who shoots boiling liquid out of his butt. Several hundred times per second. I mean, who would dare to come up with such a creature in fiction?

Velvet worms look like bumbling tubes with stumpy legs, but they can run extremely fast and will catch their prey by glueing it down with their sticky spit. They also hunt in packs (at least some of their species do) and the dominant female is the first to eat. If they were bigger, they could give any lion a run for its money.

(the video is from David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth, which I highly recommend for anyone with an interest in invertebrates)

Water bears are tiny and they are everywhere. If some moss grows on your porch or roof, you will find a water bear in it, you just need a microscope. They are also pretty much indestructible. And totally adorable to boot, ambling along in a drop of water under your microscope.

What I like best is that I can find something interesting pretty much everywhere, just by taking a closer look. Often I turn over a leaf or a stone and find something I have never seen before. The sense of wonder I experience as a child sitting at the edge of our pond has never left me.

This post is for Speak Out with Your Geek Out. Join us and write about your geeky hobbies from the 12th to the 16th this month.

What remains

2011-09-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

I harvested my balcony potatoes last weekend and I got some bones to go with them. This was a fancy mouse I buried half a year ago. The potatoes clearly made good use of her body, there was a big root clump that contained all the bones. The coin is a Euro cent, sligthly smaller than a penny.
The big bone on top is the pelvic bone, the one below is the lower jaw, you can still see the molars. The small longish bones are hand and leg bones, the smallest one a finger. Plus some vertebrae. I'm going to try this again in a much smaller pot, I would love to have a complete skeleton.

Matrix XP

2011-09-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

It came up a while ago during a Shadowrun session and I finally found it again on Youtube. "Waffles, lots of waffles" gets quoted a lot in my RPG sessions.

Gulliver's Travels

2011-08-31T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I've read Swift's Gulliver's Travels, certainly not as an adult. And I don't think that the edition I read as a child contained the last two parts. I was amazed how much I did remember, like the description of the wasps in Brobdingnag.

It's a book that can be read purely for entertainment and the outlandish people and countries Gulliver visits make it a great book for lovers of fantasy. But you ignore the satire and social commentary at your own risk. Swift was a sharp-tongued observer of his time and he uses Gulliver's adventures to discuss his views of humanity and politics.

Gulliver Exhibited to the Brobdingnag Farmer by Richard Redgrave

Gulliver starts out convinced that his society is superior to others, but he's quickly disabused of that notion. Everyone he meets is amused, horrified or at least highly critical of the things Gulliver has to say. As a result, Gulliver grows equally critical of his native country and finally of humans in general. He cannot stand the company of humans (Yahoos) and prefers to spend his time with horses after his visit to the country of the Houyhnhnms (highly intelligent horses).

Unless you are very well versed in history, I would recommend reading an annotated edition to help understand all the allusions Swift makes.

My 37th book for the Library Challenge and the 3rd for the Ireland Challenge

Angel Heart

2011-08-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

I hadn't seen that movie for years, although I own the DVD. So when I decided to watch it last night, I did wonder if it would be as good as I remembered. It is and it still freaks me out. That elevator and that woman all in black sitting in the church...I actually had nightmares featuring the elevator.

It's beautifully photographed. I found out that Michael Seresin also worked on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I equally admired for its brilliant cinematography. Trevor Jones wrote a haunting score that you won't forget in a hurry.

And speaking of memorable: Robert DeNiro only has a few scenes in the movie, but he steals each and every one of them. That man can make eating an egg look threatening

Einstürzende Neubauten

2011-08-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

Seltener Vogel (Rare Bird) by Einstürzende Neubauten
Here's a translation of the lyrics

Einstürzende Neubauten are among the most innovative German bands. Their style is absolutely unique. They have used all sorts of things to make their music: jackhammers, fire, cardboard boxes, rubber bands, vanadium spanners, an empty water tower (by thumping and kicking the walls from inside), several different engines, styrofoam, cracking knuckles and grinding teeth and a number of custom made instruments build from scrap metal and other junk.

Seele brennt (Soul is Burning) is one of my favourite songs. It's haunting and I love the way it creeps up on you, from whispered lyrics to Blixa Bargeld's screams. Translation here

This one is probably more accessible that the other two:

Check out how the engine sounds come together to form the rhythm. The German part of the lyrics is "Das Lied schläft in der Maschine" - "The song sleeps in the machine".

Liszt

2011-08-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

If people had known the word superstar, then Franz Liszt would have been called that. He gave an amazing amount of concerts in his time and people fell into Lisztomania (a word coined by the ever sharp-tongued Heinrich Heine.

Oliver Hilmes follows Liszt from his time as a wunderkind to his last years spent between Rome, Weimar and Budapest. If you want to learn about Liszt's music in depth, then this is not the right book. But if you want to learn about his life, then it's definitely a good choice. Hilmes has a way of making the people he writes about come alive for the reader and Liszt certainly lead an interesting life.

I have read reviews that complain that it's a gossipy book, but sources are never blindly accepted and the reader is usually given information needed to judge the sources himself.

I enjoyed the many photos and illustrations the book has to offer, the caricatures in particular.. With his unique style and his way of effectively promoting himself on stage, he was a gift to any caricaturist.

Hilmes has written a number of biographies and if you want to (and read German), you can start with this Liszt biography, go on to Liszt's daughter Cosima Wagner, the Lady of Bayreuth (there's an English edition) and end with Cosimas Children, although I haven't read this one yet.

Liszt by Oliver Hilmes is my 36th book for the Library Challenge

I killed a book

2011-08-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

I just destroyed a book, fully on purpose. The Librarians of Time and Space may abandon me in L-Space without a ball of string if they hear of it. So I better explain myself.

I want to make a notebook. I'm going to frankenstein the book I just tore up and an old leather coat that's a. too small for me and b. a brown that looks good on books, but not on people. Also, I still have more paper left from my diploma thesis than I will use in the foreseeable future - I don't even own a printer.

I don't know if it will all work out the way I have planned this and it's entirely possible that I will end up throwing it all away. Or out of the window. But if it does work out, it will be cool.

Here's an awesome build report for a Necronomicon that inspired the whole idea.

Dice

2011-08-18T01:32:00.000-07:00

Ah, peer pressure, I bow down to you.

I have no idea why I have so many d6. The blue and purple ones really kicks ass, though, especially when playing Chez Geek/Goth/Cthulhu - they roll a Noisy Nookie every time (=you have sex so loud that all the other players have to discard their sleep cards).
The blue and green d10 were the first dice I bought and I wouldn't trade them for anything. They rock and have saved my life many times. And of course there's Happy Thulhu, which is a must for every Cthulhu session. Failed sanity rolls are so much more bearable when you imagine yourself being covered in Happy Thulhu barf.

Cthulhu Gaslight: In the Service of the Crown, Part 2

2011-08-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Dramatis personae:
Daffyd (Dai) Iffans, retired soldier of the British Indian Army (Rifle Brigade), now part-time writer for a Socialist newspaper, with an interest in the East End
Catherine (Cat) Kincaid, journalist and daughter of a well-known scientist

The place: London
The time: April 1890

read Part One

So the man turns and runs and Dai and Cat give chase...ish. Victorian fashion slows the pursuit down to a jog at best, but the corridors are winding and narrow enough that they don't get too far behind. They lose sight of the man, but can hear footsteps and the sound of the jar smashing into the wall. When they get to the spot, they find a puddle of foul-smelling liquid on the floor. Despite the warning of the Colonel about the contents of the jar, they investigate further and get shot at. They can take cover behind some crates, but now they have lost the man for good and turn back.

Cat finds a business cards with the address of an opium den and a small metallic disc with some kind of sign (a pentagram and a flame, with a capital L on the other side). On the way back, they pass the weird Ganesha statue again or would have, if the statue hadn't disappeared in the meantime. Dai has to take a minute to stomach this, while Cat asks the museum guard they bribed if he has noticed anything strange, but he hasn't.

Dai visits his club to ask some of his army buddies about Colonel Stack and is told that the man probably is a sandwich or two short of a picnic. This confirms Dai's suspicion that they are being used, but by now it's too late to just walk away.

He meets with Cat at the British Library and they do some research, Cat on the medallion they found and Dai on the Ganesha statue and any cults that may be associated with this skewed version of it. Cat finds out that the sign on the medallion is used as protection and that it's often found in connection with the Leopold Society.

Dai is at first unsuccessful in his search, but then he digs deeper and comes across a book called "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten" and learns more than he ever wanted to know. He can't pull himself away until he finds an illustration showing a god called Eihort that looks very much like the statue and that moves when he looks at it. That is finally enough to break the spell and Dai throws the book across the room. He's very close to simply running, but Cat manages to calm him down. He makes her promise that no matter how curious she is, she will never open that book.

Once Dai feels a bit better and Cat has changed into some more suitable clothes (which means dressing up as a man), they make their way to the opium den. A friend of Cat's explains to them how they can get inside, but warns them that it's a dangerous place. When Cat asks him about Adil (the man they are looking for), he says that he never heard the name, but Cat strongly suspects that he's lying.

He told them the truth about how to get into the opium den at least and they do find Adil there, who threatens them with a gun when they come close. Adil assures them that he is perfectly willing to kill them, but he would prefer to talk, which suits Cat and Dai just fine. He asks them to touch a second medallion, the counterpart to the one they already found. Nothing happens, although it feels slightly warm to them both, but Adil at least points the gun to the floor after that.

When they tell him that they were send by Colonel Stack, he confirms what Dai already suspects: the Colonel has been dishonourably discharged quite a while ago. Cat asks Adil if he works for the Leopold Society, but although he does react to the name, he neither confirms nor denies it.

Before they can find out any more, there's an explosion and Adil collapses, shot in the head. In the following confusion and panic, a man in a black robe (but with a well-tailored suit underneath) grabs the jar Adil had hidden on his person and runs for the exit. Dai recognises Marone, manages to get to his feet quickly enough to take a shot at the man and hits him right in the head. The jar shatters and they see that it contains a creature that looks like a cross between an embryo and a leech, moving feebly before it finally dies.

By the time Cat and Dai make it out of the burning building, a carriage with Stack inside is just pulling away. He's holding the statue of Einhort in his arms and Dai is sure that it moves. Dai takes aim at the Colonel, but he's already too far away.
When they visit the Colonel's house on the next morning, it's burned down, but no body was discovered.

-----------------------------------------------

This part of the adventure has taken quite a toll on Dai's sanity. Luckily he's a very stable character, so he isn't bound for Bedlam yet, but I doubt that he will sleep well after all this. The GM told me the name of the book Dai had pulled from the shelve with a decidedly evil grin. He did ask if I really wanted to read it, I give him that, but unlike me, Dai had no idea what he had stumbled upon, so of course he read the book. Luckily, I managed to make a successful Mana roll or Dai would not have been able to stop reading.

We had a week to come up with a plan after the cliffhanger of the last session and when the GM asked after the recap what we were going to do, it went like this:
"Well, we're going back. There's no point in following that guy, it's just too dangerous."
"Oh."
There's not much that's more satisfying that the look of total bafflement on the face of the GM. We couldn't keep a straight face any longer than that, though.

After three sessions, Dai has begun to really come alive for me. He starts doing thing I did not plan and I always enjoy it when characters do that, it means that I managed to make them more than just a couple of stats on a piece of paper. The shot that killed Marone also killed the showdown the GM had planned, but at the same time the fact that the colonel is still around will make for another good story, I'm sure.

Ian McEwan: Solar

2011-08-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist who has much less success in organising his private life. Between wifes, lovers and lovers of wifes even his professional life slowly sinks into chaos.

There are many comic moments in Solar, one even made me laugh out loud in public, but when all is said and done, it's a bleak book. Not only because of the underlying theme of climate warming and ebergy crisis, but also because it's basically a study in self-destruction. Entropy and chaos are a major theme in the book and while it looks for a while that Beard has managed to bring order to his life, it all breaks down in the end.

He is not a character that I found easily likeable, but I did recognise some of my own less flattering character traits in him. Wondering what I would do in the place of a character is always fun for me, so it did make an interesting read (although not a really comfortable one).

Solar by Ian McEwan is my 35th book for the Library Challenge.

Haarmann

2011-08-10T01:57:00.000-07:00

Haarmann is a graphic novel about the German serial killer Fritz Haarmann. It's done in beautiful graphite pencil drawings, very detailed and very fitting for this story. It's told pretty much faithfully to the true story and it concentrates not only on the murders Haarmann committed, but also on the lives of the people around him and the effort of the police to cover up the murders as much as possible - once they finally do investigate them. Haarmann was an informer and at first, the police was very reluctant to accept him as a suspect, despite strong evidence pointing to him.

The book also paints a very vivid picture of life in Germany in 1924, which was not at all easy for many people, in particular in the poor district where Haarmann lived. He was well known for selling meat and clothes cheaply and while it was never proven, there are strong hints that he may have sold human flesh.

My grandmother still knew the song about Haarmann by heart: Wait, wait but a little while, then Haarmann will come for you, with his little axe and he will mince you too..." It was immensely popular in various versions and you can listen to it on Youtube.

Haarmann is my 35th book for the Library Challenge

There are also several movies about or at least inspired by Haarmann and the most impressive in my opinion is Der Totmacher, based on the transcripts of interviews with Haarmann that were held to ascertain his criminal responsibilities.

It needs to be watched twice. The first time around, you will have eyes only for Götz George as Fritz Haarmann, he's absolutely amazing in that role and more than a bit scary, despite or because of the friendliness of his character. The second time around, Jürgen Hentsch in the much less conspicuous role of Professor Schultze will make just as big an impression. He's pitch-perfect as someone who has to walk a line between professionalism, disgust and fascination. Do yourself a favour and watch the movie in German, with subtitles - it's a movie about two people sitting at a table and talking, any dubbed version will have lost the main part of the performance.

Simpel

2011-08-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

Simpel is 22 years old, he loves to play with Playmobil and he takes his stuffed toy Monsieur HaseHase (Bunnybunny) everywhere. His 17 year old brother Colbert is taking care of him and while looking for a place to live in Paris, they come across a couple of students looking for people to share their flat. The students quickly find out that living with Simpel can be challenging...

I've been meaning to read this book for a while now, ever since it was the choice of the teen jury for the German Youth Literature Award. Usually, those books are excellent (not something to be said about the choices of the adult jury) and I wasn't disappointed.

Many of us are uncomfortable around persons with intellectual disabilities and the people Simpel encounters are no different. At times, his brother tries to make Simpel act "normal", with disastrous results. Things are usually easier when Colbert tells the truth about Simpel up front - although Simpel has a gift for stating uncomfortable truths people may not want to hear (but maybe should hear).

There are some hilarious passages in the book that made me laugh out loud and I particularly enjoyed Monsieur Hasehase, who has a mind of his own and a knack for getting Simpel in trouble. The ending is a bit too good to be true, everything falls into place and I really doubt that things will be so easy - but a story has to end somewhere. And if it's at that perfect moment, why not. The book doesn't pretend that things will stay that perfect forever, after all.

Simpel by Marie-Aude Murail is my 34th book for the Library Challenge

In the Presence of Mine Enemies

2011-08-07T03:57:00.000-07:00

I enjoy what if-stories and alternate histories, so I have no idea why it took me so long to find Harry Turtledove. He was recommended to me on the same day by Padre and a friend of mine and my friend loaned me In the Presence of Mine Enemies. Who am I to argue with that kind of synchronicity.

The book takes place in a fictional Germany that has won WWII (and WWIII) and is pretty much the only superpower left. But when the current Führer died, he is replaced by a man who is a reformer - his ideas create quite an uproar and lead to civil unrest and even an attempted coup d'état.

All this is told from the perspective of Heinrich Gimpel and his family, who are Jews, hidden away in plain sight. The Nazis think they were successful in killing all Jews, but in truth many pass as Aryans. The secret is revealed to every Jewish child at his or her 10th birthday.

I liked the whole idea of this and there are many situations in the book that show just how difficult it would be to lead such a life, although I think that in truth it would be every more difficult and would place even more of a strain on the people forced to live this lie.

The people start to demonstrate against the SS who try desperately to keep in power against the wishes of the new Führer and those scenes are really exciting and thrilling to read. There's a sense of history happening, right in front of the characters and they know it. I'm sure that everyone who was there when the Berlin Wall fell, for example, felt that way. The cries of "We are the people!" in the book are definitely a nod towards the demonstrations that were a big part of the eventual fall of the GDR and the whole story has strong parallels to the fall of the Soviet Union.

I was a bit puzzled to find Odilo Globocnik as the leader of the coup d'état . Yes, I know, it's an alternate history, but it just didn't feel right. Other historical figures lead a different life, but they were still living in their own time, not a completely different one (the book is set in 2010). The same goes for Ilse Koch, who appears as a school teacher.

One thing that annoyed me were the German phrases. It was probably done to add some more realism, but couldn't the editors please find a native speaker to proofread? Even a dictionary would have helped (it's pfennige, for example, not pfennigs). Printing the German words in italics also makes me read them as particularly emphasised, which they were not supposed to be. I don't know if it is only me or only people who speak German, but I could have done without that.

Those minor criticisms aside, I found the book to be very enjoyable and thought-provoking. If you have in interest in history, I would absolutely recommend it.

7th book for the Science Fiction Challenge

Perseids 2011

2011-08-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

The Perseids are here again. This year, the peak of the shower will be in the night between August 12 and August 13, a Saturday conveniently. 100 meteors per hour are expected so even though it will be a full moon, we should get to see a lot of them. The peak time will be at 9am, but any time between 2am and dawn will be a good time.

So find yourself a dark place with a good view of the sky all around, bring a blanket or maybe a deck chair, some warm clothes and enjoy the show.

Urban Harvesting

2011-08-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about gardening a lot. I grew up with a big garden and I miss it very much. This year, I planted potatoes, Swiss chard and string beans on my balcony and I'm probably going to try and grow cabbage in the bean flowerpot once the beans are harvested. I also plan a raised flower bed for next year.

While I was looking at urban gardening websites for tips on what to grow in small pots and how to grow it, I came across Mundraub - a website where people share the location of fruit trees that are on public land, in parks ect. and can be freely harvested by anyone. I love that idea. I've been picking blackberries, raspberries and elder berries that grow on public land for years, it's amazing what you can find.

Neiborhood Fruit does the same for the US. I couldn't find a similar site for the UK, but there are many local Abundance Groups. That's a slightly different concept. People ask the Abundance groups to come and pick their fruit tree, orchard ect. to prevent the fruit from going to waste. It's then distributed to organisations like homeless shelters. And here are some links for Australia.

Make sure you are not trespassing. Ask people for permission, many really are glad to have all those apples/plums/cherries taken off their hands (and are happy to receive some jam or whatever you do with the fruit in return). Take only what you need. Pick only fruits that you know. Share and have fun!

Cthulhu Gaslight: In the Service of the Crown

2011-07-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Doctor Who Trailer Series 7.2

2011-07-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

Angels. Silence. Song. Yay.

More gaming music

2011-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

I just downloaded the Session 9 soundtrack and it's absolutely eerie. If you need music for a scene where you want the characters/players to be on edge, to expect something awful to happen at any moment, then this music will help you create that mood.
If you haven't seen the movie, I can only recommend it. It has its weaknesses, but the location alone is worth watching it: Davers State Mental Hospital

You can take a look inside on this website, it's beyond creepy. It probably was the inspiration for Lovecraft's Arkham Sanitarium, which in turn inspired Arkham Asylum.

Another discovery, via Bad Astronomy, is the website Experience the Planets. You can listen to the full album right there on the website or download it here (or on iTunes, but then you're missing Pluto). Great atmospheric music. Not necessarily for action-packed scenes and fights, but scenes where the characters explore a stranded spaceship or a lost city come to my mind.

I want one

2011-07-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Octomatix by ~Felideus on deviant ART

7th Sea: Code and Cardinal

2011-07-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

The second part of our 7th Sea adventure. See this post for all the characters.

Dear Isabel,

we have left Avalon for Massina on the Golden Hind and we have made good time. The Inquisition ship had arrived only four days before us.
I spent much of the journey deciphering a book written in code that was left by Louis Forcet, who led a first expedition in search of the Syrneth artefact 19 years ago. Don't worry, I did remember to eat and sleep (or I was kindly reminded by Don Ramon).
Forcet describes a portal in his records and he speaks of a powerful weapon behind the portal, powerful enough to destroy whole countries, if not more. "Destroyer of Worlds" is how he puts it. He even theorises that the downfall of the Syrneths has been caused by this weapon. Forcet managed to close the portal and seal it. It can only be opened with his blood.

The book mentions the name DuLac a few times, I have the nagging suspicion that this is Jean DuLac, with whom we have clashed a few times before. Louis Forcet was married to DuLac's sister in any case. They had a daughter, Claire Forcet and she worked at the Explorer's Society's branch in Charouse. We have heard of a break-in there, a sphere similar to ours was stolen. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Claire Forcet was abducted as well. Especially since there seems to be a woman (and only one) on board the Inquisition ship.

On arrival in Messina, we did not only see the ship of the Inquisition, but the majority of the Castillian fleet and the ships are in bad shape after an encounter with the Montaigne. Things are not going well for Castille at the moment.

The Governess gave a reception for Cardinal Camillo, who leads the expedition mounted by the Inquisiton, and for the noblemen of our own crew and we had a very uncomfortable meeting with the Cardinal. For a few moments I was sure he had recognised Lucia. I was careful not to draw attention to myself and I think I managed to go unnoticed, but it does not do to underestimate the Cardinal.

We will stay for a few more days in Messina, to prepare for the second leg of our journey and to replace the mast that had been damaged before. I hope I can find someone I can entrust this letter to before we depart.

I miss you, my love
Marcello

The encounter with the Cardinal was nerve-wracking at times. There were a lot of rolls for deception and sincerity and I'm not sure at all that we managed to convince the Cardinal, but at least we didn't get ourselves arrested. The music for this adventure was the soundtrack for Hook and Master and Commander for the sea voyage, Monkey Island for the scenes at the docks when Marcello, Don Ramon and Lucia got drunk on fruit cocktails in a bar with a good view of the Inquisition ship, and Händel's Feuerwerkmusik for the reception.

Cthuluffins

2011-07-21T02:35:00.000-07:00

Cthuloid muffins with lemon filling. You need:
100 g butter
200 g flour
100 g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
1 large egg
milk
food colouring
lemon curd / lemon marmelade / lemon juice
icing sugar
this will be enough for about 12 muffins, depending on the size of muffin cups you use

Stir everything but the lemon curd and the food colouring together in a bowl until you have a smooth, gooey batter. Add the food colouring until the batter has the colour of choice, I think green goes best with Cthuluffins. Be generous, the baking will pale the colour a bit.
Fill 1 tablespoon into muffin cups, then add a teaspoon of lemon curd. Cover with another tablespoon of dough. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 175°C (convection/hot-air fan oven).

If you use lemon juice, drip 1-3 tablespoon of juice over the freshly baked muffins and let them sit for a while. The juice will give the whole muffin a nice lemony taste.

When the muffins have cooled off, decorate them. Add very little water and food colouring to the icing sugar until you have a glue-like paste. Don't make it too runny or you'll end up with Shoggoths instead of Cthulhus. I used a brush to apply the blob that makes the head and a wooden shashlik skewer for the tentacles. Let the first layer dry a bit before you add the eyes.
Taddaa: Cthuluffins (and one Shoggoffin)