Interesting Article About the Future of S&S Fiction

Here's an interesting LiveJournal post from Douglas Cohen, assistant editor to Realms of Fantasy magazine. He talks about the genre of Sword & Sorcery fantasy, and notes that while there has been a resurgence in the older works being republished, he hasn't seen, at least in the last 20-25 years, anything really new or ground-breaking come into the genre. He goes to some length to note that a resurgence of interest does not equal a "Renaissance" in the sub-genre, despite what some fans of the genre have been saying.

I think some of this can parallel the whole "Old School Gaming Renaissance" discussion. While I think there is good material being produced now, and thus doesn't entirely fall into the same problem as Cohen puts S&S fiction in, it should be important to note that for it to really "count", new material needs to be carrying things forward, into new directions but with the same spirit. Because of this, I tend to (and I'm sure I'll get squawked at for this) rate a game like Castles & Crusades higher up on the "Renaissance-Worthy" scale as opposed to something like OSRIC, which is, in my mind, little more than a retyping of the old 1E material, and thus, nothing really new. And the same can be applied to Labyrinth Lord and the other retro-clones - if all you're doing is "cloning" an old game, are you really doing something new, or just putting it in a prettier package?

One thing that I think does merit a lot of praise is Fight On!, and I'm not just saying that because I've got an article published in the latest issue. It's because it's all new material, and it's not just one little adventure published somewhere on the web, or a little-seen netbook of spells floating around - it's a whole new initiative.

So to conclude, don't think I'm belittling the efforts of the Old School Renaissance folks, but rather offering the aforementioned LJ posting and my comments as a caution that a Renaissance isn't just a resurgence of interest - it's a rebirth and renewal of old ideas melding with new creations.

Any Opinions about BRP?

Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying Game has been out for a little while now, and I'm looking to get feedback from anyone who's looked at the book and either done some playing (or playtesting) or who just has a strong general feel for the product and how it works as a unified, generic role-playing system. I like BRP as an idea, and I've always found its mechanics very handy for casual gaming - but I want something divorced from the CoC setting. This new product seems to fit the bill pretty nicely.

So, anyone out there want to comment on this game?

The Eisenhorn Trilogy - Warhammer 40K Meets Film Noir

So I am a big sucker for Warhammer 40K novels. Most of them are "meh" - sci-fi war porn filled with gratuitous verbiage and usually a little too ambitious for the writers who pen them. However, for quick summer reads or something to take up my lunch hour during the work week, they're great. And, I must admit, some are better than others - the recent run of Horus Heresy novels has actually been quite good, with a couple of mediocre exception that were mediocre in my mind not so much because of the writing, which was still pretty good, but because they didn't seem to fill a worthy niche in the Horus Heresy series.

But I digress. Recently my buddy Darkwing picked up and read an omnibus of Dan Abnett's acclaimed Eisenhorn trilogy, considered by many 40K fluff fanatics to be some of the best 40K writing ever published. After reading the trilogy, both Darkwing and I agree - Eisenhorn is, hands down, the best example of 40K fiction yet published (with the first HH novel, perhaps, coming in a very close second).

These three novels, Xenos, Malleus, and Hereticus follow the path of Imperial Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn as he works against the enemies of the Imperium - the Alien, the Demon, the Mutant, and the Heretic. His Inquisitorial status means his authority is unquestionable and absolute, and he pursues his enemies with absolute ruthlessness and cunning. But for all that, Eisenhorn is human, and he has human weaknesses and frailties, and he makes human mistakes and has human failures. I've seen a number of critics online who lambast Abnett for having Eisenhorn make "stupid mistakes" or not do certain things and as a result bad things happen later on, but I feel this just makes the story better. He is a man standing against the encroaching darkness, and although he falters and fails along the way, he always fights on, no matter the odds and no matter the consequences to himself and others.

To add another layer onto the story, Eisenhorn is about a man's descent into the darkness of one's own soul. At the beginning of the first novel, Eisenhorn describes himself as a "Puritan", meaning he does not believe in using the forces of Chaos to fight Chaos. He isn't a zealot - as a psyker himself (meaning he possesses a mutation that grants him psychic ablities) he could hardly be a complete hardliner or he would damn himself - but he does have an almost chivalrous air about his faith in the mission he believes in. But as time goes on and the lines between friend and foe, good and evil, enemy and ally, begin to blur, Eisenhorn is forced to swim in darker waters, and by the end of the book he has, in a way, become what he once looked at with contempt (I won't give away the particulars of the finale, but it's not so bad as all that).

Along with all this, Abnett's view of the Warhammer 40K universe is, to my mind, perfectly rendered. Many writers and artists tend to show the 40K-verse as a galaxy of tortured Gothic horrors, a million worlds constantly at war with the rest of the galaxy, untold billions toiling endlessly for the sole purpose of keeping Ultimate Evil at bay, etc. etc.. It is not a view that I find particularly pleasing, and it appears that Abnett feels the same way. Yes, many of the places in his books are grim, bleak worlds that would cause most of us to despair. But many of them are also rather beautifully described, and while the religion of God-Emperor worship seems to be prevalent everywhere (atheism is a shootable offense in the Imperium), most people seem to be about as religious as your average "religious person" today - they say their prayers, they go to church, they have faith in their deity and while they don't attribute everything that happens in their lives to divine favor, "miracles do happen" so to speak. And among all this, people live out fairly normal lives that wouldn't seem all that different to us today. It is, in short, much more believable and satisfying.

And finally, the style in which both the action and the setting are written fits the story extremely well. In my mind, the series is one part Blade Runner, one part Star Wars, a touch of the Cthulhu Mythos, and a heaping helping of both dramatic film noir and hard-boiled detective novel. And Abnett's ability to write powerful, dramatic, and bloody action is second to none.

So, even if you have no interest in the Warhammer 40K universe, give the Eisenhorn Trilogy a chance. It doesn't just cross the line between media tie-in fiction and science fiction literature, it takes an autocannon and blows the line to smithereens.

Oh, and one other thing...

The Eisenhorn books, and the Ravenor trilogy that follows after it, are perfect examples of how to handle a great sci-fi RPG campaign or two. I pointed my Traveller GM to the Eisenhorn books and she agrees with me that the way Eisenhorn & Co. go about their business should be the way our campaign is handled. For the record, the "top PC" of the party is a Duke and a Major General worth millions of credits, flying himself and the rest of the party around in a 400 million credit luxury space-yacht. He is essentially above the law and we have enough firepower on board to handle most anything that comes our way. But even so, there are a million ways that we could be challenged, if the GM could find a non-confrontational way of dealing with the player of said PC, who has many issues of his own (he's the GM in the Harn game I recently quit out of because of many issues I've detailed in previous postings).

Fight On! Summer Release and 40K Chatter

Sorry I've been so quiet lately - gaming (at least RPG-style gaming) hasn't been much on my mind lately. I did want to point out that the second issue of Fight On! has been released. One of the articles in there came from this blog, and I hope everyone enjoys it. Mentioning this here is of course a little silly, since anyone who's reading this I'm sure is keeping close tabs on FO!, but hey, it's all good.

I've been getting in a lot of reading (more on that at a later date) and I've been ruminating on Warhammer 40K - specifically the recent release of their 5th Edition rules set. With this release comes a new starter boxed set, containing Orks and Space Marines. The ork contingent is especially interesting, as it's got a new warboss, the first one in ages, and looking pretty awesome to boot. But what is more interesting is all the great Space Marine goodies, especially when you consider that this whole boxed set is only $60 - just the tactical squad alone is $35 normally, plus $50 for the terminators, $40 for the dreadnought, and $15 for the captain - that's $140 worth of marines for $60, not counting all the orks, plus mini-rulebook and accessories! Probably one of the best deals Games Workshop has ever put out. There's never been a better time for me to pick up the starter box, and with one fell swoop both expand on my already massive ork army and (finally) begin serious work on a space marines army - the Red Wolves chapter, official only in so much as it was noted in "how to paint space marines", so it's "official", but completely open to interpretation. So over the next few months, I'll be trying to post about my fluff and army organization.