Awesome.

I’m … speechless….

Although I suddenly realise I’ve never seen anyone use pictograms for a fantasy language. Odd. But my theoretical ‘Celtic islands dark fantasy game’ is definitely going to have a ancient pictographic language in it.

• The LA Times writing on D&D.
• An interview from Wizards with Zak S. Zak writes a really cool blog called Playing D&D With Porn Stars which is mostly general musings on his style of D&D and playing with a group who aren’t traditional gamers. Seriously – it’s a really interesting read from a rally interesting guy.
• E6 – it’s a style of D&D that involves limiting levels to level 6 and not progressing further. Low level play for the win! There’s rules for 3/3.5 and rules for 4e. My favourite levels of D&D are a bit beyond this – say 8 till 12 – but I like the basic idea a lot.
• A Spanish Civil War card game! Two of my favourite obsessions in one! The Spanish Civil War is a really underutilised part of history for gaming I think – one day I’ll write my Call of Cthulhu Spanish Civil War game.

Finally here’s a TED talk from game designer Jane McGonigal about how if we increase our weekly online gaming hours to 21 billion we can save the world. It’s complete bullshit, but it’s interesting bullshit!

Victor was born Wong Ke Lo to a comfortable middle class family in Taipei in 1979. His father, Wong Fai Hun, was a businessman with vague connections to the Bamboo Union, one of Taiwan’s main triad organisations, through his Kuomintang background. An only child, Victor was an unimpressive student, a loner who only found solace in the gymnasium. Victor was a good gymnast, but lacked the competitive drive to truly excel.

After the senior Wong annoyed the wrong Bamboo Union functionary, Victor was targeted for recruitment – a subtle punishment for the upstanding businessman. He was an easy target as his antisocial tendencies made him comfortable with the life of crime while welcoming the social contact the triad provided. His father was mortified, but warned to stay away by Victor’s new ‘friends’ He was only 16, but quickly became a useful second story man for the Triad, breaking in to allow enforcers into buildings as well as minor thefts. The Union taught Victor to fight and use a gun as well as the basic intricacies of alarm systems.

At 17, Victor was nearly convicted for burglary after a job went wrong. Fai Hun interceded to bribe the cops responsible for the bust and decided he had to get the family out. Immigration to Australia seemed the best way to get Victor away from the triad as well as avoid any further shame to the family. In 1996 the Wongs moved to Melbourne as economic migrants, buying a news agents and settling in Box Hill. Victor was just young enough to come with his parents.

Melbourne didn’t help Victor’s behaviour. He quickly fell in with 14K, a Sydney based triad with Melbourne offshoots, and got back into his old ways and quickly became estranged from his parents. But a period in jail in 2001 helped scare Victor, convincing him he wasn’t invincible. After he got out, he moved to Bidawal, not telling any of his triad friends where he was going. He started to look around for other ways to make a living, scraping by on odd jobs and the occasional break in but generally trying to keep his head down. Eventually Sonny Kim, the Bidawal Police Department’s Asian Community Liaison officer, told Victor that he might know of some work for someone with skills like his. Sonny was as corrupt as they come, but he could see that Victor was trying to get out. Now Victor is with OSERE. He’s hoping that he’ll be able to make a living, find some of what attracted him to triad life and stay out of jail.

(via Ken Hite)

Kraken is his upcoming book (out in the UK in May) and there’s an extract at the publisher’s website. It’s just a short one but it’s a great set up. It’s a return to the real real world – actual London (like in King Rat) rather than made up eastern Europe (like in The City & The City) so that will be interesting. Most people, including myself if I’m honest, would prefer a return to Bas-Lag, the world of Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council, but a man’s gotta write what he’s gotta write – the worst possible thing would be a new Bas-Lag novel just for the hope of selling more copies!

I waited to buy The City & The City until I saw it on sale and I suspect I’ll wait for this in paperback too, unless it gets really seriously good reviews. Luckily Mieville is one of those guys who everyone has an opinion on so at least there will eb lots of reviews.

I travelled with a friend down the highway to Geelong to watch Serenity in a pre-release screening. I had a good time, liked the film, saw it once again in the cinema on general release with another friend and bought it when it came out on DVD in order to help boost sales and convince them to make more. We now know that that’s never going to happen but what the hell. At least I have it on DVD right?

But here’s the problem:  I’ve never watched the DVD. Beyond that, I’ve never revisited the original Firefly series (which I also own on DVD). I’m currently watching (extremely slowly) Buffy with my highly horror adverse wife and I’m enjoying it – we’re only two episodes in and it’s still astonishingly amateurish but it’s fun. When I think of Firefly now I think of it being (a) slightly forced and (b) unfinished. Now I know that (b) is not Whedon’s fault but (a) certainty is. Firefly, I suspect, is not going to go down in history as one of the great shows. If Fox hadn’t canned it in  mid-stream, the reasons it is so missed would have been removed. Hopefully it would have provided new reasons to be missed, but I don’t think we’d seen them yet.