Author: Sleepypete

Quick late one today !

Today’s what’s-in-the-box is a First Order TIE Fighter. At least I think that’s what it means with the red on one side and black on the other.

I’ve pondered getting one of the bigger TIE Fighters (to add to several more smaller ones I have) but …. TIEs are a bit boring ? They’re just a ball in the middle and a couple of big slabs to the side.

I did enjoy playing the TIE Fighter game and its expansion when it came out. I actually 100% finished that game. Good times. Actually literally unplayable too without a joystick. Keyboard controls were not an option. Strange !

I’ve been out tonight, getting the cards for Christmas and it let me catch the film Mortal Engines before its likely disappearance from one of the main local cinemas. I usually prefer to go to the Avonmeads cinema because it’s quieter … but you don’t really want to be fighting your way across Bristol at rush hour.

It’s a shame, this one is likely to be chased out of the cinema due to new arrivals (like Mary Poppins which is highly likely to be popular) and due to reports of very low box office turn out. It’s a bit sad that a few highly promising films have all come out at the same time. There’s a gap for a while and then several ones to watch come out at the same time. I’m not bothered by Aquaman (superhero movies of that type are wearing out their welcome) but would like to see the latest Spiderman.

Anyway – Mortal Engines !

It’s set in the future after a fast apocalyptic war wrecks the Earth and changes our way of life. We now live in mobile cities.

A curious film, it invents its own universe and lore and brings you into that world quite nicely. Perhaps it drags at points (it’s a Peter Jackson, these films tend to be overlong) but it keeps you interested in what’s going on and the story moves along quite well.

I won’t say too much more because of Spoilers but … worth catching before it disappears.

I think I need to research and acquire the books for later reading, I bet they expand upon that lore so much more than we see in the film.

Day 17 !

Not sure quite what to make of this one …

It’s a something with a light shade for a head. I have no idea what this one is supposed to be !

Moving swiftly on – to the books.

R.A.Salvatore has been writing Forgotten Realms books for decades now. And they’re awesome. His central characters are Drizzt Do’Urden, Bruenor, Regis and their crew. But he’s also played with other characters in the same world too.

This time sees the character Cadderly introduced, a monk who becomes the central character of the Cleric Quintet of which the first book is Canticle.

It’s been quite some time since I read this one. I kinda remember the young, naive cleric/monk fella Cadderly and the fighter Danica who is far more interested in Cadderly than our monk fella can detect. The central theme of these books is the Chaos Curse and the struggle between Cadderly and the monks of the Edificant Library and the forces of the evil wizard Aballister and his sidekick Imp Druzil.

An interesting series of books with characters that nicely evolve through the series. I must go back to it at some point.

Next up is Crucible by Troy Denning. It’s the second addition to the original Avatar trilogy and takes place many years after the events of the original. The Pantheon of the Realms has been reshaped and the assassin thief, Cyric, of the original trilogy has replaced the God of Murder. Except he’s a bit of a loony …. and he wants to supplant the other gods.

In this one, his campaign to destroy the worshippers of the other gods has been brought to a halt and Cyric is on trial by the other gods for his insanity.

Another decent book, although I sense these are books that only people interested in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons and Dragons game world will be the ones getting much out of these.

As an aside, in my campaign to listen through all of the music in the library again, I’ve now reached half way ! Only 4 months for 8300 songs. At the moment, I have Nina Persson’s Animal Hearts album and it’s a really good one. She has a fantastic voice and while this album doesn’t have quite the interplay and inspiration of your usual Cardigans album, there are still some great songs here and the album shows off her voice really well.

Gonna listen to their song Communication in a bit. Great song. I should do a music post again sometime soon.

Last book for today ! This is an old one, published in 1988 and it’s one of the earliest Forgotten Realms books.

The central character is our heroine Alias. She is a fighter who has woken in an unfamiliar inn with nothing to her name but a rather curious set of magical armour (yarp. It claims to be armour despite the …. gap) and the other gear of a sellsword. She also has a series of blue sigils tattooed into her arm. But no name.

Oh and there’s also a strangely mute lizardman who is acting as her guardian, whether she wants him there or not. Alias calls him Dragonbait, introducing one of the more recurring characters who pops up in the Realms.

As is normal for this type of book, they’re built around a limited party mechanic. Some of them even started out life as scenarios for the Dungeons and Dragons games. So in this one, Alias is a fighter, Dragonbait is a paladin and they pick up Ruskettle the Bard and Akabar the mage. The second book, The Wyvern’s Spur, is a little unusual in that the party doesn’t stay together. The second book is all about Ruskettle and then the gang comes back together for the finale in Song of the Saurials.

It’s the Finder’s Stone trilogy, co written by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb. A decent series.

I’m feeling a bit better today, although I did give up on attempting to do another bit of fan art. My drawing skills are still rather lacking, although the first attempt at an All Sketched By Me seems to have met with a good reception.

Yep. It’s crude but you can hopefully make out a driver who is in mid face palm and a crazy, drunk Jaffa with a hat enjoying himself far too much in the passenger seat. (It’s for a Las Vegas episode, so LHD). Oh and that spoiler at the back is not supposed to look like a dancing stick person.

Honest.

Bit confused about what monster this is today.

Bit tough to see today. I thought this was the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi … (but apparently it’s a Rathtar from Force Awakens).

And 4d sneaking in his shadow at the back there too.

Still feeling the effects of the bugs today so I’ve gone backwards somewhat to something I’m sure I posted a while ago …

Can you tell what it’ll be ? This was a bonus thing that came when I ordered my technic jet.

The backing and covers take shape but aren’t quite attached yet.

Indistinct pages. A blank canvas ? (Yes – camera shake ! Oops)

There is little greater mystery in this world than the undiscovered contents of a book.

A polka dotted scene starts to take shape. What could it be ?

And a little more for the other side. Plus …. a name !

Finally, the finished scene. With our author narrating a tale to an entranced youngster with a park scene beside them.

More books tomorrow !

I think Rose has found someone to aim that stun gun of her’s at …

We have a rogue trooper today, away from his barracks and with a Rose between him and the gun rack.

I think his future may be a bit dark.

A bit like the middle book ! It’s Rogue Star by Andy Hoare. It’s set in the grim dark future of the 40th millennium, yep it’s another Warhammer 40k book. This one was a bit different because it wasn’t looking into the Imperial Guard or the Space Marines or the Mechanicus as in Titanicus, this book was about the Rogue Traders who ply the dangerous spacelanes looking to bring good to those who will pay hefty amounts to receive them while avoiding the dangers out there.

This is another that I haven’t read in a while but I remember it giving great descriptions of the worlds visited by Lucian Gerrit and his crew and the hidden dangers present. There’s also a devastating space battle.

On to another rogue trooper and we have the first Mass Effect book, Revelation. This one is all about Captain Anderson and the rogue agent Saren. Saren doesn’t like humans much and that’s really brought home in this book. However, it’s 200 and a bit pages that just expand out a few lines of dialogue in the game. If you’ve played it, then there isn’t much extra here. You learn a bit more about characters that are fleshed out some more but there isn’t much actually new.

If you’re a fan of Mass Effect (and most game players are !), it’s well worth it. But if you haven’t played the games (please do, they are excellent) then this is one to avoid.

Best is last this time.

David Weber made his name with a character called Honor Harrington. She starts in this book as the Commander in charge of the light cruiser Fearless. The book opens with a set of training scenarios where Honor is fated to be on the losing side. She doesn’t like this, so she turns the tables with some clever strategy.

Which a superior doesn’t like and she finds herself semi-exiled off to the Basilisk Station (hence the name of the book !). She sets about sorting things out in the system, only for the People’s Republic of Haven offer to take over and effectively annex the system.

The series of books is very definitely set up as a shifting situation with an ongoing war between the Manticore Star Kingdom (the English) and the Havenites (French revolutionaries) with the Andermani (Germans) and the bloated Solarian Empire (the Americans) looking on from the sidelines.

These are an excellent series of books, although I admit I did stop reading at Storm From The Shadows. That’s the second in a spin off series and I’d read 12 of the main series.

The good – the technology that is in use for the ships is kept very consistent and (as much as scifi usually is) realistic. There are gravity drives in use which happen to get around the problem of human fragility to acceleration. The gravity drives provide the equivalent of shields but the main weaponry is a combination of long range missiles and shorter range Lasers and GRASERs (Gamma Ray lasers). The missiles are nuclear tipped and will attempt to knife their way through opposing ships by using X-Ray bomb pumped lasers. There is a lot of combat in the earlier books and it’s presented extremely well.

But there’s also an intelligence in the interactions of the characters. It’s a series that stayed highly interesting up until the later books where too much daft politics started creeping in as well as silliness with the espionage related technologies.

I’d highly recommend this series as something to enjoy for however long you feel able to stick with it.

How’s me ? I think I’m past the hump of my bugs, although they’ll probably slow me down a fair bit. If I’d attempted to do anything physically then I’d have been flat on my back almost immediately.

Instead …. Stellaris. (And I probably just got the neighbours very concerned with an extended paroxysm of coughing, you know – the type where you see stars and there’s a ringing in your ears.)

This is from not too for before I shut down for the evening. The Nomnivorian Raveners have already eaten (literally) 3 opposing races fairly easily. There’s just been a substantial change in the game for the 2.2 update which is … very much up and down for me.

The up is that there’s much more scope now in how you arrange your planets.
The down is that there’s much more scope now for your planets to destroy your economy and bring your progress to a juddering halt.
(Your income can suddenly flipflop from +100 income to -100 income and it took some understanding as to why).

There is a reaction that you can do as a player, by manipulating that economy by turning off certain buildings so your workers go to the buildings that work the foundation stuff. But I’m not convinced the AI knows how to do that. One of the huge strengths of Stellaris was that it gave me a fun challenge, in the early days at least. I’m not convinced it can do that at the moment and it definitely feels like the expansion and gameplay patch has been rushed out.

Will keep an eye on it, continue this current game and then play other things when the campaign is done and the Nomnivorians have eaten the galaxy.

Something short today. I think bugs have decided this weekend is going to be a bugs weekend.

Today was a good day though. Lots of loot and excellent company this afternoon to raid the Xmas market with.

Click for bigger. There’s a lot in there (plus some obscured that I didn’t mean to obscure !)

On the left we see a new pooch, a lovely little metal thingy from the market.

Big Lego BB-8 is at the back, keeping his beady eye on 4D. He remembers what happened the last time these two shared screen time and doesn’t want to be eaten again.

We have a trio of micro BB-8s dotting around the scene, including super stunts BB-8 from last year’s advent buzzing around the place on his snowboard.

The advent thingy for today is a blaster rack, with Rose keeping a sharp eye on it. I think she’s checking out the stun setting so she can use it on cowardly stormtroopers attempting to run away.

Nano BB-8 is taking up station over there on the right, in front of a new book : Attack of the Flickering Skeletons (and more Terrible Old Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of) by Stuart Ashen. I’ll look forward to diving through that soon. (Currently lost in Persepolis Rising in the Expanse series).

Popz BB-8 is a new one. SHINY. And then there’s a new key ring BB-8 lurking beside him.

(I had trouble getting key ring BB-8 to cooperate. Think that one’s been on the funny oil or too close to the Helium stores).

But who is that on the right ?

We have found something to scare the 4D. He was ok with one BB-8. 2 BB-8s. Even 3. But an army of 7 ? He’s off at a dead run, exit stage right.

See you tomorrow !

Oops. I took the picture at lunchtime and I’ve completely forgotten what the new thing was !

Let’s have a reminder.

There we go. I tried out something new today, a delayed timer shot from the phone. First time I’ve done that and it was so I could press the button and then quickly grab 4D so he could take his place in the shot.

Today I think it was either one of the train cars from Solo or an Imperial transport from Rebels. The train sequence was one of the inspired bits of Solo and when I watch that movie again, I’ll look forward to that bit of the movie.

Today ? Game books again. Games don’t give you what they used to pack in ! Long gone are the days of a big box and things inside that truly rattled. Mind you, they used to squeeze enough into some of the dvd style boxes that the box would bulge open and refuse to close up again without spilling its contents all over the place.

You don’t get nearly as much now. Barely anything in fact and rarely anything that is in physical form. I was very impressed with the art book that came with Battletech but that did cost me extra.

So – what are the games today ?

In the middle is the Falcon 4 manual. This is over half an inch thick ! Plus you got a quick reference guide, a key map and a reasonably details map of the Korean subcontinent, the region you fought over in the game.

It’s actually fitting for the complexity of the game and this was an incredibly complex game. It’s still going actually, 20 years after its original release in 1998. It was a buggy mess when it came out but still pretty darn good. I can remember flying missions on it and flying towards a glow on the horizon that would gradually resolve into missiles and shells whizzing back and forth as you got closer.

This was an incredible game for its time and this would still look quite decent today. Flight sims can cheat, as the detail is all very far away instead of you standing right next to the wall with the dodgy texture as you would in a first person game.

Next up is the Settlers. In the days where Digital Rights Management hadn’t found its way into the sneaky ways and always online of today, they had to do it via other means. Still in the software this time but for this game, it would ask you to turn to a certain page and pop in the runes on that page.

Settlers is a colony management wargame. It’s a pretty complicated one, with basic resources combining together to make things like swords for soldiers, bread for food and gold for improvements.

It was one of the ground breaking games of its time, although deathly dreary to play a game all the way through. The strategic aspect was bolted around warrior huts … and these caused an effect like attritional trench warfare.

It took a long time to make a dent in the other players’ territory and that made games drag on a long time. But it is a game I enjoyed in its time, as I highly enjoyed losing evenings to Settlers IV.

Next one is a game called Titan Quest, which included a printed out ability tree for its widespread character class system.

Bit of a shame this one, as the game had massive potential but I never actually played much into it. One reason for that was because it coincided with a previous Windows XP install going very strange and the campfires would be so bright, they would white-out the screen. It was a very broken WinXP install.

Last one is not something I got with a game, I acquired the StarFleet Command III strategy guide later.

This was from a time before broadband (I think). A time before google searches became the thing you would do if you got stuck. Wowhead hadn’t been invented back then. (The game was published in 2002).

It’s a nice strategy guide too. It gives you a description of all of the missions, plus a description of the ships and the various ways they could be customised. A super manual if you like.

I was super addicted to the Starfleet Command games in their day. The nearest modern equivalent is Battlefleet Gothic, set in the Warhammer 40k world but very definitely a rip off of the Starfleet Battles rules that SFC was based on. Battlefleet Gothic 2 looks impressive though, I’ll enjoy watching Enter Elysium play through that when it’s released but I won’t buy it.

That’s it for today !

Day 12 ! Halfway through the boxes. What do we have today ?

A Jedi starfighter today from the prequel movies. A small, functional, pretty little fighter.

And books of movies / movies of books today. By the way there is no 4D cameo today. He took one glance at one of the books there and stomped off on disgust.

One of those books is older than I am ! I wonder if it was before decimalisation. Perhaps not.

On the right we have The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean. This one led to an all time classic World War 2 movie where the Germans had a stronghold in the Mediterranean Sea. Embedded in the mountain side, dominating the area, they had massive gun emplacements that meant the area was a no go zone for all Allied shipping. The stronghold was impregnable by land, unassailable by air and any ships that attempted to get near would be blown to bits by the gun emplacements.

Cue our heroes being sent in to infiltrate the island, penetrate the stronghold and blow up the guns. In the middle, we have intrigue amongst a varied cast of characters.

This is one of the all time classic war movies and I’d heartily recommend it.

One thing about the book and film though, I haven’t read the book for a while but I remember it diverging from the movie in significant ways. And then the book that follows, Force 10 From Navarone, follows the story of the movie instead of the book.

Oh – I left the price on the book …. I acquired this one as a second hand book for 50p. That was actually more than the cost on the back ! Of all the items that have massively inflated in price, books are among the most significant. This book has a tag of 40p on the back. It was printed in April 1974 (written in something like 1957). I can’t believe that it costs that much more to print a book now. Yet this book would cost £8 now. (Or £4 on Kindle). That’s a 20x increase !

Crikey.

Next up, we see Firefox by Craig Thomas.

The movie was a Clint Eastwood star vehicle and the start of the book sums up the plot pretty well. It unfolds as a series of intelligence memos reporting that Russia have developed a new fighter of unprecedented speed and deadly weaponry. But what really sets it apart is that it is invisible to radar.

The book and the movie follow each other quite well here and they remind you of what things were like in Eastern Europe near the end of the 20th century before the walls came down.

I’d heartily recommend this book as well. And I’d point you to its successor as well. This one was followed by Firefox Down which I enjoyed as well. But I’m not going to say anything about that because …. spoilers.

That brings me to … Star Trek Nemesis.

This film killed Star Trek. Or at least it did until the reboot movies started up. Star Trek Enterprise was still going … but didn’t last long after Nemesis despite improving considerably in its final season.

This is a Star Trek movie with very few redeeming features. It’s very grim, dark, non Star Trek. It was very brave of them to go in this direction, perhaps beyond brave and into foolish.

The book is better than the film, it explains what’s going on better and there is a minimum of humour included.

But it’s a disastrous story from start to finish.

It’s like – with most franchises, especially Star Trek, I’d recommend you watch all of it, even if just to experience it. But not Nemesis. Avoid this one like the plague.

(PS All that said, this book was another present from a friend which I enjoyed and definitely appreciated it when it was received …. and then the movie happened)

More tomorrow !