Life, but not as we know it (1)

Following on from the mention of Discworld in the last post but one, and all the talk of the scope of fiction, here's the first of a series on especially unusual fictional lifeforms.

This one's from Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, possibly one of the first places you'd expect to find something out of the ordinary (except maybe The BFG..?). I'm a latecomer to Pratchett, and for many years was a bit closed-minded about the Discworld series. Now I realise what I've been losing, with the earlier books at least. It's good, unexpectedly old-fashioned fun, unpretentious. Pratchett's one of us. What I like most is the way we're given idea after deep idea seemingly only as a catalyst for the jokes.

Ecumenical Monday

Interesting departure today, getting away from everything from the God-Emperor of Dune to small gods, every kind of religion in fiction in fact. With a slight humanist angle possibly detected in the last post - and presumably secular humanism, unlikely if so - I thought you might appreciate a couple of links on religion informing fiction.

A couple of days ago I mentioned the zen of modelling re the latest Ork in the series, and we're all aware of the Christian influence on fantasy set in Middle-earth and Narnia, but how many of us know anything about Jewish fantasy or Islamic SF? Didn't think so. Then that seems like a reasonable place to start. Time for a revelation or two perhaps?

Thanks to Bibliophile Stalker for the second link, and possibly the first indirectly.

Viva la revolución!

Happy new Gregorian calendar year! Here's to another orbit of the sun, more or less!

If you want gaming inspiration for 2011, you might start with the personal summaries of games played - or not - at Creepy Corridor, Fire Broadside!, ArmChairGeneral, Plastic Legions, Super Galactic Dreadnought and Mik's Minis, all of which cover various options.

Need your lists of bests? Lazy Thoughts From a Boomer has best bits in blogs, books and movies. Asking the Wrong Questions has opinions I trust on best and worst books, while shadowplay does movies that appeared only in alternate universes...

Papa JJ at diceRolla has something similar, a list unpublished posts. This seems to me dangerously like the approach Zanazaz took at Have dice, will travel... re iron spikes...

Resolutions abound, but the reading list at Huge Ruined Pile is a huge ambitious pile. If that helps put you in your place in time, see Slight Foxing for your place in existence.

Finally, there may or may not be an actual arrow of time, but there is an Arrow of Time at Tower of the Archmage. Impeccable timing.

With Earth history moving on, I thought you might also appreciate a few speculative timelines, elements of histories and/or info on calendars. Here they are then, by scope.

Compliments, complements, earth and Mars (2)

Here be musings inspired by the earthy and unearthly landscapes a few posts back.

You might have noticed that Ork miniatures are often shown by Games Workshop on an orange-brown desert landscape and have matching bases. A lot of players seem to do the same. I've always assumed it's because of Gorkamorka, a great game in which Orks fought for scrap on a remote planet after the space hulk they were travelling on crashed. It was a desert world and if I remember rightly, the colour change was first seen then.

Of course, colour theory may have played a part too. Colours opposite each other on the colour wheel are called complementary colours and these provide great contrast for each other. Orks have green skin, which means they will naturally look better on certain backgrounds, tending towards the red. Who says GW isn't smart? When it comes to design they know what they're doing. You can easily apply the same thinking, whatever the dominant colour on a given miniature. Unless the colour is octarine perhaps...

I was reminded of all of this recently by a discussion at diceRolla on a Raptors test model. The update in the next post and something seen at A Gentlemen's Ones then set me thinking more deeply about miniatures, landscape and roleplaying. I saw that rather than the base being an extension of the miniature and a link with the tabletop, the miniature is actually an extension of the base, and the base is a part of the game world.

This is definitely a subject big enough for the next part of 'When lives co-world'. It'll be along just as soon as I condense my thoughts. If you have any, I'd love to hear them.