Read All the Things #6 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Number six is about a little book called; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.  An interesting read to say the least (so I will say some more!)

Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth, where many have fled to Mars and other colonies, a bounty hunter sets out on his first hunt.  Bounty hunters are police agents who track illegal androids.  These are near-human, biological and smarter, androids defecting their servitude to humans.  They only lack the ability to breed, live long or have empathy.  There are also 'specials', radiated humans who lack the IQ to emigrate.

The story calls into question some very intriguing, and frightening, concepts.  Since the only way to test a live person is to test their empathy, what if a human fails?  Do the sentient 'andys' have rights or are they less valuable than the nearly extinct animals who are held sacred by the survivors?  Would you pass an empathy test?

This book receives 9 strips of bacon, with feta fondue.

This book fits into the World of Damnation easily.  Simulants who 'go rogue' would be hunted by police funded bounty hunters. It is also an interesting look at life outside the Cities, in the dust-ridden ruins occupied by specials...

Read All The Things #5 - Cowbow Ninja Viking

One can likely tell from the title that this book is fun.  Our protagonist, the cowboy ninja viking, has a very severe case of multiple personalities.  Our 'hero' faces many challenges being a triplet, and the subject of military experimentation to create a better warrior.  He reunites with some other triplets, his ex, some antagonists and some allies.  This graphic novel is packed with crazy...

Cowboy Ninja Viking gets 8 strips of bacon on the scale.

Which brings us to the triplet subrace.  DNA and Interzone would likely experiment in this type of field, likely at the cost of the subject's sanity.

Triplet (Subrace) - World of Damnation

-The victim's warrior, mage and priest sources are not restricted by level type.  A triplet can choose a warrior, mage or priest source instead of the level type.  The victim's cyber source is unaffected.  (The victim may have three warrior sources for example.)

Restricted - Human only.

Madness - +2 madness points.

Read All The Things 4 - The Jesus Incident

Ship.

Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom tell the story of Ship and its Shipmen.  Ship has only one demand: that the Shipmen learn how to WorShip.

Perhaps I'm going a bit fast, lets start at the beginning.  A voidship, Earthling, is built on the moon and loaded with clones and launched to find a habitable planet and colonize.  Earthling is a supercomputer, and after centuries of traversing the void and finding no compatible planets, becomes sentient with the aid of the scientist-crew.  Eventually it begins to think it is a god.  Earthling becomes Ship, an omnipotent technological being.

Ship travels for aeons, rescuing humans from Earth (or possibly Earths) and finds Pandora.  Pandora is a planet mostly covered by man-eating monsters, water and sentient kelp.  Ship wakes up one of the scientists from its apotheosis and informs him that Ship will terminate the human race unless they learn how to WorShip.  That is when human nature takes over and the story begins.

The Jesus Incident is an awesome novel.  It is cerebral and intriguing with a fair share of violence and high-tech.  One the scale, this book receives nine strips of bacon and a small cheese platter.

There are a couple of campain ideas in there, like colonization or a revolt within one.  The megalomania of an artificial intelligence can be based upon Ship, in transit or colonizing, and would make a most challenging opponent.  Also, the cloning practices (and results) of Lab One are interesting (starting level mutation points with an equal amount of flaws).  The 'kelp is too vast for rules or guidelines, but the hybrids would get a few bonuses (knowledge points, telepathy and telekinesis, negative Stm).

Read All The Things #3 - Armada

RATT#3 is about Robots!  Transformers: Armada has a ton of robots, big ones and little ones, and they all transform (of course).  The omnibus contains issues 1-18, with storylines by Chris Sarracini and Simon Furman and some awe-inspiring artists.  Armada is not from the standard/G-1 universe, and the bot-designs are more modern and dynamic with a slight manga feel.  For all its differences, Armada still feels like a solid and complete setting.

The first storyline is about the minicons, small transformers the size of people (but they live on Cybertron).  Megatron figures out how to weaponize the little guys and begins to build a collection.  The obvious intent is to destroy the Autobots and rule the galaxy, he is Megatron after all.

Then Galvatron shows up, with his sweeps, straight out of another universe with Unicron on his heels.  Seems the big planetbot is galaxy jumping, eating all the Earths and Cybertrons.  Then we get to watch Megatron fight Galvatron.  Epic.

Armada has robots, lots of smashing, great storyline, and amazing art in full-colour.  On the Bacon Scale, Armada receives 7 generous strips of bacon.

Until next round...

Read All The Things #2: The Red Duke

The Bacon Scale is back, this time with a Black Library tale.  The Red Duke, by C.L. Werner, is set in Bretonnia with all the fluffy ribbons and dirty peasantry that entails.  The stories revolve around the Duke (a vampire if you hadn't guessed yet) in both his pasts and present, with the narrative jumping back and forth with few reference points.

This might sound confusing, and it should.

 

The Red Duke is quite insane you see, having been locked in a tomb for 500 years after being defeated in battle, and his mind keeps falling back into his memories.  It all makes you pity the necromancer, the only living servant, who has to deal with a hallucinating vampire. 

There's a lot of knightly stuff, being set in Bretonnia, and peasant oppressing.  And a decent feud...

Overall, The Red Duke gets 6 strips of bacon and some cheese (cheddar).

Until next round...

Read All The Things #1 - Akira 1

I would like to introduce a new element to this blog, which I admit is a long time coming; reviews of the books I read.  nWo is often influenced by a good book, and I might add some of those thoughts in here too.  At the end will be a rating scale, based on increments of bacon.  Ok, on with it....

I would like to present: Akira, vol 1 - Tesuo, by Katshiro Otomo.

This is the beginning of the much-famed Akira series.  I've seen the movie, multiple times, but that was a few years ago so I'm almost reading it fresh.  The first volume introduces Tetsuo, Kaneda and Kei.  After an encounter with a weird 'kid' Tetsuo gets head-explody and takes over the biker/clown-gang.  Hell breaks loose, and there's a fair bit of bloodshed and sewer-crawling.

Neo-Tokyo has some strong influence on the World of Damnation, specifically the City of Tokyo and its biker gangs.  The Olympic site is interesting, but due to the time-frame difference (Neo-Tokyo is during War/early Ice), it would be like a dungeon-crawl to get to that depth.

On the scale, Akira vol 1 gets 8 strips of bacon (out of ten).  Until next round.