Black Manta...

...now here's a guy who really has to pay his minions. Most Gotham City villains just need crooks willing to dress up in a ridiculous costume. Black Manta needs SCUBA-certified experts.

Now that I think about it, Blackwater USA (or Xe as it's now known) is owned and run by a former Navy SEAL and hires an awful lot of ex-Special Forces types.

Which can only mean that Erik Prince is really Black Manta!

...in...blackface? whiteface? I dunno, just let me have my dreams, damn you!


"One year later, [Black Manta] took over Sub Diego but was forced to flee when King Shark bit off his face."
Tom

p.s. Now I want to run an occult game in which the occult knowledge is the fact that superheroes/supervillains are real.

Black Manta...

...now here's a guy who really has to pay his minions. Most Gotham City villains just need crooks willing to dress up in a ridiculous costume. Black Manta needs SCUBA-certified experts.

Now that I think about it, Blackwater USA (or Xe as it's now known) is owned and run by a former Navy SEAL and hires an awful lot of ex-Special Forces types.

Which can only mean that Erik Prince is really Black Manta!

...in...blackface? whiteface? I dunno, just let me have my dreams, damn you!


"One year later, [Black Manta] took over Sub Diego but was forced to flee when King Shark bit off his face."
Tom

p.s. Now I want to run an occult game in which the occult knowledge is the fact that superheroes/supervillains are real.

Dragonfly Review

Hi,

So yesterday I blazed through Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is the second in the series that started with Empire in Black and Gold which I reviewed last year (in August…huh).

The central conceit of this series is that everyone has a mystical connection to a certain type of insect and gains powers from that association. So Ant-kindren are telepathic for example. The other big divider is that some people are “Apt”, they can use and understand technology while other people are “Inapt” and can’t (although the Inapt can use magic which the Apt cannot). The Apt used to be slaves of the Inapt, but eventually threw them off and now have a thriving steampunk technology system setup.

But this series is mostly concerned about the expansion of the Wasp Empire and the efforts of a small group of Lowlanders who hope to unite the various city-states to stop them.

If the last book focused heavily on individual combats, the theme for this book is war and siege warfare in particular. The author does a good job considering the ramifications of various kindred powers in warfare and their interactions with the various technical marvels that have been developed.

The book has story threads running all over the place and does a good job of shifting from one place to the next, but it sort of squeezes some of the character development (because there are more characters and less time to cover it in). And yet, there are characters who make some interesting and surprising choices so while the action took precedence, it was well supported with people who were fun to read about in their own right.

As you might expect, the book ends with a fair amount being resolved, but lots of larger issues left dangling for future books. My hope is that they wind up this particular series in 3 books, but the setting is extremely compelling and original so I won’t be sorry to see a few more books set here.

Later
Tom

Dragonfly Review

Hi,

So yesterday I blazed through Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is the second in the series that started with Empire in Black and Gold which I reviewed last year (in August…huh).

The central conceit of this series is that everyone has a mystical connection to a certain type of insect and gains powers from that association. So Ant-kindren are telepathic for example. The other big divider is that some people are “Apt”, they can use and understand technology while other people are “Inapt” and can’t (although the Inapt can use magic which the Apt cannot). The Apt used to be slaves of the Inapt, but eventually threw them off and now have a thriving steampunk technology system setup.

But this series is mostly concerned about the expansion of the Wasp Empire and the efforts of a small group of Lowlanders who hope to unite the various city-states to stop them.

If the last book focused heavily on individual combats, the theme for this book is war and siege warfare in particular. The author does a good job considering the ramifications of various kindred powers in warfare and their interactions with the various technical marvels that have been developed.

The book has story threads running all over the place and does a good job of shifting from one place to the next, but it sort of squeezes some of the character development (because there are more characters and less time to cover it in). And yet, there are characters who make some interesting and surprising choices so while the action took precedence, it was well supported with people who were fun to read about in their own right.

As you might expect, the book ends with a fair amount being resolved, but lots of larger issues left dangling for future books. My hope is that they wind up this particular series in 3 books, but the setting is extremely compelling and original so I won’t be sorry to see a few more books set here.

Later
Tom