The Wertzone

The Wheel of Time So Far: Part 1 - The Age of Legends and before

2012-01-29T13:56:00.014Z

A Memory of Light, the fourteenth and final novel in the Wheel of Time sequence, is currently scheduled for publication in November this year. As with The Crippled God and A Dance with Dragons, fans are debating whether to undertake re-reads of the entire series before the final book comes out. As I did for A Song of Ice and Fire, here is my attempt at a 'story so far' to help jog people's memories (or act as summaries for those who don't want to endure the third-quarter slump the series suffers through). This is a much bigger project than the ASoIaF catch-up and may take a lot longer to get through, so bear with me on this :-)

Obviously, there will be huge spoilers throughout for books in the series if you haven't read them.

The Wheel and the Power
Time is said to be a wheel with seven spokes, each spoke representing one of the great Ages of history. The Wheel of Time weaves the tapestry of history out of the fabric of people's lives, each person's life being a thread in the pattern. The energy that drives the Wheel is the One Power, drawn from the True Source. This energy is divided into two halves: saidar, which only women can use, and saidin, which only men can use. The Wheel, the universe and all of creation were forged by a being known as the Creator and opposed by a being known as Shai'tan, the Dark One. At the Moment of Creation, the Creator imprisoned the Dark One within a prison of energy, there to remain bound for all time.

A Portal Stone, an artifact of the Age before the Age of Legends.

The First Age
Rand al'Thor's struggle against the Dark One takes place at the end of the Third Age, the Age of Prophecy, but the seeds for that struggle were laid many thousands of years earlier, in the First Age.

In the First Age, humanity discovered the ability to channel the One Power, that is to use the energy that drives time itself to conjure fire from the air, to heal all injuries short of death and perform other apparently supernatural feats. According to myth, the person who discovered the Power was called Tamyrlin. Others later also developed the ability to wield the One Power. These early channellers created devices - Portal Stones - that could allow them to travel to parallel worlds or vast distances in the 'real' one, as well as creating glass columns that could show images of the distant past or future.

Few hard facts about the First Age are known. Most information from this time comes in the form of obscure myths and legends, but what they mean is unclear. Popular stories tell of Lenn, who flew to the moon in an eagle made of fire, and his daughter Salya who travelled amongst the stars. Another legend refers to a great global confrontation between Mosk, a giant who possessed a lance of fire that could reach around the world, and his rival Merk. Mosk also warred with Alsbet, the Queen of All. Stories also speak of Materese the Healer, Mother of the Wondrous Ind. Some items from the First Age are also alleged to still exist, some in the museum in the Panarch's Palace of Tanchico. Amongst these are a frieze showing an animal with an incredibly long neck, now thought to be extinct, and a strange three-pronged symbol that apparently was once a sign for hubris and pride.

An artifact of the mythical First Age, currently on display in the Panarch's Palace of Tanchico. Private viewings can be arranged for modest remuneration to the Panarch's office.

When and how the First Age ended is unclear, except that it seems to have accompanied the banding together of the channellers of the One Power into an organisation known as the Servants of All, Aes Sedai in the Old Tongue. It appears that the First Age ended in some kind of catastrophe, as knowledge of the the workings of the Portal Stones and much other information about this Age was subsequently lost.

The ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends.

The Age of Legends
The Second Age, the Age of Legends, lasted for many thousands of years and was an unusually long period of prosperity and peace. Mankind used the One Power to eliminate war, poverty, hunger, disease and crime. The Aes Sedai guided humanity but did not rule it. Instead, a world parliament made up of elected officials guided the world through this golden age of peace, meeting in the great city of Paaran Disen. Scientific research and artistic endeavours were the main motivations pursued by people at this time.

The Aes Sedai were powerful and prevalent. Only three in a hundred people were born with the ability to channel, but channellers could live for in excess of seven hundred years (thrice the length of a non-channeller at this time), so were more commonplace than their low birth rate would suggest. Aes Sedai carried out great scientific works, led research projects into new uses of the Power and were great healers and advisors to the world parliament.

Technology and knowledge of the Power developed together, although even at the height of the Age the Aes Sedai were still unable to replicate the powers shown at the end of the First Age (they still could not replicate the Portal Stones or fully understand their workings). However, they were able to create great aircraft that could cross the oceans, sho-wings, and personal hovering vehicles known as hoverflies, jumpers and jo-cars. The Aes Sedai had other methods of crossing vast distances, such as Travelling, a form of the Power that allowed portals to be opened directly from anywhere on Earth to anywhere else. Technology even extended into the areas of entertainment - three-dimensional images were projected straight into people's homes - and clothing, with the creation of streith, a fabric that could shift colour and size depending on the wearer's mood.

The Aes Sedai also had the power to change human behaviour. Criminal and violent tendencies were identified early on and 'edited' out using a method of mental manipulation called 'Compulsion' (widely-used at the time, but long since banned in the Third Age). As a result crime was almost completely eliminated. Combined with bountiful resources, there was no longer any reason for war or conflict, and the terms became obscure, only known to historians.

The Aes Sedai also assisted in manipulation of the natural world. Using powerful ter'angreal - devices that could harness the One Power towards specific goals - Aes Sedai were able to change weather patterns across large areas. Using dozens of weather control ter'angreal, Aes Sedai could shift weather patterns over whole continents. They could bring rain to areas affected by drought, helping in the growing of crops.

Of the great cities, Paaran Disen was the largest and most influential, the seat of the world parliament and the Hall of the Servants, the base of operations of the Aes Sedai. One of the other notable cities of this time was V'saine, a university town whose dominant college, the Collam Daan, was recognised as the leading institution in the research of the One Power. To show their mastery of both the Power and mundane science, the heads of the Collam Daan commissioned the building of a new research laboratory, called the Sharom. This took the form of a vast metallic sphere, floating a thousand feet above the rest of the Collam Daan on anti-gravity fields. The most advanced, high-energy experiments into the nature of the One Power and the True Source were carried out here.

An Ogier.

The Aes Sedai also undertook research into the Portal Stones of the First Age. Exploring the worlds reached through these Stones, the Aes Sedai discovered unusual races and odd parallel universes with differing laws of physics, or where human life did not exist at all. Around this time a race of nonhuman beings known as the Ogier appeared on Earth. Some conjecture that they came from one of these Portal Stone worlds. The Ogier, studious and peaceful, dwelt in harmony with nature in groves of peace and tranquillity called stedding. The Aes Sedai themselves experimented with creating nonhuman intelligences, eventually crafting a race of beings known as the Nym. The Nym were huge, towering creatures made of living matter who enjoyed an inherent connection to nature. The Ogier, the Nym and some humans could together
manipulate the elements in a method called 'seed singing', conjuring the maximum growth possible from fields or plants. The Aes Sedai seem to have retreated from the idea of creating other races themselves, but at least some seem to have pursued theoretical research into the idea further.

The Age was one of peace and calm, but on a personal level people still got angry, and occasional fights and violence took place (although almost never escalating to dangerous levels thanks to intervention). One group of people rejected even this minor display of aggression and dedicated themselves to a philosophy of total peace and pacifism known as the Way of the Leaf. This group named itself the Da'shain Aiel and gave themselves over to the service of others. Many became assistants and aides to the Aes Sedai. Others became seed singers (the Da'shain showed a great affinity towards both the Nym and Ogier). All only wanted to live in peace and harmony with others.

As a convention, most people in the world were born with two names (an identifying name and a family one). However, a third name could be added in return for achieving great things in a person's chosen field. One of the more common failings of this Age was that some individuals became obsessed with gaining a third name, and thus showing that they enjoyed the respect and admiration of their peers. As the Age continued and greater advancements in science, technology and the Power were made, so the opportunities for achieving a third name dwindled, and some individuals fell to pride and ambition in trying to achieve this goal.

Mierin Eronaile, better-known to history as Lanfear.

Creating the Bore
Mierin Eronaile was a talented individual, said to be one of the most skilled researchers and scientists looking into the very make-up of the One Power. She was also formidably gifted in the Power herself, possibly the most powerful channeller of saidin in the world. Yet her skills had not earned her the respect necessary to be given a third name. A dalliance with Lews Therin Telamon, the First Among Equals (the leader/chairperson of the Aes Sedai) which ended badly, further angered Eronaile. When Lews Therin took up with Ilyena Moerelle Dalisar and later married her, Eronaile was filled an unreasoning hatred towards the other woman.

Eronaile threw herself into her work. Along with another Aes Sedai, a man called Beidomon, she uncovered evidence of the existence of a previously unknown source of energy, similar to the One Power but not divided into male and female halves. Using this energy she believed humanity could achieve things far beyond the capabilities of even the One Power. Confident in her own abilities, she undertook an experiment at the Sharom in V'saine. This was a brute force procedure, blasting a tunnel or bore straight into this untapped energy source where it could be studied in more detail.

The project was a catastrophic failure. The backblast from the creation of the Bore consumed and obliterated the Sharom, sending the huge structure crashing down onto the Collam Daan, destroying it utterly. Dark energy spilled forth from the Sharom, causing the skies to go black. Thousands died. It was one of the greatest disasters of the Age of Legends. Beidomon and Mierine Eronaile had survived thanks to safety precautions put in place before the experiment, but the disaster affected them in very different ways. Beidomon, horror-stricken (especially once the true outcome of the experiment was known), eventually committed suicide. Eronaile's failure seemed to fuel her anger and resentment against the rest of the world, especially Lews Therin and his wife, and she became consumed with winning him back and embarrassing her rival, Ilyena.

The disaster was horrific, but ultimately would have been dismissed as a one-off incident. Unknown to anyone at the time, it had far-reaching consequences which would take some time to become clear.

The Collapse
It is unclear exactly how the downfall of the Age of Legends first manifested itself. According to some reports, sports which had previously been safe thanks to safety precautions suddenly became dangerous, even lethal. Sportsmen who enjoyed the game of 'swords' removed such safety precautions and displayed their injuries and scars with pride. Bizarrely, some refused Aes Sedai Healing even to the point of death.

Crimes gradually went from rare, abnormal events to becoming increasingly common. Riots, outbreaks of mass public disorder and random destruction of property started taking place. The normal responses - medical intervention, use of Compulsion and so on - proved ineffective. As the years passed these outbreaks of chaos became commonplace. Some cities became havens of illegal behaviour and chaos.

The world parliament proved unable to deal with the situation. They looked into various solutions but none presented itself. To investigate, they called upon the foremost experts in the world to study the phenomenon and find a cause. Elan Morin Tedronai, the world's foremost philosopher, postulated that humanity's darker sides, having been held in check for millennia, had suddenly been unleashed in an outpouring of rage, blood and chaos. He began investigating the triggering mechanism and quickly noted that the destruction of the Sharom and the Collam Daan had taken place close to the first reported outbreak of violence. However, nothing at the site suggested a connection.

Ultimately, he discovered that a remote volcanic island in the northern ocean had become uninhabitable following the events at V'saine. Travelling there, in the heart of a tall volcano, he found a 'thinning' in the fabric of reality separating the material world from a prison forged of the One Power itself. This prison contained an entity identifying itself as Shai'tan, the Great Lord. This entity was the source of the undivided energy that Mierine Eronaile had discovered. This being, known to history as the Dark One, told Elan Morin that the experiment at V'saine had blasted a hole into its prison, through which its influence was seeping into the world. It was not enough to allow it to escape its prison, but was a start. The entity's knowledge was immense and it granted Elan Morin the use of the True Power, its own equivalent to the One Power. Elan Morin's hunger for knowledge and power provided the Dark One with a way of corrupting him and turning him to its cause.

Eventually, Elan Morin revealed the existence of the Dark One to the world at large. Millions of ordinary people swore themselves to its cause, becoming known as the Friends of the Dark. Channellers also flocked to its banner, becoming known as Dreadlords for their ability to unleash vast destructive energies in its service. The Dark One granted twenty-nine of the Dreadlords the ability to use the True Power, naming them its 'Chosen'. Elan Morin, cursed by the people as Ishamael, the 'Betrayer of Hope', was the first and greatest of these. Other great figures also swore themselves to the Dark One's service, such as the geneticist Ishar Morrad Chuain (Aginor), the psychologist Karamile Maradim Nindar (Graendal)...and the scientist Mierin Eronaile, who was given the name Lanfear or 'Daughter of Night'. The Chosen, once their existence became known to the world at large, became more popularly known as the Forsaken.

The world parliament was forced to respond. Lews Therin Telamon, the First Among Equals of the Aes Sedai, was given emergency powers to respond to the threat. He began using the Power and the science of the Age to forge weapons and began training armies to defend humanity from the Dark One. His ultimate goal was to find a way of re-sealing the Dark One's prison completely, shutting away its evil influence from the world. Before he was ready, the Dark One's minions struck.

A Myrddraal leading Trollocs into battle.

The War of the Shadow
The War of the Shadow began almost exactly one hundred years after the disaster as V'saine. The Dark One's minions made an attempt to breach its prison completely and release it into the world. Lews Therin's forces tried to stop them. For the first time in millennia, a battle was fought. This battle escalated into open, all-out conflict. The War of the Shadow, the War of Power, began.

Lews Therin and his forces were caught on the back-foot by the revelation that the Friends of the Dark had been breeding, in secret and for decades, monstrous creatures in the service of the Dark One. Aginor, a great genetic engineer, had blended animal and human stocks to create hideous creatures known as Trollocs. They bred profusely, ate anything (but preferred human flesh) and were ferocious, though it has to be said also somewhat stupid. To Aginor's own surprise, a small number of other creatures emerged from the vats used to create Trollocs. These beings were humanoid with no sign of their animal heritage, but had no eyes. They could also move from place to place through shadows and were much stronger than humans. Aginor himself did not understand how these creatures, the Myrddraal (also called Fades or Eyeless), came into being, though some theorised they were formed when channellers were added to the stock used to create them. Others suspected the direct intervention of the Dark One using its limited influence: Myrddraal are arguably the most fanatical servants of the Shadow, even moreso than the Forsaken themselves. Other forms of 'Shadowspawn also appeared, such as Grey Men (assassins able to blend in with their surroundings), Draghkar (winged humanoids capable of sucking out people's souls), Darkhounds (ferocious animals), gholams (shapeshifting creatures immune to the One Power) and jumara (hideous worm-like creatures, believed to be capable of transforming into a more threatening form).

Vast armies of Trollocs, led by Dreadlords and Myrddraal, fell upon the human armies under Lews Therin's leadership, scattering them. Lews Therin tried to rally his followers but faced insurmountable opposition. The Shadow enjoyed victory after victory for three years, with its eventual success apparently becoming inevitable. The Light was stunned by the defection of several senior generals - including Lews Therin's friends Barid Bel Medar (Demandred) and Tel Janin Aellinsar (Sammael) - to the Shadow, as they wished to join the winning side.

At this point, Lews Therin suddenly unleashed new strategies and new tactics. What these were is unknown, but it is reported that the Ogier - albeit reluctantly - entered the war on the side of the Light. It may be that the Ogier's arrival and their superior strength and discipline served as a counterweight to the intervention of the numerically superior Trollocs and other forms of 'Shadowspawn'. However, it may also be that the Shadow had grown overconfident and lazy, relying on superior numbers to win every engagement, allowing the Light to exploit their weaknesses to achieve success. The Light won the upper hand and reversed the Shadow's onslaught for four years in a row, achieving tremendous successes. Lews Therin became known as 'the Lord of the Morning' and 'the Dragon' for his impressive victories.

In the eighth year of the war, the Shadow responded once more and ground Lews Therin's forces down to a stalemate. Anxious to find a way of breaking the stalemate, one of the sides (history does not record which) found a form of the One Power called balefire. Using this ferocious weapon, both sides blasted entire cities out of existence, killing millions. Balefire not only utterly destroyed whatever it touched, it also erased them backwards in time for short periouds. The unrestrained use of balefire by both sides for a year created innumerable temporal paradoxes, threatening causality and reality itself with dissolution. With no formal truce or discussion between the two sides, all use of balefire was suspended before the end of the year.

The Strike at Shayol Ghul
At the beginning of the ninth year of the war, the Shadow gained a strategic advantage that became unstoppable. Millions and millions of people in the service of the Light had been slaughtered, and could not be replaced easily. On the other hand, Shadowspawn could be bred almost as fast as they were slaughtered. The balance of power tilted back in favour of the Shadow, and this time could not be countered.

In the Hall of the Servants, Lews Therin proposed a bold stroke. He would lead the remaining Aes Sedai in a single, massive assault on Shayol Ghul, the volcano which served as the Earthly link to the Dark One's prison. There he would use seven powerful ter'angreal known as the Seals to collapse the Bore and repair the Dark One's prison. This plan was rejected by Latra Posae Decume, the leader of an ajah (a temporary political faction among the Aes Sedai) known as the Fateful Concord. Decume believed that the seals could be used to destroy the Dark One's prison, and could facilitated its escape into the world. She counter-proposed the creation of the two most powerful sa'angreal (devices which increased the amount of the Power that could be used by an individual exponentially) in history, the Choedan Kal. These would be used to seal Shayol Ghul away from the rest of the world, ending the Dark One's influence and giving the Light time to work on a safer method of sealing the prison permanantly.

The two sides were deadlocked, so it was decided to proceed with preperations for both plans simultaneously. Unfortunately, armies of the Shadow overran the area where the 'access keys' for the Choedan Kal were being created, and these were lost. Lews Therin moved to proceed with his plan, but Latra Posae and her followers refused to take part. Lews Therin and the 113 most powerful Aes Sedai sworn to his service - all men for reasons not entirely clear - chose to undertake the attack anyway.

The Dragon and the Hundred Companions launched their assault on Shayol Ghul, Travelling there with ten thousand regular human troops. Battle was joined. By great fortune, the thirteen most powerful of the surviving Forsaken were found to be at Shayol Ghul at the time of the attack. In a ferocious battle Lews Therin successfully placed the Seven Seals on the Dark One's prison, creating an imperfect patch across the Bore, but enough to re-seal the prison. The Forsaken present, bound to the Dark One by ties of the True Power, were drawn into the prison and sealed away as well. The exception was Ishamael, who managed to avoid being permanantly drawn into the prison. Instead, he was partially bound and was able to escape for periods of forty years or so every few centuries.

At the moment of victory, triumph turned to disaster. The Dark One's counterstroke tainted saidin, placing a rotting curse upon the male half of the True Source. Every male Aes Sedai present went insane on the instant, unleashing maddened, uncontrolled eruptions of the One Power. This radiated out across the world, ultimately affecting every male chaneller over the course of months.

Lews Therin Telamon after being driven insane by the Dark One.

Lews Therin, crazed as his fellows were, Travelled back to his home in Paaran Disen. In his maddened state he slew his wife and his children, his servants and friends, leaving his palace in smouldering ruins. Ishamael appeared and taunted Lews Therin, using the True Power to Heal his madness and reveal what he had done. Traumatised by this revelation, Lews Therin Travelled to a remote part of the world and there channelled more of the Power than he could safely handle, immolating himself in a funeral pyre. As he died, an immense mountain pulled itself out of the ground around his grave, a mountain that became known as the Dragonmount.

The War of the Shadow had been won, but at tremendous cost. The high technology and learning of the Age of Legends was lost in the chaos and tumults of the years that followed. Hundreds of millions were killed as the male Aes Sedai continued to unleash random, uncontrolled eruptions of the One Power. Entire continents sank beneath the waves, mountain ranges were levelled, and others pulled themselves out of the ground. Almost every trace of the world before was lost in a period that became known as the Breaking of the World.

Next up: the Breaking, the exodus of the Da'shain Aiel and the re-establishing of civilisation.

New cover art: Kemp, Martin, King

2012-01-29T12:39:00.004Z

Some upcoming cover art:

Gollancz in the UK are reissuing their George R.R. Martin books in new covers. Neither The Armageddon Rag nor Tuf Voyaging have been available in UK editions for well over twenty years. Incidentally, the Eye of Sauron is on the cover of The Armageddon Rag as it's about a rock band called the Nazgul.

Meanwhile, the UK paperback editions of A Dance with Dragons launch in late March. Incidentally, this leaves the UK paperback sequence of A Song of Ice and Fire now listed as:

A Game of Thrones: Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Clash of Kings: Book Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Steel and Snow: Book Three Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Blood and Gold: Book Three Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Feast for Crows: Book Four of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - Dreams and Dust: Book Five Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - After the Feast: Book Five Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire

Seems a bit unwieldy. I think Voyager need to find a way of getting ASoS and ADWD in one paperback volume apiece. If much larger books in the UK can be published as one volume (Hamilton's The Naked God, several of Diana Gabaldon's novels, most things by James Clavell), then so can these.

Meanwhile, there's the first non-tie-in, original novel by Paul S. Kemp, The Hammer and the Blade: Tales of Egil and Nix, on its way from Angry Robot Books in July.

Finally, Stephen King's Dark Tower sequence is getting a new lick of paint for its UK editions. These should be percolating onto shelves in the near future.

New Malazan reading order

2012-01-29T12:05:00.005Z

Following the publication of Orb Sceptre Throne, it's now possible to work out a new reading order for the books to best account for the information given by both authors. This list is not the chronological order of the novels, which would likely be very confusing, but a 'best' reading list accounting for publication and chronological orders:

Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains
Midnight Tides
Night of Knives*
The Bonehunters
Return of the Crimson Guard**
Reaper's Gale
Toll the Hounds***
Stonewielder
Orb Sceptre Throne****
Dust of Dreams
The Crippled God

* Night of Knives introduces several characters who play a role in The Bonehunters.
** Return of the Crimson Guard picks up shortly after The Bonehunters, whilst Reaper's Gale tells us explicitly that a year has passed since the events of TBH.
*** According to dialogue, Toll the Hounds takes place six years after Memories of Ice. According to every other piece of information in the whole series, this is flat-out impossible, and needs to be ignored. Orb Sceptre Throne retcons it to about two years after MoI. The presence of a child born after MoI who is five years old in TTH also has to be ignored.
**** According to dialogue and various events, Orb Sceptre Throne takes place before the conclusion of the Dust of Dreams/Crippled God duology.

Orb Sceptre Throne by Ian Cameron Esslemont

2012-01-22T15:58:00.003Z

With the Pannion Seer defeated, the Jaghut Tyrant Raest imprisoned and peace declared with the Malazans, the beleaguered citizens of Darujhistan are finally hoping for a time of peace and prosperity. Of course, this is the perfect time for an ancient force of unspeakable evil to escape from the barrows outside the city and unleash a new age of chaos and war across most of Genabackis. This war will draw in the Moranth and the Seguleh, the Rhivi and the remnants of the Malazan armies still stationed on the continent. Far to the south, treasure hunters are looting the crashed ruins of Moon's Spawn, searching for the storied Throne of Night, whilst in another realm hunters are searching for the missing High Mage Tayschrenn at the very Shores of Creation. But the fate of Darujhistan, Genabackis and maybe the world will rest in the hands of one fat thief and a bunch of Malazan deserters who want nothing more than to run their pub in peace.

Orb Sceptre Throne is Ian Cameron Esslemont's fourth entry into the Malazan world, expanding on the novels written by his friend and collaborator Steven Erikson. It's an interesting book in that, unlike Esslemont's previous novels which largely focused on new characters, this novel extensively features characters Erikson has used and developed in several previous books, most notably the curiously-dictioned Kruppe. This poses challenges for Esslemont, but thankfully he overcomes them with aplomb. Kruppe occasionally feels a bit off, but most of the other shared characters (Caladan Brood, Duiker, the ex-Bridgeburners, Torvald and Rallick Nom and more) come across very well.

The narrative is, as is typical with Malazan, somewhat disjointed, with several apparently unconnected storylines unfolding before converging at the end. This disconnect seems more pronounced than is normal for Esslemont and is briefly worrying, since he has far less page-time to play around with than Erikson (despite being almost exactly 600 pages long in hardcover, this is the one of the shortest books in the series). However, as the storylines move together and things start making sense, the book picks up a tremendous momentum. The second half of the novel is stuffed full of battles, plot revelations and character moments that are satisfyingly epic. By using elements familiar to readers from other books, Esslemont is able to imbue events with more meaning than would otherwise be the case. When four hundred Seguleh (the sword-wielding taciturn badasses of the Malazan world) show up, the reader knows that some serious carnage is about to go down, for example.

For this reason, Orb Sceptre Throne works much better for established Malazan fans than newcomers, particularly those who have already read Gardens of the Moon, Memories of Ice and Toll the Hounds. A number of plot elements stretching all the way back to Gardens of the Moon are expanded upon and backstory is (finally!) given for the Seguleh, the Moranth and indeed Genabackis as a whole. It's also nice to see some established characters given more depth and bigger roles than previously, such as Antsy, who becomes a major player in events at the crashed Moon's Spawn.

On the negative side, there's a number of story elements that are somewhat obtuse, either referring to storylines still to be detailed or referring very obliquely to events in other novels. Some characters fare better than others, and notably after the initial ferocious power and abilities shown by the antagonists, they seem to be caught a bit flat-footed by the forces arrayed against them at the end of the book. Also, it's confusing why Esslemont alludes to the fact that a fan-favourite character is still in the environs of Darujhistan when that character plays no role in the book (despite events being more than epic enough to attract his attention).

Despite these minor niggles, Orb Sceptre Throne (****½) is a well-written, thoroughly enjoyable addition to the Malazan canon. It is available now in the UK and on 22 May in the USA.

Portal 2

2012-01-22T13:41:00.005Z

Chell, a test subject at Aperture Science, has successfully destroyed the insane AI known as GLaDOS and escaped from the facility. Unfortunately, injured in the final battle, she was 'rescued' by a robot from the facility and returned to cold storage. Awakening many years later, Chell finds herself once against trapped in the facility. With the help of a friendly AI, Wheatley, she must flee once more...something made harder when GLaDOS is brought back online.

Released in 2007 as an add-on to the 'Orange Box' compilation, Portal was a surprise success for its developers, Valve. It won several Game of the Year awards and glowing plaudits for its conciseness and the cleverness of its central mechanic, not to mention the frequently hilarious writing (and the brilliant closing song). Portal 2 has a lot to live up to and is put in a difficult situation for a sequel. Sequels are usually bigger, more epic and larger in scale than the original, but the Portal concept wouldn't really work on a vaster canvas. Making a sequel to Portal that respected the original game without ruining the things that made it brilliant would therefore appear to be a tall order.

Happily, Valve have pulled it off. From start to finish Portal 2 is almost unimpeded brilliance. The game is longer than Portal, coming in at about eight hours compared to the original's three. Since even the splendid original game was risking becoming stale at the end, Valve have split the sequel into three clear sections. In the first Chell uses portals very much as in the first game and is aided by Wheatley and opposed by GLaDOS. At the end of this sequence Chell finds herself in the most ancient parts of the facility, where a very different set of puzzles await using different mechanics. In this section she has no enemies or opponents but is guided through the puzzles via messages pre-recorded by Aperture Science's long-deceased founder, Cave Johnson. After this she returns to the upper levels where an all-new set of challenges await, leading to the epic conclusion.

As such Valve neatly avoid what could have been the game's biggest pitfall, outliving its welcome. The shifts in tone, plot and game mechanics are handled well, but still combine to form a coherent game. The cast has been enlarged with the addition of Stephen Merchant (Ricky Gervais's wingman, who increasingly is outshining his partner) as Wheatley. Valve wanted a completely different type of vocal performance for Wheatley then you normally get in a video game and Merchant's half-ad-libbed dialogue is different and more immediate, not to mention hilarious. J.K. Simmons (best-known as J. Jonah Jameson in the Raimi Spider-Man movies) provides the recorded voice of Cave Johnson and his deadpan delivery of increasingly deranged dialogue is also excellent. Ellen McLain also returns as GLaDOS and, in one of the more inspired ideas in the game, is given more dramatic meat to work with as GLaDOS begins to suffer an immense internal struggle as she and Chell discover the secret past of Aperture Science.

Graphically, the game looks great with some impressive production design and animations. The Source Engine (eight years old in 2012) is definitely ageing, but nevertheless remains impressive. The puzzles are fairly fiendish and require some lateral thinking in order to make sense of all the new elements ('paints' that give different effects to surfaces, catapults that throw the player around, tractor beams and light-bridges), but the gradual introduction of these elements allows the player to get to grips with them effectively. There's a few puzzles near the end of the game that are really tough, but nothing too frustrating. More complex are the puzzles in co-op mode, but with two players working on solutions these shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Events in the game build and culminate in the final battle, which is once again impressive. However, the finale of the game must rank amongst the most bizarre - but also brilliant - in gaming history. From the unexpected opera serenade to Wheatley's closing, introspective monologue it's thoroughly entertaining. Things are left open for the continuation of Chell's story (either in further Portal games or possibly future Half-Life titles) but there is no cliffhanger.

Portal 2 (*****) is funny, clever, dramatic, well-acted and constantly inventive, and one of the best games in Valve's already stellar history. It is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3) and the USA (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3).

Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds

2012-01-21T21:05:00.006Z

Tanzania, 2161. The matriarch of the Akinya family, Eunice, a famous pioneer of space travel and exploration, has died at the age of 130. The family convenes for the funeral, but grandson Geoffrey would prefer to be carrying on his research into elephant cognition. When an anomaly is discovered amongst Eunice's possessions, Geoffrey is asked to investigate, the beginning of a journey that will take him from Earth to the Moon to Mars...and further still.

Alastair Reynolds's new novel is the first in a new sequence, Poseidon's Children, which will span 11,000 years of human history. As such, the three books in the sequence will presumably be stand-alones, divided by immense gulfs in history, but with added context given to the reader by reading all three in order. Reynolds and his publisher have backed away from the 'trilogy' moniker (and the 'Book One of Poseidon's Children' tagline present on some early drafts of the cover has been removed) to de-emphasise the idea this is a serialised story that people will have to wait years to be concluded.

Reynolds is noted for having a somewhat grim vision of the future in his previous books, so Blue Remembered Earth is notable for its more optimistic tone. The human race has become richer and more technologically advanced than ever before, with Africa now driving the world economy and formerly war-torn, poverty-stricken states are now prosperous and driven. The price of this new era of peace and development is the Surveilled World, a state of near-total coverage of the planet by AIs which intervene if any crimes are detected. As a result almost no crimes or murders have been committed in decades (although Reynolds, a noted fan of crime thrillers, can't help dropping one puzzling and apparently impossible murder in as a subplot). This near-total surveillance state is not so prevalent on other planets and moons, however, due to time-lag issues.

The book is essentially a treasure hunt, with Geoffrey and his sister Sunday following the trail of clues left behind by their grandmother which ultimately leads to the Big Reveal. The trail, and the resulting plot, are somewhat convoluted and, it has to be said, unconvincing. Nevertheless, the story is entertaining with a constant stream of inventive ideas: an area on Mars controlled by rogue machines; an AI simulacrum of Eunice who provides advice and becomes more and more like the real Eunice as they uncover more information; attempts to help improve the quality of life for zoo elephants by merging them holographically with a real herd in the African wilderness; and a system-wide telescope being used to scan for signs of life on other worlds. The characters, particularly Geoffrey and Sunday (our main POV characters) are well-developed as we learn their respective reasons for turning against the family's strict business-oriented hierarchy, but even their antagonistic siblings (who initially appear to be villainous) are fleshed-out satisfyingly by the end of the book.

As the most low-tech of Reynolds's books to date, Blue Remembered Earth is perhaps his most conservative in terms of ideas and scale and scope. This isn't a bad thing and he seems to enjoy working under greater technological constraints than previously, but occasionally he seems to chafe against the restrictions (the robots on Mars and the large-scale mining of the Oort Cloud both seem somewhat more advanced than the tech elsewhere). He also doesn't fully explore the freedom implications of having a state of total surveillance, other than in a cursory surface manner.

Still, Blue Remembered Earth (****) is highly readable, brimming with ideas and refreshingly optimistic. Recommended. The novel is available now in the UK and on 5 June 2012 in the USA.

Warner Brothers developing OTHERLAND movie

2012-01-19T21:31:00.003Z

Warner Brothers have optioned the film rights to Tad Williams' Otherland sequence of SF novels. John Scott III is writing the script (he's also adapting Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel for 20th Century Fox).

From the sound of the press release, the film producers are not planning a faithful adaptation, but will instead compress the 3,300-page story (in paperback) into a single two-hour movie. Expect about 5% of the plot from the books to end up on the screen.

An odd choice, it has to be said. Given Otherland's episodic nature, a 3-4 season TV adaptation is a much more logical way of adapting the series. Whilst the film may be entertaining, it will certainly not be a faithful adaptation of the books.

In the meantime, a free-to-play Otherland MMORPG will be released later this year by DTP Entertainment.

The Million Malazan March

2012-01-19T19:16:00.003Z

The paperback edition of The Crippled God has been released in the UK. The cover blurb includes a nice factoid: worldwide sales of The Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence have now passed 1 million copies.

Splendid news! The Malazan series has been a bit of a slow-burn, taking seven years to sell 250,000 copies (as revealed in a press release when The Bonehunters came out). Selling an additional 750,000 copies in the next five years clearly shows the acceleration in sales (coinciding with the books coming out in the USA as well). Whilst it's not on the level of sales of some of the genre-leaders, it's still an impressive figure for such an allegedly 'difficult' series. Congratulations to Steven Erikson and his publishers.

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION re-assembled from scratch for Blu-Ray

2012-01-19T00:24:00.005Z

Paramount have pulled out all of the stops for the forthcoming Blu-Ray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, going as far as re-assembling every single one of the 178 episodes from scratch.

Back in the day, ST:TNG was produced with all the raw elements (live action, model shots, visual effects etc) on film. However, these elements were then transferred to video tape before the elements were assembled into the final episode. The previous VHS and DVD releases came from this video master tape. Unfortunately, this wasn't going to cut it for Blu-Ray and HD, so Paramount had to go back to the original film rolls - stored for a quarter of a century in a salt mine in Pennsylvania - and basically re-assemble every episode from the ground up.

It's an impressive amount of work that, based on the video above, seems to have paid off.

A precise release date for the Season 1 Blu-Ray set has not been set, although I'd put money on it being September 2012 (the 25th anniversary of ST:TNG's first episode airing).

Details for UK pb split of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

2012-01-18T23:13:00.004Z

In their latest catalogue, HarperVoyager have confirmed the titles for the two-volume paperback edition of A Dance with Dragons.

Part 1 will be called Dreams and Dust whilst Part 2 will be titled After the Feast. Part 1 will use the one-volume hardcover art, whilst Part 2 will use a new image of a sword hilt (similar to the unused art above, but with a different hilt design). Both will be published on 29 March 2012. Somewhat bizarrely, the two parts will also be printed as ebooks, although the one-volume ebook will (presumably) remain available.

This is not the first time a Song of Ice and Fire novel has been split for UK paperback publication. A Storm of Swords was released in two volumes in 2001, subtitled Steel and Snow and Blood and Gold respectively.

What's up with HALF-LIFE 3?

2012-01-17T11:55:00.005Z

The non-appearance of the next game in the Half-Life series has become a bit of a running joke in the gaming community over the past few years, but in the last few months slivers of evidence have started mounting up that Valve are close to some sort of announcement about the future of the franchise. However, a recent comment by a Valve employee seemed designed to end such speculation, hinting that any announcement about the game is still some way off. Rock Paper Shotgun has highlighted some of the problems gamers are having with Valve over the issue.

History
The Half-Life series is a best-selling first-person shooter gaming franchise developed by Valve Corporation. It consists of the games Half-Life (1998), Opposing Force (1999), Blue Shift (2000), Half-Life 2 (2004), Episode 1 (2006) and Episode 2 (2007). Valve have also developed Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), which are set in the same universe but follow a mostly-unrelated character and storyline.

The Half-Life series is frequently cited as the best first-person shooter series of all time, notable for its focus on atmosphere, immersion and puzzle-solving as well as combat. The series is also one of the most commercially successful video game series of all time, with more than 20 million copies sold since 1998, and has an immense number of fans.

Premise
The series charts the adventures of Gordon Freeman, a scientist at the Black Mesa Research Facility. An accident at the facility results in alien creatures from the planet Xen invading the facility. Freeman, armoured in an experimental Hazardous Environment Suit, is able to halt the invasion and destroy the alien controller, the Nihilanth. His skills are noted by the mysterious 'G-Man', who initially appears to be a shadowy government inspector but is ultimately revealed to be some kind of non-human (or possibly post-human) intelligence with formidable powers over time and space. He 'stores' Freeman and reawakens him ten years later to deal with a new crisis.

By this time Earth has been invaded and occupied by the Combine, an interdimensional alien race whose attention was drawn to Earth by the original Black Mesa incident. Freeman joins the Resistance, including some old colleagues from Black Mesa, and is able to help disrupt the Combine's control of Earth by destroying the Citadel, the Combine base of operations in City 17 in Eastern Europe. This prevents reinforcements from reaching the planet. However, in the finale to Episode 2, as the Resistance meet to discuss their next move the Combine attack in force and kill several key members. At the same time, several Resistance members run into trouble whilst investigating the Borealis, an Aperture Science vessel which holds some impressive technology on board (Aperture Science is the company which plays a key role in the Portal subfranchise, and is Black Mesa's sworn rival). The game ends at that point.

What next?
Originally, Episode 2 was going to be followed by Episode 3, which would conclude the Half-Life storyline. Additional games set in the same universe, possibly developed by outside teams like Opposing Force and Blue Shift, would still be possible, but Episode 3 would answer most of the remaining questions in the franchise. Based on the 18-month development time of the previous episodes, it was assumed that Episode 3 would be released in mid-2009. However, as time wore on and that date came and went, Valve seemed reluctant to mention the game. They instead released several completely different titles: Left 4 Dead (2008), Left 4 Dead 2 (2009), Alien Swarm (2010) and Portal 2 (2011), with Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive planned for release in 2012.

Valve's way of working is highly unusual, with the company consisting of a large number of people who agree to work on projects by consensus. Newell is the head of the company and its main spokesman, but also chooses not to exercise executive control, preferring to let his team work on projects that excite them. The end credits on Valve games notably do not identify the 'jobs' that people have on the games, simply listing everyone involved by name and that's it. A more formal structure appears to have existed at one point. During the development of the first two Episodes it was suggested in the press that Valve had one team working on Episode 1 and another on Episode 2, and that when the Ep 1 team finished their work they moved into working on Episode 3. It's likely that the concept art released for Episode 3 (constituting just about the only hard information we have on the game) was created around this time. Subsequently it appears that Valve has pursued several projects simultaneously and 'focusing' only to bring a project to completion and shipping.

What now?
That Valve's focus has moved away from the Half-Life franchise is not surprising. Some of the people at Valve were working on the Half-Life brand non-stop from 1996 to 2007, which is a long time to spend in one universe. Moving on to other projects, even tangentially related ones like the two Portal games, appears to be an important way of recharging the creative batteries. I also don't doubt that Valve have thrown around ideas, maybe put together some demos and things, for the next Half-Life game. The suggestion that Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 has been in full development behind-the-scenes at Valve for the past five years and could be released in 2012-13 seems very fanciful given their other projects, however (though if that turned out to be true, it would be great and Valve does have form on this).

However, by ending Episode 2 on huge, multiple cliffhangers and then saying that Episode 3 would follow (even if it would take longer than Episode 2), Valve did make a commitment to fans that the story would be concluded. The timescale is unimportant. If Valve said that the next game was a full decade away, that would be fine, but some kind of additional communication over the matter would be helpful. There are signs of hope: Portal 2 featured an Easter Egg in which the player stumbles across the drydock for the Borealis (the ship that will play a large role in the next game, whatever and whenever that is, based on Episode 2), which at least confirms that the next Half-Life game has not been forgotten about.

Hopefully the current wave of discussion will get a bit more information from Valve about what's going on with their most popular franchise.

GoT Season 2 UK airdate and a Golden Globe Award

2012-01-17T11:16:00.007Z

HBO has previously confirmed that Game of Thrones will return for its second season in the USA on 1 April 2012. This has now been backed up by Sky Atlantic saying the season will start airing in the UK on Monday, 2 April 2012, less than 24 hours after US transmission.

Meanwhile, Peter Dinklage has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Tyrion Lannister, adding to his already-impressive Emmy Award for the same role. Dinklage thanked George R.R. Martin, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and his family in the speech, but also paid tribute to Martin Henderson, a British dwarf who'd been injured in a mean-spirited prank, resulting in the incident becoming a trending topic on Twitter and making headlines all over the world.

Thrones failed to win the coveted Best Drama Award, however, which went instead to Homeland.

More XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN screenshots

2012-01-16T21:16:00.004Z

Rock Paper Shotgun have some great new screenshots from XCOM: Enemy Unkown, the remake of the classic 1994 strategy game from Firaxis.

They also report that the XCOM first-person shooter has been delayed to 2013, meaning that the turn-based strategy game remake will hit the shelves first, later this year.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

2012-01-15T18:27:00.004Z

Conan, the young son of the barbarian chieftain Corin, witnesses the destruction of his home village and the murder of his father by the warlord Khalar Zym. Years later, having grown into a skilled and resourceful warrior, thief and pirate, Conan bumps into one of Zym's minions and follows the trail back to Zym himself. Zym is trying to resurrect his dead wife and unleash a series of events that will turn him into a god, so Conan sets himself against Zym's plans, against overwhelming odds.

Robert E. Howard's signature character, Conan the Barbarian, is one of the most important and influential characters in modern fantasy fiction. A brooding warrior from the north, a barbarian of inventive cunning, Conan is the archetype for every big, burly warrior fantasy has produced since. Unfortunately, he's not been well-served by film adaptations. John Milius' 1982 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is admirable on many levels, but its depiction of Conan (particularly his tendency to look freaked out and bellow "Crom!" every time he encountered magic) was very much at odds with the original source material.

The latest take on the character was described during production as an attempt to get back to the Robert E. Howard short stories. In particular, actor Jason Momoa refused to watch the Schwarzenegger movies whilst binging on the Howard shorts. This was a laudable ambition, but unfortunately the movie as produced falls far short of being a fitting homage to the Howard Conan.

The film's first misstep is giving us - like the 1982 movie - some kind of tedious origin story for Conan in which his family is butchered by the main bad guy, whom Conan spends years searching for. The idea seems to be to give Conan a personal stake in defeating the enemy (whether James Earl Jones's Thulsa Doom in the original movie or Stephen Lang's Khalar Zym this time around), but this seems unnecessary. Simply having Conan bump into the bad guy's plan and oppose him for some less melodramatic reason (he's after Zym's gold, or finds his ambitions offensive, or simply has a whim to stop him) would be more in keeping with Howard, and would also have the benefit of being less cheesy and cliched.

This opening sequence of the film is pretty poor, with a badly-choreographed major battle sequence and rather feeble character development. The scene where the young Conan wipes out a band of marauders is pretty good, but everything else about this sequence disappoints. After this we get some scenes which are actually pretty decent. Jason Momoa is actually very good as the adult Conan, moving and looking much more like the Howard character than Schwarzenegger ever did. The film notes that Conan has a more varied CV than just 'brawling warrior' and shows his thievery skills and even his part-time job as a pirate in action. There's even a few shout-outs to Conan's literary adventures which are entertaining. This middle sequence of the film also features its stand-out action beat, a confrontation between Conan and Zym with sorcerous warriors made of sand joining the battle and is actually very entertaining.

Unfortunately, it's mostly downhill from there. The film's somewhat shaky grasp on plot logic begins to disappear in the second half and the fight choreography goes to hell, with poor editing making scenes comes across as nonsensical and random. A particularly promising fight with a giant squid monster is undermined by this problem, and the final confrontation between Zym and Conan is wrecked by it. The development of the characters also gets tossed aside. The revelation that Zym is motivated by the murder of his wife threatens to give depth to the villain until the writers also reveal that his wife was a deranged witch trying to destroy the world, which reduces Zym to simple 'evil madman' status. Rachel Nichols's Tamara initially appears to be an individual character with her own motivations and goals (noting that she is no man's plaything, not even Conan's), but this is chucked out ten minutes after she turns up, with her predictably falling in love with Conan and then becoming no more than window-dressing. Nonso Anozie's pirate captain Artus is a hugely enjoyable character who promptly disappears halfway through the movie for no real reason.

What makes Conan the Barbarian (**) all the more depressing is that the ingredients are sound. Stephen Lang can be a great villain, as we saw in Avatar, but is under-used here. Jason Momoa is a great Conan and emerges from the film with his go-to SF/fantasy warrior credentials (earned in Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones) intact. Some of the action sequences are good and some of the ideas are okay. But the direction is pedestrian, dialogue is often risible, characterisation is almost non-existent and the editing totally inept at times. Not totally without merit, but mostly a failure. The film is available now on DVD (UK, USA) and Blu-Ray (UK, USA).

Wertzone Classics: The White Rose by Glen Cook

2012-01-15T16:37:00.006Z

The Black Company - or rather the handful of its survivors - has broken ranks with the armies of the Lady and sworn its allegiance to the White Rose, who is prophecised to bring the Lady down. But the Lady's armies have besieged the Plains of Fear, hemming the Company and their allies in. As the threat draws in, Croaker, annalist of the Company, receives anonymous messages relating how the wizard Bomanz awoke the Lady and the Taken in the first place. As events unfold, it becomes clear that the Lady's husband, the evil Dominator, is planning his own return to the world, a prospect that cows even the Lady, and that the growing war will soon develop a third side.

The White Rose concludes the original Black Company trilogy, wrapping up story and character arcs begun back in The Black Company and continued in Shadows Linger. Based on those two books, the reader might go into this novel expecting a massive magical conflageration and battles of mythic proportions. Again, Cook blindsides the reader by crafting something far less predictable and much, much weirder.

Much of the book takes place on the Plains of Fear, an area warped into what can only be called surrealness by the presence of a god manifesting as a tree. Talking, teleporting menhirs warn of strangers on the plain, whilst flying manta rays and immense windwhales pass overhead. These chapters are more akin to the New Weird than anything in the epic fantasy canon, and keeps things fresh and offbeat. After this sequence the story moves to the Barrowland, the prison of the evil Dominator, where an unlikely alliance of convenience must be struck in order to ensure the Dominator's destruction.

The White Rose is certainly not the ending that I think anyone was expecting, but this is a good thing. Scenes where the apparently evil, amoral Taken and their mistress show their doubts and fears in the face of the threats of both the White Rose and the Dominator show an impressive degree of characterisation. Cook also reveals the backstory of the wizard Bomanz which shows that history has been rather unkind to him, and sets the warped version of history that Croaker and his friends are familiar with straight. Cook's succinct but still memorable prose and typical mastery of pace drives the story to a conclusion that it is expectation-defyingly small in scale, but nevertheless logical.

The White Rose is the third book of ten (so far) in the Black Company series, so obviously there is more story to come, but Cook brings things to a solid conclusion and the book has no cliffhanger for future books, making it an ideal pausing point for those not wishing to plough through the whole series in one go.

The White Rose (****½) shows Cook defying expectations once more and delivering a morally complex, atypical epic fantasy that is compelling to read. It is available in the UK and USA now as part of the Chronicles of the Black Company omnibus.

Grand Theft Auto IV

2012-01-15T13:45:00.005Z

Niko Bellic is a veteran of war and ethnic strife in the Balkans. Tiring of a life of violence and brutality, he receives an invitation to move to Liberty City, where his brother Roman reports he has made a new life for himself involving fast cars and beautiful women. Moving to the States, Niko finds his brother's stories were exaggerated. He runs a cab firm and is in debt up to his eyeballs with various shady characters. Proving his usefulness in eliminating opponents, Niko finds various factions in Liberty City vying to employ his talents and his new life in a new country becomes even more violent than the one he left behind.

Grand Theft Auto IV was released in 2008 and at the time of its release was reportedly the biggest-budgeted game of all time (a record later lost to The Old Republic) and the fastest-selling (since outstripped by Modern Warfare 2 and 3). Despite the title, it was the sixth 'main' game in the Grand Theft Auto series and the first in the series to appear on current-generation hardware, featuring massive advances in graphics over the previous games in the series. It was greeted with near-unanimous critical acclaim but fan reaction was more mixed, with criticisms over the toning down of the wackiness of the series and the reduction in game size and character customisation from the colossal San Andreas.

In general terms, the game plays in an identical manner to Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas. Your character has the freedom to pick from one of several missions from one of several characters at a time, or can go off and do odd jobs for money or can simply chill out and explore the city. Given the leap to the next generation of hardware, it's surprising how similar the gameplay is to the previous titles in series. Of course, graphically the game is a massive leap forwards in quality and players will likely spend early parts of the game simply gawping at the sun rising over the ocean, or the monumental size of the city and its dozens of skyscrapers when seen from a helicopter. On PC, adding a graphics mod (like the mighty IceEnhancer mod, if your PC can handle it without instantly exploding) can make the game even look semi-photorealistic and absolutely jaw-dropping. Liberty City's fidelity to the real New York City is also startling: one of my NYC-based friends reported even finding his apartment building in the game, let alone faithful renditions of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, MetLife Building, Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building.

GTA4 with the IceEnhancer mod. If your PC has a modern graphics card and is cooled by liquid nitrogen, your game can look like this.

A noticeable addition to the game is a cellphone, through which your character can receive missions and call up contacts. The cellphone (which also doubles as a camera and MP3 player) is a handy addition to the gameplay and provides the game with its biggest single step forwards over previous titles in the series: the ability to interact with other characters. In previous games, you could only interact with characters in missions and cut-scenes, and had no say over how your relationship with these people developed. In GTA4, you can ring up contacts and arrange to meet them outside of missions for drinks or going to shows or playing games. This improves your relationship with these characters, and at a certain point you can call on them for resources or favours. Additional depths to these characters are also revealed in conversations that take place during these meetings. The game essentially gives you some control over how interpersonal relationships develop during the story, which is fairly remarkable for a non-RPG.

Unfortunately, a potentially paradigm-shifting mechanic bogs down into a minor annoyance when, whilst clinging to the roof of a truckfull of heroin with the driver trying to shake you off to your imminent death, you get a phone call from a friend asking you to play darts with him. When you say no because you are about to die in the face, they get the huff and your reputation points with the character go down. By the late-game period, when you have more than half a dozen friends and contacts, the calls and texts begging for you to hang out with them become a constant stream of annoyance, and this results in them being ignored by most players. Fortunately they are purely optional.

The meat of the game, then, is the plot and the missions, and both are well-executed. The storyline is excellent, probably the best in the entire series, and is depicted through convincing writing and strong voice acting. Niko's character development is great, as he tries to be a good person but all too easily is dragged back to a life of violence and crime. This is Rockstar's latest attempt to present a three-dimensional protagonist who is realistic and complex but must also be capable of committing whatever mayhem the player wants him to and is their best attempt yet (Vercetti in Vice City being an unredeemable villain and CJ in San Andreas being too nice, conflicting frequently with the player's lunatic actions). Other characters are also excellently developed, with Niko's brother Roman and Jamaican friend Jacob being notable. For a game with an ethnically diverse cast (the game has lots of satirical commentary on American immigration issues), however, it is disappointing that the game's only gay character of note being presented as a mincing, effeminate cliche, although his role as Niko's conscience in several missions is important.

A rare quiet moment in the game, with the insane ultraviolent mayhem on hold.

The missions are great, ranging from assassinations to massive all-out battles to car chases to helicopter duels amongst the skyscrapers of the city. Towards the end of the game (the single-player missions will take about 25 hours to complete) things start getting a tad repetitive, but generally speaking the missions are varied and fun. Combat has been given a big overhaul, with the addition of cover mechanics. However, enemy AI appears to almost be unchanged from previous games in the series, with them being worse shots than Imperial Stormtroopers, and rarely challenging. Car handling has also been made more realistic, with the cars being heavier and more difficult to stop (aside from the best sports cars). This makes the choice of which car to take on a mission far more important than previously. The game's handling of police pursuits has also been made more realistic, with it being possible to escape the police's attention by getting out of a search zone and lying low. However, it's also much easier than before, and the police are much less of a threat than in previous games.

Where the game succeeds is in its depiction of a modern city riven by competing interests (corporate, government and criminal) and its portrayal of Niko as a bewildered individual caught in the middle of it all. The game is a lot of fun, if not quite as insane as the previous instalments of the series, with occasionally effective musings on the nature of violence and its eroding effect on the soul. The game is also heavily satirical, passing commentary on the USA and the issues it faces on many levels (the war on terror, corporate power, the economy, immigration, civil rights) through dialogue and also the game's numerous, entertaining radio stations (and yes, Lazlow returns to Liberty City with a new show).

Overall, Grand Theft Auto IV (****½) is an impressive, engrossing game. It lacks the tonal variety that the different cities and cultures of San Andreas brought to proceedings, but it has more depth of character and a stronger plot than any previous GTA game. It's also a tragedy, a rather startling choice for Rockstar and a genuine risk for them to take with one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. Artistically, it pays off handsomely. The game is available in a collected package with its two spin-off episodes, The Lost and the Damned and The Ballard of Gay Tony, on PC (UK, USA), X-Box 360 (UK, USA) and PlayStation 3 (UK, USA).

Wertzone Classics: Shadows Linger by Glen Cook

2012-01-15T12:51:00.005Z

Six years after the mighty Battle at Charm, the Lady's Northern Empire has expanded further than ever before, carrying the Black Company into the distant lands of the east. However, orders come that will drive the Black Company on a march of thousands of miles to the far north-west, to the city of Juniper were mighty forces will clash as the result of the activities of one dirt-poor innkeeper.

Shadows Linger is the second novel in The Black Company sequence and comes as a bit of a surprise for readers expecting more of the same. The Black Company was a vast war epic, huge in scope. Shadows Linger feels a lot smaller in scale and more intimate, with the bulk of the action taking place in the single city of Juniper and focusing on the troubled life of the innkeeper Marron Shed. This division of focus - between Juniper and the Black Company as they cross an entire continent to get there - requires Cook to adjust his POV structure from the first volume. Whilst the bulk of the action continues to be relayed by Croaker, annalist and physician of the Black Company, we also get third-person POV chapters focusing on Shed. Later it is revealed that Shed recounted his adventures in detail to Croaker, explaining how this structure works.

Cook is at home with the small-scale story as he is with the larger, and he is able to inject real fear and tension into the mundane storyline of Shed's debt worries. As the story continues, we realise how Shed's apparently irrelevant concerns are related to the bigger picture, and once the Black Company reaches Juniper we snap back to a larger, more epic story with far-reaching consequences for the characters (several major characters don't make it to the end of this one).

The story itself unfolds relentlessly, with superb pacing as we flick between Shed's activities, Croaker's narration and the third-hand reports of the Black Company's march on Juniper. There are also hints of genuinely weird and fantastical ideas here, such as the bizarre landscape of the Plain of Fear (which features much more strongly in the third volume) and the black castles which grow from seeds (which Erikson clearly cribbed for the Azath Houses in the Malazan sequence). There's a feeling of constant invention as Cook deploys weird and wonderful ideas and combines them with the more traditional military fantasy shenanigans he has set in motion.

Complaints are few. The timeline feels a little shaky (in order for it to work, Croaker has to spend months and months in Juniper, which doesn't feel the case in the book) but this is not particularly a major problem. A few characters established as major players in the book seem to end their story arcs with damp squibs or rather off-hand deaths, but this may be part of Cook's intended effect - not everyone is a hero and some people do just expire unexpectedly in undramatic fashion. There's also much more of an obvious cliffhanger for the third book, but given that the third book has been out for decades and is combined with the first two in omnibus editions, that's not particularly problematic either.

Shadows Linger (****½) is more than a worthy follow-up to The Black Company. It's a fast-paced, addictive read which sees Cook not resting on his laurels and trying some new approaches and ideas, and succeeding well. The novel is available as part of the Chronicles of the Black Company omnibus in the UK and USA.

Mark Lawrence interviews me

2012-01-14T21:27:00.002Z

Mark Lawrence, the author of Prince of Thorns and its forthcoming sequel, King of Thorns, has published an interview with me on his blog which may be of interest.

GAME OF THRONES Season 2 airdate announced

2012-01-13T19:15:00.002Z

At the Television Critics Association press tour, HBO have confirmed that the second season of Game of Thrones will commence airing on 1 April, 2012. Assuming no breaks, this means the season will conclude on 3 June, 2012.

The currently known information for Season 2 is as follows:

201: Directed by Alan Taylor, 1 April.
202: Directed by Alan Taylor, 8 April.
203: Directed by Alik Sakharov, 15 April.
204: Directed by David Petrarca, 22 April.
205: Directed by David Petrarca, 29 April.
206: Directed by David Nutter, 6 May.
207: Directed by David Nutter, 13 May.
208: Directed by Alan Taylor, 20 May.
209: Blackwater. Written by George R.R. Martin, directed by Neil Marshall, 27 May.
210: Directed by Alan Taylor, 3 June.

The bulk of the season will be written by producer/showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. At least one episode will be written by script editor Bryan Cogman. Other writers have not yet been announced.

1st episode of GAME OF THRONES now available on DVD

2012-01-11T20:40:00.002Z

The full Season 1 DVD and Blu-Ray box sets for Game of Thrones don't arrive until the start of March, but both Canadian and British viewers can get a sneak preview as of today.

The first episode, Winter is Coming, has been released on DVD by itself. In the UK, it's available at branches of HMV for either £1.99, or free with any HBO box set over £10. In Canada, it's been spotted at branches of Future Shop. I'd be surprised if a chain wasn't doing a similar deal in the States.

In the UK, Game of Thrones airs on the cable channel Sky Atlantic which the overwhelming majority of the British population does not have access to, so this marks the first time that the general population has access to an episode of Thrones. So that's a lot of people who are going to get to the end of the episode and go "Argh!" when they find they have to wait another two months for the full box set :-)

Something I've been working on...

2012-01-10T23:53:00.004Z

I'm now officially allowed to talk about this. For the last couple of weeks I've been working on an essay for a forthcoming book about A Song of Ice and Fire. I turned in the first draft a few days ago and anticipate quite a lot of work to bring it up to standard, but I'm excited as this will be my first work published in book format (not to mention my first paid writing job ever).

The book is called Beyond the Wall and is due out in June 2012 from BenBella, as part of their Smart Pop line. The editor is novelist and former TSR fiction editor James Lowder. A full list of contributors should be available soon.

The Shape of Things to Come: Games for 2012

2012-01-10T19:14:00.010Z

Some games that I'm looking forwards to this year. As always, release dates are tentative (and don't be surprised to see some of these slip to 2013).

Crusader Kings II
Paradox Interactive: 7 February

Paradox, the kings of turn-based strategy, release a sequel to one of their most popular titles. Crusader Kings II mixes the traditional features of a medieval simulator (economic issues, warfare) with a focus on dynastic matters, such as political alliances, marriages and inheritance issues. The original was excellent for such unpredictable random acts as allowing your mighty empire to be toppled by the revelation your heir had inadvertently fathered a bastard on his sister. Needless to say, a Song of Ice and Fire mod is already in the planning stages.

Syndicate
Electronic Arts/Starbreeze Studios: 21 February

The classic 1993 isometric corporate strategy/action game is remade as a fairly predictable first-person shooter. However, hopes remain high for a strong game with the revelation that nine missions are based on iconic locations from the first game (including the infamous Atlantic Accelerator platform), the return of the Persuadatron and Starbreeze's excellent pedigree.

XCOM
2K Marin/2K: 6 March

The classic 1994 isometric strategy game is remade as a fairly predictable first-person shoo...hang on, this sounds familiar. 2K's resurrection of the X-COM franchise (now missing its hyphen, which itself has proven controversial) at least retains some strategic components, and the game has a fascinating 'weird' feel to it which seems to be genuinely trying to make the aliens alien. The revelation that a faithful remake of the original strategy game is also in progress has done much to warm the fanbase's attitude to this game.

Mass Effect 3
Electronic Arts/BioWare: 6 March

BioWare's iconic science fiction RPG trilogy reaches its conclusion. Earth is under alien attack and it falls to the crew of the Normandy to once again save the day. New multiplayer components should enhance the replay value of the game.

Max Payne 3
Rockstar: March

It's Payne! The most tortured soul in video gaming returns. Rockstar Games have taken over development duties from Remedy and have moved the action to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The move away from the iconic night-time New York locations of the first two games has provoked debate amongst fans, but Rockstar seem keen to open a new chapter in Max's life and make more of a break with the past. The classic gunplay seems intact and bullet-time will return.

Shogun 2: Total War - Fall of the Samurai
Sega/Creative Assembly: March

Shogun 2's expansion moves the action forwards several centuries to the end of the samurai era, with European and American influence in Japan growing and firearms and cannon transforming the military tactics of the setting. Tom Cruise is not expected to appear.

Game of Thrones: The RPG
Atlus/Focus Home Interactive/Cyanide: April 2012

Given that Game of Thrones: Genesis did not set the world on fire, enthusiasm is hard to muster for the roleplaying game based on George R.R. Martin's books, especially given the terrible dialogue evidenced in the trailer. However, a strong focus on the characters and a decent graphics engine should ensure at the very least a more enjoyable game than Genesis.

Alan Wake PC
Microsoft/Remedy: early 2012

The Max Payne creators have been busy for the last few years with their new character, novelist Alan Wake who becomes embroiled in a nightmare existence. Having (rather snottily, it has to be said) refused to develop a PC version for several years, Microsoft Games have finally relented and allowed Remedy to port the game. The PC version will come with the console DLC included. Meanwhile, the X-Box 360 version of the game will get a major expansion with the release of Alan Wake's American Nightmare later in the year.

Diablo III
Blizzard: early-to-mid 2012

Blizzard return to their third major franchise with the long-awaited Diablo III, thirteen years after the previous game in the series was released. Whilst some of its thunder has been lessened by the release of the well-received Torchlight (and Torchlight II is also due in 2012), excitement for this game remains high.

Carrier Command: Gaea Mission
Bohemia Interactive: mid-2012

1987 strategy title Carrier Command, which allowed a player to conquer an entire island archipelago with an aircraft carrier and its attendant aircraft and amphibious assault vehicles, was way ahead of its time. In 2001 it got a sterling tribute with the brilliant Hostile Waters, but this year it gets a formal remake from the makers of the ARMA series. The new game hews close to the original, but with a much stronger interface and far superior graphics. The most faithful of the three major franchise resurrections this year, though also the lowest in profile.

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Sega/Gearbox: mid-2012

A timely release, with the Alien quasi-prequel Prometheus due in cinemas around the same time. Colonial Marines is a sequel to Aliens, focusing on a squad of marines who find the USS Sulaco abandoned in space after Ripley and company's escape pods bailed out (at the start of Alien 3) and eventually returning to (a now partially irradiated) LV-426 and the 'space jockey' spacecraft that started the whole thing rolling. Gearbox have a brilliant pedigree in first-person shooters (well, Duke Nukem Forever excepted, but they didn't actually make that) and the premise is very strong, with enough time passing since the last Aliens game to make this a more interesting prospect than it would have been a few years ago.

Dishonored
Bethesda/Arkane: mid-2012

The year's dark horse. Dishonored is set in a semi-steampunk world where past, present and future technologies collide. The art direction looks stunning, the pedigree is impressive (the game's designers have worked on the Deus Ex and Thief franchises as well as Arx Fatalis) and the game's New Weird-like feel is original and fresh. This could be something genuinely different.

Metro: Last Light
THQ/4A: mid-2012

The sequel to the well-received Metro 2033, intriguingly assuming that the 'bad' ending to the original game took place and seeing your character trying to sort out the resulting chaos.

Prey 2
Bethesda/Human Head: mid-2012

The original Prey was an intriguing title, with gravity-bending and portal-based gameplay made more intriguing by the presence of a Native American protagonist and some interesting gameplay ideas. Prey 2 moves to an open-world design, with your character (a passenger on the aircraft you see crash into the Sphere from the original game) winding up on an alien planet with no memory of what's happened in the meantime.

South Park: The RPG
THQ/Obsidian: mid-2012

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, long unimpressed with the quality of South Park tie-in games, have co-developed this new RPG with the experienced designers at Obsidian. Taking cues from Japanese games (particularly Paper Mario and Final Fantasy VII), South Park: The Game will feature turn-based combat and a 2D art design indistinguishable from the TV series. This could be either terrible or genius.

Grand Theft Auto V
Rockstar: late 2012

Rockstar's signature series celebrates its fifteenth birthday with the arrival of the biggest game so far in the series. Grand Theft Auto V returns to San Andreas State (the setting of the 2004 game of the same name), though this time only a vastly larger version of Los Santos (the GTA world's equivalent of Los Angeles) and a large stretch of surrounding countryside will be featured. Rumours suggest the cities of San Fierro and Las Venturas will return in DLC, though I'd take that with a pinch of salt. The first trailer is graphically stunning and hints at multiple protagonists and more RPG-like activities, though hard info is thin on the ground at the moment. At a rough guess, expect violence and car-jacking.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Blizzard: late 2012

The first expansion to StarCraft II arrives (rather later than anyone, including Blizzard, was expecting) this year with a strong focus on the Zerg. The game will feature an RPG-like mechanic as Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, is upgraded from mission to mission as she leads the Swarm into battle against the Protoss and Terrans and, it's rumoured, the returning Xel'Naga.

Skyrim expansion pack
Bethesda: late 2012

To be frank, Skyrim is so vast that the idea of an expansion for it seems ludicrous. Nevertheless, Bethesda have indicated that a full expansion (similar to Shivering Isles for Oblivion) is in development, as well as a number of small DLC releases. I suspect hitting monsters in the face with swords and/or magic will feature.

Planetside 2
Sony: late 2012

Another game that was way ahead of its time was Planetside, that allowed three factions to fight for control of a planet. Arguably the only truly successful massively multiplayer first-person shooter yet developed, an update/sequel is a no-brainer. Expect lots of, "You had to have been there man!"-style stories from players of the game in years to come.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
2K/Firaxis: late 2012

The makers of the Civilization series are remaking the iconic X-Com: Enemy Unknown (again, dehyphenated) and it's still a turn-based strategy game featuring scientific research and base-building. Firaxis employees have reportedly found it hard to get into work due to the scrum of teary-eyed people outside begging them to take their money.

X-Rebirth
Deep Silver/Egosoft: late 2012

The most successful single-player space-trading game since Elite gets its latest version in 2012, with a focus on winning over new players and showing that space games are still awesome. The fact it looks a lot like CGI from the new Battlestar Galactica doesn't hurt either.

BioShock Infinite
2K/Irrational Games: late 2012

The BioShock franchise returns, though this game requires no foreknowledge of the first two titles. Set in a parallel universe on a flying steampunk city at the start of the 20th Century, the player has to become the guardian of a young girl who has the ability to open portals into other dimensions (a geek-pleasing video showing the characters travelling to an alternate 1983 where Return of the Jedi is playing in theatres under its original title, Revenge of the Jedi, is quite amusing). A fascinating high concept, with the screenshots showing a stunning art design and a unique atmosphere. A highly promising game.

Company of Heroes 2
THQ/Relic: unconfirmed but heavily rumoured for 2012/13

It's been rumoured for a while that Relic were considering a sequel to their popular 2006 WWII RTS Company of Heroes, but those rumours gained more credence last year. Nothing is known about CoH 2, not even its setting (with a Modern Warfare-style update quite possible), but the fact that the best RTS of the 2000s is going to get a sequel is exciting enough.

STALKER 2
Details to be confirmed

STALKER 2 was in development at GSC Game World when that company was shut down at the end of 2011. Developers are continuing work on the game privately and shopping the title to other publishers and teams in the hope of saving the game from fading into obscurity.

Half-Life 3
Valve: details unconfirmed

The chances of Half-Life 3 coming out in 2012 could have been dismissed as non-existent until a few weeks ago, when Valve employees allegedly turned up at a developer conference sporting HL3 T-shirts. Combined with some newly-released Portal 2 videos featuring odd references to the number '3', fans are suddenly bristling with hope that Half-Life 3 is now in active develoment at Valve. It's been strongly rumoured for years that the original Half-Life 2: Episode 3 had been canned in favour of a full third game in the sequence, but this is the first clue that this is indeed the case. Unless Valve are of course just messing with us, which is entirely possible. But five years on from the release of Episode 2, it's more than past time we caught up with the adventures of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th Edition revealed

2012-01-09T20:11:00.004Z

Wizards of the Coast have confirmed that a 5th Edition of the popular Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game is in development. No release date has been set, but the game will have a lengthy development period in which fan feedback will be welcomed.

The 4th Edition of the game was released in 2008, itself only five years after the previous version of the game (3.5E, a revision of the 3rd Edition originally released in 2000), so this is a fast turn-around for a game that spent almost a dozen years between the first two editions, and almost the same between the second and third. Normally fans would be up in arms over this, accusing Wizards of the Coast and their parent company, Hasbro, of trying to fleece them. However, a grim resignation seems to have met the news. 4th Edition, to put it mildly, was not a universally-acclaimed success.

Previous editions of the game had built upon what had come before: 2nd Edition was a streamlined version of 1st Edition, with new rules brought in to clarify spotty parts of the rules (most infamously, THAC0, a system designed to make it easier to work out what you need to roll to hit a monster with a weapon). 3rd Edition appeared a more radical shake-up, but in fact many of its features and rules were originally roadtested in the 'Player's Option' rulebooks released towards the end of 2E's lifespan (and others were extremely popular and common house rules). 4th Edition was a much more revolutionary game, in which perceived imbalances between classes were controversially bulldozed out of the way by making the classes comparable in power, just doing things slightly differently. It was loved by those who had been complaining about the game being 'unbalanced' on forums for years and loathed by those who felt it threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Initially, 4th Edition seemed to do well, shifting impressive numbers of copies of its core rulebooks and hitting a second print run before publication. However, controversy greeted its approach to expansions. Rather than release optional rulebooks (aside from a few of the 'usual suspects' which appear every time a new edition is released), Wizards of the Coast opted to release a single campaign setting every year and annual updates to the core rulebooks. Other rules would be added via the D&D Insider, a subscription-based website featuring exclusive content. Whilst sales of the core rulebooks were good, sales of the expansions and subscriptions to the Insider seemed to fall below expectations. In addition, the goodwill of a large number of fans who liked the 4th Edition rules was squandered when the Forgotten Realms campaign setting was destroyed and turned into a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, moving the timeline on 100 years and throwing out most of the established canon (including killing virtually every single character of note apart from Drizzt, Elminster and Erevis Cale).

All of this could perhaps have been borne if 4E didn't have a unique problem not faced by any previous edition: a credible rival product. In 2000 Wizards of the Coast released the Open Gaming Licence, allowing other companies to release products compatible with the 3rd Edition rules, even entirely new games using the same rulebooks. Though 4E used a different (and vastly more commercially restrictive) version of the licence, nothing legally prevented another company from simply publishing its own game using the 3rd Edition rules. Paizo Publishing did exactly that, releasing the Pathfinder roleplaying game in 2009 after a public and open development process lasting well over a year (meaning people were playing Pathfinder months before 4E's launch). Unlike 4E's revolutionary approach, Pathfinder opted for more modest improvements to resolve 3E's outstanding issues and was a huge success.

Neither company has released sales figures, but by all indications Pathfinder's performance for Paizo (a small company) has been spectacular, whilst D&D 4E's performance for Hasbro (a massive, international corporation) has been disappointing following the initial success of the first three core rulebooks. The signs that things were not going well at Wizards of the Coast came when a number of key game designers were made redundant several months after 4E's launch. Wizards' original plan to release a campaign setting every year also seemed to come off the rails. After the controversial Forgotten Realms setting in 2008 and the much more warmly-received Eberron and Dark Sun settings in 2009 and 2010, plans for a 2011 setting were dropped (despite rumours and hints that an updated Dragonlance setting was in the planning stages). The D&D Essentials sub-game was released in 2010, designed to appeal to new players, but seemed to make little impact.

Rumours of a 5th Edition being in-development started early in 2011 and gathered pace throughout the year, given credence by the suspension or cancellation of previously-announced products and rumours of other projects behind the scenes being dropped. The biggest clue came late in the year when Monte Cook, a respected game designer who'd played a key development role on 3rd Edition, was re-hired by Wizards of the Coast and was strongly rumoured to be working on a new edition of the game.

The question now is what direction will 5th Edition take? Whilst it would be pleasingly simplistic to conclude that 4E was a gross failure and a dead end, and simply roll back to 3.5E and develop things from there, this would probably be a mistake. 4E has sold well enough and has enough fans that doing something to alienate them - the current, active D&D fanbase - would be an error. In addition to that, those who prefer the 3.5E approach still have Pathfinder, and would not be guaranteed to return to a 5th Edition of D&D that took that approach anyway (Wizards of the Coast having squandered a lot of goodwill throughout the years). The only viable approach would appear to be trying something new that is not so directly tied to previous editions of the game, to create something that will appeal to both 3E and 4E fans. This seems insurmountable - the two games are based on radically different design philosophies with regards to balance - but the only solution to the problem.

It'll be interesting to see how this process unfolds. I suspect we won't see the new game released until late 2013 at the earliest.

The Shape of Things to Come: Books for 2012

2012-01-08T17:26:00.014Z

Some books to look out for this year. As always, cover art and release dates are not finalised and believe nothing before you see it on the shelves :-)

A Path to the Coldness of Heart by Glen Cook
Night Shade Books (UK & USA): 10 January

The eighth and apparently final book in the Dread Empire sequence, delayed by twenty years after the manuscript for the original book was stolen. Eagerly awaited by Cook's numerous fans.

Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds
Gollancz (UK): 19 January
Ace (USA): 15 June

The first novel in the Poseidon's Children sequence, which will chronicle the next eleven thousand years of human history as man evolves from a colonised Solar system to a galaxy-spanning civilisation (probably). A new Reynolds is always an exciting prospect, and this being the first in a 'sequence' (don't mention the word 'trilogy'...damn!), his first series book (but not really) since Absolution Gap nine years ago, makes it all the more interesting.

Orb, Sceptre, Throne by Ian Cameron Esslemont
Bantam (UK): 19 January
Tor (USA): 22 May

The main Malazan sequence may be concluded, but the world goes on. Orb, Sceptre, Throne takes us back to Darujhistan, city of blue fires, and reunites us with the surviving Bridgeburners and Kruppe as a new (or old) threat descends on the city). Expect lots of Seguleh and some answers to some long-standing questions.

A Crown Imperilled by Raymond E. Feist
HarperCollins Voyager (UK): 30 January
HarperCollins Voyager (USA): 13 March

The middle volume of the Chaoswar Saga is the penultimate-ever Riftwar sequence. Twenty-eight books in, and it's fair to say that a new Feist novel is not the big event it used to be, but nevertheless it's good to see him drawing his massive saga to a close after thirty years and preparing to move on to new pastures.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
DAW Books (USA): 7 February

An epic fantasy inspired by The Arabian Nights, complete with genies, ghouls and a master thief called the Falcon Prince. Sounds fun.

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb
HarperCollins Voyager (USA): 7 February
HarperCollins Voyager (UK): 23 April

The third and penultimate book in the Rain Wild Chronicles (which is odd, as I thought this series was one book split in two due to length). American Amazon Vine customers already have had a preview of the book and the early reception has not been great, but Hobb's legions of fans will snap it up anyway.

Know No Fear by Dan Abnett
Black Library (UK & USA): 28 February

The nineteenth volume in The Horus Heresy series sees Dan Abnett describing a particularly iconic battle of the lengthy civil war, as the rival Astartes chapters known as the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines clash over the planet Calth.

Kings of Morning by Paul Kearney
Solaris (UK & USA): 1 March

Delayed several times, Kearney's Mach Trilogy finally reaches its epic conclusion.

Shadow's Master by Jon Sprunk
Gollancz (UK): 19 July
Pyr (USA): 27 March

The Shadow Saga reaches its conclusion.

The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King
Hodder & Stoughton (UK): 24 April
Scribner (USA): 24 April

King returns to his Dark Tower sequence to fill in a blank bit between volumes 4 and 5. Should be worth a look for fans of the series.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Gollancz (UK): 1 May
Dial (USA): 1 May

The third book in the Graceling sequence continues the story begun in Graceling and focuses on the secondary character of Bitterblue from that novel.

The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham
Orbit UK: 3 May
Orbit USA: 22 May

The second volume in the Dagger and the Coin sequence sees the stories of Mercus, Cithrin and Geder continue, as war and intrigue seethes around them.

Jack Glass by Adam Roberts
Gollancz (UK): 9 May

Three murders are committed by Jack Glass. Yet how he performs each murder, and why, is a surprise. Adam Roberts seems to be getting better with every book, so it'll be interesting to see how this fusion of SF and the crime thriller works out.

Railsea by China Mieville
Macmillan (UK): 10 May
Del Rey (USA): 15 May

Mieville returns with a steampunk Moby Dick, a tale of moldywarpes and moletrains, vengeance and obsession.

The Black Mausoleum by Stephen Deas
Gollancz (UK): 17 May
Roc (USA): 2013

The sequel to the Memory of Flames trilogy is a semi-stand-alone setting up further books set in the Dragon Realms. Essentially, the Realms are in chaos as dragons continue hatching free. A small group of people set out to put the genie back in the bottle and re-enslave the dragons, if they can before humanity is wiped out.

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Orbit UK: 24 May
Orbit USA: 22 May

Robinson returns to epic, futuristic SF. In the city of Terminator on Mercury, a discovery is made that will change the history of humanity, forever.

Black Opera by Mary Gentle
Gollancz (UK): 16 August
Night Shade (USA): 5 June

A major new novel from Gentle, set in a world where music has tremendous magical power. An atheist musician, Conrad, creates an opera which unleashes miracles, to the fury of the Church which claims all such magic comes from God. Conrad is recruited by the King of the Two Sicilies to create more miracles at his command. An interesting concept from the writer of Ash: A Secret History.

Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck)
Orbit UK: 7 June
Orbit USA: 26 June

The second volume in The Expanse and the sequel to the very popular Leviathan Wakes sees Jim Holden back in the thick of the action as war again threatens the Solar system and the alien protomolecule continues to do something on the surface of Venus.

Existence by David Brin
Orbit UK: 7 June
Tor (USA): 29 June

David Brin's first novel in eleven years should be an interesting read, though the plot at the moment is being kept under wraps.

Lord of Slaughter by M.D. Lachlan
Gollancz (UK): 21 June

Lachlan's third Wolfsangel novel takes us to Constantinople in the 10th Century.

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz (UK): 21 June
Del Rey (USA): 29 May

The third volume in Aaronovitch's enjoyable Rivers of London series sees magic-using cop Peter Grant teaming up with a born-again Christian FBI agent to solve a crime with international repercussions. Expect a culture and religious clash as well as the normal magical shenanigans.

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce
Gollancz (UK): 21 June
Doubleday (USA): 10 July

A new Graham Joyce is always intriguing, and this sounds no different. A long-lost girl returns home after twenty years, sparking the beginnings of a story about woodlands and folk tales.

The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp
Angry Robot (UK & USA): 26 June

Popular tie-in author Paul S. Kemp launches his first original series, featuring the adventuring duo Egil and Nix. Expect old-school, fast-paced fun.

The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis
Orbit UK: February 2013
Tor (USA): 17 July

The long, long-delayed middle volume of The Milkweed Triptych, Tregillis' account of an alternate Second World War and Cold War where the opposing powers have access to superhumans. One beneficial side-effect of the long delay is that Tregillis has already completed the final volume, Necessary Evil, which will be simultaneously published in the UK and USA in April 2013.

Sharps by K.J. Parker
Orbit (UK & USA): 17 July

Two warring kingdoms forge a new peace. Fencers from the two kingdoms fight an honorable and sportsmanlike competition to celebrate this peace, but things rapidly take a turn for the bloody. Parker returns to where her career began, with fencing and swords (the focus of her debut 1997 novel Colours in the Steel) and, it should be suspected, bloody mayhem.

The Air War by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Macmillan (UK): August
Pyr (USA): tbc

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt sequence reaches its eighth volume, which is also the first in the final arc of the series (which will take things up to the tenth and final book). Expect a resumption of hostilities as the Wasp Empire makes good on new technological innovations and discoveries.

The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove
Corvus (UK): 1 August 2012

Expect bibliographical confusion as Wingrove's twenty-volume recasting of his Chung Kuo sequence catches up with the beginnings of the original series. The 'new' Middle Kingdom is the third volume of the 'new' Chung Kuo but shares the name and much of is material from the first volume of the 'old' Chung Kuo. With the series due to kick into a much more ambitious schedule in 2013 (with six novels planned for publication that year), this is the calm before the storm and presumably a good jumping-on point for new readers.

Forge of Darkness by Steven Erikson
Bantam (UK): 2 August
Tor (USA): tbc

Hundreds of thousands of years before the events of Gardens of the Moon, the Tiste Andii of Kharkanas - including Anomander Rake - are forced to confront a moment of crisis. The first in an epic trilogy that details some of the mythic underpinning of the Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence.

King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
HarperCollins Voyager (UK): 16 August
Ace (USA): 7 August

The middle volume of The Broken Empire trilogy furthers the adventures of Jorg and his post-apocalyptic world.

Night of the Swarm by Robert V.S. Redick
Gollancz (UK): 16 August
Del Rey (USA): tbc

The Chanthrand Voyage sequence reaches its epic conclusion.

Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski
Gollancz (UK): 16 August

Finally! After almost three years of delays, Polish superstar Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher sequence resumes with the publication of the second in five novels featuring Geralt, the witcher.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin
Ballantine (USA): 28 August
Orion (UK): 30 August

The sequel to the critically-acclaimed and mega-selling The Passage. The survivors of The Passage go on the offensive and launch the Second Viral War, determined to destroy the Twelve, the leaders of the viral infection, and free the world from their shadow.

The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi
Gollancz (UK): 20 September
Tor (USA): 4 September

The sequel to the well-received Quantum Thief, seeing posthuman con artist Jean le Flambeur having to break into the mind of a living god. Expect weirdness.

The Three Prince War by Pierre Pevel
Gollancz (UK): 20 September

Following up on his Cardinal's Blades trilogy, this is an epic fantasy featuring a conflict that erupts between brothers feuding for the throne of a kingdom.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
Gollancz (UK): 18 October
Bantam Spectra (USA): tbc

We may have gotten A Dance with Dragons and The Wise Man's Fear last year, but the third of the long-awaited fantasy novels remains MIA. Hopes were high that Lynch would have been able to deliver the novel before Christmas for a rapid release in the Spring, but this has clearly not happened, with Gollancz now listing a very late 2012 release. Hardcore fantasy fans remain eager for the new book, but with the fifth anniversary of the publication of Red Seas Under Red Skies approaching, this is one series that's going to need some re-establishing to get more casual readers fired up about it.

Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
Macmillan (UK): October
Del Rey (USA): tbc

Hamilton's new novel is his longest in some time - the longest since The Naked God, in fact - but is a stand-alone, set in a brand new universe and features shenanigans and whatnot in the year 2143 on a colony planet.

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
Orbit UK: November
Tor (USA): November

By far the highest-profile speculative fiction release of 2012, A Memory of Light brings the massive Wheel of Time sequence to a close, fourteen volumes and almost twenty-three years after it began. If Sanderson can close the story with the aplomb he showed in The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight, this book should be a triumph.

Legends of the Red Sun #4 by Mark Charan Newton
Macmillan (UK): Late 2012
Del Rey (USA): tbc

Mark Charan Newton's Legends of the Red Sun reaches its conclusion this year. Interesting what to see Newton has in store for us given the fairly apocalyptic ending to The Book of Transformations.

Dangerous Women, edited by Gardner Dozois & George R.R. Martin
Tor Books (USA): Late 2012

Martin and Dozois' latest collection of short fiction from some of the biggest names in fantasy. A key highlight will be the fourth Dunk 'n' Egg novella, The She-Wolves (working title), which takes them to Winterfell some eighty years before the events of A Game of Thrones.

A Red Country by Joe Abercrombie
Gollancz (UK): Late 2012
Orbit USA: Late 2012

Joe Abercrombie's third semi-stand-alone, set in the world of The First Law trilogy. This is Abercrombie's homage to Westerns, filtered through the lens of fantasy. If there isn't at least one grizzled gunslinger riding into a dustbowl town on unicorn-back, I'll be disappointed.

Godborn by Paul S. Kemp
Wizards of the Coast (UK & USA): Late 2012

After a lengthy break tackling Star Wars and his own original fiction, Kemp returns to the character who made him famous, Erevis Cale, and the Forgotten Realms setting for the first volume of the Cycle of Night trilogy.

Requiem by Ken Scholes
Tor (USA): Late 2012

Delayed by the author's unfortunate illness, the penultimate volume of the Psalms of Isaak series is eagerly awaited by fans of the first three books.

Endlords by J.V. Jones
Orbit UK: Late 2012
Tor Books: Late 2012

The fifth and penultimate volume of the Sword of Shadows sequence, which from the title sounds like it will be concentrating a lot on the main enemies of the sequence.

The Sea-Beggars by Paul Kearney
Solaris (UK & USA): Late 2012

Paul Kearney's Sea-Beggars sequence was almost left unfinished forever when it was abruptly cancelled after the second volume, but the original publishers refused to let go of the publication rights. Following a lengthy struggle, the author and Solaris managed to regain the rights. All three books - including the never-before-seen grand finale, Storm of the Dead - will now be published in a new omnibus edition at the end of 2012.

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest
Gollancz: Late 2012

Typical. You spend ten years waiting for a Christopher Priest novel and then two turn up in rapid succession. Following on from the success of The Islanders last year, Priest's new novel should be interesting. Although we so far don't know a thing about it.

The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Elio Garcia & Linda Antonsson
Bantam (USA): Late 2012

Companion books are usually so much filler, but this looks like being something special. Written over a long period by Westeros.org webmasters Garcia and Antonsson, using new information from George R.R. Martin (who is also providing editing and some new material for the book), this book will feature new, never-before-seen maps (including a 'world map' showcasing all the locations seen in the series), an extremely detailed history of the Seven Kingdoms and significant amounts of new artwork (including some additional Ted Nasmith castle pictures that haven't been seen so far). It's not The Winds of Winter, but should help make the wait a little more bearable.

The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker
Overlook (USA): Late 2012
Orbit UK: Late 2012

Orbit seem to be adamant this will be published in 2012, though I suspect it may slip into 2013. The Unholy Consult will bring The Aspect-Emperor, the second movement of the massive Second Apocalypse series, to a monumental and epic conclusion.

Pariah by Dan Abnett
Black Library (UK & USA): Late 2012

Abnett unleashes the third and final trilogy in his Inquisitors sequence, following on from the excellent Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. This final series - The Bequin Trilogy - focuses on Inquisitor Bequin and the confrontation between Ravenor and his former mentor, Eisenhorn.

2013 releases:
City in the Jungle by Ian Cameron Esslemont
Highprince of War by Brandon Sanderson (likely to have a title change)
The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett
Ketty Jay Book 4 by Chris Wooding
Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
Gaunt's Ghosts #14 by Dan Abnett
Cold Days by Jim Butcher (apparently a delay from mid-2012, but not confirmed yet)
Tales of Dunk & Egg by George R.R. Martin (collects the first four prequel novellas)

Wertzone Classics: The Black Company by Glen Cook

2012-01-07T18:35:00.007Z

The Black Company is an elite mercenary force whose history goes back centuries. Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, the Black Company fights for coin, but is also a proud army that is its own master. Accepting the commission of the Northern Empire and its ruler, the ruthless Lady, the Company soon finds itself fighting a war against an oppressed populace struggling to be free...but the leaders of the rebellion seem every bit as ruthless and amoral as the Lady and her senior sorcerer-warriors - the Taken - are. Evil battles evil, a continent bleeds and through it all the Black Company struggles to survive.

Glen Cook's Black Company books are widely regarded as being amongst the most influential and important epic fantasy novels ever written. Steven Erikson cites them as the primary influence on his Malazan series, whilst George R.R. Martin is a fan. A dozen years before Martin made 'grimdark' cool, Cook was already writing adult stories about wars, soldiers and the causes they fight and die for, with no elves in sight and no punches pulled.

Published in 1984, The Black Company is an object lesson in how to write a large-scale epic fantasy and execute it with razor-sharp focus and nuanced characterisation, and to do so in a relatively modest page count. More happens in The Black Company's 300-odd pages than in many entire trilogies. Empires rise and fall, battles that make the Pelennor look like a playground scrap are fought and all is seen from the point of view of a single medic and historian, who is all to often drawn in to become part of the events he is trying to dispassionately record.

The book is episodic, with each (very long) chapter relating a different incident during the war. As the Lady's empire battles the Rebel, so the different Taken feud amongst themselves and the Black Company are caught up in one of the exchanges (but don't exactly get much gratitude for taking sides), giving the conflict an air of complexity and extremely conflicted morals. This is emphasised by the addition to the Company of its first native northern soldier, Raven, who has his own agenda. Given that we are with the POV of Croaker, the medic, for the entire novel, Cook achieves an impressive depth of characterisation of the other principals. Other well-developed characters include the old, feuding mages One-Eye and Goblin, Raven and his mute ward, Darling, and the Taken Soulcatcher, who may be a servant of darkness but even he needs to unwind and chew the fat from time to time.

The prose is clipped and efficient, though some criticise it for being blunt. Cook skips descriptors in some sentences, or uses a soldier-style shorthand designed to transmit information with maximum efficiency and conciseness on the battlefield. It can be a little odd at first, but once you get into the author's headspace it becomes second nature, and a marvellously effective way of telling a large, epic story in a constrained space.

Problems? The absence of a map makes the geography of the war (which is critical to the plot) sometimes a little confusing. With one exception, we really don't get to know anyone on the side of the Rebel, making them a somewhat faceless and uninteresting foe. Cook also prefers to avoid exposition, starting in media res and pausing for explanations only rarely. However, unlike Erikson (who employs a similar device at the start of the Malazan sequence) Cook's story is actually pretty straightforward, and by the end of the novel the reader should have pieced together everything pretty nicely.

The Black Company (****½) is a novel brimming with verve, confidence and attitude. As fresh and readable today as when it was published a quarter-century ago, it's a stellar opening to the Black Company series. The novel is available now in the UK and USA as part of the Chronicles of the Black Company omnibus (along with its immediate sequels, Shadows Linger and The White Rose).

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett

2012-01-06T19:58:00.005Z

Eden: a world of perpetual darkness, lit by fluorescent vegetation and headed by geothermal trees. Five hundred humans - the Family - live in an isolated valley. They are all descended from the same couple, Tommy and Angela, astronauts stranded on Eden one hundred and sixty years ago. As a result, genetic deformities and aberrations amongst the Family are commonplace. The Family is held together by the dream that one day Earth will send a rescue ship to pick them up and take them home.

For teenage hunter John Redlantern, this dream is a futile delusion. He believes that the Family must branch out to survive, as the valley's food stocks are dwindling. But the only way out of the valley is a dangerous ascent over an unlit, freezing mountain that has killed every person who has tried to climb it. John's determination to escape to a better place splits the Family apart, but how much is John's plan motivated by a desire for humanity to survive on Eden and how much to appease his own ego?

Dark Eden is a dark (thematically and literally) novel that uses an interesting SF concept - a world in perpetual darkness - to explore themes about human society and the impact of ideas, traditions and rituals on a small group of people. Chris Beckett, the author of the excellent Holy Machine, has been noted as an author who fuses SF subject matter and 'literary' ambitions together into something interesting. Whilst hardly new - there's a faint hint of Brian Aldiss or early Ballard to his work - it's something that Beckett does well, creating stories that work from a scientific viewpoint as well as a literary one.

Eden itself, with its luminous trees and vividly nocturnal wildlife, is a fine, stirring creation. It's the inverse of the superheated Earth of Aldiss's Hothouse, a world here plunged into utter darkness and, away from the geothermal foliage, total cold. How this is possible is left to the reader's imagination: does the planet orbit a black hole or a brown dwarf? Does it orbit a normal star and is merely tidally locked? If the planet is indeed freezing cold, how does the atmosphere not simply melt away? Various solutions to such questions present themselves but are ultimately left ambiguous.

The Family survive by clinging to one central belief - that a rescue ship will come from Earth to find them - and their entire existence revolves around it. They refuse to travel far from their ancestors' landing site, even though local food sources have been almost exhausted. They constantly tell stories about their ancestors and the founding of their society. But they are trapped into a mode of existence so all-consuming it is taken for granted. When John Redlantern is able to step back and point out the flaws in their blinkered worldview, it creates strife and discord. A serpent enters this Eden, but this time we are on the serpent's side, as the Family remaining where they will ultimately destroy them.

At the same time, John is motivated not just by a desire to save his people, but also to prove himself better than them, a visionary leader. Beckett's structure - he uses a rotating first-person POV, swapping characters every chapter - allows us to see events from John's perspective and also from that of both his friends and enemies, allowing a tremendous depth of character to be achieved (both of John and several other key characters). John's character is built up, deconstructed and reassessed with tremendous skill. Beckett is keen to avoid passing judgement: some of John's actions are admirable, others are loathsome, and the reader is invited to decide which is which.

At the same time the story moves forward, it also moves back. The story of how Tommy and Angela ended up on Eden is revealed in layers, as more and more stories and legends from the distant past of Eden are revealed, and the story that the people of Eden know may not be the whole truth. It's also a story that doesn't have an ending, as the fate of the three astronauts who left Eden in search of help is not known (in the novel's only possible misstep, Beckett eschews the ambiguity of the rest of the book to give as a fairly straightforward answer in the book's climax). The Family want to stay in their valley so the rescuers can find them, and the end of the story can be known, whilst John and his followers want to abandon such beliefs and strike out in search of their own destiny. Conflict follows and both sides' arguments have their merits.

Dark Eden (*****) is a superb novel about ideas, the struggle to survive and the dangers of blind faith. Beckett says little that is new, but makes his points with subtlety and intelligence, all against a well-realised, vividly-described backdrop. The novel is out now in the UK and is available on Kindle in the United States.

New X-COM strategy game on the way

2012-01-05T21:11:00.004Z

It's been known for a while now that a fresh 'reboot' of the X-Com games is in the offing. The new game, entitled simply X-Com, will be released in 2012 and is a first-person shooter. This has disappointed long-standing fans of the franchise, who'd been hoping for a new turn-based strategy game.

In a surprising - and awesome - move, it has now been revealed that a new turn-based strategy game is on the way. Firaxis, the makers of the Civilization series of games, are remaking the original X-Com: Enemy Unknown with modern graphics but otherwise leaving the core gameplay of the original, classic title intact. More information will appear in the next issue of Game Informer in the USA.

Splendid news! The original X-Com games were awesome, and a full-on modern remake is a tantalising prospect, one that was thought hopeless after news of the FPS game broke.

News on THE WITCHER books

2012-01-04T21:06:00.004Z

After a lengthy delay, the English translation of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series is to resume publication in 2012.

The Witcher sequence comprises a five novel series and two short story collections relating the adventures of Geralt, a witcher (a monster-hunting warrior who can also use forms of magic). The books were published in Sapkowski's native Poland in the 1990s, and have gone on to be an enormous success in numerous other languages. The English translations began in 2007 with the publication of The Last Wish, the first short story collection, by Gollancz (in the UK) and Orbit (in the USA). Oddly, the publishers skipped the second short story collection (Sword of Destiny) to release the first full novel, Blood of Elves, in 2008. Both books were successful, with Blood of Elves winning the inaugural David Gemmell Legend Award in 2009.

The second novel, Time of Contempt, was scheduled for publication in 2009, but failed to appear. Apparently copyright and legal issues arose between Gollancz, the Polish publishers, Sapkowski's agent and the translator which proved complex to unravel. This delay was unfortunate, with the publishers missing a key opportunity to tie in with the release of The Witcher II: Assassin of Kings, a computer role-playing game based on the books which won immense critical acclaim and has sold millions of copies around the world.

According to Gollancz, the English translation of Time of Contempt will finally appear in August 2012. The book sports a cover by artist Alejandro Colucci, although, just to be really confusing, it isn't new. Instead, it previously graced the Spanish-language translation of the third novel, Baptism of Fire. Presumably the other books in the series will also use Colucci's existing artwork.

Wertzone Classics: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

2012-01-03T20:09:00.009Z

Humanity is about to launch its first manned mission to another world. Finally, the human race is about to escape its cradle and take its first step towards the stars. But on the eve of the launch the skies over the Earth's major cities are blotted out by the appearance of huge, alien spacecraft. The Overlords have arrived, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most famous writers the science fiction field has ever produced, thanks to his work on the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and his role as a popular science commentator (he covered several of the Apollo moon landings for American television and had several successful TV series in the 1980s). Clarke's work is notable for its straightforwardness (he was never a great prose stylist) but also its scientific rigour. With a few exceptions, Clarke had little truck with what he considered to be some of the more fantastical concepts of SF (such as faster-than-light travel and artificial gravity) and did not use them in his work. In his view, the universe is vast, timeless and unknowable. Much of Clarke's work is notable for a certain melancholic optimism: the human race can be much more than it is now, but even so is unlikely to challenge the vastness of the universe.

Childhood's End was published in 1953 and was his fourth novel, although his first published in the United States, where it immediately established him as a major voice in the field. In many ways it is atypical Clarke. The aliens are comprehensible and easily relate to human beings, unlike the enigmatic entities of say 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama. At the same time, his normal scientific vigour is a little slacker than normal, as concepts such as telepathy and group consciousnesses are explored (Clarke had a passing fascination with the supernatural at the time, though later firmly rejected such notions). Clarke's influences are clear, with the presence of Olaf Stapledon particularly hard to ignore.

The novel is extremely concise, with my paperback copy clocking in at 160 pages. For its short page count, the novel is fairly epic. It is split into three sections, each with a distinct cast, focus and storyline (unsurprising, as the first section was originally a stand-alone short story). In the first, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has to oversee the painful transformation of humanity from bickering nation-states to a single world government. In the second, a family 'escape' the Overlords' utopia to live in an island commune free of their influence, only to discover the real reason for the Overlords' arrival on Earth. In the final section, a lone human who stowed away aboard an Overlord ship returns to Earth eighty years later (though only a few months later by his count, due to time dilation) to find a world vastly changed from the one he left. Clarke doesn't waste a word as he lets the story unfold inexorably, moving to a conclusion that looms somewhere between awe-inspiring and horrific.

As a novelist, Clarke was much more interested in ideas (thematic, scientific or both) than people. His characterisation was often variable, although Childhood's End is actually one of his better books in that regard. Its major protagonists (even the Overlords) are clearly defined and sympathetic. In terms of structure, Childhood's End is unusual in that the entire story is pre-ordained, and nothing any of the characters do can change what is happening. They - and the reader - can only witness it and make their own minds up about whether it is something that can be called 'good' or not, and I suspect many will fall on the 'not' end of the spectrum.

As a result Childhood's End can be viewed as a colossal tragedy. The book has a tremendous emotional charge as it poses a simple question: how would we face it if our way of existing ended tomorrow? Clarke's answer is surprisingly bleak but, one suspects, one that would be close to the truth.

The novel has aged in some respects. The first edition opened with the USA and USSR battling to land a man on the moon, since Apollo 11 was still sixteen years in the future at the time it was published. Clarke also makes a very dated joke where he discusses how the Overlords have to force the rulers of South Africa to treat all their citizens equally regardless of skin colour. The 'joke' is that by this time majority rule in South Africa has been restored, and it's the white population that's being mistreated. An amusing aside in 1953 actually feels rather cynical today, assuming as it does that the African population would be as racist and authoritarian as the white one was. However, another point about how the people of Israel bitterly resist being absorbed into the Overlords' hegemony and giving up the freedom they have spent centuries fighting for, is more resonant. There's also a recurring problem in Clarke's work where he underestimates the power of religion, and the sequences where the Overlords' arrival causes the downfall of all world religions in a matter of months are rather unconvincing.

In most respects, Childhood's End (****½) has not aged badly at all, and its central themes of parenthood and the futility of railing against the night - but the effort nevertheless being laudable - remain interesting. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

The Wertzone Awards 2011

2012-01-01T14:15:00.007Z

Yup, it's that time of year again :-)

Best Novels

1. The Islanders by Christopher Priest
Priest's first novel in a decade may not be quite his best, but it is still an impressive achievement. Taking the form of a gazetteer to a fictional archipelago of islands, this was a short story collection, novel and worldbuilding guidebook (but also very much a deconstruction of the notion of worldbuilding) all wrapped into one compelling whole. Especially notable for showcasing Priest's not-very-often-aired sense of humour. Inventive and rewarding.

2. The White Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker
Bakker's Second Apocalypse fantasy sequence (of which this is the fifth volume, and the second volume of the second of three trilogies set in the world of Earwa) passes its mid-point with Bakker's customary intellectual vigour, foreboding atmosphere and memorable scenes (the finale is stunning). He also brings back the massive battle sequences and more successfully manages the politics than the previous volume, returning to his top form.

3. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
Abercrombie's best novel to date, with a strong focus on a single battle unfolding over three days. The battle may be pointless, but its outcome has huge ramifications for both the characters and also the world (not the least of which is the invention of the sandwich).

4. The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding
The Tales of the Ketty Jay series is probably the most purely enjoyable fantasy series in progress at the moment, and this third volume is the best in the series so far. A succession of aerial dogfights and chases mix well with intrigue, a museum heist and an epic conclusion featuring a giant steampunk robot. An absolutely non-guilty pleasure.

5. The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan
After the interesting but unfocused Steel Remains, Morgan returns to his SF/fantasy hybrid trilogy with renewed focus and improved writing. Much more successful as a homage to pulp fantasy than its forebear, although it's the increasingly clear links to his Takeshi Kovacs series that have most impressed readers.

6. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Was it worth the six-year wait? Probably not, and the delaying of several critical climactic moments to the sixth novel in the series was a mistake (as was the problematic pacing of the Daenerys storyline). However, once these issues were take on board, what we were left with was often compelling: Theon's imprisonment at the hands of the Boltons is an excellent slice of psychological horror, whilst Davos and Bran's chapters showed that Martin could still do concise, effective storylines when required.

7. The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
The tenth and final novel in the Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence was much more of an effective finale than some fans were expecting. Erikson demonstrates how much control he did have of his often cumbersome-appearing narrative unfolding over ten thousand pages, wrapping up an enormous number of storylines, character arcs and thematic journeys with skill. That said, it was still a couple of hundred pages too long and the pacing was still too-often bogged down by turgid dialogue exchanges, but this novel still represents Erikson at his best form in almost a decade.

8. Daylight on Iron Mountain by David Wingrove
After the somewhat sedate Son of Heaven, Wingrove's new version of his Chung Kuo sequence kicked into overdrive with a novel that packed sociological change and full-scale global warfare into a modest page count. A fun, page-turning read setting the scene for the remaining eighteen (!) novels in this series.

9. Rivers of London/Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
A new urban fantasy sequence arrives almost fully-formed, with fun writing and some solid concepts overcoming the familiarity of yet another take on vampires and ghosts.

10. By Light Alone by Adam Roberts
Inventive SF from Roberts, set in a world where people live by photosynthesis. His strongest novel to date and his most satisfying ending (a sticking point for me with his previous works).

Bubbling under: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, Embassytown by China Mieville, Manhattan in Reverse by Peter F. Hamilton, The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson, War in Heaven by Gavin Smith, The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams, The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham, Leviathan Wakes by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck, Fenrir by M.D. Lachlan and The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas.

The Wertzone Special Achievement in SFF Writing Award 2011

This award goes to Steven Erikson for bringing the Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence to a worthwhile and fascinating conclusion, tying together an epic number of plot threads in a satisfying manner.

The Wertzone Award For Best Book Read in 2011 Regardless of Release Date

This one goes to The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, previously the highest-profile author whom I'd never actually read. A gripping, thought-provoking read that more than lives up to its titanic reputation.

Best Games

1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The Deus Ex sequence returns with its third game, an RPG that offers great gameplay, well-developed characters and tremendous freedom to approach any problem from multiple angles (some ill-considered boss fights aside). Fun and smart in equal measures.

2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda return with an open-world RPG offering huge amounts of freedom, as well as a metric ton of content, making for their largest game since Daggerfall. Fans of Bethesda's previous games may find the structure overly-familiar, but unparalleled atmosphere and evocative graphics make up for the occasional bugs and often lacklustre writing.

3. Space Marine
Not exactly the longest or most sophisticated game ever made, Space Marine nevertheless satisfies by allowing you to jet-pack into a horde of ravening orcs with a massive chainsword and unleash carthartic carnage on an epic scale. Throwing back your head and laughing like a lunatic whilst doing so is purely optional.

4. Shogun 2: Total War
I've only had time to play this briefly, but the Total War series seems to have lost a little of its shine recently. The graphics are phenomenal and the mix of real-time battles and turn-based strategy remains compelling, but the continued poor AI performance and an oddly cumbersome interface that throws away a lot of the streamlining of the last few games inhibit fully enjoyment of the title.

Not played (yet): Mafia II, Portal 2, Arkham City, Hard Reset.

Best TV Series

1. Game of Thrones
HBO's take on the Song of Ice and Fire novels is well-written and brilliantly-acted, overcoming some problems (inappropriately gratuitous sex scenes and clumsy exposition) to emerge as a genuinely impressive, game-changing TV show.

2. Top Boy
Channel 4's four-part mini-series about drug dealers feuding for control of a London estate may have resulted in obvious comparisons to The Wire, but its impressive cinematography and nuanced characterisation allowed it to also stand on its own as a well-acted, impressively-written drama. A second season will air in 2012.

3. Wilfred
A bizarre premise - a suicidal man is befriended by a dog which he sees as a person - gives rise to some hilarious antics and amusing references. The writers get bogged down a little in a limited premise, but towards the end of the season show some inventiveness in stretching the format.

4. Merlin
For its fourth and penultimate season, Merlin seriously upped its game, dropping the poor comedy episodes and scything down a number of recurring characters with surprising ruthlessness before bringing some of the more notable mythic Arthurian imagery into play. It's still a lightweight take on the legend, but a resolutely fun one.

5. Doctor Who
This year was a bit of a disappointment for Doctor Who, with Steven Moffat apparently keener on showing how clever he is than delivering reliably entertaining television. However, the excellent Neil Gaiman episode is worthy of the placement all by itself.

Shadowheart by Tad Williams

2011-12-31T18:27:00.006Z

The armies of the Qar and the Autarch of Xis have converged on Shadowmarch Castle, which now stands siege from enemies attacking by sea, land and underground. Ferras Vansen leads a desperate fight in the subterranean depths under the castle, trying to hold back the Xixians from the mysteries which the Funderlings have sworn to protect for generations. Briony Eddon is also heading home with a small Syanese army, but her resolve to help her people is challenged when she learns that her father is a captive of the Autarch...

Shadowheart is the fourth and final novel in the Shadowmarch sequence, the third major series by American author Tad Williams. The series is a slow-burner, with a pace that can best be called 'relaxed'. Empires may be forged, armies may clash and ancient secrets may be unveiled, but it all happens at a leisurely, chilled-out rate. This is epic fantasy at its cosiest and most predictable. Which is not to say the series is unenjoyable. Williams has saved the best for last here, with a plethora of battles and a smattering of intrigue to digest before the grand finale (complete with the villains all receiving appropriate come-uppances) and the long, 100-page epilogue in which the characters' fates are all neatly wrapped up and explained.

As with the previous books, the best moments are reserved for Ferras Vansen and Chert the Funderling, who are now leading the subterranean war as the Funderlings try to hold back the invading Xixians with the extremely reluctant help of the Qar. These underground battle sequences go on for a bit too long, but for the most part are exciting and tense. This is more than can be said for the scenes involving Barrick Eddon. Having spent two enormous books travelling beyond the mystical Shadowline in search of his destiny, his abrupt return to Shadowmarch smacks of plot convenience at its most blatant. Whilst his character arc was formerly one of the most interesting in the series, as he left behind his life as a crippled royal to embrace an alien culture, here it ends in a damp squib as Barrick becomes more enigmatic and dull.

Despite these issues, Williams ties together a large number of plots, character arcs and ideas that he has established over the preceding 2,500 pages and fuses them into a reasonably good ending. There's nothing too surprising here, but Williams' solid writing skills make it all readable enough. However, the feeling remains that Williams has been wheel-spinning with a series that seems to be more of a tribute to other fantasy works (glimmers of A Song of Ice and Fire and the works of Jack Vance can be detected) and also a call-back to his own earlier (and rather more impressive) Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sequence rather than exploring fresher ground (as he did so successfully in Otherland).

Shadowheart (***½) ends the series in an effective enough manner, but, despite its immense length, this remains a minor work from an author capable of a lot more. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Third Age: Total War 3.0 released

2011-12-29T23:16:00.003Z

The long-awaited third version of Third Age: Total War has been released. This fan-made (but professional-quality) mod allows owners of Medieval II: Total War and its Kingdoms expansion to conquer Middle-earth with one of several factions.

The new third version of the game features a host of changes, most notably the long-awaited introduction of custom battle maps and settlements, putting iconic locations such as Minas Tirith and Edoras on the battlefield to be fought over. These replace the generic Medieval II towns that had stood in for the settlements in previous versions of the game. More information on the game, including download links and installation information can be found on TWCenter.

Merlin: Season 4

2011-12-28T20:39:00.004Z

Camelot is in crisis. King Uther is a shell of his former self, traumatised by Morgana's betrayal. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are trying to defend the kingdom from myriad threats, but they are overstretched and unable to prevent Morgana from unleashing her vengeance. It falls, once again, to Merlin to save the kingdom. But to keep his true nature secret, he must again adopt the guise of the old sorcerer Emrys, a deception that will have far-reaching and devastating consequences...

Merlin reaches its fourth and penultimate season by embracing something of a new format. The regular cast has been swollen by the addition of the Knights of the Round Table, former guest characters like Lancelot (Santiago Cabrera) and Gwaine (Eoin Macken) who are now series regulars. Uther, played as always with steely resolve by Anthony Stewart Head, has a much-diminished role as Arthur (an increasingly accomplished Bradley James) rises to the fore, now advised by his uncle, Agravaine (Nathaniel Parker, who veers unpredictably from nuanced to hammy, sometimes in the same scene). Whilst the new format is effective, there is a cynical feeling (engendered by three previous seasons of the series pulling its punches on a regular basis) that we'll be back to the 'farting monster of the week' set-up by episode four at the latest. It's therefore something of a shock when the series undergoes some massive developments in just the first few episodes, and the manner in which these developments are carried out is unexpectedly brutal.

Obviously Merlin - a show which is aimed at a audience 'from eight to eighty' as the BBC puts it - isn't going to go all Game of Thrones and start dropping beheadings and incest on us. But still, compared to the show's good-natured, lightweight approach in the first three seasons, this year gives the series teeth. Some recurring characters are killed off and there are multiple big shake-ups to the series format. The show is more serialised, with less stand-alone episodes than previously. Best of all, there are no tedious comedy episodes this year, with humour instead allowed to develop alongside more dramatic, darker storylines simultaneously. There's also more effective use of computer effects, with the producers realising that 'less is more' and making a few big, well-rendered CGI army shots is better than making lots of middling-quality ones.

There's still a few problems, however. Morgana's new secret hideout seems to be a hut about three miles from Camelot. How this has evaded detection is unclear, especially since Morgana's agent in the royal court frequently rides out (in an over-dramatic gallop) to give her detailed reports on what's going on, again with no-one noticing. There are also long-established problems that reappear, such as the same recognisable patches of forest being used for multiple scenes supposedly set in widely-separated locations. The additional issue of Camelot only appearing to have about 200 men under arms whilst all of the surrounding kingdoms can apparently muster armies in the tens of thousands in hours also recurs frequently, straining credulity.

If you can overcome these issues, Merlin's fourth season (****) emerges as the strongest year of the show yet, by a considerable margin. It is available on DVD in the UK in two volumes. A fifth and final season will air in 2012.

Merry Christmas everybody!

2011-12-25T14:50:00.002Z

Merry Christmas everybody!

The Cylons' latest plan to infiltrate and destroy humanity was scuppered by the requirement for constant USB access.

New MALAZAN maps

2011-12-23T21:43:00.004Z

As an early Christmas present, Bantam Transworld have released an excerpt from Ian Cameron Esslemont's Orb, Sceptre, Throne, his fourth Malazan novel. This excerpt includes a new map of the continent of Genabackis, showing the hitherto-unseen southern edge of the continent, including the oft-mentioned Seguleh islands.

This also means we can assemble a complete map of the continent for the first time:

Interesting stuff. The novel is published in the UK on 19 January 2012.

Trailer for PROMETHEUS, Ridley Scott's ALIEN quasi-prequel

2011-12-22T21:38:00.003Z

Since it's that time of year when we are inundated with new movie trailers, here's another one. This is the trailer for Ridley Scott's Prometheus. Due for release on 8 June 2012, there's been a great deal of confusion over the relationship between Prometheus and Alien. Originally it was a straight-up prequel, but Scott and co-writer Damon Lindelof (of Lost fame) have tried to put some distance between the two projects, suggesting they take place in the same universe but little more than that.

From the trailer, that's obviously 'a mild understatement'. Much of the film appears to involve the crashed alien spaceship from LV-426 (and we may even see that crash in the trailer), the 'space jockey' aliens play a role, the Prometheus logo is pretty much identical to the Alien one and, most tellingly, the trailer bears an uncanny resemblance to the original Alien teaser, even using some of the same sound effects. So yeah, Alien prequel, totally. And there's nowt wrong with that, since the trailer looks impressive. Ridley Scott returning to SF (get this, his last SF movie was Blade Runner) is an enticing prospect, and the film looks solid enough at this stage.

io9 have a very interesting shot-by-shot analysis of the trailer here. And who the hell is that guy in the space jockey's control room?

THE WHEEL OF TIME is completed

2011-12-22T00:38:00.003Z

Brandon Sanderson has confirmed that A Memory of Light, the fourteenth and final novel in The Wheel of Time sequence, is done.

"Ladies and gentlemen, A Memory of Light--the final book in The Wheel of Time--has been finished."

By 'finished', he of course means that the first draft is complete. He envisages several months of additional work to bring the final draft in, with publication still tentatively set for late 2012.

But still, the bulk of the work has been done, and the book will be on shelves in less than a year. Sanderson also seems to have taken a more definitive stance on the two prequels and three side-novels that Robert Jordan had planned for The Wheel of Time world, indicating that they will probably never be written.

THE HOBBIT trailer

2011-12-21T23:26:00.002Z

We still have a year to wait, but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has just had its first trailer released:

Looks like Jackson has done a good job of recapturing the feel of the original movie, and it's good to see McKellen and Holm back in their old roles. Freeman also looks promising as the young Bilbo, and Richard Armitage seems to be doing a good job as Thorin (though he's still a bit more Klingon-esque than I think most people had in mind). Overall, looking good.

Wertzone Classics: Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien

2011-12-20T12:41:00.019Z

Upon his death in 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien left behind a vast collection of writings about Middle-earth. His third son and literary executor, Christopher, assembled some of these into The Silmarillion, published in 1977, but the question about what to do with the other reams of material was unclear. Aware that fans of Middle-earth would be eager for more material, even unfinished or existing only in rough drafts, he assembled Unfinished Tales and published it in 1980. Its success inspired him to proceed with the far more ambitious, twelve-volume History of Middle-earth project.

Unfinished Tales occupies an awkward place in the Tolkien canon. Unlike the History series, which consists of almost exclusively non-canon material (early drafts and rough notes of material that was eventually finalised and published), the material in Unfinished Tales was specifically written by Tolkien to flesh out other parts of his mythos that were not explored in the books themselves. In particular, the writings include a series of essays which were designed to answer a wide number of issues brought up by readers of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in correspondence. Some of these essays were written very late in Tolkien's life and represent his last - and often only - word on subjects such as the origins of Gandalf and his fellow wizards, the backstory of Galadriel and the history of Numenor during the Second Age. As a result some fans hold Unfinished Tales to be the fourth Middle-earth book, only marginally less important than The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Others choose to disregard it as anything more than a curiosity, since as Christopher Tolkien himself notes it's unlikely J.R.R. would have permitted even the completed writings in the book to be published without more polish.

Unlike The Silmarillion, which was presented as a single narrative, Unfinished Tales is a collection of stories and fragments intermingled with Christopher Tolkien's editorial notes. These are kept to a minimum in some of the stories and essays, but in others are much more prevalent (something he apologises for, but regards as necessary in the case of works where his father was working on several drafts simultaneously, risking confusion to the reader). Christopher's notes are fascinating, well-written with a clear eye for detail and minimising confusion. He assumes the reader is already familiar with the Middle-earth mythos (since they're unlikely to be reading this book otherwise) and is able to delve into various topics in depth. Whilst he clearly loves and respects his father immensely, it is also amusing to detect the vague frustrations that creep into his notes, most notably when trying to fathom why Tolkien abandoned particular narratives at key points (feelings the reader may share as the book unfolds).

The first story is 'Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin'. The story of Tuor's arrival in Gondolin and the events leading to the fall of that city in the War of the Jewels was the first story Tolkien ever wrote set in Middle-earth, and is still one of his most memorable narratives. However, the version in Unfinished Tales was written much later, in 1951 (the much more complete original can be found in The History series), featuring a more conventional prose style than the archaic original. It's stirring, epic stuff, featuring some great imagery as Tuor is confronted by the Vala Ulmo, Lord of Waters, and has a great destiny laid before him. The story proceeds with power and momentum until it abruptly halts just as Tuor reaches Gondolin itself. Even with the earlier version available and a much more compressed account of events readable in The Silmarillion, this is still a frustrating moment.

The second story is 'The Tale of the Children of Hurin', a much longer story (almost a hundred pages, taking up a quarter of the book) featuring the adventures of the doomed, tragic Turin. Unlike the story of Tuor, this tale is more or less complete, though somewhat complex due to competing drafts and different versions existing. Many years later Christopher used this material (along with some other, later unearthed manuscripts) to form the basis of The Children of Hurin, so if you already have that book be aware that you will find much of this material familiar. But still, it's a powerful story, the darkest thing Tolkien wrote set in Middle-earth, featuring lust, incest (though unwitting), war and the 'hero' bringing death and ruin to all those around him.

The next section of the book moves into the Second Age of Middle-earth, which Tolkien left somewhat vague and under-developed compared to the First Age (covered in The Silmarillion) and the Third (the setting for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings). We start off with 'A Description of the Island of Numenor'. For fans of worldbuilding, Tolkien's description of the island empire and the accompanying map will be fascinating. However, it's the following story, 'Aldarion and Erendis', which is more intriguing. It depicts the marriage of the noble lady Erendis to Aldarion, later King of Numenor, and touches on larger aspects (such as Aldarion's re-opening of relations between Numenor and the elves of Middle-earth), but for the most part it's a strong character piece. For those who claim Tolkien is overly-romantic, this account of a failing relationship due to outside pressures (Aldarion's lengthy absences from home) is surprisingly realistic. The story breaks off towards the end, although this is more of a relationship study than a tense narrative, so is less grievous a loss than some of the other texts in the book.

Tolkien follows this up with an account of the Kings of Numenor and the major events of their reigns. This is again primarily of interest to worldbuilders, but Tolkien manages to put in some great details and elements that could have been mined to produce further stories, but sadly it was not to be. This is then succeeded by an account of the history of Galadriel and Celeborn, something that Lord of the Rings fans will be more interested in, but frustratingly is also the most 'unfinished' of all the works in the book. Tolkien conceived of several competing, but radically different possibilities for the couple's backstory and reached no firm conclusions before his death, leaving several versions which are mutually contradictory. Christopher Tolkien suggests appreciating these contradictions as part of the literary effect of having a fictional history and mythology, which may be the best approach. Even in their differences, these versions reveal more fascinating information on Sauron's activities in the Second Age and characters briefly mentioned in Lord of the Rings, such as Celebrimbor, Nimrodel and Amroth.

The final sections of the book deals with the Third Age and consists mainly of finished essays and narratives, though in some cases with competing drafts which the editor takes pains to clarify. This section begins with an account of the Battle of the Gladden Fields (the engagement where Isildur lost the Ring), here revealed to be a much larger conflict than the brief skirmish suggested by Lord of the Rings and depicted as such in the films (by necessity, since Peter Jackson did not have the film rights to Unfinished Tales he could not use the account of the conflict here). He follows this up with the history of the Rohirrim, the development of the relationship between the Rohirrim and people of Gondor, and the founding of Rohan itself, again depicting worldbuilding information through a story (here the friendship of Steward Cirion of Gondor and Eorl, founder of Rohan).

This is followed by sections fleshing out The Lord of the Rings. 'The Quest of Erebor' explains how Gandalf came to join forces with Thorin and the dwarves and how he convinced them to recruit Bilbo Baggins to join their quest. This was actually a chapter from The Lord of the Rings, written as part of Tolkien's attempts to better-connect The Hobbit and the later work, but was wisely exorcised for killing the pace of the novel (it was supposed to be a discussion between Gandalf and Frodo between the victory over Sauron and the Scouring of the Shire, where it would have been ill-suited). However, as a stand-alone narrative it's a valuable - and enjoyable - asset in clarifying the relationship between the two books. This is followed up by 'The Hunt for the Ring', a detailed account of how the Ringwraiths set out in search of the Ring after losing track of Gollum (who had been captured by Aragorn). Though rather brief, this short piece does feature a memorable confrontation between Saruman and the Witch-King of Angmar. Rounding off this section is 'The Battles of the Fords of Isen', revealing in detail the battles fought by Rohan against Isengard on the Isen (alluded to but unseen in The Lord of the Rings). Again, it's not essential but does help flesh out a side-element of The Lord of the Rings.

Rounding off the book are three complete essays on three separate topics. The first expands on the Druedain or Woses, the wood-men who help the Rohirrim bypass Sauron's armies to reach the Pelennor Fields. Tolkien reveals in this essay that he was considering giving the Druedain a much bigger role in the backstory of Middle-earth, and even have them playing a role in The Silmarillion, but passed away before this idea could be fully fleshed-out. The second discusses the Istari, or the order of wizards that Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman belong to. We learn the names of the other two wizards who vanished into the east (Alatar and Pallando) and some interesting backstory emerges here. The third and final essay delves into the Palantiri, the magical seeing-stones which play a major role in The Lord of the Rings. This is atypical Tolkien, since normally he preferred to leave the magical elements of his world vague and mysterious, but here he delves into the capabilities of each palantir with the kind of magic system-building enthusiasm we now see with writers such as Brandon Sanderson.

Unfinished Tales (*****) is a fascinating book, representing a collection of writings by the most influential fantasist of all time extending over thirty years. Many of the individual stories and essays are excellent, certainly all are interesting and the only complaint that can be made is that several break off with no resolution. But then the book does tell you that on the cover, so it's hard to hold that against it. Unfinished Tales is available now, in numerous editions, in the UK and USA.

Shadowrise by Tad Williams

2011-12-18T11:54:00.004Z

The Eddon family is divided and scattered. King Olin is a prisoner of the mad autarch of Xis, whilst Prince Barrick is lost beyond the Shadowline, searching for the fabled Qar capital. Far to the south, Princess Briony is a reluctant guest of the Syannese court. The Qar continue their siege of Shadowmarch, but Hendon Tolly is more interested in unearthing the ancient secrets of the castle than in resisting the invaders. That job falls to the Funderlings, who must mount a stalwart defence of the tunnels and passages below the castle.

Shadowrise is the third novel in the Shadowmarch series. Originally planned as a trilogy, the final book in the series grew too large to publish in one volume, so was split in half (though each half is almost as long as the first two books in the series by themselves). Williams has form on this, as this also happened with the paperback edition of the final volume of the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series.

As with the first two books in the sequence, Shadowrise is well-written with some interesting characters. Williams has always had an enjoyable prose style, and that remains true here. Unfortunately, that can't quite overcome several problems. One is that the story unfolds with all the verve, vigour and energy of a particularly lazy sloth on sleeping pills. Chapters seem to endlessly pass which, whilst individually well-written, seem to consist of characters doing little but sitting around and talking about the plot, the backplot and what might happen next, often introducing little to no new information the reader needs to know.

Quite a few of Williams's characters are reactive, spending most of their time wringing their hands and agonising over what to do next. Notably it's those characters who actually make plans and enact them who carry the book, most notably Ferras Vansen and Chert the Funderling. Barrick's journey beyond the Shadowline has an unusual, weird tone to it that is rather different to the rest of the book and features some genuinely unsettling fantastical moments, but is undermined by Barrick's total lack of agency in the storyline. He has no idea about what's going on, neither does the reader, and this makes following that subplot rather tiresome. Worse still is Briony's storyline in Syan, in which it appears that Williams was setting up some rich court intrigue, realised halfway through he couldn't be bothered, and simply ejected Briony from that storyline rather abruptly. Whilst it's good to get this part of the story out of the way, it does render Briony's entire storyline in the last two books somewhat pointless. Also pointless is Qinnitan's subplot, which feels like makework as Williams tries to find something for her to do rather than simply getting her from Point A to Point B.

As the book continues, it starts to pick up some energy towards the end as important plot revelations take place and we actually get some energetic action sequences, rousing the narrative from its lengthy torpor. Naturally these are just in time for the inevitable cliffhanger ending into the final novel in the sequence, Shadowheart.

Shadowrise (***) is readable enough, but so long-winded that it's hard to muster the enthusiasm to carry on at times. Williams has just enough good ideas and interesting characters to make it worthwhile, but unfortunately this novel does little to dispel the impression that Shadowmarch is his weakest major work to date. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Roy Dotrice records new edition of FEAST FOR CROWS audiobook

2011-12-12T19:48:00.003Z

Roy Dotrice has recorded a new audiobook version of A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Dotrice recorded the first three books in the series many years ago, and the fifth more recently, but was unavailable when the fourth novel was released in 2005. Another actor, John Lee, recorded the audio version of Crows, but fans have long expressed a wish for a Dotrice version of the book to make a matching set.

Random House Audio have listened to their concerns. The new edition of the audiobook will be available as a digital download from Audible (US, USA) this week, on Thursday, whilst a CD edition will follow in March 2012.

NEW YORK, NY (December 12, 2011)—Random House Audio announces today that it will release a new recording of George R.R. Martin’s A FEAST FOR CROWS, the fourth book in Martin’s bestselling series, A Song of Ice and Fire, narrated by fan favorite, Roy Dotrice.

Dotrice earned a passionate following from listeners and a Guinness World Record for his work on the series, creating 224 voices for the first book in the series, A GAME OF THRONES.

The new recording will be available December 15th, published by Random House Audio, and HarperAudio UK, and clocks in at 33 hours, 48 minutes long.

A U.S. & Canada CD edition will be published by Random House Audio in March 2012 to coincide with the second season premiere of the HBO series, “Game of Thrones,” which will feature Dotrice onscreen as Hallyne the pyromancer, chief of the Guild of Alchemists.

“Fans from all over the world requested a Roy Dotrice recording of A FEAST FOR CROWS,” says Amanda D’Acierno, Vice President and Publisher, Random House Audio. “We are so pleased to be working with HarperAudio in the UK to publish this edition for our listeners.”

The A Song of Ice and Fire series has more than 12 million of the five books in print, including more than 313,000 audio CDs and digital downloads. The series has developed a huge cult following, peaking this year with the release of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and the premiere of the HBO TV adaptation.

GAME OF THRONES Season 2 trailer

2011-12-12T08:19:00.004Z

A slightly longer trailer for Season 2 of Game of Thrones, narrated by Stephen Dillane as Stannis Baratheon:

“My brother left no true born heirs. By right and birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. The Iron Throne is mine by right. They will bend the knee, or I will destroy them. The cold winds are rising.”

Wertzone Classics: Anachronox

2011-12-11T14:08:00.007Z

Centuries in the future, the human race has begun exploring the Galaxy, using FTL technology developed by a long-dead alien race. These aliens used 'Senders', huge FTL-boosting machines, to transport spacecraft from system to system. At the heart of the Sender network is Sender One, a vast sphere in the middle of which floats the spherical city of Anachronox. The city is built in districts and levels that shift around randomly, reconfiguring like a spherical Rubik's Cube. Sylvester 'Sly' Boots is a private investigator who is down and out on his luck until a new case leads him on a planet-hopping quest which will have ramifications for the fate of the entire universe...

Originally released in 2001, Anachronox was the third and final of the flagship launch titles produced by Ion Storm, following on from the appalling Daikatana and the sublime Deus Ex. A computer RPG, the game used the Quake II engine (then already dated due to the release of Quake III) and was critically lauded upon release. Commercially, it was a failure due to poor marketing, but the game became a cult hit and attracted a small but devoted fanbase who remain active to this day.

It's hard to sum up Anachronox easily. It's a game with plenty of humour, but it's not a comedy. It's set in an SF milieu, but also features superpowers and magic. It was developed by an American studio but features a Japanese-style turn-based battle system (both Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series are cited by the developers as major influences) and several minigames. This mixing and blending of genres makes it a unique game, not quite like anything else out there, but also contributed to its poor marketing and lack of strong sales.

Most of Anachronox is played as more of an adventure game than anything else. You initially control Sly Boots and his AI assistant, Fatima. The game demonstrates its inventiveness and humour almost immediately: Fatima is an associate of Boots who has died, but her consciousness has been preserved as an AI system and placed inside a robot which floats around the environment and is a shaped like a large, metal arrow. Yes, in Anachronox your mouse pointer is a character. This is an awesome idea, and leads to some humourous moments as characters in the city of Anachronox start getting annoyed if you hover your mouse pointer over them, since this results in Fatima's robot body buzzing around them.

"Er, hi there. Boffo ship you have here."
"I SHALL KILL YOU...WITH DEATH!!!"
This is actual dialogue in the game rather than me taking the mickey for once.

In traditional RPG style, you soon accumulate a large number of companions, two of whom can accompany Sly at any one time. You can switch between these companion characters at will to take advantage of their special powers in combat, or their knowledge in conversations with NPCs. At several moments in the storyline, the game splits the team up and proceeds down several parallel paths simultaneously, with the game moving back and forth between the different characters and sub-teams to tell the story in full. In terms of format, this style of playing will be familiar from the two Knights of the Old Republic RPGs from BioWare and Obsidian, but Anachronox predates them by several years.

One of the highlights of the game's design is that the characters' special powers and abilities in combat are based on their characterisation. For example, Grumpos, the grumpy old man character who reacts to any dialogue options with sarcasm or caustic remarks about how great things used to be, has a special attack that allows him to waffle on at extreme length about various tedious subjects to bore an enemy into a stupor. Combat is played out on a grid which allows characters to position themselves, attack or carry out healing or buffing in a manner familiar from Japanese RPGs. Combat is not a strong focus of the game, however, and a surprisingly small amount of game-time is spent fighting. Battles are also usually avoidable, with lurking enemies visible in the distance, allowing players to choose alternate routes. Combat is enjoyable, especially as its relative infrequency means it never becomes repetitive or tiresome.

Something that Anachronox manages very well is tonal variation. The game has a lot of humour in it, but it also has some extremely dramatic scenes and elements of political satire and commentary as well. It moves between scenes of comedy, drama, tragedy, pathos and satire, and handles these transitions well thanks to some great writing, a fine ear for dialogue and the game's constant streak of inventiveness.

The planet Democratus and its entire population joins the party, meaning that technically Anachronox is the only RPG in gaming history with 2 billion party-members.

It's impossible to talk about Anachronox without mentioning it's most barmy story element. In one lengthy sub-quest, Sly and his team arrive on the planet Democratus, where the ideal of democracy and collective leadership is worshipped but in practice is rather unsatisfying, reduced to a tiny, self-sustaining elite being voted for by a mostly-sheep-like populace who vote on pointless subjects for the most spurious of reasons. The satire here is obvious, but also rather amusing. At the end of the quest, after Sly and his friends have saved the planet from being devoured by a swarm of space-insects, the rulers of Democratus decide to hold a planetary referendum to vote for a suitable reward. Sly and company flee rather than endure the planet's long-winded voting process. Later on in the game, whilst in a bar, the crew are rather bemused when the door opens and the entire planet floats into the room. The populace of Democratus voted to miniaturise the entire planet and join Sly's team. From this point on, the planet Democratus is a member of the player's party and can participate in battles (using a fearsome planetary defense network and its own gravitational field as weapons) as well as conversations. Sly can also seriously confuse and distract NPCs by just talking to them with a 7-foot-wide planet floating over his shoulder.

Later on, after a confrontation with the supervillain Rictus (catchphrase: "I SHALL KILL YOU...WITH DEATH!!!"), our heroes are about to die inside Rictus' exploding ship so Democratus reinflates itself to its full size, scattering the party about the planet's surface (and tearing the ship apart and dumping its exploding engine core in a remote area). The party has to reconvene through a series of sub-quests, including a Quantum Leap-inspired quest set in a mountain village and another one where a down-on-his-luck alcoholic superhero regains his mojo by saving a young girl from death. This latter quest has no dialogue and plays out through music and the characters exchanging facial expressions. It is brilliant.

Criticisms of Anachronox are mainly related to its age. It's an older game now, so players may find it fiddly to get it working on modern systems (this post may be helpful). The graphics have dated somewhat, though this means even people with bottom-of-the-line laptops should be able to play it with no problems. From a game design issue, the opening couple of hours on Anachronox features a lot of fetch-quests and running back and forth through a re-arranging landscape which can be occasionally frustrating. More seriously, the game ends on a titanic, never-resolved cliffhanger (Anachronox wasn't the first game in a planned series, but actually the first half of a storyline that was broken in half due to length). Surprisingly, the game's creators have not ruled out pursuing a sequel, so have never explained how the cliffhangers was going to be resolved (but have promised to do so if they can't get the sequel made by 2021 at the latest).

But that should be no reason not to check out this barmy, inventive, hilarious, nicely-written and finely-characterised game. Anachronox (*****) is still available from Amazon (UK, USA) but surprisingly hasn't yet appeared on digital download sites.

Cover blurb for China Mieville's RAILSEA

2011-12-11T13:53:00.002Z

As previously hinted, Railsea will indeed be China Mieville's second YA fantasy novel. The American cover art was revealed a few weeks ago, but now we have a cover blurb as well:

From China Miéville, New York Times bestselling author of Un Lun Dun, a thrilling new young adult novel that reimagines Moby-Dick in an unforgettable and fascinatingly imagined setting.

Sham Yes ap Soorap, young doctor’s assistant, is in search of life’s purpose aboard a diesel locomotive on the hunt for the great elusive moldywarpe, Mocker-Jack. But on an old train wreck at the outskirts of the world, Sham discovers an astonishing secret that changes everything: evidence of an impossible journey. A journey left unfinished…which Sham takes it on himself to complete. It’s a decision that might cost him his life.

The novel is currently scheduled for release by Del Rey in the USA and Pan Macmillan in the UK on 15 May 2012.

EA announce COMMAND & CONQUER: GENERALS 2

2011-12-11T12:58:00.003Z

After the poor reception for Command and Conquer 4 and the subsequent shutting-down of the development studios, real-time strategy fans could have been forgiven for thinking that it was game over for one of the PC's most iconic gaming franchises. Surprisingly, the C&C brand has been resurrected by EA in partnership with their most respected studio, BioWare, and a new, PC-only game has been announced. Whether the fact that a certain other, well-known PC RTS series has sold three million copies of its latest title in its first month on sale had any bearing on this decision is unknown.

With C&C4 ending the core GDI/Brotherhood of Nod storyline and with the Red Alert subseries having reached a level of lunacy that would be hard to continue, it's the Generals subseries that has been revived. The original Command and Conquer: Generals was released in early 2003, followed several months later by an expansion, Zero Hour. Whilst initially regarded less fondly than either the original franchise or the Red Alert spin-offs, Generals has subsequently gained a strong fanbase due to its highly moddable engine and engaging gameplay modes (mostly introduced in Zero Hour). The storyline depicts a near-future cold war between the USA and China with Middle-Eastern terrorists trying to ferment trouble between them. Eventually the USA and China heart-warmingly join forces to wipe out the terrorists.

The original game was controversial and was accused of cashing in on the iconography of the War on Terror, with the inclusion of suicide bomber units being particularly criticised (although they'd been present in earlier C&C games without much fuss being made). However, the game also had a satirical edge to it, particularly with regards to media coverage of modern wars. Between-mission cut scenes were news reports on the conflict, sometimes amusingly 'spun' to have little relation to the actual in-game events. It was a reasonably good game, especially in multiplayer, although technically it was disappointing, with the SAGE game engine being creaky and over-demanding in power compared to the quality of the graphics delivered.

The latest game is being made by a new studio which will operate under the BioWare brand, with technical advice and expertise from the 'main' BioWare studio available. The title will use the Frostbite 2 engine, most recently used in Battlefield 3. Unfortunately, being an EA release, it will also almost certainly use the Origins DRM and registration system, which requires a constant internet connection. This system has also been controversial as EA has recently banned a number of people from the Origin network for making forum posts critical of EA, meaning they cannot play the games they have legally purchased.

Generals 2 will be released in 2013, hopefully by which time EA will have revised or dropped their DRM system.

A eulogy for STALKER

2011-12-11T12:40:00.004Z

RockPaperShotgun has posted a memorial to the STALKER series of games, citing their importance to the FPS genre, their successful depiction of atmosphere and place, and their impressive post-apocalyptic feel (noting how much more oppressive and darker the series' vision is than the recent Fallout games). It's an interesting read, as are the comments for those wondering if they should try out the games.

My own experience with STALKER begins and ends - so far - with Shadows of Chernobyl, the first game in the series. Released in 2007 after a lengthy development period, the game was noted for being heavily broken on release, with numerous patches and fan-mods required to bring the game to an acceptable level of stability. Once you got over that hurdle, the game was remarkable. Set in the Zone of Alienation surrounding the Chernobyl ruins, the game depicted a world populated by people and factions vying for their own interests, as well as thousands of animals and mutants who would go about their daily business completely ignoring the player unless you became a threat or got too close. The game had a storyline - actually a rather interesting one, derived from Soviet and post-Soviet Russian science fiction novels and movies - but its characters were lacking and the English translation perfunctory at best.

What the game successfully achieved was a fusion between RPG-style open-world freedom and FPS gunplay. Combat was dangerous but also satisfying, fast and furious, with a solid selection of weapons on display and an impressive amount of freedom to approach combat in any way you might wish. This was as far as you can get from the 'shooter-on-rails' format the FPS genre has since degenerated into. The game's sense of place was impressive given it was based on a real location that has suffered a real cataclysm, giving a creepy, but compelling, atmosphere to the game. This even bleeds over into different games using the same setting: it's no coincidence that the hands-down best mission of Call of Duty 4 (a game that is otherwise the total antithesis of the STALKER series' ethos) was the one set in Pripyat featuring a desperate battle around the famous fairground wheel. But Shadows of Chernobyl goes further in creating a genuine sense of unsettling 'weirdness' that is quite remarkable.

Sadly, I never got further than about halfway through the game, with one crash too many exhausting my patience. I've always planned to go back and try it again with some of the more recent mods, or perhaps to simply go for Call of Pripyat, its direct sequel (the second game, Clear Sky, was a mostly-unrelated prequel and also the buggiest and weakest game of the series by all accounts). With my 'to-play' list starting to rival my 'to-read' list in size, this won't be any time soon. But certainly there's something fascinating about these games, and the closure of the studio making them is a real shame. Hopefully another developer will save STALKER 2 from oblivion and help bring it to release.

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

2011-12-09T21:24:00.001Z

Harry Dresden has a lot on his plate: he's been challenged to a duel to the death to determine the outcome of the war between wizards and vampires; he's been hired to find the missing Shroud of Turin; his old girlfriend Susan is back in town for unknown purposes; and, just to round things off, thirty arch-demons are on the prowl in Chicago. And that's not even mentioning a pair of European art thieves hitting town and all three Knights of the Cross turning up to confront a mutual foe.

Death Masks, the fifth book in The Dresden Files, is the busiest book in the series to date. It sports at least four distinct plot threads (along with several related subplots) which interconnect with one another in a number of unexpected ways as the novel progresses. Each one of these plots would be enough to drive a novel by itself and Butcher seems to delight in upping the ante and complexity of the series to new heights. Combined with the ongoing, series-spanning storylines, this makes Death Masks the most epic book in the series to date.

That said, Butcher takes care to ensure the story is fully comprehensible at all times, and drives the narrative forward with his customary energy and vigour. He also finds time for some accomplished characterisation, with recurring crimelord Jonny Marcone being developed particularly well. It's also good to see some other characters like Susan and Michael returning, along with the introduction of some intriguing new characters like the Archive (a mystical repository of knowledge taking the form of a little girl) and Nicodemus (a potential new nemesis for Harry). The first appearance of the Order of Saint Giles and the Denarian sect of demons also expands the scope of Harry's world impressively.

Death Masks (****) is another very strong entry in the series. New readers will be lost (I recommend they start with the first book, Storm Front) but returning fans will find yet another page-turning and entertaining urban fantasy novel. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

STALKER developers close down

2011-12-09T19:34:00.003Z

GSC Game World, the developers of the STALKER series of computer games, have been shut down by the owner of the company, according to early reports.

The STALKER series, comprising Shadows of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and the in-development STALKER 2, has been a big hit on PC since the release of the first game in 2007. The series has sold over 4 million copies worldwide and been held up as an example of the continued potential success of PC-only games in the console-dominated marketplace. The series is set in the near future when a second explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor has resulted in a series of reality-warping anomalies opening in the surrounding area. Various factions are contesting control of these anomalies, which they hope to exploit for personal gain.

No firm reason has been given for the shutting down of the company, although the failure of GSC to win interest for a console version of the series has been cited as a possible reason. Possible political issues in the Ukraine, where GSC is based, have also been suggested.

GSC being shut down and STALKER 2 being indefinitely delayed (and likely cancelled, unless someone else steps in) is sad news. Whilst undeniably buggy as hell (though the third game is much more stable), the STALKER series is notable for its hardcore approach to survival and tremendously powerful, bleak atmosphere. Hopefully someone will step in and rescue the development team and the game series from fading away completely.

More info on GAME OF THRONES: THE RPG

2011-12-05T22:28:00.004Z

RockPaperShotgun has some more info on the Game of Thrones RPG due from Cyanide in Spring 2012.

The most notable bit of news is the hithero-unknown (to me, anyway) piece of information that the game uses Unreal Engine 3, which means it should look pretty awesome. The new screenshots accompanying the article confirm this:

"Cult-looking types up to no good in the forest. They're probably either going to attack me or give me some kind of tedious fetch quest."

"Seriously, I can't see a fricking thing with this hood up. What the hell am I thinking? Can't take it off now, I'd look weak and indecisive. Hang on, what's that I've just stepped in?"

At the link are some more shots, including one that shows combat in-progress. The game is due for release on PC, X-Box 360 and PS3 in the Spring. Whilst developed by Cyanide, it's a different studio operating on a different continent to the poor RTS released earlier this year, and hopefully should be a better game.

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

2011-12-04T10:57:00.004Z

Three centuries have passed since a young woman named Vin and a band of assorted thieves used the powers of the Mistborn to save the world of Scadrial, dispersing the ash-clouds forever. Vin and her cohorts have become figures of myth or religious awe, but time has moved on. Great skyscrapers are racing for the sky whilst steam and electrical power are becoming more commonplace.

Out in the Roughs, Waxillium Ladrian has spent twenty years trying to bring peace and order to a rough, frontier land. Called home to the city of Elendel by the death of his uncle and forced to inherit his family's estate and business, Waxillium finds trading his six-shooters for cost ledgers to be harder than he'd expected. A spate of kidnappings and disappearance soon tempt him back to a life of law-enforcement, but Wax needs to face his own guilt before he can face down an old enemy.

The Alloy of Law is a (mostly) stand-alone novel set in the same world as Brandon Sanderson's earlier Mistborn Trilogy. Sanderson has previously announced that he plans three trilogies set in this world, one set in a medieval era, one in a contemporary setting and one in a futuristic milieu. The Alloy of Law is a side-story unrelated to these planned future works, though Sanderson layers some hints for the second trilogy into the narrative and also sets up a sequel (or potentially several sequels) for this book in its closing pages.

Written as a side-project to help the author stay fresh whilst bringing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time sequence to its long-awaited conclusion and coming in at barely a third the length of his last novel, The Way of Kings, it'd be easy to dismiss The Alloy of Law as a bit of fluffy filler to tide his publishers over for a year. This would be a mistake as The Alloy of Law is one of Sanderson's best novels to date.

Sanderson has always been a solid, entertaining author but his most laudable aspect has been the way he's grown and learned with each novel. Arguably his biggest problem has been the length of his books: the Mistborn volumes and certainly The Way of Kings, whilst good books, felt overlong for the amount of plot in them. With The Alloy of Law written as a short side-project, Sanderson has forced himself to write much more concisely, tightly and efficiently than normal, resulting in his most focused, page-turning novel to date. Sanderson has also learned a lot about how to deploy humour in a book (probably learning from his issues - eventually resolved - with handling Mat in the Wheel of Time books), with this book also being his funniest.

Although Sanderson's lightest and most humourous book to date, The Alloy of Law has its share of darker moments, opening with Wax accidentally killing an innocent person and being haunted by it through the book. It also touches upon more epic elements, with several potential references to upcoming storylines in the second Mistborn trilogy. The book also continues Sanderson's tradition of featuring minor links to his other fantasy novels with the appendix apparently being written by the world-hopping Hoid (and featuring a reference to the events of Elantris). The updated setting is another plus point, with the mixture of magic, steam trains, guns and electricity being unusual for a fantasy and blurring the lines between epic fantasy, steampunk and urban fantasy to create something that is more interesting than the norm. Action sequences - something Sanderson has handled quite well throughout his career - are also very strong, with some of his more colourful and memorable battles and duels being depicted here.

Sanderson delineates his main three characters - Waxillium, Wayne and Marasi - well, though the POV structure is a little distracting. The entire first half of the novel is from Wax's POV but suddenly switches over in the latter half to include Wayne, Marasi and the main villain. It feels that Sanderson could have found a more consistent structure to use than this. He also nicely inverts some cliches, such as when Wax finds himself betrothed to a woman who initially appears to be a severe harridan but becomes more well-rounded a character as the book proceeds.

On the negative side, some of the secondary characters aren't as well-defined as the three heroes. In addition, there are moments when it sounds like the lawless frontier would have been a more interesting setting than yet another fantasy city (albeit one that more resembles turn-of-the-century New York than a typical fantasy conurbation), though the culture clash between the two settings is something Sanderson handles well.

The Alloy of Law (****½) is a tight, well-written fantasy novel that uses traditional tropes and ideas but combines them with an unusual (for epic fantasy) setting to produce something fresh and engaging. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

2011-11-29T19:51:00.006Z

Harry Dresden is in trouble. He's inadvertently started a war between the vampires and the wizards' White Council, his girlfriend has suffered an unplanned magical transformation and he's in danger of being booted out of his house and office. When a new paying job comes along it seems like a great opportunity for Harry to get on top of his troubles...until he finds himself in the middle of another magical war.

Summer Knight, the fourth novel in The Dresden Files, picks up some months after the events of Grave Peril and is the first book in the series to feature extensive continuity call-backs to previous volumes without a huge amount of exposition about what's been going on. Four books and twelve hundred pages into the series, I guess Butcher decided it was time to stop catering for newcomers and get on with business.

Having covered evil warlocks, werewolves, vampires and ghosts in the first three books, Butcher explores the faeries of his setting in this volume (though they showed up in the previous book, there's more revealed about them this time around). Making faeries work as threatening forces is tricky in supernatural fiction due to the cliches that come to mind when they show up, but Butcher does a good job here, defining the Sidhe of Dresden's world in some detail as threatening and sometimes malevolent beings who are dangerous and tricky to deal with. Their addition to the story, along with more information about Dresden's wizardly colleagues, expands the scope of the worldbuilding nicely.

Butcher's prose is as enjoyable as ever, with Butcher continuing a nice line in black humour. This book is notably lighter in tone than the dark Grave Peril, but things are still grimmer than in the first two, slighter novels in the series. The continuation of an over-arcing story arc from the third book (which still isn't resolved at the end of this volume) gives a more epic feel to events, with Harry's mission in the book having larger and more important ramifications in the wider conflict and world. It's good to see returning characters like Billy and his werewolf pack, the Alphas, whilst Karrin Murphy returns to the forefront of the action and, as she puts it, successfully kicks some major supernatural arse in one well-realised action sequence.

At this point The Dresden Files is becoming an enjoyable television series in novel form (which makes the failure of the TV version of the series more of a shame, though that may be down to how much they deviated from the source material). Each novel so far has had a satisfying self-contained narrative, but also added to the mythology and, in the third and fourth books, has brought in larger storylines spanning multiple volumes that bring a more epic feel to the series.

Summer Knight (****) is another well-written entry in a highly enjoyable fantasy series. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Westeros: Total War needs some help

2011-11-29T14:21:00.004Z

Westeros: Total War, a fan-made total conversion of Medieval II: Total War that will allow players to conquer the Seven Kingdoms with the faction of their choice, is making some serious inroads towards completion. However, progress could be speeded up if some experienced Coders, Skinners or Modellers could be found to lend their help to the project.

Check out the TWCenter forum here to see what is needed, and hopefully we can be claiming the Iron Throne ourselves in 2012.

Five years of the Wertzone

2011-11-29T13:25:00.003Z

Yesterday the blog turned five years old. Wow, how did that happen? Half a decade ago I started the site on a whim following another poster's suggestion on the Westeros.org forum and it's gotten bigger and led to more interesting opportunities than I ever thought possible. Because of the blog I've met a large number of my favourite authors, got into contact with many more and been able to pursue some paid writing and editing work (more on this next year) which otherwise would not have been possible. All great stuff, made possible because people seem to like reading the blog.

So, that's five years, 1,407 posts, well over 1.6 million site visits (and over 2.5 million page views) and 354 book reviews under my belt. Where from here? Onwards and upwards, hopefully (and definitely a page redesign at some point). Thanks to everyone for stopping by over the years. Sorry for the lack of cake :-)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2011-11-29T11:56:00.001Z

Detroit, 2027. The human race is changing, with nanotech research and cybernetics technology making 'augmented' humans stronger, faster and smarter than their 'normal' forebears. Numerous groups are opposed to augmentation on ethical and religious grounds. Adam Jensen, chief of security at Sarif Industries, one of the leaders in augmentation research, is severely wounded when terrorists attack and destroy one of Sarif's labs. Saved by augmentation, Adam must investigate the attack, discover the motives of those seeking to destroy Sarif Industries and, ultimately, decided which side of the argument is the 'right' one.

Human Revolution is the third game in the Deus Ex franchise, serving as a prequel to the events of the original Deus Ex and its lacklustre sequel, Invisible War. Set twenty-five years before the first game, Human Revolution helps show how that world of nanotech and enhanced humans came into existence. As a prequel, Human Revolution requires no existing knowledge of the earlier games and makes an ideal jumping-on point for new players.

Contrary to screenshots which suggest that it's a FPS, Human Revolution is a science fiction roleplaying game played from a first-person perspective. The game is built around the idea that though there is a central narrative the player must follow (this isn't an open-world SF RPG like Fallout 3), the player has tremendous freedom in how he or she follows that narrative. The game has a robust combat system which will satisfy those who like shooting things, but it also has a solid stealth mechanic for those who prefer sneaking around in the shadows (or, more often, inexplicably large air ducts). The game also has a hacking system so players can also hack into computer networks and turn automatic defences against enemy forces. Even within a particular play style, there is flexibility, with the ability to stun or knock out opponents rather than killing them being a particularly welcome feature (and the game has achievements for those who complete the game without killing anyone). Most players will probably mix and match styles as the mood takes them, or depending on the mission.

Deus Ex was infamous for its tremendous flexibility and freedom, adapting its storyline to cater for the player deciding to kill off major NPCs on a whim and letting them simply escape from tough bosses rather than being forced into difficult battles (especially if they were not built for combat). Human Revolution isn't quite as liberal in its approach to gameplay, most notably due to the four tough and unavoidable boss fights which have been commonly and frequently criticised. In a game which enjoys giving you different options in almost every circumstance, being forced into situations where you have to break out the heavy artillery is annoying, especially if you've been upgrading your character for say stealth or hacking and are not optimised for combat.

However, this is the only major criticism I can level at the game. In almost every other arena, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a triumph. The game has a fantastic atmosphere and sense of place, backed up by an absolutely superb soundtrack and carried through some top-notch writing. Deus Ex is one of the most critically-acclaimed games of all time, and there were doubts that Human Revolution could live up to that precedent. These doubts have been laid to rest. The game is more than worthy of its illustrious heritage, and deserves plaudits for its clever design. It employs regenerating health and a cover system, two features of modern FPS games which are often groan-inducing and tiresome (is there a company somewhere that specialises in building chest-high walls and inexplicably littering them over levels?), but Human Revolution takes ownership of them. The regenerating health is justified as a force-shield, whilst the cover system (well-implemented as these things go) does double time as a tactical combat mechanic, allowing your character to move around whilst suppressed, rolling from cover to cover, firing blindly and finding sniper vantage points. Actually, the cover system pulls triple duty as a stealth mechanic in non-combat situations as well.

The game has a lot to say about the rights and wrongs of cybernetics, augmentation and the power of corporations and governments, but tries not to get preachy. As the game progresses, your character can develop his own opinion on matters, informed by the events he's experienced and the choices he's made, and the multiple endings (there are four radically different resolutions, each with three different endings based on your character's actions earlier in the game, meaning a total of twelve possible outcomes) can see him reaching very different conclusions. Whilst you can't create your own character, you can certainly develop him in more depth than in most CRPGs. This is helped by an excellent 'dramatic conversation' mechanic where you must argue with a major NPC over an important topic, trying to convince them to help you or surrender without the need for violence. Major plot revelations crop up in these conversations. However, it's odd that there aren't more of these (there's only three or four in the game), as in their own way they are more critical to the game than the tedious boss fights.

The game's central storyline is gripping, tightly-written and populated with memorable, well-acted and flawed characters. However, the game has two large hub areas (in Detroit and Heng Sha) where you can wander off from the main story for a while and pursue some side-quests. A couple of these side-quests are extensive, taking a couple of hours apiece to complete, and are a great opportunity to gain additional XP and increase your character's skills and augments. These hub areas are rich in incidental detail and flavour (overhearing citizens discussing the news stories of the day, being offered food from stall-owners etc), but arguably there's little to do in them outside of the (relatively few, for the size of these areas) quests and buying some equipment and weapons from a few vendors. A bit more going on in each zone would have expanded the play-time (which at 25 hours is reasonable but not particularly notable for an RPG) and made the game a little richer. Also, the game rarely strays far from the traditional FPS paradigm of having most of its actions set indoors in successions of corridors and offices. A little more variety in locations (perhaps more outdoor opportunities for stealth or combat) would have been nice.

These kind of complaints are very minor. In a world of increasingly bland and 'safe' first-person shooters, Deus Ex: Human Revolution (****½) stands out with its strong writing, well-defined characterisation and its refreshingly open approach to freedom and choice, whilst having compelling action sequences as well. It's one of the strongest RPGs, and indeed games overall, of the last couple of years and is well worth a look. It's available now on PC (UK, USA), X-Box 360 (UK, USA) and PlayStation 3 (UK, USA), as well as on the OnLive cloud gaming platform for PC and Mac users (UK, USA).

Dungeon-crawling for the 21st Century: Legend of Grimrock

2011-11-28T20:44:00.004Z

Developers Almost Human are working on a new dungeon crawl game entitled Legend of Grimrock. The game is a lovingly-crafted tribute to dungeon-crawling games of yesteryear, such as Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Knightmare, Black Crypt and Lands of Lore, and even features the same tile-based movement of those games, as well as a similar combat and inventory interface. Here's the trailer:

Looks like a lot of fun, though what modern gamers more used to the likes of Skyrim will make of it is unclear. But for older gamers hankering for some old-school gaming, it could be just what the duergar ordered. The game is currently scheduled for release in early 2012 on PC and Mac.

Grave Peril by Jim Butcher

2011-11-27T18:26:00.004Z

Harry Dresden, Chicago-based wizard for hire, finds himself drawn into a new case. A plea from a helpless young woman sets him on a course that will lead to a cataclysmic showdown with an old enemy, and may cost Dresden that which he cares about the most...

Grave Peril is the third novel in the Dresden Files series of urban fantasies and an important turning-point in the series. The first two novels, Storm Front and Fool Moon, were entertaining but little more than enjoyable fluff. Grave Peril is a considerably darker and more personal book, with Butcher's writing much more confident and assured as he puts Dresden through the emotional wringer. Whilst reading the book I was in put in mind of those 'gamechanger' episodes of Buffy and Angel when Joss Whedon would rip up the status quo by doing something to the characters that hurt them badly and established a new paradigm he would have fun setting up and exploring.

Grave Peril expands the cast of the Dresden Files with Michael Carpenter, a Christian knight armed with a magical sword, joining Dresden in his battle with the forces of evil. We also get a greater depth of worldbuilding, with both the vampire and Sidhe inhabitants of Dresden's world being fleshed out in a lot of detail. Whilst Butcher's approach does not stray too far from standard fantasy/horror depictions of these creatures, he succeeds in making them feel fresh and interesting, a near-impossible task given how ubiquitous these forces have become in recent supernatural fiction.

Butcher's writing is fun and enjoyable, with more of Dresden's attitude, character and humour bleeding through the first-person prose. His writing has definitely stepped up in quality from the first two books in the series and he effectively conveys the horror of several disturbing scenes in the book. He's become better at conveying emotion since the opening volumes of the series and several scenes are real gut-punches. There's also a more epic feeling to events, with ramifications from this book likely to extend over several books to come, opening up the story to something larger and more interesting in scale.

Some complaints remain. As with Fool Moon, Dresden is injured several times in the book and Butcher goes a bit overboard in his descriptions of how tired, hurt and helpless Dresden feels due to these injuries. There is the feeling that with each successive volume, Dresden's powers and abilities with magic are growing (along with those of his allies) and this requires Butcher to go to some lengths to 'nerf' Dresden's abilities to simply stop him using a hand-wave of magic to solve all of his problems. However, this is a minor issue, and Butcher's impressive improvement in the areas of prose and characterisation overcome it quite handily.

Grave Peril (****) is where The Dresden Files comes of age, and it does so with aplomb. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

George R.R. Martin's first-ever published piece of writing

2011-11-27T16:46:00.005Z

A good find by HaraktheHirsute on the Westeros.org board. This is the letter George R.R. Martin wrote to Marvel Comics in 1963, published in Fantastic Four #20 when he was 15:

There you go. From such small seeds etc.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

2011-11-27T12:31:00.006Z

The Empire of Tamriel is under a dark threat. The Emperor has been assassinated, leaving behind no heir. Portals to the dimension of Oblivion are opening all over the Empire, unleashing demons and monsters upon a defenceless population. The Blades, guardians of the Empire, seem unable to resolve the crisis. It falls upon a single hero to bring peace back to the Empire...if he can be bothered, that is.

Oblivion is the fourth game in the Elder Scrolls series of roleplaying games (the fifth, Skyrim, came out a few weeks ago). Originally released in 2006, Oblivion was the first game in the series to be developed with the latest generation of video game consoles in mind as well as the series' traditional home on PC, and was an early showcase for the graphical capabilities of those consoles. Five and a half years on, it remains an impressive game, even if time has not been kind to many of its niggling faults.

Like the first three games in the series - Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind - Oblivion is an open-world RPG which gives the player a huge playing area to travel around in straight away. Whilst there is a core narrative relating to the search for a new Emperor and shutting down the portals to Oblivion, the player is free to completely ignore this in favour of pursuing side-quests, secondary narratives (such as joining the Thieves' Guild or Dark Brotherhood, both of which have extensive questlines of their own) or simply raiding dungeons for loot for personal gain. This freedom is both exhilarating and also daunting, as some players might feel overwhelmed by the amount of choice on offer. For this reason, the game pushes it core storyline much more strongly than previous games in the series to give players something more tangible to hold onto and pursue.

You know the dragons in Skyrim? These are Oblivion's equivalent, only they're crap.

Unfortunately, the central storyline ends up not being particularly interesting, which is annoying as it also seeks to subversively overthrow some of the cliches and conventions of fantasy RPGs. Initially the game leads you to believe that your character is the 'chosen one' who must save the world, but amusingly you quickly discover that you're not. Your job (if you choose to pursue the central storyline) is to find the true heir and clear the way for him to save the world. Essentially, you're a fixer who has to rush around solving problems and leaving the way clear for the real hero to do his stuff. This is a bold narrative decision, but also one that can be potentially frustrating, making you feel like you're playing second fiddle to an NPC. For this reason, the main storyline is rather short (if you concentrate on it and don't get distracted by other quests, you can finish it in less than ten hours) and also teams you up with the 'real hero' only for the final mission of that storyline. However, be advised that starting the main quest (by following directions to the city of Kvatch after speaking to the old dude at the monastery at the start of the game) will result in portals to Oblivion opening all over the countryside and result in constant, extremely annoying, battles with imps and lesser demons when you're simply trying to get around. Completing the main quest closes the Oblivion portals, thankfully.

The game engine is rather old (it was first used in 2002's Morrowind) but was hugely upgraded for Oblivion. On release the visuals were absolutely, jaw-droppingly beautiful and still look impressive today (and can be made truly awesome with high-texture mods). Vast forests, grassy plains, towering mountains, medieval towns and ancient ruins are a constant feast for the eyes, and rendered with tremendous atmosphere. Even more impressive is the freedom you have to travel everywhere: if you can see it, you can walk there. In Oblivion it's often appealing to simply go for a walk or ride through the countryside in a random direction and see what you bump into.

Unfortunately, the game is less accomplished in its depiction of people and creatures. Human characters are stiff, with somewhat oddly-rendered faces and clunky animation. Monsters fare better, with a variety of interesting creature designs. Interacting with other living creatures is also hit or miss. The game suffers massively from a very limited voice cast. Aside from Patrick Stewart (who has about five lines in the whole game) and Sean Bean (voicing the 'proper' hero), everyone else, even major NPCs, is voiced by the same small pool of actors. When Brother Jauffre, a major character in the game, is talking to you in the exact same voice that the innkeeper round the corner was using to talk to a customer who was also voiced by the same actor, any sense of immersion in the game is seriously dented. Dialogue and the writing in general are also, for the most part, cliched and predictable.

"One does not simply walk into Oblivion. Apart from you, obviously, just by walking up to gates and clicking on them and then going through that tedious tower raid thing again and again. What's up with that?"

Combat and magic use are pretty solid mechanics, with a nice physicality to the combat making it feel like you are in a serious melee. The game allows members of all classes to develop skills outside of those classes, so a sword-wielding mage or a magic-casting warrior are viable possibilities. Unfortunately, the game's levelling mechanic is a little bizarre, since you only level up when your core class skills are practised to a high enough level. Since the entire game world levels up with you (i.e. visiting a wilderness area at Level 1 might result in combat with a bandit in leather armour equipped with a short sword, whilst visiting the same area at Level 20 will reveal a plethora of bandits in magical armour armed with sorcerous blades), there is no real imperative to level up, so it's actually better to pick a class opposite to what you want to play and then develop the non-class skills to high levels. In fact, the level-scaling mechanic is a seriously annoying feature, and one that is a dealbreaker for many players. PC gamers can simply mod the feature out, but console players are stuck with it.

It's a tribute to Oblivion's team of developers that the game can survive an indifferent plot, some bad writing and a series of immersion-shattering, poor design problems. This is mainly down to the inventive and better-written side-quests. Joining the Dark Brotherhood (the assassins' guild) results in a tense, dark-tinged and morally challenging questline that puts the main story to shame. Individual quests are also very strong. Going to sleep on a boat-turned-tavern in the capital's port results in the inn being stolen and sailed out to sea! This leaves you having to take on the hijackers and return the boat to port. Another quest finds you having to venture inside a magical painting to rescue its creator, with a completely different art style to the rest of the game. A visit to a village in night results in you being attacked by invisible fiends, which turn out to be cursed villagers forced into invisibility by a dubious mage (which is a bit harsh if you've already killed several of them without realising what they were). Also, simply not following any quests at all and going dungeon-diving at random can result in memorable encounters and some sweet loot.

Umbra, noted mass-slaughterer of innocent people if you let her out of her dungeon. Which is a horrendous tragedy but also hilarious.

The central draw of the Elder Scrolls games, and indeed Bethesda's Fallout games which are in a similar vein, is the chance to experience your own narrative at your own pace. No two players will ever play the game in quite the same way or experience the same quests in the same order, and it's this involvement of the player's decision in determining the narrative which can be extremely compelling and result in unique stories. For example, in my first play-through I wandered into a dungeon holding a powerful warrior named Umbra, one of the few non-level-scaled characters in the game. Since I was only Level 3, I died near-instantly. After trying a few different tactics to overcome her and steal her sword (one of the most powerful magical weapons in the game), I gave up and fled the dungeon. As I looked back I saw the maniacal super-warrior chasing me along the lakeside. Fleeing at a full run past a guard patrol, I watched as they engaged Umbra and promptly expired. Still, their sacrifice allowed me time to escape. Thinking no more of the incident, I played on for about another 30 hours, bringing the main quest to completion (amongst many other things). On a whim I decided to travel on foot back to the Imperial City alongside Martin (Sean Bean's character) rather than fast-travel there. As we approached the lakeside, we noted numerous corpses of guardsmen, bandits, monsters and merchants along the road. There were dozens and dozens of them. Hearing a familiar cry, I saw Umbra emerge from nearby rocks and attack. It turned out that Umbra had spent the intervening in-game time (weeks, at least) wandering back and forth slaughtering everything in sight. Now considerably more hardcore and with Lord Boromir Stark at my side, I engaged the nutcase in battle and defeated her, getting her mighty sword just in time for the main quest's climactic, huge battle. Awesome.

It's moments like this that allow Oblivion (****) to overcome its many issues and emerge as a highly enjoyable computer roleplaying game. PC gamers also have access to a truly vast number of mods and expansions which do everything from upgrading the graphics, making the characters more realistic and fixing the level-scaling issues to completely overhauling the game and providing new storylines and entire new maps to play on. The game is available now (in a special edition including the expansions) on PC (UK, USA), X-Box 360 (UK, USA) and PlayStation 3 (UK, USA).

GAME OF THRONES Season 1 DVD release details

2011-11-25T13:48:00.004Z

Via Westeros, we have some info on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases for Game of Thrones, Season 1.

The first season will be released in the UK and USA (and some other territories as well, from the sound of it) on 20 March 2012, about three to four weeks before Season 2 debuts on DVD. As well as all ten episodes, the set will include a plethora of special features.

The Blu-Ray will have the following exclusive items:

The Complete Guide to Westeros: an interactive guide to Westeros and Essos, their key locations and noble houses etc. There are also 24 exclusive histories of the Seven Kingdoms told by the characters.
Anatomy of an Episode: a guide to the creation of an episode from start to finish, in this case the sixth episode, A Golden Crown.
In-Episode Guides: in-feature infoboxes that provide information about characters, locations and histories whilst each episode plays.
Hidden Dragon Easter Eggs: find the hidden dragon eggs to unlock more exclusive content.

The following features will appear on both DVD and Blu-Ray:

Making Game of Thrones: a 30-minute documentary about the series.
Creating the Show Open: a featurette about how the opening title sequence was crafted.
From the Book to the Screen: George R.R. Martin, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss discuss the issues involved in bringing the novel to the screen.
Character Profiles: profiles of fifteen major characters, provided by the actors playing them.
The Night's Watch: an in-depth look at the men of the Night's Watch.
Creating the Dothraki Language: a feature on how the Dothraki language was created for the show.
Audio Commentaries: Seven audio commentaries with cast and crew including David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, George R.R. Martin, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington and more.

Sounds like a pretty good package, considering the amount of time they made us wait for it, and should tide people over until the second season starts airing a few weeks later.

A first look at GAME OF THRONES Season 2

2011-11-22T22:37:00.003Z

Here are some interesting images from the recent Game of Thrones trailer released by HBO:

Rory McCann returns as Sandor Clegane, the Hound, now a member of King Joffrey's Kingsguard. Apparently Sandor's role, which was somewhat under-emphasised in Season 1, will be beefed up for Season 2 to something more like that of the books. It may also just be the lighting, but his make-up for this season looks markedly better as well.

The Painted Table of Dragonstone. It's good to see it's in the series, but it does appear to be a smaller and less grandiose version of what is described in the novels.

Stephen Dillane as King Stannis Baratheon. The production team have opted not to have Stannis bald, as in the novels, but otherwise have gone for a stern look more in keeping with his depiction in the books.

Theon Greyjoy meets a drowned priest of the Iron Islands. In a change from the books, this is a miscellaneous priest rather than his uncle, Aeron 'Damphair' Greyjoy. This is probably to keep their options open when it comes to casting Aeron for a later season.

Melisandre of Asshai, played by Carice Van Houten. With her red hair and neck choker, this is Melisandre pretty much straight out of the books.

Natalie Dormer as Margaery Tyrell. This is a big change from the novels, as Dormer's casting means that Margaery is older and more seasoned than the young noblewoman of the novels. Some fans are speculating that Margaery's character responsibilities may be combined with those of the Queen of Thorns to produce a stronger, more interesting character.

Liam Cunningham as Ser Davos Seaworth, Stannis's most loyal retainer. An excellent piece of casting and Davos looks the part perfectly here. Since Davos spends more of his time on a ship than on a horse, it's interesting to speculate that he might be present at a certain parley here.

Michelle Fairley as Catelyn Stark and Finn Jones as Ser Loras Tyrell, both returning characters from Season 1. It's interesting to note the combination of the Baratheon stag and the Tyrell colours on the banner behind them, suggesting that for the TV show Renly might have adopted his own, subtly different sigil.

Gethin Anthony as King Renly Baratheon, here shown cultivating a beard, possibly to look more 'kingly'. Combined with the stag-like crown, this makes Renly look a lot more like Robert's little brother. Behind him is a mostly-obscured Brienne of Tarth, played by Gwendoline Christie.

Overall, it looks like HBO is hitting the right marks in getting A Clash of Kings onto the screen. The season will start airing in the USA and (presumably) the UK in April 2012.