Roy Dotrice records new edition of FEAST FOR CROWS audiobook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.