Friday, May 16, 2014

Androids & 'Zines

Looking for a little weekend reading? I've got a couple of suggestions:


On the "directly gameable"side, you could do a hell of a lot worse than picking up Tim Shorts's latest issue of The Manor. It's got a brothel locale by Matt Jackson, some clever pairs of rooms that can be stuck into any dungeon by Ken Harrison, and a class and a one shot adventure by Tim. Then, there's that Jason Sholtis cover.


On the fiction (but with game inspiration potential) side, you can do a lot worse than Charles Stross's Heinlein homage, Saturn's Children. It's the twenty third century and humanity is extinct, but their androids are keeping interplanetary civilization going in the solar system in a "something's missing," Toy Story sort of way. There are few android lineages missing something more than the main character Freya and her template sisters, sexbots all. Trying to escape a vengeful aristocrat, Freya stumbles into political games and goes to work for a spy agency (Jeeves Corporation) run by a former gentleman's butler. Jeeves is trying to prevent (maybe) the synthesis of a human by a black lab on the dark edge of the solar system.

This is the first book set in the universe of Neptune's Brood (which I discussed here), albeit in a much earlier era than that later work. There are a lot of cool ideas that could be worked into a science fiction of post-apocalyptic setting including androids or robots--or even a fantasy setting, as my other post discusses. Also, Stross spends a lot of time on the very real difficulties of interplanetary travel that will give you a lot to think about, even if that level of realism isn't typical for games.

5 comments:

Gothridge Manor said...

I recognize that halfling. Thanks for the shout out.

Saturn's Children sounds very Heinlein. And that's a good thing.

Justin S. Davis said...

Halfling Mack is a character class I never thought I'd see.

"Big pimpin'", indeed.

Trey said...

@tim - You're welcome. It's a fine publication.

@Justin - Previously only available to Kender as a prestige class.

The Happy Whisk said...

Thanks, Trey.

Jim Shelley said...

You've sold me on Saturn's Children. I bought it on Audible and plan to start listening to it this week.