In Praise of Good Old Games
It all started a few years back when I bought a new notebook computer, one without a disk drive, as is becoming more and more the fashion these days. I had a sudden hankering to play Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, my favourite ever turn-based computer strategy game. I did not fancy carrying around an external disk drive just so I could play a very old game that used its disk as a security measure. (You could not play at all without the CD in your computer’s drive.) I can’t remember how I found myself at Good Old Games but Read more…
Author’s Notes: Weaver of Shadow
Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilisation is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph. That quote, as you probably well know, comes from Robert E. Howard. More specifically it comes from his 1935 story Beyond the Black River, one of my two all-time favourite Conan tales. (It’s a toss up with Red Nails. I can’t choose between them.) Beyond the Black River illustrates Howard’s theme all too well. It’s a tale of violence along the border between the civilised land of Aquilonia and the Pictish Wilderness. It was written late in Howard’s Read more…
Fun Atelier, Hong Kong
I meant to put this up a month ago but with my usual sloth-like speed I have somehow managed to delay doing so. After a couple of establishing shots of Hong Kong, specifically of the harbour as seen from the Star Ferry taken on my phone camera, these are pictures from my signing at Fun Atelier. This is a great hobby store reached by its own elevator –how cool is that?– on Hong Kong Island. As you can see if you look closely I was sporting my wino beard but somehow this did not discourage numerous people from approaching me Read more…
Back!
My apologies — six weeks have passed without a post, which is my longest period of radio silence since I started this blog. In my defence I will say I have both been busy and on holiday. I was travelling in Asia– Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia to be specific. My original plan was to write about my trip as it happened. If you follow this blog you’ll have noticed how successful that was. I blame this on the fact that I was having a good time and to the fact that I quite frankly prefer wandering around interesting, exotic Read more…
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