Galactic Magic for Starfinder

Galactic Magic for Starfinder

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Since its inception, Paizo’s Starfinder RPG has been a science fantasy game. The deep melding of magic, science, and technology is built into the setting from the foundation, and classes like Technomancer and Witchwarper really exploit a mystical connection with scientific and technological knowledge. One of the major deities, Triune, is deeply tied artificial intelligence and computer technology. Many of the rulebooks released for the series have included magical devices and new spells.

Despite all of the emphasis on magic, though, Starfinder has not previously had a supplement fully devoted to magic. They’ve had a variety of technology-focused supplements like Armory, Starship Operations Manual, and Tech Revolution.  (Tech Revolution, it is worth reminding people, introduces mechs into the game. Seriously, look into it.)

The drought of magical supplements finally ends with the recent release of Starfinder: Galactic Magic (Paizo, Amazon), which sets the stage to add mystical flavor to the game.

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Vintage Treasures: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

Vintage Treasures: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

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Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (Ace, 1985). Cover by John Berkey

Tim Powers is a much beloved figure among American fantasy fans. As Gabe Dybing pointed out here in 2020:

He has a strange sort of fame. The most obvious cause for his celebrity is that twice he has won the World Fantasy Award for best novel (Last Call, 1992, and Declare, 2000). He also has been credited with inventing, with The Anubis Gates (1983), the steampunk genre… Finally, for whatever reasons, Disney Studios optioned his 1987 novel On Stranger Tides for its Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

In my own reading circle in the mid-80s however, it wasn’t The Anubis Gates that generated the most excited chatter about Powers, nor his (considerable) steampunk cred. No, it was his Mad Max-inspired novel of a scavenger culture in post-apocalyptic LA, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, which was nominated for a Nebula and won the Philip K. Dick award for best original paperback in 1986.

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The Eclectic 1965 Ace Catalog: Avram Davidson, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and Andre Norton

The Eclectic 1965 Ace Catalog: Avram Davidson, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and Andre Norton

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Rogue Dragon (Ace Books, 1965, cover by Jack Gaughan) and the back-page Ace paperback catalog

As ludicrous as it might sound, I have a few books I bought more than half a century ago and still haven’t got around to reading. This short Avram Davidson novel was one of them, until I dusted it off last night.

Looking at the ads in the back of the book — from a time when publishers could do direct mail-order sales — I was struck by how eclectic the Ace catalog was. A couple of great anthologies there, including Carr and Wollheim’s 1965 World’s Best; some recycled pulp-era stuff; ersatz Edgar Rice Burroughs from Lin Carter; two Andre Norton juveniles; the first publication of Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 (as half an Ace Double, paired with something by the now sadly forgotten Emil Petaja); an excellent collection of Avram Davidson’s short stories; Philip K. Dick’s Dr. Bloodmoney…

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New Treasures: Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley

New Treasures: Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley

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Shadow in the Empire of Light (Solaris, January 2021). Cover by Head Design

I’ve got a soft spot for Jane Routley. In the early days of my career — when I had nothing more than a 386 desktop, a dial up connection, and dreams of a vast blogging empire — I chased publishers relentlessly, sending countless review notices and badgering them with requests for review copies. Andy Heidel at AvonNova was the first publicist to take me seriously. Or maybe just the first to ship out a box of books to shut me up, I’ll never know sure.

Whatever the truth, tearing open that very first box of new releases in my living room in July, 1996, felt like Christmas. And the fist one I took out of the box, and the very first book to get a review assignment at my fledgling website SF Site, was Mage Heart by Jane Routley. I’ve followed her career with great interest ever since, and I was delighted to snap up a copy of her newest, Shadow in the Empire of Light, when it was released by Solaris last year.

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Goth Chick News: The Dead Travel Fast in Branko Tomovic’s Vampir

Goth Chick News: The Dead Travel Fast in Branko Tomovic’s Vampir

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Color me old fashioned, but there is something intriguing about a vampire story which comes straight from the region around the Carpathian Mountains. Granted, Serbia isn’t the original Transylvania. But due to the many regional conflicts dating back to the Middle Ages and their eventual land-locked status, Serbia shares quite a lot of folklore and traditions with its neighbors Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, and of course Romania.

Maybe because unlike Seattle, Serbia looks like a place where vampires would hang out; or maybe it’s the accent. But when I had the pleasure of visiting Hungary and Croatia, it seemed supremely likely that every local cemetery had a resident undead. It’s therefore no surprise that a new independent film from Serbia did so well at the Sitges International Film Festival, followed by Trieste Science+Fiction, and Raindance that it got snagged by Alarm Pictures for distribution in the US and UK.

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Random Reviews: “Blue Haze on Pluto” by Raymond Z. Gallun

Random Reviews: “Blue Haze on Pluto” by Raymond Z. Gallun

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On February 18, 1930, Clyde W. Tombaugh, a 24-year old astronomer, noticed a miniscule dot that flickered when he ran two astronomical slides through a device known as a blink comparator.  Tombaugh had been working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona since April of the preceding year trying to find an hypothetical ninth planet that Percival Lowell had predicted would exist.  Tombaugh realized he had made the discovery and reported the news to his superiors. The news of the discovery was announced on March 13 and the new planet would be named Pluto, at the suggestion of an eleven year old girl, Venetia Burney, whose great uncle, Henry Madan, had suggested the names Phobos and Deimos for the two moons of Mars 52 years earlier.

The first science fiction story to be published that mentioned Pluto appeared in Fall of 1930 when John W. Campbell, Jr. published the story “The Black Star Passes” in Amazing Stories Quarterly.  Other stories followed suit and in the June 1935 issue of Astounding Raymond Z. Gallun published the story “The Blue Haze on Pluto.”

Gallun’s story opens with the aftermath of the crash of a transportation craft on Pluto’s surface. His protagonist, Terry Sommers, is injured and willing to wait for rescue until he remembers that the person in the seat in front of him, Dr. Cairns, had commented that he was transporting a serum to cure Sylfane plague that had struck the city of Pindar. Upon discovering that Cairns, along with most of the other passengers, had been killed in the wreck, Sommers decided it was his duty to try to make it to Pindar with the serum, despite a broken arm.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fables and Fairy Tales

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fables and Fairy Tales

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Legend (Universal, 1985)

The fantasy film boom of the Eighties mostly drew upon pulp sword and sorcery tales, but some harked back farther to earlier traditions of myth, fables, and fairy tales, often because the filmmakers had a more vividly enchanted look in mind. Whether hit or miss, these movies and their typically rich visuals provided a welcome diversion from the then-prevailing norm of mounted barbarians thundering across windswept steppes.

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If Jack Reacher Came to Westeros: The Chronicles of Stratus by Mark De Jager

If Jack Reacher Came to Westeros: The Chronicles of Stratus by Mark De Jager

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Infernal and Firesky (Solaris, 2020/21). Covers by Head Design

I’m not one to complain how things were better in the Good Old Days of fantasy in the 70s and 80s. (I know, I know — I had trouble keeping a straight face even as I typed that.) But at least mass market paperbacks were plentiful in those days, and you could escape from your neighborhood bookstore with a couple slender paperbacks, a chance to try out some exciting new authors, and change from a ten dollar bill.

There’s still plenty of exiting new authors to enjoy today, and fantasy is certainly richer and more diverse than those long-ago glory days (especially if you’re looking for something that wasn’t written by a straight white male). But mass market has gone the way of the Dodo. Nowadays the shelves are crowded with expensive trade paperbacks, and a pair of new authors will set you back 35 bucks or more.

Which is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for Solaris, who’ve held the price of the trade paper volumes to just $11.99 for much of their introductory line — including South African writer Mark De Jager, whose debut fantasy Infernal was described as “If Jack Reacher came to Westeros” by Sebastien de Castell.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 36

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 36

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So, last year, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Horstmann. I have already re-posted days one through thirty. Here is thirty six (April 26). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries.

Day Thirty Six – 2020 Stay at Home

Theodore took a cab to do some grocery shopping for his sister. I told Fritz to make sure he took a long shower when he got back, and to not touch anything, or spread his clothes around. We didn’t need him bringing anything into the house from his day out.

The Giants chose a tackle in the third round, on day two of the draft. After taking a tackle in the first round (with the fourth overall pick). That team makes me shake my head from the draft through the final game. Said final game rarely taking place in the playoffs.

After lunch, I asked Wolfe if he wanted to play pool. He ignored me.

Fritz didn’t go out today, so we played a few games of Yahtzee in the front room. His accent is almost adorable when he says ‘Yaht-zeeeee!’

 

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Set in Stone: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

Set in Stone: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

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The Fifth Season (Orbit, 2015). Cover by Lauren Panepinto

So, there I was, strolling through the endless corridors of Black Gate’s Indiana compound, when I chanced upon a book shelf I hadn’t noticed before. Over it hung a sign, carved in blasted stone, reading, The Fifth Season. I picked up the lone book on the shelf, toted it home, and read, with increasing awe, one of the finest science fiction novels of my adult life.

Strike that. The Fifth Season is one of the finest novels I have read, period.

Maybe that’s why it won the 2016 Hugo Award.

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