Big

Welcome to the weekend!

It's finally February and, as the most recent post has shown, the year is already starting to roll along. 2024 is off to a strong start.

However, today I wanted to talk about scale and ambition a little bit. Let us think Big!

There is something about the Epic in storytelling that attracts us all, isn't there? We all want to be wowed and awed, even if we say we couldn't care less about such a thing. Though it's a feeling the mainstream entertainment industry and art world lost through the paint worship of the 20th century, preferring obsessing over aesthetics, disjointed parts, subversion, vague moralizing, and weird nihilism, we still appreciate the large than life more than ever before. There is something to the scale of even the most simple thing that inspires wonder and joy in all but the most cynical of all of us.

We all want to see the greater things in life reflected in even the smallest objects, but along the way we've lost the ability to not only imagine it--we've also lost the ability to even look up in the first place. Instead we've been trained to look at the mud and think ourselves superior to both our neighbor and the rest of the world that we can't even imagine higher things anymore.

When did this hope for greater things start to fall away? I would say it most likely began around the 1960s and rotted away in the 1970s to be replaced with crass commercialism in the 1980s and bottoming out into irony poisoning before the 1990s ended. By the 2000s, all that remained of wonder was perversion, emptiness, and a hatred for life. In half a century, art became the exact flipside of what it was meant to be.

I think this destructive bottoming out can be summed up in the subgenre created by the fallout of this vapid culture, dubbed "Reddit Carnage" by Mystery Grove Publishing, the former book publisher and now full-time newsletter writer.

It's a relatively new term, but I'm sure you have an idea of what it means. "Reddit" of course refers to the social media site, infamous for its trumpeting of group think, reinforcing of anything popular culture pumps out, and general misery of the sort that could only foster in such an echo chamber. "Carnage" is hyper violence. Put the two together and you get Reddit Carnage. Murder porn made for the terminally online, emptied of humanity.

If you've never heard the term before, here are some uses of it:

The long and short of the term is that is empty hyperviolence meant to desensitize you to the purpose of violence, the sanctity of life, and to demoralize you in general. There is no purpose to any of it accept to condition you to accept meaninglessness and think of other people as little more than meat sacks who explode real good. In essence, it's anti-human.

I should explain this further. It's not an easy idea to get across.

This is a sort of "genre" that did not exist before Millennials, because it couldn't have. Reddit Carnage is a story where everyone is a cartoon character who treats the lives of other people as disposable, especially if they are the generic bad guy (whose motivations themselves are usually vague beyond "the government/good guy/girl boss says so"). And you know it's all silly and meaningless because the title is silly and meaningless, the action sequences are silly and meaningless, the characters are 2D flat stereotypes that are silly and meaningless, and the costuming and accents are silly and meaningless. All that matters is the carnage of seeing Bad People ripped to shreds and the World Order run by the Good Guys preserved. There is something intentionally inhuman about this subgenre, and that is because it is an inversion of a style of film that used to be more prevalent before the 21st century. It's a warped misunderstanding and interpretation of what an action story is.

It is the 1980s action movie stripped of any pathos or sense of justice beyond vague shadows of what once used to be there. It is the anti-wonder approach to action storytelling, replacing the eternal with the temporal.

"Reddit Carnage" is a way to reinforce vapid bugmen consumerist morality through carefully prescribed dopamine releases not-so-secretly aimed by the producers of the film on groups of human beings they do not like and portray as "correct" targets to brutalize and dehumanize. This is different from casting villains as terrorist groups based on real life like action movies used to do, because they are frequently not based on real terrorist groups at all. These films are not even subtle about this, but for whatever reason modern movie-goers (however many of these that still exist at this point) cannot seem to see it beyond grinning at Bad People being diced up.

If you want to know why these projects are "still allowed" to be made by Hollywood when other types of action stories aren't, it is because they aren't true action movies. They are murder porn simulators where audiences can see Hollywood approved bad guys get their heads blown up by walking automatons that vaguely resemble what a person they think should be. It is every old parody of action movies on late night TV, but made real.

Reddit Carnage is the parody version of what people who hate action movies used to say they were, made by people who think those critics were right and aim to rub their noses in it. "Yeah, it's blatant murder porn! Who cares! Listen to that one-liner. It's so bad it's good, am I right?"

But that's not what action movie ever were. That's a fantasy concocted by people who hate you telling you what you should think about something you like, and you've let them infect the way you see not only your entertainment, but the world.

Over the years, Cannon has gone from being a joke to being beloved.

Take Cannon Films, the B-movie masters who were considered the makers of pure shlock back in the 1980s. They were considered bottom of the barrel and were hated by Hollywood despite (but actually probably because of) the fact that they only ever wanted to make movies that entertained, not lecture the audience. Finding an anti-human message in a typical Cannon movie is actually very difficult, despite the fact that they were hated so much by the establishment.

Watch a movie like Death Wish II. Yes, it's sleazy. Yes, it's grimy. Yes, it's violent and dark. Yes, there are horrible happening things in it. However, the film still has a point. Life is difficult, justice is not only real but is necessary for a safe society to function, and evil must be pulled out at the root. It's a heavier version of the original Death Wish meant to show the decay that occurs after nothing changed (and nothing did change) after the events of the first film. This goes even further into apocalyptic insanity with Death Wish 3, but I'm not getting into that one here. Regardless, I think the series deserves more credit than it gets.

The last theatrical movie Charles Bronson made with Cannon (he would retire not long after this) was called Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects which is about human trafficking and the dehumanization aspect of it on everyone involved. The movie isn't one of the strongest Bronson ever made (not even with Cannon) but its ending is still surprisingly powerful, asking what justice would have been in this situation. For a final theatrical release, Bronson still tried his best to create something. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford and Baby Boomer stars of the '80s and '90s have been spending their retirement years destroying everything they built up back then.

But that is a whole other subject. The point is that there were more going on in these simple old movies than you think.

Even Chuck Norris movies, the nexus of lazy punchlines for years, all have moral cores. Yes, even the Cannon ones. Missing in Action is about a man who will do anything to undo a near-fatal mistake and put things right again. Invasion USA is about how even in the face of tremendous odds, good remains stronger and will still prevail against encroaching evil. Even The Hitman is about how good repaid with evil eventually leads to self-destruction, ending with good standing on top again. There is nothing empty about any of that because it's all based on truth.

The best example is probably Sidekicks, not made by Cannon. Sidekicks is the story of a physically sick kid who uses his dreams and fantasies and his hopes to improve his life condition to become a stronger human being. Despite being a silly movie meant for younger audiences, there is a very good moral core at the center of it all. Our hero's plight cements both imagination and effort as two of the most important aspects of personal growth.

There is nothing negative about any of this. In fact, this is all healthy messaging. But it was twisted by those in charge into being considered "wrong" and backwards from reality. This is why they were turned into punchlines by those in charge. The last thing they want you to imagine is any greater purpose to anything in life. Just consume, give them your paycheck, and keep your head down. There is nothing else to life.

Reddit Carnage, therefore, is the opposite of what wonder stories are intended to be. It has no relation to how action stories are meant to be.

Find Combat Frame XSeed Here!

So what is a good example of something on the opposite end of the spectrum from Reddit Carnage? What is the sort of story where large ideas and concepts are portrayed as such, where looking up is considered important, and the good is always shown as just that?

The above image should give you a clue. I am talking about Giant Robots. There is a good reason for that--it is action storytelling meant to make you consider Big things through portraying Big things in clear visual language. It is the exact mirror of Reddit Carnage, to the point that the two have never met in the same project. I am not convinced they ever properly can without turning said resulting idea into a mess.

But I digress.

Now, were I to bring up something like Giant Robots in casual conversation, I am liable to get one of two general reactions. The first is of excitement and child-like joy at the very idea of large objects engaged in epic actions, and the other are eyerolls from mature adults who prefer to spend their time golfing on the weekend away from such juvenile things. In other words, your appreciation for the idea of Giant Robots probably aligns with how much you appreciate wonder and the potential for life itself. It's a litmus test: much like how much your appreciation for space opera goes beyond multi-billion dollar brands shows how much you appreciate the general idea of the genre in the first place, or just how much other people are talking about it.

But even in the giant robot space (if one can call it so) there is a bit of misunderstanding as to what they are, what their intent is, or even what makes it a "real" robot story.

The above video highlighted at the very top of this long post delves into the history of the giant robot genre through where it really flourished--Japan. the history goes back far. Particularly important is how it was an invention of post-WWII Japan for a country that wanted to dream big (and did) while finding their footing in a world unlike anything they knew before. In the process they stumbled into something that morphed into a worldwide phenomenon for those lovers of the overblown and the epic. Because it is an idea anyone can understand.

Of course I'm not going to say Japan created them all on their own or are the sole creators of the style, but they ultimately put their own stamp on the idea, just as they did with superheroes with their own tokusatsu. Therefore what influenced them became reflected back out into the world and influenced everyone else. This key aspect of communication and back and forth is what makes art and entertainment so very interesting.

The most fascinating part of the whole thing is that they can't really be subverted. Don't get me wrong--you can try. You can try to inject modern values into the genre, you can try to make the good guys lose, and you can even make it so there are no good guys at all--but it never seems to matter. What remains at the end of it is still the idea of Big, or scale, or romance beyond the mundane. It can never quite be gutted out because by default that is what is.

The Big is embedded in the genre.

And perhaps all of this is why, despite the crumbling of mainstream culture in the West, there still remains plenty of joy and life in those who create and those who want to enjoy the creations of others. Those who still appreciate the Big, the truly weird, and the epic, refuse to be shaken off by the dead trends of those who are supposed to be in charge of them.

You've certainly noticed it yourself, the tide changing. The air is no longer quite what it used to be even a few years ago. We're in the mid-2020s now, and the decade is finally taking shape into what it is meant to be. The shackles of Cultural Ground Zero are breaking apart. As long as we stay the course we can finally break the downwards spiral and aim up once again. All we have to do is keep thinking Big.

There isn't anymore room for Reddit Carnage and its empty promises. It is time for better ways: ways that we are finally rediscovering for ourselves.

Let us keep going back at it and we can then look back on the '20s as the decade where everything finally changed for the better.

Just remember to never stop looking up. There is always something bigger than you can imagine, just waiting to be discovered.

I have my own Giant Robot story in Two Adventures Across Eternity!

Weekend Lounge ~ Mechs, Blood, and Rock n' Roll

January might be the coldest and most boring month of the year, but it doesn't have to be. Typically it's the time to form new habits because there isn't much to distract you yet before the year starts rolling on. At the same time, it is also the time to revisit old forgotten things and learn from them before they get lost in the flood of everyday life.

For the first lounge post of the year I wanted to focus on one of the strangest, yet perfectly understandable at the time, phenomenon of the late 1980s and early 1990s. No, not the Japanimation boom you might or might not remember, but s specific popular creation from it. I wanted to share with you the story behind the very unique and of its times anime OVA, Bubblegum Crisis.

This is the story of four women working as mercenaries wearing specialized mecha/power armor called "hardsuits" to battle evil threats in a cyberpunk future world. There is also a lot of killer music, action, and heartfelt emotions along the way. It only lasted for 8 episodes before production troubles split the team of this once in a lifetime project up, but it has still remained a classic of the genre for anyone who remembers it. The series was also highly influential in ways that are still felt in the industry today.

How do you appeal to guys? Pretty simple. Incredible action directed by some of the best animation of the time, attractive women that still blow away the ones in the mainstream industry today, and some of the most exciting music of the time period (in ways you might not expect), all team up to form a complete package of cool.

Motorbikes, power armor, and beautiful women!

Appealing to the male audience can sometimes lead to things you might not expect. Bubblegum Crisis is one of those seminal works of Japanese anime that will probably never fully disappear. It's simply too unique and too well done to over be forgotten.

Now, saying Bubblegum Crisis is of its time seems redundant. It looks 80s, feels 80s, and oozes 80s from every orifice. That said, its roots go back further than that, and its impact lived on beyond that cultural high decade for Japan.

This is why I am sharing the above video with you detailing its entire wild production history. It's a crazy story, unlike any other, and in it you will see not only the importance of cultural osmosis, but the importance of imagination and wonder to really affect people in ways that truly count. This is why younger guys can watch it today and still find a lot to take from it while being blown away by what it does.

Nonetheless, if you are either a creator yourself, looking into a very specific time in culture like the 1980s, or just generally enjoy wild real life stories, I highly recommend the above history of Bubblegum Crisis. There was nothing quite like it and will never be again.

Of course that doesn't mean there is no anime worth your time today. Last year's Pluto was excellent and one of the best anime releases in recent years, and this year seems to have than a few interesting projects on the way.

It's just not quite the same as this era, and will never quite hit the same way. Not that it can, but that makes this time all the more valuable to remember. The past might be a different country but it should still be the same world. We are meant to carry on from it, and help build in new directions for generations to come.

Regardless, Bubblegum Crisis is still very cool today and you should still watch it. And really, that's all that matters.

That's all for this weekend! See you next time!

For more stories of wonder, get yourself two for only one dollar! Journey to unknown worlds in these stories of high action and exciting adventure!

Weekend Lounge ~ Believe in Getter!

Welcome to December! Not long left to go in the year. Not only that, it's Advent season and then we go into Christmas, and that's it for 2023! We're in for some good times ahead.

For some updates from my last update post, as I informed Kickstarter backers, the final books have been shipped out and the campaign has now been fulfilled. If you are a backer you can see the details for yourself in the most recent update. For everyone else, the reason I state this is because the paperback omnibus version of the Gemini Man series is now available on Amazon via KDP here! I know some of you were waiting for it, here's your chance.

Today's subject is a bit of a wild one. Recently, mecha series have had a bit of resurgence, especially in the prose arena, with projects like Combat Frame XSeed and Collateral Damage, among many others, have shown there is still much life left here.

What you might not know is one of the most unique, and influential, franchises that have been here since Japan themselves embraced the concept back in the 1970s. I am of course, speaking of the great, yet massively underrated in the West, Getter Robo.

One of the most common ways to describe Getter Robo is Lovecraft with mecha, but that description might be lost on people today because "Lovecraft" has been turned into a synonym for undercooked political thought and rehashed tentacle monsters. That isn't what Getter Robo is. What Getter Robo does is take the cosmic horror aspect and turn it on its head, keeping both the mystery and the horror while also managing to turn the madness into a weapon for the heroic.

Though its origins came from a simple place (legendary creator Go Nagai needed a concept for a new series with three transforming robots and Ken Ishikawa created the franchise under him), it soon transformed into what is one of Japan's best entries in the form, up there with Tetsujin-28/Gigantor, Giant Robo, Mazinger Z, Patlabor, Gundam, and VOTOMs, and it also maintained a surprisingly high level of quality throughout the decades and up to Ken Ishikawa's unfortunate early death.

If you are unaware of Getter Robo, I highly recommend the above video as an introductory crash course, especially if you enjoy giant robots. It is long, but you can put it on 1.5-2 times speed of you want. You will not miss out on much. Regardless, the first three parts alone are invaluable to see above all else. I can definitely say it has influenced a lot of what I do, and many others over the years. Learn exactly why it retains its popularity and influence even to this day. There is nothing quite like Getter Robo.

That's all for this week! Have a happy beginning of December and I will see you next time!

The physical edition of the Gemini Man is available here!

Weekend Lounge ~ Scrap Metal

"But it did get worse."

What if you learned an entertainment company you enjoyed fondly as a young one fell apart? Even worse than that: what if you saw the entire thing coming from a mile away, but not only could you do nothing to stop it, the people in charge thought they were succeeding instead? How exactly what something like that come about?

Well, it turns out that we have no shortage of such examples in the modern world, many I've even highlighted before on this blog. However, today I wanted to highlight one project in particular that was such a specific sort of failure that it can only have happened to one company on one project in particular. That's right, this is about RoosterTeeth and Gen:Lock.

For those who don't know what either of those are, and there are plenty these days, RoosterTeeth started out back in the 2000s as one of those user-created content mills based on the properties of others, much like Machinima was (remember them?), who started with the comedy series Red Vs. Blue. RvB was a Halo parody using in game assets to make comedy skits and observations about the video game and pop pop culture itself. It was very much a 2000s era product, as its very name shows, and could not have been made at any other time.

Red Vs. Blue did well, eventually leading RoosterTeeth into trying something more ambitious. Using their talents, they endeavored to make an original universe spearheaded by a man named Monty Oum. He worked on the last few seasons of RvB and was responsible for such viral videos as Haloid (a Metroid/Halo crossover) and Dead Fantasy, (a Dead or Alive/Final Fantasy crossover) which is a 2000s era project if there ever was one. This new project, of course, would be RWBY.

I'm not going to bother to go into RWBY, that whole thing is a story in itself, but suffice to say it was popular. It was so popular that RoosterTeeth attracted a lot of attention from outside parties, many eager to see if they could cash in on this burgeoning "new" form of entertainment. Naturally, this meant more projects would come about.

One such product is the now infamous Gen:Lock, their attempt at a "modern" mecha series. It is now more well known for its failure than anything it did while it was around. There is a lot to go over, so I recommend watching the video above to get the entire experience. Suffice to say, it was an unbridled disaster, spurring from both the worst aspects of independent creators AND the worse aspects of corporate interference. Gen:Lock runs the full gamut of mistakes, bad luck, ineptitude, and does it in such a way that is almost impressive.

As you watch it keep the events in mind for whatever it is you are passionate about, and remember them. Things can always get worse--don't choose to make them worse yourself. Remember what the purpose of art and entertainment is and try your best to not fall into this hole yourself. A lot of the problems described, especially those that happened near the end, are very much turning into common mistakes today in the here and now. This whole event is becoming far too common, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking it should be acceptable.

That's all for today! November is here, and the weather is turning chilly. Be sure to keep warm and have yourself a rest.

Have a good weekend, and I'll see you next time.

Four books of high adventure from the streets to the mountains of magic!

Signal Boost ~ 9Volt Comics #3!

Find it Here!

The indefatigable ArtAnon, illustrator of Brian Niemeier's Combat Frame XSeed mecha, as well as Bradford C. Walker's Star Knight Saga, not to mention my very own Duel On Dalpha (which you can still get for free on the sidebar!) is part of yet another top notch comic book project!

This one is another anthology of talented comic artists stretching their wings into classic pulp stylings with an emphasis on wonder. Given the recent explosion of independent comics, you're going to want to check this one out. It's as weird as you could hope.

The description:

"Science Fiction and Fantasy! What could possible be a better combination? Here are NINE STORIES of spacefaring, futuristic cosmic magical mystery featuring action, adventure, and awesomeness. Featuring ArtAnon Studios, Dale A, Jim Stanislawski, Daniel McGuiness, Robin Taylor, Evan Hill, Jake Tvister, and Peter Seckler"

It's another packed edition of 9Volt. You can find it here!

In related news, Combat Frame XSeed's successful crowdfunding campaign is the most backed in the series thus far. It has been extended to give readers an opportunity to reach a new stretch goal to hit funding for the card game as well as 3D printed models! This is quite a big goal for a NewPub project, so be sure to back it today!

Signal Boost ~ "Combat Frame XSeed SS" by Brian Niemeier!

Find it Here!

Today, I would like to talk about a brand new crowdfund campaign! This one has already smashed its funding goal, but it still has some stretch goals to make. It can definitely reach them at the rate it is succeeding, so a push really can't hurt. This project would be Brian Niemeier's second instalment in his XSeed S mecha action series, Combat Frame XSeed SS.

This is the second series in the franchise so far, but you can back for the first one in the campaign if you missed it. However, you do not need to have read it to enjoy the current storyline. I know the author works hard to make sure all of his books make jumping on points. Nonetheless, there is plenty of story to read available, if you are so inclined.

The campaign description:

Space is a graveyard

They came to destroy us ...

... Now they're humanity's only hope

The Guardian Angels race home to confront a traitor. Instead, disaster forces them into a savage battle with an invincible enemy bent on Earth's annihilation.

Can Jehu Red lead his team to victory over a power even greater than their XSeeds? Or will humanity burn on the funeral pyre of history?

If you like Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Mobile Suit Gundam, you’ll love the gripping continuation of #1 best seller Brian Niemeier’s Combat Frame XSeed saga! Back the project now and read the book before anyone else!

Of course, like most of these sorts of campaigns, there are are different tiers and stretch goals to peruse. Definitely be sure to go over them and find what interests you. Apparently people like having themselves killed in books, so scan that tier if you so want yourself annihilated in a particularly gruesome manner. I won't judge.

I never said NewPub wasn't going to be bizarre, but that's what makes it so interesting. Be sure to check out the campaign today! They are all killing it this year.

Once again, you can find Combat Frame XSeed SS here.

For something a bit different, why not check out author Adam Lane Smith's course on how build a $4000 a month business in your spare time? It's a bit different than the usual thing I post about here, but this could be just what you're looking for, especially in this crazy and uncertain age we live in.

Signal Boost ~ "Collateral Damage" by Adam S. Furman

Find it Here!

It's big robot action! I missed this book the first time around, so figured it was time to give it attention. In case you thought NewPub was running out of tricks anytime soon, I present to you another book filled with action and excitement!

The description:

Destructive Battles Rage Between Hellish Kaiju and Giant Mech Protectors

A desperate father must rescue his son when a deadly kaiju rampages across his city.

When opportunists lurk and buildings crumble around him, the battle might be the least of his worries. Each minute means more destruction, and the clock is ticking.

The first in a new kaiju series where the ordinary collides with the oversized, Collateral Damage is based on a short story of the same title originally published in Broadswords & Blasters Magazine. Experience the first taste of this series with a punch to the gut. Mind the shadows -- you could be crushed.

Once again, you can find it here!

Big robots, monsters, unending action, it never ends! NewPub has always got something exciting to show you.

Find out more about this new movement in the Pulp Mindset!

Signal Boost ~ Star Knight Saga, Book 2: Hounds of Nimrod

We're back with another signal boost, this time for the sequel to a book I've already reviewed! Author Bradford C. Walker is crowdfunding the second book in his Star Knight Saga space opera series, and he needs your help.

In case you are new to the series, Star Knight Saga is a mixture of mecha, sword and planet, space opera, and plain old adventure. It's as exciting as it sounds. Now the author has finally announced book 2! Those of us who have read the first are eagerly awaiting the second.

I know it's a bit of a chaotic time out there in the world, but that hasn't stopped creators from doing their all to put out works of escapism and adventure to keep you entertained during this mess. In fact, they've been working extra hard. While OldPub has ground to a halt NewPub is still firing on all engines. It will take a lot more than this to derail us.

The summary of the campaign is as follows:

We pick up where "Reavers" left off, with our story's focus shifting to Earth and her solar system. Countess Gabriela Robin is in hiding, but she's threatening to go to Earth to speak of her experience at New Edinburgh to the Court of Stars and thus directly threaten the master villain of that raid: Count Vikuun Qis. 

Qis calls upon a new figure, Master Nimrod, to hunt her down before she can expose him. To ensure this succeeds, Qis throws Red Eyes and his pirates at the Solar Guard to keep them busy. The two strategies are meant to converge when Nimrod delivers Gabriela to the pirates to fulfill his promise to their mutual benefactor: the Architect. 

The action and intrigue goes from Ganymede to Rome, and from ship-to-ship down to man-to-man, as both villain and hero attempt to outwit as well as outfight each other to determine the fate of the Songbird of Second Salisbury.

Once again you can find the campaign here. There is a little more than 3 weeks remaining, but if you get in now you might be able to grab some exclusive perks.

This summer is is still heating up!

More Adventure is on the Way!

Signal Boost ~ Brian Niemeier's "Combat Frame XSeed S" Campaign

Two Signal Boosts in a row? That is quite out of the ordinary for this blog, but summer is typically a busy season in general. This is the time when creators and customers are the most active, and I would be remiss to not chip in at such a time to aide both in finding what they want. NewPub is exploding in activity and increasing in success, and I'd like to highlight some of it.

This time we are looking at Brian Niemeier's Combat Frame XSeed Indiegogo campaign. He has successfully crowdfunded every book in the series so far, and this one is no exception. It is already funded and ready to go with less than a week left in the cmapaign. In fact, it is doing the best out of every campaign he has done so far.

So why does this project need a signal boost? He appears to be crushing it quite soundly. There is a good reason for that beyond the obvious one of supporting NewPub creators. First let us look at the campaign description then I will explain.

An unstoppable scourge lays siege to Earth

Can humanity survive a world-destroying force that has never known defeat? 

The Ynzu Siege nears its third bloody decade. Battered to the breaking point, the United Commonwealth-Protectorate recalls its combat frame carrier fleet for a last stand at Earth. 

Lt. Dex Trapper must battle for his life when the Ynzu strike his remote extrasolar colony. Cut off from the UCP, Dex and his CF tech Thatch make a desperate break for help in a century-old XSeed. 

Fans of J.N. Chaney’s Messenger series and Cole and Anspach’s Galaxy’s Edge will thrill to this new series in Dragon Award winner Brian Niemeier’s XSeed saga! Back it now and take the ride before anyone else!

The author has introduced stretch goals such as bonus short stories for all backers, card games, and perks such as posters. There is a lot of content to look through to see what strikes your fancy. Check out the campaign for yourself.

However, despite its success there is one goal he has mentioned that those in NewPub should want him to hit. If he reaches 5 figures ($10,000) on his campaign he will be able to look into animation and move up to the next stage. That's right, if readers can give him the support he needs they will have opened up a brand new road for those in NewPub to travel down. This is something we all want to see happen for very obvious reasons.

All that aside, this is still a campaign worth supporting as Mr. Niemeier is an author who knows how to spin a yarn. As someone who has hired his services as an editor I can confirm his knowledge in the subject of storytelling. You will have a great time.

Back the campaign today secure in the knowledge you will be taken on an adventure you have never experienced before. NewPub is killing it, and you can be a part of the action!

You can find the campaign here.

"This book is going on my favorite shelf for the frequent rereads I have done with a few of the tales."

Soldier Blade: One of the Best Video Games Ever Made

It's been awhile since I made a post like this, but it's about due. In the spirit of Brand Zero, I'm going to go old school and talk about a dead series that no one will ever revive due to the genre being abandoned long ago. At the same time, I hope to show just what we miss out when destroying the foundation from underneath your feet.

This post is about a little game named Soldier Blade, a forgotten classic on a now forgotten system. This is in a climate where classic gaming is currently being whitewashed away by certain AAA companies attempting to reframe the 32-bit generation as the first console generation. No doubt if Nintendo weren't still around they would do it successfully and certain gamers would allow them to do it.

But I digress.

The reason I've chosen Soldier Blade is because it is one of the best shmups ever made, but explaining why is a bit tough due to the genre's heavy use of gameplay to leverage itself over flash and presentation. To understand these days why the genre was beloved you have to wipe gimmicky "Bullet Hell" games from your head and put your mindset back to when games began and the genre's beginnings. Because shooters have fallen quite a bit from where they began and are near extinct these days.

As an action game, few are as tight, as responsive, or as colorful as this one is. There's a reason it still remains a favorite of genre fans of this near-30-year-old-game to this day. And that's unlikely to ever change.

Soldier Blade came more or less at the peak of the genre, in the early 90s, before video games abandoned their roots in arcade challenge and goals for cinematic experiences. It is pure gameplay, meant for that rental store, or that dying breed of gamer who needs to master levels and accumulate high scores. You have to go back to a certain time and a specific mindset. You have remember when games were about gaming first above presentation or flash. In many ways this game represents its era on top of also being excellent in its own right.

Soldier Blade was released in 1992 for the popular PC Engine in Japan, and the nearly forgotten TurboGrafx-16 in the West. Despite how it might look and sound, it was not released for the CD attachment games such as Ys were given. This was done on the original hardware before any revisions. It's a bit hard to imagine, but the TG16 was a much better and impressive system than gamers were lead to believe.

The game was also the last in a series that ended on this system. Well, it was technically the last. There were other games, but they were more remix than sequel. Before we go on, let me talk about the Star Soldier series a bit.

Star Soldier was a competent shooter that came out back in the mid-'80s on the MSX and the NES. It was Hudson's attempt to try to take on the almighty Compile, creator of classics such as The Guardian Legend, GunNac, Blazing Lazers, Musha, Spriggan, and Zanac x Zanac. If you don't those then you really, really, should. At the time they were one of the kings of the genre, up there with Capcom, Konami, and IREM.

But Hudson was more of a platformer-type developer at the time with Adventure Island, Bonk, and even Bomberman under their belts. Shooters weren't their thing, despite the genre being so big at the time. So their first two attempts with Star Soldier and a few years later with Super Star Solider, were merely decent.

They did offer a Caravan feature for their games, as score hunting was big back in the Golden Age of gaming. In case you don't know what a Caravan Mode is, I should explain. In an exclusive level, the player has 2 or 5 minutes (depending on the mode selected) to attack enemies, gain power-ups, and defeat bosses, to rack up the highest score possible. As can be deducted, such a mode can be addictive among a group of gamers. There is also a score attack mode on top of the time limit ones which adds yet another layer of replayability. And this doesn't even have anything to do with the main game.

However, in 1991, they finally nailed it with the Japan-exclusive (and mis-titled) third entry Final Soldier. A game that understood shmups had appeal beyond shooting waves of erratic-patterned enemies with sparse or no background elements at all. They had finally made it up there with the best of the best. They realized the genre is about level design, creative art, and weapon management, just as much as pattern recognition and quick reflexes. This is, after all, a video game, and not just a pachinko machine.

But in 1992 they put out a game which pushed their system to the limits with Soldier Blade, technically the final game in the series. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the Top Ten best Shooters ever made.

I say it was technically the last in the series, because there was the also excellent Star Parodier released in the same year which was a (natch) parody of its own series. Plus there was an N64 game and Caravan-only Wii release years later, but none of these really were new entries that pushed the series forward. They were just basic shooter releases, not as in-depth as the proper games in the series were.

So what exactly makes Soldier Blade so good? If you just think of shoot 'em ups as mindless games of pattern recognition then you're missing the point (as well as describing every genre in a reductive way) though I think it is something that was lost when Bullet Hell became the standard. When people think Shoot 'em up today they typically don't think of games like Soldier Blade anymore, and that's a shame.

To begin with, the controls are rock solid. There's no slipperiness to be found. Should you die then you have no one else to blame but your own weakness. This is good because of the different enemy patterns and types that meld together which require good reaction time to deal with properly. The enemy patterns are never overwhelming and offer enough variety to keep you on your toes through the game's rather lengthy 7 stages and one Caravan stage. But that's only part of what makes Soldier Blade so good. The patterns and enemy design would be enough to make it top tier, but there's more beyond that.

One thing I don't like about Bullet Hell shooters is that they feel like they exchange level design difficulty with purely dodging enemy fire instead. It makes the games less visually interesting to play, and cuts down on immersion. You could make the aesthetic a blank white background and little would actually change.

For example, in Soldier Blade you have to weave in between nigh-indestructible fleets, meteor showers, tight structures, and large enemies in between their fire. In other words, the level design and the enemies work together against you to emphasize that feeling of lone soldier against the world. It's more than just dodging bullets. In this way it's not unlike a vertical Contra or Metal Slug game without a jump button.

In Bullet Hell shooters there isn't really any level design beyond dimmed backgrounds (so you can see the bullets) and waves of one or two colors to keep track of from enemies that might as well be floating guns. The levels are also much shorter to compensate for this repetitive experience. It's not as interesting a formula as the classic shooters had, and it may be why they became niche almost immediately after they began.

Soldier Blade isn't like that, and, in my opinion, neither are the best games in the genre. It's a classic shmup through and through that relies on every part of the genre to be great. This is what allows it to stand the test of time.

Every level of the game tells a story that could be its own tale in a Fred Saberhagen collection. It does this without cutscenes or dialogue boxes. Events happen around the player and in the background to show a new scenario in the alien attack on every level that is as cool to see as it is to play. You get the impression that you've been thrown right into the middle of a larger story. As an example, I suggest watching the video below.

Operation 4 (Ignore the sound issues, the game doesn't have those)

That's about this time I realized Soldier Blade was something special. And this is but one of the levels in the game.

Another thing you might have noticed in the video is the lack of one-hit deaths at certain points. This is because of how the power-up system works. This is a bit different than previous games in the series, and might be my favorite of any shooter short of a Compile joint. Though I bet even they wish they could have made a system this clear and sharp.

Your guns start at the base level, then rise with every pick-up to three levels with a max of 3. Every time you're hit it lowers your power back to zero and then a quick death with the next hit. At the same time, collecting a power up also gives you aspecial screen-clearing weapon that changes depending on the color you stack. Certain levels and enemies are easier to take down depending on which power-up you wield, so choose what works for you in every given scenario. This means there is a lot more strategy to tackling levels than you would think for a shmup.

You also have a tiny mecha buddy following you around every level. It shadows your movement and copies your weapons. At the same time it is also invincible, so if you play smart you can use it to block bullets from the enemy. Aim it right and you can be an unstoppable force.

There is a lot here for such a simple system. Every trip through the game is a different experience due to this.

It also means multiple ways of racking up that high score to beat your buddies in Caravan mode. This adds much replay value for both modes, and a good crutch for new players to learn the game at the same time. It is an ingenious touch to game that was already one of the best games on its system.

The soundtrack is . . . well, you can hear it for yourself above. It's upbeat, fast-paced, and intense, the exact sort of thing you want to hear when shooting alien scum. The TG16 sound-chip was one of the best even at the time, and this game shows it off. Even for a shoot 'em up soundtrack in the Golden Age of the genre it is genius.

As you can surmise, there isn't one piece of this game that isn't the best of its genre. I could go on, but why bother?

I think by now you're beginning to see just what makes Soldier Blade such a classic, and why after 30 years it still is thought highly by those who still remember what a good genre the shoot 'em up is. Long before cinematic experiences turned shooters into joyless, plodding, D-grade movies, it was about gameplay first and aesthetic built on that. Here you can go on a journey to save the world from the alien menace, and look stylish doing it.

What more could you ask for?

But watching videos only gives part of the experience. This is a game that should be played. Unfortunately, much like the genre itself, it has mostly been forgotten thanks to revisionism. The arcade roots of gaming have been severed and have left the medium floundering in its futile attempt to be terrible movies instead.

Soldier Blade is also not that easy to get a hold of. The original TurboGrafx version is expensive, as is the system it came on, and it has only been re-released on the Wii and Wii-U Virtual Console as well as the PS3 store digitally. It should be more easily available, but it's just not, like most of the genre isn't. And the devaluing of the shoot 'em up genre over the years by difficulty-hating game journalists hasn't helped it stay visible. Over the years they've done more damage to classic gaming than anyone else.

If it isn't one complaining about a game with incredible replay value costing more the $5 while praising $60 one-time movie experiences as A-okay, they are reviewing these games from a modern perspective and harping on complaints no one involved with the creation of said game could know at the time. That isn't how reviewing classic material should work.

All I'm saying is, don't trust game journalists to review classic games. They aren't equipped for it, at all. They also don't want gaming to be like this anymore, which is why the medium has been allowed to fall so far from where it began.

Unfortunately, classics in gaming tend to fly under the radar all the time due to such behavior. Shmups have suffered the worst from this revisionism due to the medium's hatred of its arcade origin points. Shoot 'em ups are as arcade as you can get: unforgiving, fast, and yet gives the player multiple ways to assess any of the challenges it offers without hand-holding. It is pure video gaming, and that isn't allowed anymore.

In Current Year, we expect differently. Old thing bad!

But that's it for that.

I'm just going to leave you with this. Soldier Blade is one of the best video games, not just shooters, ever made. It does everything games were made to do, and it is stylish and inventive when doing so. You can't ask for more. This is what you play video games for.

Hopefully, that should be enough to tell you that this is a game well worth seeking out. Video games rarely get more fun than Soldier Blade, even to this day.

And that's why it's a classic.

I'm working on fun stories of my own. Gemini Warrior is pure adventure, and that's just the way I like it. I'm sure you do, too!

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The Star Knight Ascends ~ A Review of "Reavers of the Void" by Bradford C. Walker

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This review has been a long time coming, and would have come sooner had my personal life not been filled with so many potholes along the way. I apologize to the author as it is not their fault. But, excuses aside, here is the review I'd been meaning to make for awhile now.

Today I am reviewing a mecha space opera adventure.

In 2018, a group of authors starting with Dragon Award Winner Brian Niemeier decided to create a new movement based on the mecha genre. Bored with the stale western military sf take on them and less than thrilled with the current state of eastern anime they wanted to carve their own path in the landscape combining the best aspects of both. The movement is still toiling to create new worlds and, like the Pulp Revolution it is related to, is slowly building a name for itself distinct from the rest of the modern fiction scene.

Using the hashtag #AGundam4Us, they set out to breathe life into this style subgenre by writing what they've wanted to see for years. Yours truly has also been inspired by this group for some short stories as his own, and I'm not alone. The enthusiasm was infectious and spread quickly.

Did they succeed? Well, three ongoing series have lit from this spark in the form of Niemeier's Combat Frame XSeed, Rawle Nyanzi's Shining Tomorrow, and the one I will be discussing today: book one of Bradford C. Walker's Star Knight Saga. All three have vastly different approaches to what a mecha series is, which s already a breath of fresh air these days, and none have fallen into the stale rut of what the East and West have become.

Case in Point: the first book of Star Knight Saga, entitled Reavers of the Void, is a completely unique concoction of which could not exist without an author that didn't immerse himself in both the best parts of Western space opera and Eastern mecha anime over the years. Imagine Doc Smith writing a combination of Panzer World Galient filtered through Leiji Matsumoto, and you might come close to what this is. Outside of western cartoon from the 1980s I'm not certain you could find much all that close to what this is like. There is a lot of influence here from many varied sources.

Star Knight Saga is a space opera set in a galaxy in the distant future ruled by Galactic Christendom of the Middle Age variety, only not quite. Humanity has conquered the stars, created kingdoms in the image of our Lord and Savior, and despite being near a thousand years in the future, utopia has never come! In fact, there are dark forces afoot.

As the description states:

In the Year of Our Lord 3001, the space pirate Red Eyes brings his pirate fleet to bear against Galactic Christendom. He aims to steal one of its greatest treasures, Countess Gabriela Robin, to fulfill his warlord ambitions. Dispatched against him is one of the Star Knights of the Solar Guard, Lord Roland, with the mission to protect the Countess at all costs. With his man Sibley and his page Creton at his side, Lord Roland faces off against the would-be warlord in the Dire March of the galaxy and begin a conflict that all the galaxy cannot ignore.

Reavers of the Void is a good old fashioned rescue story. The pirate Red Eyes, guided by a set of charismatic underlings, kidnaps Countess Gabriela, and through space fleet battles, mecha skirmishes, and laser sword battles, Lord Roland must get her back.

What the book is packed with is heroes, villains, battles, and stuff blowing up at every turn. There is constant motion to the tale in a way most modern space operas simply do not. It refuses to linger on minutiae details of the universe that more authors are interested in than audiences are. You want adventure? Here it is.

Reavers also does this in a crisp, brief length, ending long before it gets tiring or overwhelming, instead leaving the audience waiting for more. This is a modern pulp tale, something that would have been welcome in the magazines back in the day, and that is exactly what the genre needs. Mr. Walker keeps it moving, making the book engaging from page one up until the end without any needless flab.

There isn't much to discuss with the plot. It is a straightforward men's adventure with a space opera cast and aesthetic and an 80s mecha anime's direction when it comes to the action. Suffice to say if you're a red-blooded male who wants something made for you that the current cold crop at Oldpub aren't offering then this is for you. Back in the day this would have been a 200 page mass market paperback on the spinner rack at your local drug store that you would have passed around to your friends and discussed a possible movie adaption thereof. It's exciting, and fun.

It's the kind of book Oldpub can't put out today because they have no more interest in that market anymore. If they wanted more boys to read this would be the sort of thing put out for them to get them excited, if they wanted more men then this would be advertised everywhere for them. Instead you're going to have to go Newpub to get what they won't give you.

The book has a few spelling mistakes and a handful of tense changes, but for a first effort it is rock solid in plotting and in characterizations. There isn't much to go out of the way to criticize unless you just don't enjoy this sort of story. I will definitely be interested to see where the story goes from here, and I suspect everyone who reads it will be as well.

One thing about the Pulp Revolution and its offshoots such as this has proven to me is that something has been missing in mainstream fiction for awhile. Whether it be the romantic adventures, the red-blooded action, the weird horrors contrasted with normality, and the wondrous sights beyond our Earth, stories from the old world of publishing aren't interested in that so much these days. Not when there are more boring inward subjects such as "identity", modern day political preaching, and demonizaton of certain crowds to cover for their dwindling base instead. Audiences don't want what they offer, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to be crammed down their throats regardless.

A story such as Reavers of the Void isn't like that. You get thrilling escapes, crushing spaceship onslaughts, swashbuckling heroes crossing swords with despicable foes, an intriguing and exciting universe to be explored, good guys that are good and noble, and bad guys that are despicable and cunning. This is the sort of exciting tale that the adventure genre was created for, and you can currently only get in Newpub.

Not only that but stories such as this also represent what works best about weird tales. The intrusion of the unknown into the normal can only work if the writer understands the difference between them. Why should the main character fight for normality? They can only do that if normality is worth fighting for.

You can't write good weird tales unless you're normal. By that I mean unless the writer is someone who knows the difference between good and evil and understands that subverting them dilutes the impact of moral decisions and how they effect the characters they cannot write a weird tale that sings.

This is a factor I see returning to the field through Newpub, and Reavers of the Void is an example as to how important it is to see again.

Do you like you adventure fiction red hot? Then this is for you.

If you enjoy adventure stories then I also have one for you. Mine is a tale of two who find themselves thrown together in a journey of powers, swashbuckling, distant worlds, and magic, as they try to find their way back home.

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