Shadows of Clockwork Men: Review of Epic Pooh

The problem with Michael Moorcock's notion of fantasy:

Shadows of Clockwork Men: Review of Epic Pooh

: RevolutionSF - Epic Pooh : Feature

Michael Moorocok's points about High Fantasy in general and Tolkien in particular. He obviously misses the point og Tolkien's fantasy and get caught up in old-fashioned ideology criticism.

Geek Culture in Polish

Kultura Maniaków. Trzecia kultura manipulacji

Translated by Joanna Lach.

Solmukohta 2008

Safely home from Solmukohta 2008. My tribute to Gary Gyax went fine.

People was dressed up as retro-science fiction characters and there was good German beer.

I look forward to actually read the proceedings.

Tributes to Gygax:

Weregeek

Order of the Stick

Costikyan

Gary Gygax is dead

Yesterday, Gary Gygax died at the age of 69. He was the inventor of a new media: role-playing games. His influence on geek culture was immense and certainly videogames today would have been a lot more boring without his visions. He encouraged what is now known as user-generated content by putting up a system in which the players themselves were able to put thoughts and ideas into action.

His legacy will move on. It already has.

Read also:
Dungeons & Dragons Co - Creator Dies at 69
Andrew Rilstone - blog

Computer Game Criticism: A Method for Computer Game Analysis has just been translated into Polish as Krytyka gier komputerowych: metoda analizy gier komputerowych.

I noticed that articles by Espen Aarseth and Jesper Juul has been translated too.

I just registred for the Solmukohta conference 2008.

www.solmukohta.org/

Bretteville
Yesterday was the official opening reception for Bretteville in Aalborg. It is a new and exciting entrepreneur center for digital innovation e.g. videogame development.


Every VIP was there. The trolls simply had to be there too.


Steen K. Rasmussen (right) held a VIP-lecture on web 2.0 and innovative journalism. Donal Sund Nielsen (left) is the initiator of house Bretteville.


Gunnar Wille held a VIP-lecture about the future of IT.


Betty Meldgaard turned the day into a cultural experience.

Eurocon 2007
This weekend I went to Eurocon 2007 in Copenhagen. It was a science fiction and fantasy conference. Anne McCaffrey and Zoran Zivkovic were guests of honor. It was fun to be there among fellow geeks.

And now for the pictures:


Furry Cat


Local Storm Troopers in action


Martin Jürgensen from Sleazehound


Niels Dalgaard, Fan Guest of honor


Lene Kaaberbøl and Flemming P. Rasch


H. H. Løyche


Ellen Miriam Pedersen lecturing


Klaus Æ. Mogensen, futurist


Thomas Winther, the Lovecraftian


Søren Parbæk, role-player


Ulrik Kristiansen, role-player


Mickey promoting GK2GK


The Hotel

Konzackism
Konzackism is the belief that game and narrative may co-exist in videogames. Contrary to ludologists and narratologists thinking that say videogames should be studied as either games or narratives, Konzackism is a moderate ludologist perspective that says games should primarily be considered as games and consequently be studied as such but if there is any narrative content then that narrative content ought to be studied as well.

Commodore 64 skabte en spilgeneration

Commodore 64 trak computerspillerne ud af frituredampene på landets grillbarer og ind på drengeværelserne. Den lille brødkasses indtog skabte derved den første spilgeneration.

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D&D 4th. Edition
Today, Wizards of the Coast confirms that the new edition will launch in May 2008 with the release of the D&D Player's Handbook. A pop culture icon, Dungeons & Dragons is the #1 tabletop roleplaying game in the world, and is revered by legions of gamers of all ages.

Lovecraft deconstructed

I came across an old post-structuralist approach to H. P. Lovecraft in Donald R. Burleson: "Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe" (1990).

Well, I don't know what to say. The work really shows how dogmatic post-structuralism really is (even though they themselves claim differently). Every short story is self-reflective, subversive, labyrinthic. illogical etc. This may actually be true for some of the stories. But Burleson aren't really addressing the content of these stories. He is following his own trail of subversive and illogical arguments.

Example 1: Call of Cthulhu.
It is said that Cthulhu is the high priest of the Great Old Ones. The word Cthulhu resembles Catholic, so... what actually?!

Well, what does that in fact tell us about the Catholic church, eh?!

Example 2: The Cats of Ulthar.
Words starting with cata or kata sounds like cat therefore the word catacombe (naturally?) comes to mind and that shows how labyrinthic the story really is.

If that is true then this argument goes for anything ever written about cats.

Example 3: The Statement of Randolph Carter.
"Warren's name also suggests warring, and one thinks of critic Barbara Johnson's celebrated and felicitous definition of deconstruction as "the careful teasing out warring forces of signification within the text itself." (p. 25)

No, we do not and Lovecraft certainly didn't!

Don't do this in church

Opreation Pedopriest

This ia a video game in which the player helps to cover up pedophilia in the Catholic church. Yes, it is certainly possible to make a statement using video games as a way to express oneself.