In the Black by Patrick S. Tomlinson, Tor Books, October 13th, 2020
I can’t begin this review without at least briefly discussing the author as it was his online antics that led me to seeking out this book in the first place. Patrick S. Tomlinson, though he would vehemently deny it, is what is known online as a “lolcow“. For the unfamiliar, this is any online personality that can be milked endlessly for laughs. Not to say this is an achievement but Tomlinson has to date been lot more successful at this than any of his other endeavours. A YouTube channel called ‘Cryptic Web Chronicles” goes over much of the related online dramas but I caution anyone unfamiliar, that this quite a rabbit hole to travel down. It is a strange and amusing journey but there are also many moments of darkness along the way.
The main reason he has become a lolcow is his refusal to follow one of the most ancient rules of the Internet which is “Don’t feed the trolls”. Rather than block and move on from the various trolls he encounters, he actively responds; mainly through his X account. Before beginning this review I went and captured this example of his repeated responses to various trolls.
One can check his replies on almost any day of the week and find much the same thing filling up his feed.
The most notable of his many failed endeavours is as a military science-fiction writer which according to his Amazon author page dates back to late 2015. He seems to have been picked up by Tor Books after a few years and the subject of this review is his most recent (and last) published book from late 2020. As I write, it is getting close to five years since this book was released and the cover is still used as the banner on his X account. Given that he published a book every year from 2015 to 2020 and has published nothing since, one can’t help but assume his publisher has dropped him. That or he decided not to finish what he started here and after reading In the Black, I can’t say it would be much of a loss if this is in fact the case.
This post will be similar in theme to one I wrote about books and bookshelves some four years ago. The short of the last one is that many people in elite positions like to project themselves as well-read though they aren’t at all. This became particularly necessary during the nonsense that began in 2020 where many switched to online video calls at home and desired to demonstrate faux-sophistication by placing a carefully curated bookshelf in the room where they held meetings.
This post is not about this but it is something related and as with the fake bookshelves, it is an example of how leftist-types want to see themselves. Below is a video clip from a television show called The Newsroom starring Jeff Daniels (who I almost confused with Daniel Stern), which ran from 2012 to 2014. I did watch this clip once years ago but could only skim through it again because I can’t stand hearing smug leftists performing rehearsed speeches as if they’re off the cuff.
I was totally unsurprised to learn that the man behind this speech was the Jewish screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin is perhaps most well-known for The West Wing, a left-wing political fantasy drama that began in the last years of the Clinton presidency. I did get through one season of this and it was full of just this sort of writing. The main characters were mostly White House staffers for a Democrat Party president and always had a slick response to the strawmen put in the mouths of their political antagonists. At least judging by the first season, the scandals and dramas that came up were always innocent mistakes and never corrupt or malevolent as things certainly were during the Clinton Administration. The most absurd I can recall was when the character played by Rob Lowe was caught in public with an escort by the media even though they were totally just friends. Truly the stuff of fantasy.
As I have now written a large number of book reviews, I decided I should collect them together for easy reference. This is similar to what I have done with articles and reviews of video games. This blog originally began as a way to preserve articles I had written for various gaming websites over the years but I have been focusing more and more on literature for the last few years. I will be dividing these into specific categories and I will continue to update this. Continue reading →
The last time I covered the Australian ABC’s execrable Q&A program was almost ten years ago when Peter Hitchens was a guest. Time has not been kind to this show which has changed hosts a number of times but is essentially the same as it began. It would have been cancelled on any network that is not funded by (but not accountable to), taxpaying Australians. I was linked to a recent episode where the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was answering questions which is not surprising given it is an election year. This is an occasional variation the show has when they have one particularly special guest instead of many but the host remains to moderate.
I didn’t actually watch the show below because I simply can’t stomach it and this will be referring to the transcript as well as skipping through parts of the video. I also checked through the questions that were asked and how much time was spent on the topics they introduced. The video is available below for anyone who needs help with their bowel movements. I can’t resist pointing out that it is hosted and streamed on YouTube which costs nothing; something that should throw into question the budget the ABC receives. As should the wide variety of shows available that have equal or better production values for a fraction of what the ABC receives.
Though I was not a backer of the original Kickstarter campaign in early 2014, I was certainly enthusiastic about the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance which (KCD) was released in early 2018. I bought the game in 2020 but my aging hardware had trouble running it and I first saw it to the end in 2022. Even with the difficulties I had, I found the experience engaging and even more so when I played through it again last year with a new PC. It was in fact one of the first games I reinstalled and I had a lot of fun playing it again and this time with all the DLC that followed the original release. It was also early last year when the long awaited sequel was announced and set for release though it was ultimately delayed until February this year.
What first brought Kingdome Come: Deliverance to my attention was the outspoken support of the game’s director Daniel Vávra for #GamerGate which was raging on Twitter late the same year the game was funded on Kickstarter. Vávra rejected and mocked forced “inclusion” and “diversity” in video games and as such, the cast of Kingdom Come: Deliverance were all visibly European as would certainly be the case in Medieval Bohemia. And still mostly is today if you look at the demographics of the Czech Republic which is both the game’s setting and where the developer Warhorse Studios is based. The game was refreshing if only for intentionally excluding most of the absurd pandering found in almost all other media which has only gotten worse since.
The game was both financially successful and well-received by the playing audience. It even had positive reviews in most mainstream outlets though it was also attacked for the reasons mentioned above as well as a number of technical issues found in the initial release. Warhorse Studios was bought by Koch Media (now Plaion) in 2019 around the time all the additional content had been released for what was a very successful game. The original’s ending was set-up for a sequel though there was nothing official until Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (KCDII) was announced in April of 2024.
From the announcement until very close to release last year, it seemed that the sequel was going to be exactly what people who played the original wanted it to be. The last few years have seen a number of disasters in the same genre beginning with the bland Starfield in 2023 and followed by Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024. The game was very close to release before some leaks as well as some confusing news from Saudi Arabia raised a few questions about content found in the game. Some of these rumours sounded so absurd given the creative director’s previous position that I thought they were the work of trolls (and I wasn’t the only one). The studio PR was initially quiet and then dismissive of these leaks and used minor errors or inaccuracies to to play down these reports such as one claiming “unskippable” scenes in the game.
Unfortunately, the actual substance of these leaks turned out to be true and proved to be worse with further leaks. Around the same time Vávra himself confirmed and defended much of this through his personal account on X. The one I had initially found laughable was the inclusion of an ahistorical negro Muslim from sub-Saharan Africa named ‘Musa of Mali’ that had very implausibly found his way into Bohemia and become part of King Sigismund of Hungary’s court. Vávra had previously mocked just such inclusion in a tweet using an image from the Martin Lawrence film ‘Black Knight’; a film that incidentally has a comedic premise that is totally dependent on the absurdity of an African being present anywhere in Europe in the middle ages.
Then there was the inclusion of sodomy described as a “gay romance” which even more absurdly turned out to be between Henry, the game’s protagonist and the teenage noble Hans of Capon who befriends him in the original and plays a major part of the sequel. Henry had been established as heterosexual in the first game by both Warhorse themselves as well as the events of the game. He has a sweetheart named Bianca who is killed in the raid on Henry’ hometown Skalitz in the opening hours of the first game. He then has the option of forming a relationship with Theresa, a fellow survivor who nurses him back to health after the attack.
As for Hans Capon, he is shown to be an incorrigible lecher almost from the moment he is introduced and even has an entire DLC quest revolving around Henry helping him to seduce the butcher’s daughter in Rattay — a major town in the original game.
This was defended mainly because it is a player “choice” but a choice that completely ignores what was established in the original game. Vávra also mentioned that there were sodomites in the original but neglected to mention that one was the antagonist Sir Istvan Toth who is only implied to be. The other was a monk met in one of the most interesting quests in the game who is celibate and more importantly ashamed of these feelings. Henry even has the option to express disgust at the monk’s revelation though he can also offer a more modern “you are what you are” response. More controversially, the original’s stated birth date for Hans Capon in the Codex meant he was around fifteen if not slightly younger or older and the second which begins mere days after the original ends in the year 1403. This was pointed out as part of Fandom Pulse’s extensive reporting and Warhorse has since updated KCDII’s in-game profile of Hans with a statement that Hans is totally twenty years old and always was even though he wasn’t until they realised the implications of what they had done. Despite this “clarification”, he is still referred to as “underage” and so not an adult in the original game in both the Codex and the game’s script. Henry was also thought to be a teenager though this is less definite.
These two absurdities as well as the game director’s defence of them, immediately dampened my enthusiasm for the game along with many others. What was originally my most anticipated game for the year became one to ignore in a single news cycle. But the full extent of Warhorse’s betrayal of what first brought them to prominence was shown to be even worse on the game’s release.
I don’t know whether Vávra (who also has Jewish ancestry), was pressured into including these among many other anachronisms by the studios owners (Plaion is owned by Embracer Group), or if he never believed them in the first place. I expect it will be a while before the truth is revealed but whatever the reason, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II betrays the vision of the original game and the goodwill and financial support that made it such a success.
This is a long introduction to my review but I believe this context is all necessary for what follows. To establish that I have played and enjoyed the original game and that I aware of it mainly through Vávra’s support for #GamerGate and his earlier rejection of forced diversity and modern politics into gaming. What has happened with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a shameless bait-and-switch worse than any other DEI game because the content above was not evident in any of the reveals or promotion of the game. It was revealed through leakers and denied before being acknowledged and Vávra among others, pretended it was just an overreaction when they were cornered.
Like many of the media shills defending these significant departures from the spirit of the original: I did not buy the game. Unlike them, my income isn’t dependent on staying in the good graces of large publishing companies. This is more a hobby for me but one it seems I do more honestly than paid professionals. I requested a review code from PLAION Australian & New Zealand who graciously (and rather surprisingly), granted me one. I don’t know if I shall ever receive another after this but a review of the game from someone who has played Kingdom Come: Deliverance II from start to finish follows below.
Shōgun by James Clavell, Hodder & Stoughton, June 20th, 2013
(originally published in 1975)
The last review I did of a fictional work about the Japanese by someone who is not Japanese was my review of Rising Sun by Michael Crichton. It is a work that while very good, had become dated since its release. The then booming Japanese economy suffered significant decline around the time the book was published and hasn’t recovered since. So the background theme of Japan’s growing economic dominance lost the relevance it certainly had at the time. James Clavell’s Shōgun does not suffer this problem as it is historical fiction set within one of the most famous and important periods in Japanese history.
I had heard about this novel before but never sought to read it. It was the 2024 miniseries that put it back on my reading radar though I have not seen it as of writing. I was not even aware until shortly before I finished reading this that this is the second adaption of the novel with the first being in 1980, five years after its publication. The novel’s enduring popularity can be demonstrated simply by how long I had to wait for a library hold and the pace at which I had to read to get through it within a month. Though a lengthy work, it is certainly a page turner which meant this pace was never arduous and it was simply a matter of finding more time in the day to read it. Continue reading →
There has been a lot happening in the United States since Donald Trump’s inauguration particularly surrounding the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is headed by Elon Musk. Unlike mass media, I don’t have a short memory and so remember the negative post I wrote about him on the last day of 2024 less than two months ago. Though what is happening is very interesting and sounds very hopeful, I am not writing to enthuse about this new department while pretending I never said anything negative about the man heading it. I still don’t trust him and I haven’t changed my mind. The most recent news I’ve seen of him is that he’s impregnated an astroturfed “conservative” “influencer” [separated inverted commas necessary] that made one sensible observation I remember almost six years ago.
I am writing because of some of the implications that have come out from this department so far. This is all while acknowledging that I don’t know exactly what is happening behind the scenes or how much of this is theatre. All I know is that even if this is all pure theatre, it is still showing the US taxpayer (and by extension most of the Western world), just how corrupt and irresponsible the US government is with tax revenue. Specifically with how this has been used to fund a variety of media organisations both legacy and modern. Continue reading →
Whether to Christianity, a political “ism”, some weird cult or regrettably even veganism, there is nothing more likely to infuriate those around you than the sudden zealous condemnation of behaviour you used to engage in or at least not disapprove of. This is always a danger for the convert because they are understandably enthusiastic about what they’ve converted to and so they’ll really want people to know it. While I could care less about most of the examples above, I think this is particularly important for newly converted Christians. One reason for this is that the majority of converts (certainly including me), were not living a righteous life prior, still have to struggle to do so after and probably left a trail of emotional, social or worse damage before they finally saw the Light.
The recent online drama involving Melonie Mac can be considered a timely reminder if nothing else.
A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day, Castalia House, February 9th, 2024
While I now regret the gastronomic metaphor I originally used in the title for my review of Summa Elvetica and continued in my review of A Throne of Bones, I am afraid I shall now have to continue this until the series is finished. I do have to apologise to anyone who finds these titles irritating but I value consistency over popularity.
I began re-reading these two books in anticipation of the long-awaited sequel A Sea of Skulls which was finally and fully released in February of last year and is now available on the Arkhaven Store, Amazon and elsewhere. I say “fully” because a shorter version of this was released digitally in late 2016 but I, like many, waited longer for the final edition. I waited further still for the physical release and finally read it over the Christmas holidays late last year.
The short version of this review is that I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to A Grave of Gods which will presumably be the final book in the series. In what follows, I am going to be deliberately vague about plot points as I was in the previous two reviews. Once the series is complete, I may write a more extended post that gives a more thorough analysis but that will be much further into the future. Continue reading →
This is a book that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while though I’m not necessarily the target audience. I have never played Dungeons & Dragons though I have played tabletop or pen-and-paper role-playing games a few times. The two times I can recall were both one-off and separated by years so I don’t have the experience or understanding of these games that is generally assumed by the author. Thankfully, these games also had tremendous influence on computer role-playing games (CRPGs) and RPGS in general as I’ve written about before. Many of the systems used in video games are based on these pioneering board games. This lack of experience with the actual tabletop game naturally limits the words that follow so I want to be upfront about this.
What could understandably be considered an odd title is named after the actual ‘Appendix N’ of Gary Gygax’s Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons that was published in 1979. This appendix lists a number of titles and authors that influenced the tabletop game. Jeffro Johnson set out to read these works and write commentary on them which were originally published on his blog. These posts were later collected and published as the work under review here in 2017.
One more thing before continuing is that in 2021 there was another book published cheekily with the same title and a much inferior cover. From what I can see, this is simply a collection of a number of these influential works covered by Johnson in his. Continue reading →
In the Black by Patrick S. Tomlinson, Tor Books, October 13th, 2020
One can check his replies on almost any day of the week and find much the same thing filling up his feed. 
Shōgun by James Clavell, Hodder & Stoughton, June 20th, 2013
A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day, Castalia House, February 9th, 2024