Cute Knight, for PC, looks to be a quirky anime-style RPG with a number of tried and proven mechanics (e.g. dating sim style stat and money balancing activities). Alex shares his thoughts after three play-throughs, and though this particular one won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, it does sound worth a look.
In what looks to be a multi-part series, Oghma tells of how he became acquainted with the works of Manly Wade Wellman – a great blend of personal anecdote and appreciation for another great writer we’d do well to check out. “Silver John” – what a cool-sounding character!
In honor of Women’s Day, Jon M. decided to highlight one of SFF’s most underappreciated (and hottest) strong women – Dejah Thoris. *Trigger warning: this post contains a delicious steak sandwich recipe. You may not want to read if you’re hungry and have no steak on hand.
Get a’writing (via Seagull Rising)!
Indie publishing seems to have really taken off, especially among the Pulp Revolution crowd. But outlets like Cirsova can only fit so much. What’s an aspiring short fiction writer to do? Well, there are other outlets out there. Jon shared one recently – StoryHack Action & Adventure is currently accepting submissions, and it’s worth checking out if you’ve got something you can send in by April 1st!
(Japanese) picture of a good “strong female” character
Over at SupervisiveSF, Anthony looks at Studio Ghibli’s Castle in the Sky and concludes that Sheeta is a much more attractive and effective strong female character than many in contemporary storytelling. As he points out, a well-done woman character can be brave, competent, and feminine. Humility is an attractive virtue, not a weakness, and a good woman should be complementary to a man, not overtly usurp his role or compete with him. Double thumbs up for the Rey-bashing.
I must confess I haven’t read either of these books, but HP does a commendable job looking at two Young Adult SF stories – one very recent, and one over half a century old. The bottom line seems to be that while there are many imitators, it’s hard to match Heinlein at his best. Lest you think that’s all there is to HP’s review, though:
“Have Space Suit—Will Travel and Martians Abroad couldn’t be more different. The former is emphatically blue SF and the latter is emphatically pink SF. They aren’t even in the same sub-genre.”
Princess Monomoke – BEST MOVIE EVER
I must confess I was a little skeptical at first; I’m a fan of Princess Mononoke, but it might not even be in my top 10 animated film picks. Still, Malcolm makes a great argument for the depth and supervisiveness that many viewers may miss. Game of Thrones grayness but hopeful instead of nihilistic? That’s actually some pretty potent stuff.
There’s a great post over at Tribality with twenty ghosts and spirits from various cultures that don’t get much play (literally). Some time ago Jeffro noted an observation by game designer James Raggi: “Because monsters should be unnatural and hopefully a little terrifying, using stock examples goes against the purpose of using monsters to begin with.”
So why not spice up your game with some more obscure or unique demons and specters? Of course we’re most likely all familiar with the banshee, but personally I had never heard of most of these.
Potentially great inspiration for writers, too!
Poul Anderson is another awesome old SFF writer that I had never heard of before diving into the pulp scene. It’s great to see him getting some play! Jon Del Arroz recently read Fire Time, and shares his impressions.
Castalia House sweeps the scene
It’s hard to cover everything, so I don’t even try! Be sure to check out Jeffro’s latest sensor sweep over at the Castalia House blog for some more noteworthy articles. There may be one or two overlaps, so feel free to read those particular posts twice!
Also if you’ve been following Kaiju’s sword and sorcery tale, be sure to check out his latest installment. Plenty of action and gore in this one!
-Bushi
PC Bushi 
Castle in the Sky. Good stuff!
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Wasn’t one of my favorite Ghibli films, but I may need to give it a rewatch one of these days.
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I had just watched the anime Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water [which clocked in at 66 episodes] which dealt with Atlantis as well, so to have some of the same ideas distilled from 25’ish hours down to 2’ish was ok in my books.
Not sure how I would have felt if I had watched this first…
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I didn’t think “Mononoke” my favorite, but the more I thought about it the more I realized what Miyazaki had achieved. It’s really remarkable.
I mean, obviously there are a ton of classic animated films, so it’s definitely not a “no-brainer” number one. But it is brilliant.
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Haha, indeed. I didn’t mean to be too flip. I agree with your analysis, and Mononoke is certainly one of my favorite anime films (perhaps second to Spirited Away).
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Oh no, I didn’t think you were being flippant at all.
“Spirited Away” is certainly Miyazaki’s closest contender…that I’ve seen so far. I’ve still got a few films to go. But I originally thought “Spirited Away” was better until I thought about it more.
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(That scene you picked in the image also has one of the best lines in the movie, also Lady Eboshi. “I’m getting tired of hearing about that arm of yours. Maybe it’s time I cut it off!”)
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Yeah, that movie has some great lines.
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Dejah.
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