The United Federation of Charles

*warning-gratuitous nostalgia ahead*

I'm going to break out and oldie but a goodie from my computer files. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a ten-year-old computer game from Activision which the mod community is keeping alive and well. It is a flawed, awesome, incredible, and atmospheric mess which I encourage everyone to take the time to play at least once. If not, then to watch one of the Let's Plays on Youtube. They don't make games like V:TM:B anymore and it's a shame because it could have been the start of an amazing franchise.

I admit this article will be, by no means, unbiased due to the fact I played Vampire: The Masquerade religiously during the 90s. In the brief blip before tabletop games went the way of vinyl records and modern consoles made gaming a normal hobby like watching sports, White Wolf games made role-playing games which were "cool" to play.

Yes, I am wearing a Doctor Seuss hat with a pimp-coat, wielding a baseball-bat. While being a VAMPIRE.

White Wolf's success, in retrospect, was due to a formula more publishers should figure out. First of all, it made itself friendly to women. Dungeons and Dragons still carries the stigma of having closed itself off to half its potential market for, say, the first thirty-years of its existence. Girl Gamers like Laurel K. Hamilton played D&D in spite of the stereotype girls didn't play tabletop games and a less than welcoming fan community. I see similar attitudes today with post-apocalypse and zombie fandom despite some of my favorite writers of both being female.

Second, White Wolf had the intelligence not to talk down to players. One of the major flaws in marketing is when people try to sell their product to everyone. White Wolf knew their audience, college aged kids with some disposable income and were looking for something with bite. The rules were simple and not bogged down with complexity as what everyone wanted to do was get down to playing a sexy undead abomination (or werewolf, mage, changeling, wraith, whatever).

The game can get astoundingly dark in places.

    Thirdly, it understood how to work with its fandom. LARP has always existed to some extent but it's a hell of a lot easier to be a vampire than a guy in chainmail. Working with its fandom, forming official clubs and chapters, helped keep it going until the bottom fell out of the tabletop market. How does this relate to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines? It doesn't, really, but I was squeeing when it first came out.

    Well, squeeing as much as a twenty-four-year-old "trying to be cool but failing" college student can.

    Vampire: The Masquerade had already been adapted once before into video game form with Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption. Redemption, unfortunately, was more or less Dungeons and Dragons with fangs.Redemption denied you one of the basic appeals of Vampire: The Masquerade, being able to create your own character, and sent you on a quest for revenge against a giant monster while ignoring most of the tabletop game's themes. Even the title was off-putting in retrospect. V:TM vampires can't be redeemed (barring the mystical state of Golconda), there's a reason they're known as the Damned.

    Bloodlines is much more effective at capturing the essence of the tabletop game. One could even argue it's an archetypal example of what V:TM was all about: you are a newly embraced vampire who finds himself caught up in the power-struggles of vampire society. The game captures the "punk" feeling of the original Gothic Punk setting, instantly making you despise the "Prince" of Los Angeles who destroys your creator and sends you off to die on a suicide mission to "earn" your place amongst the undead.

Characters like Jeanette Voorman make the game the unique experience it is.

Really, the heart of the game's appeal is exploring Activision's vision of Los Angeles by Night. An exaggerated dark version of the city, it was filled with freaks, wannabes, poseurs, thugs, hedonists, and snobs. Wait, that's not exaggerated at all (I kid, Los Angelers! Kind of). While the game is filled with dozens of sidequests like every RPG, it goes out of its way to make each of them unique. Your vampire is someone exploring this new world he's found himself in and there's no moral imperative to do favors for your kind and humans. Bloodlines' adventures emphasize subtlety over combat. You were as likely to spy on someone with a video camcorder or investigate a haunted house as kill someone.

    At least until the final third of the game.

    Really, I could go on about this game for pages. The haunted house level is one of the scariest ones I've ever played, despite lacking Silent Hill levels of gore and very little actual danger. I loved the games' kooky assortment of freaks and weirdos from your adoring ghoul Heather to Prince LaCroix the patron saint of smug bastards. The characters are really the heart of the game as I can't think of any NPC in the game who isn't entertaining on some level. They're all unique and their voice acting well, done. Even the club girls and smug businessmen who exist solely for you to feed on are gifted with unique personalities.

    The game is infamous for its "Malkavian playthroughs" as well. Malkavians are a type of vampire you can choose to play (each "clan" of vampires giving different abilities) who are all cursed with prophetic insanity. The entire dialogue for the game changes and your character speaks like a beat poet while suffering period hallucinations. I consider my Malkavian run to be my "canon" one because it was just so deliciously weird. The fact they have a unique power which allows them to cause insanity in both combat as well as non-combat situations makes the gaming experience doubly rewarding.

One of my favorite subplots is getting your own version of Renfield.

    Even the game's in-universe politics are fun to play around with. The player character has the option of siding with the Establishment, the Rebels, the invading Chinese vampires (not recommended), the Prince (doubly so), or going their own separate way. Every side has their own appeal but all of them want to use the player character. For me, I always go it independent as that's the only true freedom you can have in the World of Darkness.

    Perhaps my favorite characters in the game were the Thin-Bloods. These are vampires who are the weakest of their kind. As low on the totem pole as the player character start, they're even worse off. The Thin-Bloods have largely maintained their humanity, though, and are the closest the Damned probably have to "good" people. I liked interacting with them and trying to help them survive.

    Sadly, the game goes down the drain two-thirds the way out. Running out of money and/or ideas, the game shifts focus from being a moody atmospheric thriller to a mediocre action game. Adventures become less about sneaking or talking and more about killing as many opponents as possible. Given the combat system in the game wasn't all that great to begin with, this quickly becomes a chore.

    Despite this, I still think on those first two-thirds with fondness. V:TM:B is a classic game of its genre.

9/10

Hey readers,

Another treat for you today! Shana Festa, author of Time of Death: Induction (reviewed here) and host of the Bookie Monster site (here) has agreed to answer a few questions about her book.

For those unaware, Time of Death: Induction is the story of nursing student Emma Rossi and her struggles to survive the outbreak of a zombie plague in her hometown. Unlike most examples of the genre, Emma refuses to let the destruction of the world get her down and maintains a positive attitude throughout the story. Even better, it's one of the few zombie books I can remember where humans try and cooperate in the aftermath of the zombie uprising.

I hope the United Federation of Charles' readers will enjoy her insights as much as I have. Okay, Shana, let's get started.

1. What do you think separates Time of Death: Induction from other zombie novels?

For one, the tone of the book is much lighter than one would imagine in zombie lore. Instead of making it all about zombies, I've gone heavy on characterization and unique settings. Don't get me wrong, though, there are still oodles of zombies. I've also added the unlikely character of a dog with personality that goes on for days. In some instances, I think she may steal the spotlight.

2. How would you describe your heroine, Emma Rossi? What makes her unique?

We've all met that person that uses humor and sarcasm in the face of peril. Emma is that person. She is wildly inappropriate and calls it how she sees it. In that fashion, her and I have a lot in common. She is emotionally attached to her dog, almost to the point that it's an unhealthy bond, and she will do anything to keep her safe.

3. Do you believe your nursing experience contributed to making Induction so visceral?

There are definitely some scenes that were enhanced by my knowledge of anatomy and physiology. But I attribute the accomplishment to being an avid fan of the genre. I've read close to 400 zombie books. I know what's been done, what hasn't, what's been successful and what's been a big flop.

4. How do you think the marriage of your characters, Emma and Jake, impacts the drama?

Both positively and negatively. I consider Emma and Jake's relationship to be almost a subplot to the story. It's a realistic push and pull from both a euphoric and dysphoric point of view. When things are good, they're great. But when things go south, the strain it puts on their relationship takes on a murky, tangible quality.

5. Do you have any plans to show the rest of the world's state in upcoming Time of Death volumes?

Indeed I do. At least conceptually. I considered taking this step early into book two, and if you've read the epilogue in book one, you may notice a potential set up for it. I'm nearly done with book two, and while the group does travel, it's not as far as one might expect given that epilogue.

6. What do you think makes the zombie so effective as a monster?

The primal urge to feed, to never rest. Zombies are a scary concept. Like a dog with a bone, they never give up. Not only that, but they are everywhere, lurking in shadows and waiting for stimuli to pull them from inertia.

7. The Time of Death series is 1st person. Do you think this is different from other ways of writing horror fiction?

Not really. It's all in the way a story is told. I connect more with a character when writing in first person. I can put myself into the story and become that character. In third person, I almost feel detached, like I'm floating above the story, not becoming immersed in it.

8. Daphne [the main character's Yorkie] is an adorable character. Do you see pets as important to survivors in a zombie apocalypse? What kind of challenges were involved in writing her in?

I am loving the fact that you enjoyed Daphne. I knew when writing her, people were either going to love her, or hate her and think Emma was nuts. In general, my stance on pets...dogs especially...is that no matter how bad things get, how rotten a circumstance may be, that pet will find a way to lighten spirits and warm up a cold heart.

Originally, I'd outlined Daphne to die. I knew exactly where, when and how. But, as I said earlier, Emma is based on me, and I am that insane dog nut. I actually do have a seven pound (silky-not yorkie) terrier named Daphne. Try as I might to write her demise, my fingers refused to cooperate and I cried my little eyes out sitting At the computer. There was no way my psyche was going to let me kill her.

At times, it does become a challenge to write a scene with her because I need to remember that she is always there, always.

9. Do you have any favorites amongst your character outside the main trio?

I'm a Seth fan. Originally, he was named Jenkins, but I had a contest early on and the winner received a character named after them. The winner of the Facebook contest to give my main character a surname (Rossi) was Seth Puri. And it worked out well that I have know. Him for nearly 30 years. We grew up together, and my best friend married his brother. So I was able to elevate his character using some of Seth's traits in parody.

10. What can we expect from Time of Death's future installments?

More great characters, though I wouldn't get too attached...I love murdering people! Also, I feel I raised the bar again on unique and interesting settings. Of course, there's always Daphne!!
The tone of book two is a bit darker than the first installment, but I think I've found creative ways to inject some much needed, and still very inappropriate, humor. Snarky leading ladies for the win!

Thanks Shana, write on!

    "The dead rule Saint Petersburg, FL. The living come to save it are worse."
    -My tagline for this book.

    There's two kinds of zombie novels. The first kind of zombie novel is the disaster story. The second kind of novel is survival horror. There's significant overlap between the two but it'll give you a rough idea of the two major trends in these kinds of stories.

    Disaster stories are about the apocalypse itself. We get it from multiple perspectives, angles, and how it makes characters feel. While not a zombie story, you can look at things like The Day After Tomorrow to get a sense of what I mean. World War Z is, of course, the definitive work of disaster story zombie fiction.

    Survival horror focuses on the troubles of a small group of individuals as we deal with them in a closed situation. This is the more Romero type of ordeal and thus the more common of the two stories. It requires a lot of effort to do the kind of multiple perspectives and global scale necessary to really get a sense of the apocalypse.

    Dead Tide Rising exists in the middle of these two types, leaning towards the former. We get dozens or so accounts of survivors trying to live through the horrors of the Apocalypse but, in a real sense, it's all about their individual stories giving us perspective on the event itself.

While the new cover is badass, I kind of like the old one.

    Dead Tide Rising is the sequel to the original Dead Tide (reviewed here) which had a similar approach. The book was criticized because it had dozens of characters and very short chapters dealing with their reactions to events as they unfolded, switching rapidly between perspectives. Some wished he could have made a smaller cast or, at least, taken more time to give a stronger sense of each individual.

    I think this is unfair because it misses the point. In addition to having several very memorable characters, this is not a series about the survivors like say The Walking Dead or The Becoming. This is a series about the end of the world. We get lots of action and personal tragedies but this is to let us know what the apocalypse is like. The citizens of Saint Petersburg, FL (like those in every city across America by this point) are losing their loved ones and watching their world end one person at a time.

    I actually like the rapid switches between characters and the short chapters because it contributes to the general sense of chaos which the story is all about. We see people struggling to survive from every walk of life. Trish the Stripper, Mills the fireman, Jacob the psychopath, Tallaski the cop, Natalie the teenaged girl, and even the President of the United States. The event is happening to them and their personal melodramas from before are less important than the grand guignol going on around them.

    It's kind of refreshing really.

    Stephen Spielberg's War of the Worlds was a controversial movie but it had a similar idea about it. Cloverfield too. The situation is incomprehensible to the people on the ground and all they can do is try to get to safety.

    The chaos, confusion, survivor's guilt, anger, and emotional trauma runs high throughout Dead Tide Rising. People say things they don't mean, do things they never would under normal circumstances, and make mistakes because they're not thinking clearly. After just three days of hell, all of the cast is running on no-sleep and is half-crazed.

    One thing I liked in Dead Tide Rising is we get the government's perspective on the zombie problem. Jokes about the Pentagon's zombie preparation plan in real-life aside, it's fascinating to watch them portrayed as human. Given a completely out-of-context problem, they struggle to find solutions but make mistakes in the process which wear on them.

    At one point, someone in the government (no one knows who) decided shooting everyone who might be infected was a good idea, only to find out the disease didn't work like that. The government forces in Saint Petersburg have to deal with the fact everyone now considers them butchers and doesn't believe them when they claim they're now evacuating survivors. This is in addition to guilt and trauma the people who did the shooting may now feel.

    I also liked the depiction of the military. As a zombie-fighting force, the military is depicted as extremely good at their job. The problem is their orders are confused and muddled in a situation no one is prepared for. Also, which many military science-fiction authors forget, they're human.

    Stephen A. North makes a commentary about class-relations in America while also throwing in a realistic subplot. Like in so many countries throughout history, when the military starts resenting the upper-class they're defending--the upper class may not survive very long. When the VIPs start evacuating their families while soldiers' own families are left behind, to say the latter are resentful is an understatement.

    Of the characters in Dead Tide Rising, I think I enjoyed Trish and Natalie's the most with President Foster's story rounding them out. Their reactions to events were touching and I was quite concerned for the characters. Mills the Fireman, also, is the breakout star of the series and a character I'd like to see more of in the future. In a real way, I think I liked this better than the original Dead Tide. It's not going to be to everyone's tastes but what is?

10/10

    "A daddy is the bread winner, you dig what I’m saying? And if he don’t win that bread, he just don’t come around."
    -Darth Vader, Vader Sessions.

    I like zombie novels which are about something. In general, I like anything which is about something rather than just rote repetition of tropes. One of the problems facing zombie novels nowadays is too many of them are basically just excuses for the undead to start chowing down. Even George Romero is somewhat guilty of this as his much vaunted social commentary is almost absent from Day of the Dead and the post-Land of the Dead volumes.

    The Breadwinner, first novel in a trilogy, is about themes of responsibility and luxury in the Zombie Apocalypse. What does it mean to be the breadwinner? The one who has to provide for others? What does it mean to not be a breadwinner? One who lives off the efforts of another? These are some basic facts which author Stevie Kopas analyzes in this novel.

    The book opens with the character of Samson, a former ultra-rich lawyer who hates his life with his trophy wife Moira and their two children. Samson has lost everything and yet feels compelled to remain the breadwinner.

    Stevie Kopas creates an image of abject misery which has only been made marginally worse by the end of the world. A seemingly insane decision made by Samson earlier in the book was inexplicable, only to pay off later as we discover Samson is a much more nuanced character than he initially appears.

    I initially thought Samson would be the main character for the entirety of the book so I was thrown when I discovered The Breadwinner is actually an anthology book chronicling the efforts of three separate groups of survivors.

    All of them deal with either a protector-figure caring for others or the sudden loss of one after relying on them for their entire lives. The three stories converge in the end, becoming a singular narrative as yet another group of hardened zombie survivors is born.

    While I liked The Breadwinner, the pacing felt a little off. The first fourth of the novel is spent around Samson with no hint we'll be switching so the transition is a bit abrupt. Some of the characters remain underdeveloped like Moira and Juliette, who never seem to go beyond being parasites on those around them. Still, I liked the character of Veronica and enjoyed her section most of all.

    I do feel like the resolution to Samson's plotline was a missed opportunity as a very rich man with a shrewish wife dealing with the loss of their privileges was something I hadn't seen before in a zombie novel. I liked all of the other survivors, though, and enjoyed the the story. It's an easy read and worth the money.

7.5

    Star Wars: Legacy is one of the few grand experiments in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. A fifty-six issue comic book series with an ongoing sequel series, it was one of the rare attempts to do something original. Set a century and a half after the events of A New Hope, it followed the adventures of antihero Cade Skywalker as a new Sith Empire had risen to take over the galaxy.

    The problem is there's already some issues with this premise. The Sith returning after George Lucas made such a very big deal of the "Rule of Two" and their order being extinguished rang false. Likewise, I'm not sure any fans wanted to see a drug-addicted PSTD-suffering bounty hunter and occasional pirate version of Luke Skywalker.

    Much like Superman, Luke Skywalker is one of those incorruptible symbols of purity in modern mythology. Seeing Luke's "heir" as such a wreck of a human being while the galaxy was once more under the sway of a tyrannical regime couldn't help but cause me to feel like his quote-unquote legacy was being tarnished.

    The issue is further troubled by the fact Cade Skywalker has no interest in being either a Jedi Knight or studying the Force. The refusal of the call is a basic part of Campbellian mythology but it's usually resolved fairly quickly. Watching the entire galaxy suffer while Cade talks about how hard it is to deal with the death of his father is hard to take seriously. Not to diminish his loss but a lot of people are losing their fathers during this time period and the fact Jedi Master Kol Skywalker was killed by the Sith should make Cade more determined to oppose them.

    The first third of this three volume collection of omnibuses mostly centers around Cade's series of false stops and starts along his road to (maybe?) getting his act together. Unfortunately, any number of events which would normally convince Cade to take up the fight against the Sith and their Imperial minions gets ignored by them. Quite simply, Jon Ostrander and Jan Duursema seem more interested in Cade's angst than I, the reader, am.

    Despite this, I maintain the series still has much to go on it. The writers have taken a great deal of time to plot out the mythology and backstory of the characters he's created. Darth Krayt is a great villain, even if he's got a bit too many similarities to Anakin Skywalker. Likewise, I love the concept of the Imperial Knights (Jedi who serve the Emperor-in-Exile Roan Fel) and the entire Fel family.

    The art of the book is incredible, though. Everything seems like a painting come to life and while it's a much darker world than the original trilogy, everything things vibrant and realistic. I love the look of characters like Marasiah Fel, Roan Fel, Rav, and even Cade himself. The action scenes leap off the page and if the One Sith are a bit generic--I never get tired of seeing them sliced up by lightsabers.

    Much of this volume exists to set up the extremely complicated universe and its backstory. We find out how the One Sith took over the galaxy, what people are happy with the Sith Emperor, who prefer the "good" Emperor Roan Fel, and why Darth Krayt needs Cade Skywalker so badly. The situation is extremely well set up but I almost feel like the story might be better if it followed some of the supporting characters more than Cade.

    Star Wars: Legacy Volume 1 is a rather small book, larger than a standard paperback but not by much. It is very reasonably priced, being only about twenty-dollars for four-hundred pages of color comics. If you're interested in an epic storyline, albeit one marred by an attempt to be "gritty" in the least gritty setting in fiction outside of My Little Pony, then you might enjoy picking up this volume.

8/10

    H.P. Lovecraft is one of the founding fathers of American horror, influencing the likes of everyone from Stephen King to John Carpenter. He was part of a circle of writers which included Robert Bloch (Psycho), Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane), Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) and others who went on to become some of the foremost fiction writers of their genres.

    Lovecraft's very name has gone on to inspire a kind of genre around his works: Lovecraftian horror. According to The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana Lovecraftian Horror is characterized by "Lovecraftian horror is a sub-genre of horror fiction that emphasizes the cosmic horror of the unknown (and in some cases, unknowable) over gore or other elements of shock, though these may still be present." Lovecraftian horror has been codefied by, perhaps, too-strict fans of Howard Phillip's work to create a rather bleak universe which can only end in the destruction of its protagonists.

    The horror of H.P. Lovecraft's writings is in the universe's uncaring and pitiless nature. Gods and meaning may exist but only for beings decidedly alien to humanity. Religion is a force for madness and destruction. Science and reason can do nothing more than reveal mankind's pointlessness before bringing down destruction on its users.

    Perhaps most troubling is the genre is influenced by Lovecraft's own anxieties about the world, which included strong racist beliefs even for the time. Much of his writing's effectiveness comes from his use of othering to make sure his monsters are repulsive on an instinctual level. The Deep Ones, one of Lovecraft's most famous monster races, are uncomfortably obvious as a metaphor for the so-called "evils" (*eye-roll*) of miscegenation.

The Deep Ones practice human sacrifice, murder of outsiders, and debased religious rites--but the Shadow over Innsmouth's narrator thinks the fact they have (consensual) sex with humans is their worst quality.

     This, of course, ignores works like The Dunwich Horror and The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward where the protagonists achieve a temporary victory over the Cthulhu Mythos. Likewise, At the Mountains of Madness is a story where Lovecraft's protagonists come to emphasize and sympathize with some of the aliens they discover.

    The thing is, H.P. Lovecraft's ideas are dissonant with many real-life interpretations of the world. Robert E. Howard was, perhaps, the first Post-Lovecraftian author as his stories presented a horrific universe every bit as pitiless as H.P. Lovecraft's own. Few people remember the Hyborean Age and all of its civilizations are destined to be swallowed up as the even more ancient ones preceding it. This isn't even including the many monsters and terrors Conan the Barbarian fought.

    Unlike Brian Lumley or August Derleth, Robert E. Howard didn't place "good" Elder Gods to oppose the Great Old Ones in his universe--he simply changed the perspective of his protagonist. Faced with a cold, uncaring, and pitiless universe--Conan of Cimmeria carries on. Clark Ashton Smith had a similar attitude in his writing, adding the fact many supernatural beings of his universe weren't necessarily beneficent but weren't automatically hostile either.

    Later writers would critique H.P. Lovecraft's themes in their own way. Elizabeth Bear's Shoggoths in Bloom (available to read here) undermines the racism of H.P. Lovecraft's work by taking one of the most alien and disturbing of his creations and presenting it in a sympathetic light. More recent The Litany of the Earth by Ruthanna Emrys (available to read here and reviewed here) is a deconstruction of Lovecraft's writings to show the lunacy of racism.

     Brett J. Talley's That Which Should Not Be (reviewed here) applies Lovecraft's tropes of weird fiction to the Bible, using Judeo-Christian mysticism in a way not too dissimilar to the creatures from the Necronomicon. Lovecraft, himself, was an atheist but the weird hybrid of tentacled monsters versus traditional religious beings isn't all that uncommon in fiction. Author Simon R. Green is fond of this trope and for an anecdotal example, I admit to having had Archangels fight Cthulhuean hordes in some of my own over-the-top tabletop gaming sessions.

    Even Brian Lumley and August Derleth's writings are more about attitude than anything else. The existence of the Great Old Ones is unquestionable but it is less about the Elder Gods being allies to oppose them than their protagonists' reaction. Faced with unimaginable beings and cosmic meaninglessness, the heroes decide to fight on anyway. It is this sort of attitude which has resulted in stand-ins for Cthulhu being defeated by the Ghostbusters and Justice League.

When faced with a primordial god-like being, your best bet pay be to have Solomon Grundy punch it in the face.

    So what is Post-Lovecraftian fiction?

    Post-Lovecraftian fiction is fiction built around Lovecraftian monsters and ideals but avoiding or subverting elements the author disagrees with. It can be as simple as viewing humans as not so fundamentally helpless against the Mythos or as complex as deconstructing the othering of the Old Ones to reveal a common ground despite vast differences. It is an attempt to "pick and choose" what parts appeal to an author and view the other elements through a modern lens. In short, it's taking H.P. Lovecraft's works and putting your own spin on them.

    Any successful genre tends to go through a process like this where its deconstructed and people find they may like some qualities but not all of them. The Western genre has been interpreted many times through different lens. Some present it as a time of naive innocence and American individualism while others highlight its lawlessness. Others still focus on the oft-ignored plight of the Native America, forced off their lands and persecuted relentlessly. One of my favorite genres is cyberpunk, which firmly exists in the pre-and-post-cyberpunk eras.

    While not directly influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, at least as far as I know, I started to question a lot of the assumptions behind Lovecraftian horror after seeing the TV serial: Doctor Who and the Silurians. The Silurians are, at first glance, very Lovecraftian creatures. Ancient primordial reptile-men with advanced technology, they've been sleeping for millions of years and are about to rise up to reclaim the Earth.

    The serial then zags instead of zigs. The Doctor confronts the Silurians and humans both, asking why the two can't peacefully co-exist. Unlike the conflict between the Bugs and the humans in Starship Troopers, the idea of two sapient species living alongside each other is not dismissed out of hand. Ironically, the alien differences in their biologies is presented as a reason for why peace is possible. Silurians need to live in extraordinarily hot desert-like environments, which humans obviously tend to avoid.

Tolerance is hard enough with fellow humans but LIZARD-MEN?

     At the risk of spoiling, the conflict between the Silurians and the humans ends badly. The xenophobia of both races proves insurmountable despite how close they come to emphasizing with the other. Still, the Doctor's reaction to the humans managing to destroy the Silurians underground city is telling, as in Call of Cthulhu the tabletop game, it would be considered a victory. What do you think, Doctor? "But that's murder."

     After this episode, I could never treat the Deep Ones and similar creatures quite the same way. In my mind, they may or may not be evil but it seemed disingenuous to critical thinking to assume they were monsters just because they were ugly. Lovecraft, himself, played with this by making Richard Upton Pickman of the Deep One-like ghoul race an ally of his Dream-Quest protagonist Randolph Carter. As a result, whenever I work on the Deep Ones or other Lovecraftian species, I focus less on the horror of their bodies and more on their actions. I also think the occasional subversion is good for the genre of Cthulhu Mythos fiction.

    Some may argue this has the potential to diminish the horror of the work. That horror fiction, on some level, depends on 'othering' to make something scary. There might be something to that as Lovecraftian creatures removed of their repulsive qualities become the sort of creatures you'd meet at the Mos Eisley cantina. However, I'm of the mind the mere existence of weird aliens is not enough to cause people to faint away in horror.

    Likewise, while you may still be a man or woman of faith in the Modern Age, science has revealed a very big universe. The unknown and incomprehensible may terrify some but it fascinates others. As stories like the ones in the Cthulhu Unbound novels illustrate, there's nothing wrong with Lovecraft elements outside of horror and weird fiction either.

    In short, we live in a time where H.P. Lovecraft's works are ripe for reinterpretation. It may just be Great Cthulhu has been maligned by writers over the years. Who knows? He might just be as scared of us as we are of him.

    *pause*

    Probably not.

    The Walking Dead franchise has done more to mainstream zombie movies since, well, just about anything. It's been a fight to do so for some time now and there have been plenty of victories along the way. The fact World War Z was made into a 100+ million dollar film starring Brad Pitt says everything you need to know about the progress made. I didn't think the movie had anything to do with the book but, hey, baby steps.

    I'm a personal huge fan of The Walking Dead and my only hesitation at reviewing the series is, A:] I'm not sure if I could add much more to praise and B:] I'm terrible at reviewing individual episodes of a show. I just started reading the comics and have a long way to catch up. Why did I start reading the comics? Not because of the television show, which is a superb adaptation (I hear), but because of the video game.

    The Walking Dead video game by Telltale is a extremely popular game which has won numerous awards--mostly, for the fact it's a break from the "old standards" of gameplay which have dominated the medium since the beginning. While adventure games are nothing new, this is one of the few games where the primary appeal is talking.

    Yes, talking.

Lee and Clementine are some of the most likable characters in video game history. I exaggerate not.

     This is the real feature which blows my mind about The Walking Dead video game. Vast sections of the plot are determined by what sort of statements you make to your fellow crew members. I love it when dialogue plays a major role in the story but, outside of Bioware and Bethesda, there's not that many places that do it. Certainly, not to the extent in this game. Even then, these games are mostly combat while talking and decision making is the point of TWD.

     The game is divided into five separate "episodes" that form short video games which can be played independently of one another. This isn't the first time I've encountered that, having been exposed to the concept in the extremely enjoyable The Wolf Among Us video game (which would be the Fables video game if not for another major series already having that title).

    The premise is unrelated to the events of the show/comic save for a few cameos. It is a wholly original survivor's tale. African American History Professor Lee Everett has been convicted of a murder he may or may not have committed. The importance of this grows less as the mores of the old civilization pass away in the Zombie Apocalypse. Like everyone else in the universe, Lee is taken off-guard by the sudden rise of the dead. Escaping police custody as a matter of survival, he comes across a young girl named Clementine and becomes her protector in the wake of the world's collapse into anarchy.

The zombies are a constant struggle to survive and can kill in one-blow. Which is the way it should be.

To talk anymore would be to spoil but what makes the comics so invigorating is the same thing which makes this game great. The illusion of safety is punctured repeatedly and no one is safe save possibly Lee (and even this is in question). Characters are vividly realized and go through emotional journeys based on events and your treatment of them. Yes, the majority of events will happen no matter what you do but they feel perfectly justified when they do.

I'm particularly fond of the characters Kenny and Lilly. Kenny is a fisherman far from the coast who is trying to protect his wife and son from the zombie apocalypse. Lilly is a USAF mechanic who is guarding her cantankerous old father. Both of them believe they have the best interests of the group in mind but can't agree over which way to butter bread. Really, of the initial group, I can't think of anyone I didn't like and if I wasn't too fond of later additions then the story still maintained its momentum.

The human emotion in this game is tremendous. You feel for these characters.

     Despite this, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up a few minor technical issues. Lip-synching and the transition of scenes on my Xbox copy was occasionally a bit choppy. Likewise, I didn't much care for the story in the second half of the game as much as I did the first half. I think I became so attached to the main characters that I felt the emotional high point of the game was in reached in Episode 3 and could never quite get where it used to be. This is, of course, largely redeemed by the absolutely killer ending. It's one of the few times I've been moved in gaming and won't be a story I forget.

    Another complaint is the illusion of choice is, just that, an illusion. Even if I appreciate the way Telltale makes you feel every decision Lee makes has weight, the truth is they don't. Lee can choose how he responds to events but only a few differences happen regardless of your choices. All roads lead to Rome and this is disappointing. I would have preferred if Telltale had been more upfront with the fact this is a story they're telling and you're just along for the ride. The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite are no less effecting for the fact you can't change the ending.

    Overall, I think this is probably one of the best games I've ever played. It's very different from almost everything I've ever played. Anyone who doesn't believe that video games are an art form should give this game a whirl as if it doesn't change their mind, nothing will. Yes, there's some serious flaws and I dislike being deceived about the importance of my choices but that's like smudges at the base of the Mona Lisa. I have to judge the game on the scale of how much entertainment I derived from that and this game blows nearly all of its competitors out of the water. If you don't play this game, you're denying yourself a real treat.

10/10

*warning - this will be LONG*

    The Walking Dead is a very difficult game to review because you have to take the game in two different ways. The first way is on an individual level, which is that it is five separate short video games connected by a single narrative but capable of standing on their own. The second is taking the game as a whole, which shows how all of these individual episodes relate. Both methods have their appeals and, ironically, expose strengths and weaknesses which would otherwise not be readily apparent.

    Taken as a whole, The Walking Dead is a tragedy which has the courage to go places many zombie stories don't. Night of the Living Dead was one of the few stories to end on a complete downer as virtually all sequels and movies inspired by it tend to have at least a few survivors.

    The Walking Dead ends on a note of hope with the survival of Clementine but, virtually, the entire rest of the group is wiped out and the only two other survivors are ones we barely got to know. The protagonist, Lee, is the most distressing casualty as he dies handcuffed to a radiator either from being bitten or getting shot in the head by Clementine as an act of mercy.

    Usually, the protagonist dying in video games [censored] me off. It was irritating as hell in Fallout 3 before the Broken Steel expansion and doubly so with Mass Effect 3. The internet broke with the latter. Here, however, I can't think of an ending which would feel more authentic. The emotional journey and constant death wore my Lee down so that when he passed, it was because he didn't have enough juice to continue.

The tragedies just keep piling up.

    Watching my Lee Everett go from being an unrepentant criminal who claimed killing the Senator was "an accident" and was desperate for his freedom transform into a father-figure for Clen and the only sane man in the survivor's group was uplifting. Watching the group, which had become his family, deteriorate and gradually die off was heartbreaking.

    By the time Clementine is kidnapped, he's already one of The Walking Dead. Only moving one foot forward at a time for Clem's sake. It's an astounding journey that wouldn't work as a single narrative but works very well with the Five Act structure. We get the Redemption of Lee Everett, the Rise of Lee Everett, and the Fall of Lee Everett all over again.

    I could sit here talking all about the game and its various decisions so I'll just hit some of the highlights:

    Episode One: The initial survival situation is a nice baptism by fire. The game always let's you get to know the characters before it kills them. The police officer transferring you to prison, Shawn Greene, and Doug (does anyone not save Carley?) are all killed in brutal ways but only after you see they're decent human beings. I didn't much care for the police officer, thinking he was patronizing, but I understood him.

    Doug I didn't care as much about as Carley but I think he and my Lee could have been friends. I think there were too many cameos in this episode, though, with Glenn being completely unnecessary. I thought it was hilarious he was thinking with his libido the entire time but it stretched credibility to have him, Hershel, and someone who was supposed to be Lilly from the comics. The ending was great, though, with the power turning off at the motel being both humorous as well as foreboding.

    Episode Two: My least favorite of the five missions, Episode Two is the lightest of the five episodes in my opinion. Despite the fact it deals with a pair of serial killer hillbilly cannibals, I can say that since I live in Kentucky and know some, the only people who die are Mark (who gets a form of posthumous revenge) and Larry who was an [censored].

    The episode is so over the top that it's hard to take seriously. It's fairly early in the apocalypse too so I had a bit of trouble believing the Saint John Brothers would have reverted to cannibalism so quickly, especially with the giant corn field outside. Despite this, Episode Two had some great moments. "Eat up, Larry" being something I wish I'd done. I didn't kill either of the brothers because my Lee was desperate to leave his past as a killer behind. He would fail.

Carley forgot she wasn't the only girl with a gun.

    Episode Three: The situation at the end of Episode One felt fairly stable and Episode Two didn't really interrupt that feeling but Episode Three maks it clear everything is coming to a head. This may surprise some people but I preferred Lilly to Carley and was hoping there would be a romance option for her. Yeah-yeah, I know, I forgot this wasn't that kind of story. Still, I liked Carley a lot and watching Lilly kill her was one of the most horrible moments I've had in gaming.

    My Lee took Lilly with her, knowing it was a crime of passion and desperately trying to put the pieces of their group back together despite the fact it was impossible. The death of Duck and Katjaa was expected by me from the start, since they were all Kenny had, but the way they died was horrible. I never expected Katjaa to commit suicide. Wow. Given the way Omid and Crista show up, I never quite warmed to them as they felt somewhat like replacement goldfish.

    Episode Four: This was one of the most emotionally intense episodes of the game as after Katjaa and Duck's death, the loss of Lilly, and the murder of Carley, I was starting to feel like one of the Walking Dead. The unceremonious way Chuck is killed, especially since it's a heroic sacrifice to save Clem, felt like an emotional misstep as he proved himself to be more likable than most of the cast in that moment by far. The character of Molly was a great addition to lighten the mood and I was saddened when she left.

More than half of these people are dead by the end.

    The city of Crawford, though, I felt was a misstep as I never quite "believed" the city in the same way I didn't quite believe the Saint John Brothers. Which is a shame because it seemed like a pretty sound concept. My Lee said he was Clem's father, which Vernon took to be an attempt to emotionally manipulate him--I'm not sure I agree. The ending, though, wow. I *KNEW* there was a Walker beneath the cardboad box! Why didn't you be more cautious, Lee!

    Episode Five: The ending of the game is really more of an epilogue to Chapter Four than a new adventure like the others. It's mostly chase sequences, zombie-slayings, and the occasional moment of people breaking down. I don't think Kenny died in this version as we never see the body and we see the Walkers moving to eat Ben's body. Still, it seems like a total party kill.

    The Stranger was both well-written as well as annoying. He's not a supervillain, just a guy with an ax to grind and nothing to live for but revenge. I think his conversation also should have been more effected by your choices, though, even if I understand he's just looking for someone to blame. Still, the ending was utterly heartbreaking. Telltale couldn't have ended The Walking Dead better. As much as I loved Lee, his death was appropriate and moves the game from really-really good to great.

10/10

    I love this series.

    I love this series so much, I'm going to go back and re-read it for the third time and review each individual book on my blog. That's how much I love the Dresden Files. What are the Dresden Files? The Dresden Files are the adventures of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the only wizard in the Yellow Pages. He doesn't do parties, fortune-tellings, or tricks. So, what does he do?

    Kill monsters.

    Also, find lost objects. Don't forget that. That's like 90% of his business.

    The Dresden Files are Jim Butcher's attempt to do a genre mashup of Noir Private Eye fiction and Urban Fantasy. For the most part, it works splendidly, though there's a few hiccups at the start of the series. The Noir influence is a bit thick at the start of the series and its clear that Jim does much-much better comedy and straight-up good versus evil.

    The premise of Storm Front, the first novel in the series, is Harry is called to investigate a particularly spooky murder by the Chicago PD. The police don't trust or really believe in Harry at this point but they know he's real enough to get some results. Harry soon finds him embroiled in a conflict involving a supernatural drug dealer, the kingpin of Chicago's underworld, a toad-demon, his reporter girlfriend, and a family out for revenge.

    So how is Storm Front?

    Ehhh, not really that good.

    But only by comparison.

    Way back when, I was interested in finding books similar to Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series (back when it was an Action-Urban Fantasy-Horror series versus porn). So, I was utterly enthralled by the book when it came out. However, in retrospect, it's not nearly as good as I remembered.

    Much of the series trademark humor is absent, the villains are far less colorful, and there's some uncomfortable moments like when Harry's girlfriend drinks a love-potion which works like a roofie. The latter is played for laughs with Harry trying to fight off the drugged out of her mind woman during a toad-demon attack.

     The book isn't very long and the plot isn't all that complex. The vast mythology and world-building the Dresden Files would become known-for isn't yet established. We have the White Council and other elements being established but the character of Morgan, who plays a big role in later books, is here little more than a cartoonish sword-wielding version of Inspector Javert.

    The character of Murphy, who becomes one of the most central characters to the Dresden Mythos, is unlikable and suspicious. Susan Rodriguez and Marcone are much more one-dimensional in this volume than they will be in later volumes.

    Still, there's a lot of potential here and that potential grows. The very act of putting a wizard in the phone book and having him investigate supernatural crimes feels good. There's also hints of Jim Butcher's trademark wit that will evolve in one of the most persistantly funny series I've read. There's much to love like the character of Bob the Skull and the encounter with Bianca the vampire. Sadly, there's a lot of room for improvement and some people recommend you skip these books.

    I don't but I'm a completitionist.

7.5/10

Before vampires sparkled but after they were soulless monsters existing to prey on virginal girls in diaphanous white gowns, there was a time when the vampire was a tortured romantic figure. A Byronic hero who did not enjoy the benefits of vampirism but considered it a dread curse.

There's still remnants of this figure in modern vampires but its heyday was a long time ago. A distant mist-enshrouded time when the economy was good, Goths were brooding loners rather than perky scientists on NCIS, and tabletop gaming was a thriving hobby.

Yes, I speak of the Nineties.

Despite being written in 2008, Eternal Vigilance by Gabrielle Faust is a throwback (or homage perhaps) to the days of Louis and Lestat. A book which unironically talks about how being forced to drink the blood of the living, live forever, and look good doing it isn't quite the blessing True Blood has made it out to be.

Being as one of my fondest remembered tabletop gaming characters was an 8th Generation Ventrue businessman cursed by his undead existence, I'm predisposed to like a book which radiates sincere love of pre-commercialized modern Gothic romanticism.

Tynan Llywelyn is an archetypal vampire vampire in many ways. A centuries-old European who, if not a member of the nobility, still oozes Old World style and charisma. Much like the Stuart Townsend version of Lestat, however, immortal life proved too much for him and he decided to opt out.

Using ritual magic, Tynan bound himself to a sarcophagus and decided to sleep forever. That, alone, tells you something about Tynan's personality as he is not the sort of man who could do anything so mundane as commit suicide.

Unfortunately, or fortunately since otherwise there'd be no story, Tynan isn't quite the magician he thought himself to be. Awakening after a mere century of hibernation, Tynan finds the world has well and truly gone to pot. There's robots, cyborgs, and other supertech existing beside grinding poverty and oppression.

A global human empire formed by renegade scientists, financiers, and other Illuminati types called the Tyst. They have plunged the Earth into a decaying death spiral as their rule is too tyrannical to allow true peace. They're opposed by the Phuree (I believe it's pronounced "Fury"), who are back-to-Earth Luddites who want to destroy all that remains of modern civilization. Given I'm a die-hard technocrat at heart, I viewed the latter as just as bad if not worse than the former. The wildcard in this conflict is the vampire Council of Elders, who want to preserve their own power at all costs.

Tynan is a die-hard iconoclast and as much a rebel as Lucifer himself, so one can guess he's not down with any of these groups. I'd tell more but that would spoil the books and I wouldn't deprive readers intrigued by the plot of this novel.

Weirdly, the setting reminded me a great deal of the Keepers, Hammerites, and Pagans from the Thief franchise. On one hand you have the die-hard champions of progress, the other has ecological terrorists, and you have the Keepers in-between. It's just the Keepers are vampires this time around with Tynan taking the role of Garrett the Thief. Given I love the Thief franchise, this isn't a bad thing.

The backstory is a trifle unbelievable with the Tyst starting their rise to power by more-or-less hacking the entire internet. Thankfully, I have a high suspension of disbelief. Gabrielle Faust has taken a great deal of time to develop the world and its mythology, starting from how vampires are created to how their society is set up. It is a moody, decaying, broken world on the verge of a second Dark Age but possibly still salvageable. It, of course, all rests on our hero to save the world or damn it.

When I mentioned Byronic antiheroes, I could have been very specifically talking about Tynan. Tynan is not a traditional protagonist and has no interest in protecting humanity, stopping the Tyst, helping the Phuree, saving vampire-kind or anything at all other than wallowing in his own guilt over various failures. Many readers will find Tynan a frustrating protagonist due to his aggressive refusal of involvement in the plot. He is, in a manner of speaking, an aggressive believer in nothing.

There's another quality some readers might be wary of and that's the fact the majority of the book takes place in Tynan's head. I don't just mean the book is in 1st person, though it is, but Tynan has a habit of describing everything in long florid passages. He often spends a good deal of chapters ruminating on events more than interacting with his fellow cast members (who he uniformly despises--even his supposed "friends").

Readers will either find Tynan's constant mix of self-aggrandizement and angst fascinating or annoying. I found myself reminded of Lestat in a cyberpunk setting, so I lean to the former. Gabrielle Faust is nice enough to remember Tynan's attitude is irritating to others, though, and the times when characters call him on it are always amusing. I'm reminded of managers who have to deal with particularly troublesome rock stars.

In conclusion, Eternal Vigilance is a callback to "traditional" Goth storytelling and attitudes. Had Brandon Lee not had his life so tragically had his life cut short, he was the sort of fellow who'd play an excellent Tynan. If this is your cup of tea, I heartily recommend Eternal Vigilance. If you are put off by almost Lovecraftian-levels of poetic writing or heroes who embrace the punk element of Gothic Punk hard then consider yourself warned.

8/10

P.S. While originally published by other parties, this book will soon be re-released by my favorite masters of horror, Permuted Press.

    The Walking Dead: 400 Days is a DLC containing a series of vignettes centered around a group of survivors struggling to make it to the titular 400 days in. The vignettes are all during different parts of the zombie apocalypse and involve different casts of characters. At the end of the game, we see how all of their stories tie-together.

    I got my copy of 400 Days with my Game of the Year Edition for Xbox 360. As a result, I played it directly after The Walking Dead video game. A part of me was disappointed I didn't get to continue the adventures of the "main cast" (such as it remained) but given the events of the finale as well as the existence of Season Two, it was probably for the best this dealt with a new cast.

    So what did I think?

The new cast of characters have some real gems.

    I have mixed feelings.

    I respect what Telltale Games was trying to do with 400 Days but I kind of feel this comes off like the "webisodes" from the Walking Dead DVDs. There's some really great moments and storytelling going on but it feels like there's only enough to wet the appetite versus giving a truly satisfying meal. With rare exceptions, I feel like I was just getting to know the characters involved when we switched them.

    If I had to choose, I'd say I would have preferred to have stuck with a single protagonist or maybe three with roughly twice the length. The odd thing is, any of the existing protagonists would have been a decent one to follow this format as nobody is boring. I do think that everyone is a trifle underdeveloped, though.

    You get just as long with them as to become intrigued by their storylines, only for whatever happened in your episode to become irrelevant by the end of the game. It left me feeling more than a trifle cheated as I never found out what happened to X character from Vinny's story, Y from Shel's, or Z's from Bonnie's. Yes, it's a zombie apocalypse and we can infer but that's just not the same.

There's some genuinely shocking moments in the game too.

I think Vince, Wyatt, and Shel's stories are the closest to being "complete" though. Russell's story seems like we should have seen his original group and Bonnie feels like it ends before we find out some vital information about what happens next. The ending with Tavia also felt a little confusing as I was suddenly someone talking to "my" characters and unable to make the choices I feel they would make. Awkward.

There is, however, one benefit to the 400 Days format, however, and that's the in media res nature of it. You're dumped into the middle of every story with very little to go on and have to decide, in an instant, "just who is my character?" I decided in very short order: Vince is a scumbag, Wyatt was a coward, Shel was a basically good person who'd do anything to protect her little sister, Russell was a normal kid dominated by strong personalities his entire life, and Bonnie was grateful but creeped out by her fellow survivors.

There's some very eccentric but likable characters in this game. Nate is basically Z-Day Trevor Phillips.

    There's a good deal of freedom to be able to play through the stories of the survivors and not be beholden to whether they're good men or bad. The consequences of my playthrough was a lot more diverse than with my Lee. My Lee was a good man who did everything in his power to stay the righteous path until he couldn't physically go on anymore. My attempts to do differently resulted in some powerful moments during my playthrough. Evil deeds, cowardly decisions, and pragmatic choices which would never otherwise be contemplated all happened.

    So there is that.

    Of all the episodes of 400 Days, I think I'd have to choose Shel's story as the most standout. We get a real sense of the community she and the other survivors in her group have built and get to watch it change dramatically in very short order. It was a short-story, doubly so because it's essentially two episodes in one, but the emotional weight of it was powerful.

    I also liked her and Rebecca's relationship with the former watching the latter's humanity slip away a little bit at a time. I'm going to be sad if I don't get to see Roman again as he was the kind of anti-villain I like. A guy who thinks he's doing the right thing by everyone. Plus, he dresses like a biker from GTAIV and V's the Lost MC. In Shel's story, my Shel did what she felt had to be done--which makes the ending doubly tragic.

    I recommend people pick up 400 Days if they've enjoyed the original Walking Dead video game. It's not up to the standards of the original but it's close. I just think it's more a supplemental material than a real expansion.

8/10

    The Walking Dead's third trade paperback is an interesting change-up in the narrative and something I'm quite glad of. It's also the first of the volumes I have some serious reservations of, in part because I think the story goes some places which are unnecessary. This is the first volume I have started to see some of the fan's complaints that it might be "misery porn." I don't agree with them but I can certainly see why they would come to such a conclusion.

    The premise of Safety Behind Bars is Rick Grimes and his gang have decided they need to create a fortified settlement in order to survive the zombie apocalypse. They need to find a place which has food, space, strong walls, and hopefully a defensible position. In the end, they decide the best place is a nearby prison they stumble onto.

    The arc consists of dealing with the slow but inevitable realization the biggest problem facing them may not be zombies anymore, but their fellow humans. This is a common enough story arc in zombie tales but particularly poignant here because we've let our guard down. Like the characters, we think the prison will be safe.

    We're wrong.

    The addition of a new group of survivors broadens the cast a bit and gives a new dynamic to the group. The prisoners who survived in the prison until this time seem to be a fairly harmless group. While Lori is suspicious of them, Rick Grimes is willing to accept the prisoners as fellow human beings. Whether this turns out to be a mistake or not is the focus of both this and the next volume.

    I liked that Robert Kirkman decided to bring Herschel, Glenn, Maggie, and the rest of the farm characters to the prison. I was quite fond of them all and watching them adjust to life in the prison as well as cope with the fallout from Miles Behind Us was a great thing. Herschel's new-found pacifism is something that's simultaneously admirable as well as stupid in an environment where only the strongest survive.

    My earlier mention of misery porn has to deal with a horrific event which occur midway through the books to characters I never expected would suffer such a nightmarish fate. Given what's already happened to a certain character related to them, this just seemed gratuitous. Of course, I read The Walking Dead because it doesn't pull any punches. This is a just a warning, the books only get darker from here.

    Oddly, my favorite moment in the book is an equally bleak moment. A suicide-compact which has been alluded to in previous volumes and comes to its conclusion here. Why I liked this one and disliked the other can be chalked up to a number of reasons, mostly spoilerific but boil down to my feeling this was a better example of characterization as well as plotting. The affects it has a on surviving character are both enthralling as well as heartbreaking. I also applaud a "fake out" with a character's death that had me cheering when it was revealed he was alive.

    In conclusion, The Walking Dead continues to be a gripping and violent story about people pushed to the brink of survival. If you like dark comics, and why would you be reading it otherwise, you'll continue to like this series. Still, I can't help if I think this one was a little exploitative.

8/10

    The Road to Woodbury starts off really strong then stumbles before falling down completely.

    The second in a series of novels written as supplementary material for The Walking Dead comic books (and probably marketed to fans of the television show), The Road to Woodbury follows Lilly Caul as she goes from being a self-described coward to the hardened survivor described in the comics.

    I was already inclined to dislike this work because of the retcon to the Walking Dead Expanded Universe. Telltale Games expanded on the character of Lilly for the first season of the video game, creating a character tortured by various events as well as extremely tough. Telltale's Lilly was a tragic heroine who does an unthinkable act, driven by events beyond her control.

     TRTW's Lilly, by contrast, just isn't that interesting. Lilly has a few moments of heroism and interest like when she saves some children from a horrifying attack early in the book, her initial display of cowardice, and her attempts to comfort a grieving father which go horribly wrong but--mostly, she's just really-really unlikable.

    Lilly judges the sexual promiscuity of her friend Megan constantly, she gives an incredible number of mixed signals to her friend Josh (who we never find out if she had any feelings other than friendship toward), and for whom her transition to badass is never remotely believable. The fact her change requires the death of more interesting characters doesn't help matters.

    The characters of Josh, Megan, and Bob are, by contrast, much more entertaining. Josh is a little too much of a moral paragon, which probably stems from the fact he's only meant to be a supporting character in Lilly's unbelievable character development, but I still found reading about his adventures entertaining.

    Certainly, more so than the star's own.

    Despite the book's attempt to beat us over the head with Megan's "unlikable" nature, I found her to be charming and more concerned with the well-being of others than Lilly ever proved to be. Bob, creepy voyeurism aside, could have carried the book on his own.

    The book takes a good long time to get to Woodbury proper and, for most of the book, we're just following a typical band of survivors. I didn't mind this as it's the best part of the book. Woodbury, itself, is portrayed as just short of a hellhole and you have to wonder why anyone would want to live there even during a zombie apocalypse. While perhaps more believable than the TV show's Mayberry-esque depiction, I found this to be less interesting.

    The Governor, one of the best villains in comics, is more or less reduced to a cameo in his own series. Lilly develops hateful feelings towards him more or less because she must have evil-sensing powers, Bob befriends him despite the fact he acts like a psychopath around him (but no one else), and he reveals his crimes very causally. The character's split-personality is also played up when I found it to be the least interesting element of previous books.

     Then there's the climax which, bluntly, just makes no sense.

    In short, The Road to Woodbury is a very uneven book. There's some great stuff in the beginning but the second half is just confusing. Lilly's character development makes sense and better characters are sacrificed on the altar of her being the star. I would not recommend this book unless you were a big Walking Dead fan and, even then, the audio book version because the voice-acting adds some extra entertainment value.

6/10

    Sort of like Devil May Cry, except not as fun.

    Or fun at all, really.

    Splatterhouse (2010) is a game I really should have enjoyed but, unfortunately, has proven to be disappointment to my horror aficionado self. This really should be right up my ally but the gameplay is atrocious, the levels are linear, and even the relatively simple storytelling bugs me. There's much to like with Splatterhouse but, sadly, it's lost under a pile of bad game decisions.

    The premise of Splatterhouse is the oldest one in gaming (well, after Pong). There's a villain, he's stolen your girlfriend, get him back. The particulars are the character is "Doctor West" in an homage to H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West: Re-animator and the woman is named Jessica, but they could be Dracula and Princess Peach for all their concern to the plot. There's also the minor detail you're only able to fight down the hordes of monsters inside West Mansion due to possession the "Terror Mask" which gives you the power of Jason Voorhees.

The gore and cartoonish graphics are kind of strange.

     Trust me, it sounds cooler than it is.

    The original Splatterhouse (1988) was innovative in its day given it was a side-scrolling beat-em-up which didn't scrimp out on the gore or the fact it blatantly homaged many R-rated horror movies which adolescents like myself were watching religiously. Unfortunately, it had its downsides like the fact its typical "Damsel in Distress" plot culminated in being forced to murder your girlfriend because she's become a monster.

    The 2010 version is still the same old tired plot but, thankfully, removes the element of being forced to kill your girlfriend because she's turned evil. Instead, it's a standard rescue plot. Oh and you also have the option of collection fragments of CGI naked (or barely dressed) pictures of Jennifer.

The chief collectible. M-kay. Well, at least, she's got style.

    Yes, I'm serious.

     There's also a weird sort of dissonance to the game. The developers make protagonist Rick into a heroic good guy, the animation is cartoony, and the Terror Mask is voiced by Jim Cummings a.k.a Pete from Goof Troop and about a thousand other children's show characters from my childhood. This is dissonant because of the aforementioned nudity, the hideous monsters shown writhing every cutscene, the heavy metal soundtrack, and several moments of horrific gore. To say the game is tonally inconsistent is understating matters.

     Then there's the fact the game just isn't fun to play. Call me crazy but when wielding the power of Jason Voorhees, I want to feel like a badass. The controls are awkward, combos not terribly much fun, and the monsters are able to tear you apart rather easily.

A shotgun, even a huge shotgun, is the least interesting weapon a Slasher can wield.

    In order to kill the majority of monsters quickly, there's a quicktime event involving the sticks which I found difficult to master. Even if you were so inclined to collect the risque pictures of Jennifer (who IS quite well-drawn), the game is entirely linear so you can't explore at your leisure. It's not like Assassin's Creed where you can collect them at your leisure.

    Despite this, I'm still going to give it some credit. The game was obviously made by people who loved the material and wanted to make a good game. I reserve my lowest scores for people who attempt to release crap and charge you for it or games with wrong messages.

    Jennifer, for all her being a literal pinup girl, is portrayed as an intelligent and likable young woman who I would have enjoyed meeting in real-life. The graphics in the game are awesome too and it seems like West Mansion would have been a great place to explore. Heck, they even throw the original games in with the Xbox version.

    It's just there's too much is wrong with this game to recommend it.

4/10

    After finishing All That Remains, I am left with one simple fact: Clementine is one hardcore [censored].

    I've played a lot of characters over my decades of video gaming. I've played plumbers, elves, Dragonborn, white-haired half-demons, and so on but it's interesting one of the toughest seems to be the person who is outwardly the most innocent. Except, there's nothing about Clementine left which is innocent.

    Do not screw with this eleven-year-old.

    It's an interesting transition to make and one with a bunch of time-skips. At the start of the game you're several months in from the original game and a surviving character is very far along in her pregnancy. After a shocking turn of events, the game proceeds to skip ahead another sixteen month. Clementine goes from being a nine-year-old to a eleven-year-old in short order and we're left to extrapolate what's happened in the meantime.

    The fact they chose to go to some raw, emotionally disturbing moments with Clementine's relationship to the other survivors surprised me and made me wonder if Telltale was going, perhaps, too far.

    Nah. Not here at least.

The callbacks to Season One are frequent and touching.

    The premise of The Walking Dead Season Two is Clementine has taken over the role of protagonist. What has happened to Lee and her previous group is something you'll have to play the original to find out but, for the sake of discussing the story, it should be known our heroine gets separated from the only people in the world she still knows.

    Telltale Games does a masterful job of establishing the subtle horror of being a child in the post-apocalyptic world. The game emphasizes Clementine doesn't have much upper body strength so when she has to kill a zombie, and she will have to kill zombies, she can't kill them with a blow to the head like Lee. Every adult towers over her like a kind of giant, ignoring her advice because they can't take her seriously. A small wild animal is, potentially, as much a threat to her as they have been to children throughout history.

    Yet, despite this, Clementine is portrayed as an extraordinarily competent but believable example of a survivor. Lee has trained her well and she's able to make use of what few benefits she has (being able to mover quickly as well as hide) in order to survive the zombie apocalypse. Clementine still makes mistakes, some stupid ones, but how many dumb decisions did you make when you were eleven?

    The new characters introduced in this episode are a bit hit and miss for me. It's obvious Telltale Games is going for a more suspicious, less friendly bunch of survivors than the almost family-esque atmosphere of the original. I won't say more other than the fact I was longing for the days of Larry who, at least, had the decency to consider a little girl something to be protected. Time will tell if this group becomes as likable as the original. I admit, though, that's a pretty high bar to set since I loved all of the survivors but Omid and Crista from the first game.

As usual, the danger in the game is fierce.

     Even so, I've got to say that All That Remains occasionally verged on the edge of being unplayable for me. The Walking Dead was one of the darkest, most harrowing games I've ever played but it still had a lot of moments of levity. All that Remains starts off brutal, gets worse, and just when you think things are about to get better--becomes even more tragic. The fact Clementine is a child rather than an adult made me have to stop the game twice.

    While I'm not denying the storytelling is effective, I am hoping things get a little bit brighter as the darkness is becoming a little bit soul-crushing. I've never played anything else like The Walking Dead but if the game continues to remain as unflinchingly bleak as it's been, I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue.

    Call me a giant wuss or not, Clementine.

The game takes you through several baptisms of fire.

    One thing I am interested in is what the theme of this game is going to be. All That Remains goes a long way to establishing Clementine has the skills to survive in the post-apocalyptic world. Even at eleven-years-old, she's clearly better qualified to survive than some adult survived.

    However, is the game going to touch on that or is the theme perhaps something else? Not enough has yet been established for me to make a firm judgement on what the "lesson" of this season is going to be like the last time (which was about how much you'd give up of yourself to stay alive).

     In conclusion, I'm intrigued by Season Two and am willing to stick with it until the conclusion. The fact a Season Pass only costs slightly more than a single episode was more than enough to get me to shell out the entire amount. Whether Season Two will prove to be the same sort of classic as the original The Walking Dead, however, remains to be seen.

9/10

    "Everybody knows vampires don't exist."

    I love the Laundry series, it's one of the most interesting urban fantasy series I've seen in recent years. It's unique combination of British spy fiction, computer lingo, and the Cthulhu Mythos has made it a smashing success. With good reason. While I wasn't a big fan of The Jennifer Morgue, I've loved all novels before and since. I also am quite fond of the short-stories and novellas. So, when The Rhesus Chart came out, I was one of the first buyers.

    The premise of The Rhesus Chart is secret agent/computer geek Bob Howard discovers no one in the Laundry believes in vampires. This is strange given all of its members are well aware of three facts: 1. Monsters are real. 2. Magic is real. 3. Magic is capable of making anything someone believes in sufficiently real, especially monsters.

    I confess, I was initially rather put off by this premise. There is no end of vampire novels and the ones I like the most, like The Dresden Files, barely deal with them. The Laundry has, by and large, dealt with the much less-well-developed concept of alien monsters. Could Charles Stross bring his special brand of oddity to the well-trodden path of vampire fiction?

    Kind of. Yeah.

    I say this because The Rhesus Chart does a lot of things differently about vampires. They burn up in the sun, need blood to survive, are immortal, and super-strong but this is about the only things they have going for them. For one, everyone they bite *dies* and they're the product of magic rather than the "traditional" method of turning. In this case, the vampires who appear to be the first of their kind are all modern investment bankers too.

    So not much has changed for their lifestyle (*rimshot*). Actually, I was surprised at how few jokes about the deplorable state of the banking industry was made by Charles Stross. Perhaps he thought it would be too easy of a joke to make. Either way, the vampires are some of the most hilarious parts of this book as we see them cope with an existence which is increasingly revealed to be dangerous to all mankind.

    The mixture of humor and pathos in this book is surprising. On the humor side, we have the whining babied executives and Bob Howard's struggle to be taken seriously as he tries to explain that, yes, vampires are real. There's an almost too-over-the-top moment where Bob is assigned to read the complete works of some of the past three decades best vampire fiction authors and write a report on them--which is great, except for the fact they're fictional while the real ones are next door. They even get the codename DRESDEN RICE.

    That's adorable.

    On the pathos side, we suffer some surprising deaths and the removal of a longstanding series element. There's also a tragic story about Mo's PTSD stemming from having to deal with the fact she's anti-capital punishment but forced to cooperate with governments who practice it frequently in order to deal with a supernatural problem. Which wouldn't be bad if not for her help resulting in potentially hundreds of more executions occurring.

    We also get the return of Bob's first girlfriend in the series: Mhari. I, for one, didn't welcome this change as the character was one-note and a stereotype at first. While she's broadened considerably, she still remains quite a shallow character. This is more than made up for by the fact the rest of the book is filled with conspiracy, plans within plans, and Bob being extremely competent at rooting out traitors.

    In conclusion, I heartily approve of the latest addition to the Laundry franchise. I can't wait for the next book and look forward to reading it.

9/10

    Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is a very difficult game to review. This is due to the fact it's only a mildly tweaked version of Dead Rising 2. 90% of the game is identical to Dead Rising 2 with the chief changes being the addition of a new area to explore, some minor storyline changes, a couple of new bosses, and a switch of protagonist from Chuck Greene to original Dead Rising protagonist Frank West.

    Now, I've already reviewed Dead Rising 2 (here) and even did a essay about its value as a social critique (here). So, there's not much point in talking about the elements of the game which are the same. Short version: Dead Rising 2 was really fun to play and Off The Record is also fun to play. Instead, I'll talk about the elements of the game which are different and what I think of the storyline changes. Don't worry, there won't be any spoilers in this review. I'll save that for future articles.

    The premise of Off the Record is Frank West, photo journalist, shamelessly exploited the events of the first game into becoming an international celebrity. Unfortunately, Frank West's attitude and reckless spending have alienated the people who were initially attracted to him because of his heroism.

The challenges in Sandbox Mode are fun but nothing special.

    We get an excellent introduction into the character's changes when we see Frank hanging around comic conventions with guys dressed like zombies. The sheer lack of taste that requires in a world where zombies are real beggars belief. Frank decides to participate in the Terror is Reality game show to recapture even a small portion of his fame and gets caught up in the Fortune City outbreak.

    The conflict between selfishness, selflessness, and how they interact with his reporter career is more or less the essence of Frank West's character. Whereas Chuck Greene is the only sane man trying to selflessly protect his daughter, Frank West has always been more interested in fame and fortune (represented by the big story) than helping others.

    The fact Frank West still chooses to help others makes him a hero but the edges are considerably rougher and he's capable of being tempted from heroism. For some, this makes him a more interesting character than Chuck. For me, I simply find him different.

    No better, no worse.

    The social satire element is still present in Off the Record but suffers for the fact without Chuck and his daughter to highlight the moral good, it gets somewhat lost. Frank West never really learns a lesson about the pursuit of fame and fortune being less important than journalistic accolades but at least manages to clean himself up a bit.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Just don't break kayfabe, Frank.

In the world of Dead Rising 2, Chuck Greene is the man we should be while Frank West is probably closer to the man we are. Albeit, I suspect I'd be one of the guys shambling along the halls rather than saving people with improvised weaponry.

Gameplay improvements include a new save system, incorporating Checkpoints to the game so you don't have to save nearly as often. Frank West was infected during the events of the last game and requires an injection of Zombrex every day but, unlike Chuck Greene who had to constantly return to treat his daughter Katie, Frank can inject himself anywhere. The mission updates from Stacey Forsythe are done via earpiece rather than text message. Also, Frank is able to take pictures in order to gain experience points (called "prestige points"), often doing hilarious outtakes with zombies he puts in compromising positions.

Frank's wrestling moves are quite impressive.

    The new adventure area is the somewhat eye-rollingly named Uranus Zone. An amusement park, the Uranus Zone contains numerous monster rides which can be used to kill zombies in amusing ways. It also contains a single new Psycho who has ties to Frank's adventures from the past. I found the Uranus Zone to be entertaining even if it didn't blow me away either. I will say, however, the science-fiction theme of the place sets it apart from the rest of Fortune City.

    Without a doubt, the biggest addition to the Dead Rising franchise is the existence of Sandbox Mode. Sandbox Mode allows you to explore Fortune City without the game's usual time limits. Several of the games' bosses are present too, though sadly not all of them. I loved the Sandbox Mode and have been waiting for something like this to be included in the franchise since the beginning. The fact you can freely switch between Sandbox Mode and the regular game as well as carry over the benefits from the latter to the former is awesome.

    I'd also like to mention something I'd normally not cover in these sorts of reviews and that's the existence of cheat codes. If you get the Gamebreaker DLC then you'll have access to a wide variety of fun options like the usuals (invulnerability, unlimited ammo, Big Head) but also new ones like changing the entire game to black and white or a grindhouse cinema filter. Sadly, this awesome feature is hampered by your inability to save your game.

    Boo!

    In general, I prefer the original Dead Rising 2 over Off the Record in terms of storytelling but prefer Off The Record in terms of gameplay. The social satire of the original game is hampered by Frank West's self-entitled asshattery but he's still a very fun character to play. Likewise, the gameplay improvements are pretty big. So, I'm going to say it all evens out and die-hard fans of the series should pick up whichever one appeals to them or Off The Record if they're just interested in a good time.

9.5

Hey readers,

An extra-special treat for you today! Gabrielle Faust, author of Eternal Vigilance (reviewed here) and host of a truly excellent website (here) has decided to grant us an interview for discussing her books.

For those of you unaware, Eternal Vigilance is a supernatural cyberpunk series starring rebel vampire Tynan Llewelyn. Wakening up from a centuries long slumber, he discovers the world has been taken over by a brutal technocracy called the Tyst Empire. The series chronicles his attempts to come to terms with his role in overthrowing them and whether or not he is the right vamp for the job.

I hope the United Federation of Charles' readers will enjoy her insights as much as I have. Okay, Gabrielle, let's get started.

1. Can you tell us, in your own words, what Eternal Vigilance is all about?

Eternal Vigilance is the tale of an ex-philioreligious leader of the vampire race known as the Immortals named Tynan Llewelyn who finds himself drawn into the midst of a rebel uprising after he awakens from a century-long sleep. Told first-person, Eternal Vigilancefollows Tynan as he explores this new world and the dangers, stemming from both the global war against the Tyst Empire, as well as the treacheries of his own kind.

In the first trilogy Tynan is forced to submit to the combined will of the Phuree, the rebel front, and his blood kin who believe him to be the sole creature who can defeat the Empire and the vampiric god they mean to raise. It is a deeply introspective series and a study of humanity’s nature for repetition in history, the rise and fall of civilizations, the personal struggle we all have with defining our place in the universe and our own strengths, as well as weaknesses. I always like to say that, while vampires play a main role in this series, Eternal Vigilance is not just a “vampire story”.

2. What separates its hero, Tynan Llywelyn, from other vampire protagonists?

I believe what most separates Tynan from other vampire protagonists is his keen observation of the world around him in a deeply contemplative way. He is constantly assessing his own stance in the war and his family, as well as searching on many levels for explanations and insights into the universe that will help him make peace with his own nature and his inner demons. He is a philosopher. He is as much a fighter as he is a romantic. And no matter how much at times he might want to simply cease to exist, he is a survivor. That makes him intensely relatable by those who read this tale.

3. Could you describe for us the themes of your story?

As aforementioned, Eternal Vigilanceexplores a multitude of themes from politics, to the evolution of civilizations as a whole, to the raw human desire for a higher purpose, especially in times of war and crisis.

4. What was the inspiration for Eternal Vigilance?

I actually started writing a short story, which would later become the foundation for the Eternal Vigilance series, the week 9-11 occurred. As everyone was, I was shaken to my core in way I had never experienced before. Reading about wars overseas and watching it happen in your own backyard changes your perspective on a core level. I started contemplating, more and more, humanity’s seemingly endless history of attempting to conquer one another and how we as a race seem damned to commit the same mistakes over and over again. All great empires rise and fall, but not all are committed to memory…

5. The future of 2111 is a pretty grim place, even without the vampires, why set your supernatural story in the future?

Again, this ties back into my themes. I wanted a futuristic setting so that the vampires could become the historians, especially in Tynan’s case. Also, I have a deep affinity for cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic fiction—one of my great author heroes is William Gibson. It seemed a natural and familiar world for me to begin writing my first novel in.

6. What makes vampires such enduring monsters, in your opinion?

Vampires, for the most part, are creatures whose nature is to adapt to the time. In order to survive they must, to an extent, blend in with humanity. Thus, they study humanity intensely, learning all of its subtleties and nuances, its strengths and its weaknesses. They prepare themselves. They are watchers. This combined with their inherent supernatural abilities makes them very tough creatures and able to endure the centuries.

7. The Tyst are extremely hateable. How did you come up with such loathsome villains?

HA! Thank you! Well, honestly, it’s not hard when you simply look at humanity and watch the atrocities it commits on a daily basis towards one another. I simply took that which frightens me most about our species and our governments and combined them into one vast global empire.

8. Mythology plays a big role in Eternal Vigilance. How did you come up with the religions and backstories for it?

I’ve been obsessed with world religions and mythologies since I was a child. In the creation of the vampires’ own mythology I wanted to have something that felt as if it was one of the great Greek or Norse gods, yet indicative of what the Immortals as an evolution of humanity would seek to see within their own pantheon. They were, after all, human at one time.

9. Aside from your lead, do you have any favorite supporting cast members?

I love all of my characters, even the ones I love to hate. But, I suppose, out of the very large cast I would say that Phelan, Khanna, and Loden are my other favorites. They are each such willfully strong and intelligent creatures in their own right and each experience such traumatic loss during the course of the three books that I grew very attached to them as I wrote their stories.

10. What can we expect in future installments of your book series?

You’re definitely in for another epic journey! In the next trilogy Tynan takes on a wholly new type of evil that evolves out humanity’s desire to solve an epidemic of infertility threatening their existence. The creature will be spawned of the pre-recorded DNA segments, much like dreams, of past generations and mutated as it is sliced and diced in the hands of underground musicians. There will be intrigue, scandal, passionate romance, and a lot of bloodshed. And if you’re a fan of industrial music, you’ll have a special appreciation for these next three books. Get ready for a very wild ride!

Thanks, Gabrielle!

    Note: Due to the nature of serialized storytelling, this will contain spoilers for the episodes prior to the one I'm reviewing.

    The episodic nature of the Telltale video games is both a blessing as well as a curse. It's a blessing because it's rare you get serialized storytelling this good. For a fraction of the cost of a full-priced video game, you get an hour and a half of re-playable storytelling for less than the price of a movie ticket.

    The curse element is, like your favorite television show, there's expansive waits between. Waiting for the end of Season 2 of The Walking Dead video game is something I know a lot of Season 1 fans are doing because they don't want to have to wait for the resolution to the plots within. I liken it to waiting for a television show to come out on DVD. Thankfully, I still have a couple of episodes before that becomes an issue.

Poor Clementine is always taking point.

    The premise of A House Divided is Clementine has been separated from her guardian, Crista. Forced to survive on her own, she's managed to find herself with a new group of survivors. Unfortunately, these survivors are considerably more hostile to her than her previous group and the only one who was unconditionally accepting is either bitten or dead by the beginning of this episode.

    A House Divided, as might be inferred by the title of the game, is about how distrustful humans have become since the apocalypse. The simple act of celebrating Christmas, something which brought about ceasefires during World War 1, has become something riff with lies and secrets. There are still good people out there but the episode examines whether or not they're smart for being so. Several times during this game, "doing the right thing" has disastrous consequences.

    Of course, so does doing the wrong thing. Clever, Telltale.

    While the first episode showed how Clementine is entirely capable of taking care of herself, this episode takes the time to develop the characters she is traveling with. We find out why they're so distrustful of strangers, even ones in the shape of an eleven-year-old girl. We also meet someone who has the potential to be the most memorable bad guy of not just this season but the entire Walking Dead video game franchise.

At least the new survivors can shoot.

    It was spoiled by the "trailer" at the end of Episode 1 that Clementine was going to be meeting up with someone she thought dead and I'm of mixed feelings about this character's survival. Still, in retrospect, I think it was necessary to bring back someone from the original group for Clementine to deal with. While already one of the darkest video games of all time, Season 2 is shaping up to make the original season look like "the good old days."

    The new villain, Carver, is a character I find quite appealing and I'm glad Telltale decided to create a "Governor-like" figure for Season 2. I felt the absence of any survivors in the "micro-nation" of Crawford was a missed opportunity. The fact Carver seems more intelligent, capable, and better suited to surviving the apocalypse than the current band Clementine is traveling with makes the developing storyline all the more intriguing to me.

    I also approve of the morality subtext to this episode. Whether or not one is religious, it's interesting to have a holiday traditionally associated with family and togetherness be a night when you might endeavor to conceal something horrible from an innocent man for your own protection. Given the way the Walking Dead video games have shown "the best intentions" to go horribly arry, it was really a struggle for me to decide what was the right thing to do.

    I was pleased by the tie-ins to 400 Days, too.

Carver and Clementine's talk is pure genius.

Of all the new survivors, I think I'm the most fond of Nick. My Clementine and he bonded over the tragedy of the previous game and their conversation after said event was really touching. The later events flow from what happened to his uncle Pete and watching him come to terms with them as well as his later mistakes really moved me. By comparison, I can't say I've bonded with any of the other characters.

Unfortunately, the new group of survivors isn't quite as awesome as the "original recipe" group. I instantly bonded with all of them and think of them as some of my favorite characters in video games. The only duds for me were Crista and Omid. None of the new characters here are bad, per say, but I can't say I care whether they live or die. The one I like the most is Nick and events make me wonder if he'll have much of a role at all in future episodes. Sadly, the character I'm most interested in the fate of is the Season 1 survivor.

9/10

    Doc of the Dead, standing for "Documentary of the Dead", is the (as now) definitive work explaining the appeal of zombies in popular culture. At an hour and a half, it feels like it's just barely scratching the surface of a much-larger cultural phenomenon but it manages to be consistently entertaining and informative.

    This is one one of those rare documentaries which manages to be enjoyable to both laymen as well as die-hard fans. Albeit, don't expect to be blown away by its informativeness. Doc of the Dead is squarely aimed at the causal viewer--which isn't necessarily a flaw. If you're going to introduce someone to "the appeal" of zombies, then Doc of the Dead may not be a bad place to start after some of the more famous movies.

    Guests on this documentary include Max Brooks (World War Z, Zombie Survival Guide), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Army of Darkness), George Romero (The "Dawn" series), Tom Savini (see Romero), and Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead). There's plenty of other guest stars, a few who are just laugh out-loud funny in their choice as "expert" like porn star Joanna Angel.

    Doc of the Dead follows the history of the zombie in cinema ranging from its origins in adapting the titular monster of Haitian mythology to its break-out role in Night of the Living Dead. From there, it talks about how various people adapted the Romero zombie and "improved"/ruined it. Much talk is given to the infamous Slow Zombie vs. Fast Zombie debate, a conflict I've weighed upon (here), and there's even a discussion of whether a zombie apocalypse could happen in real life.

    Despite its all-star cast, Doc of the Dead seems more interested in entertaining its viewers than talking at length about the zombie. Interesting sections like a discussion of the zombie as a sociological phenomenon and how George Romero came up with his creature are thrown aside for (admittedly awesome) bits like Bruce Campbell talking about how he was asked to officiate a zombie-themed wedding. The various zombie experts seem more interested in sharing amusing stories and shooting the breeze than discussing the monster, which I am willing to forgive because none of them are ever boring.

    If the documentary has any flaws, it perhaps casts too wide of a net in order to try to cover all elements of zombie fandom. While covering zombie-walks are fun and an interesting side, there's perhaps too much time spent with a corporation which provides zombie-themed targets for shooting practice.They could have also just included more Bruce Campbell as he's, by far, the stand-out in the story. Hell, if they ever do another medium-or-higher budget documentary on zombies (and they will), they should get him to host it.

    Likewise, the survivalist interview discussing the use of bomb shelters for surviving a zombie apocalypse seems extraneous. I would have expanded the criminally short section on the use of video games to promote the zombie as a beloved horror icon. While the movie covers the, admittedly, poignant Dead Island trailer--it neglects to give anything more than a few seconds to the many franchises built around shooting the undead.

    In conclusion, Doc of the Dead is a fun and light documentary for fans of the horror genre and those who aren't too.

    9/10

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines review

Exclusive Interview with Shana Festa

Dead Tide Rising review

The Breadwinner review

Star Wars: Legacy (hardcover) volume 1

What is Post-Lovecraftian fiction?

The Walking Dead (video game, non-spoiler) review

The Walking Dead (video game, spoiler) review

The Dresden Files: Storm Front

Eternal Vigilance review

The Walking Dead (video game): 400 Days

The Walking Dead vol 3#: Safety Behind Bars

The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury review

Splatterhouse (2010) review

The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 1: All That Remains

The Rhesus Chart review

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record review

Exclusive Interview with Gabrielle Faust!

The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 2: A House Divided review

Doc of the Dead review