Books 93-94
Oct. 25th, 2009 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzu93) Thunderball: as promised, I gave Ian Fleming one more try, and this one was better - it wasn't against American mobsters, so the espionage worked a little better. Plus I liked the facts that a) Bond spent a chunk of the book second guessing his instincts and not reporting up the chain for fear of looking like an idiot and b) that he was often utter exhausted from his activities. Both made him feel more human.
I have a strong urge to run a James Bond game, not just because I have several of Victory Games well done modules that haven't seen use in decades, but also because the opening single of the new Michael Buble album makes "Cry Me a River" sound like a JB movie title track and because I now have not one but two good names for Femme Fatale's in the Bond idiom. If I do pitch one I will likely give the player a choice between being a team of equals or a hero and backup - the former is more common in gaming, but I'm sure i could extrapolate parts of the Buffy rulebook to make the latter work. I might also ratchet up some of the scenarios to give things a bit more of a "Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD" sense, but I'm not sure if that would break the Bond idiom too much, or just enough to make the campaign distinct.
94) Methuselah's Children: I was surprised by how little of the book's content matched the back cover text (which was all about the protagonists being forced to wander the starts; in actuality they don't leave Earth until about the final 3rd of the book and, in so doing, visit a total of 2 other planets). I have little issue with the content, which was classic Heinlein, just the ad copy. At least the image on the cover could be extrapolated to attach to concepts in the book, which puts it ahead of a lot of books produced around its publication date.
I have a strong urge to run a James Bond game, not just because I have several of Victory Games well done modules that haven't seen use in decades, but also because the opening single of the new Michael Buble album makes "Cry Me a River" sound like a JB movie title track and because I now have not one but two good names for Femme Fatale's in the Bond idiom. If I do pitch one I will likely give the player a choice between being a team of equals or a hero and backup - the former is more common in gaming, but I'm sure i could extrapolate parts of the Buffy rulebook to make the latter work. I might also ratchet up some of the scenarios to give things a bit more of a "Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD" sense, but I'm not sure if that would break the Bond idiom too much, or just enough to make the campaign distinct.
94) Methuselah's Children: I was surprised by how little of the book's content matched the back cover text (which was all about the protagonists being forced to wander the starts; in actuality they don't leave Earth until about the final 3rd of the book and, in so doing, visit a total of 2 other planets). I have little issue with the content, which was classic Heinlein, just the ad copy. At least the image on the cover could be extrapolated to attach to concepts in the book, which puts it ahead of a lot of books produced around its publication date.
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Date: 2009-11-12 05:38 pm (UTC)I recommend skipping blurbs until after reading the book.