The huge creature stalked across the room, its expression unreadable in a twisted face of beak and fang.
Siobhan cleared her throat and the owlbear froze. Its head twisted at an unsettling angle to stare at her.
“The laying was successful. You can go on in now.” The monster squeezed his bulk past her and into the delivery room, leaving a trail of hairy feathers behind.
She was the best midwife in the kingdom, but chimerical deliveries were always challenging. If she ever found the wizard that crossed birds and bears, she would give them a lecture they wouldn’t forget.
Fiction: A Difficult Labor
December 30, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Drabble, Fantasy, Free Fiction, Short Short Fiction Leave a comment
Hugh Likes Comics: 2018 Top 5
December 24, 2018
Hugh Likes Comics, Review, Uncategorized Boom! Studios, Comic, DC, Good Comics, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Marvel, Oni Press, Top 5, Year End List Leave a comment
Eternity Girl
Written by Magdalene Visaggio
Drawn by Sonny Liew
Published by DC/Young Animal
After losing control of her powers and being suspended, superhero Caroline Sharp, A. K. A. Chrysalis, has become suicidally depressed. Unfortunately, her powers make her functionally immortal. But the shade of her greatest nemesis appears with a solution: If she destroys all of reality, Caroline can finally be at peace. Eternity Girl starts out as a meditation on classic trope but quickly blossoms into something much more extraordinary. The surreal, shifting story is both personal and grand in a way few comics manage to pull off, and Liew’s art steals the show, including a breathtaking sequence in which reimagines the characters in a multitude of comic styles, from Peanuts to Watchmen. If you liked Into the Spider-Verse but wished it was more philosophically meaty, this is the comic for you.
Immortal Hulk
Written by Al Ewing
Drawn by Joe Bennett
Published by Marvel Comics
Superheroes get reinvented all the time, but this new take on Marvel’s Angry Green Giant is the most impressive I’ve seen in a long time. By day, Bruce Banner wanders the back roads of America, hitching his way across the country. But night belongs to The Hulk. Ewing uses Marvel’s latest death and resurrection of the character to tell a clever horror stories about guilt, secrets, and self-delusion.
The Long Con
Written by Ben Coleman and Dylan Mecconis
Drawn by E. A. Denich
Colored by M. Victoria Robado
Published by Oni Press
Five years ago, a disaster convinces the attendees the world’s biggest comic convention that the world had ended, and the world thought the convention center had met the same fate as Los Spinoza, CA. But the Long Con is still going. When proof of survivors surfaces, reporter Victor Lai, one of the last reporters to escape the city, is sent back in. But without protection, and more importantly, without a badge, how long will he survive? This comic is a delightful skewering of post-apocalyptic, nerd culture, and sci-fi tropes.
Sparrowhawk
Written by Delilah Dawson
Drawn by Matias Basla
Colored by Rebecca Nalty
Published by Boom! Studios
Art, the illegitimate daughter of an English lord, has always lived at odds with the world she was raised in. But when the Faerie Queen switches places with her in a plot to take over the human world, she’ll have to try and save it anyway. But little does she understand what that will cost her, and every choice has devastating consequences in Faerie. Gorgeously illustrated and dream-like, Sparrowhawk is a Victorian portal fantasy with modern sensibilities.
West Coast Avengers
Written by Kelly Thompson
Drawn by Stefano Caselli and Daniele Di Nicuolo
Published by Marvel Comics
Sometimes you just need to read something unabashedly fun! This relaunch feels less like The Avengers than a new take on the themes of classic Excalibur. As the title suggests, the series is set in Southern California, far away from Marvel’s NYC, and is more than willing to embrace sillinessess. The first volume stars best Hawkeye Kate Bishop and friends as they form a team to save Los Angeles from B.R.O.D.O.K. and his army of 200-foot tall monster women.
Fiction: The Home of Rest
December 23, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Drabble, Elvish Medicine, Fantasy, Fiction, Microfiction, Short Short Fiction Leave a comment
“Ho, what fair yonder maiden does my elf eye see?” Aoife jumped in surprise and looked up. There was Mr. Aradol, bathrobe flapping in the breeze and long white hair streaming behind him. She sighed.
Some folks thought elves were immortal. It wasn’t true, of course. They lived for centuries, longer even than some dragons, but they succumbed to the same infirmities of time as anyone.
Aofie hated working the Elvish Dementia ward. Some idiot had left the door unlocked last night, forgetting how hale some of the residents were. She’d be pulling them out of the trees all morning.
Podcast: NP29 – Pacifism HighSchool
December 22, 2018
Nostalgia Pilots, Podcast, Uncategorized Dorothy Mother Fucking Catalonia, hugh, Jason, Jurd, Nostalgia Pilots, Podcast, Spence Leave a comment
Welcome to nostalgia pilots! This week, Spence, Jurd, Jason and Hugh discuss Gundam Wing Episode 29: “The Heroine of the Battlefield.”
Click HERE to download the episode!
This week: Heero and Quatre have a beach vacation, followed by some light boosting of an aircraft carrier. Noin and Sally Po have a badass salvage adventure, and the nostalgia pilots are introduced to the firework that is Dorothy Catalonia.
Plus, underwater mobile suits are still useless.
Hugh Likes Video Games: Octopath Traveller
December 17, 2018
Hugh Likes Video Games, Review, Uncategorized HLV, Hugh Likes Video Games, JRPG, Nintendo Switch, Square Enix Leave a comment
Octopath Traveller
Developed by Acquire
Published by Square Enix
Nintendo Switch
The Skinny: This retro-styled JRPG creates a miniature clockwork world to explore.
I love me some Old School Japanese Role Playing Games. As a kid, I looked on with envy as my friends talked about the then mind-blowing scope of Dragon Warrior, and the Unprecedented drama of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. When I grew older and had the means to play them myself, I lost myself in their fast maps and intricate mechanical systems. But trends come and go in gaming, and while these classics are remembered fondly, they just don’t make them anymore.
Except, of course, when they do. Octopath Traveller is a return to subgenre form, complete with pixelated sprites and tangled leveling systems. But it brings a lot of new stuff to the table as well.
The player chooses their starting character from a cast of eight protagonists, from erudite but occasionally naive scholar Cyrus to cynical thief Therion. After playing through the character’s ‘Chapter’ you leave your starting town and recruit the other characters, and play their stories as well. While you can have up to four characters in your party, each character’s story plays out as though they were alone, although you can access character asides where the others will give that character advice, or other dialog that doesn’t impact the scene.
Octopath Traveller is a remarkable success in so many ways. The visuals, a mix of pixel art and modern particle effects serve to create the illusion of a miniature world on the switch’s screen. Sand, snow and water all sparkle, and shimmer on the screen, creating not exactly realism, but an almost tactile effect. The locations look like vastly complex models. The music is gorgeous and cleverly constructed. The writing is smart, engaging, and doesn’t suffer from the bowdlerization so often present in 90’s translations. Combat is strategic and tricky. It is a joy to play.
But as much fun as it is, the game never quite breaks its illusions. The systems never let the player forget that it is a game. Its use of story as another system is interesting, and fun for me, but I found myself wishing that the characters had a bit more interaction with one another. If I have a Healer in my party, why can’t he heal the Cleric’s ill adoptive father? If another character is looking for a criminal, why can’t the Thief use their contacts to speed the process along? These barriers were a distraction to me at times.
Also, having one character that never left the party made them way more powerful than anybody else. There didn’t seem to be a reason to alway have them in the group, and by the end there was a huge gap. These are both aspects I hope they address in any potential sequels.
Octopath Traveller is an incredible JRPG experience for Nintendo Switch that is both full of warm, gooey nostalgia, and genuinely unlike anything else out there. If you have a Nintendo Switch and a hundred hours to spare, this is a must play.
Hugh Likes Comics: Die
December 12, 2018
Hugh Likes Comics, Review, Uncategorized Fantasy, HLC, Horror, Hugh Likes Comics, Image, It's a pun, Kieron Gillen, review, Stephanie Hans Leave a comment
Die #1
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Stephanie Hans
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
Published by Image
The Skinny: Less “Dungeons and Dragons” and more “It.”
In 1991, Dominic and his friends played a game, and then disappeared. In 1993, they returned, unable to tell a soul where they had been or what they were doing. And one of them, Dominic’s best friend and GM Solomon, never returned at all. Twenty-five years after that, Dominic receives a strange and chilling birthday present: A crystalline 20-sided die. The game isn’t over.
Writer Kieron Gillen’s first creator-owned project since The Wicked + The Divine tackles nostalgia, trauma, and the scars left by fantastical childhood journeys on adults. This isn’t untrodden ground, of course. It has been approached in all sorts of ways, from the Robin Williams movie “Hook” to Stephen King’s It. This tale hews more closely to the latter, as you might expect. Gillen makes things more interesting by incorporating another element: Dungeons and Dragons. His epigraph at the end of the comic makes the reference more explicit: The unfinished 80’s cartoon which transported six real-world kids to the roleplaying fantasy land. He’s also tapping into the 80’s “satanic panic” surrounding the game, with six kids who were literally swallowed and chewed up by the game. It’s an interesting twist on the concept, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Hans’s art is gorgeous, and impliments some cool tricks with light. The is dull, dark, and full of shadows. Not to spoil things, but this is reversed in a double-page spread late in the issue to great effect. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the outstanding logo design from Rian Hughes, which takes a D-20 and spreads it flat into a maze of triangular segments. Hans takes it and pulls off a neat trick on the cover, interposing the design for a character and her in-game persona.
Die #1 is an intriguing new fantasy horror series, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next. You can find it at Your Local Comic Shop or digitally from Comixology.
Hugh Likes Fiction: The Calculating Stars
December 11, 2018
Hugh Likes Fiction, Review, Uncategorized Alternate History, HLF, Hugh Likes Fiction, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sci-Fi, The Calculating Stars Leave a comment
The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel
Written by Mary Robinette Kowal
Audiobook read by the author
Audiobook published by Audible, Inc.
The Skinny: A calculator fights to become an astronaut in an alternate 1950’s where a meteor has hit Earth.
The Calculating Stars is a rare and remarkable apocalyptic novel that focuses more on solutions than on breakdown. In an alternate 1952, Calculator Elma York and her husband (and lead engineer of the nascent space program) barely escape the devastation when a meteor strike wipes out the east coast of the United States. While she and her husband get back on their feet thanks to the kindness of strangers, she quickly begins to believe there is a bigger problem: The earth will soon be uninhabitable for humans. They get to work ramping up a space program to get humanity into space before it’s too late, but Elma soon reaches a problem: How can all of humanity go into space if only men are allowed to be astronauts?
An incisive, extremely hard SF novel, Kowal does a lot of neat tricks with this novel, a prequel to her award-winning novelette, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars.” The author does an outstanding job of balancing the technical and social aspects of a novel. Dr. York can do orbital mechanics in her head and is a steady hand on a flight stick, but speaking in public terrifies her.
Kowal masterfully echoes the historical space race and civil rights movements as she lays out her story of Elma’s realizations of humanity’s fate, as well as what she comes to realize about herself and her society, and does what she can to change them. The story is essentially hopeful, but it never overlooks the inequality of American society.
The Calculating Stars is a brilliant Science Fiction novel about an alternate space program filled with unforgettable characters. I listened to the audiobook, read by Mary Robinette Kowal, and she brings her equal talent as a narrator to the text. You can find it in print, ebook and audiobook at Your Local Bookshop, Audible, and The Usual Suspects.
Fiction: Cat Hell
December 9, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Cats, Drabble, Fiction, Free Fiction, Humor Leave a comment
“This is the place you made for yourself in life,” The fish said, swimming towards the rising figure in through the misty shadows. “This your hell, and it is filled with the ghosts of your sins.” His audience stared at him and said nothing. The fish swam closer through the thick air. “I am not your only companion here, either. Every victim of your cruel misdeeds is here, and we will be with you until the end of time. This is a crowded land. Do you even remember me, I wonder?”
“Mrow?” the cat said, and lunged at the fish.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 
Podcast: CCRC45-Fraggle Rock S3E22
December 31, 2018
hughjodonnell CCR, CCR Commentary, Podcast, Uncategorized Chrononaut Cinema Reviews, Commentary Track, Fraggles, hugh, Jim Henson, Jurd, Opopinax, Rich The T T Leave a comment
Tonight your hosts, Hugh, Rich the Time Traveler, Jurd, and Opop, take in some sweet Henson joy.
Click HERE to listen to the podcast!
And HERE to watch the episode “The Bells of Fraggle Rock” online! This isn’t the same link as we watched, so Caveat Viewer!
Thanks for listening, and happy new year!
Chrononaut Cinema Reviews is presented by http://skinner.fm and http://hughjodonnell.com, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.
This post originally posted at Skinner.FM on Sunday, December 30, 2018.