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We are an opinionated group of friends reviewing all sorts of fantasy and science fiction media. Don’t forget to get to know the curators and visit our curated Collection, where we discuss the stories that never cease to transport us to another world.
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- Audio drama written by Faith McQuinn
- Produced by Observer Pictures
- Released in 2021-2022
- Starring Marquita Richardson, James David West, Pamela Paul, J.K. Robbins, Marisha Tapera, Janet Simmons, Drea Silvertooth and Kyle Nishimura
In the early 22nd century, the Apollyon virus (AVS) has wiped out 75% of the world’s population. The remaining population is split between safe zones, where people are safe thanks to a daily medicine, and the ‘outer limits’. Still infections often lead to death and Theo Ramsay and her colleague and friend Gabriel Larson are close to creating a vaccine. Yet they have to ask themselves: what are they prepared to do to get the research a step further?
This review relates to the first season.
I quite liked this audio drama. The sound design was good, although not very elaborate or varied. The acting was fine, although I felt a little uncomfortable when the characters laughed. The dialogue between the two main characters Theo and Gabriel was a joy to listen to. They really felt like longtime friends.
I do have mixed feelings about the writing. The dialogue was good and the story paid a lot of attention to the details of a scientific process. It is refreshing to see the difficulty of research and the slowness of discovery represented instead of one dramatised eureka-moment. However, you can also go to far… I do not need to hear all questions at the end of a research presentation or the complete explanation of how you make sure a group of subjects is statistically representative.
My main issue with this audio drama however is the streamlining of the story. Especially in the beginning, it let me wonder what exactly this story was about. Was this a hero’s journey about scientific discovery, a (family) drama in the middle of a pandemic or a mystery about a secret plot? I think mostly the latter, but I am not sure.
I am not sure if this ‘meandering’ is a strong or a weak point, but I tend to lean to the latter. On the one hand, this approach will resonate more with more ambiance-oriented listeners rather than plot-oriented ones (me). Furthermore, it broadens the world in which the story takes place. On the other hand, if it had wanted to do that, it could have shown more of the social and political implications of the new world order the pandemic had brought – in true sci-fi fashion (see this discussion). Instead, the story could have played out like this in, say, 2020 as well as in 2120.
As a result, I felt a little impatient with the plot. In episode 4 we finally see a glimpse of the ‘true’ conflict, in order to have to wait for episode 6 for a bit more, and have every necessary info dumped on us in ‘flashback episode’ 9 to get up to speed for the finale.
The lack of a broader societal scope and the choice to focus on the development of a vaccine instead made this audio drama have less of an impact on me. I don’t know if this story was already in production when our own pandemic hit, but some things felt a little outdated. Like, you don’t have to explain the importance of a vaccine in a pandemic anymore. And we know a bit of how a virus spreads and destroys families, even when only a few percent of the population dies. Which made me think, the great secret that was revealed at the end, why were they so secretive about it? Could they not just have been honest with the world and no one would have bat an eye? Or even helped?
However, I do not want to sound too negative. In the end, all of this is nitpicking in a story that was good. It just could – in my eyes – have been great. I am curious to see what season 2 will bring. I certainly hope we will explore the world of the ‘outer limits’ further. Maybe all of the meandering will in hindsight have been ‘built-up’ for a complex web of moral dilemma’s that totally pays off!
Tagged:
LOTTE
Check out our reviews of the media mentioned in this post here:
Two weeks ago, we went to Elfia, Europe’s biggest costume event. It’s a bit of a mix between a Renaissance faire and a convention. There’s cosplayers, people in medieval or otherwise historical dress, dogs in costume… A little bit of everything, really.
We go to Elfia every year, and every year, we play “Elfia Bingo”. Here’s how it goes:
Creating the Bingo Cards
Everyone gets a Bingo card that they can fill in themselves. It’s easiest to go with a 3×3 bingo card and nothing bigger. I’m not sure I’ve ever crossed off every item on my card. Honestly? Convention Bingo is hard to win.
So everyone chooses 9 things they want to see at the convention. This can be pretty much everything. You can choose a specific character or a whole show/series you want to see a cosplay of. This will depend on how popular a show is and thus how likely you think you are to actually see someone cosplay this thing. For instance: 5 or so years ago, I had “Critical Role” on my bingo card. The show had only been running for a while, and I didn’t manage to spot a SINGLE cosplayer of the series. This year, I put Fearne from Critical Role campaign 3 on my card. Even this was perhaps too easy, as I spotted upwards of 5 Fearnes that day. Oh, how times change.
It’s likely that some of the things you want to see at the con may be easier than others. To counter this, you can put some more difficult ones on your card. A character from an older video games series, or from something that’s just come out can serve to balance out the 30 Jesters from Critical Role that you’ve put on your card.
Make no mistake, though! You may actually end up surprised at which characters you cross off the card and which ones you don’t end up seeing! This year, Robin had Moraine from Wheel of Time on her bingo card, which I was sure she would be able to cross off within seconds of entering the faire grounds. Unfortunately for her, no Moraines were spotted that day.
While specific characters and franchises are an obvious choice for bingo card items, it can also be fun to include situations or concept to your card.
Think of:
- a cosplay that is so huge that the person inside has trouble navigating the con;
- a beautiful dress with a train that is torn and filthy from people stepping on it constantly;
- Someone fixing their broken cosplay;
- Two people in the same cosplay talking to each other;
- A costume that’s legitimately terrifying (for several years, there was a guy with what looked and sounded like a real chainsaw running around. Trust me when I tell you no one felt comfortable walking near that guy);
- A genderbent cosplay;
- A sexy cosplay of an unsexy character;
- A child wearing an insanely good cosplay;
- A dog in a costume
- Two friends together at the con, wearing costumes that are basically polar opposites;
- etc.
The Game
It’s important to bring paper and some kind of writing utensil to the con. We often make our bingo cards in the train or car on the way there. The game starts as soon as you enter the convention grounds. Anything you see before your ticket has been scanned does not count.
How competitively you play the game will depend on you. I find it really depends on what people have on their cards. If someone is genuinely excited about spotting a specific character, I will be the first to point that character out to them if I see it. We’re all just here for fun after all, and seeing that character makes that friend happy.
However, if a friend has something on their card that’s a little more generic and they’re not as excited about (take for instance Else from Frozen 2), it’s a different story. If that’s the case, and I see Elsa, my response might be a little different. “Ohhh you didn’t see that Elsa cosplayer?? Gosh what a shame, 🙁 I’ve seen like 3 by now.”
You’ll want to balance it out. You’re not here to ruin your friend’s day! But you are here to win.
If ever you’re not quite sure if someone is cosplaying the character you think they are (”…is that Grog from Critical Role or the guy from God of War??”) you have to go up to them to ask before you can cross it off. Be sure to explain the game to them while you’re at it! If only so they understand why you look so smug when they talk about their costume, and what exactly it is you’re maniacally crossing off a little piece of paper.
I’ve said before that the game is hard to win. But what if you do win? We’ve personally never given a prize to the winner of Elfia bingo. You could, but it’s slightly against the spirit of the game. It can be disappointing enough not to see your favourite characters cosplayed at a con. Without prizes, your only victory is seeing people cosplay the characters you love, and I think that’s just real neat.
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- Movie directed by Neill Blomkamp
- Starring Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James, Vanessa Haywood, mandla Gaduka and others
- Released 2009
- Runtime: 112 minutes
A mothership full of aliens in desperate plight arrives on earth, hovering menacingly but ultimately passively over the city of Johannesburg. Society responds as it always has to the arrival of outsiders: the aliens are excluded and end up packed together in squalor in a slum. After a period of riots and other struggles, Wikus van de Merwe is tasked with leading the private security operation of evicting the aliens and transferring them to a new camp further outside of the city.
I watched Elysium, another of Blomkamp’s movies, a couple of weeks ago. As I wrote then, I thought back to District 9 and I remembered it being better than Elysium. That got me thinking, because apart from the premise, I really I didn’t remember all that much of District 9. So I decided to re-watch it – and honestly, I was a bit disappointed.
The movie has a great premise that flips the script on the usual first contact narrative, with the aliens needing the humans’ help as opposed to presenting an extra-terrestrial threat. The documentary-style cinematography sucks you in, and the first half of the movie seems to set up for a more thoughtful sci-fi drama that focusses on cultural impact and delivers a (perhaps a little heavy handed) critique of apartheid in South Africa and racism in general. But as the plot progresses, the movie (d)evolves into a more predictable sci-fi action flick with blood splattering the camera in long shootouts throughout the city with a multitude of vehicles and weapons. The critique of apartheid and discrimination is undercut by the aliens’ barbarity (and frankly, the depiction of their (lack of) mental faculties) as well as the stereotypical portrayal of the Nigerian gangs in District 9. The documentary style is mostly abandoned to show some more intimate moments, especially with the aliens themselves, but that also starts raising questions on the aliens’ background that are never answered – which now feel more like gaps in worldbuilding than mysteries beyond the documentary makers’ comprehension.
As a result, I feel like there is a very stark divide in style between the first and the second half of the movie that hurts it overall. I am not saying it is not passable as a sci-fi action movie, but if you’re looking for alien shootouts and mech suits throwing cars, that’s locked behind about an hour of set up about how humans mistreat aliens. And if you’re looking for a more thoughtful film that subverts your expectations on first contact and delivers a scathing societal critique, you’re probably better off switching to a different channel about halfway in, lest you be bored by a hail of bullets that lasts about an hour long.
Overall, I especially like the movie’s first half – it stuck with me over the years and I believe it makes District 9 definitely worth watching. But be prepared for a violent (but spectacular) second half that leaves some itches unscratched and loses some of the movie’s potential along the way.
This movie started out very promisingly. It has quite an interesting premise and I was very curious to see where they were going with it. The first half of the movie mainly shows the immense cruelty in how the aliens are dealt with, and the parallels that were clearly drawn with the South African apartheid regime added an interesting layer to this.
However, after this promising beginning it quickly went downhill for me. The movie primarily follows one main character who experiences some very traumatic events. However, since he is shown in the first thirty minutes of the movie as an incredibly cruel and incompetent man, it was very hard for me to care all that much about what was happening to him. From there the movie developed into a standard action movie with a lot of shooting, which is where I lost all of my remaining interest. To be very honest, at some point I even fell asleep and so I missed the end of the movie. I don’t feel I missed anything worth going back for.
Considering the fact that I never really enjoy action movies, I probably could have predicted that this would not be the movie for me. However, the way it started out really did make me think that maybe I would at least somewhat enjoy this one. I am sure there is an audience of people who will love it, but sadly I am not one of them.
Tagged:
Reviewed by:
- Video game developed by Key
- Directed by Jun Maeda
- Art by Itaru Hinoue
- Published by Sekai Project and Visual Arts
- Published in 2004
- Visual novel, Singleplayer
- Playing time: 62 to 129 hours
- Platforms: Android, IOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows Phone, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch
This visual novel revolves around high school student and self-proclaimed dissident Tomoya Okazaki, who (due to suffering from several traumas) has given up on making something of his life. This changes, however, when he meets the mysterious girl Nagisa Furukawa at the beginning of the new school year. This encounter is the beginning of several (potential) new friendships, which will change his life forever.
Clannad… How do I describe this game, other than to say that it has a very special place in my heart?
Let’s start this review with the caveat that I believe this game lies on the fringes of what most people would consider ‘fantasy’. Magic realism plays an instrumental role in the story, but both plot and characters are actually very mundane. Mundane as in ‘earthly’ and ‘human’, that is.
On that note – for those who are not familiar with the concept of visual novels – Clannad is more of an interactive novel than a video game with mind-blowing gameplay. Apart from the occasional choice, the story evolves without much of the player’s intervention. To explore all storylines, you’d have to replay the game several times, which includes rereading text that you have previously read, though the game also offers a convenient skip funtion for this.
As Clannad was my first experience with a visual novel, the above things were something I first had to get accustomed to. Though I now appreciate the medium, I can imagine it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
With all of that out of the way, I want to emphasize Clannad is one of the best character-driven stories I have ever encountered. The writing is exceptionally good, evoking the whole range of human emotions. Some storylines are still haunting my thoughts years after I last played them (I’m looking at you Kotomi).
At first glance, Clannad appears to be a high school romance story, but that would be much too misleading a description. Though romance is necessary to progress some of the storylines, the core themes revolve around finding meaningful connections, as well as family and the accessory complex trapfalls of such relations. At times these themes involve heavy subjects, but the game always manages to balance such moments with light-hearted humor sprinkled in between. Each of these stories is so masterfully crafted, that afterwards I often need a long break from playing, simply to process it all. And each time I return, I’m glad to be reunited with Clannad‘s soft-hearted though complex characters.
Another thing this game definitely excels in, is its soundtrack. I would recognize it everywhere (this is a proven fact; it seems Clannad‘s music has a way of making its way into YouTube videos and real-life television). In combination with the beautiful anime-style art, the music succeeds in delivering an experience unlike any other visual novel I have played since.
I should probably note that Key is a Japanese studio. Clannad takes place in Japan and, as such, the game presents Japanese culture, providing explanations when necessary. The humour and art of Clannad are similar to what you find in anime. If Japanese anime isn’t your cup of tea, Clannad might not work for you.
Should you want to give Clannad a try (and you have no experience with visual novels), I would recommend looking up a spoiler free walkthrough/guide online to see how each characters’ ‘route’ can be achieved. This helps to streamline the playing process,and prevents unnecessary repetition later on.
See also:
LOTTE
Check out our reviews of the media mentioned in this post here:
After a good six years, our Pathfinder campaign has finally come to an end. This means, of course, that it’s time for me to come up with a character for our new campaign. Now I know there’s people who have tons of ideas for characters that they want to play, but I personally found myself drawing a blank.
To help myself – and you! – I compiled a list of ways to come up with a new D&D character. Let’s get to it!
1. Place an existing character in a fantasy setting
One very easy trick to coming up with fun characters to play is to think of characters that already exist. There’s really only so many different types of “unique” characters humanity can come up with, so why not take some inspiration from some characters from popular fiction? You could even just choose a celebrity to “reference”. The key here is to choose someone for whom you can quickly guess how they would respond to a given situation.
Some examples:
- Fantasy Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, going to school for magic to get back a guy, but finding out she’s actually really good at it
- Fantasy Bones from Star Trek, a cleric who’s really just annoyed to be here all of the time, but his friends wanted to go on an adventure so here he is, I guess
2. Mixing fantasy with real life jobs or archetypes
Another way to think of fun characters can be to try to place “real world” people in a fantasy/sci fi setting. I don’t know about you but there’s nothing I love more than the overlap of fantasy and the mundane. You know: like that scene from Shrek where the guards complain that they don’t have dental insurance?
Some examples:
- A yoga girl monk
- A Warlock influencer whose patron is a brand (This is actually an idea I really wanted to use for our campaign, except we unfortunately play Pathfinder, where Warlocks seem to be a fully different thing from what they are in D&D).
3. Go for an unusual race/class combination
There’s some classic race/class combinations, but why not switch it up? If you choose a strange combination, you’re instantly prompted to discover just why this character would have chosen this class.
Some examples:
- Why would a gnome have decided to become a barbarian? Maybe they’re just packing a lot of rage in their itty-bitty body, but perhaps they chose this path to protect their village. Even a village of gnomes needs someone to stand guard, right? Or maybe they grew up reading books about barbarian adventurers and decided to set out and prove that they, too, can learn to rage.
- A dwarven Druid may have spent their whole life living in caves with their family. Not being particularly strong or smart, they didn’t think they were much use to others. When they eventually step out into the outside world, they realise that their special talent was never going to serve them well underground: this dwarf has a special connection with nature. They decide to set out to explore their gift, leaving their familiar caves and rocks behind to venture out into the woods.
4. Go for the classics
There’s really nothing wrong with going for a “classic” D&D character. Those of us who’ve grown up with the Lord of the Rings may recognise finally getting to indulge our childhood desire of being a fancy high elf princess or a halfling rogue in our first D&D game. Besides: everything has already been done before anyway, so you’re never going to be truly original.
Anyone who’s watched an actual play D&D campaign series will likely have worried about being as “good” a player as the cast of Critical Role, or as funny as the cast of Dimension 20. It can be easy to forget that just like you shouldn’t compare yourself to professional artists or Olympic figure skaters (I genuinely did think I was gonna be a phenomenal skater right away – turns out skating’s really hard actually, lol), you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to professional improvisers playing D&D.
So don’t think you need to be hilarious or even original, especially if you consider the fact that no one will watch you play except your friends.
Some examples:
- A Fancy magical lady elf
- A Brooding rogue
- Literally just Merry and/or Pippin from the Lord of the Rings
I hope this helps you with creating characters for your future campaigns! Meanwhile I’ll be back here, brainstorming…
Wish me luck!
Time to get to know the Escape Velocity Collection’s curators! How? By asking them the questions that really matter! Let’s see what our curators have to say…
This week’s question is:
What is the last piece of media you didn't finish, and why?
The last book I didn’t finish was The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin, though I would like to tell myself that I’ll pick it back up and finish it sometime later. It was disappointing because I went into it with high expectations. I think that the main reason I didn’t finish was the fact that the audiobook I was listening too was a bit mumbly and made the whole thing sound like just another day at the office. Maybe I should read this one on paper instead.
(Dis?)honourable mention to the The Witcher TV-series, which I watched a couple of episodes of – but I felt it was a bit hit and miss in the storytelling and costuming, and I hadn’t read the books anyway so I decided to put it off too.
Peter
Jop
I believe that would be Netflix’s Kiss Me First. While watching the trailer, I was drawn to what seemed to be a fascinating thriller centred around queer characters and a VR simulation game. After a few episodes, though, the plot seemed little more than a lacklustre horror plot, in which flat characters get killed off one by one by a ‘mysterious’ murderer.
As for the queer characters: mostly queerbaiting. Though I shall admit that the two female leads were convincing in their acting, the writing was just poor. Jasmijn and I stopped watching after four episodes, around the time the climax was starting to pick up. It wasn’t enough to keep us engaged…
I recently started listening to The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan, which I ended up not finishing. It is one of my sister’s all time favourite fantasy series, so I was really hoping to like it. I read the first book in the series a year or two ago, and while I did not hate it I did not really love it either. Although it is well-written, I just found I did not connect well enough with any of the characters in order to be truly invested in the story. I was hoping that this would maybe change with the second book in the series, but when this did not happen after a couple of hours I decided to put it down for good.
Robin
Jasmijn
DUNE. The only reason I started this book was because Peter absolutely adores it. However, I could not get through it at all! I think this was mainly because the book is about sand and politics and not about people. It was also just So Many Words. See also our review on Dune.
My dad always gives me a book for my birthday and on Christmas. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to them, but I do always read them. A year or so ago, he gave me The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin. I started it a couple of months ago, but I just could not compel myself to finish it. I think the main problem lies with the style of sci-fi of the book. It has lots of weird names and places that I find difficult to keep track of. At the end of the day, I read for fun. This means that if a book is hard to get through, it’s likely just not for me. I’ll probably finish it eventually, but I’m not, like, looking forward to it.
[Peter: Poor Ursula, she is under heavy fire today! Maybe I can borrow the paper version in the meantime so I can give it another shot first?]
Lotte
Key
I almost never not finish a TV-series or book I started. I get disillusioned, frustrated, angry, but I do want to know how it ends. And maybe I am just a little bit completionist. Not long ago I stood on the brink of quitting the audio drama Earth Eclipsed, but I persevered.
The last thing I definitely remember quitting was the TV-series Once Upon A Time. I really liked the first season, the second season was all right, but then the third season came along and it got so horribly boring. It took ages to get through the Peter Pan-storyline, but, I hoped, it would work up to something, it would get better. It did not. The semi-Witch of the West was terrible. And when off-brand Elsa appeared, I was out.
That’s it: another soul-searching question answered!
Still curious? Visit each curator’s page to see what they’ve recently been up to!
Check out our reviews of the media discussed in this post here::
Review: Apollyon – Observer Pictures
In a future pandemic, Theo Ramsay is close to creating a vaccine. But whatis she prepared to do to get the research a step further?
How to play Convention Bingo
Conventions are pretty fun, but do you know what would make them even better? Convention bingo! Here’s how to play
Review: District 9 – Neill Blomkamp
A mothership full of aliens in desperate plight arrives on earth, and society responds as it always has to the arrival of outsiders: the aliens end up in a slum on the edges of Johannesburg..
Review: Clannad – Key
Review of the video game Clannad.
Tomoya Okazaki has given up on making something of his life. This changes, however, when he meets the mysterious girl Nagisa Furukawa.
How to brainstorm for your new D&D character
Need help coming up with a D&D character? Lotte’s got you covered! She has four tips to get you started.
Curator Question: What is the last piece of media you didn’t finish, and why?
Our curators discuss the latest pieces of media they didn’t finish, as well as the reason they didn’t.
