My own self

I've never been one for sharing personal information online, and I'm not about to start now. However, I've been asked quite strongly today to post something or other in my weblog here, and as I'm not feeling like reviewing anything on my rather long list of stuff to get around to writing posts on, that means it has to be on some whim of my own instead. As I additionally don't have any specific thought, idea, objection or opinion about anything in particular going on these days that would make for a post on its own, that kind of means I just have to give an update of who I am and what I am doing these days. Those of you who could not be less interested, and I'm sure that within the modest confines of this weblog's readership there's a lot of you, well, just don't read behind the cut. Thanks.

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Finally getting around to checking out the first couple of books of this series, it's about what I expected. Clever little jokes, a rather impressive control of the language, an amusingly present (fictional) author and relatively gripping but predictable plots. Also, as the author puts no small amount of effort into warning the reader about repeatedly, it's rather melancholy and sad.

Still, they're super-quick and easy reads, and while I do realise the target audience is far below my own age, I had fun reading these two books. The first book details the first experiences of the Baudelaire children Violet, Klaus and Sunny after their parents suddenly pass away in a brutal fire. They're sent off to live with a distant (but geographically close) relative, Count Olaf, who quickly turns out to be an evil man with designs on the orphans' great inherited fortune. In the end the children, using their natural gifts of inventing, reading and biting, outwit and defeat the Count, but as the author takes care in pointing out, do not get a happy ending anyway as the villain escapes. The second book follows the children into the care of a new guardian, this one benevolent and amusing, but with a thwarted Olaf furiously on their heels. More tragedies so ensue.

These two books, together with book number 3 as far as I gather, make up the basis for the movie with Jim Carrey, a movie which reading this turns out to have been pleasingly true to the books. Compared to the movie, the adults are a tiny bit less oblivious (though still very much so) and the children a tiny bit more so (though still far more clever than the adults). A main difference, though, is that the antagonist of Count Olaf is, while still very ominous and disgusting, less ridiculous and more intelligent than in the movie. Of course, this might be a result of the children not knowing him very well yet, after just two books, and it might change. Still, the man is genuinely creepy, and somewhat less clueless than the other adults of the tales.

The books have thirteen chapters, and there are thirteen books to the series - hardly a coincidence - and I'm told they keep following the children being sent to a new guardian-formula for a while, gradually starting to spice it up a little more. I'm sure they'll be more enticing once I'm done with the third book and venture into unknown territory, the first three being so close to the movie that I basically know what will happen next in almost every scene. There are also subtle hints to a larger, over-arching plot line in these first two books, and I expect that to become increasingly central to later books in the series.

Good books, really, with the humour making up for the melancholia and the easy, quick read making up for the somewhat predictable plot. I'm sure to keep reading at these and see how it all turns out.

Horribly horribly, no doubt.

When Stargate SG-1 finally ended after its tenth season, it was ironically virtually the only season they hadn't wrapped up all their major plot lines. This was on purpose, though, as they were planning two (or hopefully three) direct-to-DVD-movies to tie up the remaining loose ends. The first one of these, Stargate: Ark of Truth, was alright, but felt more like a double-episode from the show than a movie in its own right. I was excited to see if this movie, which was to tie up a plot-thread a good bit more interesting to me than the ones they tied up in Ark, would do the same.

And it did, but actually a little less so. Continuum does indeed have the feel of a movie in its own right, though it's still plagued with feeling like a high-budget double-episode while you're watching it. It's also involving time-travel, and I've never been a fan of plots where you hit a reset button at the end. If none of the characters will remember, then what is the point of telling us the story?

Those things considered, it was a good ride - better, I'd say, than Ark of Truth. There's a couple of nice guest appearances by many old favourites, including the ever-awesome O'Neill and also one by Hammond, with some nice pieces of dialogue ending up feeling eerily sad considering Don S. Davis recent death. There was humour, there was very good use of continuity, there were twists, politics, betrayals and Baal, my favourite Stargate-villain to date.

Not to mention that it looks damned awesome. A very strong 7,5/10

Uhm.



Eh.



Er...


I...

Ah, there's...


Hrm.


So, I've seen Dark Knight.

Specific spoiler-free review after the cut (spoilers generalizing about themes or moods of the movie etc will probably abound, difficult to say anything at all about anything without that) followed by a clearly separated paragraph with spoiler-laden comments that should be easy to avoid.

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Well, it's been up for over a day now, and anyone who hasn't seen it yet should go do so immediately. 'Cause MY GODS, with the funny.

The world is a mess and I just... need to rule it.

The only difference between a dream and a nightmare is how big your balls are, bitch.

- The Fox

So, seeing as I was planning on watching the loose movie adaptation of Wanted in the cinema in the upcoming week, I figured I'd give the original graphic novel a try first.

The premise was interesting, and the artwork by J. G. Jones was easy on the eyes. Seeing as it's additionally written by Mark Millar, I had rather high expectations to this, considering what I've read of his work before. Millar's DC Elseworld story Red Son featuring a "what is Superman landed in Stalnist Russia?"-premise was amazing, his recent major Marvel event Civil War was actually very good for a mainstream superhero giga-crossover, his original run at Ultimate X-men was exhilarating and often quite moving, and The Ultimates, especially the second installment, is simply awesome.

Thus, I must say, this was quite the disappointment. With Wanted, Millar is doing his completely own thing, writing with his own characters in a universe he made up himself. It's ironic, then, that one of the main strengths I see in the book is actually the ofttimes clever way he alludes to mainstream DC and Marvel characters and continuity. (Sadly, it often goes horribly wrong and just comes off as stupid or juvenile, like for instance his imitation of Scarface and Two-Face) In particular characters like his Mr. Richter deserves credit for being a funny and charismatic villain reminiscent of characters like Batman's "Black Mask" or Cap's "Red Skull", but not exactly like either of them nor a stupid parody. Another excellent character is Doll-Master, a character blatantly ripped off of DC's Toyman, but much more interesting and charming than Toyman ever was. Still, you're more often than not left sitting with the feeling that this'd be a lot more interesting if it had the original characters instead of Millar's homages, parodies and copies.

The plot of this comic, without spoiling more than your average blurb would, is that a normal pushover wussy office rat learns his father was a supervillain and willed him a fortune on the condition that his son learned to be a supervillain too, being trained by a secret society of such. The story is actually quite intoxicating, sucking you in, making you want to read on, see what happens next. The problem is that what happens next is (almost) never particularly interesting beyond making you want to see what happens after that again.

The reason for this is that Millar's created an interesting world for the story, but plotted it along the life of a main character totally devoid of any form of charisma, allure or even agenda for me as the reader to get excited about. All he does is kill people. There's no elaborate planning, no finesse, no charm, no interesting and complex motivations. The character simply has no draw to him, there's no... je ne sais quoi, nothing of interest. Just a hell of a lot of potential for interest that keeps you going. But by the end of the book, the potential's gone unrealized and the character's more boring and unappealing than ever. It doesn't exactly help that he's drawn to look like Eminem.


A little more spoilers from this paragraph on, if you're phobic you should skip to the last one. What happens, you see, is that our main character becomes a remorseless rapist sociopath. Fair enough. Why? Because he can, because the world's always screwed him over and he figures he can now screw it back. Fair enough again. How? By doing stuff like killing random people in the street. Alright. Also fair enough, I suppose. And then what?

Well, and then nothing. That's the problem. Wanted is the story of how a boring wuss became a boring bully. That's all he is at the end of this story. A rich, remorseless, super-powered bully with no intelligence or charm to his actions, nothing to keep the reader connected to him.

Oddly, Millar seems to think I'd somehow envy this guy. The story ends with the protagonist breaking the fourth wall, addressing the reader, accusing him of having as empty a life as he had in the beginning, and that reading about others doing things like he's been doing in this story is the illusion used to fill up the meaningless drone life. I suppose it's intended to make me feel provoked, or insulted, or maybe make me reconsider some priorities or something. All it does, honestly, is make me go "fuck, this man is stupid." If anyone in this story wanted to tell me a line like that, it needed to be one of the heads of the five families, or possibly Doll-Master. Heck, even the protagonist's father, whom he turns into an almost identical replica of, was a little bit more interesting than the guy we've been following throughout this. All the ending leaves me with is a feeling of "this was it?" I read five issues to get to the point where character-development as a concept is non-existent, the only interesting characters are killed by the most boring ones, and then one of the boring ones claim that my life is empty compared to his? Really Millar, Fredegar Bolger had a more interesting role in The Lord of the Rings than Wesley Gibson had here.


Thus, I'm sucked through five issues of action, constantly feeling as though the cool moments, the truly awesome entertainment, are all right around the corner. But in the end, all I'm left with are secondary characters who for the most part were more interesting in their original DC incarnations, stupid plot-devices like when Sucker doesn't know when 24 hours have passed since he did something but the protagonist who wasn't present at the instance somehow does standing in for what should be genuinely cool character moments, and a main character who was a million times less interesting than the badguys he fought but just as morally reprehensible, giving me no reason to root for him whatsoever. I know the movie is supposed to make him into more of a hero, but honestly, I've kind of lost all the drive I had to watch it.

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well. That’s my burden, I guess.

Many people have recommended me this show based on a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey, but I believe main credit for pushing me past the "will try it out sometime"-block and into the "trying it out now"-zone should be handed to Amras Elensar more than anyone else. By funny coincidence, the day before my scheduled watch of the pilot episode, Shirgaal reviewed it as well, a very positive one that would probably have tipped me over had I not decided to watch it already.


I was strongly skeptical at first mainly due to my lack of interest in and the downright unpleasantness of seeing a lot of explicit violence on screen. Oddly, the show didn't have much of it, and most of what there was happened in the first few episodes. Sure, they don't shy away from it, but they usually cut away from the worse acts of violence, just showing the lead-up and, of course, the results, but even the latter category got a little less horridly vivid as the show progressed. I applaud. No need to speculate, right.

The show, you see, is not at all about the violence. It's about the lack of feeling anything that drives the character(s) to it. The main and title character Dexter Morgan is not just the centre building block of the show, he is its epitome, its foundation and walls both, its carrying pillar, its axis mundi. A quote from Jane Espenson's blog springs to mind - "A House without a House at its centre cannot stand" - nor could a Dexter without a Dexter. With that, as on House, comes a myriad of strengths and weaknesses.

This is, to me, the first of show's two main issues keeping me from unequivocally loving it to, if you'll pardon a quite tasteless pun (and of course you will, you're reading my weblog after all and shouldn't be expecting any better), bits. See, I'm an ensemble cast man. I grew up loving Animals of Farthing Wood and Sinbad the Sailor. I got sold on serialized television in my teens through shows like Friends, Angel, Buffy, Judging Amy and Babylon 5. My present-day top favourite TV-shows are to a one marked by a big family of protagonists, each able to carry an episode on their own if they need to - and they're usually given the chance, too.

That's why a show like Dexter or House M.D. have hard times really climbing the ladder of my list of excellent shows. When this much time and energy is spent on the title character, making him look interesting and give him issues to deal with, the other characters have to suffer, and what's left is only degrees of how much So believe me when I tell you - it's still an excellent show, and you should try it out.

The other issue I have with the show is simply one of genre and premise - it's not really for me. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, I do, but I can never enjoy it as much as I would if this took place in Narnia rather than Miami. It's a mental block, a genre preference, a silly boy's silly tastes, call it what you will, but to me, any premise of a story set in present day in the real world will necessarily be less interesting than something that's not. That need not bother the reader though, and I will not bring that up again in this review. Just keep in mind that this is an additional reason for me to be less-than-excited with the show that's colouring what I think of it.

So, what IS this show? Well, without spoiling much beyond the pilot, it's a show following Dexter, a man shaped by a horrid and suppressed childhood trauma and a freakishly intelligent, hard, caring and morally free-thinking adoptive father into a trained killer. He has no emotions, having only the urge to kill, but he channels his need to do so into carefully planned out and just as carefully executed entrapments and killings of other serial killers on the Code his adoptive father taught him. Simultaneously, he was trained to blend in as a normal person, faking emotions, faking human relations, faking affection and attachment. And he's damned good at it, too, just about everybody loves Dexter. But Dexter, sadly, loves no-one.

Or at least, that's how the season starts out. Dexter is living an emotionless life in the forensics of the Miami police by day, being almost a prodigy at analysing dead bodies and blood splatters. By night he is killing off the scum of the Earth, and feeling good about it too. Then comes along the Ice Truck Killer, an, in Dexter's eyes, true artist of murder, and Dexter gets caught up in his game.

The cast is good for a title-character-focused show. Dexter's sister is lacking a little bit in charisma, but I honestly feel that's mostly because her character is an off-putting combination of insecure and overly sure of herself, and not through any fault of the actress'. The policemen in Dexter's life are all interesting enough, the exception maybe being a character I grew quite the distaste for, the local lieutenant. Thankfully she has a superior officer who is a far more classy brand of jackass (reminding me every so slightly of the awesome Rawls of The Wire) and knows how to put her into her place, which produced some of my favourite non-Dexter scenes of the show.

There are only two truly fascinating characters beyond Dexter himself, though - the Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's girlfriend, Rita. A long-time victim of spousal abuse and single mum to two, Dexter chooses to spend time with Rita because she is damaged and, in a way, empty like him. The awkwardness and tentative steps of their relationship is beautiful and my by far favourite aspect of the show.

The show is heavy on the season mystery while following smaller episode-by-episode plots as well, much like Veronica Mars used to be, but in that comparison, the mystery is a little less captivating and more predictable than Veronica's was despite (or because) getting more attention during the entire season's run. It's still very good, though, and the show as a whole is incredibly addictive.


Now follows the spoilery part of the review, those who haven't seen the season yet and think they will at some point should skip to the last paragraph.

As the season progresses the Ice Truck Killer keeps attempting to undermine Harry's Code in Dexter's head, keeps trying to open up his suppressed memories to reveal, among other things, his adoptive father's somewhat less than truthful behaviour with regards to Dexter's childhood.

Rudy/Brian was very interesting. The problem was, of course, that I felt pretty confident that he was the Ice Truck Killer the second the character came on scene. You could tell that the man in the white coat was a character actor, and not just some random guy, and that was really enough. It's a sad fact, but, dramatically, they HAVE to make the killer into someone that's already introduced on the show to make the reveal exciting enough, and he was the only character who not only grew from a background-character with two lines into one with as much screentime as any other supporting actor, but who was clearly not cast by a nobody-actor.

When they started heaping on hints on him in addition, I actually started thinking he might not be the guy after all, but an intentional mislead. So that the Big Mystery Of The Season really only ever had one real candidate among the cast was saddening. The character himself, though, was awesome, as was the actor. I have to admit that while I obviously realized he had some connection to Dexter’s childhood, once I saw how young he was (and thus he couldn't possibly have been the killer of Dexter's mum) I stopped thinking about that and thus didn’t see his being Dexter’s brother coming until just a short while before it was revealed. So at least they got me a little there.

As loose ends go, the season didn't really leave many except obvious start-ups for season 2, but I do wonder a lot on Brian's need to kill their biological father. It felt as though there was something there that should've been revealed but never was, which bugs me.

The unblocking of Dexter's memories also leading him to feel a little again, thus starting to care for his sister beyond Harry's Code just as Harry's authority was broken down enough in his head for him to consider breaking it, was a very nice and ironic twist. Brian would probably have succeeded in his scheme had he confronted Dexter with Harry's lies without also unblocking his memories - he would've lost faith in his father's Code without regaining some sense of emotion.

This also lead to a very nice - and long in the coming - turn in Dexter's relationship with Rita, as he is genuinely starting to need company in his life. The season finale is very, very good.



On the whole, the season is a beautifully crafted story with very good visuals and at times very funny little mental remarks from Dexter, and my only real complaint isn't truly valid - as it is that I don't think this particular story could be told much better, but that I think they could have made a story more suited to my tastes in stead. As it stands, it is a very successful and almost equally daring piece of work. The only thing I've seen that's remotely similar to this is the very excellent and thoroughly canceled The Inside, but even that wasn't quite as dark as the mere premise of this show. I might not have heard of James Manos Jr. before (Wikipedia claims he's been involved on The Sopranos and The Shield though), but he's made what's easily one of the best made shows I've ever seen, and certainly one of the more addictive ones. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to the second season - which I will of course be watching right away.

Oh, Obdormio, what have you gotten me into?




It's a mere handful of my books for now, but suddenly I'll have something better to do one day and it'll grow like nobody's business.

Sir Edward Pellew: You see things, sir, that others do not. One thing you do not question is your loyalty to your King. I only hope that one day, Hornblower, you'll fight for more than England.

Horatio Hornblower: What is there more than England?

Hornblower is a British series of eight two-hour TV-movies chronicling the early career of the fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the French revolutionary wars and Britain's subsequent wars with Napoleon. Whilst most characters in the show are fictional, some are not, and so it's not too far a stretch to label it historical fiction.

The series and, as far as I can gather, all the stories in it, are based off of a series of novels by C. S. Forester. I have not read these, but I must confess, watching the movies makes it somewhat appealing to try.

Because the show - and that's what it is, once you've reached 16 hours of television you really can't pretend not to be a tv-show anymore regardless the format of your episodes - is very good. Ioan Gruffudd does a very charismatic job as the main character. Apparently, he is so grateful to the franchise that he's acquired rights to make adaptations of books of Hornblower to make a cinematic movie now that the television-channel have decided not to make further movies themselves. Let's hope that if he does so, it'll be a continuation and not a remake. He's not the only actor geeks like me are likely to recognise here, though - Robert Lindsey does a simply stellar job as Hornblower's commanding officer, and Jamie Bamber is probably even better here than as Apollo on Galactica.

The eight movies can easily be divided into two sections - which is also reflected in their titles:

* The Even Chance
* The Examination For Lieutenant
* The Duchess and the Devil
* The Frogs And The Lobsters
* Mutiny
* Retribution
* Loyalty
* Duty

The first four are very much stand-alone-movies. Sure, they share continuity, and several plot-points show up again between them, but they each have one self-contained story. The latter four, on the other hand, form two two-parters, Mutiny and Retribution being one story and Loyalty and Duty a second. Whilst somewhat conclusive on their own, these movies let several important plot-points lie to be picked up by the next one in the series.

Both approaches work, and both have their advantages. The mix of the two was quite refreshing, having gotten used to the episodic nature of the first four I suddenly found myself in the middle of long, on-going plots without being warned beforehand.

The ending is apt, and well-made, but it still leaves you wanting more. (Crossing fingers for that cinema-release...) On the whole I found the show a very satisfying and real-feeling (to the extent that I can judge such) look into the day-to-day life in the powerful British navy on the turn of the century with appealing characters and satisfying plots. All in all, I'd heartily recommend this show. It's hardly the best one out there, but I was thoroughly entertained every step of the way, and isn't that really all that matters?

Wow. Never thought I'd live to see the day.


Indiana Jones is more than a franchise, it's Culture, it's Common Background, it's one of those things that are so deeply embedded into the cultural consciousness that the idea of the thing, the concept of the thing, is greater than the actual thing.

Don't get me wrong - I love the old Indiana Jones-movies. Well, I love two of them and think the middle one is alright. But not nearly as much as I love the concept of them. Harrison Ford as the ultimate geek-adventurer hybrid searching for lost treasure and solving mysterious riddles is Epic and, as Barney would say, Legendary.

The odd thing is, he doesn't really do that much of that. Yes, there's a big Mystical Treasure in each movie - but the only one where the main part of the movie is really the actual search for it is the third one. The death-traps are mostly present only in the opening scenes of the original movie and the finale of the third one - and in the latter case, they're honestly not that impressive. National Treasure has got way more of this stuff than Indiana Jones ever did, and will still never become anything more than a decent rip-off (with a somewhat disappointing sequel) in just about anybody's head. That's not the point - they ARE Indiana Jones. The geeky, at times awkward, at times awesome action-hero will always be Indiana Jones, or some form of copy. And movies with hidden treasures, vast ruins and clever clues in dead languages will always be Indiana Jones. The fact that the movies really used that stuff rather sparingly is utterly irrelevant.

So there is a large expectation to this kind of sequel. It can't really be equated with anything else - not even the Star Wars prequels, as they, by their very nature as prequels, was an entirely different animal. This is a sequel to three stand-alone-movies that needs to do three things; justify itself as a movie in its own right, justify itself as a continuation of the three movies everybody in the audience has seen at least once each, and justify itself as an Indiana Jones-movie - which as I said might have less to do with the second point than you'd think.

Surprise! It does all three. Which quite frankly WAS surprising, at least for me. I was feeling sceptical - I went in to see this movie thinking that, oh, well, as long as I'd get to hear the Most Awesome Theme Ever at least once, it'd be worth the ticket. (I did, too.) But I walked back out feeling happy, satisfied, at ease. And actually, joyfully, craving more.

Now, by all means, it doesn't do them all equally well. Mostly the movie lives up to the second point of the three - which, quite frankly, as a rather huge geek, is the most important one for me. But it's really not that far behind on neither the third nor the first. The movie is very entertaining - the beginning in particular is quite splendid, and while it does get a little less sizzlingly fun for the rest of the movie it's still on the whole a very good ride. And it's definitely Indiana Jones. There are dead languages, there are death-traps and hidden chambers, and lo and behold, there is a mystical treasure. (I believe that with this movie on top of the others, Indiana Jones has personally witnessed that there must be some form of core of thruth to Ancient Egyptian religion, Ancient Mayan religion, Judeaism, Christianity, Shivaism and Kali-worship. That's a rather impressive list, right there.)

The plot was decent - it had some twists that were obvious, some twists that were not, and it mixed the nostalgia and self-referencing in just the right portions with the new stuff, which was a balanced I'd been worried they'd not be able to keep. But they proved me wrong. Another one of the touches I was very sceptical about - having Shia LeBoeuf join the cast as a young, boisterous sidekick - also worked out very well, all things considering, and the movie would've been a very different one and possibly less interesting one without him. The character brings a dynamic to Jones that's new for the character, and additionally makes the action-scenes with the elderly Jones a good deal more believable when he has a young man at his side.

As with any Indiana Jones-movie that's not the original, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sorely misses Belloq. A competator that's Jones' equal hasn't been seen since, and that's a damned shame. Cate Blanchett does do a more than decent job as the Russian überspy, though. After the awesomeness that was The Last Crusade, Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. also leaves a void, though he is referenced with great respect (and often to great effect) at multiple points. Also, this movie features the indubitably best of Jones' love-interests returning from obscurity and filling out a lot of blanks.

It's not God's Gift to Cinema by an entire series of long-shots. Nor is it the best movie I'll see this year. But all in all, I'll say this movie is well worthy of being called part of the - I'll say it again - legendary series that is - far more so, actually, than Temple of Doom has ever been. To me, it felt as much as an Indiana Jones-movie as the old ones did. Is it as good as the other two? Hard to say after only having seen it once. Ask me again in five years. In which time I'm likely to have watched it at least another five times.

Because, let's face it, people, while Indiana Jones might get old, Indiana Jones does not. And this, quite certainly, was just that.

Indiana Jones.

A tentative - and very strong - 8,5/10

Free book! Would you believe it? And by Neil Gaiman!


This is what I thought walking into Outland - the local comic book/fantasy book shop - and realising they had this book laying for free on the counter in relation to something called the "World Book Day". Well, thank you very much indeed.


The book was a quick read, I read it that same afternoon, being slightly under one hundred pages and clearly written for a somewhat younger audience. With this in mind, I really liked it.

I mean, it's hardly a masterpiece of any sort. But it is charming, and Gaiman once again makes good use of his excellent knowledge of Norse mythology (and yes, I feel qualified to judge that) as he tells the short and simple story of a crippled fatherless Viking lad saving the world from eternal winter.

The book is consistently entertaining and engaging, and kept me interested from the beginning to the end. There were no surprising twists to mention, no big and shocking reveals, but it still, somehow, sucked me in and kept me turning the pages until it suddenly was done.

I should imagine this is an excellent bedtime-type of book to read to children while keeping the adult reading it out loud entertained as well.


I didn't pay one dime for this book, but whomever did, I thank them. It was well worth the money.

On the suggestion of Obdormio, I decided to write a short review of this game, technically an expansion to the original A Game of Thrones-game.


The original is probably my favourite boardgame of all time (which is saying a lot, because I play relatively many), based, as the title suggests, on the first book of George R. R. Martin's amazing fantasy-series A Song of Ice and Fire. A warning, by the way - while GoT is set during the first book and barely spoils the first half of it, and little else, SoS is set far later and spoils much of the first book and maybe parts of the second. If you are planning to read these books but haven't, GoT is a rather safe pasttime-pursuit, but SoS probably isn't.


While the original is primarily intended for five players - and a subsequent expansion-set let you play with six - Storm of Swords gives you a new board and several new rules tailor-made to transplant the gaming-system of the original to a game for four players. (I will for purposes of this post assume that the reader has at least a superficial degree of experience with the original game)

I've only yet played one game with it, and feel hesitant to be too adamant in my opinions, but so far I'd say it does a damned good job at it.


SoS introduces a lot of new tactical elements, primarily Leaders, two for each of the houses of nobility fighting for supremacy, that give you several new options especially relating to movements; and tactic-cards, which adds one major all-spanning tactic to the concrete orders you place every turn. I was sceptical to the latter, but it worked surprisingly well. Both of these options are available as possible add-ons to the original game as well, but I do believe it would make the game imbalanced and boringly slow if that was done. The one exception, here, might be for three-player-games on the original board, where I've tried out Leaders with what I think could only be described as great success, and am also strongly suspecting would favour an inclusion of the Tactics-cards.

SoS also introduces Allies, an option that is quite interesting indeed and sadly not transposable to the original game. Three powerful non-player houses of nobility as well as Merceneries and Outlaws add their influence to your civil war, and you as the player are always stuck between wanting to spend your resources improving your OWN position, and spending resources to win favour with the different fractions of non-player parties. In our game, interestingly, the second-place player (me, playing Baratheon) basically owed his entire position to his allied aides, while the first-place player (playing Greyjoy) managed completely without them whatsoever. This fact alone has me convinced that this is an excellent addition to the game adding many levels of strategy and choices neeed without really increasing the amount of boring silent sit-to-yourself-and-think-time mentionably.

Another thing SoS does is increase the importance of the three oversized tokens. On the smaller board, the order of play seems more pressingly vital than on the original one, and skimping out on the Iron Throne-bid is thus less easy a choice than before. Additionally, there is a second bidding-phase that sometimes occur, replacing the wildlings, and in some ways being able to break ties in this bid might seem at least somewhat more powerful than in the wildlings-bid of the original game. The Iron Throne-bid is thus adjusted in power and is more on the level of the other two. Additionally, as mentioned, the three tokens are more powerful, as the new Westeros-decks to be used with the SoS-board allow the holders of the tokens to influence the events of the game. This particular element is also useable with the original game, but I'm unsure if it will work as well there - it seems less appealing to increase the value of the first position compared to the second and the third in a five- or six-player game, as where in a four- or three-player game it adds dynamic it would instead simply overpower the leader on each track in the original one. Still, by the same logic, it could be interesting to try out with a three-player-game on the original board.

The floods, allowing some borders (rivers) to be crossed at some points and not at others, is another clever addition to the more crowded four-player board that allows for the nice mixture of planning, odds-calculating and hints of unpredictable luck that this series of games is so incredibly good at. You're never in control of everything, but you always know what you're not in control of and you always have options to act accordingly to minimise or maximise the influence luck will have on your play. It is, to my dice-hating-heart, ingenious.

Of other elements introduced by SoS is the wildlings-deck, to be used as an optional part of the original game to vary wildling-attack-outcomes if wished. I haven't tried this option out, but I suppose it might have its qualities. I instinctively feel uncertain about something adding more random chance to the game, however. Also included is a new set of House Cards, compulsory for use with SoS but optional instead of the old set(s) with the original game. More powerful than the original but less so than the one from the previous expansion, this new set is custom-made to balance out the added element of power the Leaders bring to the game.




All in all, I greatly enjoyed the game, and I find it had adapted the basic gameplay of the original game onto a new board for a lower amount of players absolutely superbly. Highly recommended for anybody who's tried out the original but often can't get together more than three or four players. (Obviously, this is an expansion, and you need the original game to make use of it, as it doesn't include all the pieces you'd otherwise need. Feel like that should be specified in such a post)

...which one of these things I will post about next. 'Cause as my list of things to post about is ever-growing, I find it more and more tricky to summon the willpower to sit down and attack it head-on on my own.

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