Kickstarter campaign: Shadowstar Corsairs by Ryan Wolfe fully funded and stretch goals smashed

There is still time to get involved in this exciting game of starships, commerce, politics and battle

Click to jump to kickstarter project and be involved…

As an independent starship captain granted letters of marque by ConFederation authorities, your job is to outmaneuver or outgun rival captains to prove that you alone should rule the Shadowstar Expanse. Deploy your crew and cargo shuttles to secure strategic positions and harvest vital resources. Invest in improving your ship or hire another to help you out. Reconstruct lost technology, play politics, and fulfill whatever contracts come your way to increase your reputation. It’s time to stake your claim!

As of 19th May 2015, $66,000 USD has been pledged smashing the $39,000 goal. Looks like a good product.

Click here to visit kickstarter and get involved. You’ve still got just under 15 hours. Hurry!

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Calling Tabletop Gamers: The Dracula Dossier still has a few more funding targets to stake on Kickstarter

The Dracula Dossier by Pelgrane Press has already blasted through its intended £10,000 target, with over 1,000 backers pledging more than £66,000 GBP – but some goals remain to be unlocked

Visit the project on Kickstarter to make a pledge – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1721105501/the-dracula-dossier

A new edition of Stoker’s novel that tells the real story; and an improvised spy thriller campaign for Night’s Black Agents RPG

Reading list: just finished The Night Circus, about to start The Trellborg Monstrosities by John Houlihan

Reading List

One of the benefits of my new writing regime (one month off after every month of writing, in order to re-establish balance – and sanity – in my life) is the amount of books I am now ploughing through.  Rather than taking months per books, sliced into 15 minute fragments of time whenever I have a moment on the Park & Ride bus, I’m now chomping through them at a respectable (for me, at least) one every week or 2 weeks.

I just finished the magical and utterly enchanting The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  Not an easy book to get into, I actually ditched it after the first couple of chapters, sinking back into all-boy heroics of Clive Cussler (my guilty pleasure after being stuck in Newark airport last December). But something about the book held onto my mind, so I went back to it a few weeks later and then couldn’t put it down. Fantastic. Read whilst listening to Holy Fire album by the Foals; now entwined with a sense of performing magic in the realworld.

A compatriot of mine, John Houlihan, has completed a novella for the Achtung! Cthulhu genre. I’d meant to blog about Achtung! ages ago as it’s done really well on Kickstarter and has generated exceptional interest in the gaming community. So I’m extra pleased to discover John is a part of this. The novella is called The Trellborg Monstrosities and is currently going through editorial. I’ve got a late version preview.  Could well become a scenario for Achtung! at a later date.

This will be the first I’ve read of this kind. But I’m getting the vibe it might be Dieselpunk crossed with Cthulhu. I’m certainly hoping it is. Will let you know.

Speeding into battle with the Mythos.  Dieselpunk is steampunk with combustion.

Image Source: T-Motor-Sidecar

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Science fiction short film: H.E.N.R.I. 2.0

Artwork from science fiction short film HENRI 2 - All Rights Reserved

An interesting little find. Eli Sasich has put together a crew and set and already completed this short science-fiction film – according to promotional material. He’s been looking for $20K funding to give the film the best post-production possible, and it looks like he’s reached this target and he’s now in the hell of delivery schedules.

Eli posted a production update back in October 2011:

Hi All,

It’s been a while! We have been working like crazy and the film is really looking great.

I want to update everyone on our timeline. Our post-production is extremely complex; therefore, it is going to take longer than initially expected. I believe this extra time and attention is essential to finish the film in the best way possible. Please be patient with the process. Rest assured that all the rewards will be fulfilled when the film is completed. I cannot wait to share the final piece with all of you. Thank you again for the extraordinary support!

Best,
Eli

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The concept of the short film is very appealing.

What does it mean to have consciousness, to be self-aware?  A human brain, wiped-clean of memories, has been locked into a space vessel. Now that vessel is floating through the darkest reaches of interstellar space – the crew dead, and the mind inside has started to regain glimpses of what is once was – a human – a living being.

HENRI 2.0 – sample video

Here’s a video showing some of the daily-rushes sans colour correction or other post-prod touches.

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Kickstarter pitch

Here’s a link to their pitch for funding on kick-starter – it contains a great video with shots from the film, artwork, set-design and behind the scenes concepts.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920784759/henri-20-a-science-fiction-short-film

.You can follow progress with the film’s evolution through production to launch via the company’s official blog  or via Twitter.

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In the shared science-fiction universe of God Seed; Dante’s Fool; Iron Man Project and the post-apocalyptic spin-off Yellow Dawn (see the novel , Dog Eat Dog) – the concept of consciousness is tackled through two different strands.

One strand is the idea of non-human entities invading the consensual hallucination of cyberspace – a virtual reality realm built on the bedrock of the Internet;  these entities use the wireless connections and digital constructs to skim the edges of the Quantisphere  – the reality that humans have been bound within. They can present themselves free of the limitations often experienced by them in the solid and tangible realm of human flesh.   See the short story Flinch or Cypher for a quick example of this.

available in print or download

The other strand is through the singularity that heralded the arrival of true machine intelligence – what pundits like to call Artificial Intelligence.  The Borgendrill Corporation (referenced in Dante’s Fool) was the somewhat unwitting partner in this, with machine-controlled ships sailing out to far rim of the Solar System where they encountered [something] that changed the fabric and nature of the synthetic, problem-solving logic matrixes that had been woven into the hardware.  The Borgendrill vessels, completely un-manned, came back altered in some way… and the rest is down in the history blogs as the Borgendrill Enigma.

Before it actually happened, most people assumed that true Artificial Intelligence would be the product of Humanity tinkering with computers.  The reality was an event known as the Borgendrill Enigma.  Years before Yellow Dawn took place, the corporate computer system of Borgendrill was the focal point of a Singularity.  What happened is still not clear.  Before B.E. every form of Artificial Intelligence put on the market by manufacturers was nothing more than clever computing, stuff that now is known as AI Emulation software.  After B.E. the Borgendrill computer network became self-aware.

– taken from Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur – Primary Rulebook version 2.5 (still in development)

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<<< YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY THIS >>>

Available in print or download

Dilemma : 6,700 words. Science fiction. A tense and fast-paced plot that plunges into the heart of our fear of the ‘monsters’ we make to serve us. Biological intolerance clashes with the vain attempt to rationalise cold-blooded murder. Preview or purchase here.

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David J Rodger – DATA