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I'm not sure what this might be called, except its an impressive way to use a technique to tell a brief story. It would be a good way to begin a movie I think.

Four novels

By Ruth Rendell (aka Barbara Vine)

These are four books I've read between February and now.

I quite like some of Rendells novels, but she does have a tendency to stick to the garden path. Mental health problems stemming from childhood suffering seems to be the over riding motive for her villains and more often than not her 'heroes' are the people who recognise the mental health problems of the villains. Sometimes this works well, other times less so. Rendell's skill seems to be developing characters and she seems to relish dreaming them up. Even her walk-on characters often get described and explained in some detail, and her main characters are usually detailed in numerous rich layers. She also seems to enjoy motivation and pace, but its her characters which really shine out. Her female characters tend to be more realistic, or at least better developed. In all her books there seems to be a central character, sometimes two, who are exagerated, almost to the point of incredulity and this is often, but not always the focus of the story with mental health, or a tragedy in the past bringing these characters into conflict with each other, or the world around them.

So far I have yet to read a Rendell novel without rushing through the last pages to see what happens in the end. Even when I didn't enjoy the story very much, the characters still provoke me into staying up until 3am to reach the end.

Adam and Eve and pinch me
Three seperate women have all fallen foul of the same con-man and their lives begin to unravel when he is murdered. I liked this one a lot, mainly because of the way the character of Minty was developed and the way the story drew the frayed edges together. It was believeable and yet slightly surreal.
3/5


13 Steps down
A young man lives in a great big old house with an old land lady. As the story develops, the man's grasp on reality slips and a murder is committed. Probably the weakest of the four as there wasn't much mystery in this story and the villain was just too much of a 'sketchy creep' to engage either my empathy or my curiosity.
2/5


The Minotaur
Perhaps the best of this batch, though not as good as 'Asta's book', or 'Grasshopper'. Swedish nurse Kirsten has been hired by an eccentric English family (during the 1960's) to look after a man with Asperger’s Syndrome, except that this being the 1960's every one but the Swede thinks he is simply mad and the story revolves around the dysfunctional relationships within the family. As the story develops, jealousy, bitterness and murder all parade across the stage, with tragedy making an appearance for the grand finale.
4/5


King Solomon's carpet
More jealousy, bitterness and dysfunctional family's. This story has a lot of similarities with 'Grasshopper', but goes off in a different direction entirely. Several strange people all live in an old school building, each with their own broken dreams, as often as not revolving around the London Underground. Things start to go seriously wrong when a tall dark man in a trench coat turns up and before long a terrible crime is looming on the horizon.
3/5

Puny humans, bow down before your new overlord!

His Imperial Highness Magne the Merciless addressing his legions of terror...

Rocketman 5: news along the way

This for all you avid Rocketman fans. The preperation for 'Island of Perdition' is coming along nicely now. Ships, planes and bunkers are all well on the way to being built and all the figures but one have been acquired. The way things are looking now, the first game will not be until late May, at the earliest; we have the Great Battle of TDM Chapter 6 to finish first, then Sheev'dra Dogstar must reach its thrilling conclusion. We then have the Viking season to consider (two, possibly three of my players are Viking reenactors), but I'm hoping things will go smoothly for most thursdays.

The image above is the low res table top map for Chapter 2: 'Beach Assault', and shows Rocketman and his allies, a group of south seas mercs/pirates in their ship Le Mollusc which must defeat the defending Germans (who naturally have a hefty bunker), so this should be an interesting game. The pirates have strength of numbers and heavier fire power, but they only have two rowing boats capable of moving 6 elements each, so the smaller German side also has a fighting chance. Both sides want the HE 51 seaplane which lies idle in the water.


I've drawn some other maps too, but they give away surprises, and so must remain inconspicuous. I'll post images of all the models at a later date, when the pictures won't give away any details to the players.

Rocketman 6 is also underway...

Magne: Getting fatter

Magne is now three months (and a few days) old, so here is a few pictures of him as he looks now. He has put on a healthy amount of weight, and looks to be growing fine. His head is lopsided because he sleeps on the same side all the time, but I'm sure time will change that, Freja did the same and her heard is fine now.

People kept telling me that I wouldn't take as many pictures of Magne as I did of Freja and this has proven true so far. I expect to take more pictures as he becomes more active, but at the moment his primary concerns still revolve around sleeping, feeding and waving his arms and legs in the air like an over turned beetle.

He's very easy now. He had some trouble with his digestion in the first few weeks, but thankfully it never became colic and now he is as easy as can be and often smiles, grunts and gives the occaisional chuckle. Getting him to smile is very easy. You just smile at him and he smiles back.

Freja on the other hand has proven difficult. Adjusting to her new status as big sister has not been easy and we're seeing a lot of petulance and even some hysterics during the night. The kindergarten have also noted a certain bossiness now evident in her manner. I'm hoping this will pass with time as Mette says its normal, and she was a big sister to an annoying little brother herself.

This evenings juxtaposition of mood...

...the furrow ploughed by the hero

It is said that it was on this day, in the year 753 BC, that the twin sons of the god Mars, Romulus and Remus (seen above suckling a she wolf) founded Rome. They did this by each standing on a seperate hill top and watching a flock of birds for an omen. The birds chose Romulus to be king but this didn't go down well and the brothers quarrelled and Romulus eventually killed Remus in a dispute over what the new city should be called. Odd to think that had a flock of birds flown in a different direction that day, the eternal city would probably have been named Reme.

Romulus then went on to found the Senate and the legions, and being short of citizens, he went to a neighbouring tribe, the Sabines, and nicked all their women.

The title of this post comes from Tacitus and refers to an old wall on Palatine hill, said to be the oldest part of Rome, and built by Romulus himself. It makes me laugh, not least because most of us are the hero's of our own lives, but we don't have to kill our siblings or abduct the neighbours wife just to build walls.

9

JG Ballard

JG Ballard has died.

One of the best authors I know, he wrote several books I like including two of my all time favourites; 'The Drowned World' and 'The Day of Creation'.

We also shared the same birthday.

Artist of the month: Leonardo Da Vinci

Possibly the greatest artist of all time, Leonardo Da Vinci requires no introduction from me. Suffice to say that today is his 557th birthday, and thats as good a reason as any to honour the great man!


On a personal note however, I might as well point out why I think Leonardo is possibly the greatest artist of all time, certainly greater than his Rennaisance rivals, in particular Michelangelo. The difference between Leonardo and his rivals is illustrated by the three drawings I have chosen in this post, for they demonstrate how Leonardo, a brilliant draughtsman and a master of composition and the human figure like Michelangelo, went beyond Michelangelo, beyond painting, composition and perspective and pushed the boundary of art into what we today consider science.

That is the big difference and the thing that sets Leonardo apart from all other artists. Its possibly just a coincidence of birth and many a great artist has gone unnoticed, but born in the right time, in the right place, Leonardo lived in the one time when there was no difference between art and science, possibly the only time in human history when that was the case. Alone in that period, Leonardo was artist, biologist, physicist, alchemist, architect, designer and philosopher. There has never been another who turned their eye to so much and saw it all as Art.

Rocketman chapter over view

In my suddenly meager spare time I am now preparing for two five game Rocketman campaigns to run back to back. These are:

RM5 'Rocketman and the island of perdition'
Chapter 1 'Bremen on the Amazon'.
Chapter 2 'Beach assault'.
Chapter 3 'Denizens of the wreck'
Chapter 4 TBA
Chapter 5 'The house of Schöenberg'

and

RM6 'Extremis'
Chapter 1 ‘The Kunduz Affair’
Chapter 2 ‘The Battle of Wadi Suhib’
Chapter 3 ‘Revenge of the Black Guards’
Chapter 4 ‘Blood, iron and sand’
Chapter 5 ‘Inferno'

Each game will be from 3 to 6 players, depending on how many announce their intention to play.

RM5 will feature small unit skirmishes, with hand weapons, dangerously tight terrain and some horrible monstrosities.

RM6 will be a much 'heavier' campaign, with larger units, armoured vehicle elements, wide open terrain, and full scale battles.

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