June Round-Up Plus Doctor Who Gets a New Composer

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these (see here for an explanation of my absence if you haven’t seen it already), and there’s not a whole lot to cover in the past month. But it does feel good to be getting back into the swing of things again.

Much of my recent stuff has involved getting caught up on things I should have done ages ago, so that means finally getting a review up of the Doctor Who Series 10 finale, “The Doctor Falls”, as well as last December’s Christmas special, “Twice Upon a Time”, featuring David Bradley as the first Doctor and introducing Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth.

I also began catching up on the large number of Pathfinder products I intend to review, beginning with a return to the Giantslayer Adventure Path with the third instalment, Forge of the Giant God, as well as Adventurer’s Guide.

Pathfinder and Doctor Who have tended to make up the bulk of my posts (and there will continue to be lots of those), but I want to expand into covering more of other things as well. In particular, I’m intending to have a few more reviews of novels, and I started this past month with a review of The Savior’s Champion by Jenna Moreci.

Perhaps most exciting for me, however, is my own novel, which I am currently looking for beta-readers for! The Child of the Volgs is an epic fantasy novel that I have been working on for quite some time, and beta-reading is an important stage in the development of any book. It allows the author (in this case, me) to get feedback from a variety of different people, which the author can then use to help in further revisions. For the beta-readers themselves, it presents an opportunity to see and be involved in the process of creating a book. You can help make the book into the best book it can be! I’ve got several beta-readers already, but I could definitely use more. If you’re interested please check out my Beta-Read page for full details.

Looking to the future, I’ve got a review of the Pathfinder Module The House on Hook Street coming up in the next couple days. I’ll also be getting to more Giantslayer this month and hopefully a few other things as well. There will also be another novel review. With Doctor Who not currently on the air, there won’t be any new reviews (unless I finally mange to get back to finishing my Series 8 reviews), but I do hope to do a couple of Doctor Who-related posts, including a look back at the entirety of the Steven Moffat era of the programme. That might not happen in July (it’ll depend on how much time I have), but it is definitely a goal before Series 11 starts around October (no confirmed start date at this point). Of course, I’ll probably cover any major Doctor Who news that comes out.

That said, so far, there’s not been a whole lot of news about what to expect in the new series (which I kind of like—it maintains the surprise), but a few things in the year I was gone that I didn’t cover included the actual announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor and then, later, the reveal of her costume (see picture at top of post), which took a brief time to grow on me, but I now really like. There was also the announcement of who would be playing her companions: Bradley Walsh as Graham, Mandip Gill as Yasmin, and Tosin Cole as Ryan. It’s been a long time since the Doctor has had three companions (the last time was during the fifth Doctor’s time with Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric), so I’m very intrigued to see how the series handles the larger TARDIS crew.

It was also announced some time back that Murray Gold, who has composed the music for Doctor Who since it returned in 2005, would not be returning for Series 11. Just a couple days ago, it was announced that Segun Akinola would be the new composer. I generally liked Murray Gold’s music for the show, but he was there for a long time, and Doctor Who has always thrived on change. With the début of a new Doctor (particularly the first female Doctor), this is as good a time as any to change up the music, and I look forward to hearing what Akinola brings to the series. As far as I’m concerned, there are exciting times ahead for Doctor Who and I look forward to October (or whenever the new series starts).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this blog! Have a great July!

February (and December/January) Round-Up Plus Pathfinder Humble Bundle

So it's been an interesting couple of months. A number of things, particularly family health issues, have meant that I've completed a lot less writing than I intended to, and I've fallen considerably behind schedule on getting caught up on all the reviews I need to do. However, the situation is improving and the frequency of reviews should improve along with it!

Since my last round-up, Doctor Who Series 9 came to an end with the amazing “Heaven Sent” and not-so-amazing “Hell Bent”. Then, just a couple weeks later, there was the 2015 Christmas special, “The Husbands of River Song”. During that time, I also wrote a review looking back on the entirety of Series 9. In that, I made mention of a planned retrospective on Clara as a companion and said to expect it in early January. Obviously, that hasn't happened yet, but I still intend to write it, and hope to have it up in the next week or so—definitely before the end of March. I'm also looking to get back to my Series 8 reviews by late March or early April.

In January, news came that Steven Moffat will be leaving Doctor Who after Series 10. In the wake of that news, there has been a lot of speculation on whether Peter Capaldi will be leaving as well and who might replace him. So far, however, there has been no actual announcement of his departure and I, personally, hope he sticks around for another year or two. Of course, we'll have to wait and see, but just because then-current David Tennant left when Russell T Davies left doesn't mean Peter Capaldi has to leave with Moffat.

Also in January, for a bit of fun, I posted this little 60's gem.

On New Year's Day, the new Sherlock special, The Abominable Bride, aired. I haven't reviewed it yet. I will though.

On the roleplaying side of things, since my last round-up, I've written reviews of We Be Goblins Free!, Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom, Familiar Folio, Occult Realms, Lost Treasures, and Ranged Tactics Toolbox. I also looked at the hardcover Pathfinder Unchained and completed the remaining instalments of the Iron Gods Adventure Path: Valley of the Brain Collectors, Palace of Fallen Stars, and The Divinity Drive. Be sure to check out any you haven't read. Coming up next will be Melee Tactics Toolbox and the Iron Gods Player's Guide.

In other Pathfinder news, until March 9, you can purchase a ton of Pathfinder books (including the Core Rulebook) through Humble Bundle. Over $350 worth of books are available for...whatever you want to pay. Some require a minimum amount to unlock, but as little as $25 will get you them all. They are all PDF copies of the books plus a physical copy of the Beginner Box (if you unlock it; postage not included). It's an absolutely amazing deal, and proceeds go to charity (Humble Bundle even gives you the option to choose which charity). They have apparently raised over $500 000 so far. A small warning: This deal has apparently been more popular than expected, resulting in Paizo's site being overwhelmed by extra traffic. Downloading your purchases might be a bit slow, but worth the wait.

Here's to a great March!

November Round-Up, Pathfinder Adventure Path #100, Doctor Who Christmas Special, and Sherlock

The end of the year approaches and December looks to be a big month for science fiction and fantasy fans. The new Star Wars movie comes out, of course, but there's more going on too. But first, a look back over the month that's passed...

November was a good month. While I always seem to be just a little bit behind what I hoped for (I planned to have one more Pathfinder review up by now), I'm still on target to catching up with everything in about a year from now, and I have high hopes I'll get a lot of extra work done during the holidays this coming month. In November, I completed another seven Pathfinder reviews. They included this summer's big hardcover release, Occult Adventures, which introduced psychic magic to the game. Following along with that theme, I also reviewed a couple of the other recent occult-themed releases: Occult Origins and Occult Bestiary. I will have a review of Occult Realms sometime in December. I also continued my way through the Iron Gods adventure path in November with Lords of Rust and The Choking Tower. Along with those, I reviewed the Technology Guide, which is indispensable to people running the adventure path. Finally, I looked at Champions of Corruption, the third of the alignment books, this one looking at the evil alignments. Coming up next will be a review of this year's Free RPG Day release, We Be Goblins Free!

December sees the release of Pathfinder Adventure Path #100! Part of the current Hell's Rebels AP, it's an extra-large volume to commemorate the milestone. It's hard to believe that I currently have 99 volumes of Pathfinder Adventure Path sitting on my shelves. They take up much less space than you might expect, actually. It's still quite a bit though. When Dragon and Dungeon magazines came to an end a few years ago, I still had several issues left on my subscription, so I used the option Paizo provided at the time to convert the remainder into credit towards their new Pathfinder release. I was hooked pretty quickly and just kept on getting them. Unfortunately, given how far behind I am, it will be awhile before I get round to reading and reviewing #100, but I couldn't let this monumental event pass without at least mentioning it.

Series 9 of Doctor Who continued throughout November, and I kept on with my reviews of each episode. These included the two-parter that began with “The Zygon Invasion” and concluded with “The Zygon Inversion”, the experimental “Sleep No More” and the tragic “Face the Raven”. This past weekend saw the airing of another very experimental episode, “Heaven Sent”. I'll have my review of that up soon. After the conclusion of Series 9 this month, I intend to do something I haven't done previously, and that's to do a separate write-up on the entire series. This is because, while I've highly enjoyed many of the individual episodes, I've felt the series hasn't really held together very well. The overall narrative arc has been quite poor, I've felt, and I want to take the time to look at that in more detail.

For some fun news, just yesterday, Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) posted a video about the long-standing rumours that he might direct an episode of Doctor Who. The video was recorded recently when Peter Capaldi was in New Zealand for a convention. There's every chance that the video is just Jackson and Capaldi having a bit of fun, but perhaps—just perhaps—it's a tease before an official announcement that Jackson really will be directing an episode. See my post from yesterday to watch the video.

In other Doctor Who news, the title of this year's Christmas special has been announced: “The Husbands of River Song”. While I have my criticisms of River Song, I am looking forward to seeing her and the 12th Doctor together for the first time. I expect Alex Kingston and Peter Capaldi will be amazing on screen together. Although it hasn't actually been announced, one other thing about the special is discernible from the publicity picture (at the top of this post): the Doctor apparently has a sonic screwdriver again! I'll be happy to see the last of the sonic sunglasses (assuming they'll be gone completely—there's nothing really stopping the Doctor from having both).

Also coming over the holiday season is a Sherlock special: The Abominable Bride. This will air on New Year's Day. Set in Victorian times, it's not technically a continuation of the Sherlock series, but it does contain all the same cast. Here's the latest trailer:

If for nothing else, this will be worth watching for Watson's spectacular moustache!

So December looks to be quite the month (okay, so Sherlock is technically in January, whatever). I'm looking forward to it!

October Round-Up, K9 Movie, and David Tennant and Catherine Tate Return!

It has now been exactly one month since I got things back up and running on Of Dice and Pen, and things have been going pretty well. I've actually had one of my most prolific months—which is good, considering I have a lot of catching up to do.

Talking of catching up, I've been developing a plan to get me through the high volume of Pathfinder material waiting for me. If everything works out, I hope to have myself fully caught up in about... 13 months. It's a long time, but considering I have about a year's worth of material to get through and there will be another year's worth of material released while I'm doing it all, another 13 months seems reasonable. As I mentioned a month ago, I plan to move about in the release schedule a bit, mixing up earlier and more recent releases. However, I will go through Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes in order.

In October, I got off to a good start, with reviews of the Strategy Guide and Monster Codex hardcovers, two excellent books (check out the links if you haven't already read the reviews). Other Pathfinder reviews were of People of the Stars, Inner Sea Monster Codex, Advanced Class Origins, and Iron Gods—Fires of Creation. I also wrote a review of the Pathfinder Compatible product, Monk Unfettered. Due to time and money issues, I don't get the opportunity to read and review very many 3rd-party Pathfinder books (my only other review of such a product was Random Urban Encounters in February 2013), so it was nice to do so this month. I hope to do more in the future as there are a lot of very good options out there.

Pathfinder reviews coming up soon will include Occult Adventures, Occult Origins, and the second part of Iron Gods, Lords of Rust. I had actually intended to have the first two of those out already (meaning that, technically, my schedule has already fallen a bit behind). They should be up in the next couple of days. I also intend to get to a few non-Pathfinder roleplaying reviews in the next month or two, including the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook (published for the 50th anniversary).

Of course, Doctor Who returned to screens this month! Yay! I have reviews of the first six episodes: “The Magician's Apprentice”, “The Witch's Familiar”, “Under the Lake”, “Before the Flood”, “The Girl Who Died”, and “The Woman Who Lived”. Check them out if you haven't already. I'll have a review of this week's seventh episode, “The Zygon Invasion”, up in a couple of days. Regarding the remaining episodes of Series 8 that I still need to review, I will get to them after Series 9 has finished.

Earlier this month, the BBC announced news of a new Doctor Who spin-off series, called Class. See the link for my initial thoughts on that. More recently, news has come of a possible Doctor Who-related movie: K9—Time Quake. This is not a BBC production or something being made through license with the BBC, but rather through one of K9's co-creators, Bob Baker. This means that, like the Australian TV series K9, it won't be able to directly reference Doctor Who. However, it will also feature the return of Omega (from the Doctor Who stories, “The Three Doctors” and “Arc of Infinity”). Bob Baker is also co-creator of Omega, meaning, like K9, he retains some rights to the character.

I have my reservations about this movie. The Australian TV series was not very good (see this post for my more detailed thoughts on it), and while this movie may only be superficially related to the series, it doesn't give me high hopes. But also, part of the problem of the series was that K9 really doesn't work as a lead character. It's why even K9 and Company, a show named after the robot dog, was really going to be a series about Sarah Jane Smith with K9 as her sidekick. The later Sarah Jane Adventures also kept K9 as a side character and not a major focus. This is really what K9 ought to be. I just don't think K9 has what it takes to be the lead of a full movie.

All that said, that makes two Doctor Who-related announcements this month that I'm rather wary of, and it's a bit of an odd feeling. I remember well the wilderness years of 1990-2005, when there was only one new official filmed Doctor Who production. Back then, the news of any spin-off—K9, Class, whatever—would have had me and other Doctor Who fans jumping for joy. How times have changed.

So, for some exciting news to end off with this month, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are returning to Doctor Who! Not in the television series (although they featured in a flashback sequence in “The Girl Who Died”), but in Big Finish's ongoing series of audio adventures. For the longest time, Big Finish was limited to only Doctor Who from 1996 and earlier. But recently, they've acquired the rights to several new series characters, such as Kate Stewart and John Hurt's War Doctor. Now the tenth Doctor and Donna have been added to the list. I'm pretty excited! Now, I just have to find the means to afford to actually buy some. Sigh.

Anyway, it's been great to be back this month, and I look forward to great times to come! Thanks to everyone for your continued reading!

August Round-Up: Doctor Who Returns Along With Doctor Who Extra!

I got behind on a bunch of projects in August (several of them for this blog), but it was still a pretty good month. A new school year is beginning now, and I'm actually back in classes myself this year, so it's going to be hectic and busy, but I'm at my best when it's hectic and busy. I'm quite looking forward to it!

Of course, August was all about the return of Doctor Who, with Peter Capaldi making his first outing as the Doctor! There was a new trailer early in the month, and we also learned that the new title sequence would be based on a fan-made sequence posted to YouTube last year. But August 23rd was the main event, as the first episode of the new season aired, and the second has aired now as well. I was quite impressed by “Deep Breath” and I was absolutely ecstatic about “Into the Dalek”. I'm always excited about new Doctor Who, but I'm feeling a much bigger thrill this year. Peter Capaldi is amazing in the role.

Also premièring in August along with Doctor Who was Doctor Who Extra. This behind-the-scenes programme is similar to Doctor Who Confidential, a programme that ran for several years from 2005 until the end of Series 6 in 2011, when it was cancelled. Doctor Who Extra, however, is much shorter than Confidential, which had 30-minute episodes in its early seasons and 45-minute episodes later on. Extra runs about 10 minutes per episode. The first episode of Extra has not been made available for viewing outside the United Kingdom, so I haven't seen it. I'm not sure why it isn't available as the second episode is, and all further episodes will also be available as they are released each week. You can watch the second episode in the player below:

To be honest, I was never much of a fan of Confidential, especially towards the end when they were clearly running out of ideas to fill up their full running time. Coming up with 45 minutes of extra material for every single episode of Doctor Who was really overreaching. Extra's shorter running time will likely be to its advantage in this respect. The “Into the Dalek” episode is entertaining and reveals some interesting behind-the-scenes information. Alas, even though it airs after Doctor Who, each episode of Extra is still essentially an advertisement for its associated Doctor Who episode, meaning that Extra is likely to suffer from a need to praise uncritically. I much prefer behind-the-scenes documentaries made well after their subject programmes, like the documentaries on classic Doctor Who DVDs and the DVDs of other older shows. Although memories may not be as fresh, the people involved are generally able to be more honest and reflective in recounting the making of the programme. They can say if they don't like a particular episode as much as other episodes. Likewise, when they declare a particular episode as their favourite, you can be confident it really is. With documentaries made at the same time as their subject programmes, those programmes always have to be portrayed as the greatest thing ever. At any rate, I'm curious to see how Doctor Who Extra turns out as the season progresses.

Moving on from Doctor Who, I didn't get round to a lot of Pathfinder things this month, but I did get in reviews of the final two parts of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path: The Slave Trenches of Hakotep and Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh. There are several more reviews pending, including the Mummy's Mask Player's Guide, People of the Stars, and the Advanced Class Guide. Expect those in the next couple of weeks.

Have a great September, everyone!

June Round-Up Plus To Be Takei

June was a very busy month for me—in the non-virtual, non-internet world, that is. Consequently, it was a very slow month here on Of Dice and Pen. I was only able to get a few things posted, but July looks to be a quiet month, so I envision much more productivity here.

I did, however, get three Pathfinder review posted: Occult Mysteries, Shifting Sands, and Blood of the Elements. Coming soon, you can expect to see reviews of Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars and Secrets of the Sphinx, the fourth part of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path.

June also saw the final couple episodes of Cosmos: “The World Set Free” and “Unafraid of the Dark”. It's only been a few short weeks, but I already miss seeing new episodes each week and writing about them. As I've said before, I think it's amazing that a science series has gotten such a high-profile showing, and I wish more science and documentary shows could receive the same treatment. Of course, just because they're not high-profile doesn't mean we can't seek them out and watch them. There are lots of options out there, and many very good ones, including Carl Sagan's original Cosmos series.

In the realm of science fiction/fantasy documentaries, here's one about Star Trek actor and LGBTQ icon and activist, George Takei: To Be Takei. I'm really quite excited to see this one, as George Takei is a fascinating and funny man.

And this Kickstarter for The Great Kingdom, a documentary about Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, looks like it could be interesting. (Edit: Something weird was happening with the embedding of the preview for The Great Kingdom, so I've removed it. You can watch the preview at the site linked.)

But back in the realm of pure science fiction and fantasy, the exciting news is that Doctor Who will be returning on August 23, as reported in this post.

Have a great July everyone!

May Round-Up, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, and Doctor Who News

May and June are always busy months for me. It’s the end of the school year and that keeps me occupied preparing students for exams and final projects. Then comes the quiet of summer. I like the quiet of summer.

But no matter how busy I get, I always make certain to get some gaming and writing in. Here on the blog, I took a look at several Pathfinder products in May, including the hardcover release, Inner Sea Gods, as well as the Undead Slayer’s Handbook, the very good Alchemy Manual, Empty Graves, Inner Sea Combat, and my favourite of the bunch, The Harrow Handbook. I also got (and still am) very excited over the trailer for Dark Dungeons.

In related gaming news, the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons now has release dates for its initial products, beginning with a Starter Set in July, the Player’s Handbook in August, Monster Manual in September, and Dungeon Master’s Guide in November. A couple of adventures, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, both from Kobold Press, are interspersed with the other releases. Similarly to 4th Edition, the new edition is not being marketed as “5th Edition” or “D&D Next” or anything else, but simply as Dungeons & Dragons.

While the release of the new edition is likely to be big news, I’ll be honest and state that I won’t be switching to it, even though D&D was my first ever roleplaying game and I’ve been playing it in some form for over 30 years now. This isn’t because I don’t expect it to be any good. I haven’t actually been keeping much track of news about it, so I have very little idea what to expect from it. It might be good, it might be terrible, or it might be anything in between. However, the fact is, I’m quite happy with Pathfinder at the moment and see no need to change. I’ve also invested a lot of money in Pathfinder and have enough products now that, even if Paizo stopped publishing tomorrow, I’d have enough material to last me for decades yet. New stuff is fun, it’s true. I love getting new stuff. But I’m also not made of money and I have to decide carefully where my money goes. I will likely look at the new D&D in the store and I’m certainly not averse to playing in a game one day (although limited time will make that difficult), but I won’t be running games of it myself. I may well pick up one of the books one day, though, and if I do, I might just post a review.

In non-gaming news, I continue to be super excited about Cosmos, and I was disappointed that it was pre-empted on May 25th, which is why I haven’t posted a response in the last couple weeks. However, over the month I did write responses to 9th, 10th, and 11th episodes, “The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth”, “The Electric Boy”, and “The Immortals”. My review of this week’s episode, “The World Set Free”, will hopefully be up shortly after I get this post up.

The big Doctor Who news for the month is that the new series will première sometime in August (exact date still to be announced). The BBC released a very, very short teaser trailer for the series, which I mentioned in this post, along with the much more interesting Doctor Who parody production from the Hillywood Show. In the world of missing episode recoveries...no, no more missing episodes have been announced; however, an early recording featuring Jacqueline Hill (who played Barbara, one of the Doctor’s very first companions) has been found. It’s a production of the play Requiem for a Heavyweight, and also features a young Sean Connery from before he became famous as James Bond. You can read more about it on the Doctor Who News Page.

Have a good June, everyone!

April Round-Up, Star Wars Episode VII, and Never-Ending Cosmos Praise

So, the big news in April came just a couple days ago with the announcement of the cast for Star Wars Episode VII. I must admit I’m unfamiliar with most of them except the original trilogy cast (obviously), Andy Serkis and Max von Sydow. However, I couldn’t help noticing (as did others) that the new cast contains lots of men (mostly white men at that with one token black guy) and one woman. Sticking to tired old formulas, Star Wars? So much for progress. Still, following the fact that lots of people noticed this, it was revealed that there is still another “substantial” role to fill. That’s good news, I suppose. I do have to wonder, though, just how substantial this role actually is, given that they didn’t feel the need to wait for it to be cast before announcing the other actors playing substantial roles. Time will tell, I suppose, but let's be honest, even two is not a great number. Women do make up 51% of the population after all.

Honestly, even though I was a Star Wars fanatic as a child and well into my young adult years, it just doesn’t hold the same sense of wonder for me that it once did. Personally, I’m far more excited about the ongoing series of Cosmos! It has made a much greater impact on me this month, as can be seen with my ongoing coverage of it on this site. I was starting to fall quite a bit behind in my episode reviews, but managed to get completely caught up in the last week. Altogether, this month saw reviews of episodes four, five, six, seven, and eight. I eagerly look forward to the remaining five episodes. Although it’s not exactly Cosmos, here’s Neil deGrasse Tyson giving a kick-ass answer to a rather stupid question about whether genetics plays any role in the lack of women in science:

In gaming, April 5th was International Tabletop Day, and Wil Wheaton’s Geek & Sundry series, Tabletop began a campaign to raise funds for its third season. They’ve already made their initial goals and will be producing a 20-episode season. However, if they reach $1 million total, they will also produce a spin-off series based on roleplaying games. There are only ten days left, but they are very close to that million dollar mark. Tabletop’s a great show, and I would really like to see the RPG spin-off. Let’s hope they’re successful!

I only wrote one Pathfinder review this month: the opening to the new Mummy’s Mask adventure path, The Half-Dead City. The lack of further reviews is down to the fact that next one is of the massive 332-page hardcover, Inner Sea Gods. That took awhile to read through, but I’m done now and my review should be up within the next few hours.

This month, I also discovered the wonderful documentary The Delian Mode, about Doctor Who composer Delia Derbyshire. It’s a must-see for all Doctor Who and electronic music fans. Finally, I also made a brief post about the short video, “Stone”.

Here’s to a great May!

March Round-Up, Absent Doctor Who, and April Fool's

Here in Toronto, March was a month of snow, more snow, yet more snow, a brief thaw or two, and still more snow. In the last couple of days, it has finally warmed up above freezing. March was also the first month in a very long time (possibly ever) that I didn’t make a single post about Doctor Who. It’s not that I didn’t want to; there just hasn’t been much going on. Well, that’s not strictly true. Series 8 filming has been ongoing, for example. But there just hasn’t been anything that I really felt an earth-shattering need to discuss.

I haven’t been negligent in other areas, however, and got through several Pathfinder reviews, including the finale of Wrath of the Righteous, City of Locusts, as well as the Player’s Guide for the same adventure path, Bastards of Golarion, the really excellent Champions of Balance, and the latest adventure module Tears at Bitter Manor. In other news, this year’s RPG Superstar winner was announced and the first of the new Pathfinder Legends series that I mentioned last month has now been released. I am very, very tempted to spend money I don’t have to buy it, but if I did that, I’d have to buy all of Big Finish’s Doctor Who audios as well and then I’d be broke. Alas.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new Cosmos series premièred this month, and I am loving every moment of it! Four episodes have aired so far, although I have only watched and reviewed the first, second, and third so far. I will get to the fourth in the next few days. It’s great to see a science programme getting such high profile exposure, and I hope this paves the way for more high-quality science programmes in the future.

Dark Dungeons: The Movie is also moving closer to its release and the first trailer appeared this month. I am stoked. I also recently watched The Gamers: Hands of Fate for the first time (it came out last fall). It’s the third in the series that started with The Gamers and continued with The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. I hope to get round to reviewing it sometime soon.

Of course, it’s now April 1st, aka April Fool’s Day—well, by the time this is posted it will probably be April 2nd in my time zone, but I’m sure it’ll still be April 1st west of me. I don’t intend to do any April Fool’s jokes here, but I thought I’d point out a few funny ones I’ve found across the web. To rectify the lack of Doctor Who on this blog recently, here’s one announcing Arthur Darvill as the Master!

Think Geek has a bunch of April Fool’s products, but this one, featuring Michael Dorn from Star Trek: The Next Generation, is my favourite:

And CERN has announced that all communication will now be in comic sans:

Finally, IO9 has a round-up of great April Fool’s jokes.

February Round-Up, Pathfinder Legends, and Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

Another month has come and gone. It was a fairly quiet month for me here on the blog, particularly in the world of Doctor Who. However, I did review the excellent and very important book Doctor Who and Race. I highly recommend people read it! I also wrapped up the third series of Sherlock with “His Last Vow” and took a little look back at Babylon 5 in honour of its 20th anniversary. In the world of Pathfinder, I looked at three products: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, People of the Sands, and Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs.

In some exciting Pathfinder news, this month sees the release of the first Pathfinder Legends, a series of audio dramas from Big Finish, who are most well known for their Doctor Who audio dramas. The first release is Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings, based, of course, on the first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume. You can listen to a trailer at the link. To be honest, I’m not all that impressed by the trailer, which surprises me as you would expect the trailer to showcase the very best of the production. Still, Big Finish has a very good record with their Doctor Who audios—enough of a record that I am very confident in their ability to do a very good job with Pathfinder Legends. You can purchase copies from Big Finish or from Paizo. Alas, much like with Big Finish’s Doctor Who material, personal budgetary constraints mean I’m not going to be able to pick any of these up in the near future. Hopefully one day, though. One day...

I’ll wrap things up with a short review. Here’s to a great March!

Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

As with most map folios for the adventure paths, the Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio comes with three large, full-colour maps. One is a map of the Worldwound, the area where most of the action of Wrath of the Righteous takes place. The second map is of Kenabres, the city where the adventure path begins in The Worldwound Incursion. Both of these maps are high-quality and beautiful to look at, while also being highly useful for playing the adventure path. Admittedly, the map of Kenabres is really only useful for the first adventure, but the map of the Worldwound will be useful right up to the final instalment.

However, the stand-out map of this set is the third one: a map of the Abyss (which the PCs travel to in the fourth and fifth instalments of Wrath of the Righteous). Mapping out the Abyss is a daunting task—no, more an impossible task really, considering the Abyss is essentially an infinite plane made up of countless other planes. What this map does instead is provide an artistic rendition of the various Abyssal realms and “where” (metaphorically speaking) they are in relation to each other. Admittedly, the map doesn’t have a lot of utility in actual game-play. However, I don’t really care. The map is utterly beautiful to behold and can easily serve as an in-game representation of the Abyss—something the players’ characters might actually see. Ultimately, this map provides a visual element to enhance game-play. It gives both players and GMs just a little hint on what their characters are seeing, allowing the imagination to fill in the rest. It also makes a great poster to hang on the wall.

January Round-Up

I’m a little late with the round-up this month. I’ve actually decided to move them from the last day of the month to the first day of the next month (yes, I know that still makes me late!). That keeps them visible in the site’s archive links to the right (the default of which only has the current month open).

The big thing in January was, of course, the return of Sherlock after a two-year hiatus. I have reviewed both “The Empty Hearse” and “The Sign of Three” so far. I have now watched (twice) “His Last Vow” and will have a review for it in the next day or two. I will make no comment on it until that time.

In the world of Doctor Who, filming has started on Series 8, the first with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. We have also been treated to the first official picture of Capaldi in costume—a costume I like a great deal. The first pictures from the filming have started to show up as well. I tend to avoid most of those as I don’t want to get too spoiled. However, the picture at the top of this post is a pretty non-spoilery one.

In the world of roleplaying, I reviewed several Pathfinder products in January, including Magical Marketplace, the Inner Sea NPC Codex, Wardens of the Reborn Forge, and The Midnight Isles. I also reflected a little on the 40th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.

I usually include a little something extra with these monthly round-ups, but I must admit I don’t have anything this month. All things considered, it was a pretty quiet month and I wasn’t sure what to include. So, have a great February, everyone!