Hugh Cook’s ‘The Walrus And The Warwolf’ Is Back In Print!

by Hugh Cook, with an introduction by China Miéville

Paizo Publishing announces a reprint of a classic that’s been very hard to find for years…

A boy of sixteen, swordsmith’s apprentice Drake Douay loves nothing more than booze, loose women, and causing endless amounts of trouble. Yet when he’s sentenced to death by the merciless ogre king of his homeland, Drake has no choice but to sign on with two warring and ragtag gangs of pirates. Thus begins a life of adventure, treachery, and debauchery as Drake sails a strange world of high magic and forgotten technology, driven ever onward by his unrequited lust for the red-skinned priestess Zanya. Yet even the monstrous, insectile Swarms of the south are nothing compared to the trouble Drake finds when he returns home to discover that his former master has become the head of a new religion. And killing Drake is its first commandment…

Never before published in a North American edition, The Walrus & the Warwolf blends fierce sword and sorcery with vivid world building to create a classic of modern fantasy. This edition also comes complete with never-before-seen illustrations and an insightful introduction by award-winning fantasy author China Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar).

464-page softcover trade paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-214-2

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Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 – First Game

My son Logan and I began our first game of Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit #1 tonight and at the end of the first turn I took a quick snapshot of the map.

ASLSK #1 is a tactical WWII hex and counter wargame that recreates battles on a squad level. The hexes are 40 meters and each squad counter represents between 5 and 10 men.

We are having a lot of fun so far and are probably making a ton of mistakes but that’s all part of the process. He’s playing the Germans and I am playing the Americans.

The scenario is “Retaking Vierville” and the Americans must prevent the Germans from occupying a certain number of buildings in the center of the town by the end of the fifth turn. We are still playing so no winner yet. Stay tuned.

I can already tell that we will be playing more of this, but it will take a few games to get the kinks out of figuring the rules, but it will be worth it.

Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 is published by MultimanPublishing. Read more

Napoleon: Total War – The Peninsular Campaign Coming Soon

Releasing Sometime in June 2010, The Peninsular Campaign Downloadable Content is a new and independent campaign for Napoleon: Total War based on the conflict in the Spanish Peninsula between 1811 and 1814. It was during this era that the Spanish resistance gave their style of fighting its name: Guerrilla, or the “little war”.

It is 1811 and the war in the Spanish Peninsula has been raging for over two years, with mixed fortunes and heavy casualties for both sides. Following the withdrawal from the Madrid area of the combined armies of Great Britain, Portugal and Spain after the Battle of Talavera in July 1809, Viscount Wellington retreated into Portugal and consolidated his forces. Now Napoleon´s Armée d’Espagne, has invaded Portugal once again but thus far the network of entrenchments has proved impossible for the French to successfully assail. Wellington has planned a fresh offensive to drive the invaders out of Portugal and eventually out of the Peninsula altogether. Although forced back to the edges of their Peninsula by France and the traitors who helped them, Spain is not yet out of the fight. The Supreme Central Junta and its successor the Supreme Regency authorised the forming of local bands to fight guerrilla – the “little war” – against the invaders. Choose one of the three nations involved – France, Great Britain or Spain – and experience one the most intense conflict of the Napoleonic era.

Key Features:

A new and independent Iberian Peninsula campaign map featuring 32 controllable regions. Three playable nations: the brand new Spanish nation and the existing but revamped France and Great Britain, each with its own unique set of Objectives and Missions.

A new, non-playable Portuguese nation, controlling some of the regions.

Play the campaign from three different perspectives, each with a unique feel:
•The French fight to keep resistance at bay while converting regions to their political alignment.
•The British are very limited for regions at the start, but receive enough income from Northern Europe and North America that they can afford to liberate regions back to the Spanish in return for Guerrilla aid.
•The Spanish also have a limited starting position, but have permanent access to Guerrillas for effective battlefield use against the French.

5 new Guerrilla unit types, recruitable by all nations, adept at battlefield stealth and with the added ability to deploy outside of their faction’s deployment zones: Tiradores (Skirmisher Infantry), Cazadores, Lanceros (Lancer Cavalry), Husares (Light Cavalry), Leader (General).

28 new units in total, spread across the three playable nations including the British 95th Rifles, the French Vistula Uhlans and the Spanish Coraceros Espanoles.

Two new agents to enforce political conversion:
•Provocateurs (French and British nations only) have the ability to promote anti-opposition sentiment in regions, incite unrest, decreases turn time for research and passively spy.
•Priests (Spanish and Portuguese nations only) have the ability to promote anti-opposition sentiment in regions and incite unrest.

A new Guerrillero agent for the Spanish nation: similar to a Spy but with the new ability to Harass enemy armies – lock them in place for a turn and cause them attrition.

Political Alignment system which sees the French battle to increase pro-French sentiment throughout the peninsula.

Requires a copy of Napoleon: Total War installed on your PC to play.

To get the Peninsular Campaign content, you need to be connected to the internet. Launch the STEAM client and log in with the account details you used to install Napoleon: Total War. Once you’ve purchased the content, you will unlock the Peninsular Campaign in the game Main Menu. You can check the download progress by clicking on the “My Games” tab and look at the “Status” column.

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Acer LumiRead eBook Reader Announced

Who would have thought that even a company like Acer would take the plunge into the world of ebook readers? Well, that has happened with the Acer LumiRead, the latest device from Acer that touts to offer users an excellent reading experience as it seamlessly integrates in the Acer clear.fi solution. Since the Acer LumiRead is also DLNA compliant, it can access Acer clear.fi and share contents like eBooks and audio-books as well. Being light and extremely slim in profile, the Acer LumiRead is perfect for those who want to catch up on their reading when traveling, regardless of whether you’re indoors or outdoors, reading on the e-Ink display is a snap. Just in case you have already finished all of your downloaded tomes, you can also hook up via a Wi-Fi or 3G connectin to download the latest bestseller as well.

Currently, Acer has already signed agreements with Barnes & Noble, where they already offer over a million titles in its eBooks store. As for those living in Germany, an agreement has been signed with Libri.de, Germany’s leading Internet book retailer offering over 4 million titles. Folks in China can liaise with Founder, while others living in France and Italy will have to wait a short while more as other agreements are more or less being formalized as you read this. What does the LumiRead offer? For starters, it comes with a 6? e-Ink display that is glare-free, making it suitable to be read even under bright sunlight. Measuring a few mm thin, you can be sure that toting this around is a joy.

2GB of flash memory ought to be able to hold around 1,500 books, but you can easily expand that amount by throwing in a microSD memory card. The inclusion of an innovative ISBN scanner lets you scan ISBN codes, allowing you to create your own wish-list and search on supported online libraries and book stores. Acer also introduced a QWERTY keyboard onto the LumiRead, making it easier to browse the web while finding and sharing information on books. With an auto-layout, you are easily able to adjusts the content to offer the best reading experience according to the format automatically. No word on pricing or availability as at press time, but we hope that more details will roll out soon.

Press Release

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X-51A Scramjet Breaks Record For Longest Hypersonic Flight

The X-51A Waverider blasted itself into the longest hypersonic flight in history yesterday, streaking across the sky at Mach 5 for just over 200 seconds. That’s 10 times longer than the previous record, set in 2004 by NASA’s X-43. While the X-51A has already flown a couple of times while remaining attached to its mother ship, this was the first time the unmanned plane flew independently.

Hypersonic flight, defined as faster than Mach 5 (around 3,800 mph), is not easy. Conventional turbine jet engines can’t handle such tremendous speeds. To complete its hypersonic flight, the 14-foot-long Waverider launched from the wing of a B-52 over the Pacific Ocean, and with the help of a solid rocket booster, screamed up to Mach 4.8 before that booster was jettisoned.

That’s when its SJY61 scramjet engine took over, using its supersonic combustion to create a shockwave upon which the jet rides (that’s why it’s called the Waverider). After its record-breaking 200-second flight was complete, it splashed into the Pacific Ocean, not to be recovered. There are three more of these X-51A missiles, set to take their test flights later this year.

It was a big day for aviation technology. Says Air Force X-51A program manager Charlie Brink, “We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines.” Could it be long before we can travel from New York to L.A. in the time it takes to deliver a pizza?

Here’s a more-detailed video created before yesterday’s historic test flight:

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James McAvoy Signed To Play Professor X In ‘X-Men: First Class’

Since Fox hopes to get X-Men: First Class up and registered by this summer with Matthew Vaughn at the head of the class, you can expect a lot of furious casting between now and August. The first big pick is out now, as according to THR’s Heat Vision, James McAvoy will be Professor Charles Xavier.

McAvoy is a good pick to replace Patrick Stewart, but he’s awfully young to be teaching anyone. But remember, this isn’t really about the first class of X-Men the way we thought it would be. X-Men: First Class would be an origin story for Professor X and Magneto. In this film, young Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr will discover their powers, hone them, and take on their cool aliases. They will then join with fellow mutants “some familiar, some new” to stop a global threat. Their friendship fractures, and creates the rift between Magneto’s antagonistic Brotherhood of Mutants and Professor X’s peaceful X-Men.

It’s unclear who these mutants will be. (Beyond a Wolverine cameo, of course.) Are they actually going to be young Jean Gray, Cyclops, and Storm? If so, it’s nice to see Fox sticking to their resolve of continuing to throw their X-Men continuity out the window. You can’t exactly have a movie featuring young Jean Grey or Cyclops, if the Professor X and Magneto we saw interacting with them (in X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, respectively) were the older and wiser figures of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Perhaps they’re going to haul out those amnesia bullets again to explain the discrepancies.

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