Pathfinder RPG: Coming Soon

Loved 3.0 or 3.5? Did the 4th edition leave you cold? Well, get ready: the Pathfinder RPG is coming from Paizo Publishing. It’s 3.5 with the rough spots smoothed away, and not only is it totally compatible with your old D & D stuff, but Paizo will be supporting the system with tons of new titles. Plus, the new Pathfinder license will allow other companies to issue products of their own. While Pathfinder isn’t available yet, you can pre-order it now.

I admire Paizo. They’re forging their own path with product lines and services that are new and exciting but maintain a respect for the past. Their “Planet Stories” line has brought a number of pulp fantasy and SF masterpieces that otherwise may have fallen into obscurity, and they turned what could have been a death blow – the loss of the Dragon and Dungeon magazine licenses and the birth of 4th edition – into an opportunity for innovation with the Pathfinder game.

If you’re interested in Pathfinder or Paizo, now is a great time to check them out. They’re offering seven titles for seven dollars for seven days as part of an anniversary sale. Drop on by.

Links & Things

Interview with Dave “Zeb” Cook, early D&D game designer

First issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly e-Zine now available

Ten Ways to take a Bad Author Photo

A few more thoughts on literary fiction from Larry Nolen

A conversation between Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair (via Gerry Canavan)

Mike Brotherton asks some uncomfortable questions about SF and Fantasy

John Joseph Adams on “The Empress of Mars”

Links and Things

James Frey outed as co-author of series of YA novels

The power of dictator lit

Farrago’s Wainscot issue 11 now live

Interview with Brian Lumley

Alain de Botton reviews John Armstrong’s “In Search of Civilization: Remaking a Tarnished Idea”

Single ant colony has colonized entire world!

A news report from the BBC states that scientists have discovered that Argentine ants living in Europe, Japan and the United States are all part of the same global colony, and that when put together they refuse to fight. Fight each other, that is. But what about the rest of us?

Fortunately, this topic has been explored at length in the following short clip, which, for the sake of your children’s picnics, should be watched immediately.

Links and Things

Jeff VanderMeer is podcasting “FINCH”

Review: “Peeing in the Bush”

Geoff Dyer’s secret life of crime

NPR’s Beth Accomando on zombies, the genre trope that refuses to die

Charles Tan: What publishers can learn from other genre publications

Why it’s hard to Tweet literature

Has email made the thank-you note obsolete?

Links and Things

“Three cheers for authors who shun publicity”

Salon: Hey, authors, don’t Tweet in anger!

Kitsch? Ironic? Sincere?

You know Ricky? That kid who huffs paint and whose knuckles bear a homemade “Ozzy” tattoo? Yeah, the one at the back of the class who wears the naked barbarian chick t-shirt even though Mrs. Krugerman said he couldn’t anymore. That’s him. I think he broke into the AV Club last night and made this.

Links and Things

Charles Tan, the Bibliophile Stalker, interviews Nathan Ballingrud

The UTNE Reader on the slow death of the third-person

Nick Mamatas: Freelance Writing Money, Part 1. 

Neth Space reviews Joe Abercrombie’s “Best Served Cold”

Mike Brotherton on Joe Haldeman’s “The Accidental Time Machine”

Review of Brian Evenson’s “Fugue State”

Save newspapers by banning hyperlinks?

China Mieville interviewed at The Agony Column

Alice Hoffman is ready to rumble…

Great story about Dave Arneson’s old D & D group (Via Grognardia)

Experts re-create Nazi stealth fighter to test tech

“The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work” author Alain de Botton to NYT book reviewer: “I will hate you until the day I die”

While I’ve not had an opportunity to read any of Alain de Botton’s work, and as thus can’t opine on whether Caleb Crain’s review of Alain de Botton’s “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work” as published in the New York Times Book Review is in any way accurate or fair, I can’t possibly imagine that de Botton’s choice to post the following on Crain’s blog is going to make things any better:

Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon – so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that’s two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. You present yourself as ‘nice’ in this blog (so much talk about your boyfriend, the dog etc). It’s only fair for your readers (nice people like Joe Linker and trusting souls like PAB) to get a whiff that the truth may be more complex. I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.

Posted by: Alain de Botton | Monday, 29 June 2009 at 01:52 PM

The Rubber Dinosaur Podcast, Episode One: Charles Tan

Hey, if you’ve got a second, check out the first episode of my podcast, “Rubber Dinosaur”. I’m talking with good friend Charles Tan, a blogger and journalist based in the Phillipines. Charles is best known for his interviews with science fiction and fantasy authors, which you can find at http://www.charles-tan.blogspot.com.

And if you’d like to subscribe to upcoming episodes, or just download this episode to listen to later, drop by the podcast homepage at http://www.rubberdinosaur.podomatic.com.