The Angry Birds

This article originally appeared on AtWitsEndComics.com 07/22/2012.

Does anyone else think the angry birds have taken things a little too far?

So we have this group of pigs who steal three eggs and own a frying pan. Presumably they wanted an omelet. What do the birds do? Do they make a measured and proportionate response? No, they go for the annihilation of the entire pig race.

It’s like the general of the birds looked down at the empty nest and said “when this war is over the only place they’ll say ‘oink’ is in Hell.” Does the theft of three eggs really justify the xenocide of the entire sus domesticus species?

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Rapid Fire Book Reviews

Hi, I’m new on this site. I’m a writer on Hogwarts Legacy during the week, but today I thought I would share some quick thoughts I had on some sci-fi/fantasy books I read recently:

Axiom’s End, by Lindsay Ellis (novel, 2020) – I used to enjoy Lindsay Ellis’ Youtube videos, so I was excited when her book finally came out last June. Unfortunately, it is overwritten, self-indulgent, and tedious. I guess pointing out the sexism and faux-progressiveness of Disney reboots and writing stories are nonexclusive skills. One passage stands out in my mind as particularly irritating and overwrought: where the alien boyfriend makes the protagonist swallow a can of creamed corn. It went on for either five minutes or five hours, in the same way it’s hard to keep track of time when you’re being tortured. 

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SFF Stack Exchange is starting topic challenges

scifi.stackexchange.com logo

A new year is beginning, and 2021 brings new change to SFF Stack Exchange. The site turns one decade old this month, on 11 January 2021, and its eleventh year is being marked with a new program of monthly topic challenges.

First up is the famous sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, the topic of the month for January 2021. SFF welcomes all (on-topic) questions about Asimov works during this month, and a list will be kept on meta. Bounties may be awarded at the end of the month.

For future months’ topics, a proposals thread is now open for suggestions on the meta site. Whichever answer gets most upvotes there by the end of January will become the February 2021 topic challenge.

All welcome to participate!

Loop – The Distress Call. A science-fiction game that pays homage to science fiction and narrative games

Loop is an interactive science fiction story that unfolds through dialogue and choices made in real-time. We’ve combined the best elements of video games and sci-fi novels to create a futuristic, suspenseful, thrilling, and immersive experience unlike any other mobile game out there.

When we started working on Loop, all we had in mind at the time was a genre: “visual/interactive novel.” One of the stories in the sci-fi/fantasy anthology I’d just finished producing with some friends was a psychological thriller set in space called “Loop” (available through DragonScript); told from the perspective of an unnamed Ensign in a series of journal-like entries and reports. Drawing inspiration from a text-based game called Lifeline— and our collective long history of hours logged on old-school MUDs and complex, story-centric games like Mass Effect— the beginnings of Loop were established. We just didn’t know exactly where it would take us.

mass effect 3The game trilogy that influenced Loop – The distress call
Credit: BioWare

Through nearly five years of writing, development, brainstorming, and creating in-game systems from scratch, we’ve crafted a game that’s evolved into something far more than the simple, text-based sci-fi MUD we originally thought Loop would be. There’s an entire universe fleshed out and presented in trappings both familiar and unknown; with technologies and dilemmas that seem frighteningly possible within the near future.

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