#Climatepunk

[improbable-implosions]

Honestly, a big part of reading solarpunk stories, to me, is learning of some wild tech that we've researched, but not applied in its particular niche quite yet.

I didn't get quite so many moments like that with Wheelers, as I read Miles Past Xanadu first, and that hit a good number of the major beats as far as tech goes, but the kite generator was one I wound up having to do some research on!

Turns out, the somewhat popular tumblr post dunking on the use of kites used on container ships (giant kites, you mean sails! so pretentious) ties back into the core idea behind these kite generators! The initial pitch for the folks doing the major work of implementing kite generators these days started with the pitch of using the kites for mounting on the deck of container ships! The shipping conglomerates weren't much for the kite idea, so it was spun into the kite generator instead. Essentially, they're flown higher to pull a cable out in times that power generation is required, then piloted lower in order to take advantage of the relevant decrease in wind speed to put the cable back on the spool! It's really neat stuff, and I'm shocked there's not been more work using this, say, along coastlines, where wave power hasn't quite been worked out, and traditional turbines would struggle.

Anyway, this book's good, I suggest you listen!

[the960writers]

[taylor-titmouse]

Meatheads, by R/L Monroe

it's another month gone by, which means another cover for another @petitemortality R/L Monroe book! this one goes hard and sweaty and meaty, and the worldbuilding is both really funny and really fascinating in the little glimpse of it we get. and also there's three huge fuckin dudes going to town on each other. check it out, and follow along on the process for designing the cover below!

FYF 3: Meatheads $3

Trapped by a lethal boiling sun, in the neon ruins of a fallen supercity, three tank-grown ultrasoldiers have nothing to kill but time and no enemy but their own overheated flesh. Daily hormone shots gave them hard bodies, but without a seedsucker to offer them relief, they soon have something even harder to contend with. It's not gay if you come out on top...right? Almost 7k words(!), EPUB and PDF format. Content: -M/M/M -straight turned gay -testosterone dosing -cum harvesting/drinking -dominance struggle -sexual hazing -rough sex

THUMBNAILS

i lost track of the initial notes for these, but the first two were really just me spinning my wheels. my instinct was something with greek wrestling, stylized like pottery. we usually do the covers early in the month, so i hadn't read the finished book yet and didn't have a clear sense of the aesthetic yet. i did know there were three guys, which made composition tough. fighting is not, typically, a three-man's game. lee suggested looking at WWE and rugby

which led me to looking at turkish oil wrestling, because truly, what is greasier than that. originally there was a reference image of turkish oil wrestling here, but tumblr hated it so much that they flagged the post and denied appeal. those men were wearing pants. this post is free to read on patreon so you can see the greasy boys there.

moving on.

AH SHIT THAT'S TOO SCARY

so while we were talking about the color palette, lee brought up 80s splatterfest VHS cover design. we agreed on violent red and purple, but the topic of horror led me in a horror direction. gritty lines, harsh light and shadow, scary imagery with the single red eye, etc. and we agreed this look is Sick and Rules, but wasn't quite right for neon future climatepunk.

so i went back to the drawing board and totally got rid of the hatching. we're looking for neon, for black velvet, for graphic

definitely closer to the final product! though of course as soon as i saw it in discord i realized the purple on the middle guy's back and the third guy's leg were competing too much with the top guy's back and making it hard to know where to look. so: more variants

adding the paint strokes down was just something i wanted to try at the last minute, and it was definitely the right move! there were like five more variations of just That with the gradient map very very slightly adjusted, but honestly it's not worth posting all of those lol. the version we settled with was the best one!

and that's the process for this month's fuck yourself friday cover! this is both my favorite cover so far AND my favorite story. i love high concept worldbuilding that serves the fucking. if you're here and supporting my work, i bet you do too! so go read it! it's only $3 dude!!

[nockergeek]

I am currently running one D&D game and playing in two more, but I am craving running or playing something completely different. Lately, my mind has been on a Cyberpunk vibe, so I’ve been looking through my collection to figure out which one I would run/play, given the extra free time to do so:

Cyberpunk RED - the current iteration of the classic. I’d love to wait for the promised 2077 supplement to come out, since I’m not quite as keen on the post-war/post-apocalyptic setting of 2045, but the system is decent. (I also have all the 2020 books in PDF, but I’ll probably stick with the most recent version.)

Shadowrun (4th Edition Anniversary) - No, not the recent garbage fire that is Sixth Edition, but the cyberpunk+fantasy game is one of my favorites. The system is a little wonky at times as it collapses under a pile of d6s, but I’m still a sucker for it.

Cy-Borg - Mörk Borg OSR gaming with a layer of vaporwave sheen on top. I’m not normally a fan of OSR gaming (nothing against the genre; just not my style), but for some reason, it appeals to me in a cyberpunk setting. It’s dark, gritty, and has a surprising amount of depth amongst the simple mechanics.

Hack the Planet - A Forged-in-the-Dark take on the cyberpunk genre, with a climatepunk twist. FitD works great for heist-focused games, so it’s a good fit. The setting is probably my least favorite of the bunch, but that’s also the most malleable part of any RPG.

CBR+PNK - A minimalist take on Forged in the Dark cyberpunk. There’s a new “augmented” version coming out that expands upon it a bit, but I’m still working with the 1.0 pamphlet version. There’s no setting material at all, but that means it can later on top of anything.

Are there any other good ones out there that I might have missed? I’m always on the lookout for good cyberpunk games.

[improbable-implosions]

Perhaps unstartlingly, we didn't finish Wheelers in one hour-thirty episode!

The second episode gets us out of the city, and instead finds us in the Wheeler colonies proper. Just how are they surviving out there, in the wastes that the city claims are simply full of cannibals and dust storms? You're not the only one who'd find out on listening, Dana is going on quite the journey to understand, too!

Paper Cuts, the Live Audiobook podcast, drops an episode once a week, on Saturdays, Noon pacific time! You can find it in your favorite podcatcher, or on the site I've linked :) I title each episode that starts a book with the title of said book, so feel free to scroll and find a story that catches your eye! (Other than Wheelers, I suggest Dracula!)

[improbable-implosions]

Hey look, it's another author permission book! I got VERY lucky that Matt Stephens was kind enough to let us show off this story, as it turns out that this was my first real look into the genre of solarpunk, at least in the realm of storytelling. Well, sort of, anyway. This book is actually an expansion on a free-to-read short story, called Miles Past Xanadu. I stumbled onto that story, and fell in love, not only with the world and characters, but also the way it points out the actually applicable discoveries, directly inspiring the ability to build on things in your real life!

Frequent readers of my own original work around here know, I'm a very big proponent of building, mending, and making my own stuff, so seeing that ethos appealed to as a way to invoke the hopeful tone of solarpunk has HEAVY influence on me.

Of course, that's not the only things I picked this book for, either! The story itself that's being told is quite fantastic, and I really hope you'll enjoy it as we work our way through it, piece by piece. Feel free to tune in in your favorite podcatcher, I hope I bring good voice to this tale!

[blogapart3bis]

https://ift.tt/2llGfqS

Attachez vos ceintures, c’est le deuxième tome de Exodus Manhattan! Sur la Terre, ravagée par le changement climatique, comme sur la Lune, qui héberge un centre pour les délinquants dangereux, les choses s’accélèrent. La Nouvelle Croisade passe à l’action pendant que Leto et Hana essayent de retrouver Felicity, une enfant qui recèle des secrets qui pourraient sauver l'humanité.

Grosse baffe visuelle de la rentrée passée, Exodus Manhattan revient donc avec un deuxième tome qui, en théorie, devrait conclure l’histoire. J’y reviendrai, mais ce n’est pas certain. Toujours est-il qu’on retrouve les personnages du premier tome pourchassés par les fanatiques religieux qui ont fait d’eux les servants du démon, à exterminer à tout prix.

Et, quand je dis « à tout prix », je ne plaisante pas: le bazar va se terminer par au moins un demi-million de morts.

Dans ce deuxième tome, le lecteur est plus que jamais plongé au cœur du chaos. Au niveau du contexte, déjà: Manhattan surpeuplée, assaillie par les ouragans et en proie aux attaques de la Nouvelle Croisade, ce n’est pas déjà pas calme. S’y ajoute une intrigue passablement bordélique, scindée en plusieurs points de vue qui ne se retrouveront qu’au dernier moment.

C’est probablement le plus gros défaut d’Exodus Manhattan: c’est touffu, visuellement et narrativement. J’ai eu souvent du mal à savoir qui faisait quoi et où. Qui plus est, si ce deuxième conclut effectivement l’arc narratif principal, il reste beaucoup de questions en suspens.

En relisant ma chronique du premier tome, je m’aperçois que j’avais dit, quelque peu à tort, que le premier tome s’intitulait Manhattan. Or, ce sont les deux tomes qui s’appellent Exodus Manhattan, mais je soupçonne que ce diptyque ne forme que la première partie d’une histoire plus importante.

Objectivement, ce deuxième tome est un ton en-dessous du premier. C’est principalement dû au fait que l’effet de surprise est passé, mais aussi à la complexité de son déroulement. Il y a aussi moins de visuels impressionnants comme la première page du premier tome.

Cela dit, le dessin de Bannister est au service du scénario de Nykko pour une ambiance étouffante, moite. Il aurait peut-être mérité d’être plus clair par moments et d’avoir un découpage un peu plus aéré, mais ça fonctionne pas mal ainsi.

Exodus Manhattan est donc une très bonne série de science-fiction, tendance cyberpunk et climatepunk; je me demande s’il y aura une suite. Pour ceux qui ont lu New York 2140, c'est un peu le côté – très – sombre.

L’article <span class='p-name'>Exodus Manhattan, tome 2</span> est apparu en premier sur Blog à part.

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