Fornax #1 Is a fanzine devoted to history, science fiction & gaming as well as other areas where the editor's curiosity goes. It is created by Charles
Rector, email crector@myway.com If you want to write for Fornax, please send
email submissions to crector@myway.com with a maximum length of 1,000 words. No
fiction, poetry or artwork please. Any text format is fine. There is no payment other than the exposure that you will get as a writer.
If you want to read more by the editor, then point your browser to:
http://omgn.com/blog/cjrector
Order of Contents:
Introduction
Notes on the Passing Scene
Essay
Book Review
Fanzine Reviews
Game Review
Movie Review
Website Reviews
Introduction:
Welcome to the first issue of Fornax, my very first endeavor in sci-fi
fanzines. It is also, as far as I know, the very first pro-GamerGate
fanzine. That it comes out now is fitting now that GamerGate has
emerged as the dominant faction in sci-fi fandom, at least as far as the
Hugo Awards nomination process is concerned. Only God knows how the
final Hugo Awards balloting will turn out or how next year's nomination
process will go. However, you can bet that it will be a pretty
entertaining ride.
In a way its fitting that I'm the one who's launching the first
pro-GamerGate fanzine. While the other fanzine editors spend their
pre-editorship years letterhacking and writing other kinds of stuff for
fanzines, I was playing games. Specifically, Browser-Based Games
(BBG's) that back in the late 1990's/early21st Century was the cutting
edge of online gaming. As a result, there were a lot of folks willing
to play these mostly free, advertiser supported games and game creators
eager to please their gaming interests. However, the gaming magazines
failed to cover this new gaming frontier presumably because it was not
an area in which big companies were operating.
As they say, nature abhors a vacuum, so where the magazines feared to
tread a number of plucky gamers created their own websites such as most
notably MPOGD. In early 2001, I went to work at MPOGD first as a
reporter and then as News Editor. Eventually, I left MPOGD first to do
a blog and then to become the News Editor at the newly started up OMGN.
If you want to see what the original OMGN was like, just go to
archive.omgn.com
Due to the lack of big money in BBG's, there was never any sort of
corruption in covering them. At no time did anyone ever offer me any
sort of a bribe to favorably review a game. On the other hand, the
gaming magazines were rife with corruption with gaming companies paying
off reviewers and the magazines failing to have any sorts of ethics
policies. Eventually, gamers got sick and tired of all this,
circulations fell and today there are hardly any gaming magazines left.
Starting several years ago, websites launched by companies filled in the
place of the magazines, but they have been beset by the same kinds of
ethical and moral issues that brought about the downfall of the
magazines. Hence the consumers revolt known as GamerGate.
Essay: To A-Bomb or not to A-Bomb?
In August of 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
"nuked" by the first two Atomic Bombs ever used in combat. The
usage of the Atomic Bombs ended World War II; yet, their usage has
been criticized by some as being "immoral." There are some general
facts that the critics ignore such as the invasion plans, Kamikaze
Japanese, Japanese culture and religion, and the likely casualty
rate that the invasion would entail. In this essay, I will show
just why the dropping of the A-Bombs was necessary and how those who
criticize the decision live in a "Fantasy Land."
It is my view that the decision to drop the A-Bombs was the correct
choice. It has been estimated that the invasion would have cost
the United States about one million casualties not to mention the
financial cost that such an operation would impose. Because of
logistics and Kamikazes, it would have been difficult to supply the
troops.
Because thee Japanese saw themselves as being "shields of the
Emperor" and because patriotism was an integral part of the Japanese
religion, there would have been fierce resistance with high casualty
rates on both sides being the likely outcome. Another hassle would have
been that of redeployment, for even by March 1, 1946, only the 13th and
20th Armored and the 97th Infantry Divisions would have been completely
redeployed from Europe to the Pacific (the 13th and 20th Armored
Divisions comprised the XIIICorps of the Eighth Army - it was formerly a
part of the Ninth Army). This would have caused the war to last well past 1946 and, at least, to mid-1947 with vast social repercussions in the United States.
Because of the Japanese belief in the "sacredness" of the Japanese
Homeland, the Japanese would have fought with great ferocity until all
Japan was conquered, and even then, they could have resorted to
guerrilla warfarewhich would have caused the war to last even longer.
In the end, Japan would have been devastated with millions dead and millions more
helpless. And so,I make my case that dropping the two A-Bombs was the
correct choice.
There are those who criticize the decision to drop the A-Bomb as
being "immoral." They believe that it was "unjust" for us to drop
the A-Bomb on "innocent civilians." The decision has been called
inhuman because 200,000 civilians were killed in the bombings with
the effects of radiation lasting even now. There are even some who
claim that we "nuked Japan" to "make Russia more compliant in the
post-war world. Such are the claims of the A-Bomb critics.
It should be noted that we did not know whether or not the A-Bomb
would work because, after all, the A-Bomb was an experimental
weapon and experimental weapons have been known to fail in the
past. This would serve to refute the old argument that we could
have warned the Japanese and instead wasted a desert island (if
Japan does have a desert island). Besides why warn the Japanese of
our A-Bombs since the Japanese didn't warn us before December 7th,
1941?
It should be noted that even troops who weren't scheduled (yet) to
be redeployed (meaning the XIII Corps of the Ninth Army and the
entire First Army) were nervous about invading Japan. I talked to
Mr. Paul Walthers, Platteville Middle School social studies
teacher, who served in the XXII Corps of the Fifteenth Army during
the last few months of the war. Mr. Walther stated, "I would say
that the A-Bombs gave us relief because then we didn't have to go
to Japan- we knew that if we went, we might not come back."
Then there ere the immoral Japanese tactics of the Kamikazes - both
airplane and submarine - which cost our forces dearly. Because the
Japanese High Command had been hoarding thousands of Kamikazes for
the invasion, we would have paid dearly in lives and materiel. The
terrain in Japan would have caused our troops much difficulty
because Japan has a mountain chain which rivals our Rocky
Mountains.
It should also be pointed out that the Russians had no real
intentions of invading Japan, for their army (which was facing its
own redeployment hassles) was facing stiff Japanese resistance in
Manchuria until Japan surrendered. It should be noted that, Japan
surrendered only with the shocking knowledge that we could
devastate whole cities at will. Even then, they just barely
surrendered. We had no remaining A-Bombs! The Japanese refusal to
surrender and our A-Bomb deficiency would have combined to force us
to invade Japan anyway. Besides, using the A-Bomb didn't make
Russia any more compliant after the war so this "nukes" that
particular argument. And so, the anti-A-Bomb arguments have been
shot down by both hard historical facts and realistic reasoning.
And so, in summation, when we hold such "look back and criticize"
debates, we must look at the facts alternative plans, instead of
the "philosophy and morality" of the matter.
Book Review:
Ballistic Babes by Lawrence Ganem & John Zakour.
New York: DAW Books 2009
Ballistic Babes a pair of novels that were originally published as
separate books. The first, The Radioactive Redhead, was co-written by
both Lawrence Ganem & John Zakour. The second, The Frost-Haired Vixen,
was written by just Zakour. Both novels were about the adventures of
Zachary Nixon Johnson, supposedly the last freelance private
investigator on Earth. However, there are huge differences between the
two novels.
The first is a masterpiece of sheer zaniness. The slapstick keeps
coming as do the quips and action. There is not a whole lot of logic here, but you are having so much fun, you really don't care. The second has much more logic and the plot holds together well. However, there is far less fun and frivolityto it. The end result is a well done suspense novel complete with the fate
of the Earth at stake, but it is far less entertaining.
It would appear that Ganem was the more humorous of the two authors.
That being the case, if you are looking for more Zachary Nixon Johnson
novels, stick to the ones with both authors listed on the cover.
Fanzine Reviews:
http://efanzines.com/DrinkTank/DrinkTank390.pdf
The Drink Tank #390 edited by Christopher Garcia
Of all the fanzines to go under in recent years, the demise
of The Drink Tank was one of the least lamented. This was because of he
Political Correctness that permeated every issue to the point that all
too often TDT was often an exercise in unintentional humor.
For instance, in Issue #390 that was devoted to bashing GamerGate
with wholesale vulgarity and complete lack of intelligent thought, the
bogus statistic of 48% percent of all gamers being female was presented
as if that were an established fact. On top of that, the claim is made without
absolutely any evidence to back it up that there are more older women
gamers than there are teenage boys. Now that's bizarre.
I've been in online gaming since discovering Caissa's
Web in 1995 and massively multiplayer online gaming since Solar Empire
in 1999, and in my experience less than 10% of all players have been
female. For instance, in GoodGame Empire, where I am the leader of the SF USAF
Tigers, only one out of 23 members is a female.
I could go on and on about all the nonsense in just this one issue of
TDT, but you get the idea.
http://efanzines.com/Fadeaway/Fadeway-44.pdf
Fadeaway #44 edited by Robert Jennings
Of all the fanzines that have shut down the past year, perhaps
none of them will be missed more than Fadeaway. This was a unique fanzine in that it was devoted to the history of popular culture, not just sci-fi.
Case in point is the centerpiece of Fadeway's final issue, a lengthy
essay about Bomba the Jungle Boy and his career in books, comic books
and movies. This is an in depth piece about one of the most popular
characters in all of jungle fiction. Its pretty surprising that a fanzine in A.D. 2014 would devote such a big part of an issue to a now dead genre of popular
fiction, but Fadeaway always was a fanzine that marched to a different drummer.
It will be missed.
http://efanzines.com/ASNP/OfMice-02.pdf
Of Mice and Martians #2 edited by Jason Burnett
This little fanzines might be best called a letterzine since about 75%
of its contents consist of Letters Of Comment or LOC's. Its centerpiece is an essay about authors whose works get to be "too big to edit." That is excessively long novels that really pig out on descriptions such as about murder and
bloodshed. Its a well done piece. This is a fanzine that's well worth paying
attention to down the road.
Game Review:
http://www.earthempires.com/
Earth Empires
Formerly known as Earth: 2025, Earth Empires was one of the first
browser-based games and certainly the first one to gain a mass audience.
As such, this was a game that was perfectly positioned to become a
breakout game capable of reaching an audience rivaling that of
store-bought games.
This is a game with a long lineage. Originally, it was a BBS game
called Barren Realm Elites. Starting in1996, it became one of the first
major browser based games. In 2009, one of its players bought the game
from its creator/developer Mehul Patel who had given up on being able to
run the game profitably due to falling ad rates. Since then the game
has run without paid advertising on donations from players. Among
other things, the new owners added a decent forum and a good in-game
system.
Earth Empires is a free browser-based strategy game that revolves around
land acreage. About a decade ago, games like this were literally a dime
a dozen, now they are rare. There are certain strategies to follow for
maximum success.
Earth Empires is a text-based game with pictures of weapons. This is a
classic war game. Some of the player teams in this game are over a
decade old. The best part of this game is the community which is one of
the absolute best in browser-based gaming. What has happened over the
years is that the players have created a certifiable galaxy of fansites,
clansites & other game related websites. In other words, the best part
of Earth: 2025 is really created by the players themselves.
If you are new to browser based strategy games, playing a round or two
of Earth Empires is a good introduction to the genre.
Movie Review:
Grindhouse (2007)
During the 1970's, it became common in some circles to refer to small
budget movies aka B Movies as being "grindhouse" flicks. Just how and
why this term came about is unclear. What is clear is the fact that
despite the low budgets and near complete lack of big name acting
talent, such movies found a receptive audience that very much enjoyed
them. One big reason why audiences liked these movies is that they often
were much more original than the all too often formula driven
productions that came out of Hollywood.
Although the Drive-Ins and the big city theaters that constituted the B
Movie Theatrical Circuit have largely gone by the wayside, there is a
great deal of nostalgia out there for the low budget flicks of the past.
This nostalgia has led to the tremendous success of low cost DVD
packages such as the Mill Creek line of 50 and 100 movie packs where the
prices are about 50 cents or less per movie. Of course, these are all
public domain flicks, but one reason why they are public domain in the
first place is that most of the low budget production companies went out
of business during the transition period between the days when B Movies
were released to theaters and the development of the original movies
direct to the public via the DVD & VHS market. Extinct companies do not
renew copyrights. The other reason is that before it became clear that
there was a healthy market for B Movies on DVD/VHS, many of the low
budget production houses did not renew the copyrights on their
creations. After all, TV stations and cable channels rarely ran
"grindhouse movies" with the result that there was no real financial
incentive to renew those copyrights.
This success of "grindhouse" flicks on DVD has not escaped the attention
of Hollywood. However, instead of paying attention to why folks would
prefer the low budget movies of the past over the big budget flicks of
today, the big shots in Hollywood got it in their heads that the way to
capitalize on the success of grindhouse flicks would be to take the
grindhouse name and use it for their own ends. In other words, instead
of abandoning the tired old formulas and embracing new, original ideas,
Hollywood decided to make a typical piece of hack drivel and market it
under the name "Grindhouse" and hope that the American people would fall
for it like a bunch of suckers.
In the case of Grindhouse, the American people proved the Hollywood
conventional wisdom wrong. Despite a slew of positive reviews, written
by critics who would not recognize a genuine B Movie under any
circumstances, the viewing public stayed away from Grindhouse. Despite
the fact that this movie was made on a huge budget that combined with the budget for advertising and promotions added up to over $100 Million, Grindhouse grossed less than $30 Million world wide. As it happens, the movie audience was right to
stay away from Grindhouse as it is a truly horrible flick.
Grindhouse was billed as a tribute to the "grindhouse" movies of the
past. There was a great deal of inconsistency at work here as
Grindhouse was made at a budget massively larger than what any of the
low budget flicks that it claimed to pay tribute to. Likewise,
Grindhouse had none of the inventiveness of the grindhouse movies and
those low budget flicks rarely had big name acting talent associated
with them while Grindhouse the movie is practically overflowing with it.
As final proof of the awfulness of Grindhouse, consider that the
geniuses behind it have announced that instead of releasing
Grindhouse on DVD in the form that it was originally released to
theaters, it will be divided into 2 different features entitled
"Deathproof" & "Planet Terror." Obviously, the studio bosses are
attempting to avoid the stigma attached to Grindhouse and are trying to
sucker the public into buying this garbage by pretending that these are
2 different movies that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Irregardless of whatever name(s) that it goes by, Grindhouse is trash
and ought to be avoided as such.
Website Reviews:
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php
Axis History Factbook
The Axis History Factbook is a comprehensive source of information about
the Axis Powers during World War II. It is also regularly updated.
This is obviously a labor of love.
http://nichegamer.com/
Niche Gamer
Niche Gamer is an unique online gaming news & resources website. It
focuses in on focus on obscure, or niche, games that get less attention
from other gaming news/resources websites. It has an unusually strong
journalistic ethics policy that has outlined for the users. Another
aspect of Niche Gamer is the fact that it has been a steadfast supporter
of GamerGate from the very beginning.
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/
One Angry Gamer
If there is a website that could be fairly characterized as a pro
"GamerGate" journalism endeavor,it is One Angry Gamer .
This is a blog based website that regularly delivers impassioned news
directly relating to GamerGate as well as more conventional gaming news
& views. Definitely worth taking a look at.
http://original-gamer.com/
Original Gamer
Original Gamer is a website that has been around since 2009. It mostly
covers games of a science fiction/fantasy nature. It carries a wide
variety of content. It was strongly supportive of GamerGate from the very
beginning. However, it has not run any new articles or podcasts about GG since
January.
http://techraptor.net/
Tech Raptor
Over the past several months, the protest movement known as "GamerGate"
has rocked the gaming world. This is a backlash against the shoddy
practices of all too many gaming journalism outlets both in print and
online.
However, the backlash really started before the GamerGate movement got
going last summer. For instance, gamers were increasingly creating
their own blogs, websites and YouTube game review platforms. One such
website is TechRaptor that came into being in 2013. It has generally provided
high quality coverage of games and other stuff of interest to tech fanatics.
Most importantly, it has shown no signs of even the slightest inclination to
sell out.
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