Baen books Webscriptions site is full of wonderful literature, but who can resist something called: The COBRA Trillogy! The book is written by Timothy Zahn, and was originally issued in the 80′ies as three seperate novels.

The first book in the trillogy is called Cobra. It is  epic military space opera at it’s finest guerrilla style. The narrative style centers on focusing on parts of the main characters life. We jump from one place in time and space to the next in a pace that feels just right.  These places and points in time make up the bulk of the story line and is seen from the main character Jonny Moreaus point of view. Ocationally these parts are broken up with shorter interludes where we visit other key elements of the story line, mostly seen from a protagonist point of view. I would characterize the plot as one that has epic ambitions but perhaps struggles a bit too much to deliver cleaver solutions. It never dismembers the story though and each part of the book leaves you turning the page to find out what mischief our Cobra has gotten himself into now. One of the highlights the novel is that it centers around the human equatiions that make up Jonny Moreaus. You just cannot help but enjoy the guys company, which is vital in good space opera. The main alien antagonist The Tugft are not that well fletched out but do feel enough alien to feel real. I would like to have seen some more alien psychology introduction on them earlier on in the book though.

Was it a good read? Yes, epic in scale, well written, a believable main character with a lot of wonderful operatic content. It would make a great movie, maybe with Bruce Willis as Jonny Moreaus?

FLASH! you are back in 2009 at the launch of champions online. Cryptis studios new addition to the superhero MMO franchise.

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Champions online goes online in moments, but will it succeed or fail? That is always the question when a new MMO launches. However in this case there is a president with city of heroes / city of villans. I have played both but which one do i like best?

Now it’s two weaks later and I feel ready to let go of my distrust and hand my heart to Champions Online. Shure it’s flawed – it’s an MMO, a world of compromises in it’s essence.

These are my off the top notes:

• The graphics are great
• Missions are okish
• The world is kinda small
• I love travel power at level 5!
• Character designer – WORLD CLASS
• Additional costumes at higher levels? check!
• Nobody talks, where do you hang out when everything is instanced? (make the city center a special small instance where the auction house++ is located, but only ONE instance)
• The developers chat and connect with the community
• It runs okish on my Q6600 // 8800 GTS 4gb ram setup, but just okish (~25 fps@1680)
• I cannot wrap my head around the business concept – subscription AND microtransactions?

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DEAD BULB! It’s now 2010

Here is the new list:

• My high hopes for new quality content have greatly diminished. A few explicitly themed events happened in 2009 but that was it.
• The character designer is still a great feature, and it remains interesting to create a new concept toon.
• The areas seems very repetitive by now and the small world size really takes it’s toll on you. The content creates little or no need for group play.
• New content in the future you say? Well a new expansion is planned for lvl 37-40. If you have played the game you know that 37-40 is a gap with largely little content so this step seems great yes?. It would be, but you have to cough up real money for it.
• The business model is at a point where you pay a subscription to play and everything else costs money too- costumes, expansions you name it.
• My time with the game have been sporadic during the fall game mania season of 2009 and I think that it will die a slow death during 2010.

Pentax lens SMC DA* 60-250mm f/4 and SMC DA 21mm f/3.2 Limited.

Both are excellent lenses in their own right. The 21mm is one of my favorite “shoot from the hip” lenses as you can easily go for 1/15 second exposure with IS on. It has a very small form factor and thus feels unimposing. On the other side we find the “big” 60-250mm tele lense. Big in quotation marks because it does not feel like a Sigma 100-300mm and it offers a very useful 60mm field of view. I can not count the time where this extra short range have come in handy. The build quality of both lenes also make them a joy to use – who does not like the feel of pro gear? Image quality wise they are also very nice preformers. Photozone.de have reviewed both lenses 21mm and 60-250mm.

Since the first 24bit DAC’s started to appear in the mid 90′ties, there has for some reason been a constant lag of good quality “software” or music to be played. Since around 2004, 24bit started to pickup pace and evolved into soundcards, and even fairly prices audio equipment. Really high quality ADC’s also started to appear around 2004, but for some reason, we still only see very few relases of music on 24bit.

I find it really hard to find anything anywhere, so here’s my list of places to get 24bit audio of the finest quality.

24bit music avaliable on FLAC format and downloadable after purchase.

• HD tracks sells 24bit FLAC, and has lots of different stuff.
• Linn Records, 24bit FLAC.

24bit music from DVD-A or alike medias

• Classic Records HDAD This company even releases 35mm film recordings. Their releases are of a really good quality. Jazz and classic music.
• AIX Records, has the tagline; The Home of REAL High Definition Audio.
• Acoustic Sounds, also sells HDAD.
• Elusive disc, also has most of the stuff avaliable.

I hope these links can be of some help.

A couple of months ago I picked up this game called Shatter through PSN. I don’t play the game all that much anymore but one thing that remains is the music. The game is a “Retro-inspired brick-breaking game” featuring some kick ass music tracks. I love great music in games having such fond memories of Command, Iridium, Ghosts and Goblins etc. etc. from the C46 era. Electronic music in games have progressed far from the 4bit days but technical competence and 9.2 surround sound systems have nothing to do with a great tune. Shatter delivers in abundance – both in game play value but also in the music as well. Simply put it is the best in game concept music that I have heard in a decade.

Have a listen, and get the sound track. Oh it’s written by Module.

The Game.

The Music.

During a resent brush with a couple of old science fiction short stories I asked myself the question that I had to answer before venturing on in this old golden territory. It’s old but is it any good?

The encounter started with Andre Norton’s – From the Sea to the Stars which I had picked up through Baen books brilliant Webscriptions. The first story called Sea Siege, is told from the perspective of a young man / boy … teenager, well he’s not my age and even that is a refreshment. The story develops slowly for a short story building charactersation as if it was a real novel – that I liked. In the last half of the story events quickly move with nuclear war, monsters from the deep and a girl called Liz. I must also mention that there is a fantastic characterzation of a voodoo doctor. Now the problem is that after everything has been build up, you know and feel for the characters, the story is ready for more trouble and then it suddenly stops dead in it’s tracks. Great potential wasted. Andre Norton owes me an ending.

After this disappointing encounter I lost interest in the second half of the book. A science fiction book friend of mine told me later that Andre Norton have written lots of interesting science fiction so perhaps I was just unlucky in my first attempt.

Next up is the Baen book collection The World Turned Upside Down.