The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
This concludes our month of worldbuilding. Happy New Year, all!
Almagra is a super world that I first created while playing around with the Fractal Terrains demo from Profantasy Software Ltd. The planet is massive with a circumference of 500,000 miles. It’s highest peak is 100,000 feet above sea level while its deepest ocean trenches are 100,000 feet below sea level. The world is one of the strangest RPG worlds I’ve ever come up with and it will be the flagship world for this blog. Since its creation first took place in my Knightfall’s Otherworlds group on Facebook (before getting its own FB group), I’ve decided that this blog will feature all other roleplaying worlds that I’ve created through that group. (Kulan won’t have a presence here, as it has its own blog (KWJ), and anything about Rielun will be blogged about on Spelljammer Gome Wild.) However, the blog will mainly be for World of Worlds.
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By vtsimz02. Copyright (c) 2014; used by permission.
i had two groups on Facebook that had content for Almagra. Originally, I had created a catch all group called “Otherworlds” but I then created a group specifically for Almagra. Along with my old AD&D 2E group, there was too much redundancy. so, I’ve deleted the AD&D 2E group and the second Almagra group. Now, there is only one Facebook group for Almagra and Otherworlds.
As part of the move back to one catch-all group (not including Time of Ages or World of Kulan, however), I’ve moved all my maps for the Moons of Almagra into a album on the group. There are maps for four of the seven moons in Almagraspace — “Burning Moon” (3rd), “Ice Moon” (6th), “Small Moon” (4th), and “Strange Moon” (2nd). While I don’t have true names for the moons of Almagra yet, the descriptive names give some idea of what each moon is…
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The Honor of the Queen by David Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book completely converted me to the Honor Harrington series. Not only was this an outstanding bit of space opera, but somehow, David Weber managed to insert a strong-willed female vaguely agnostic protagonist into a diplomatic and military role with a Mormonesque patriarchal religious culture . . . and it worked; and made sense, and didn’t descend into any number of several possible bad tropes, or psychological abuse, or preaching about either side’s views.
Honor came across as an intelligent and effective military leader and diplomat and I read the whole novel at the edge of my seat. A lot of things happened in the story that are difficult and traumatizing for a realistic character, and neither did she wallow in self-pity nor sail blithely through the situation as though entirely unaffected. She is angry in some cases and almost violates all sorts of protocols due to her very human emotions.
I fell in love with her completely, and Weber’s complex political worlds even more so. Interplanetary and imperial politics have direct effects on Weber’s Manticoran Navy, some of which are quite bad for its starfarers.
It’s not perfect of course. Weber still insists on the story-bogging infodumps. And some of the bad guys might as well be curling their mustachios and cackling. But all in all, a fine piece of writing, one that inspires me to better work in my own writing. If you are a fan of space opera or nautical fiction, you *must* read this book. You’ll thank me for the recommendation.
A dying, sun-like star in NGC 2440.
On Basilisk Station by David Weber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was recommended to me by a few different people because a) I like space opera and b) I like historical nautical fiction like Horatio Hornblower and the Aubrey-Maturin novels. The Honor Harrington books were deliberately written to evoke that nautical military fiction, up to and including a nod at another famous protagonist with the HH initials, and a logical reason for teenage midshipmen (or at least they look that way.) There’s some neat aliens too, like the treecats such as Nimitz, Honor’s faithful companion.
I was slow to warm to it. David Weber’s first effort still suffers from some inexperienced writing, such as awkward dialogue and infodumps (one of which was in the middle of the big climactic space fight! Why can’t we have learned about how the tech works earlier, like when Honor came aboard the ship?) I understand he never stops with the infodumps either, but I hope they are timed better.
All in all, however, I was engaged and I enjoyed this pleasant romp through space, and it made me check out the rest of the series; which did succeed, by book three, in winning me over (reviews to follow). A recommended read for fans of nautical fiction, military fiction, and space opera.
If you would like to contribute to the Spelljammer Wiki, we would welcome your input! Here is the link: http://spelljammer.wikia.com/wiki/Spelljammer_Wiki. Please only include canon material, and site your sources. Items without sources cited will just be removed. Thanks for contributing to a great project!
Here is the layout for the Crystal Sphere for Almagraspace. Almagra sits at the center of the crystal shell and the sphere’s primary and secondary suns orbit the World of Worlds. The primary sun/fire body orbits in the fourth position, and it is larger than Earth’s yellow sun. (I’d say at least 1-1/2 times the size.) The secondary sun/fire body is a huge red giant that has slowly begun to dim. It’s energy isn’t strong enough to reach Almagra, but it does appear in the night sky as a semi-bright red star.
The…
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Wildspace: The Spelljammer Fanzine 