Good Friday = Oxfam Friday

Yes, folks, we were open all hours today (10:30AM - 3:30PM). When I arrived to do an afternoon shift, John and Michelle, mortal enemies normally, were engaged in heated discussion. Turns out they were hammering out an agreement regarding each others surplus and, as usual, what defines "literature". John has wandered over into Michelle's area a little as he now has two sub-catagories, classic sci-fi and transatlantic literature. No sooner had Michelle departed than Anne pulled him over and pointed out to him that if any agreement with Michelle turned sour she wasn't going to be too pleased to have to sort it out. I mentioned to him afterwards that he was in trouble with two women today, all before one o'clock. He did manage to make an odd sale though. Someone wanted a lot of old Penguin books to make their wedding book-themed and were going to have old paperbacks as decorations for the various tables. £30 for as many copies.

I also spotted some old W40K Codexes that someone had donated and bought them. There were a little worn, but OK otherwise and averaged £4 each. Nice:

T'was the Night Before Christmas

The Black Library, publisher of all things Warhammer and W40K, have been running a short story advent calendar in the run-up to the big day.

Only 79p (apart from the audio books, which are £1.50), they're a steal and a good introduction to the genre.

I suppose it's because of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 17 Moon landing recently (the last time anybody went), but I keep whistling this.

Have a nice Christmas, everybody. Or whatever.

Pariah

Some may know that I am something of a fan of Warhammer 40,000 books. Mostly this is Space Marines killing lots of aliens, all very enjoyable and juvenile (remember Sven Hassel, lads? Like that, but in space). However, there is a significant amount that isn't and this is where you'll find Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn/Ravenor series. The latest in the series, and the start of a new story arc, has been published this year and is called Pariah.

Rather than being told from the perspective of the inquisitors of the previous two volumes, the narrator is a Pariah of the title, a psychic "null" called Alizebeth Bequin who can neutralise others' psychic powers. Like all of Dan Abnett's books, it's very well written, in a slightly Dickensian style. The whole series can also be bought as a digital package for those who want to start from the beginning. G'won, it's Christmas!

Adeptus Mechanicus

Of interest only to the minority, I know, but Fantasy Flight Games are planning to publish an addition to their Dark Heresy W40K RPG range:

Called Lathe Worlds, it promises to cover the Mechanicum, the engineers and technicians for the Imperium, something only hinted at from other sources (The Black Library, mainly), and not at all from Games Workshop. Yum!

25 Years of W40K, Tron Plaza & Leverage RPG

Warhammer 40,000

Is it really the 25th anniverary of W40K?

I feel old. Good job I've got shares in Games Workshop.

Finsbury Avenue Square

While walking back through the City the other day I passed through Broadgate and encountered this:

It's like a Tron grid. Now where did I put my Lightcycle!

Leverage Role Playing Game

My sister is into the TV series Leverage. There's an RPG for virtually everything, this being no exception, and I found one at DriveThru RPG:

It's one of the quick start ones, rather than the full core rule book which is £20 or so.

Black Crusade

Fantasy Flight Games, as has become a tradition, have created a free introductory adventure for their new W40K RPG, Black Crusade. Called Broken chains, it's available here.

Monday: W40K books

When I read books, I tend to go through phases of reading. I read very intensely for a few weeks and then read hardly anything at all for about a month or so, and so on. When an intense phase ends, it's usually because I get distracted by this machine (programming) or because the book I'm about a third of the way through starts getting a bit difficult. I think at the moment I'm entering an intense phase. This is helped by reading Warhammer 40,000 books (W40K), published by The Black Library, a subsidiary of Games Workshop.

W40K books are pulp military science fiction, but this is no indicator of quality as there are some very good authors, specifically Gav Thorpe, Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett. I've just finished Thorpe's Path of the Warrior and I'm about a third of the way through Abnett's Ravenor omnibus, having read the Eisenhorn omnibus previously.

Mostly, the books are from the human perspective, but Path of the Warrior has an Eldar, an ancient humanoid race, as it's protagonist.

Gav Thorpe does a very decent job of conveying the "otherness" of the Eldar, but the book takes a bit to get going and there are too few battles in it for my taste. How the protagonist progresses from warrior to "exarch" (leader) after only two battles isn't sufficiently explained, plus the novel, which is meant to be part one of a series, concludes with the death and transformation of the character.

Ravenor is much more mainstream, part of Abnett's Inquisition series.

In W40K, human religion is based on a semi-dead God-Emperor, opposed by demons, aliens and heretics. The Inquisition is intended to oppose these forces, and the novels are a bit like a kind of baroque sci-fi spy/horror novel. Sort of advanced steampunk, but without the steam and with a bit of Lovecraft thrown in for good measure. And they're great. The plots are a cut above the average W40K Space-Marines-kill-everything novel but there's enough shooty stuff so you don't get to miss it too much.

Thursday and Morning Shift at Oxfam

I usually do about an hour or so in the afternoon at the Oxfam Bookshop in Chelmsford on Mondays and Thursdays. However, yesterday, I got a text from Gill asking if I could come in earlier to do the morning shift as the woman who does the upstairs till, which is the music and DVD's, was on holiday. The up-side of this is that a) it's quiet first thing and b) you get to play your own tunes. I made up some CD's last night to play and I started off with Miles Davis (Kind of Blue) followed by Dave Brubek (Time Out). Cool Jazz is easy on the nerves and difficult to object to by the punters, especially if it's good. I followed this up with a dubstep remix of Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds and an old-school rave mix by Moby, which made things easier while I sorted through a load of DVD's which needed culling.

After my shift ended, I went shopping and ended up having a look in Games Workshop. I exchanged pleasantries with the assisstant on duty and left. As I went out of the shop, a thought struck me and I went back in.

"Back already", said the assistant.

"I know it's a funny question", I asked, "but how do you get to work for Games Workshop?".

"I'll just get you a form", he said and disappeared into the back of the shop.

"Fill it in", he said as he handed me the form, "Bring it back and we send it up to HQ (Nottingham) and they take it from there".

The form is just like any other (previous experience, qualifications, etc), but with the Imperial double-headed Eagle emblasoned on the front and it's got questions like "What's your favourite Warhammer/W40K army and why?". All job application forms should be like that.