Seeds of Heresy: A Review of Horus Rising

Visiting a oft-mentioned but never described thoroughly time period in a series if always a risky maneuver. Perhaps the most notable example would be the Clone Wars in Star Wars; a series of battles that seems to be on everyone's minds and seems to have had extreme consequences, but for the longest time Star Wars fans could only guess as to what exactly happened. Eventually though, as we all know, Episode 2 and associated content came out and described the setting in detail, and naturally many people were disappointed. As is often the case, leaving something amazing to a viewer's/reader's imagination is often better than anything that could actually be made.

With this in mind, after hearing about the Horus Heresy series being produced by the Black Library, despite popular praise I was somewhat wary of starting it. I didn't want to get my hopes up in case it turned out badly, but nonetheless I ordered the first trilogy and started on Horus Rising by Dan Abnett.

Puzzles and a Spot of Tea: A Review of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

I ended up buying the first Professor Layton game about the time the first one came out, and staying true to form, ending up playing the second one, the Diabolical Box, just as the Unwound Future was released. This wasn't by any particular design, although it did make my wallet happy.

Armed with the experience of having finished every puzzle in the Curious Village, I was quite happy to return to the world of Layton and Luke. My only reservation was that, having had so many puzzles in the first game, there would be some inevitable overlap; after all, you can only come up with so many puzzles in a base sense, much like there are only so many plots for books. However, I was to be proven wrong, and the sequel to the premiere adventure-puzzle series lives up to the first.

A Surprising Lack of Unbaptized Babies: A Review of Limbo

I remember trying out the demo for Limbo back when it was getting rave reviews, and being fairly impressed with the demo itself, but all of the reviews were saying that while it was a great game, the price point was a bit steep for the limited amount of content you got. I therefore decided to wait until the hopeful day that the game dropped for a more reasonable price point. However, I was saved from this by the Spirit of Christmas!... or more particularly, Matt's gift of the game to me. I sat down in the lull before finals to play it, and roughly 5-6 hours later, came to pretty much the same conclusion as most of the other reviewers.

The Batreview: A Review of Batman Arkham Asylum

I've never been that into DC comics, and thus have never been that immersed in the lore of the Batman. The most contact I've had with the franchise are a few of the movies, particularly the most recent two, and occasionally watching the animated show as a child. I never read any of the comics, though, so when Arkham Asylum was released to high praise, I wasn't particularly interested and didn't pursue it past the demo (which while enjoyable was far from amazing).

Eventually though Matt ended up buying it for cheap, and as has been happening recently, I borrowed it and blasted through the game. While I ended up enjoying it far more than I would have thought given the demo, it still had a lot of flaws that prevented it from being a truly great game.

So Say We All: A Review of Battlestar Galactica

Being a large sci-fi fan, as readers of this blog are undoubtably aware, it probably comes to no surprise that hearing about Battlestar Galactica (the reboot, obviously) left me mightily intrigued. So back whenever season 3 was just beginning, I utilized my Netflix account and began watching the first season. The key mistake I made then was watching it with my brother; while I enjoy doing a lot of things with him, he was just at the stage where he was beginning to be gone a lot, out doing other things, and it became hard to pin down time to watch it with him, and since we had started together, I didn't want to abandon him and continue on my own.

I made it through about the end of season 2 before the steam died to the point where it just stopped. I always intended to one day go back and finish it, but other things popped up, and I continued on, carefully avoiding spoilers and things of the nature, even as the series came to a close.

However, a few months ago I learned the entire series was now on Netflix Instant, and it seemed the time had finally come to finish what I had started. Since it had been so long in the past, I started again from the beginning, and set out to watch BSG in its entirety. [Spoilers follow after the jump]

Inquisitors Galore: A Review of the Eisenhorn and Ravenor Trilogies

My introduction to the body of Warhammer 40k literature was the Ciaphas Cain books, which is a bit odd in retrospect; while a great series of novels, they are hardly representative of the body as a whole. Nonetheless, I quickly read all six books thanks to generous loaning from Max, and after finishing craved more 40k fiction goodness. After doing some research, it seemed that Dan Abnett was considered the premier 40k author, and that many people recommended the Gaunt's Ghosts series as an excellent starting place.

The series itself is fantastic--I tore through all 13 of the novels in short order, leaving it not only my favorite 40k series, but one of my favorite novel series overall, right up there with Discworld and the X-Wing series. Perhaps even someday I'll get around to writing a review of them.

Anyway, after exhausting that trove, I once again felt the craving for more, and taking advantage of a gift card sitting long un-used, purchased more of Dan Abnett's 40k books, most notably the two Inquisitorial

Tales from the Imperium: The Tale of the Three Inquisitors

[Editor's Note: This is the second in what will hopefully be a long series of fables, classical stories, and legends (in both unabridged and summarized form) from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, collaboratively written by myself and Stormshrug. We hope you find them enjoyable, and encourage you to contribute yourself to the collection if you feel so inclined.]


Long, long ago, the almighty Emperor in his infinite wisdom created the Inquisition, His Holy right hand to preserve the peace and sanctity of His mighty Imperium. However, as it began, it was but a single institution filled with a multitude of Inquisitors, all seeking to do His Holy work as best as he was able.


During this time there was a band of three Inquisitors who often worked together, although each had a very different approach as how to best serve Him. While traveling to a distant star to do His work, their ship suffered a horrible Warp accident, and were it not for the Emperor's watchful eye upon His most trusted servant all 3 would have perished. They were returned to real-space when suddenly the 4 Chaos Gods appeared before them. And they spoke to them.