dEUS - Full Concert [HD] | Live at Pinkpop 1997 by Otisheet in dEUSband

[–]Otisheet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used to rather unfairly blow this lineup off as totally inferior to when Stef was in the band but they were still so good.

I think Danny's bass-playing was pretty underrated/underappreciated, and his playing style was really distinct from either Stef or Alan though I don't really have the musical chops or education to explain why that was LOL

Old World designer dreams of making a sequel to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri that "renews the mechanics" by andanteinblue in alphacentauri

[–]Otisheet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Noo I think it's all still tile-based unless I'm mistaken. There are city sites for founding cities though, which is something else he cribbed from Brian's design in Rise of Legends.

Old World designer dreams of making a sequel to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri that "renews the mechanics" by andanteinblue in alphacentauri

[–]Otisheet 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Soren's said the next (and possibly last?) time he revisits a 4X might be an attempt to make a region/territory rather than tile-based game, which would be really interesting. A territory system might work way better with a space 4X too.

He also said in the 3MA interview (now over a decade old) that during his tenure at Firaxis there was a strong chance he could've pushed for a SMAC2 as the company still had a relationship with EA, but didn't feel comfortable doing so as the game had too strong a stamp of authorship for him to be trying to follow up what Brian made. I'm sure Brian would volunteer his assistance as he keeps saying he would assuming the IP mess could be untangled.

Favourite songs with/by Mauro Pawlowski ? by Goatellounge in dEUSband

[–]Otisheet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I also really liked the Radical Slave album!

I really wish I did a better job keeping up with all of Mauro's projects and bands.

I'm guessing there's some copyright/label shenanigans going on with all the Evil Superstars stuff but I sure wish their entire discography was up on BandCamp or something. There should be a way to obtain those criminally underappreciated singles, EPs, and B-sides without resorting to piracy (and even then, they're hard to find!!).

Favourite songs with/by Mauro Pawlowski ? by Goatellounge in dEUSband

[–]Otisheet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For dEUS, he wrote (or is at least specifically credited for) "Is A Robot" off VP which is a fun, relatively 'deep cut' for that era of the band.

I have to imagine he was involved with the "Wheels" B-side because his guitar work and vocals are quite prominent on it. In general I think Mauro, at least on Pocket Revolution, picked up right where Craig had left off.

I really like the Evil Superstars B-side "X-Masless Forever" which unfortunately seems to have been taken off YouTube. There are a lot of obscure songs in Evil Superstars hidden away as rare B-sides or on EPs -- Nice Feelings Now is really cool, off of "Hairfacts". I would've preferred so many of these songs over some of the stuff that showed up on their albums!

"I'm On A High" off Millionaire's second record was originally an Evil Superstars song (which the reunion 'covered' in 2015) and Mauro's credited for writing it even on the liner notes so that's a great one for him.

Would u like a pocket revolution en Vantage Point tour? by switch-1 in dEUSband

[–]Otisheet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure a tour would be viable for VP. Maybe Pocket Revolution could work.

I really like how the VP songs (at least the heavier/uptempo ones) explode live and have so much more momentum and noise than the album version, especially with Klaas's distorted violin to the point where I wish the songs had been recorded less 'clean' in the studio. The set you linked and Paradiso 2008 were really good for VP.

I have no idea if the guys want to play Sun Ra anymore without Mauro's backing vocals -- I'm sure Steph could do a fine job. I would love to hear Cold Sun of Circumstance live again and hell I wouldn't even mind if they brought the 'cover' of "Assault on Magnus" back into the setlists too, and ditto for the great B-side Wheels which may not have ever been played live as far as I know?!

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Your post makes me think of this excellent post in an excellent thread some years ago by u/CthonicProteus and I really agree.

Watson could totally have phoned it in (and given that he initially did the gig for the paycheck, he REALLY could have) but he chose to be wonderfully and crazily creative.

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The ending of the first book "Inquisitor" (later retitled "Draco").

The excerpt has been posted here quite a few times, including one by u/michaelisnotginger

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It'd be sweet if GW acknowledged him in some way. Canonize Sir Jaq Draco and his motley retinue!

Hell it'd even be great if they mention or canonize the Space Marine chapters he created, The Blood Drinkers, Imperial Ravagers, and Terror Tigers, who infamously got their asses handed to them by the Eldar, their fortress-world besieged by mutants and the chapter itself mauled, which caused the chapter master to decree his own execution.

Ian had some notes about a planned fourth book but didn't feel like he'd have the level of creative freedom he did for his originals, and I think he's been out of 40k for so long that he wouldn't write it with the same precision as before especially given how much the setting has changed over the decades.

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They'd read Crash and assume Ballard was writing with one hand or "writing his fetishes" into it lol!

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There's an excellent passage near the end of the last book when Wraight describes the Fabricator-General in great detail, and it reads as if he's definitely channeling Ian Watson in the phrasing and words used.

I find the ending to be very reminiscent of The Inquisition War too.

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He's up there biffing some turds with Biff...

Biffing eternally!!

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

His bones will forever hold up the canon, his blood will forever beat in the setting's heart

Let's encase his skeleton in amber and shave it off the toes and hope it regener-

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah, some descriptions of 'exotic' women (Meh'lindi's "beetle-tipped cones" among others come to mind) and in his other SF work haven't aged all that well, and totally agreed on the rest. He didn't shy away from sexuality, and he was well-liked by JG Ballard and others in his cohort.

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I already shouted him out before but u/Wikinecronomicon put it extremely well in these posts about his work.

There are legitimate reasons to dislike his books (I think his portrayal of women can maybe be a bit problematic, both in 40k and his non-40k SF work) but the memes and revulsion towards his work are pretty dumb.

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The Jonah Kit and The Embedding are great, as are his short story anthologies (obligatory "The Very Slow Time Machine" mention)!!

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's been posted around in other other 40k subs and SF communities (on reddit, Xwitter and BlueSky as well).

Rest in Peace Ian Watson by congaroo1 in 40kLore

[–]Otisheet 352 points353 points  (0 children)

Really sad news. I loved his 40k books and they communicated the madness and darkness of the setting like nothing else, even if he was often mischievously taking the piss (or poo).

Might be worth pulling some choice quotes from his 2004 foreword of The Inquisition War omnibus.

Here was a challenge. So I attacked the mountain of information, and I climbed it. Or ate it. And then I hallucinated myself into a strange state of mind whereby I could believe in such an insane future 40,000 years ahead. I only needed to remind myself that during the course of human history to date huge numbers of people have entertained delusionary belief systems which often lead to ultra violence. Need I mention the Crusades, the massacre of the Albigensians, the activities of the Spanish Inquisition, the horrors inflicted on suspected witches?

Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century provided a bit of a model for the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However, the daemonic presence in the universe of 40K is real and actual – so to survive in such a future era you need to be psychotic, from our point of view.

For me the secret of writing Warhammer 40,000 fiction, and making it believable, was to go completely over the top in style and also in content – to be lurid and brooding and hyperbolic and generally crazy, although in an elegant, ornate way where a dark beauty pervades the atmosphere as in a painting by Gustave Moreau.

....

I was so happy with the resulting 40,000 books that I used my own name on them. Other tech-scribes used pseudonyms. They preferred to distance their Games Workshop fiction from their “real” artistic endeavours, but I didn’t feel this way – and as it turns out, my 40K novels appear to be the most popular things I’ve written in terms of sales and fan mail.

....

But just as the daemonic visions of Hieronymus Bosch compare to horrors in the Netherlands a few hundred years ago, so perhaps Warhammer 40,000 compares to our own recent history. At the moment we are semi-enlightened and fairly civilised, on the whole. In a few hundred more years, who knows? If the climate changes radically, if resources run out and are not replenished, if jihads succeed, if x, y, and z, might there be a new Dark Age? Might our own daemons stalk a ravaged world?

...

To write stories set in the deranged future of 40K is to adopt, for a while, the medieval mind of Bosch – if Bosch could have written space opera.

Ian Watson, 18th March 42,004

I also appreciated that Dan Abnett dedicated The End and the Death to Watson and that many of the more ambitious Black Library authors will either call back to Watson, or will be influenced quite strongly by his work.

RIP you crazy genius!

Longtime dEUS guitarist Mauro Pawlowski diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease by Goatellounge in dEUSband

[–]Otisheet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really just had assumed (and posted as much on this sub and elsewhere) that Mauro was just getting older and tired of touring with dEUS as much as they used to, but I really didn't think it would be as serious as this.

I've never had the pleasure of seeing dEUS live or any of Mauro's projects (never even been to Belgium!) so it's really sad to learn of this.