Best of the Best: Vorkosigan Saga

 To continue from fantasy to SciFi recommendations: My greatest "discovery" of the last years was the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is a series that is mostly military SciFi and mostly following the exploits of Miles Vorkosigan, who is the scion of a noble house, crippled by poison before birth, and also an utter rascal.

What makes the somewhat standard storylines work is Bujold's streamlined writing and a genuinely funny main character who bluffs his way from challenge to challenge. I am not through with the whole series yet, but do take a bite every 1-2 months with another book that I devour in 1-2 evenings.

Stay Epic!

Best of the Best: Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere

 Of the reading I did in recent years, the nerdy centre has been Brandon Sanderson's oevre. His fantasy-that-is-close-to-SciFi style and worldbuilding is not for everybody, but it has me in its grip.

While he came to wider attention with his Mistborn series and by finishing Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's untimely death, I consider his Stormlight Archive series to be my favourite. It combines an alien world with great character development, and it is currently at the halfway point of five out of ten books. His original fantasy stories are all connected in a greater "Cosmere", which enriches reading depth. I have recently finishes reading the last story part of the Cosmere, and even with Sanderson's driven writing speed (we are talking about a guy who wrote four extra books during the pandemic) it leaves me wanting for more.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: The Dominions series

There is a series of fantasy strategy games that unites Spartan graphics, ultra-detailed mechanics and absolutely everything of myths, legends and fantasy lore into a single game: Dominions.

Currently at Dominions 6, it is the game for people who want to dig into fantasy warfare campaigns with micro- and macro-management and many opportunities for role playing.

Multiplayer mode and extensive mods (including randomized and a full-blown Forgotten Realms mod) on top of incredible customisation allow for incredible replayability. Sure, it is not an easy game to get into. But it tries to give lots of information on what is going on. Mostly.

If you enjoy old-school gaming and fantasy, give it a try.

Also seen at: Mastodon

 As I am trying to keep up a public researcher profile, I do give sporadic updates on Mastodon. It is not exactly busy, but if you are around in the Fediverse, please follow me!

Best of the Best: Slay the Spire

 It occured to me that I could make up for my lack of content over the last decade with a series of posts about the "best" media that I encountered over that time. Favourite book series, long-time gaming favourites, whatever comes to my mind.

Let's start with Slay the Spire. In short, it is an unforgiving roguelite card builder game.

Collect cards, potions, and relics on your mission to slay the heart of the Spire. Do not expect to win often. One round going up to three hours for successful and complex builds, I can fit that time into even busy weeks without worries about RPG or strategy campaigns. I can even play it on the Switch. Oh, and part two is in development right now.

It is not a "new" game, but one that I come back to some time since years. 

Chronological Necromancy: G.O.D.'s not dead

 Another effort to process the last half-decade: My band Gradient of Disorder is still crawling forward, and we released our first album in 2021:
misEntropic

Since then, we released two music videos, of which we are very proud:

Horny Vikings

Cheri Cheri Lady

Check them out and shudder in awe.

Stay epic!

Recommendation: Tactical Breach Wizards

 One of the most enjoyable new games I recently played is Tactical Breach Wizards, which is essentially a puzzle game camouflaging as squad tactics game in the vein of XCOM Chimera Squad. What sets it apart is the good story and enjoyable character writing. It also has a good campaign playtime that does not overstay its welcome, yet a lot of bonus missions for when you want a bit more tactical defenestration.

Stay epic!

More Epic adventures!

 Dear all,

Turns out I slightly forgot about blogging for the last half decade or so. I hope to do a bit better in the future, at least announcing other cool stuff I am doing. Let's start with my newest Epic Adventures: My (german) Podcast about my research year abroad:

Epic Adventures UK - The Podcast

Apart from playing with yet another medium, this podcast is the opportunity to communicate about what moving abroad for science projects entails. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Stay epic!