This time there are four new Film reviews. for you. One for the quite disappointing "Aeon Flux," which had little to offer except an attractive star and a few good action scenes. Another for Steven Spielbergs impressive "Munic," a Film about the Spiral of Violence set against the terrorist attacks during the olympic games in Munich 1972. I have also reviewed Terence Malick's ususual journey into "The New World" and finally "Underworld: Evolution," which was for me the positive surprise of the season, which turned out to be a pretty good action film.
I went to the cinema again and watched three more films, giving you three new reviews. The first was "Serenity," which was surprisingly weak, particluarly in choreography and characters. The second was the quite good fantasy Adventure "Chronicles of Narnia," the last one was the long-winded "King Kong," which while not exactly disappointing was not as good as I thought it was going to be.
After all those reviews, I finally got around to write a new short story, finally starring Elle Helldancer and her partner Ianar Weaver in their own tale, where they encounter the mysterious Ilanora Deathcry and become drawn into her cursed destiny. The story's title is "The Ghost Of Nightstone. Here is a short piece of the story to wet your apetite:
Finally the path led away from the oppressive silence of the forest and crossed the hills. The growths were thick as underbrush, offering ample concealment for bandits. "Draw your sword," the sorcerer said quietly. Elle did so, taking a bit longer to recognise the unnatural movement of the bushes and the glint of copper and bronze in the sun. A single man blocked the way. "You must be wealthy to carry a sword of steel," he said. "Give me all your valuables." Elle shook her head. "You will kill me anyway," she said. The man sighed and signalled with his hand.
Almost two dozen bandits leapt from the bushes and stood in each other's way trying to attack the travellers. Elle growled and exploded into motion, her eyes glowing like iron fire. Within moments the earth was drenched with blood. Scattered corpses, split at their waists, decapitated, pierced through the heart and some with a cracked skull made movement treacherous. A few of the bandits stumbled, but Elle and Ianar slaughtered them without mercy. Then only the leader was left and the female warrior turned to face him. He wore leather armour cut into several pieces strapped together to allow for his vast bulk. The man wielded a heavy bronze sword.
Another new set of reviews. This time four new films are reviewed: The atmospherically dense "Doom," which is filled with ridiculous characters and awfully repetitve, the somewhat disappointing "Legende des Zorro," which doesn't manage to smooth out its genre-mix, the fun "Wallace und Groomit auf der Jagd nach dem Werkaninichen" and Tim Burtons brilliant puppet animation "Corpse Bride."
Today I have added reviews, of two new Films. The russion made "Wächter der Nacht" (Night Watch /Nochnoi Dozor), which turned out to be a disappointmeent and of Terry Gilliams wonderful "Brothers Grimm." There are also a few technical changes, but most people, who know my site probably will not notice the difference.
A huge number of new film reviews, but they are all in german, so I will continue in that language. Dieses mal sind es nicht weniger als 19 neue Reviews, einge sogar von Filmen, die noch im Kino laufen. Die folgenden Filme wurden dieses mal verartztet: Sin City, Charlie und die Shokoladenfabrik, Die Insel, Mr. und Mrs. Smith, Fantastic Four, Madagascar, Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis, Robots, Die Unglaublichen, Die Bourne Identität, Catwoman, Exit Wounds, Fluch der Karibik, Halb Tot, Hidalgo, Irgendwann in Mexico, Peter Pan, Shrek 2, und Windtalkers.
This update brings as many as five new film reviews: Star Wars - Episode II, Star Wars - Episode III, Kingdom Of Heaven, Batman Begins and War Of The Worlds. There is also a new chapter of the tale of Jean and Jonthan entitled "Port Of Adventure."
Today you get as much as three new chapters of the Sinister Eyes eyes Story. One of them is quite small, I will admit, but it is something to read. The chapters are called "The Swords Of Fire And Ice," "The Refugees" and "Paths of Rock." Our champions continue their way to find the mysterious River of Steel, hoping it will give them the strength they need to destroy the evil of the broken village.
I know I did not update for some time. Real life was in the way of writing new stuff for this site. There are three knew texts now. There are two entirely new chapters of the Sinister Eyes Story. The first "Exodus" tells the tale of the villagers having to leave their cursed home to save their souls. The second "Wild Mountains" continues with the journey of the adventurers into the mountains, enroute to find out what they are actually facing. The third article introduces the land mage class for any D&D game, which may want a new flavour of magic.
I have managed to write another double update. There are two newly rewritten chapters for my Sinister Eyes story. The new chapters are "Battle Cry" and "Unlikely Allies." I have also done the first revision of the Mists Of The Void area, making some changes to the Rules Of The Void section, more clearly separating the Player's and the Dungeon Master's areas. If you did actually read the previous version, you may notice, that not everything is yet in the new version, but them I am not yet sure, where to put every piece.
Now for the first weekly update, I have rewritten parts four, five and six of the Sinister Eyes story. I have also proof-read parts one, two, three and four, where I found a few really odd errors, most of the type that a spellchecker does not find. I hope this makes things a bit clearer. Additionally I have written a new chapter of the Song of Jean And Jonathan story, which is located in the Mists Of The Void area of this site.
I have redesigned parts of the site, removing the old "About the Bard" and the "Music Reviews" area. They have been replaced with sections for film reviews (in german) and a section for Spelljammer respectively. I have defined the goal of changing or writing something on or for my site once a week, or at least once in a month from now on. I hope I can keep up the work for more time, than the last update allowed me to...
Now I have finally managed to update my site after all these years. Mostly I have changed the e-Mail address in the right-site navigation circle, so that you can write me, if anyone ever bothers. I would not trust the forms, which use an old Geocities script, which is probably no longer available. I created this years ago, when they offered a lot more cool gimmicks. And before I forget, there are two new monsters in the Almanac. I have also updated all other statistics (I think) to D&D 3rd edition rules.
I have created another story for you to enjoy. This time it is a fantasy fiction space opera. I think it is a little more gritty than some of what you know, because it is based on a fairly rough milieu, as the title suggests. As usual here are two teaser paragraphs for you to enjoy. Space Mercenary is a fun place to have adventures. Enjoy.
The same uneasy feeling, that had interrupted her reverie in Jard’s office stopped her train of thought. A slight difference to this event was that the feeling was more urgent, more direct. There was something seriously wrong. A slight change in the lighting in the corner of her eye confirmed her suspicion. She leapt to the floor, rolled to the side three times and got up to kneel behind a metal crate. Blinding beams of light flashed overhead and a few rebounded off her cover. She reflexively deactivated the locks of her heels and hid them beneath her dress. Quickly calculating the direction of the attackers, she drew her gun.
Ozone lingered in the air, the fragrance of battle and melting steel. Muttering a curse she looked at a circular hole in the wall, dripping fluid metal that hardened on its way down the wall to leave bulging outcroppings on the otherwise smooth metal surface. Melting lasers where forbidden on board of space stations for obvious reasons. When they punched through walls, the affected area would instantly decompress. For operations smaller than Stardust it usually meant the death of the whole crew and anything else on board that needed to breathe. She sighed and adjusted the energy of her gun to instantly kill humans.
Yeah right, I have just opened the last missing area of my homepage, the area about me. Due to my current mood its a lot gloomier than any other part of my site. You can simply find it by clicking on the "Harp" [which is now symbol for the [Tales] section. The "Who is the Bard" area no longer exists.]
It has been a too good month for metal, this January and early February. With four top class albums within that short time, I start to get into trouble, because my budget is really only sufficient for two in a month. With Therion, Steel Prophet, Running Wild and newcomer Sonata Arctica, it should not be much of a surprise, that I might be running out of money sooner this month. Oh well, I guess there are a lot of more stupid ways to spent money.
I have slightly updated the links, to refelct the changed nature of the planescape net works. I guess links can never be recent enough, but I am trying my best to keep up with the moves and manoevres of various sit owners. Do not forget me to tell me of any broken or dated links.
I have added a new story to the Tales area of my site. It is a fun, interesting story, that should by fairly easy to read, especially considering it is a fast-paced, superficial comic-style type of thing. I mean what do you expect me to create when I have worked on the text less than eight hours? There are a few teaser paragraphs of The Endless War to wet your appetite, as usual. Did I mention you are free to hate me for it. :)
"No", Jenny said. "I am already married for a very long time. I thought I already told you so." He nodded. "You never told me about your husband." She said: "I have not seen him for a time, and you would not believe me. One thing at a time. You already had to swallow a number of bitter pills." He smiled and said: "Not as bad as you thought they would be. I always had a feeling that things were different than they are usually told. We do not even know a lot about things five centuries or a single millennium old, but more than two? Things have to be misinterpreted over time." Jenny said: "Actually it has been done very deliberately and with a specific purpose in mind in this case to make things even more complicated. What do you expect fiends to do?"
Father Jonah looked at her and said: "You are right of course. Do you ever make mistakes?" She nodded and said: "More often than I would like to admit. If I had not messed up all those centuries ago, we might have faced a lot less trouble and could probably do without this battle." He asked: "Is this the final battle?" She shook her head and said: "No. It is just another one. This war has raged from the beginning of time and will rage to the end of time, probably even before and after those marks, because time does not really end. It is only suspended for some unmeasured period. That does not mean, that the coming battle is not important. It might quite well determine the fate of this world for a very long time. If I did not think of the fight as important, I had given up long ago."
I will be offline (or at least completely disconnected from me mail account which amounts to the same for you) until January the 8th or 9th in the next year. (If heaven did fall on our heads until then. :) That is, spar your echo until I am back, or you will only be pointlessly clogging my inbox without getting anything out of it, except possibly a very angry Mystical Old Bard.
This is the contents part of the update. It is not much, but it is fun to read. It is only a little silly article about a weird idea I had some day. You can currently only access it from the following link, because I do not know were to put it. It is a little article about Psychopathic Surgery. Read it and have fun. (Yes, the background is supposed to look barmy :)
Now do you remember those freak stories and movies, where some psychopathic, insane (and of course evil) doctor uses an axe or a chainsaw instead of usual tools to do their surgery? Well, even if you do not, I guess the description is quite obvious. Did I mention it is done without the necessary anaesthetics. Not? Oh well, everyone forgets things at times.
"...Raging on in madness until the final day / Darkness falls and light will rise / (The) force of judgement finally strikes / Victory!..." This is from the Running Wild album "Victory", going into stores in January. Grab your own preview mp3s at running-wild.de, the new (unfinished) homepage of the band. The samples sound very promising, lets hope the release will be as good, though judging by just 105 seconds of music may be a little off track, but then again we are talking about Running Wild here.
I know I have not updated in half an eternity but neither my site, nor me are actually dead. :) I will try to update more frequently, so this site becomes more attractive. There will be news flashes about things that spark my interest, like the Running Wild thing. Of course there will also be content-based updates. Is this a good or a bad idea? What Should I do to make the site more attractive? Tell me what you think.
I have done a few minor changes to the front page too, will you even notice them? In addition I am working on several other texts, but I do not have the slightest idea, when I am going to get anything finished, but stay tuned and do not forget to remind me, that you want to read more of my writing. :)
26. I have completely revamped Gillian's Alamanac and it should now be ready for upload. If you do not know what I am talking about, it is the beastiary of this site, so have fun with beings both good and bad.
Be aware traveller, that the tome you hold in your hands has been chronicled to help you overcoming many of the living obstacles you might encounter. There is no warranty about the accuracy of this tome, or its applicability to your area. Many civilisations have the same names for vastly different creatures, so do not be mislead if you know any creature listed here by another name. I have noted them under the names, I have most often heard for the being in question. If there are several common names, they are listed within the description of the creature.
26. I have to excuse myself for the javascript chaos on my front page. I made several mistakes, but they should be corrected now. Everything should work and preload the way it is supposed to. Again big excues to everyone who bothered and got killed by javascript errors. Mail me if you find any other bugs. There is a button for either a form a a good-old mail-to on top of each page except in the central area.
25. The upload seems complete now, but I still have to check for bugs (and curse Netscape's cache another time). Forget anything you read about Gillian's Alamanac. I realised that the current version sucks and will add it as soon as I have created a better one.
I have written a few new entries for Gillian's Alamanac, but the whole thing is in its early stages and is not really worth your time yet. There are numerous things I have to write yet, before it is as massive (and good) as I want it to be. It is upload day, because anything else is complete so far.
22. I have reviewed most of the newer texts and removed a few bugs from them. Theoritically the site can be uploaded the way it is, because there are no dead links left, though the Almanac still needs a lot of work. It only contains two creatures so far, so do not bother yet. I also have to create new meta tags for the search engines and migrate them into all documents.
21. For one the silly little poems are back, popping up in the "empty" area of the pentagram, when you mouse your mouse pointer over the links to the various areas of my site.
Most of the reviews of the "Sounds I Listen To Area" are done now, but there is still work to do, before I am at a point that the area is finished. I hope I can upload the new site this week.
Some time later the reviews are as finished as any part of a WebSite can be. Now I only have to add to and edit several of the newer articles in the Beheaded Fiend Inn area.
15. Finally Dirkinigar has joined the Regulars, Visitors and other Bloods Area, so that the fiendslayer companions are finally complete. He is the dwarven battlerager without a past, who does not Remember who he is, or even where he is from.
There was a knock at the door. The dwarf nodded and realised that whoever was on the other side could not see him. He said: "Come in." Tandra Fiendslayer entered the room and asked: "Something wrong? I heard you scream." Dirkinigar said: "It was another of those sodding nightmares. I never get rid of them. I have seen incredibly horrible things, since I met you, but none of them haunt me like the time when I was tortured beneath the mountain." He smiled bitterly.
I have finally introduced Elle Helldancer. She is a notorious and successful bounty hunter. You do not want to be on her list of targets, believe me.
"I am a bloodthirsty, violent psychopath", Elle said. The man still smiled and said: "You already told me so the first night we slept in one bed. What is the point of repeating it now?" Ianar accompanied the bounty hunter as long as anyone could think, and indeed he was with her since she left the area surrounding her village. Interestingly the handsome man did not draw any attention to himself and he was content letting Elle get it. "Are you trying to get rid of me again?", he asked. She shook her head and said: "No. I am not going to do that again."He asked: "Why?"
9.: I've have finally managed to rewrite The Infinity Web Article. Now the whole chant is told by a shady fey.
The figure slipped into the Beheaded Fiend Inn almost unnoticed, so quickly the door opened and closed. It seemed to be a human female dressed in ragged black clothes. She did not carry any weapons and there was no place to hide spell components on her body. Still people inched away from her unconsciously, as though they where afraid of being near the creature. Tandra looked at her guests puzzled and ask softly: "Why are they afraid of her?" Elandra said: "She is associated with Death in a way I do not understand." Tandra said gently: "They do not react to you that way." The winged female said: "It is more the promise of dark secrets revealed that makes them shy away. I think she is one of the Deathspeaker fey clan, but do not blame me, if I am wrong."
The figure crossed the distance between the doorway and the counter, followed by an unsual hush. Chatter was slow to pick up after the female had passed. She faced Tandra, who returned her gaze without blinking, not comprehending the fear the stranger had generated. "You want to tell me something?", she asked. The stranger nodded and said: "I wanted to talk about planar pathways and one you most likely do not even know." Her voice was only a whisper, just below creating real tone. When Tandra walked to the stranger to lead her to a remote table it seemed as though the stranger was only half the size of the imposing fiendslayer. The whisperer was slender beyond the point of being thin and more than a full head smaller than Tandra.
Curious? I hope that you are and want to read the rest of the text and learn more about the Infinity Web.
4.: The Vistit Worlds Fantastic... area is finished, and the Sounds I Listen To Area has an index page, but no contents behind it yet. All text from the old page, except the information about the author is up and runnig again. Now it is time to write the new contents, that complete the redesign.
30.: The Beheaded Fiend Inn design is finished for several days, but several characters are still missing. The "Worlds Fantastic..." section of the site has opened with a revamp of "Sinister Eyes" the first story I wrote for this site online in a slightly changed design.
6.: The Beheaded Fiend Inn has reopened with a new starting page, that should be far easier to use than the old incarnation, even though you might have to go through a page more to get to the contents.
5.: Tired of the slowly loading front page? I thought so. The Bard's Home has a completely new look. The new navigation interface should be easier to use and load a good deal faster than the old version. So far the front page and the Long Index are finished.
12.: I added the second installment in the Tale Of a Fiendslayer Cycle called "Blood War"
6.: Only facelifts for the front page (You are seeing it) and the Storybook Trove today.
23.: Sorry to all those, who visted my site yesterday, but due to the currently slow performance of Geocities the upload and reorganisation (into subdirectories) of my Website took longer than it should have.
I hope I have found all goofs and errors now. If this is not the case, there is a mail-me and a forms button on every page of my site. (Except on the index page).
21.: A new look for The Beheaded Fiend Inn. (The last incarnation sucked.)
I corrected a few typos in Tale Of A Fiendslayer: Faith And Folly.
I also start to use the subdirectories that even GeoCities homesteaders get now.
This list of updates was added to keep track of the site's developement.
15.: I have added the first Installment in the Tale Of A Fiendslayer Cycle.
I have again worked on the front page's look.
I have corrected an error in the "Baatezu Dilemma" Article.
3.: I have increased the front page's look.
I have added the credits page, so everyone can see, who else contributed to this site.
I have changed the navigation interface and reshaped the Beheaded Fiend Inn Area. Now there should be time to write new stuff for the page.