Strange Humanoids of Antarctica
January 24, 2010
The excellent Japanese culture blog Pink Tentacle reveals the story of the “Ningen”, strange white humanoids inhabiting the Antarctic coast.
Check out the rest here.
January 24, 2010
The excellent Japanese culture blog Pink Tentacle reveals the story of the “Ningen”, strange white humanoids inhabiting the Antarctic coast.
Check out the rest here.
December 6, 2009
Novel: James Vance Marshall: White-Out (Soho Press, 1999)
James Vance Marshall’s White-Out is in many ways the quintessential Antarctic novel. Its centerpiece is a long sledging journey undertaken across the Antarctic Peninsula by a group of men fighting for survival. All the usual privations from hunger to the blizzards are featured in turn.
The story starts like [...]
November 25, 2009
Photo book: Paul Nicklen: Polar Obsession (National Geographic, 2009)
Polar Obsession is a collection of photos of the polar regions from National Geographic nature photographer Paul Nicklen’s career. The most impressive thing about Nicklen’s images is the feeling of action, life, even violence they evoke. His images are not mere portraits of animals. They convey animals [...]
November 17, 2009
National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen explains how a leopard seal tried to teach him to catch and eat penguins in the waters off the coast of Antarctica:
August 27, 2009
Children’s book: Kenneth Hite & Christina Rodriguez: Antarctic Express (Atlas Games, 2009)
Ken Hite’s Antarctic Express sounds like a joke: it’s a children’s picture book version of H.P. Lovecraft’s Antarctic tale At the Mountains of Madness. Surprisingly, it’s pretty good, probably because it feels like it’s been done in all seriousness. I haven’t seen many tales [...]
August 25, 2009
English Russia has photos from the first Soviet Antarctic expedition, in 1955. Here’s a link to the original source.
August 20, 2009
Game designer and academician J. Tuomas Harviainen reviews my game Ikuisuuden laakso (The Valley of Eternity) in his blog:
…
Compared to, say, Itras By or Stalker, it is a very simple game, almost a Forge-like one trick pony. Yet it does do its own thing really well, and it seems a very good game to start [...]
August 19, 2009
The antipenguins of my roleplaying game Ikuisuuden laakso (The Valley of Eternity) exist as Spore creatures, courtesy of user Tullius.
Check it out:
July 6, 2009
Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura ry julkaisee tämän vuoden Ropeconissa kaksi roolipeliä. Toinen on norjasta käännetty surrealistinen peli nimeltä Itran kaupunki ja toinen on oma pingviiniaiheinen esikoispelini Ikuisuuden laakso.
Ikuisuuden laakso on paikka, jonne pingviinit tulevat kuolemaan. Etelämantereen loputon jäätikkö on armoton vihollinen. Siellä selviävät vain rohkeimmat pingviinisankarit ja katalimmat antipingviinit.
Pingviinisankari elää elämänsä yksin. Hän on nähnyt asioita, [...]
May 23, 2009
Non-fiction: ed. Nancy Robinson Flannery: This Everlasting Silence - The love letters of Paquita Delprat and Douglas Mawson 1911-1914 (Melbourne University Press, 2000)
The Australian Douglas Mawson is an Antarctic explorer contemporary with his more famous colleagues Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernst Shackleton. He’s less known because he never attempted stunts like being first [...]
March 23, 2009
A friend sent me the link to this, a gallery of historical polar images called Freeze Frame. It’s maintained by the British Scott Polar Research Institute. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there, from photos almost a hundred years old to very recent stuff, like the one above.
March 18, 2009
Roleplaying game supplement: Charles and Janyce Engan: Beyond the Mountains of Madness (Chaosium inc. 1999)
Beyond the Mountains of Madness is a Thirties campaign adventure published for the Call of Ctulhu roleplaying game. Some of the best roleplaying adventures ever made have been published for the Call of Cthulhu game, and this one continues in that [...]
March 3, 2009
English Russia has some great photographs from a Russian Antarctic base, by Anton Chekalin:
March 2, 2009
Documentary tv-series: Planet Earth, episode Ice Worlds (U.K. 2006)
Planet Earth is a spectacularly produced BBC nature program aiming to cover the entire planet Earth. Episode number six, Ice Worlds, covers the polar regions.
Given the general nature of the show, not much of the content is new, but the images are certainly spectacular. There’s surprisingly brutal [...]
February 18, 2009
Documentary: Norbert Wu: Under Antarctic Ice (U.S.A. 2001)
This is an hour-long documentary following the photographer Norbert Wu as he’s taking pictures for his book, also called Under Antarctic Ice. Content-wise this is a bit vacuous, but the images are perfect and gorgeous. Everything in the documentary is beautiful, from the impressive underwater splendor to the [...]