Are you a gamer on the go who needs a quick Dungeons & Dragons fix? Good news! Wizards of the Coast and DeNA have just announced Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War, a battle role-playing game involving familiar elements like character leveling, questing and team collaboration. The game is rumored to be based on the "D&D Next" system (currently in open beta), rather than the fourth edition of the game. Arena of War will be available in both the Google Play store and the iTunes app store. A release date hasn't been announced yet, but if you want to be notified when it's available then drop by the official site and register. Do it now and you'll get access to an exclusive in-game power: "Cause Fear".

Thalia Sutton is an independent scholar and writer of fiction. She holds a Master’s in East Asian Studies from Columbia University in the City of New York, and is delighted every time a form has a box allocated in which to check “Master” as her legal title. Welcome to the final  installment of the Greek Myth in A Game of Thrones series. (Caution! Spoilers through book 3! Turn back now if you have not yet done your reading for Season 3!) Even without assuming Robert Baratheon as Zeus and Cersei as Hera, Stannis Baratheon is immediately recognizable as Apollo. Apollo is the god of light. Not the sun, per se, but light itself and precognition thereby. Academic evidence suggests, however, that this position is a stolen one: Worship of Apollo at Delphi (where his cult was strongest as the lord of light) came only after worship of an “indigenous” goddess there was booted out. (This appears in the myth of Apollo killing the snake at Delphi.) He also became, in reality, the god of light by his worship slowly subsuming that of Helios, the Titan god of the Sun. Worship of the lord of light as a non-indigenous cult, and necessarily destroying worship of the other gods already present? Sound familiar, Stannis? A second major similarity is that Apollo, like Stannis, is the rightful heir that no one wants. Apollo is Zeus’s eldest son, but as the god of Order, he’s stodgy and stern; he seems incapable of having fun. He does his duty to a fault, driving the sun chariot all day. He is properly cultured in music and athletics as a man of society, but he’s not interested in the charms of others, nor their opinions; he’s interested in knowing he is ruling, and that he is right. He is preoccupied with justice of his own fashioning, and in a strange way, is more interested in his children than Zeus ever was, not that he’s any better at it. Zeus, on the other hand, could care less about ruling, and enjoys the pleasures of company to a fault. But that’s not all. Apollo has the power to rule, but in popular opinion his feats pale in comparison to the epic grandeur of Zeus’s battles. He has the most enormous father complex of any of Zeus’s sons; Stannis has a predominant grudge about what he feels due him from King Robert, our Zeus. As you can see, Stannis’s rigidity is a strong correlation to Apollo, as is his interaction with and contrast to Robert Baratheon. Furthermore, Apollo is by far the strongest of Zeus's sons -- until Dionysus comes along. But who is our Dionysus? Why, the third Baratheon brother, of course: Renly. Dionysus is the youngest of Zeus’s godly sons, the god of the vine and all that comes with it: personability, parties, insane courage, wild destruction, and altered states of consciousness. Renly hosts the biggest and longest party in the entire series to date: taking his troops up the Roseroad in lavish fashion that, as Catelyn Stark describes, is arduously slow because it’s more feasting than fighting. The gathering of Renly’s host strongly recalls Dionysus’s ability to talk most anyone onto his side; the host’s movements likewise illustrate Dionysus’s long and lavish beach parties as he wanders from town to town with his horde of drunken women enchanted by his charismatic, and slightly dangerous, presence. Dionysus has what everyone wants, and people love him for it. He is the ultimate connector to people, just as Apollo is ultimately disconnected. He can turn people against each other or make them best friends. Apollo knows that if Dionysus asked to rule, in a heartbeat, men and gods alike would let him. But Apollo is the only one who could hold the thunderbolt if Zeus left. Dionysus would never be able to hold it; he would keep it is locked away in a back room, a shadow to remind people that he has the throne. In practice, he would rule by love and generosity and the merit of the people around him. He'd govern by the fun of day and remind people, when he had to, that he was gatekeeper of death's mysteries. To quote Colasso quoting Pindar, Dionysus is “the pure light of midsummer.” Apollo is the chill light of winter that demands its sacrifice before spring can be allowed in once more. These dynamics are easily visible between a Dionysian Renly and an Apollonian Stannis, and making the two of them brothers to Zeus is a fantastic twist. If Apollo is light, Dionysus is shadow; Apollo takes light to divine the future, but Dionysus divines from darkness: the mysterious, "unknowable" underworld.  Apollo burns mortals to ash with light like his father; Dionysus slowly afflicts mortals to doom by madness and their own hands. In A Song of Ice and Fire, we see an amusing response to this: it is Stannis-Apollo who turns to the dark side and slowly goes mad for it, and Renly-Dionysus who is pleasantly oblivious to the world’s troubles, living it up in the sun. Renly’s peaches, after all, are a signal to Stannis that “even if we fight, life is to be enjoyed.” It is the ultimate Dionysian thought. The whole concoction between Renly and Stannis is a brilliant "what-if" scenario for Apollo and his little brother Dionysus. Others What about the other parts of Stannis’s crew: Melisandre, Stannis’s wife, or Patchface? I really don't know. Davos seems a crafty Daedalus: helping at first on his own whim, then commissioned to help, and then shut up in a tower and forced to engineer help to a king nearly mad. He’s then exiled from said king for, ironically, not killing the other resident of the tower, Edric Storm, our innocent Icarus. As for Melisandre, I’ll hazard a guess that she’s a reverse Medusa. Instead of turning people into stone, she rattles about the earth trying to revive dragons from stone. She’s beautiful, and fiery, and everything the Medusa myth embodies in the public consciousness while at the same time trying to illustrate the opposite. Yet Melisandre also fits a space inherent in many cultural traditions, of foreign prophet and Red Woman. If you want to stick with Greek, though, beyond Medusa, she could be a wonderful twist on an angry Cassandra getting revenge, or just the author's fantasy woman from his D&D days (I'm taking liberty and a very small swatch of my imagination and assuming he had them). Cassandra was the priestess at Troy that was loved by Apollo, but whom rejected him. As a punishment, he gave her the power of foresight, but stipulated that no one would heed her. But what happened to Cassandra after the fall of Troy? No one knows. Perhaps she went on to breathe fire into dragons. This Series comes in 8 parts: 1. Introduction; Robert and Cersei as Zeus and Hera (spoilers through book 1) 2. Cersei, Jaime, as Aphrodite, Ares; Tywin Lannister and Gregor Clegane as Uranus and a Titan (spoilers through book 3) 3. Joffery, Myrcella, and Tommen as Eros, Harmonia, and Anteros (spoilers through book 3) 4. Tyrion as Odysseus (Spoilers through book 3) 5. Sansa as Psyche; Lysa Arryn and son as Demeter and Persephone; Littlefinger as Hermes (Spoilers through book 3) 6. Loras and Renly as Achilles and Patroclus (Spoilers through book 1) 7. Brienne and Margaery as Briseis and Helen of Troy (Spoilers through book 3) 8. Stannis and Renly as Apollo and Dionysus; Stannis’s Crew as Daedalus, Icarus, and Cassandra (Spoilers through book 2)

1A4, the same company that did the Star Wars speedrun I reported on a few weeks ago is back, and this time it's a take on ALIENS. Aliens remains one of my favorite action-horror films, and the creative minds at 1A4 have taken it and made it - dare I say - adorable. I love everything about this video, even the xenomorphs! They're so freakin' acid-spewin' cute. Check it out below, and then let me know what you'd love to see as a speedrun!

Artwork courtesy of Joshua Stolte

In Jacquelyn Frank’s novel Forever, police officer Jackson Waverly is brought back from death only to discover that his body has become host to a Bodywalker, the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Menes. Waverly has to share his form with Menes, who is intent on reuniting with his eternal love Hatshepsut. While Forever is clearly a work of fiction, and a romantic one at that, there are many who believe that they have involuntarily shared their bodies with spirits. Many may imagine demonic possession to be a relic of the Middle Ages that has long since been consigned to horror movies and comic books. Not so: Exorcisms continue to this very day, both within Catholic and Protestant churches. Desperate men and women blame demons for a variety of ills, both emotional and physical. Some of them exhibit frightening and unpredictable changes in behavior, leading their loved ones to occasionally seek the service of a clergyman, if not a physician. How an exorcism is performed depends on the religious tradition of the possessed. Rites can be relatively unstructured or highly formal affairs with prescribed recitations of liturgical material and the use of various sacred items. What unifies all exorcisms is the high emotional tenor. The possessed and clergy may appear to be engaged in a battle of wills, with the afflicted’s soul in the balance. Not all exorcisms are deemed a success. Some of those seeking the rite will return for services again and again. Are the demons real or is the possessed just suffering from some kind of psychological complaint? It depends on who you ask. There are those who believe that the rite is a form of psychodrama: Treatment for emotional pain personified as demons. Others will tell you that both the possessed and clergy are deranged or con artists. Then there are those who say the spiritual world is very real, and that demons are a mortal threat. Who the hell knows?

HARDCOVER

Blood and Bone: A Novel of the Malazan Empire by Ian C. Esslemont The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E. B. Hudspeth Tarnished (Silver) by Rhiannon Held

The Chronicles of Koa: Netherworld (Volume 1) by K. N. Lee and Ann Wicker Duty, Honor or Death The Corps Sticks by Ronald Wintrick The Eighth Succession by Don Sakers The Emerald Rider (Dragoneer Saga Book Four) by M. R. Mathias The Garden of Stones (Echoes of Empire) by Mark T. Barnes Noble V: Greylancer by Hideyuki Kikuchi Northcliffe (The Ethereal Crossings) (Volume 3) by D. L. Miles Omega Force: Soldiers of Fortune by Joshua Dalzelle Once Upon a World by Teodora Monova A Questionable Shape by Bennett Sims The Red Plague Affair (Bannon and Clare) by Lilith Saintcrow Star Trek Into Darkness by Alan Dean Foster Warrior Crone by Jen Christopherson

A A Plus X Vol. 01 Equals Awesome Archies 1000 Pg Comics Digest Artifacts Vol. 05 Cable And X-Force Classic Vol. 01 Chasing The Dead Clone Vol. 01 Demon Knights Vol. 02 The Avalon Trap FF By Jonathan Hickman Vol. 04 Flash Gordon Vol. 01 Zeitgeist G.I. Joe Complete Cobra Command Godzilla Half Century War Grifter Vol. 02 New Found Power (n52) Harbinger Vol. 02 Renegades Journey Into Mystery Featuring Sif Vol. 01 Stronger Than Monsters Now My Dirty Dumb Eyes Nazi Zombies Patricia Briggs Alpha & Omega Cry Wolf Vol. 02 Property Red Sonja Atlantis Rises Sabrina The Teenage Witch Magic Within Vol. 02 Scott Pilgrim Color Vol. 03 (of 6) Secret Avengers By Rick Remender Vol. 02 Sonic Universe Vol. 05 Tails Adventure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Works Vol. 01 Uncanny X-Men By Kieron Gillen Vol. 04 Vampirella Archives Vol. 07 Wally Wood Eerie Tales Of Crime & Horror Wolverine Best There Is Complete Series

I love short stories. Therefore, I love anthologies! Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin have delivered one helluv an anthology in Rogues. They turned in the completed manuscript last week to their editor at Bantam Spectra. Which is pretty damn cool for me because—since I freelance for Bantam Spectra—I might be able to read the book early! From George's Not a Blog:

"This one was an enormous amount of fun. We’re got something for everyone in Rogues — SF, mystery, historical fiction, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, comedy, tragedy, crime stories, mainstream. And rogues, cads, scalawags, con men, thieves, and scoundrels of all descriptions. If you love Harry Flashman and Cugel the Clever, as I do, this is the book for you. If there’s any bloody justice, some of these stories will contend for awards."

• George R.R. Martin: “Everybody Loves a Rogue” (Introduction)
• Joe Abercrombie: “Tough Times All Over”
• Gillian Flynn: “What Do You Do?”
• Matthew Hughes: “The Inn of the Seven Blessings”
• Joe R. Lansdale: “Bent Twig”
• Michael Swanwick: “Tawny Petticoats”
• David Ball: “Provenance”
• Carrie Vaughn: “The Roaring Twenties”
• Scott Lynch: “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane”
• Bradley Denton: “Bad Brass”
• Cherie Priest: “Heavy Metal”
• Daniel Abraham: “The Meaning of Love”
• Paul Cornell: “A Better Way to Die”
• Steven Saylor: “Ill Seen in Tyre”
• Garth Nix: “A Cargo of Ivories”
• Walter Jon Williams: “Diamonds From Tequila”
• Phyllis Eisenstein: “The Caravan to Nowhere”
• Lisa Tuttle: “The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives”
• Neil Gaiman: “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”
• Connie Willis: “Now Showing”
• Patrick Rothfuss: “The Lightning Tree”

Annalee Newitz is the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember. She recently took a few minutes from her busy tour schedule to discuss the predictability of catastrophic events and how we might survive them.

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death. Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.

If you're into the ancient world or the Greco-Roman era like I am, this book is for you. Thermae Romae, or Roman Baths, is yet another gem in Yen's prize-winning arsenal. By female writer and illustrator Mari Yamazaki, the two-book series tells the story of a Roman bath architect, Lucius Modestus, who is magically transported from the Roman Empire in 100 AD to modern-day Japan, and back again. The book has won both the Manga Taisho Grand Prize in 2010 and the 14th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, and it shows: Not a single page is extraneous to the storytelling. Each chapter is a self-contained short featuring the main character and a look at some segment of Japanese bathing culture, in honest but uplifting ways. The story progresses well and imaginatively. The art style superbly suits the aesthetic principals of ancient Rome. This book is everything you could want it to be. Originally written for adults, the humor is frank. So too are the topics covered and their depictions, whether it be in caring for the elderly, going to fertility festivals, or being mistaken as the new pet of Emperor Hadrian. But that's exactly why it shines: Yamazaki lightly pokes fun at everything, while taking an academic view of things. As the book goes on, the seasoned American manga reader will find that frankness amusing, endearing, and a relief: Finally, a fiction that is, while fantastic, but not sensationalized. Yamazaki includes her own research experiences in bathing in Japan and Italy, which adds a little extra something to the presentation, as well. This is a work where the older reader is confidently spoken to at his or her maturity level. Thermae Romae feels like a lighthearted tale a professor might spin at a cultural studies lecture to help a modern student conceptualize practices in antiquity. It brings ancient Rome into focus, while critiquing modern Japan, maintaining a positive angle on both sides. For this reason, I feel the series would be very good for students of Japanese culture in high school or above, or for writing students who want perspective on composing historical fiction. There's even a chapter on proper bathing practices in modern Japan. Luckily for educators, Thermae Romae comes in hardcover library binding. That makes it a little more expensive, but the durability is well worth the investment. Each volume is oversized -- almost 8.5" x 11" -- and 350 pages, so hardcover was a good and proper pick on the part of Yen's staff. All around -- the art, story, translation, and physical aspects of the American publishing -- the work is solid. Plus, now I get to geek out about more Greco-Roman stuff. What isn't to love? Thermae Romae: the first hardcover manga I've ever owned, and totally worth it.