Oh, and there are some spoilers for Avatar, as well as past Cameron films, in here.

Wrong Side of The Tracks Love

She's an alien and he's a paralyzed human. She's ten times his size, and he just wants to break all the rules. It's the tried-and-true odd-couple pairing that James Cameron took to its stereotypical heights in Titanic. It will never work out between these two and everyone is against them, but that's exactly while we'll root for them. It's cheesy, but it works. And it's all over Avatar.

Power Loader

The mecha power suit sure looks familiar. Maybe that's because you saw the first inklings of this idea in Cameron's mind during Aliens — sure, it's a much more stripped-down version, but if you look at the picture above you can see subtle resemblances between the two. I'd like to think that Cameron was clever enough to incorporate the yellow and black hazard tape on both as a subtle wink to his past, but then again who knows. Still in a film like this, there are very few things that sneak by Cameron unnoticed.

Breathing Masks

For The Abyss, Cameron has these masks made specially, so the audience could see the expression on the divers' faces underwater. It would make sense that he would incorporate the same decision with the Pandora breathing masks. Even if human skin could be exposed on Pandora, a half face mask would block just about all expressions. Plus, it's better than the Battlefield Earth nose plugs, that's for sure.

Save Her From Her Destiny

Boy does Cameron love a woman with a planned-out life. Sarah Connor's destiny is all planned out, Rose is to be married for money, and likewise, Neytiri's life plans are laid out in front of her. Why do Cameron's women always seem to have their lives planned out for them, for better or worse? Even Ripley — her destiny is forever entangled with that of the alien species, and by the time they bring her back as a half-alien and half-human, she's strangely accepted this fate.

The Samson Versus Hunter Killer

James Cameron did design spaceship models in his past. But it's pretty interesting to see how the Samson helicopters in Avatar are basically an upgraded version of the Hunter Killer from Terminator.

Military BAD! Scientists Good!

If you're in the military and not a defected member with a new lease on life, you are an evil killing machine with no respect for life, love, nature and especially aliens. In fact, you HATE aliens. KILL THEM ALL. If you are an everyday joe, driller or scientist who delights in wearing scrubby old clothes and band t-shirts, you are the hero of the story — congrats.

Here's the official synopsis from the BBC, which will be airing the two-day special December 28th and 29th:

The world is struck blind by a solar storm, and millions of man-eating mobile plants are released to roam Britain.

As an expert on the Triffids, Bill Masen knows that salvation rests in the hands of the father he hates, who mutated the Triffids in the first place to produce a green source of oil that the world craves.

Larter is in talks to play Virginia Lake, the "strong but feminine" woman at the heart of the show, says Gratzner. She'd be starring opposite Joshua Jackson, who's playing pilot Paul Foster.

And the new movie is already planned as the first installment in a trilogy — the first screenplay is written, and the second and third movies exist in treatment form. The movie's aliens will still be evil organ-stealing bastards, and they'll be humanoid instead of District 9-style creatures. It sounds like a recipe for exciting G.I. Joe-style schlock, but apparently that's not the goal.

Gratzner, a veteran special-effects worker, tells Forbidden Planet:

What I want to do with UFO is what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman franchise, or Martin Campbell did with Casino Royale. UFO is not a spoof, or a parody or a kids' movie. It's a pretty dark story, actually…it is not a show for young children.

You could argue, of course, that both Batman and James Bond had a track record of being dark and tackling adult themes before those films appeared, whereas UFO has a track record of this:

Great pep talk: "You're doing a fine job — a man's job. But you don't have to do it any better just because you're a woman [in a Lady GaGa costume.] And don't forget, you're a very pretty girl." And then they make the other woman stand with her leg raised , in a silver miniskirt. When she tries to move, they're like, "Hold it right there." As she says, "Not the most flattering of pin-ups."

Anderson's first live-action science fiction series, before Space: 1999, UFO is a delightfully campy adventure show about SHADO, a secret organization that fights evil organ-harvesting aliens. The moonbase staff all wear purple wigs and shiny silver outfits, and the music is jazzay, sixties style.

On the other hand, reading between the lines of Gratzner's interview, it sounds like he really wants to make something closer to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, keeping a lot of the concept design and silly outfits of the original, but with a smidge more character development and slightly more serious plots. But he's namechecking Batman Begins and Casino Royale because they're the gold standard for reboots right now. In any case, an Abrams-esque remake could be an attainable goal, and could actually do quite well amidst a swarm of Nolan-wannabes. Fingers crossed! [Forbidden Planet]

The LA Times is claiming that actor Brolin readying for his next role as a man in black. But this new film may not take place in the here and now. In fact, this new MIB film may be a K origins story, as origins stories seem to be all the rage today.

His exact part is a matter of discussion, but in recent days there's been chatter in Hollywood development circles of a few possibilities: He could play a new single-monikered government agent, with Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K passing the baton to Brolin's character. Or he could play Agent K as a young man. Or something else entirely.

The film is set to start production next year based on the screenplay from Etan Cohen, with Barry Sonnenfeld in the director's chair yet again. We're certainly intrigued, but only if this means we'll get another terrible Will Smith movie-themed rap song to poke fun at.

Thanks to Latino Review we now have a full report on what director Peter Berg is planning for his Battleship movie. It sounds wondrously epic and Independence Day terrible/awesome.

This is what we learned from Berg...

The aliens, called The Regents, came here looking for something, but they are not wholly evil bent on world domination. We did nothing to provoke them, but they still have an ecological interest in our world. Also they fire ballistics, not ray guns and will be half-CG half-"man in a suit" technology. But sadly, their ship is damaged somehow and that becomes another part of the plot:

"the enemy does come from another planet... We tried to keep it a secret, but it's our goal to make that as intelligent and logical, certainly as 'District 9' was able to do. But to provide a real intelligence to our opponent, a logic, a rationale for being there and not purely hostile, violent creatures bent on global destruction. They've got a much more logical agenda planned that happens to come into conflict with us. Then there's a chance for two relatively equal opponents to go at each other and you get a sense of some of the equipment you saw, the level and intelligence of that character of what modern sailors are today."

"There's a group of life forms from some other planet have come to our planet for something. They've got a very specific agenda. That agenda is not global domination. It's an agenda and that agenda puts them into conflict with members of our military. Their technology is relatable. It's not incredibly far out and unbeatable. It's comprehensible. Hopefully it'll make for good fun and an intense ride."

There will be a battleship-esque screen in the game similar to the movie:

"This is a key set in the film. You put this screen on, it's very easy to imagine this as a much more sophisticated Battleship screen from the board game. What they're doing with this screen is identifying threats or identifying objects whether it be in the air, on the sea or underwater. Much the same way you would try to identify or locate your enemy in the game."

And finally the film will be heavily research based when dealing with modern day Naval technology, and what happens when all of their high tech gadgets stop functioning:

"One of the things the film inspires is it takes us into this incredibly complicated world of communications, of radar, of GPS locators, of weapons systems, to show all of this state of art as cool as we possibly can. Somebody asked about backups? (If the computer systems go down) That's another thing we're going to sort of explore. Taking away some of the technology we have.... for example, you'll see there's a light out here [on the battleship the reporters were on]. This is an old fashioned Morse Code signal light. All of this state of the art technology in the world, if everything else goes, if you can't get a cell phone or walkie talkie signal, this can signal Morse code. And obviously in the game Battleship, being able to identity in the game where your enemy is, and locate and identify, is something, that is the core component of the game. Well, one of things we hope to do in this film successfully, is to take away some of this really incredible state of the art technology and have people communicating, and this is just one example, there's others, of using some sort of old-school communication."

To find out more — and there's lots more — check out Latino Review's entire report.

What Science fiction book Aliens invade destroying human population Group of humans discover an underground race with a weapon that can defeat the aliens?

I'm not sure what's scarier: that question, or the answer that someone else posted:

i don't belive this but im only nine yrs old.yeah,there may be aliens but not in our galaxy.thats my answer.if you don't agree then give wiki.answers and i proof.

Is this person really a curious nine-year-old, demanding that someone untangle the Fermi Paradox right now? Or is it an alien, trying to winnow out anyone who might have uncovered proof of their existence? Actually, the best part is Answer.com's list of rephrasings of the original question:

Does aliens sleep? Are aliens murderers? Can aliens transport? Where was aliens seen? The aliens why is here? Where do aliens located? Dose jupiter have aliens? First to discover aliens? Is their aliens around us? Have any aliens been found? Are aliens peacful or harmful? Did einstein believe in aliens? What is your discovory of aliens? Who came up with the idea of aliens? Are aliens going to invade Earth in 2012? How did scienctists prove aliens science fiction? Is there an aliens game on sega mega drive upset aliens 3? Why do many scientists object to the presence of alien life in science fiction?

If you can answer any of these questions, go post at Answers.Com and I'm sure the aliens will come find you soon afterwards. [Answers.Com]

Don't get put off by the first two minutes, I promise you it pays off around 4:03 when you get to see a side-by-side break down of Zoe Saldana flipping out as herself, and as her alien character Neytiri. I think I've watched that part 30 times. Say what you will about the plot or the blue people, you can't deny that the technology in this film is pretty impressive. Especially since Cameron can basically pick any shot he wants from any angle, and the computer will recreate the scene. But on the downside, why does Neytiri sound like Natasha from Bullwinkle?

Found the youtube version for those that have trouble viewing Hulu:

The LA Times' Hero Complex talked to Rick Carter, the production designer on Avatar. Carter also worked on Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture experiment The Polar Express (in addition to films like War of the Worlds and Jurassic Park. While many have described the plot of Avatar as "Dances With Wolves in space," Carter described the film to director James Cameron as "The Wizard of Oz meets Apocalypse Now." But he also told Hero Complex that adding a fantastical component to the traditional story where a character "goes native" in another culture offers a certain freedom in storytelling that doesn't exist when telling stories about an actual culture:

Take "Dances With Wolves." Although God knows it was a wonderful movie and did as well as any movie could hope to do, it still had to run in that middle ground between the truthful Indian existence, as perceived today, and what is acceptable to the Indian community and then still be a Hollywood-oriented star vehicle for Kevin Costner. There was a lot of lines to toe and issues of political correctness, almost, to tell that tale. Now if you go back and make a movie that tells the story and is free of that. ... Think of the imagery of the  Johnny Weissmuller movies of Tarzan and the portrayal of Africans, which any of us watch today and we go, "Oh, that's a little cringe-making," but at the same time there was a wonderful freedom to Tarzan's existence and a freedom in the storytelling. By Jim picking a state of existence that does not exist and then all of the jumps of science — like combining human DNA with an alien DNA and projecting a character's consciousness into the new being — all of that creates a "there" where you can stage a story that you can tell with a real freedom. The three of four leaps that you've taken, if you make them credible, you can mirror back on those themes that you were talking about and say what you want about them.

Carter also compares working on Avatar to working on The Polar Express, and says that Cameron and Zemeckis' awareness of each others' projects helps drive technological innovation:

[T]o answer your question, of course, between Zemeckis and Cameron, yes, there's a tremendous awareness of what the other is doing. It's like Beatles and the Stones. And I'm so pleased that they are doing this; to be in their 50s and forging new avenues, to be taking risks and putting this much work in to it — and to be taking a certain amount of flack. Both Cameron and Zemeckis have remained true to their visions and gone places that people would rather they not go, in some places. Don't think that people haven't said, "Hey, Jim, can maybe you make a movie that doesn't cost so much and puts the entire studio on the line again?" And, "Hey, Bob, can you maybe give us something a little more safe commercially and maybe not push so hard and so far out there?"

With Zemeckis' latest motion capture project, A Christmas Carol, getting lukewarm reviews, hopefully Avatar will be the more successful half of that rivalry.

Jim Cameron vs. Robert Zemeckis? An insider's view of the rivalry [Hero Complex]

Whether you're buying for loved ones, loathed ones, ones you barely know but feel an obligation to get something something for or yourself, it's hard to go wrong with a well-chosen toy as a gift. But it's hard to know just what toys you should be looking at, which is where we come in; we've split our choices into three categories: Play, Display and Making Your Life Better, which is to say things that are useful (or, in one case, useless but kind of essential nonetheless). Click through to see our selections.

For Play
LEGO, action figures and things for you to hit other people with safely. After all, isn't that what "play" really means?

For Display
For some people, toys are things to keep on shelves, on their walls or in boxes. Here're a few ideas for the serious collector.

For Making Your (Or Someone Else's) Life Better
In which we suggest gifts offering education, amusement and/or something to hold onto at night. Yes, even that last one.

Additional research by Alex Eichler.

Go Hero Limited Edition Raygun
Of course, if you're thinking a little more retro, this limited edition Buck Rogers raygun might catch your eye. And why not? It's beautifully designed by Dead Presidents' Matt Walker, and comes in a beautifully packaged wooden box for extra old-school thrills. There's even a certificate of authenticity to prove that you owe one of only 25 made.

World War Robot Figurines
Ashley Wood's grimepunk series was tailormade for toys, as this set of 6.5 inch figures of warrior robots prove. Everytime we see these deadly oilcans with legs and guns, we want more and thankfully, they're happy to oblige.

Watchmen Be@rbrick
What says "I bought into the hype" more than this sloganeering piece of Watchmen merchandise, ideal for those who enjoyed the Zack Snyder movie, those who thought the movie was a letdown but liked the original comic, or those who just like examples of really, really boldly obvious branding on bear-shaped toys? Surely we all know someone in all three demographics.

Adult Swim Figurines
Until the day when the toy world wises up and realizes that we all need a line of fully-posible Venture Bros. action figures, complete with accessories (Brock can have a pack of cigarettes! Dr. Orpheus can have a magic book! Rusty can have the crushing sense of self-loathing that he can blame on his over-achieving father!), we'll have to settle for these admittedly wonderful figures from various Adult Swim shows; they're boxed anonymously, so there's no telling which one you'll get when you buy it, so you should probably just buy all the boxes you can in hopes of getting that sweet Dr. Girlfriend one.

The ship is of the same type people have been seeing since the 1950s, like the one pictured here. According to my favorite UFO blog, Inexplicata, the incident occurred earlier this week:

The entire town – or at least those who were awake at 0200 yesterday – agree that it was hot, an unbearable heat that kept people from getting a good night's sleep, their eyes wide open under treacherous, menacing and stormy skies. Outside, people drank cool drinks or ate ice cream hurriedly, before these were reduced to sticky confections.

This was the fate of many residents of Joaquin V. Gonzalez, engulfed by nearly 300,000 hectares of soybeans, when at 2:00 a.m., with heat still burning under their skins, they saw a strange, gigantic luminous creature, elongated and weightless, heading southeast to El Tunal, some 35 kilometers from the town. It plowed the dark skies, lighting everything around it, visible to everyone.

The "cigar-shaped UFO" (as it is known to specialists) crossed the Saltan night suspended under a spongy ceiling of clouds, and according to some of the numerous witnesses, "with intermittent, flashing lights and a fixed red beacon". As the object disappeared from view, those who watched the sky as though expecting something more, saw it disappear into the darkness toward El Tunal. Minutes later (some say 5, others 15), all of Joaquin V. Gonzalez experienced an electrical blackout that submerged a 200-kilometer area in the deepest darkness possible.

"It was terribly hot. Some people were eating ice cream while others sat around the outdoor tables of local restaurants," said one witness to Salta's El Tribuno. "Suddenly everyone saw a strange vehicle plow across the sky, completely illuminated, and a little bit later, there was a power failure. The phone lines were also rendered inoperative," said the excited witness. "Things went back to normal at 11:30 a.m., nine hours later."

The power failure was confirmed by the EDESA Company, which confirmed the lack of electricity only minutes after the blackout, adding that it was impossible to find the failure, which had occurred at the main power station located at El Tunal. The problem? "A burned-out generator"

UFO expert Luis Burgos told DIARIO POPULAR that "the blackout occurred some fifteen or twenty minutes after the object was sighted over Joaquin V. Gonzalez, and right when it hovered over the generating plant at El Tunal." To Burgos, the protagonist of yesterday's episode was "what we call a mothership, a sort of space aircraft carrier measuring no less than 200-300 meters long, and which usually issues smaller UFOs measuring between 8 and 10 meters in size, which later return to the [mothership]."

via Inexplicata

[Via CBS]

Planet 51's tragedy is that it could have been a decent movie. It starts off with a neat premise: on a distant planet, there is an alien civilization that strongly resembles 1950s Americas — right down to everyone speaking English and grooving to The Chordettes. They even have a love for alien invasion movies, and, through a remarkable stroke of coincidence, the scifi franchise du jour is titled Humaniacs and features a monster that looks like an astronaut. Into this world plunges Captain Chuck Baxter, a middling US astronaut who has been sent to explore the planet (which NASA mistakenly believed was uninhabited) and suddenly finds that, on this world, he is the alien. Naturally chaos ensues. The movie also has some endearing and well-animated characters, especially in rock-craving robot Rover, and a Xenomorph-shaped dog that pees acid. The early clips promised a fun, if light, movie filled with cute science fiction references.

The problem is, Planet 51 has no idea what it's precisely about. Sure, it has a plot: a teenager named Lem has to help get Chuck back to his ship and off the planet before the military captures him and removes his brain (and, hopefully, without ruining Lem's life in the process). But it has the feel of a movie written by committee: too many ideas stuffed in and not enough fat trimmed off. Planet 51 tries to be about so many different things that it ends up being about nothing at all. Is it about the dangers of automatically attacking that which we don't understand? How the media makes us suggestible and paranoid? What it's like to learn that the universe is much larger than you ever imagined? Or is it about having the cojones to take risks and do the things you dream of doing? Okay, so the pants-less aliens have no visible cojones, but you get the point. And this lack of a center is symptomatic in the film's cast of predictable stock characters. Only the dog-like characters get any bite.

Even the jokes are just so much spaghetti thrown at the wall. Crude jokes about alien probes are mixed in with references to classic science fiction films, and great swaths of the film rely on forgettable sequences of slapstick. The odd joke hits, but when it does, it's just a solitary joke, and doesn't contribute anything to the movie as a whole. And, though it's a ostensibly kids movie, the rare jokes that elicited laughs went over the younger viewers' heads. During the viewing I attended, the audience laughed in unison just once — at a penis joke.

There are certain sins that children's films can sometimes get away with because they're geared toward younger viewers: being too busy or too cloying, or having a wearying or simplistic sense of humor. But Planet 51's problems are far deeper: it's a film that simply never engages, and for a science fiction film, leaves us with depressingly little to think about after it's over. Do yourself a favor and, instead of seeing Planet 51, watch these clips and pretend you've seen the entire movie. You'll be better off for it.

The mess hall and cryo sleeping chamber are pretty intricate, we can't wait to see them in 3D. But the power suits and what-not are a little Starship Trooper Marauders. Still, it makes a lot of splodey noises and lights.

Did you guess the connection between The Core and Avatar? Well that's easy: it's unobtanium. The mineral that the humans are killing off Na'vi for is the same as the metal that allows The Core's ship to drill into the Earth. You know: the hotter and faster you work it, the harder it gets. Ah, made up science-fictional materials, how we love thee — especially handwavium.

The only soundtrack we ever enjoyed that basically spelled out the entire plot was Danny Elfman's Batman, because it was brilliant. And two, because the track titles that laid out the plot were highly entertaining in their own right. Who could forget "Kitchen, Surgery, Face Off", "Clown Attack" or "Roasted Dude"? Fantastic stuff right there. Playlist got a copy of Avatar's soundtrack, which basically explains the entire plot of the movie. But I'm going to have to say "You Don't Dream In Cryo..." and "The Bioluminesecene of The Night" are pretty bad ass titles for musical tracks.

Here's the full list:

Here's the track listing:
1. "You Don't Dream in Cryo…"
2. Jake Enters His Avatar World
3. Pure Spirits of the Forest
4. The Bioluminescence of the Night
5. Becoming One of "The People"
Becoming One With Neytiri
6. Climbing Up – "Iknimaya – The Path to Heaven"
7. Jake's First Flight
8. Scorched Earth
9. Quaritch
10. The Destruction of "Hometree"
11. Shutting Down Grace's Lab
12. Gathering All the Na'vi Clans for Battle
13. War
14. I See You (Theme from "Avatar")

From this list, we can basically guess that Jake doesn't dream in Cryo on his way to the planet Pandora — or maybe he does, and they are nightmares? Then he "Enters His Avatar World," running about with his new blue legs and playing with the local exotic life.

From there, Jake learns that every rock and tree and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name in "Pure Spirits of the Forest" which we will relate to the Pocahontas show stopper, "Colors of The Wind."

Then he has a hot Bioluminesecene night out with a certain blue cat lady, think the underwater fairy flirt fest adventures in FernGully, hopefully with giant playtpus in tow.

After the night of hand touching and bonding Jake winds up "Becoming One of "The People." In order to become, "one of us" he must prove to the people that he is indeed a warrior, and begin "Climbing Up – 'Iknimaya – The Path to Heaven.'" But we're not 100% sure what that means, at all.

Next, Jake flies, like a she-Gelfling — or maybe in a helicopter, but we really hope he flies like a Gelfling. It's probably the scene we saw on Avatar Day, where Jake tames a dragon and flies it around. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Then Hexxus is let out and burns down a part of the Na'vi land, "Scorched Earth" and Jake can now feel the pain of the Earth, like a FernGully fairy.

The mystical Na'vi tree is destroyed, titled in the track listing as, "The Destruction of Hometree." Which could look like FernGully's almost tree destroying moment.

And the lab is shut down. Let's hope this is Sigourney Weaver's solo. Next up the Pandorans are "Gathering All the Na'vi Clans for Battle" followed by actual "War," which reminds us of "Savages," and then more "Savages," again from Pocahontas.

Ending with the big theme song, sung by Lena Lewis. Which we're seriously hoping brings back the days of giant movie ballads, no kidding. The Oscars were 1,000% times more interesting when there was more singing.

All in all there's not too much revealed — because you know somebody is bound to die in a fit of heroism and the bad guy's got to get his comeuppance, so that's all hidden. And we're mostly joking about Avatar being from the same mold as those other movies. Bottom line: it's high time we had something epic again, and with epic movies comes epic music, so we're still cautiously excited for James Cameron's noble savages.

The End.

[Playlist via Slashfilm]

You can sort of tell that the first six episodes of V were compressed into four episodes, judging from how fast-moving this one was. In one hour, we got to see Erica and Father Jack track down Georgie's shambles of a resistance movement, and by the end we saw Georgie, Father Jack, Ryan and Erica all come together to start forming their resistance cell. Meanwhile, the "fake death threat" thing only took up about half the episode, and got nicely wrapped together with Anna's publicity coup in handling the "CIndy Sheehan wannabe" protestor. (See? Anna's not Obama. She's George Bush.)

Possibly the best parts of last night's episode involved Alan Tudyk waking up and remembering bits about his life as a human — including the horror of living among us and being married to a woman who brushes her hair over the kitchen sink. (Although then the surprise reveal that the VIsitor treating Alan was actually part of the Fifth Column was actually a tad disappointing — especially if that really is the end for Alan this time.)

Oh, and the other best part was seeing Elizabeth Mitchell get to kick more ass and be extra-competent, taking down the shooter (fake though he was) with awesome professionalism, and then sneaking into the Visitors' Big Brother room. If this show proves, once and for all, that Elizabeth Mitchell deserves more roles as a butt-kicking action hero, that will be a great accomplishment by itself.

The worst part, as usual, involved Dylan the little twerp, and his date with the hot blonde visitor — who turns out to be Anna's daugher. And we learn that the Visitors have extra special plans for Dylan — is it too much to hope they'll result in his immediate death? Like, early in next week's episode? The other annoying thing was the show's continued habit of having characters repeat the same word or phrase several times in the episode — in the first episode, it was the word "devotion," spoken at key moments like a flashing billboard saying "THIS IS A THEME OKAY". In the second, it was "resistance." And last night, we got people saying "safety in numbers" a few times.

All in all, it was a pretty solid episode, and I'm intrigued by all the hints that the media-savvy Anna is using more direct means to control her own people. Here's hoping next week's installment delivers as well, since it's the last episode of the year — and let's hope the show's ratings slide doesn't continue.

Call of Cthulhu RPG: Malleus Monstrorum. With the subtitle, "Lore of Things Beyond," you know this book won't steer you wrong. This is actually a revised edition of the Call of Cthulhu RPG's Creature Companion. It collects all the statistics and background information on the many Lovecraftian horrors that have appeared in every published Call of Cthulhu book ever. From crazed cultists to tentacled things to elder gods your mortal mind can't even comprehend, Malleus Monstrorum has you covered.

Star Trek Roleplaying Game: Aliens. There are a lot of aliens out there, and some of them aren't even part of the Federation. In your explorations, you will likely encounter many of them. Therefore, it behooves you to know as much as possible about their abilities, habits and physiology. This sourcebook for the Star Trek RPG fills in all the details. Curious about Horta culture? Wondering how much to tip a Betazoid waiter? Most of these questions are answered here. This also makes a great companion piece to the Starfleet Operations Manual.

World of Darkness: Armory Reloaded. This is, essentially, a book of violence. Not only does it provide a list of efficient and brutal weapons to use in the battle against vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures (or on their behalf, if you swing that way), but it also amplifies the World of Darkness combat rules, making them…well, more violent. When I reviewed this book for Robot Viking a few months ago, I called out this paragraph from the intro, which perfectly exemplifies the approach taken throughout the book:

We want to emphasize here and throughout: combat is some scary business. Blood spattering in the mud, people screaming, the smell of cordite burning nostrils. Bombs blowing people to bits. A vampire's claws leaving a man with his guts hanging out and his wife standing ten feet away, crying so hard she breaks a rib.

Wow.

AD&D 2nd Edition: Van Richten's Guide to Vampires. They aren't here for you to fall in love with, they don't generally smell nice, and they sure as hell don't sparkle. In the many worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, vampires are universally evil. They're usually placed at the apex of the undead hierarchy (liches sometimes compete for the top spot), so you'll find them behind nefarious schemes as often as they're responsible for a rash of bloodless corpses. Van Richten has hunted and slain vampires of all kinds, so you'd do well to heed his advice. Don't bring garlic, bring an enchanted sword. Or, better yet, a Daylight spell.

Gamma World: Machines and Mutants. Gamma World has gone through so many editions and revisions it's hard to keep track. This is from one of the more recent incarnations of the post-nuclear apocalyptic setting. Imagine a world that's a little bit Logan's Run, a little bit Fallout, and that's pretty much Gamma World. This is perhaps the most bizarre manual on this list, as it documents all manner of weird robots and freakish mutants. No, I mean really freakish. Sentient, evil penguins. Genetically engineered fireproof bears. Exploding fish. My personal favorite is the Architect, a robot that's been continually building for decades, creating non-sensical road networks dotted with houses that will remain forever empty. Also, there are man-eating cars.

Don't say I didn't warn you.