The Thing from Another World (1951)

"Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"

- Ned "Scotty" Scott

US Airforce Captain Patrick "Pat" Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), his crew, and annoying newsman Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer) fly from Anchorage, Alaska, to a scientific research station near the North Pole, to investigate reports of a crashed aircraft.

However, they soon discover that it's actually a UFO.

Unfortunately, their attempts to remove the alien space craft from the ice results in its destruction, but they do recover the frozen body of one of its crew (James Arness), which they transport back to base.

Finding themselves cut off from civilisation due to the weather and radio interference, Pat decrees that no investigation of the alien creature can begin without the say-so of headquarters.

This frustrates gung-ho head scientist Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), whose assistant, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), happens to be involved in an on-again, off-again, tempestuous relationship with Pat (which does involve bondage!).

The creature is accidentally awakened and goes on a rampage, letting the scientists at the isolated arctic base discover that it is a vegetable-based species, immune to most forms of damage.

Once the alien starts killing, secretly Carrington - and some of the scientists - also realise that the monster is after blood to feed its seedlings with, to (presumably) grow a race of killer vegetable creatures to take over the planet.

Howard Hawks's The Thing from Another World is pure action-horror pulp, pitting square-jawed heroes against an unstoppable alien menace that wants to crush their way of life and reduce mankind to the status of plant food.

Obviously, this movie was the inspiration - along with John W. Campbell Junior's story Who Goes There? - for John Carpenter's seminal The Thing, in 1982.

However, it also clearly had an influence on both Alien and Aliens, with the Air Force top brass taking a stance very similar to Weyland-Yutani when it comes to dealing with dangerous alien life forms, and the men at the base using Geiger counters in a way that presages the motion detectors famously used to track xenomorphs.

Obviously, the creature here is a very simple cinematic alien species, compared to the Lovecraftian horrors unleashed in The Thing and Alien, but nevertheless The Thing From Another World still conjures images of an alien society where humans (or their ilk) are farmed by these monstrous creatures.

Lumbering around like Frankenstein's Monster, "The Thing" is clearly a metaphor for the perceived Cold War era  'Red Menace' of Russia, lashing out at the one person that tries to reason with it - while our plucky heroes know it's a "wrong 'un" from the get-go.

Sure, it's tame compared to the movies it inspired, but The Thing From Another World remains an action-packed, sci-fi, monster flick.

EPISODE NEIN: Jeek and Ye Shall Find

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Trapped on a dinosaur-infested desert island in the Hollow Earth (possibly), our heroes engage a squad of Nazi soldiers and scientists, fresh off their U-boat transport, in order to steal (or trash) their "weather control" device.

Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man-turned-private eye) and Freya (Clare's photojournalist) casually questioned the two captured scientists, Mikel and his assistant Hans. After initial resistance, Mikel decided he owed no loyalty to his now-deceased paymasters and sang like a canary.

Admitting he had no idea how the U-boat had ended up in "the hollow earth", he explained that they had been sailing into the Atlantic to test the weather control device, with the plan to eventually disrupt shipping lanes. However, before they even got to test it there was a violent disruption in the sea and they arrived here.

Mikel believed everyone had debarked from the U-boat, except possibly a few engineers, and he also said he had no idea where the map had come from or why it was written in English.

Studying the gorgeous, detailed map, we all realised that we had no idea where we were on it, so as pretty as it was, for the moment it was useless.

The map*

Pete got a giant-sized copy of the map printed for us to fawn over and study

Rather than sitting around waiting to become velociraptor chow, we headed off in the jungle, following the stone path/road that the blue-skinned natives had disappeared down in pursuit of stray Nazis.

Buck (my explorer) took point, followed by Dick, the two scientists (with bound wrists) and Freya bringing up the rear.

Freya pointed out that the road design resembled that of ancient structures seen in South America, rather than the more classical Roman designs of Europe.

We cautiously followed the road for an hour before suddenly ahead of us an enormous feline creature crossed the track ahead of us in the shadow of the overhanging branches. 

Approaching the site, we found it had left a large paw print, about lion-sized, in the mud.

Now even more alert, but getting a bit tired and hungry, we continued until the road curved to the left and Freya heard human voices, conversing in a language she couldn't fully understand. 

While Dick stayed back with the prisoners, Freya and I advanced around the corner to discover a village of Asian design, built around an old crossroads, populated by people who appeared to be from both South America and the First Nations.

The village

Cautious, but friendly, they approached us and Freya - our linguist - was able to explain who we were.

We learned that the village was concerned for a missing young girl, Jeek, and we agreed to help her brothers, Hom and Ket, track her down.

Dick was introduced to the tribe and Freya clarified that Mikel and Hans were members of a "hostile tribe" and our "prisoners of war". They were put in the care of two sturdy matrons and, after a hearty meal, the rest of us headed off towards the ruins that Hom and Ket believed Jeek had been heading towards.

Following a gentle slope, and passing through a sudden monsoon, the entrance to the ruins was easily found, but Hom and Ket refused to go further into the crumbling, overgrown structures because of something they referred to as "the guardian".

Foot prints that could only have belonged to Jeek were spotted, but then - as other prints crossed her path - it became clear that she had started to run and eventually we lost her trail.

Advancing towards what was left of the old buildings, mostly reclaimed by the jungle, we all realised that through the main arch there were strange lights, the sounds of machinery and the faint smell of engine oil.

Entrance to the ruins

Before we could even make it to the archway, we stumbled across a family of enormous land crabs. The The trio of baby crabs scuttled away but mummy and daddy crab weren't so easily intimidated and violently defended their offspring.

Working as a unit**, we managed to - eventually - kill both of these armoured behemoths, and then made our way into the roofless ruins. 

There we discovered the source of the lights was some kind of mystical energy field over one of the main buildings, which is where Freya spotted the ancient, dried-up trail of what might possibly have been a giant slug.

TO BE CONTINUED...

* The map, and illustrations, and adventure come from a new game called Terra Incognita (a Hollow Earth/pulp game using the 5e Dungeons & Dragons mechanics), which Pete has been investing in. 

** For anyone who's kept up with my game-related waffles of late, it should be clear that I'm not a massive fan of dice pool systems and have found OUTGUNNED Adventures, for a game that presents itself as pulpy and rules-lite, to actually be surprisingly crunchy.

However, this month, Pete introduced us to some new talents that allowed our characters to work better with each other. For instance, if Clare failed a roll, she could pass dice on to another player (in our case, Kevin) while I could receive a bonus to my rolls if I saw another member of the group succeed (again, in our case, Kevin) .

Thus, our combats (although these rules can be applied to all skill checks, not just combat) became much more regimented and disciplined as we were all helping each other towards our joint goals.

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Seth Skorkowsky Reviews OUTGUNNED Adventure

Well-known and respected RPG YouTuber Seth Skorkowsky has reviewed OUTGUNNED Adventure, from Two Little Mice, the pulp-emulating system the Tuesday Knights are currently using in Pete's ongoing "weird science" campaign.

In his well-argued, half-hour piece, Seth gives a succinct summary of the game's ambitions, its style, and its mechanics, highlighting what works and what doesn't for his group. 

READING REPORT: Still More Buying Than Consuming

I have to confess I haven't gotten any further in my reading of the brilliant Viking horror Draugr since last week, through no fault of the book (it's been really, really gripping so far) but because I'm still trying to catch up on my recent deliveries of new comic books from Paradox Comics.

But, of course, this hasn't stopped me picking up a few more second-hand and new books to add to be reading list.

Due to my recent discovery of Reacher (the Prime Video modern pulp action serial) I was tempted to give one of the books the show's based on a crack. But they're like 500 pages long, which seems a ridiculous length for such a style of story. 

However, this led me off on a tangent, given that Reacher is clearly inspired by the Mack Bolan books of my youth I grabbed a random Mack Bolan book from 1975, for a paltry sum, on eBay to add to my reading list instead.
 

Mack Bolan The Executioner no. 24: Canadian Crisis is a much more sensible 181 pages of decent-sized print, in which Mack is still killing off members of The Mob. This time in Quebec, for a change of scenery.

I wonder if The Executioner books will generate the same frisson of excitement that they did when I read them as a schoolboy? 

Another recent eBay purchase was the vintage Marvel "giant-size" comic teaming Spider-Man with Doc Savage.

I've been reading comics pretty much all my life but I'm still continuing to be educated on what's out there. I knew there had been Doc Savage comic book adventures, but I never knew he'd teamed up with Spider-Man!

I can't remember exactly how I came across this title, but I'm pretty sure it was either a Facebook post by author Charles R Rutledge or a Booktube video from Michael K Vaughan.

My big pre-order of the week, however, was a new, clothbound edition of A Dance With Dragons, the 'most recent' (i.e. 2011) volume in George RR Martin's epic A Song of Ice and Fire.

As you can see on my "Westeros shelf" below, I now own all the books in the series he has penned to date, but all in different editions. This was a deliberate choice as I wanted my collection to have a particular quirk about it.

Given that my "simple" PROJECT 60 is in a state of disarray, I'm now renaming it PROJECT BUCKET (as in "bucket list") and adding to it a goal of reading all the books of A Song of Ice and Fire before I kick the bucket.

Perhaps by the time I've finished these volumes George might have completed the next book, The Winds of Winter, or even wrapped up the saga with A Dream of Spring!

As it stands, I've only actually read the first volume, A Game of Thrones, and that was 15 years ago.

I'll repost my review (written just as the HBO adaptation was taking off and A Dance With Dragons was published) of A Game of Thrones at the bottom of this piece. Check out the ironic comment at the end of the review.

I regard Michael Moorcock as one of the greatest fantasy writers of all time - which is why I established my "Moorcock Rule" for choosing, and buying, fantasy literature.

With his first run of Elric books, Moorcock created - for me - a perfect set of standalone novels that sculpted out an incredible fantasy world and detailed a complex anti-hero in the albino prince.

Each of these books ran to around 150 pages (stretching to about 200 by the end) and so I reasoned, for future comparisons, that massive, door-stop sized fantasy novels were probably not my thing and were best avoided.

And anyway they would take an age to read, during which time I could have read several shorter - and possibly better - books.

But A Game Of Thrones shattered my Moorcock Rule with a vengeance.

Enticed by the prospect - at the time - of the impending television series I found a copy of A Game Of Thrones in our local Oxfam charity store and began to read.

It took two extended bursts to finish this 800-page epic (which is only the first segment of the as-yet unfinished Song Of Ice And Fire saga) - the first couple of hundred pages up until the HBO show aired on Sky Atlantic and then once it had finished I returned to the land of Westeros to devour the rest of the book.

The power and genius of the television show certainly influenced my enjoyment of the book, as I could easily visualise the actors from the series speaking the lines in the book - and, in turn, the show turned out to be an incredibly faithful, if naturally streamlined, adaptation of the book.

George RR Martin has a very visceral style of writing that likes to describe the food people are eating and the clothes they are wearing (which reminded me in part of Brett Easton Ellis' name-dropping technique in American Psycho) as well as what they thinking and doing.

Along with these visual motifs, Martin takes the unusual - to me anyway - step of focusing each chapter on a different character's point-of-view, which helps introduce different methods of describing certain swords-and-sorcery standards, such as the "mass battle": in one chapter we'll hear of a battle from the POV of someone participating, in another it's being described by someone watching from afar, and in a third it will be a report from a messenger - who survived the conflict - to his lord.

The world of Westeros is very rich in detail, customs and history and this is drip-fed to the reader as it becomes necessary to the plot, rarely feeling like a massive info-dump of exposition (as the TV show suffered some on a couple of minor occasions).

Finally, A Game Of Thrones - and, I suspect the entire saga, - is dreadfully addictive reading. I've always loved reading and getting stuck into fascinating books, but I found myself more and more drawn back to A Game Of Thrones in preference to watching TV or pootling about the Internet, which are my two usual default settings.

I really didn't mind that it was an 800-page tome, because I was totally invested in the characters, their machinations and the world of Westeros. The entire book is shot through with a sense of foreboding and the feeling that something major is on the verge of occurring... as the central Stark family say: "Winter is coming!"

And, like the first season of the HBO series, A Game Of Thrones ends on a massive series of cliffhangers that pretty much guarantees I'll be reading the next book - A Clash Of Kings - as soon as I get my hands on it (it's at the top of my birthday list!)

EPISODE EIGHT: Gunfight At The Blue Man Corral

The set-up

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Travelling from Bermuda to Mexico on a tramp steamer, our heroes are caught up in a storm and end up shipwrecked on a mysterious island where the sun seems frozen overhead. On the tropical island there are hungry flesh-eating dinosaurs and, of course, Nazis!

Hidden behind an ancient stone wall, down a slope from the forest treeline, our heroes - my explorer, Buck, Clare's photojournalist Freya, and Kevin's former G-Man, Dick - spy a collection of German soldiers on a beach ... behind them is a U-boat.

Some of them are helping a couple of scientists set up a strange electrical generator device with a peculiar dish on it pointing to the sky.

Elsewhere a couple of guards with vicious Doberman Pinschers were tormenting a handful of primitive locals that had been corralled into a makeshift pen. As far as we could tell these locals, dressed in basic animal hides, were blue-skinned, simian-faced humanoids.

Scary German guard dog

Finally, off near the ruined huts that had presumably once been home to the locals, an officer had set up a table so he could spread out a strange map for study. Apparently he couldn't make any sense of it.

Freya overheard the scientists discussing the bizarre device they were working on and managed to translate the phrase "weather control device".

We cooked up a basic plan between us and then Buck slipped back into the treeline, found a good sniping position and opened fire on the so-called weather control device.

It sparked, causing chaos amongst the Germans huddled around it, with several turning to see where the bullet had come from.

Dick opened fire with his brace of pistols from behind the wall, while Freya bravely slipped round the back of the Nazi encampment to free the locals.

She charged at the jerry-rigged "prison" and managed to bring it down with a single, stylish kick. 

In the ensuing battle the air was thick with bullets from both sides. Dick got winged a couple of times while I methodically sniped from my hidden location - at one stage severely wounding three Nazis with a single shot!  

German bodies were dropping left, right, and centre.

The ape-men swarmed the last guard, pummelled him into the ground and then chased others fleeing into the surrounding forest.

Mid-combat (NB. the 'dinghy' counter is actually the 'weather control device'

The scientists cut their losses and bolted towards a dinghy on the shore to take them back to the U-boat, but Dick managed to bring them down, while Freya took the dead general's map... but quickly realised she wasn't going to be able to decipher it either.

In the aftermath of the battle, we dragged the scientists back into the trees, with the idea that Dick and Freya would interrogate them about whatever was going on. 

We all took a look at the map but it meant nothing to any of us at first glance... except that, maybe, the writing was similar to that we had seen in Atlantis.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to our original location in the forest, our last surviving crewman, the injured Bob, had succumbed to the ravages of passing velociraptors. 

As Dick and Freya got ready to work (good cop, bad cop) on the wounded and scared scientists, Buck began to dig a grave for Bob.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

SHOW ME: Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)

Who's The Mummy? Katie (Natalie Grace)
Mummy's Love? n/a
Where? Egypt (Cairo/Aswan) & Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
How Long? 134 minutes

Television reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) is stationed in Cairo, Eygpt, with his pregnant wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), and their two young children, Katie (Emily Mitchell) and Sebastian (Dean Allen Williams).

Just as the family is preparing to move back to their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Charlie has a new job offer, Katie is kidnapped from their back garden by a mysterious woman known only as The Magician (Hayat Kamille).

The police investigation, led by a suspicious detective (Husam Chadat) and his English-speaking assistant Detective Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy), gets nowhere.

The story jumps ahead eight years and the Cannons are settled back in Albuquerque, sharing their house with Larissa's mother, Carmen (Veronica Falcon).

Katie's bedroom remains a shrine to her, while the other two kids, Sebastian (Shylo Molina)  and Maud (Billie Roy) still share a room.

However, in Egypt a small plane crashes outside of Aswan and in the wreckage is a 3,000-year-old black, basalt sarcophagus.

When opened by a pair of archaeologists, they are very shocked to discover it contains the mummified body of Katie (Natalie Grace) - still very much alive.

A brief aside here, because this issue crops up several times in Lee Cronin's The Mummy, but if the police had investigated the two men who had died in the plane crash, the story would have been a lot shorter. But, for some reason, this obvious angle is never pursued or even really mentioned again until the final act revelation of what's been going on this whole time.

Katie is, unsurprisingly, in a very bad way, and apparently in a locked-in state, yet her doctors in Cairo - without any real medical justification or investigation - tell her parents that the best "medicine" would be to take her home to Albuquerque!

Clearly that serves the movie, but - like ignoring the inconvenient aspects of the plane crash - makes no logical sense.

Determined not to rely on actual specialists or anything sensible like that, the Cannons bring their traumatised daughter back from Egypt and Carmen insists on caring for her daughter, pretty much on her own.

Meanwhile, journalist Charlie is determined to get to the bottom of what happened to Katie in those missing eight years.

However, as Katie begins to wake up it very quickly becomes clear that she is not the Katie her family remember.

There is something very wrong with her. And it starts to spread to other members of the family.

As Lee Cronin had written and directed one of my favourite horrors of recent years, Evil Dead Rise, I cannot express just how excited I was to learn that he would next be tackling my favourite classic monster archetype, the mummy.

Add to that the fact that during pre-release promotion for Lee Cronin's The Mummy he teased that he considered this to be - unofficially - set in the same world as the Evil Dead movies.

However, I was still expecting a "mummy" movie, not an in-your-face (albeit "unofficial", I guess) addition to the Evil Dead mythos.

Sure, mummification processes are involved - and mentioned once - but Lee Cronin's The Mummy is not a "mummy" movie as such, but way more a mix of Evil Dead with a side order of The Exorcist thrown in for good measure.

This is a film with demonic possession, levitation, telekinesis, corpse defilement, bodily transformation and decay, ceiling scuttling, and creepy voices, with quite a bit echoing Cronin's brilliant Evil Dead Rise.

For a pulpy horror the 134-minute runtime is too long and The Mummy starts very slowly and juddery, despite an intriguing pre-credit sequence.

However, it does gains momentum as the horrors escalate within the Cannon home.

The narrative then gets slightly confusing as it jumps all around the place, between America and Egypt, with different avenues of investigation being pursued, while the demon within Katie gradually spreads its evil to her young siblings.

I also found the prevalence of video cassettes and - more tellingly if this was all taking place in (as it appears) a contemporary, 21st Century setting - VHS players rather jarring.

Perhaps Charlie needed one for his job, but I do think - if that's the case - a passing comment might have it made it stand out less as a plot convenience.

Not as convenient, though, as Chekov's morse code: when we first meet Katie and Charlie he is testing her on morse code, apparently for a badge with the Egyptian eagle scouts or something. It's really obvious that this is IMPORTANT. Again, it's never explained, it's just some heavy-handed foreshadowing.

While the film is disappointing in general, with plot holes that if addressed could have shortened the movie, at least when it gets to the horror parts Cronin doesn't let us down, delivering twisted gore and putrescent body horror of the finest kind.

Not that I mind having my expectations subverted - this the horror genre after all - but when the subversion changes the subject into something else completely, it becomes rather bemusing.

I just wish, rather than saying he's making a "mummy" movie, Cronin had been allowed to make another Evil Dead movie, introducing the indestructible, family-hating,  Nasmaranian demon into that canon if he so wanted.

Because I really can't help feeling that's where it belongs. Kinda like Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday.

When I come to file my Blu-Rays, Lee Cronin's The Mummy will be sat next to my Evil Dead collection, rather than my Mummy movies.

Deathstalker's Deeds Finally Set Down On Paper

Deathstalker - as portrayed in Steven Kostanski’s recent, excellent, movie - finally finds his way onto the written page, this September.

Bret Nelson's official adaptation of Deathstalker, published by Encyclopocalypse, will be available as a 190-page mass market paperback and and an e-book, with an audiobook following along later this year.

With a foreword by the great Patton Oswalt (who voices goblin-dwarf wizard Doodad in the film), the book - according to a recent article on Rue Morgue - will expand:

"...upon the film’s world of monsters, magic, mayhem, and adventure, bringing readers deeper into the war-torn realm of Abraxeon and the dangerous quest that places its reluctant hero at the centre of an unplanned adventure after accidentally unleashing a curse upon…himself."

Nelson, who has a solid track record with movie tie-ins, having penned adaptations of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Manborg, as well as numerous works of his own under his belt, says in the Rue Morgue piece that his was inspired by Conan The Barbarian comics and the works of Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock, as well as many hours of sword-and-sorcery roleplaying game campaigns.

I strongly suspect this is going to be delightfully pulpy and cannot wait to get my hands on the paperback.

"The legend returns... bloodier, bolder, and more outrageous than ever.

"Deathstalker is a thief, a mercenary, and a survivor with a talent for finding trouble wherever he roams. When a dying prince's mysterious amulet becomes bound to his soul, Deathstalker finds himself hunted by assassins, monsters, sorcerers, and creatures that should have remained buried in the darkest corners of the realm.

"Armed with an overwhelming desire to be left alone, Deathstalker embarks on a perilous quest across the war-torn kingdom of Abraxeon. Along the way he'll battle two-headed trolls, flesh-eating serpents, ancient curses, sinister magic, and an army of enemies determined to claim the amulet's deadly secret.

"Adapted from the screenplay by Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman, Frankie Freako) by Bret Nelson (Manborg, Plan 9 From Outer Space) and featuring a foreword by Patton Oswalt, Deathstalker is an epic journey into a world of gloriously old-school adventure.

"Sharpen your sword, and try not to get cursed along the way.

"Deathstalker rides again."

The Caped Crusader Returns To The Streets of Gotham

One of my favourite new superhero cartoons of recent years, resplendent with its vintage, noir-meets-pulp vibes, Batman: Caped Crusader returns next month for a second season with a host of new villains for our hero to bring to justice.

EPISODE SIX: Atlantis Found and Lost Again

Professor Kasper Wieloch, the magical trident of Poseidon, and the scary tentacles

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Having found the lost city of Atlantis, our heroes pick their way through the abandoned houses and temples, dodge traps and eventually find themselves in an underground amphitheatre. There they come face-to-face with their old nemesis Kasper Wieloch, a unit of Nazi soldiers, and mass of giant, squirming tentacles.

And that's when the shooting started. We were on one side of the amphitheatre, the soldiers and Wieloch - dressed in some strange (Atlantean?) robes and chanting in a language we didn't recognise - on the other.

Rising out of the water in the basin of the amphitheatre was an altar bearing a clearly supernatural trident.

Our heroes (at the bottom) face off against a unit of Nazis and a wannabe wizard

As bullets zipped to and fro, and we were able to pick the Nazis off one-by-one, Wieloch strode forward and grabbed the trident. Much to his obvious shock, he found himself bathed in a crackling electrical field that was clearly causing him incredible pain. 

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) took a pot shot at him, but the field encasing the professor also acted as some kind of shield, deflecting Freya's attack.

Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's ex G-man) continued to pepper the soldiers with well-aimed shots, but then Wieloch suddenly underwent some otherworldly transformation as his eyes turned white and his facial expression contorted into something demonic.

Hollering in an alien tongue, he appeared to command the monstrous tentacles to destroy the structure we were all in - oblivious of his former allies.

As the ceiling began to fall, the soldiers scattered... heading our way (the only exit now).

Using my keen, hunter's observation [and a Luck point], Buck quickly studied Wieloch and the "force field" around him, and realised that the electrical screen didn't extend to the trident itself.

Taking a deep breath, Buck remembered the killer shot he had taken in Antarctica many months ago [during Pete's previous Hollow Earth Expedition iteration of this game, back in February 2024] to blow up an Elder God, exhaled and pulled the trigger.

The trident exploded into many splinters, the tines fell apart and the shaft cracked, and almost simultaneously - as Wieloch's power waned and disappeared - the tentacles wrapped themselves around the possessed professor and, with sickening rending, popping and crunching sounds rent his body into a million pieces.

My colleagues traded a few more shots with the soldiers, then I barked over the sounds of gunfight and falling masonry that we might as well make a break for it as there was nothing more we could do here.

Pursued by the Germans we raced back over the star bridge - Buck carefully guiding his friends where to safely step - and headed towards the exit.

The Nazis, of course, weren't aware of the animated statue trap on the bridge and we heard their screams as they discovered its lethality. 

Further on and almost out, we tried to jump the open pit trap that was blocking our escape, but we were all tired by then and only Freya got out of the six foot hole with her dignity intact. Both Dick and I managed to hurt ourselves in the fall, but mainly it was our pride that took the most damage.

As we pulled ourselves out, the remaining two Nazis came barrelling into the room. One went straight into the pit and so Dick shot the other.

As the violent shaking of Atlantis - probably caused by the monster that had eaten Wieloch - increased, the sea levels rose, and tremendous cracks appeared in the roads and buildings.

We raced to our waiting sea plane, where Oynx (our NPC pilot) was struggling a bit to get the engines started.

Climbing into the plane, we said: "Oynx, take us home." And with assistance from Dick and Freya, she was able to fire up the twin engines and get the plane into the air.

Behind us, the ruins of Atlantis sank beneath the waves. Leaving no evidence that it had ever been there!

No evidence... except the plain, wooden cup Freya had picked up during our initial exploration of the island.

We had otherwise escaped largely unscathed, but Dick had taken a bullet in the shoulder during that final gunbattle that would leave a nasty scar.

Little did I realise, at the time, that that last Nazi had somehow survived and, of all our group, he had sworn a blood oath against Buck Hannigan to seek revenge for his fallen comrades.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

DING! DING! ROUND TWO!

Yes, I am wearing my Conan The Barbarian t-shirt. 

Just over a year since the first glorious volume arrived from the Robert E Howard Foundation Press (via Amazon, I must confess), the second hardback collection of the prodigious pulp writer's boxing stories is now in my hands.

And on the weekend of 40th annual Howard Days over in Cross Plains, Texas, no less.

I was particularly keen to get my mitts on Fists of Iron: Round Two because it's wall-to-wall Sailor Steve Costigan yarns. 

Although Howard is best known for his swords-and-sorcery stories featuring the likes of Conan, Kull, and Bran Mak Morn: as I've declared many times before, Sailor Steve Costigan is my favourite of Howard's many characters. 

That's Steve and his bulldog Mike on the cover

This is only the second volume of a planned four-volume series of Howard's boxing stories. And money - and space - willing I'm all in for the complete set.

I'm not generally what you'd call a sporty person, but there's a definite fascination in Howard's journalistic, blow-by-blow descriptions of boxing bouts, be they legal or otherwise. 

And Costigan is a charming, hard-drinking, goofy lunk, prone to being led into chaotic misadventures by a pretty face, and who resolves his problems with his fists and his feisty bulldog, Mike. I mean, what's not to enjoy?

Complementing Fists of Iron: Round Two, I also picked up  the self-published Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey by Howard scholar Mark Finn (he even wrote the introduction to Fists of Iron: Round Two!).

Finn's homage to Sailor Steve imagines a boisterous, pulp adventure-packed life for the very real, early 20th Century, boxer Tom Sharkey after he officially hung up his gloves. Sharkey, I believe, was an inspiration for Howard when penning the Sailor Steve tales. 

Mark Finn also wrote Blood & Thunder, the highly-regarded biography of Robert E Howard.

Sailor Steve has already found a home on my Robert E Howard shelf

Backers Can Now Explore The World of Twilight Sword

Radiosa Castle by Wild Blue Studios

The Lands of Radia, the default setting for the upcoming Twilight Sword anime-inspired RPG from Two Little Mice, has been released as a BETA PDF to backers of the its crowdfunding campaign.

The already lavishly illustrated game now includes art by Wild Blue Studios and the latest update on the project explains:

"These amazing artists have created dedicated landscape art for every region of Radia, from the Valley of Aramilla to the Fortress of Evil."

This new book details the eight regions of Radia, atmospheric background lore, key NPCs, area-specific random encounters, and more than 20 new, fully-statted out monsters for the player-characters to face.

I remain enamoured by the brevity (and seeming simplicity) with which this whole system has been created and written, although - obviously - I am still unsure of how this will transfer to the table once dice start to be slung.

The team at Two Little Mice currently seem to be deeply engrossed in their latest crowdfunding campaign, for a huge expansion to their wildly popular and pulpy Outgunned action-adventure roleplaying game.

This runs for about another week and a half, and then I'm guessing their thoughts will return to getting Twilight Sword ready to ship by the end of next month (July).

CURSED ARMOUR: The former attire of fallen heroes, now enchanted to serve the Big Bad

EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to our table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Missed Out On Free Conan Comic Day? Fret Not...

Conan of Cimmeria believed that Thulsa Doom’s evil had been banished forever, but the Atlantean necromancer’s dark power stirs once more and, if it cannot be stopped, the dead shall overtake the living! The Tyrant-King of Atlantis returns and all shall suffer, unless Conan and his brave allies can turn back the tide!

Did you miss out on the Conan The Barbarian offering on May 2's Free Comic Book Day?

Don't worry - publishers Titan Comics has you covered. The 24-page book is now available as a free, downloadable PDF direct from them, here.

Written by legendary Conan scribe Jim Zub, with art by Jesus Merino, the comic is a prelude to the next big Howardverse comic book crossover event, Tides of the Tyrant King, starting in the Autumn.

This year's event ties into the classic 1929 Robert E Howard pulp story Skull-Face, his take on the Sax Rohmer's popular Fu Manchu adventures that began in 1912.

Tides of the Tyrant King also features, from the original Skull-Face yarn, Soldier Stephen Costigan, cousin of my favourite Howard creation Sailor Steve Costigan.

Sleeping Beauty (2014)

Years before they became a byword for cheap, blockbuster cash-ins (i.e. mockbusters), the first movie I discovered by The Asylum was a fantasy film (simply called Dragon, I believe) in the discount aisle of Woolworths in Tonbridge (which shows just how long ago it was).

Since then I have remained firm in my belief that although they're not exactly known for quality productions, The Asylum is at its best when working in the fantasy genre.

That said, Sleeping Beauty isn't up to the pulpy, B-movie calibre of, say, an Arrowstorm film, but it still has its moments.

Directed by Casper Van Dien, who also appears as King David alongside his wife, Catherine Oxenberg as Queen Violet and his daughter Grace Van Dien as Princess Dawn aka Sleeping Beauty, the film is a liberal reworking of the fairy tale that starts in Disney territory then caroms off into its own little world.

To complete the family atmosphere on set, Maya Van Dien (daughter of both Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg) appears as a totally random addition to the story - a young girl called Newt (Aliens, much?) who has survived inside the enchanted castle and gives aid to Princess Dawn's rescuers.

Events initially unfold as they do in Disney's Sleeping Beauty cartoon, with the Three Good Fairies bestowing gifts upon the newborn Princess Dawn (although the guards' ill-fitting helmets and the treasure chests that look like cardboard boxes give away that this isn't the Disney version).

But then busty, yummy-mummy, evil witch queen Tambria (Olivia d'Abo) - whose invite got lost in the post - turns up and zaps Dawn with the familiar curse, then proceeds to blow up the good fairies.

In The Asylum's version, Dawn is raised alone in a castle tower, educated by her parents, and kept away from spinning wheel needles (several on-the-nose double entendres involving the word 'prick' got my hopes up this was going to be a wittily-scripted comedy; it's not), until just before her 16th birthday. And what do you know? She only gets tricked by Tambria into pricking her finger and falling asleep (taking the whole kingdom down with her).

A century passes and in a neighbouring kingdom, a servant called Barrow (Game Of Thrones' Finn Jones) discovers fragments of a map and a message leading to the cursed castle. Now, I'm not sure exactly who wrote this as Princess Dawn (as is suggested) is, of course, in a magical sleep.

I presumed it was actually an elaborate trap set out by Tambria - who has also been trapped inside the castle and unable to harm her slumbering nemesis - but this is never made clear.

Barrow's master is the obnoxious, privileged, bullying Tory-boy Prince Jayson (Edward Lewis French), who, learning of Barrow's discovery, decides to lead his coterie of yobbish mates on a jolly wheeze to rescue the treasure in Sleeping Beauty's castle and claim that kingdom for his own.

Again, it's never exactly clear how much this neighbouring territory knows about the curse on King David's land or the power of the wicked sorceress Tambria who now rules (kind of) there.

Given that it's just "over the mountain" from Jayson's realm, the general knowledge of the whole "asleep for a century" scenario seems rather vague.

Of course, Tambria isn't going to make things easy and throws a scaly pliosaur, a giant lizardman, a legion of shadowy wraiths and a never-ending army of zombies at the adventuring party that's coming for the treasure (and maybe the chance to snog a sleeping 115-year-old princess).

A particularly wonderful aspect about Jayson's loathsome cronies is, given that they are supposed to be trained fighters, just how cowardly they are. Their go-to tactic when confronted by any monster is "run away, run away".

The only one who shows the slightest bit of decency towards Barrow, and some backbone, is Gruner (Gil Kolirin) - who may be a commander or captain or something in Jayson's army, again it's not very clear.

The adventuring party gradually gets whittled down as they wander, seemingly aimlessly, around the same sections of castle and overgrown garden, until the final confrontation with Tambria.

By this time, Jayson has switched sides (or is he bluffing?), Newt has popped up and disappeared in a cloud of cryptic warnings several times, and Gruner and Barrow have bonded.

I'm not entirely sure who Sleeping Beauty is aimed at as there's some gore (Tambria pulling the head off of someone and dragging out their spine comes to mind) and an uncomfortable, rape-threat moment where a couple of brothers in Jayson's gang discover a magically sleeping servant woman in the castle kitchens. Thankfully Barrow steps in before that goes too far.

There's certainly an attempt at a Dungeons & Dragons vibe in the latter stages of this movie (torch-lit exploration, traps etc), but despite constant references to Barrow's map, there's never any real feeling that the adventurers are navigating a convincing, contiguous environment.

One minute they are stuck on one side of a lake, the next there's a bridge; they talk about going to certain places, but are next seen elsewhere.

This also isn't some hallucinogenic, dreamscape either, but simply a combination of poor directing, editing and scriptwriting.

The low-budget monsters aren't too bad though; the giant lizardman (despite being a cheap CGI creation) is quite interesting and the various undead have the added bonus that Tambria keeps resurrecting them every time they get nobbled.

As well as the many, many plot holes in the story (some of which I've alluded to above), more often than not the dialogue is delivered in quite mannered ways; now I'm not sure if this is director Van Dien trying to create a "fantasy Medieval" ambience but it doesn't really work.

Budgetary limitations abound in this version of Sleeping Beauty (there's no big dragon showdown at the end, for instance) - both in the effects and script - but it's an okay way to pass 90 minutes, if there isn't anything better on TV.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When We Got A Games Table!

At last, my chance to go full Eddie!

Thanks to my amazing, hard-working and supportive wife, Rachel, we acquired a games table in December, 2022.

It's something I'd yearned for ever since learning they were a real 'thing; and finally it was mine... er... ours.

Rachel has long said we needed a new dining table and I managed to persuade her that she should spend her bonus on a games table, which would then double as both dining table and venue for the Tuesday Knights and I to sling dice.

I did a ton of research, we measured a lot, drew up plans, found a UK company that specialised in games tables (Geeknson), asked a lot of questions, and finally pulled the trigger on a bespoke design back in late July/early August of that year.

The table arrived, and was unwrapped, just before Christmas, but I'd kept shtum on my "secret weapon" so that the Tuesday Knights would be the first to see it, in person, at that January's session of Pete's Hollow Earth  Expedition campaign (see below).

However, that didn't stop me 'playing' with it beforehand, for an Eddie Munson-esque "photoshoot" of an imaginary game of Dungeons & Dragons featuring the characters from the '80s cartoon as the protagonists, caught between a demonic flying creature and a warband of orcs.

I have such dreams for this new addition to the house that will justify the expenditure of Rachel's hard-earned cash on my geeky dream.

Presto the magician blasts the demon, as the evil gnome sorcerer cackles

Eddie does it much better than me, but you get what I was going for!

Gamesmaster Pete goes high-tech, flipping his tablet screen over the wooden GM screen
attachment to present us with a slideshow introduction to the adventure

A lot happened as always in that night's episode of Pete's pulp Hollow Earth Expedition campaign (which, by 2026, has morphed into an OUTGUNNED game), but here's a "picture special" of The Tuesday Knights enjoying their first meeting around the new games table.

Afterwards, Clare wrote the following about the table in her daily blog (now a Substack) of positive moments, Three Beautiful Things:

"I am so astonished by Tim's new gaming table -- which he has been keeping a secret since it was ordered in the summer -- that I gasp at each new revelation. First the top lifts off; next there's a green baize playing surface... that could be lifted off to reveal a map table... and then there are extra little tables to attach for your drink and your notebook; and a special desk for the GM, too. The whole smells pleasantly of new wood and polish."

Me using the "player's side table attachment" feature for my dice and notebook

Pete, at the head of the table, liked having a wooden screen and his own tray for dice, notes etc

An impromptu shoot-out in the back streets of 1930's Rio puts Oynx (Mark's character)
and Freya (Clare's character) in the firing line.

Here's me making full use of the "cup holder" feature

The morning after and the table had transformed back into a dining table