RPK's sekrit project: Baseless Speculations

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

• This will be a stat-heavy, rules-heavy beast. RPK has handled such projects well in the past.
• GURPS Bestiary has been removed from the wish-list. According to Bruno, Kromm has stated that this is because the wish-list approach wasn't working; not because there was no need for a Bestiary. The logical approach is to give it to one of the regular writers.
• It is already up to three volumes, so SJG must be reasonably certain that it will sell. The Bestiary is such an item, although I admit there are others.

And again, this is not an official thread. If we're wrong, no blame falls on the shoulders of the SJG staff.

-It is.
-No clue.
-It will. It's so much fun I had to go to the DMV just to stop smiling. Banel injections of real life are these books only cure.


Wait. It's a trick, someone get a axe...

Ghostdancer

[Amra]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

All I'll confirm is that Book 3 does feature reggae music at one point. And zombies.


I couldn't agree more. Larry and I did a panel together at last year's LibertyCon (a sci-fi author convention in Chattanooga) and he had a ton of great stories and behind-the-scenes insights. Y'all definitely should've been there. (Not to mention, if you had been, you'd actually know all about Project M. In detail. Of course, you'd have been sworn to secrecy . . .)

Hmmm (pure speculation to follow), RPK and Larry hanging out and sharing notes? Could this be a licensed MH product?

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Amra

Hmmm (pure speculation to follow), RPK and Larry hanging out and sharing notes? Could this be a licensed MH product?

I've been checking Larry's blog. No mention there....

[Þorkell]

Project MH, eh?

I wonder....

My old school, graduated from there many many years ago.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Amra

Hmmm (pure speculation to follow), RPK and Larry hanging out and sharing notes? Could this be a licensed MH product?

Hmm, that would be interesting. What I've read about the books makes them sound like they'd be a fun thing to adapt for GURPS (though I tried reading the first one on his site and just couldn't get past the author's politics).

[Dewey]

Originally Posted by lexington

Hmm, that would be interesting. What I've read about the books makes them sound like they'd be a fun thing to adapt for GURPS (though I tried reading the first one on his site and just couldn't get past the author's politics).

The politics aren't that bad. It's way way better than say, John Ringo. And they are some very good and entertaining books.

[PK]

I want to be coy here, but given that allowing the speculation to continue may affect another person (Larry), I should probably nip this in the bud. (Reluctantly. Watching the guessing is fun, after all!)

Project M is not a licensed adaptation of MHI or any other existing works.

Now, Larry did have a small amount of input into it, but this was Larry-as-geeky-guy-with-neat-ideas, not Larry-author-of-MHI. Basically, I told him about Project M and he offered some wouldn't-it-be-neat-if thoughts that were, indeed, neat.

[PK]

Originally Posted by lexington

Hmm, that would be interesting. What I've read about the books makes them sound like they'd be a fun thing to adapt for GURPS (though I tried reading the first one on his site and just couldn't get past the author's politics).

Really? Which politics do you mean? There's definitely a strong anti-authoritarian/anti-government slant in his books, but that's the only politics I really noticed.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Really? Which politics do you mean? There's definitely a strong anti-authoritarian/anti-government slant in his books, but that's the only politics I really noticed.

There's an undercurrent of Libertarian triumphalism. But I suppose I only notice that because of my own views, I suspect all writers have the equivalent in their works and I just tend to read more liberal authors.

It's mainly that he pushes the anti-authoritarianism so hard that it breaks. The government guys just seem arbitrarily bad, like he needed them to be evil because they're the government but he couldn't come up with any better reasons.

[PK]

Originally Posted by lexington

It's mainly that he pushes the anti-authoritarianism so hard that it breaks. The government guys just seem arbitrarily bad, like he needed them to be evil because they're the government but he couldn't come up with any better reasons.

Ah, I see what you mean. Here's the thing: I disagree that the government guys are painted as arbitrarily bad or evil. Instead, they're painted as "arbitrarily" hating MHI and wanting to shut them down no matter what. If you consider MHI the protagonists, then yes, that makes the government the Big Evil Bad Guys. But the reason I put arbitrary in quotes is that it isn't. About halfway through the book, you find out why the government hates MHI, distrusts all of their ops, and would love to put them out of business . . . and it's a pretty darn good reason. I'm not saying they're right -- just that I can totally see it from their POV.

So please trust that there's a good reason the government is used as a foil for MHI. That said, I agree that the government is painted dark regardless. This is gone into more in the second book, where they're expressly willing to kill or abduct witnesses if it's necessary to keep the secret -- and that's a pretty rude thing to do. But if you're thinking of the scene where the government guys are willing to kill Owen because he might be infected, know that MHI would've done the exact same thing to him. That's a mercy killing, not a murder.