In honor of the cinematic release of ALIEN: ROMULUS in theatres, get 50% off select titles in the ALIEN RPG catalog on DriveThruRPG, Roll20, and Demiplane for the month of August. Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Try to scream, and no one can hear you—hold your breath, and you rupture your lungs. […]

In the mid-1980s, a dark science fiction television show entitled “V” aired first as two, separate mini-series, then as a weekly show.

Imagine living in a well populated city, only to stare in amazement when a spaceship hovers right above you. Instead of blasting humans into oblivion, these aliens (which were dubbed “Visitors”) extend a hand in friendship. They’re having a hard time surviving without certain resources, but if you help them…they’ll help you.

Wearing sunglasses, the Visitors seem to fool pretty much everyone with their pleasantries and reassurances. That is, until people wind up missing.

Special Birthday Price of $3.16 for ONE WEEK ONLY!

This high-octane Science-Fiction role-playing game for 2 or more players has your Space Troopers killing bugs all across the Cosmos. You’ll advance in rank, improve your weapons, slay civilization after civilization and find out who you are through an innovative “Flashback” mechanic.

“Out-Verhoevens Verhoeven” – Robin D. Laws
“Fantastic, gorgeous design” – Ron Edwards

Buy the 3:16 eBook for only $3:16 at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

“I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.”

Chances are, if you read a webzine such as this one, that you’ve been around the internets long enough to have heard of John Scalzi. Either you’ve viewed the ever-famous picture of his cat with bacon taped to it, or you’ve spotted his blog, “Whatever”. Spotting Scalzi isn’t hard: he writes, anything, a lot of it.

Ah, but have you read his fiction? No? Do so.

Review by Aly Condon

Fascinating world-building and a unique serial killer make Gena Showalter’s Awaken Me Darkly an engrossing read.

In New Chicago, Mia Snow works for Alien Investigation and Removal, hunting out predators and protecting humans. Not every alien is evil, but the ones who are keep Mia in business. The latest serial killer’s identity has been narrowed down to one of the Arcadian females, and on the chase Mia’s partner is near-deathly wounded. To survive, he needs special blood, and the only provider is the brother of the case’s lead suspect. Kyrin en Arr’s ultimatum is to set his sister free, or else he won’t keep Mia’s partner alive, but letting loose the most likely serial killer is hardly ideal for Mia.

Review by Tez Miller

We gave you a peek at the new cover art by Eric Lofgren and introduced you to the basics of Tales of the Seven Dogs Society last week.

Tales of the Seven Dogs Society is a collection of stories inspired by the Aletheia role-playing game published by Abstract Nova Entertainment. Each of these stories is a possible continuation of the events described in that book.

Today’s sneak preview is a small bit from Jim Johnson’s Lifting the Gingham Veil, which is the second story in the collection.

Exquisite Replicas is the latest game from Abstract Nova, who specialise in surreal off-the-beaten-track games such as Heaven and Earth 3rd edition, Aletheia, and Noumenon. ER shares this surreal quality, but couples it with horror. This is not the gore-laden horror of zombie films (though there are creatures in the game which you wouldn’t want to come across on a dark night), but the horror of losing your mind, or a distinctly unsettling feeling that you know something’s wrong, but can’t explain (even to yourself) why, and you feel powerless to do something about it.

Tales of the Seven Dogs Society is a collection of stories inspired by the Aletheia role-playing game published by Abstract Nova Entertainment. Each of these stories is a possible continuation of the events described in that book.

In the Aletheia RPG, players are presented with a detailed history of the strange events that led to the formation of the Seven Dogs Society, including some interesting supernatural phenomena that to this day remain unexplained. The book also gives describes how the Society works and just what types of characters might be recruited to join up.

This is the last preview we’ll have of the Exquisite Replicas RPG before it is released at GenCon Indy. So far we have seen a mix of previews that include looks at the new setting and some of the new mechanics introduced.

Visit the Previews page here at Flames Rising for a complete list of all the teasers we have posted so far. We have had a glimpse at one type of Othersider already, we have also heard a little bit of their dark plans, but we’ve yet to see where they come from…

Today we get a peek at the Otherside…

Last week, we gave you a sneak peek at the upcoming Exquisite Replicas RPG from Abstract Nova.

Exquisite Replicas is a role-playing game of paranoia and horror where intolerable choices collide with the fragile hope of what it means to be human. The war must be won, but it is up to the players to decide at what cost.

This week we get to read just a bit about The Anonymous, the characters who face off against alien horrors, risking everything…

Orbit is an older game, 2003, but we picked up a copy on the bring-and-buy table at Gencon UK so I thought I might as well review it. Some shops seem to still have copies for sale and you can, apparently, still get copies from the creator.

What the game is, or at least what it tries to be, is a sort of ‘Heavy Metal’ (the film) in game form, intermingled with some psychobilly retro-fifties styling. The book is soft back, reasonably well printed and weighs in at 258 pages all told. I had high expectations for this game as I sensed a kindred spirit to ’45: Psychobilly Retropocalypse but these expectations weren’t particularly fulfilled.

When USA Network’s limited series The 4400 premiered in the summer of 2004, the opening teaser said a lot. A little girl abducted; a soldier in Korea disappears; 4,400 abductees get dropped off by a comety ball of light. The Seattle branch of Homeland Security had its hands full, and over 7 million fans tuned in-setting records as the highest-rated and most-watched original cable series premiere to date.

Need some old-fashioned special effects in your sc-fi? Forget that opus opening to Independence Day, today’s genre filmmakers grew up V. The groundbreaking four hour 1983 miniseries may look hokey today, but the story, characters, and drama are top-notch. The all-star cast helps, too.