C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 22

The Last of Us 1x03 "Long, Long Time" review

    THE LAST OF US 1x03 "LONG, LONG TIME" is the first large divergence from the games. Basically, while the episode has some decent Ellie and Joel time, it is primarily about acquaintances Bill and Frank that just so happen to be a married couple. In the games, Frank is a character who died before we ever meet Bill and what we learn about him was that he was something of a manipulative sociopath. We also get some great Bill and Ellie interaction that is some of my favorite parts of the game.

I m...

Where to start with HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos

* Special thanks to Bobby Dee, author of Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

    HP Lovecraft is a controversial writer that has, nevertheless, left an immense footprint on the collective psyches of geeks from the early 20th century onward. The creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, his willingness to share his fictional creations with other writers and the work of men like August Derleth as well as Chaosium have resulted in incredible spin offs. Great Cthulhu and his ilk are now available in fuzzy slippers, mo...

The Sinking City review

    THE SINKING CITY is a study in contradictions and one that I have many thoughts on both good and bad. The closest game I can think of to it is Silent Hill, which is to say it has achieved something truly magnificent in terms of its setting as well as storytelling but plays like ass. It's a difficult statement because I want to like The Sinking City and it has many wonderful qualities but it also took me more than a few hours to figure out how its counterintuitive systems.

    The game is a in...

The Last of Us 1x02 "Infected" review

    "INFECTED" is the second episode of THE LAST OF US series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. In the not-so-distant future (really the alternate present), the cordyceps fungus has infected most of humanity and turned them into ravenous zombies. Most of humanity is forced into fortified communities ruled by military dictatorships but slowly dying off due to the failures of quarantine. Yeah, that doesn't remind me of anything. This video game adaptation wasn't timely or anything.

    The ep...

The Last of Us episode 2 "Infected" review

    "INFECTED" is the second episode of THE LAST OF US series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. In the not-so-distant future (really the alternate present), the cordyceps fungus has infected most of humanity and turned them into ravenous zombies. Most of humanity is forced into fortified communities ruled by military dictatorships but slowly dying off due to the failures of quarantine. Yeah, that doesn't remind me of anything. This video game adaptation wasn't timely or anything.

    The ep...

The Last of Us 1x01 "When you're lost in the darkness" review

    THE LAST OF US: EPISODE ONE: "WHEN YOU'RE LOST IN THE DARKNESS" is the first episode of the 2023 adaptation of the best-selling video game, THE LAST OF US. No duh, I know. However, I was a huge fan of the video game and am one of the ones who thinks that it is one of the best written of its genre. While I'm still holding out hope for a Bioshock and LA Noire series for their own superior stories, but this is probably the best you're going to get from a zombie show. The fact it stars     Pedro...

Fatale vol 1: Death Chases Me by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

    FATALE VOL. 1: DEATH CHASES ME by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is a work that I picked up after the fantastic THE FADE OUT comic. I'm a huge fan of film noir and it was some of the best art as well as writing I've found in comic books period. I wasn't a fan of the ending but I still wanted more and my friends said that not only was Fatale similar in some ways but it had my other proverbial catnip: Lovecraftian horror.

    Fatale is a deconstruction of the classic film noir trope: the femme f...

The Adventures of Kirk Rogers: Inside the Moon by CJ Boyle

    THE ADVENTURES OF KIRK ROGERS: INSIDE THE MOON by CJ Boyle is a book that I'd had in my TBR pile for a long time. I am a huge fan of classic sci-fi, humor, and over-the-top space opera action. The title and cover promised all of this and more. However, my TBR pile is a mountain and I never got around to reading it. However, I heard the author was releasing an audiobook so I decided to listen instead.

    Lauren Rogers is the sister of the square-jawed Air Force pilot and astronaut-to-be Kirk ...

Sweet Silver Blues (Garrett PI #1) by Glen Cook

    Glen Cook is an author that I intellectually know I should love but just doesn't jive with my style. At least, that's what I thought about him having tried and failed to read the Black Company three times. It was excellent world-building but, for some reason, I wasn't able to appreciate it the way I wanted to so I ended up dropping the series. Still, I was attracted to the prospect of another supernatural PI story. I'm a huge Dresden Files fan and the idea of a normal non-magical PI in a fan...

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips review

    THE FADE OUT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, illustrated by Elizabeth Breitweiser is not my usual grimdark fair. However, grimdark is the fantastic cousin to film noir and detective fiction. Much like in my LA Noire review (link: https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/tag/noire/), the subject matter deals with Los Angeles in the 1940s. It is a fantastic time to write stories about because the glamour and sleaze of Hollywood contrasts with the post-World War 2 trauma as w...