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Author: Ty Johnston

Nerdarchy > Articles posted by Ty Johnston (Page 2)

Blast from the Past: Scarab of Ra video game for Macs

Scarab of Ra game for Mac

Scarab of Ra (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1987. Ah, the good old days. Guns ‘N’ Roses was just hitting big. Nintendo was at the top of the video game market. Spider-Man hadn’t yet been cloned (at least not that we knew of).

A couple of other things happened in 1987.

For one, Apple released its Macintosh SE personal computer, which was a big improvement over earlier Macs and quite a popular computer for the next decade or so even though Apple stopped making the SE in 1990. Sure, the SE was a dull gray and had a bulky mouse, but it came with its own hard drive! Yeah, doesn’t sound like such a big deal now, but it was huge back then.

Another thing that happened in 1987 was a company known as Semicolon Software released a Mac game for shareware. That game? Scarab of Ra.

With tabletop RPGs, sometimes you just want to play the damn game

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="456" class="zemanta-img"] Role-playing gamers at the Burg-Con in Berlin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] Here at Nerdarchy, you could say our bread and butter is talking about tabletop role-playing games, most commonly Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. We have videos and articles and a forum...

Are fewer people reading today?

reading

Print is dead, right? Maybe, maybe not, but either way, that doesn’t mean reading has died.

Is reading dying or dead? It would seem so. Every few months there’s an article online or in the newspapers or magazines about how people don’t read nearly as much as they used to, or that fewer and fewer people pick up a book. But I’d argue otherwise. I think more people are reading than ever before.

Blast from the Past: The Book of Swords Series

The man behind the books

Fred Saberhagen

Author Fred Saberhagen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Author Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007) must have been a busy person. Not only was he the creator of the Berserker series of science fiction tales, the Dracula sequence of novels, the Books of the Gods series, and a number of video games, but he was also the man responsible for The Book of Swords series which consisted of 11 novels. He even wrote another trilogy, collectively known as Empire of the East, which was vaguely related to The Book of Swords due to the events happening in the same world as The Book of Swords but thousands of years earlier.

Fantasy writers deserve not to be pigeonholed

The Pillars of the Earth writers

The Pillars of the Earth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writers of history

A while back I was in an online forum filled with fellow writers. The majority of writers and authors on the site were thriller and romance writers … the “acceptable” genres.

While there I noticed a posting about historical fiction, asking what are some favorite historical novels and short stories. I started salivating because I could think of tons of historical fiction books and tales I love. Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove comes to mind, as does Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. James Clavell’s Shogun is also a favorite, as are Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind and Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. I also thought of Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire novel and Louis L’Amour’s The Walking Drum. Just about anything written by Alexandre Dumas springs to my mind as a favorite.

Is fiction writing the last unexplored frontier?

writingOnce upon a time, just about anyone could be an explorer. Little more than a hundred years ago, there were still places on this Earth which had not been reached, or had been reached by very few. In those days, just about any man or woman could set out to trek off into unknown territories. True, major expeditions were funded by governments or business interests, as they are today, but the average person could still sign up with such groups or with a minimum of money set out on their own.

Fantasy Literature Quiz Answers

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For the original quiz, check out this link.

  1. A ring
  2. The Gray Mouser
  3. 1923
  4. The Sword of Shannara
  5. Author Ursula K. Le Guin
  6. Seven
  7. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger
  8. Cimmeria
  9. A butterfly
  10. The Knights of Solamnia, or The Solomnic Knights
  11. A giant turtle named Great A’Tuin
  12. Kahlan Amnell
  13. Florida
  14. Technically seven, though there are more lands than the Seven Kingdoms within Westeros
  15. The Creator
  16. Dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden
  17. Wednesday’s glass eye
  18. Azoth, eventually known as Kylar Stern
  19. The Golden Compass
  20. Twelve
  21. Assassin
  22. The Oath of Peace
  23. Tad Williams
  24. Magician
  25. Garion
  26. Stormbringer
  27. Fuchsia Groan
  28. Lirazel, the King of Elfland’s daughter
  29. Urban fantasy
  30. Mercury

Blast from the Past: Adventure video game for Atari 2600

[caption id="attachment_15672" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] "Adventure" for the Atari 2600. It looks simple, and was, but it still provided plenty of fun.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_15669" align="alignright" width="235"] The original box for the "Adventure" video game. The Atari 2600 cartridge came inside.[/caption] There was a time when video games were...

Nerdarchy store hosts plenty of nerd swag

Nerdarchy

Appearing on YouTube with Scott Garibay, second from left, Nerdarchists Dave, Ted and Nate show off their Nerdarchy shirts and hats.

If you’ve watched any of the Nerdarchy videos, most likely you have seen the guys over there wearing hats or shirts or other garb sporting the Nerdarchy name and logo. This is not by accident. But did you know you can purchase Nerdarchy gear for yourself? Oh, yes, you can. If you don’t already know about it, allow me to introduce Nerdarchy the Store.

Secrets of Nerdarchy revealed! You won’t believe it!

Nerdarchy

Would you trust being at sea with this shifty lot? The Nerdarchy crew, from left to right, Ted, Dave, Ryan, and Nate, all aboard for the Fan2Sea Comic Con Cruise.

Last week the entire Nerdarchy crew set out to sea for the Fan2Sea Comic Con Cruise. That’s right. Ted, Dave, Ryan, Nate, their family and friends, the whole shebang, they’ve up and left everything behind to go play at pirate. With Frank Miller.