Free book for boys and reluctant readers
Flynn’s Log is free on the following devices
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US$8.99 Paperback
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Reading is important
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. –Maya Angelou
Most adults would agree that reading is important, but many kids detest reading. Video games, devices, and TV are preferred entertainment and escape. They provide instant gratification. Reading takes time. For some kids, reading isn’t engaging.
I had this same problem with my son, so I solved the problem.
The classic stories I remember enjoying as a kid don’t interest my son and his immediate attention span. If he doesn’t enjoy the story from page one, he will not read further.
So how did I get my son to read?
I showed him how much fun it is to get sucked into a story.
Your book is amazing I can’t stop reading it – Joseph Young via twitter
Contemporary and Classic titles alike don’t interest many kids. Don’t worry, the love of reading is learned. We need a starting point. We need that one book that is just as engaging on the first read as the fifth, just like a really great movie that kids want to see again and again. A positive association with reading will make kids want to read more.
A love of reading is cited as the number one indicator of future success. My son didn’t have the desire to read. He didn’t care about the books I chose to read to him, and was overwhelmed with the selection at the library. I want my son to succeed, so I had to do something. Since we struggled to find books he cared to read, I wrote one. An epic saga about the things he loves. I put it in a world he loves and addressed the issues he faces in his life.
I just love your books I’ve been reading them over and over again. -Carson via twitter
But it’s a video game book
Don’t worry; it’s not a book about video games, nor is it a game strategy book. Flynn’s Log is a hero’s journey that takes place inside the Minecraft world that today’s kids know and love. The protagonist, Flynn, naturally flows through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (builds shelter and tools, learns what to eat and discovers a digital friend) and faces questions about his destiny. He learns important life lessons about friendship, integrity, and trust. Flynn’s Log is good for kids without being boring.
Thank you so so much for the free ebook. My son loves Minecraft now with this book I can get him to read to me. – Jennifer Wilkins
Start your son or daughter on journey today, reading Flynn’s Log 1: Rescue Island. Free on available these devices and apps.
Flynn’s Log is free on the following devices
Choose your device
KindleiPad/iPod/iPhoneGoogle Play (Android Tablets)nookkoboRead Online
US$8.99 Paperback
Why is Flynn’s Log 1 Free?
My son loves reading — finally. If you have experience with a reluctant reader then I know your pain and I want to help. I’ve seen thousands of kids transform with this book. My readers, who don’t usually read books during the summer, couldn’t put Flynn’s Log 1 down.
Good book I thought I would never read a book on my summer but I feel I’m gonna finish it soon – Multigamer 47 via twitter
Let this book change your kid’s life too. You have nothing to lose and an avid reader to gain.
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
–Frederick Douglas
I am giving away Flynn’s Log 1 free because I want to give you a risk-free way to hook your reluctant reader.
Please and I mean PLEASE, WRITE MORE! I absolutely love it! They’re outstanding books.
-Devon123321 via twitter
What are Books for Boys?
I spend lots of time with teachers and parents. I hear parents ask, “How do I get my son to read? Do you have books for boys?”
I wrote the Flynn’s Log series for my son, and this book is interesting for boys. However, the series is a non-stop read for both boys and girls, especially those who are interested in Minecraft.
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
—Dr. Seuss
What are you waiting for?
You have nothing to lose!
Flynn’s Log is free on the following devices
Choose your device
KindleiPad/iPod/iPhoneGoogle Play (Android Tablets)nookkoboRead Online
US$8.99 Paperback
News for Parents of Reluctant Readers
Get Reluctant Reader Book News from Stone Marshall
PACIFIC RIM UPRISING TV Spot Features Some Exciting New Footage From The Upcoming Sequel
This latest TV spot for Steven S. DeKnight’s Pacific Rim Uprising features quite a bit of new footage from the upcoming sequel.
In addition to several exciting shots of Jaegers taking on the monstrous Kaiju, we get a much better glimpse of a couple of mechs coming to blows. Plus, there’s a first look at the returning Charlie Day as that shrill scientist many people were praying would get eaten by the end of the first film.
Check it out, and let us know if you’re looking forward ro this one in the commnets section below.
John Boyega stars as the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity’s victory against the monstrous “Kaiju.” Jake has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. But when an even more unstoppable threat is unleashed to tear through our cities and bring the world to its knees, he is given one last chance to live up to his father’s legacy by his estranged sister, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)—who is leading a brave new generation of pilots that have grown up in the shadow of war. As they seek justice for the fallen, their only hope is to unite together in a global uprising against the forces of extinction.
Pacific Rim Uprising also stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Cailee Spaeny, and Adria Arjona, and is set to hit theaters on March 23.
PACIFIC RIM UPRISING TV Spot Features Some Exciting New Footage From The Upcoming Sequel
Saber Interactive: Classic shooters show off technical chops
With Quake Champions, Saber Interactive has set itself the task to make a modern Quake: frenetic and crazy as it ever was, but with larger-than-life champions, each with their own hooks and special abilities. It’s a fusion of the grim and gothic original, the heady, explosiveness of Quake III Arena, and a champion formula that calls to mind titles like Overwatch. It’s something old and something new.
It’s not unfamiliar territory for Saber, which has dabbled in a lot of different genres in the 16 years since it was founded by Matthew Karch, Andrey Iones, and Anton Krupkin. It’s the shooters that the studio is perhaps best known for, however. The tech side of things is what makes Saber gravitate towards them, thinks Karch. “Shooters have always been at the forefront of showing what real-time rendering is capable of,” he says. That focus has been there since the start. So when they established Saber, they had that strong technical foundation and an equally strong desire to show it off.
Bethesda and Saber had been in contact for years about potential projects, and the stars eventually aligned for Quake Champions. Bethesda and id weren’t doing anything new with the series, though Quake Live was going strong, proving there was definitely still a market for that kind of fast-paced arena shooter. Saber pitched its vision to Bethesda and id, and Karch remembers that it was close to what they wanted to do internally. Quake Champions was born.
Saber’s technical foundation is also why Quake Champions doesn’t use id Tech, instead running on a hybrid engine designed by Saber. “We did a deep dive with id’s Tim Willits,” Karch explains, “and we decided our rendering would be the better choice, but there were things that id was doing that we really wanted to incorporate. It’s probably less incorporating and more replicating. We looked at the way they handled certain types of things from cameras to controls to player physics and used what they did as a foundation.”
Everyone’s a hero
Key to the game are the titular champions. “It’s worked for Overwatch,” Karch says, “which is a slower paced game, but it allows every player to choose their hero to get their personality in the arena.” Saber has Quake’s lore to draw from, but beyond that, it’s also got id’s large back catalogue, and even Bethesda’s, from which it can craft new champions and their accompanying mechanics.
It’s a bit experimental. More ideas have been left on the cutting room floor than kept. These champions have to fit Quake’s very specific dynamic. “It’s a constantly evolving process,” Karch says. “This is a game as a service, and it’s only as good as the service you can provide. We think there’s a market for what we’re doing, but we see there’s room for improvement and changes. As we get player feedback, we’re trying our best to react as quickly as possible. The design is an evolving one, but the initial results are encouraging.”
Most of the Quake Champions team is on the Saber side, with only about five people—some producers and a designer—from id. So the studio has a lot of creative freedom, though Karch is quick to point out that, ultimately, the buck stops with Tim Willits, as the creative director of id. Saber is used to these kinds of collaborations. It did most of the work on Halo: Anniversary and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and it was working on Halo Online before it was shelved indefinitely.
Quake Champions launched on Steam via early access in August. It’s the first time Saber has worked on this kind of early access game. “It’s been more good than bad, but it’s a little nerve-racking to put your baby out into the wild,” Karch admits. “You want to get everything out as quickly as possible, but the frustrating thing is that you don’t want to release everything piecemeal—you want to release big changes into the pipeline and out to the players.”
Right now, Saber’s main objective is to continue to improve the game’s accessibility. While Quake is an immensely popular series, the style and pace of today’s most successful shooters—from Call of Duty to Overwatch—is entirely different. Teaching people how to play, then, has become imperative, as has making Quake Champions appeal to a broader audience.
“We want to improve the onboarding experience,” says Karch, “and get people more familiar with the controls and the way the game works, as opposed to just dropping them right into a battle.”
Back in time
As Saber continues to work on Quake, it’s also working on other projects, most notably a follow up to its 2007 time-manipulation shooter: TimeShift. Saber hasn’t officially announced it yet, but it’s in development. It’s something of a passion project for the studio. TimeShift is a bit of a cult classic, and among the developers, it’s got a lot of fans.
“Every year we do a company party, and our biggest studio is in St. Petersburg, and every year, I kid you not, there’s a bowl, and it’s filled with rubles,” Karch laughs. “They call it the Timeshift 2 fund. Everyone comes in and puts rubles in this Timeshift 2 fund because everyone wants to work on it.”
He eventually acquiesced, and the team is now in the design prototyping phase. Of course, it can’t be called TimeShift 2, since Activision still owns the rights, so instead it’s a spiritual successor. It will be a new story with a new name, but the most important elements, like the time manipulation, will be returning. For Karch, who was the original game designer, it’s very exciting. “TimeShift was my baby in every way.”
As for the new name, nothing is set in stone, but Karch has already registered ‘Timebender’. He can’t help but chuckle when he says it.
Saber Interactive: Classic shooters show off technical chops
Hollywood’s Skydance Interactive doubles down on VR for the long term
Above: Archangel starts out with a stealth mission.
David Ellison, son of Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, started his own Hollywood entertainment studio in 2010. Skydance has made feature films including Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, Terminator Genisys, World War Z, and Star Trek Into Darkness. Now, the company is branching out into games with Skydance Interactive, and virtual reality is its entry point.
Skydance acquired a studio, The Workshop, in 2016. The studio was making Pwnd, a cartoon-style first-person shooter that debuted in 2017. But the game was overshadowed by titles, such as Overwatch and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Skydance Interactive has about 70 people, and now, they’re all focused on titles, such as Archangel — a mech-oriented VR title. I spoke with Chris Hewish, executive vice president for VR at Skydance Interactive, in a fireside chat at Casual Connect USA 2018 in Anaheim, California.
Hewish said the company is working on a VR version of The Walking Dead as well as another unannounced title. It is also going to update Archangel for multiplayer play. All of this, he said, is part of a plan for long-term success in a fledgling market.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Above: Chris Hewish, executive vice president for VR at Skydance.
GamesBeat: Tell us more about yourself.
Chris Hewish: I’ve been in the games industry for about 25 years, through a lot of different cycles. I joined Skydance almost a year ago. I got into games right out of college. I was a gamer all my life as a kid, and I took a shot at joining the company whose games I loved the most, which was Games Workshop. Just a funny anecdote, when I sent my resume to them, I added a cover letter that I wrote in the voice of an Ork Warboss, a letter of recommendation from an Ork Warboss in their fiction. That opened the door and got me into the game industry. From there, I worked at Microprose, Activision, and Dreamworks Animation.
GamesBeat: What was interesting to you about VR? Why have you focused on it?
Hewish: After I was at Dreamworks Animation, I got into mobile a little bit, as a lot of people did. I did a little startup that didn’t work out, and I was looking at what my next move would be. It was either do more mobile gaming or a buddy of mine said, “You should check out this company called Survios. They’re doing some VR work.”
Like a lot of people, I hadn’t experienced VR in its current iteration. I was a little unsure. But I went over anyway and got an early demo of what would become Raw Data, full room-scale VR. I was blown away. I said, “I get it now. This is awesome.” That ability to get drawn into a whole new world, it embodied the fantasy of being a hero, seeing these new worlds and interacting with them in a direct way. It really hooked me and made me a believer.
GamesBeat: We all know that VR isn’t doing as well as expected. How does that affect what you’re thinking about now?
Hewish: Not to be contrarian, but I think VR is doing well. There were some big projections and hype about how it would come storming out the gate. When I say it’s doing well, I mean in the sense of, when you look at most new electronics for home entertainment, they follow a slow ramp-up in the initial few years. We’re seeing encouraging signs of that, where the adoption rate of VR is matching the curve of similar electronics that have come into the home. Certainly, if you look at the hype cycle, we’re in the trough of disillusionment right now, but….
Above: Pwnd.
GamesBeat: Is there a sign you see that this isn’t like 3D TV, which was truly faddish?
Hewish: A couple of things. We’re already seeing a second generation of hardware coming out, which indicates that the money behind it — the manufacturers behind it — see that there is value in iterating and evolving the hardware. We’re seeing a broad adoption of VR in location-based entertainment. What we’re still looking at right now is there’s in-home VR, and then, there’s location-based VR. Both of those, when combined, make a market. But I think the verdict is still out on which one becomes dominant or whether there’s room for both over the next three years.
GamesBeat: Skydance as well, tell us more about that. Generally, people may know that Skydance is run by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison. His sister is running Annapurna in Hollywood. These are some interesting new players doing different kinds of things.
Hewish: Skydance Media is a film, TV, interactive, and animation content creator, a studio. We partner with Paramount and Netflix for distribution and some other top companies. Our goal is to make great worlds, great content, triple-A big tent-pole properties and worlds. We’ve done things like the last Star Trek, Mission Impossible, the Terminator reboot that will be coming out in 2019. On Netflix, we’re airing a show in a few weeks called Altered Carbon, which is based on a cyberpunk series of novels by [Richard] Morgan. Also Grace and Frankie, a popular show on Netflix. We have a wide range.
Above: Archangel features mechs in VR.
GamesBeat: How did the gaming part get started?
Hewish: That started about a year and a half ago. David wanted to build an interactive unit, and he wanted to do it in a way that’s different from how interactive is treated at most studios — really wanted it to be its own stand-alone business, not just an ancillary consumer product group. He also saw that VR held a lot of promise for a company looking to break into the game space and establish themselves without having to go toe to toe with established players in console or mobile.
David acquired a company called The Workshop, and a few people that are speaking here like Peter Akemann. Really talented group of developers. They’re down in Marina del Rey. We’re up in Santa Monica. We acquired the studio with the goal of really shifting them to be a triple-A VR studio. I came on board eight months or so after the acquisition to help with those efforts.
GamesBeat: And the first game was Pwnd?
Hewish: We actually launched two games at the same time. One was Pwnd, which is a league-based shooter, a multiplayer game. It’s non-VR. The other one is Archangel, which is a big mech VR title, living out that fantasy of piloting a big robot and destroying things.
GamesBeat: Pwnd didn’t do as well as you guys had hoped. It was their passion project, and they wanted to get it out, but….
Hewish: It’s a solid game. We encountered, as a lot of people have, the fact that the team-shooter market is pretty dominated by Overwatch and then PUBG coming out. We did want to respect the creators at The Workshop, and the project they’d been working on for a number of years. That’s a theme throughout Skydance. We really do respect the talent, and we want to try to help them bring their visions to market. We stayed with Pwnd, brought it to market. We’ve been supporting it for six months now. We’ll see if that can gain traction. Even though VR is our focus, we’d be happy to have something else that took off and would also be a good line of business. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
GamesBeat: And now you’re going to double down on VR?
Hewish: We are. We’re focused purely on VR now, at least within our interactive studio. From a broader perspective, when you look at the interactive division at Skydance, we’re also looking at co-development and licensing deals to get our content onto other platforms, but we’re doing VR in-house. We’re working on Walking Dead and an unannounced title that will be coming out in 2019, as well as more content for Archangel.
Above: The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of America.
GamesBeat: Tell us more about Archangel.
Hewish: That was the big mech combat game that came out on the three premium headsets — Vive, Rift, and PSVR. The game’s been doing well for us. I’m a big believer in trying to build a community and supporting our games after we launch them, as opposed to just a packaged-goods model. We’re working on additional content for Archangel. We’re doing multiplayer mech-on-mech combat. That’ll be coming out in the middle of this year.
If you’ve played the single-player game, it’s an on-rails shooter with a narrative and all that good stuff. But with the player-versus-player combat, we’re going off the rails and really embodying that fantasy. You’re piloting this giant mech. We have locomotion and torso twisting and the fun combat that goes along with that. We’re adding new classes of mechs into the mix.
GamesBeat: Your first two titles weren’t based on any of Skydance’s movie IP. Why was that?
Hewish: We’re gluttons for punishment [laughs]? Actually, that was by design. As I mentioned, we really are treating this as its own stand-alone business unit, not just an ancillary to the film or TV business. Because of that, it was important that our first games out were original IP. If we had come out with one of our film properties, our streaming properties, it would have set the tone that we’re just the child of that parent company, just relying on their IP.
Our mandate is to do what’s right for the interactive business, and if that means we work with some of our own IP, great. If it means licensing IP inbound, like with the Walking Dead, great. If it’s original, also great.
GamesBeat: Is there a broader, longer-term strategy around VR?
Hewish: We really look at the next couple of years as an opportunity to establish ourselves as a triple-A player in the VR space, establish ourselves as one of the leaders, if not the leader, in VR. We believe that the market will pop in a few years. Once we have additional hardware cycles, prices come down, and friction is removed from the whole process of setting it up and everything. We want to be there when the market takes off. That’s how we believe we can position ourselves as a new interactive company.
Hollywood’s Skydance Interactive doubles down on VR for the long term
December 2017’s top 10 Minecraft Marketplace creations: Blockception repeats at No. 1
Minecraft is the best example of Microsoft’s modern approach to gaming platforms. The publisher acquired the block-building phenomenon and developer Mojang in 2014 for $2.5 billion, and it has since shaped that investment into one of its most active live services. The growing Minecraft Marketplace is at the center of that.
Each month here at GamesBeat, I take a closer look at the Minecraft Marketplace and its best-selling content. You can take a look at past results right here. For December 2017, a few new downloadable worlds and mashup packs made the list. Winter Mini-Games Festival by Noxcrew rode a seasonal wave to get on the charts just behind the Summer Mini-Games Festival. Mojang’s own Norse Mythology Mash-Up also made the list after debuting last month.
But the big story of December is that not only did Blockception’s Whiterock Castle repeat as No. 1, but this creator also took the No. 2 spot with The Crater.
If you’re wondering what Blockception’s secret to success is, well … I asked the Blockception team.
“Honestly, we aren’t really sure,” Blockception creative director Alex Bellavita told GamesBeat. “We love that people are downloading and enjoying our content. Everyone in the team works hard on making sure that the content they make is to their best ability at the time of it being conceived.
Here’s the top 10 best-selling items on Minecraft Marketplace. As a reminder, Microsoft provided this data, and it represents the most-downloaded paid content from both the community and Mojang.
| Top Performing Paid Content | |||
| Content | Rank | Details | Store description |
| “Whiterock Castle” by Blockception  | 1 | World 4.7/5 user rating A medieval fantasy castle with complex architecture. | “Explore the lands of Whiterock Castle and start your own adventure!” |
| “The Crater” by Blockception  | 2 | World 4.2/5 user rating A settlement inside of a huge impact crater. | “A vast crater is the setting of this survival spawn – the result of a devastating meteorite impact and now a remnant of destruction turned into an idyllic spawn.” |
| “Dinosaur Island” by PixelHeads  | 3 | World 4.5/5 user rating Deal with a variety of dinosaurs on a tropical island. | “Overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments, explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island.” |
| Norse Mythology Mash-Up By Minecraft  | 4 | Mash-Up Pack 4.8/5 user rating A collection of skins, textures, and worlds inspired by Norse myths. | “Compose your own grand saga as you voyage through the 9 realms, from the treetops of Yggdrasil, down into the mines of Svartalfheim and the depths of Hel! The third episode in the mythology series, this pack has hand carved textures, a thunderous soundtrack and a horde of skins.” |
| “Sunnyside Academy” by Imagiverse  | 5 | World 4.3/5 user rating A functioning town with a school at its center. | “Gear up for school with friends, or tackle solo assignments, build your own home and help maintain the town in this colorful neighborhood!” |
| “Winter Mini-Games Festival” by Noxcrew | 6 | World 4.7/5 user rating A snow-covered adventure land with a ton to do. | “Spend a cozy weekend up at Frosty Mountain lodge, with a new Mini-Golf course, Speed Sledding and a grand Ice Castle. Race your friends in Yeti-Set-Go, take to the skies in our Elytra course and zip around in snowmobiles.” |
| “Summer Mini Games Festival” by Noxcrew  | 7 | World 4.4/5 user rating A wonderland of obstacle courses and activity centers. | “Take a daytrip and test your skills at Mini-Golf, Blocksketball and the shooting range. Other summertime shenanigans include playing Splashdown in a luxury boat, Spleef in a volcano and monkeying around in the Aqua Jungle.” |
| “PureBDcraft” by BDcraft  | 8 | Texture pack 5/5 user rating Revamps every texture to make things look more comic-book-like. | “Completely transform your Minecraft world into a comic! Blocks, Items, Mobs and UI are revamped with this bright, bold High Def pack in 32x, 64x and 128x resolutions, full of details and geeky references.” |
| “Wildlife: Savanna” by PixelHeads  | 9 | World 4.7/5 user rating Meet lions, elephants, and more along with your safari crew. | “Go on safari in a rugged off-road vehicle to discover brand new landscapes and exotic animals. Find giraffes, zebras and even cheetahs (if you’re quick enough!), and befriend them for a whole new wildlife experience.” |
| “Adventure Time Mash-up” by Minecraft  | 10 | Mash-up pack 4.8/5 user rating Brings the Adventure Time cartoon into Minecraft with textures, skins, and the Land of Ooo world. | “With Jake the Dog and Finn the Human, and a bundle of their friends, it’s Adventure Time!… Mash-up! Featured in this pack: your favorite Adventure Time characters, the Land of Ooo, a bespoke texture set, BMO themed UI and original soundtrack.” |
And as a bonus, here’s the best-performing content that people earned with in-game currency.
- Norse Mythology Mash-Up by Minecraft
- Dinosaur Island by PixelHeads
- Adventure Time Mash-Up by Minecraft
- Wildlife: Savanna by PixelHeads
- PureBDcraft by BDcraft
- Festive Mash-Up 2016 by Minecraft
- DestructoBot 5000 by Noxcrew
- Halloween Mash-Up by Minecraft
- Elf Town by 37Digital
- Dragon Hero by PixelHeads
I’ll have more from my interview with Blockception coming up soon, and then you should check back next month for another look into the Minecraft Marketplace.
December 2017’s top 10 Minecraft Marketplace creations: Blockception repeats at No. 1
At Last, You Can Build a Nuclear Command Center in Minecraft
If plans are bets about the future, Uncle Sam has kept a few hundred million dollars worth of chips riding on ‘blinding flash.’ Here’s what that looks like.
If you’ve ever wondered what a nuclear apocalypse looks like from inside the Defense Department’s concrete holy of holies, we can help you out with that now. Sort of.
On Thursday, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) released two 3-D glimpses of armageddon architecture: the Pentagon’s emergency bunker at the Raven Rock Military Complex and Russia’s command center inside Kosvinsky Mountain, rendered as playable worlds for the Minecraft video game platform.
The worlds are designed about as close to the real thing as open sources and Minecraft’s Lego-like block world will allow. An MIIS team led by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (full disclosure: I helped out on the project) used data from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography mission to mirror the real world geography of the sites, filling in the structures with help from satellite photos and a declassified document released through the Freedom of Information Act to map the inner network of tunnels at Raven Rock. The rest, particularly at Kosvinsky—about which Russia has released little—was left up to the creative imagination of MIIS’ 3-D modelers.
For those unfamiliar, Raven Rock is the Defense Department’s home away from home in the event that their home becomes a radioactive ash heap. First opened under President Eisenhower, the bunker complex lies in the heart of Raven Rock Mountain in southern Pennsylvania, just a short helicopter ride from the Pentagon. Today, it’s part of a network and served as a secure base for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz during the 9/11 attacks.
So what’s the point of creating a Minecraft bunker world?
In November, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 8,100 miles, putting the entire continental U.S. within range of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, but defense officials play down the threat, publicly doubting the North’s ability to reach the U.S. mainland. In the event that a rogue state like North Korea does light off a nuclear volley across the Pacific, the tweeter-in-chief himself reassures us that, “We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97 percent of the time, and if you send two of them, it’s going to get knocked down.”
Economists use a concept called “revealed preference” to suss out a consumer’s true priorities. The basic gist of it is that what you spend your money on says more about what’s important to you than what your own words may indicate—the “hips don’t lie” of interpreting consumer behavior.
During the Cold War, there wasn’t much of a difference between rhetoric and spending on doomsday preparation. The U.S. invested heavily in a massive network of bunkers and emergency facilities for various parts of the federal government in preparation for a doomsday scenario whose likelihood the American public, accustomed to duck-and-cover civil defense drills and the occasional superpower standoff, broadly believed could happen.
A funny thing happened after the Cold War ended, though: The talk of world-ending nuclear clashes declined but the federal government’s doomsday preppers kept going. Sure, the pace and scale of activity wasn’t near its Cold War peak after the fall of the Soviet Union, but a rump collection of facilities lived on and gained new life over the years.
The coordinated attacks against the headquarters of American political and military leadership on 9/11 moved the prospect of armageddon, or at least something approximating it, higher up in the minds of policymakers. The government dusted off its network of panic rooms and started investing in upgrades to places like Raven Rock, which has since grown from 450,000 to 639,000 square feet according to Garrett Graff’s book about the facility.
If plans are bets about the future, Uncle Sam has kept a few hundred million dollars worth of chips riding on “blinding flash” at the roulette wheel.
It’s not quite the world of Dr. Strangelove, where the lecherous old men of national security, having destroyed the world with nuclear weapons, prepare to abandon their constituents and secretly head down into mine shafts with a “bold curiosity for the adventure ahead” as they repopulate the world with a ratio of 10 women to every man. But it does highlight the gap between public rhetoric and private hedging.
And that’s where a doomsday bunker rendered in Minecraft comes in. Sure, we know where Raven Rock is along with a few of its other federal cousins, but the facilities themselves are closed off to the public, tended to by guards with guns who aren’t keen on photography.
For most people, a Minecraft tour of Raven Rock is the closest they’ll ever get to seeing the frightening world the federal government has quietly contemplated through their own eyes.
At Last, You Can Build a Nuclear Command Center in Minecraft
Disney Has Apparently Written Off SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
According to ScreenGeek Disney is not only bracing themselves for Solo: A Star Wars Story to be a critical dud but also prepares itself for it being a bomb. Most apparently due to the lead actor.
And here we go again.
Another day, another Star Wars story. And just like most Star Wars related news recently this one is sure to raise some eyebrows as well. According to an “anonymous source close to the film” the newest entry in the Star Wars franchise titled “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is supposed to be a mess. But read the sources thoughts for yourself:
“Disney is bracing themselves for the Han Solo movie to bomb. They were worried about it before all The Last Jedi controversy, but now they’re essentially writing Solo off. The lead actor, Alden Ehrenreich, can’t act, and they had a dialogue coach on hand for all of his scenes. On top of that, the script is unworkable. It’s going to be a car crash.”
Now, obviously this should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Not only is the source anonymous but also it’s doubtfull that Disney would let out any piece of information like that without having their elite-sniper squad informed.
However this information does not come as much of a surprise given recent reports of an acting coach being hired to help Ehrenreich deliver a believable performance and Howard apparently having reshot over 70% of the movie.
Not only are these reports pretty damning but also some people are adding the lack of promotional material for the movie as further evidence of the movie being already written off.
Remember: this movie is opening in about 5 months. At least a teaser trailer would have been possible to be put out by now, however none in sight so far. Also pictures are rare, we only have Instagram photos, none of wich featuring Ehrenreich (wich further leads people to believe the rumors about his lacking performance might be true) and no official ones.
What do you think? Will “Solo: A Star Wars Story” bomb? Will it be as divisive as “The Last Jedi”? Or will it be the smash hit Disney isn’t expecting?
Minecraft Boss Is Now In Charge Of All Games At Xbox
Microsoft has decided to pull the trigger and promote the boss of Minecraft to take charge as the chief executive for strategizing Microsoft’s line-up of games across the company’s platforms, which includes the Xbox One and the Xbox One X for the foreseeable future.
VentureBeat is reporting that the man in question is none other than Matt Booty, who was previously the business leader in charge of Microsoft’s Minecraft division under Microsoft Studios. He’s now working as the vice president in strategy for video game development and publishing.
The way it’s going to work now is that Matt Booty will answer directly to the head of the Xbox games department, Phil Spencer. Booty will be in charge of elevating Microsoft’s publishing arm and getting more games into the pipeline and out to customers.
Booty’s previous role will be occupied by Helen Chiang, who will now oversee the development of Mojang’s Minecraft brand under the Microsoft banner. Booty was originally appointed the role back when Microsoft bought up Mojang’s studio and the Minecraft intellectual property back in 2014 for $2.5 billion.
But, now it’s not just a single studio that Booty will have to oversee. There will be multiple studios with multiple projects that the executive will have a say-so over, ranging from 343 Industries and the Halo franchise to Killer Instinct, to Sea of Thieves at Rare, to the Forza Motorsport franchise headed up by Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games, to The Coalition and the Gears of War franchise.
Maintaining what’s there is one task, but the real challenge for Booty is building what isn’t there: new intellectual properties.
Microsoft had an opportunity with Scalebound to create something large and dynamic for the Xbox brand from the highly lauded Platinum Games, but the company forfeited those endeavors by canceling Scalebound. It was a move that sent shock waves through the gaming community, who had grown attached to the concept of the game.
Original titles like Scalebound could really help Microsoft out of its funk, especially given that Nintendo is fast catching up to the install base of the Xbox One with the Nintendo Switch. The Switch’s library of original, high-quality exclusives have set it apart from everything else on the market, and so it’s a do or die situation for Microsoft.
In fact, the above is literally Booty’s philosophy: that they live and die by the great games they make. So, having a content guy in the role will be key for the success of future software publishing on the Xbox brand, and it sounds like the company may have the right man for the right position.
Now, let’s see how well Booty can take advantage of this promotion while aiming to bring new and compelling software to the Xbox platforms. The real test will be what Microsoft demonstrates at this year’s and next year’s E3, as we’ll have a gauge on if the company will allow Booty to leverage his executive powers to refocus the Xbox One and Xbox One X on worthwhile exclusives.
Minecraft master shares her plan to build a better world
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Twelve-year-old Isabelle Szczerbinski is a bit of a Minecraft master.
In the game Minecraft, you use your skill to build better worlds.
“I think Minecraft is important because it’s a strategy game,” Isabelle said. “You can do whatever you like. You can get as many blocks as you want. You can build anything.”
She can also tell you why she likes the game in French, Polish, and Mandarin Chinese (her favorite).
Isabelle is a profoundly-gifted 12-year old homeschooler from Midlothian, Virginia who has won multiple national awards for her language skills.
Isabelle has lobbied Congress for funding public school language education with LanguagePolicy.org, meeting with the staffs of U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
A US-China Strong Student Ambassador, Isabelle recently did a presentation (entirely in Mandarin) to a 6th grade class in Chengdu, China on daily life for children in the U.S. and China.
In December, Isabelle received the national People-to-People award at the Confucius Institute Gala in Washington D.C. and delivered the acceptance speech on behalf of all the honorees.
“Only 18 percent of American kids learn a second language,” she told the audience. “In China and Europe, almost all kids are exposed to second languages. We need to do better.”
Isabelle said she hoped to one day be a diplomat or translator.
“Once you understand someone; you understand their culture, you understand their background, where they’re from; you just get along better,” Isabelle said. “I think that if everyone could do that, we’d have a more peaceful world.”
Isabelle also appears in the newly released film, Permanent, with Rainn Wilson and Patricia Arquette.
She also appeared on Lifetime’s Child Genius (Season 1) with NASA astronaut and University of Richmond graduate Leland Melvin.
In February, Isabelle will join renowned chef Peter Chang at his restaurant in Williamsburg in a class teaching people how to make dumplings. She’s become friends with the famed chef and his wife.
She met them through her affiliation with the Confucius Institute U.S. Center.
You can read more about Isabelle and her adventures on her blog: https://baolings.blog/
Detective Pikachu gets UK release date… and a very strange trailer
One of weirdest Pokémon spin-offs yet is being released in the West after all, but sadly without the voice of Danny DeVito.
It can often be frustrating defending Pokémon against people that haven’t played the mainline games and their often surprisingly good spin-offs. But we have to admit that even we don’t understand what’s going on with Detective Pikachu.
The game was originally released in Japan two years ago, to no particular acclaim, and yet for some reason it’s getting a live action film adaptation staring Ryan Reynolds. There was also a 40,000-strong petition to get Danny DeVito to do the voiceover for the English version of the game but, as you can hear in the trailer below, he said no.
The reason the game has got so much attention is that it involves a talking pikachu, rather than one that just keeps saying his name over and over, so there’s actually a proper story for once.
The plot involves the deerstalker-waring pokémon teaming up with a human whose dad has gone missing, in what is essentially a point ‘n’ click adventure game.
As you can see, the graphics are really good considering this is only on the 3DS. But reviews from Japan suggest the gameplay and story are rather simplistic, and a bit boring.
Detective Pikachu gets UK release date… and a very strange trailer
12 Actors Who Should Play Wolverine Next
Wolverine is dead, long live Wolverine.
According to Hugh Jackman, he’s completely done with playing Wolverine. As he has long promised, Logan is his swan song – and a fitting one it is – and he’s off to put his body through considerably less strain for more pleasant roles. The world of comic book movies is a poorer place for his loss, and there will be some – including his Logan director James Mangold – who believe he shouldn’t be recast at all.
Luckily though, Fox aren’t complete idiots. They may have struggled to make a good Fantastic Four movie three times and some of their X-Men releases have been patchy at best, but they know the strength in the Wolverine brand. They know he is their blue chip commodity, and dropping him from the bill would be like Warner Bros putting Batman on ice. It’s just not going to happen.
So what happens next? Does the studio set about trying to find someone who will be able to perform as Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine, for the sake of a smoother transition? Do they go bold and cast against type and reimagine the character? Do they simply promote X-23 to the leading role? (They shouldn’t, she deserves her own movies).
What everything boils down to now is one over-arching, massively important question. Who replaces Jackman as Wolverine?
12. Iwan Rheon
Obviously, the Inhumans casting is rather unfortuitous for anyone who wants to see Game Of Thrones’ best villain Iwan Rheon going berserk as Wolverine, but it might not be entirely fatal. Marvel villains have a habit of dying off, after all, and there’s no saying he’s even necessarily tied in for multiple seasons of the show.
Without all of those logistical issues, Rheon would make an exceptional candidate for Wolverine, provided fans can shake off the ghosts of Ramsay Bolton. He might find himself cast as villains for a while after doing so well in that show, but it’s worth remembering that he started in a more heroic role on Misfits, and experience counts.
It would be far more interesting to see a new Wolverine with more ambiguous morality than Hugh Jackman’s staight-laced grump could really offer once he was moved into his leadership position, and having Rheon’s darker influence in there would offer an entirely different dynamic.
11. Ben Foster
There’s a good case for Ben Foster being the most talented, under-appreciated actor currently working in Hollywood: he is a genre-hopping chameleon, adept with comedy, horror, villainous roles and heroic ones, and he comes with a ready made bubbling fury that is a fundamental part of Wolverine’s genetics.
Like all of his fellow candidates here, he works remarkably well with more intense roles, he’s familiar with dark-sided characters and he has enough charm to keep Wolverine’s anti-heroism just the right side of good. He’d arguably be the best candidate if Fox decide to introduce Wolverine as an antagonist first and then face turn him later. And he deserves an opportunity for a meatier leading man role.
He’s already been in an X-Men movie, of course, but he was horribly miscast – and even more horribly under-used – as Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand. For that alone he deserves another shot as a mutant.
10. Kristofer Hivju
With most of Game Of Thrones’ cast probably coming to the end of their contracts very soon, studios would do well to put them to work to try and capture some of the fandom’s affection for the character roles they’ve just left.
One of the more intriguing figures on the Westeros cast is Kristofer Hivju – Tormund Giantsbane in the show – who could either disappear into Scandinavian dramas for the rest of his career and make a solid living, or play supporting level villains in Hollywood (as he is in the new Fast & Furious). It sounds cruel, but Hollywood knows how to typecast his breed of actor, in a way that will reduce his obvious talent to something like the level of a Jason Statham.
But he could do so much more: his Wilding wildman in Game Of Thrones is a low-key fan favourite, and beyond mighty facial hair, he also boasts the right sort of intensity, physical power and mischievous charm that could make Wolverine the interesting side character he should be relaunched as initially.
9. Jack O’Connell
Having kicked off his career in the excellent British show Skins, Jack O’Connell has gone about cementing his status as one of the UK’s brightest rising stars (even if Money Monster wasn’t quite as good as he would have hoped). His true break-out came with Starred Up, a brutal portrait of modern prison corruption from behind bars.
You can almost see Wolverine’s back-story in Starred Up’s victim-creating: O’Connell’s Eric is as much a prisoner of his own vulnerability and emotional turmoil as he is the cage that holds him. He’s a monster, defined by violence and hewn for its inevitability, but he carries dark mysteries, just as Wolverine does.
O’Connell has proven himself to be particularly adept at that sort of frenetic, intense performance, and if Fox look to cast young, he would make as impressive a candidate as Iwan Rheon.
8. Rory McCann
His relationship with Arya while it lasted was as uneasy and as perversely patriarchal as Wolverine’s relationship with Rogue, and his predilection to violence, despite being surprisingly eloquent given the opportunity could easily have been modelled on Logan.
McCann would be a completely different prospect to the majority of the others on this list, chiefly because of his massive size, but he’s basically already proved that he can play the character, so he’s got to be worth an outside consideration.
7. Aaron Taylor-Johnson
After appearances in both Avengers: Age Of Ultron and two Kick-Ass flicks, Aaron Taylor-Johnson qualifies as something of a veteran of the genre, but he’s never had a role he can get his chops into as well as Wolverine.
Though the Englishman started with more clean-cut roles (even in a film as outrageous as Kick-Ass), he has blossomed into a more interesting character actor more recently, taking on more challenging roles. And you can see from his recent work – particularly in Nocturnal Animals – that he suits darker, more explosive material.
He’d suit an agenda by Fox to introduce a more leading-man-type Wolverine while simultaneously catering to the demons of the character in a darkly charismatic way.
6. Walton Goggins
Anyone even remotely familiar with Walton Goggins’ work will know that he is at his best with intense material that allows him to channel his wilder side. He plays great villains, but he has a sort of off-kilter charisma that works well for anti-heroes too – as The Hateful Eight proved.
He’s also a very gifted actor, perhaps limited more to genre roles because of his look and his predilection for grander characterisation, with a lot of interesting work coming up (not least Three Christs with Peter Dinklage and History series SIX). The physical requirements might appear to be beyond him, but he has some previous, and he’s just stepped into Joe Mangianello’s boots for SIX playing a Seal team leader, so he’s obviously got something about him.
Goggins would be a particularly good choice if Fox decide to introduce Wolverine as a villain initially, and he’d definitely fit the requirement to not have him strong-arm his way into a leadership role again.
5. Trevante Rhodes
Now that Moonlight has picked up a surprising but heart-warming Best Picture victory at the Oscars, all of the talent involved should see their profiles sky-rocket. Barry Jenkins, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali already won’t be shy of offers, but the newer cast members are likely to find their agents are far busier than they’ve ever been.
Trevante Rhodes has now leapt firmly into the Rising Star bracket, with both The Predator and war drama Horse Soldiers (for newcomer director Nicolai Fuglsig) coming in 2018, and there is definitely something in the intensity in his performance as Chiron that suggests he’d translate well to powerful, action-heavy performances.
Fox should steal a march on the other comic book film-makers who will no doubt come sniffing, and strike a blow for progressive characterisation by completely changing Wolverine. No better way to distance themselves from Jackman than to make Wolverine a black man.
4. Jake Gyllenhaal
Gyllenhaal has come a long way since he auditioned to play Christopher Nolan’s Batman. Even then he would probably have come across as too refined and too light-weight to play the character (Christian Bale’s American Psycho history made him the most interesting candidate), but he’s an entirely different actor now.
He’s quietly gone about ascending the Hollywood ladder, making a string of great films since Batman Begins with Brokeback Mountain, Jarhead, Zodiac, Brothers, Source Code, Prisoners, Enemy, Nightcrawler, Southpaw and Nocturnal Animals all wowing. And the thing that keeps improving as he does is his flair for intense roles with a hotline on emotion.
He’s also proved himself able to bulk for roles, and he would suit the wiry, skinned dog look Jackman was sporting at his physical peak for The Wolverine. He might not quite have the cocky charm, but there have been flashes of the necessary bravado before (and it’s not like stage musical star Jackman had a great deal of specific experience when he stepped into the role).
3. Norman Reedus
As he’s so expertly proven in The Walking Dead (and probably Boon Dock Saints too), Reedus has a particular flair for outsider types with the kind of cool that fans lap up. Even when the material hasn’t been up to much, Reedus has fashioned a cult mythology about himself that would suit a new take on Wolverine too.
Imagine him playing Logan as a brusque, cold drifter – the image we were fed of him initially in Bryan Singer’s X-Men – rather than the more heroic leader he would later become in the movie franchise. Wolverine needs to channel his nastier genes again, and that would only work in the hands of an actor who could blur the lines of villainy and still remain likeable.
In the absence of Jon Bernthal thanks to The Punisher, Reedus is the actor most qualified for that particular angle.
2. Joe Mangianello
He might already be ear-marked for Deathstroke in The Batman, but that is absolutely not a certainty at this stage, given the well-publicised issues with that production. Who is to say that Matt Reeves won’t want to start his own story, and that screen test will ultimately end up the only time Mangianello even gets to put the costume on?
Arguably what makes the Magic Mike actor such a good prospect for Wovlerine is the same as why he’d make a good, charismatic Deathstroke: he has the hulking size, he has disarming charm and he has a sort of snark that suits both characters. Though he has superhero good looks, there’s no way he could play a boy scout hero: he’s got anti-hero written all over him, and they don’t come more credible or more challenging than Wolverine.
1. Tom Hardy
Seriously though, who better?
There’s a pretty compelling argument that Tom Hardy could play any comic book character on screen and nail the role. He’d be an intriguing Batman, a psychopathic Joker, an eloquent, violent Riddler, a charming, twinkle-eyed Superman… He’s a transformative actor, after all, whose performances are far more complex than the mumbling hulk he threatened to become around the time he played Bane.
Most interestingly for fans of Wolverine, Hardy has an intangible otherness – a manner like Michael Keaton’s that suggests he’s not quite of this world – which he combines with a Bondian refined accent and mischief in his eyes that would fit Wolverine’s cult anti-hero status. And he’d also fit the size requirements: reclaiming Wolverine’s bulk after Jackman slimmed down somewhat for his later roles.
Obviously he’d look silly in yellow spandex, but so would everyone else on this list, and the most compelling case for his employment as the new Wolverine comes down to his irresistible screen presence, his charisma and his likeability factor even when playing killers. Someone at Fox needs to get the ball rolling on this one immediately.