Mechanical by Bruno Flexer

Mechanical by Bruno Flexer
Mechanical by Bruno Flexer

Saturday, September 21, 2013

The Legend of Korra - When Science Fiction and Fantasy Meet

by Bruno Flexer, Author of:
Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback
The Fire At The Gates

Automatic Rebellion
UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

The Legend of Korra, the continuation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great series in itself, but no doubt one of the best things about it is the merging of science fiction and fantasy, actually the science fiction might of something resembling steampunk tech to the magic of the elemental power wielded by the benders and the avatar herself.




I assume the magic or fantasy part is clear but I'll describe it briefly. In the Legend of Korra world there are benders who are able to control the four elements, fire, earth, water and air. This is a little weird because this is the European version of the elements as the Chinese version is a little different. The Chinese have five elements: Metal, wood, earth, water and fire. And the Legend Of Korra takes place in a beautiful Chinese setting. Oh well.

Anyway, these benders are born with the ability to control one of the four elements. They have to practice to master their ability and the master benders are truly awesome, able to control huge waves, create lightning from their hands or hurl hurricanes of air towards the foes. Another interesting concept is that the benders control their powers through Kung Fu, with different arts like Taichi and Shaolin Kung Fu representing different elements. 


 

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Pure love - The Science Fiction of Oblivion's Drones

by Bruno Flexer, Author of:
Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback
The Fire At The Gates

Automatic Rebellion
UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

Oblivion's drone. I'm in love ... Although the sounds and effects are a clear rip off from robocop's ED209, still the drones were great. Besides flying in straight lines, having quadruple machine guns which can fire backwards, scan beams lifted off from the movie Aliens 2 (at the start, when they got Ripley off her ship), and red robot eyes (from Terminator, if any one really has to ask), still these drones were great.

The obvious reason is this. They were single minded killing machines. Sometimes, in our day and age where every motive has to be questioned and every act has to be analyzed, its nice encountering a bad ass machine which does one thing only - search for and kill humans (and reluctantly refrains from killing the humans which maintain it ...).

Like I said, pure love for a pure killing machine.