[Torg] Search for Atlantis

[Jones Jasyn]

On Jul 21, 2008, at 1:09 AM, Phil Dack wrote:

> Dear all,
> just had a wonderfully relaxing week in North Italy,

Congrats. Beautiful country.

> And if you're looking for Torg-in-a-novel, look no further than "The  
> Hunt for Atlantis" by Andy McDermott


Also Torg-like:

• The movie "Wanted", with Angelina Jolie, currently in theaters. Gun- 
fu, PE spending on the screen, bending the path of bullets.

• The "Webmage" novel series by Kelly MCollough. A cybertech world,  
where magic and computers are one and the same. Characters "jack into"  
the mweb (magic web) by stabbing an athame (magical blade) into their  
hand (a spell heals the wound upon exit).

Spells are coded (second book is called CodeSpell), and computer  
programs in the mweb are spells. Spells are cast by whistling in  
binary or your familiar (a goblin who transforms into a laptop) can  
cast them for you.

Add to this the Greek Pantheon, a Cold War between Order (the Fates)  
and Chaos (Discord), and a main character who is drawn into every  
conflict in the pantheon.

Not only a Torgian blended genre, but proof of my GodNet contention:  
the mweb is magic, so it takes magic to get into it. The GodNet is a  
blend of religion and technology, so some sort of religious ritual  
should be required to enter it. That is, only people with +1 or better  
in faith adds can actively deck. Non-believers are restricted to being  
observers. That makes Catholic, Rastafarian (from the GodNet  
sourcebook), and Jewish deckers the front lines against the Cyberchurch.

• The movie "Doomsday." A blend of Mad Max, 28 Days Later, and Escape  
from New York. 10 years after Scotland has been walled off from the  
rest of the world, to contain an outbreak of a deadly virus, the virus  
emerges again, in the heart of an overpopulated and cramped London. A  
special agent is sent into the Scotland zone, where she has to fight  
both violent biker gangs and medieval purists, in order get the cure  
and get out.

An indie movie funded and shot in Great Britain. Cinematic gunfights,  
car combats, and a main character who screams "I'm prated!" Very  
action packed, fast moving, and violent. A perfect Torg module, in  
other words.

Also, proof that higher budgets can be worse for some movies, and that  
lower (but sufficient) budgets can help a movie's feel. Less-than- 
perfect cinematography and set dressing makes it feel more gritty and  
raw, which is perfect for the movie. Perfect cinematography is for  
"The Bridges of Madison County", material like this needs a low budget  
to come alive.  The same is true of "28 Days Later", another great low  
budget indie English production.

Jasyn Jones
jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson