Boy, Laurent Labrot certainly went in like a misguided exocet missile with his astonishingly ill-informed attack on Rick Meints, didn't he? I can attest that The Rickster has probably done more than anyone to help people track down and get their hands on material from across the Gloranthan oeuvre. My only comment to M.Labrot is that if 80% of RQ material in France is illegal photocopies, it's no wonder new Gloranthan material is hard to find there...
Xavier writes:
>I think the only problem is that there's nothing really new about
>Glorantha... But right now, the only sources, good or not, are mainly old
>sources... They're both precious and out-dated. And I know how unnerving it
>is to have to do without them.
On the contrary Xavier, compared to the so-called "golden age" of RQ2, the current environment is one where there is an *overwhelming* abundance of Gloranthan material to pick and choose from!
There certainly weren't several high quality magazines (Tales, Tradetalk) solely devoted to Glorantha in the RQ2 heyday, nor were there sundry other publications (Enclosure, Questlines, Drastic, the various Reaching Moon Megacorp books etc.), or a thriving Glorantha con scene on three continents featuring densely-plotted LARPS, intensive seminars, lore auctions and raucous singing, all devoted to the lozenge.
And of course, there wasn't the internet or the WWW, where now (even if you're totally skint) without paying a penny at all you can wade through the *several hundred* Glorantha/RQ pages on the WWW, or the *thousands* of archived Glorantha and RQ Digests. Chaosium's new Glorantha page alone probably has more information on it in one place than I ever had when I first played RQ nearly 20 years ago, submitted my first articles for Tales nearly 10 years ago, or even when I wrote stuff for AH about 5 years back.
Compared to all that's readily available now, the sum total of Chaosium's RQ2 output makes for a surprisingly slim space on the bookcase - I know, having recently moved house, I've just unpacked it all and arranged it on my new shelves. Some of it was brilliant, some of it was crap, and much of it has seen the light of day again, either as reprints, in the zines, or on the net.
IMO, *now* is the Gloranthan Golden Age! When I wanted to share an idea with another Glorantha fan in 1982-85, I had to write them a letter, *by hand*. And if I wanted to read something new, I'd have to hope White Dwarf's "Rune Rites" column was up to scratch for once. If I were you I'd enjoy this period of Gloranthan abundance while it lasts, and support Issaries Inc strongly when it starts delivering the goods (and keep those Frenchmen away from the Xerox machine)!
Cheers,
MOB
Research Associate,
Bayswater Primary School
Mountain Highway, Bayswater, Victoria Australia 3153
Phone: (03)9721 3755 Fax: (03)9720 8986
Bayswater Primary School Home Page: http://www.bayswater.schnet.edu.au
Personal Home Page: http://gateway.bayswater.schnet.edu.au:81/~mob/
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