Åcon non-book recommendations

Posted 2022-05-27 14:40. Last updated 2022-05-27 19:47. Tagged fandom, science fiction.

Notes from the Åcon 11 non-book recommendation circle, Mariehamn 2022.

• Terraforming Mars (board game, Fruxelius). You play as an org that wants to terraform mars. Aim is some atmosphere, ocean and decent temperature. Can be played solo or competitive with common goal.

• Stellar horizont (board game). Explore the solar system from 2040, realistic physics, designed by space physists.

• Nir Automata (japanese computer game). Kind of open world in different modes. You play robots on earth while the humans are on the moon. Great music, many different endings.

• Tribes of Europe (Netflix TV-show). German post­apocalypse. Some tribes speak German and other English.

• Jannah (swedish small press comic). Earth is overcrowded, Jannah is a newly discovered earth-like planet, that is beeing developed / exploited. Lots of hallucinations / memories etc. (Part 1 hard to get, part 3 not done yet, but part 2 can be read separatley).

• Lilly the thief (finish comic triology, xlat eng + maybe swe). Janne Kokonen. Fantasy comic with interesting religios stuff plus fantasy adventure.

• Adaptations to tv series:

  • Station 11. Good human connations. Single season with ending.

  • Snowpiercer. First 1½ season very strong, murder mystery + economic critique. 3 seasons + maybe more coming (the movie is quite different, politically and otherwise).

• War of the Worlds (two tv shows). Very different, one faithfull to the book one is a modern/future parallell. Interesting to compare.

• Chrono trigger (japanese computer rpg). Time-travel story. Play the first two hours, they are worthwile even if you don’t play the entire very long game.

• Peacemaker (tv-series, HBO/Netflix?). A character from Suicide Squad got their own show. Superheroes, but good SF as well.

• Raised by wolves (tv-series, HBO?), weird tv series. Two androids start a new world for humans. Starts as good SF story, but flips out totally. Second season gets better? Good acting, science don’t make sense, explicitly religios.

• Disco elisiym (pc/playstation/? game) very different; dialog heavy, more like reading a book. Very replayable by playing with different stats. Nominally a cyber-punk detective game, but you can ignore the detective parts.

• Orbital (french comic, xlat eng, swe, etc). Galaxian sci-fi adventures, kind of like Valerian, but modern and more focus on the long story arc. Great aliens, concepts.

• Sweet Tooth (netflix tv show, based on a comic). A big disease, many children are born looking partially like anymals, other people die. Dark horror settings, but a kind of light fun feel-good story.

• Cowbowy bebop (old animated japanese tv-series). The animated highly recommended. Good SF! There is also a new live action version, curiosly in the special visual style of the animation, that is also good.

• Britbox was talked about, seems great, but the version you can get in the nordic countries lacks Dr Who and science fiction in general.

• Ôoku the inner chambers (19 volumes japanese comic, xlat english). Alternative shogun history. A disease kills male people, interesting gender stuff happens.

The notes are a short summary of verbal recommendations. If you recommended something and I got it wrong, please tell me and I’ll fix it!