Pyramid Review
Forgotten Futures IX: My Own Invention . . .
Written & Published by Marcus L. Rowland
CD-ROM; $20
Marcus L. Rowland's Forgotten Futures is aptly named, for between the Victorian era and the pulps of the 1920s and 1930s, there was still an age of imagination that is ill considered just a century later. Both in print from Heliograph, Inc. and on CD-ROM, Rowland has been gamely showcasing the scientific theorizing and fantastic imagining of the very late Victorian and the Edwardian period. This has been an ongoing project for the author, exploring in turn through eight volumes, Rudyard Kipling's airship utopia of today, the Solar System as imagined in the early 20th century, the scientific adventures of George E. Challenger, Ab-natural Edwardian England, and the destruction of London via multiple methods. It should also be made clear that the price for the CD-ROM is actually a registration fee, which includes a donation to cancer research.
The latest volume is Forgotten Futures IX: My Own Invention . . . , an exploration of Victorian and Edwardian weird science, engineering, and gadgetry. The CD-ROM comes jam packed with articles, images, and stories -- and all that before you get to the roleplaying material. And even that includes a copy of the Forgotten Futures rules in both HTML and PDF formats, plus summaries of the rules for those that want shorter versions. In this Forgotten Futures IX is as much a standalone RPG as it is a supplement.
The articles detail early attempts . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 26, 2006
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