Other posts in this series:

• Galactic Warlord: The Last Legionary Book 1
• Deathwing Over Veynaa: The Last Legionary Book 2
• Day of the Starwind: The Last Legionary Book 3

The weakest novel of the quartet, Day of the Starwind sees Keill investigate a rumoured legionaries base on the planet Rilyn.

Following an interesting crash-landing start, the action gets bogged down in dull dialogue with new characters who care little and ultimately matter less.

Glr’s warm friendship remains a high point, although as she and Keill are separated near the beginning of the book it does introduce some distance in their interaction.

We finally get to find out more about the leader of the Deathwing, so far only known as The One and now revealed as a tiny grey mutant in a giant golden cyborg body. Once again Keill prevails in a fight to the death, using his unbreakable organic alloy skeleton to surprise his foe.

At first glance the person looking down on him was beautiful, in an inhuman way [...] for an instant, Keill thought the golden figure was a robot, but then he saw the face more clearly, and knew otherwise — sickeningly otherwise.

Keill battles the Deathwing mutant telepath Quern after it is revealed that Quern alone knows how to create the deadly radiation that destroyed Kreill’s world.

The organic metal that the Overseers replaced Kriell’s skeleton with come in handy again, when a second Deathwing agent uses a robot to try to crush Kiell to death.

My people believed … that if you sacrifice everything to win – all principles, all sense of right – you end up with a pretty hollow victory.

There’s a line in a Legion song – better to lose like men than win like beasts.

Not much more is learned about The One and the Warlord during the second book. The action remains fast-paced and Douglas Hill holds back in revealing who the second agent is until the very end. Glr’s humour and bravery comes over well, as does Keill’s growing fondness for his alien companion.

An enjoyable book leading to the next in the series.

Other posts in this series:

• Galactic Warlord: The Last Legionary Book 1
• Deathwing Over Veynaa: The Last Legionary Book 2
• Day of the Starwind: The Last Legionary Book 3

When I was about 10 years old I read Douglas Hills’s The Last Legionary and thought it was fantastic.

Now, 20 years later, I was pretty excited to spot a signed copy of the book on eBay. A quick bid later and it was in my hands.

Would Keill be as awesome as I remembered, or would he be reduced to quaint dullness by watching too many blockbuster movies in the intervening years?

Would the Warlord still be as despicable?

Would I still be entertained by a book written for young adults?

My hopes were high.

Spoilers ahoy!

Galactic Warlord is the first book in The Last Legionary science-fiction series.

It introduces Keill Randor, a martial warrior whose home planet Moros has been made lifeless by an unknown radiation, and the Overseers, a group of benevolent scientists who have discovered a galaxy-wide threat that may be linked to Moros’ destruction.

Even though he doesn’t believe the Overseers, Keill agrees to investigate a moon base purportedly home to other surviving legionaries. He is accompanied by Glr, an extra-galactic telepathic alien, who wins his trust and gratitude.

During a fight with the base commander and false legionary Thr’un, it is revealed that everything the Overseers had said was true and that Thr’un is part of a grand plan to plunge the galaxy into war. Keill is shocked but eventually wins the fight and agrees to work with the Overseers to find those responsible known only as the One and the Master.

He gave no hint or warning, did not tense or poise his body. He simply dropped, full-length, to one side. His right hand met the plasticrete, the arm rigid to take his weight. On the pivot of that hand, his body swung in a horizontal arc, legs scything.

Although a bit short – 114 pages compared to the usual 350 – the book’s story remains as strong as I remember and the action fast-paced. Glr’s humorous quips counter-balance Keill’s intensity, although the Overseers can come across a bit flat through overuse of the group’s secrecy to not detail the characters. The bad guys so far are a bit generic, being used as cannon fodder to demonstrate Keill’s skills.

Overall a cracking start to the series that remains as good as I had hoped.

Other posts in this series:

• Galactic Warlord: The Last Legionary Book 1
• Deathwing Over Veynaa: The Last Legionary Book 2
• Day of the Starwind: The Last Legionary Book 3

* movie science alert!

This is an on-going list of film San Francisco disasters.

The Core (2003)

Doomed rating:

Half destroyed in microwave meltdown when the Earth’s core stops spinning and the planet is no longer shielded from electromagnetic radiation from the Sun. Motorists get sunburnt, car tyres melt, and the Bridge’s ropes twang.

Star Trek 2009

Doomed rating:

A Romulan ship deploys its drilling rig directly over San Francisco, before beginning to drill a hole to the centre of the Earth. Luckily Spock shoots through the chain holding the rig and saves the planet from the same fate as Vulcan.

Monsters vs Aliens 2009

Doomed rating:

Evil alien overlord Gallaxhar starts his conquest of Earth by sending a giant robot to San Francisco. Luckily a bunch of monsters held by the US government stop it by fighting over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Terminator Salvation 2009

Doomed rating:

Skynet is holed up in -sigh- San Franciso and the only way John Conner can get there to do a rescue / blow stuff up is by crossing the heavily damaged post-apocalyptic bridge.

Land of the lost (2009)

Doomed rating:

Alternate universe? Check. Primate named Chaka? Check. World full of dinosaurs? Check check check.

Vanquish game 2010

Doomed rating:

In a near-future setting Russian forces take control of a US energy gathering satellite and use its harvested energy to completely wipe out San Francisco.

1. Level 1
2. Level 2
3. Level 3
4. Level 4

Level 4

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 826
• Number of hens: 4
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 4 strategy

With a lift and a gap in the bottom platform, this level combines the features introduced in level 2 and level 3 and adds some tricky jumps to the mix. In particular, the top left jump nearest the caged bird can cause you to fall through if you jump from the nearest platform.

Avoiding hens is still fairly easy where the central ladder can be used to escape.

Level 4 video play through

1. Level 1
2. Level 2
3. Level 3

Level 3

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 888
• Number of hens: 3
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 3 strategy

This level introduces the lift. This is three moving platforms, moving vertically up the screen. The platforms are not evenly spaced, with two appearing closer together. Missing the lift and falling down the gap between the lift and the platform will result in a life lost.

The level design makes it easy to avoid the hens, but good timing is needed to complete it quickly.

Level 3 video play through

1. Level 1
2. Level 2

Level 2

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 831
• Number of hens: 3
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 2 strategy

The second level has a large number of ladders connecting the platforms. Although there is one more hen compared to level one, there are many jump-able gaps to aid escape and turn back hens.

The single gap on the bottom platform has a gap and falling through results in an instant life lost.

Level 2 video play through

This is my guide to each Chuckie Egg level:

1. Level 1

Level 1

• Difficulty:
• Best score: 2,260
• Number of hens: 2
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 1 strategy

The first level is dominated by a central ladder running through all five platforms. Two hens start in the top left of the level, moving slowly towards the bottom. They can sometimes get in the way on the central ladder, but several nearby platforms can be used to wait them out.

The bottom two platforms have plenty of ladders to avoid getting trapped and to practice running and jumping.

Level 1 video play through

Petting a kitty feels so good. But then, so does crushing my enemies.

Jeff Atwood on Twitter

“Best of the best of the best, sir!” “With honors.” Yeah, he’s just really excited and he has no clue why we’re here.

James Edwards in Men in Black

Hi, I’m Randy

Randy Smith in Edge magazine

Ergo open your yapper one more time and I’m going to architect a world of pain all over your candy ass! Ergo! Vis-à-vis! Concordidly!

Larry The Architect in the MTV Movie Awards 2003

Marriage don’t make you slow,
you make you slow!

My gym instructor Eddy after I came back from a month-long wedding and honeymoon break.

Dr. Cox: How are we going to get rid of Maddox? Janitor, would you like to get your useless ideas out of the way first?

Janitor: Well thank you Perry. Off the top of my head I’d go reindeer stampede, astronaut attack, barbed wire chandelier, photoshop, poisonous sushi…

The janitor on getting rid of Dr Maddox in Scrubs.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Homer Simpson in Mountain of Madness

Working together as a tag team on the forces of ignorance

Ben in the office

“But what does it do, Guillermo?”
“No idea. I can tell you that it’s big, but other than that…”
“And our tradition of excellence continues.”

Captain Decker on the USS Constellation

It’s been written about many times that modern sites incorporate services and products from open source and third parties, but it wasn’t until I created SuperFunDays Out.com that I realised the extent that this has become the norm for new startups and the maturity of free products.

As a way of exploring this idea, I’ve listed the services and products that Super Fun Days Out is built on.

Online services

Facebook

What is it? The biggest social networking site in the world.
How is it used? Helen uses the Facebook Group to share pictures and videos of SuperFun. A discussion group is automatically created and she can email the whole group.
Mashable? SuperFun just links to the group, although there are options to embed the group in the website using javascript.

Google Maps

What is it? Embed a Google Map onto a web page and manipulate it through javascript.
How is it used? The key focus of Super Fun Days Out is exploring activities easily using a draggable map.
Mashable? Widely used and simple to start with.

Geocoding

What is it? Maps deal with locations using latitude and longitude, rather than road names. Google Maps API provides a geocoding service to turn postal addresses into geographic co-ordinates, which Super Fun Days Out then uses to display company and activity details on a Google Map.
Mashable? Within the Terms of service of the API

Google Analytics

What is it? Free web site traffic data collection and analysis.
How is it used? We use this to track user journeys through the site, including map interaction and the destinations when leaving the site
Mashable? Not really. Google now has an API, but it’s more of a useful tool to access directly.

Gravatar

What is it? A gravatar is a picture associated with an email address centrally hosted at gravatar.com
How is it used? On the SuperFun Adrenablog!, people can leave comments and if they’ve registered on gravatar.com, their image will be used. The people behind Super Fun Days Out also have their images served through a gravatar.
Mashable? Very. Explicitly designed to be embedded and used in other sites, there is a simple RESTful API.

Pingdom

What is it? Web site monitoring tool.
How is it used? Pingdom checks SuperFun every couple of minutes to make sure it is still responding and will notify me by email or text message if it is not.
Mashable? There is an API, but it is not widely used.

Twitter

What is it? Hot new simple tech that helps spread the word in 140 characters or less.
How is it used? Bex builds up interest in the site with regular updates and interaction.
Mashable? Entirely. Embedded in the main page of Super Fun Days Out.

Youtube

What is it? The largest video hosting web site.
How is it used? YouTube hosts videos of SuperFun activities that are embedded on the site.
Mashable? Very. Every video has an embed code, and the API allows automatic embedding and searching.

Open source and free applications

jQuery

What is it? Open source Javascript framework that made client-side coding fun and took the pain out of cross-browser incompatibilities.
How is it used? It’s the glue that binds together standard Google Maps functionality and new Super Fun Days Out functionality.

jQuery plugins

What are they? Bundles of open source extensions to jQuery that usually do specific things.
How are they used? SuperFun uses Jörn Zaefferer’s AutoComplete plugin to provide on-demand live search of companies and activities and Christian Hellsten’s Google Analytics for better performance visitor tracking.

MySQL

What is it? An extremely open source popular database.
How is it used? SuperFun stores companies and activity details in a MySql database.

Notepad++

What is it? A text editor similar to notepad, but includes syntax highlighting, auto complete and has a plugin architecture.
How is it used? The very useful FTP plugin is used to make minor modifications to the web site without needing to redeploy or upload and download the files separately.

WordPress

What is it? Mature blog publishing system.
How is it used? It manages all non-map pages on the site such as Advertise With Us, Contact Us and Adrenablog!

WordPress plugins

What are they? Bundles of open source extensions that enhance the core WordPress product.
How are they used? SuperFun uses a bunch of plugins. From enhancing the contact form with Contact Form 7, to automatically adding social bookmarking with Social and filtering spam comments through Akismet.

Windows Live Writer

What is it? A free Microsoft desktop program that interfaces with most blog software to enable offline and rich authoring.
How is it used? Handy to compose blog entries using the built in image editor, spell checker and media embedder.