This Game is a very obvious parody of the worst of comic and geek culture clichés around and is not meant to be taken seriously. The Core Rulebook for Whore's Blade Heroics provides all the rules you need to play through the incredible, action packed struggles of high kicking Superladies in the Kittiwake Comics World or any other super-powered Universe. Whether you're a Hero, a Villain or Something in Between, you had best be prepared for an epic clash of super stockinged titans.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS GAME IS A SATIRE OF CERTAIN WARGAMES AND EXTREME SOCIAL AND GENDER POLITICS AND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! Truly a Wargame like no other... Whore's Blade 20,000 puts its players through the Grimdark Meatgrinder of the 21s Milennium An insane dictatorship in constant upheaval: The Empire of Woman needs your help... It's time to decide on your loyalties missy!

With actress Pam Grier's breakthrough in Coffy and Foxy Brown, women entered action, science fiction, war, westerns and martial arts films--genres that had previously been considered the domain of male protagonists. This ground-breaking cinema, however, was--and still is--viewed with ambivalence. While women were cast in new and exciting roles, they did not always arrive with their femininity intact, often functioning both as a sexualized spectacle and as a new female hero rather than female character. This volume contains an in-depth critical analysis and study of the female hero in popular film from 1970 to 2006. It examines five female archetypes: the dominatrix, the Amazon, the daughter, the mother and the rape-avenger. The entrance of the female hero into films written by, produced by and made for men is viewed through the lens of feminism and post-feminism arguments. Analyzed works include films with actors Michelle Yeoh and Meiko Kaji, the Alien films, the Lara Croft franchise, Charlie's Angels, and television productions such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Alias.

Heroic Girls looks at the recent proliferation of young girl heroes in many recent mainstream films and books. These contemporary ‘final’ girls do not just survive but rather suggest that in doing so they have fundamentally changed something about themselves and or the world around them, seeing them become the ‘First Girls’ of this altered reality. The collection brings together a wide range of perspectives and cultural viewpoints that describe many recent narratives that explore the idea of a Final Girl and her “after-story”. The essays are divided into four sections, beginning with more theoretical approaches; cross-cultural examples; the ways in which fictional narratives bear strong relation to real-world circumstances; examples that more strongly depict themes of resistance, survival, and individual agency; and, finally, those that describe something more fundamental and transformative. Films and television shows covered in the collection include The Girl with All the Gifts, The Witcher, The Hunger Games, Star Wars, The Fear Street and Pan’s Labyrinth. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of film studies, gender studies, and media studies.

With his harrowing debut, Luke Mogelson provides an unsentimental, unflinching glimpse into the lives of those forever changed by war. Subtle links between these ten powerful stories magnify the consequences of combat for both soldiers and civilians, as the violence experienced abroad echoes through their lives in America. Troubled veterans first introduced as criminals in "To the Lake" and "Visitors" are shown later in "New Guidance" and "Kids," during the deployments that shaped their futures. A seemingly minor soldier in "New Guidance" becomes the protagonist of "A Human Cry," where his alienation from society leads to a shocking confrontation. The fate of a hapless Gulf War veteran who reenlists in "Sea Bass" is revealed in "Peacetime," the story of a New York City medic's struggle with his inurement to calamity . A shady contractor job gone wrong in "A Beautiful Country" is a news item for a reporter in "Total Solar," as he navigates the surreal world of occupied Kabul. Shifting in time and narrative perspective--from the home front to active combat, between experienced leaders, flawed infantrymen, a mother, a child, an Afghan-American translator, and a foreign correspondent--these stories offer a multifaceted examination of the unexpected costs of war. Here is an evocative, deep work that charts the legacy of an unprecedented conflict, and the burdens of those it touched. Written with remarkable empathy and elegance, These Heroic, Happy Dead heralds the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.

In Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover created a new kind of fantasy novel, and a new kind of hero to go with it: Caine, a street thug turned superstar, battling in a future where reality shows take place in another dimension, on a world where magic exists and gods are up close and personal. In that beautiful, savage land, Caine is an assassin without peer, a living legend born from one of the highest-rated reality shows ever made. That season, Caine almost single-handedly defeated–and all but exterminated–the fiercest of all tribes: the Black Knives. But the shocking truth of what really took place during that blood-drenched adventure has never been revealed . . . until now. Thirty years later, Caine returns to the scene of his greatest triumph–some would say greatest crime–at the request of his adopted brother Orbek, the last of the true Black Knives. But where Caine goes, danger follows, and he soon finds himself back in familiar territory: fighting for his life against impossible odds, with the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance. Just the way Caine likes it.