Classics and Geek-Culture Round-up

As anyone who read my Via Memoriae Classicae series or my Atlantis review will know, I’m a shameless geek and very interested in the intersection between Classics and things like Science Fiction, Fantasy and video games. I’ve not got anything major to post at the moment, but here are a couple of things around the webt that have caught my eye lately and may be of interest:

Back in July Liz Bourke posted over on the well-respected SF online magazine site Strange Horizons, reviewing the then-recent conference on the Fantastika and the Classical World.

Meanwhile, over the summer a new blog called Archaeogaming has been set up, looking at the depiction of archaeology in video games. It’s worth a look, particularly a 5-part article by Cambridge alumnus (now lecturer at Kent) Dunstan Lowe on ruins in video games (reprinted from his contribution to the book Greek and Roman Games in the Computer Age).

Atlantis – Review

Res Gerendae’s been quiet for the summer. One of us was exiled to Dacia where, I’m reliably informed, it’s just horrible; one of us had to go down to the Underworld to consult the shade of a 19^th-century German philologist regarding a footnote; another unfortunate went to Turkey for a conference, got lost while hitch-hiking home and is now shacked up with a strange lady and her large collection of pigs. We expect them back some time in the next decade.

But with term about to start, the Fates decreed that Res Gerendae should return. And what better way than with a review of Atlantis, the BBC’s new sort-of-Classics-themed sword-and-sandals Saturday night effort.

Having followed the pre-launch buzz of this series with, if not interest, then at least moderate curiosity, the group of us that gathered a couple of nights ago to watch had a pretty good idea what we were in for. Atlantis is the latest in a line of shows aimed at filling the Doctor Who slot when that series isn’t on, but which never come close to equalling it. Most immediately, this is the pseudo-Minoan themed replacement for Merlin, a series I found so bad I didn’t make it to the end of the first episode but which I know a lot of other people quite liked. We already knew the main trio of characters was Jason, Pythagoras and Hercules, so we weren’t expecting the slightest bit of historical or mythological accuracy. That wasn’t what we were hoping for. Instead, we were holding out for a so-bad-it’s-good dose of cheesy Classical camp in the vein of the old B-movies by Harryhausen et al. which have been entertaining us for some time now.

Mehercle! Were we disappointed! Sorry everyone, I’m afraid I’m going to have to unleash the hunting-lions.