Title: The Martian Tales Trilogy
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Genre: Science fiction
Review: The first three books of the John Carter of Mars series, they work together well as a trilogy. John Carter, a man from Virginia, is mysteriously transported to Mars, where he encounters the many alien cultures. His adventures take him across the planet, in a story of war, romance, and determination. The hero is unfailingly noble, his allies are likeable and his enemies wicked, and the alien world and technology is interesting. This trilogy, although not particularly deep, makes for quite an enjoyable read.

Title:The Colour of Magic
Genre:Comedy Review: The movie adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic captures much of the author's unique style of humor. Twoflower, the Discworld's first tourist, embarks on his sightseeing journey with Rincewind, an inept wizard. Accompanying them also is Twoflower's Luggage, which is sentient and very dangerous. Meanwhile, everyone is sent into a panic at the growing appearance of a giant red star in the sky, the Unseen University is shaken by the rise of an ambitious wizard, and strange things seem to be surrounding the Octavo. Although the movie was forced to cut out and change a few parts, it still contains the essence of the two novels, and is worth watching.

Title: Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Roleplaying
Review: The third installment of the Mario and Luigi roleplaying series sees the return of Fawful, Bowser as a protagonist, and the same insane humor that has marked the previous games. Fawful, a formerly minor villain, launches his plan for revenge by tricking Bowser into eating a cursed mushroom, which then causes him to inhale everyone in Peach's Castle. Having lost his memory of the events, Bowser wakes up to discover that Fawful is taking over the Mushroom Kingdom. Unbeknownst to him, Mario and Luigi aid him from his own insides, while searching for Princess Peach, as he marches to retake his castle. However, there is more to Fawful's plan that is readily apparent, and a terrible darkness is about to wake... With a great storyline, enjoyable gameplay, and hilarious dialogue, this may be one of the greatest games for the Nintendo DS. The controls are easy to handle, Bowser as a protagonist is a wonderful twist to the usual formula, and of course, Fawful has fury.

Guilds for Mature Adults

A frequent gripe in The Muddy Traveler is that TNT is overly strict with guilds. Many of us remember back in the day when speech was freer and we didn't get in trouble for trying to say particular words, no matter how innocent. If anything, I think that the more stringent rules are taking away from the guild experience. That is why I submit that TNT should allow private guilds a certain amount of freedom not afforded to public guilds. They could do this in a number of ways which I shall list below.

To begin, once a guild has been made private, TNT should give extra settings. They could automatically make an application page for private guilds with a certain template so guild members just have to plug in their questions and a set of rules which TNT could review. Anyone who wants to get into the guild must submit an application regarding those questions and guild members with certain admin privileges would receive a neomail that an application had been submitted. These applications could be viewed and reviewed similar to the council applications already in place. Forcing applications for private guilds means that TNT knows that the guilds are at least assuming some responsibility for what happens in their guilds.

Next, TNT should allow guilds to set age restrictions. This isn't perfect since people lie about their age on Neopets all the time, but last I checked TNT still required people to enter an age when they made their account. Whatever age limit the guild sets, there will be different restrictions imposed on the guild. The younger the members, the more that gets censored, but if a guild is, say, 16 or 18+, the conversation could be quite free. When people lie about their age, they are effectively giving up their right to be shielded from the discussions that may happen among older people (less Justin Bieber more political discussion, for instance).

TNT should also reward guilds that have been around for a while because they have loyal, dedicated members who are probably aging with the guild (for instance, TMT's age group has shifted from about 14-15 to 17-18 since I joined). I think the longer a guild is around, the more freedom they should have within the guild. Older guilds are usually pretty good at policing their own boards and TNT could allow a little more freedom to these guilds and only step in when there are obvious issues.

Obviously there are other ways TNT could go about allowing private guilds more freedom and there may be better ways than what I've suggested, but I feel that this is a commentary that needs to be discussed by the Neopets powers that be.