June 19, 2008 -- Pay no attention to what's inside the box...
What is inside the box? A remote control? Wires? A signaling device? Magnets? Oh, the mystery. Will it ever be revealed? Stay tuned.
And for those of you getting bored with all the chess moves, don't worry; this is the only full game in the whole story. You can pretty safely skip all the technical moves and just pay attention to the characters' reactions-- you won't lose much if you do.
However, for the real chessplayers among you: the game does play out correctly (thanks again to Messana for checking all my moves), and is based on an actual historical game. I'll provide a link to it once doing so won't spoil anything.
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I'm guessing that's von Kempelen's 'talkbox'.. either that or Ilmarinen's Sampo. ;-)
Your monochromic illustrative style is very much period in form as well as depiction, well done. I admire the meticulous mastery of fine crosshatching that your hand displays; though I suspect artificial moments of Letratone *heh*
An interesting and original story you've began presenting, this life & times of The Turk. I suppose Clockwork Game's online sequel will follow Ajeeb's matches. :-) Were this a motion picture, Mozart's "Turkish March" would go well as background score, I think.
Hey, thanks for such a great comment! I actually had to look up the Sampo, so I guess I'm not as complete in my nerddom as I thought. Go Kalevala; what an incredibly cool mythology! I have a friend who's writing an operatic cycle on the Kalevala, because she got stunned by Finland when she toured there with her choir.
No Ajeeb planned for the sequel, but I would love to extend this into a trilogy, the other parts being John Harrison's H4 and Vaucanson's mechanical man. I don't know if the world is interested in that much costume drama about clockworks, but there you go. Also, I totally modeled this bit of promotional stuff after Ajeeb's famous postcard.
And as for background music, there's nothing more appropriate to The Turk's story than Wellington's Victory by Beethoven. Linking to that one will spoil the story, but Google away if you're interested. ;)