Elf Reads Books: June, 2009

A few recent reads…

Patricia Briggs — Moon Called (Amazon Link)
As far as supernatural chick lit goes, Moon Called is better than everything else I’ve read: Twilight, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, etc. Unfortunately, that’s a backhanded compliment. This is just the first supernatural chick lit book that isn’t horrible. Mercy Thompson isn’t a loathsome protagonist, and Briggs knows how to write dialogue and construct a satisfying mystery.

But, at its core, it’s just the same old crap done more competently. There’s something special about our size-2-but-tough-as-hell heroine that makes her irresistible to every straight male who meets her, and oh my god how will she ever choose from amongst her countless suitors? The only major difference between Moon Called and other books of its ilk is that werewolves play a bigger part than vampires.

Speaking of which, the book would be so much better if there were no vampires in it at all. Enough with the fucking vampires — especially ones that aren’t even scary! Once upon a time, they used to kill people. Now, they just want to fuck us.

Warren Hammond — Ex-KOP (Amazon Link)
I enjoyed Hammond’s second KOP book every bit as much as the first one. The pace is fast, the plot tight, and the characters solid. But the real star of the books is Lagarto, the world where the novels take place. Lagarto’s an oppressively hot, corrupt shithole that relies on a constant cash influx from rich outsiders just to stay afloat. For some reason, it reminds me a bit of Miami, as written by Charles Willeford. And just like I’d rather read about Miami than ever go there again, I’m happy to visit Lagarto only in books.

Stephen Bown — Scurvy (Amazon Link)
From a modern person’s perspective, it seems silly that scurvy was ever a problem. Why didn’t someone just tell sailors to eat an orange, drink some lemonade, or pop a vitamin every few days? Yet, for hundreds of years, scurvy was the scariest, most misunderstood disease (really a deficiency) this side of the plague. It must have seemed like some sort of supernatural, karmic punishment for the mariners who had to watch their old wounds reopen and feel their mended bones split apart once more.

Bown’s book is not only an interesting history of scurvy. It’s an examination of how difficult it is for experts and influential groups to accept simple truths that contradict the current conventional wisdom. In this sense, Scurvy has much in common with another favorite of mine, Moneyball.

Carrie Ryan — The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Amazon Link)
Probably my favorite book title, ever, and the book itself isn’t too shabby. It’s a zombie novel, and though I’m just about zombied out these days, I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth in a single sitting.

The book is so bleak and unrelenting, it read like a coming-of-age version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road — though I liked TFoHaT better. It’s a neat trick when bleak and unrelenting can still be fast-paced and entertaining. Author Carrie Ryan says her writing process consists of sitting down at the computer and asking herself, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” It shows.

In a novel about adults, the melodramatic love story within TFoHaT may have seemed tacked on. But in a story about teens, it worked just fine. No matter how dire the circumstances, I believe a pair of attractive, melodramatic kids would find the time to become obsessed with one another. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet weren’t in their mid-thirties. That said, I dare some modern-day Shakespeare to write a chick lit tragedy about two single parents who fall in love, only to kill themselves over incompatible eHarmony profiles.

Patrick O’Brien — Master and Commander (Amazon Link)
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this book. I loved the movie, and I’ve been on a maritime kick, of late. But it was hard to shake the prejudices I’d held against this series, ever since I used to work in a bookstore. I’d always thought of the O’Brien books as humorless, bloodless books written by one old guy for a bunch of other humorless, bloodless old guys.

I was so wrong. If I could go back and punch my 23-year-old self, I probably wouldn’t, but my time machine would make me a billionaire. Anyway, Master and Commander was both graphic and surprisingly funny. Like the movie (which is really based more upon one of the other books in the series), the book has plenty of action. But, at its heart, it’s really a buddy story about two very different, yet equally likable, protagonists. I’m excited that I’ve got about 20 more books to go, before finishing the series.

Frank Herbert — Whipping Star (Amazon Link)
Most of this strange little novel comprises conversations between a human special agent and a powerful but imperiled alien, whose (likely) imminent death will cause a chain reaction that will kill off 99% of the sentient beings in the universe. Because one of the book’s main themes is how difficult it would be for us to converse with members of alien cultures, the book itself is a little difficult — at least for the first several chapters. But since the whole thing is under 200 pages, it’s still a pretty quick read.

Some of the sci-fi elements are weird, if not outright silly (e.g., chairs have been replaced by chair-shaped animals). But Herbert always mixed weirdness in with his big ideas. For me, it works. I still have a soft spot for Herbert’s God Emperor of Dune, which was about a psychic human-turned-giant-worm who ruled the universe for hundreds of years.

Note to Self: Do Not Befriend the Winchesters

So Supernatural (episode Death Takes a Holiday) just killed off another friend/cohort of Sam and Dean Winchester.  I’m sure Bobby will be dead by the end of the season.

You’d think the psychic would have wanted nothing to do with them after the angel Castiel blew her eyes out. (And why couldn’t Castiel have protected her as payback for blinding her?).

But no, like the good-hearted, anonymous Star Trek ensign, Winchester pals just can’t get enough.  Until they’re dead.

An expendable ensign on Supernatural.  Die ensign, die!:

The ‘Buck Stops Here: Daddy Issues and the Character Assassination of Kara Thrace

This is the golden age of scripted TV. Television has never had as many good shows as it has this decade. And some of those (e.g., The Wire, Band of Brothers, Peep Show) are the best examples of their respective genres that the medium has ever had to offer.

But, at some point in the future, people may look back and wonder why so many characters on other popular shows from this time were little more than cliched assemblages of daddy issues. On Lost, flashbacks have taught us that Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, and Sun are who they are largely because of what shitty fathers (or father figures) they had. At least three of the leads on Mad Men — Don, Betty, and Pete — are all still prisoners of their upbringing. And then there’s Battlestar Galactica, which is ultimately all about creators and their creations.

Otherwise good shows are at their worst when they waste time telling us why their characters are screwed up, usually through flashbacks or expository backstory. These backstories almost always make characters passive recipients of some harmful acts, rather than active participants in their own lives.

While that may be a starting point from which a character can grow, retroactively establishing victimhood isn’t the same thing as character development. Circumstances are not storytelling.

We all are (or have been) screwed up, for some reason or another. What’s been acted upon us isn’t likely to be unique or interesting or a story in and of itself, regardless of how tragic it is. What matters — what makes us matter — is what we do to overcome what happened to us. There’s your story.

Rather than falling in love with the damage their characters have suffered, writers should focus on how these characters are trying to transcend their issues. Unfortunately, many shows get this backwards.

In a recent Battlestar Galactica, we learned that Starbuck is a mess because her dad abandoned her when she was a little girl — which conveniently ignores how Admiral Adama has always been the best father she could ever have had, anyway. A similar story was told last season, when the same pair of screenwriters showed us how miserable Starbuck was because she had a horrible relationship with her mother. In both cases, the writers made it clear that Starbuck is as broken now as she was when these things originally happened.

She’s spent much of the last two seasons moping, crying, yelling, feeling sorry for herself, and she’s even (in essence) committed suicide. The writers have effectively told us that Starbuck hasn’t grown at all — not in the decades since her father left, not in the years since she left home, and certainly not over the four seasons of the show.

In fact, she’s regressed. The writers have neutralized most of the traits that made Starbuck such a good character in the first place. If anything, they should have swapped the first season’s Starbuck with the one we’re subjected to, now. It would make a lot more narrative sense that Starbuck would, by the show’s finale, grow to be the strong, prickly, funny, occasionally vulnerable, kickass fighter pilot we met over the first year of Battlestar Galactica.

That Starbuck was someone who had clearly already overcome much of her past — which we viewers always assumed was rough, even before her recent spate of “very special” episodes. For her to succumb to it years later is just poor quality control on the part of the writers and producers. Instead of getting us to like or hate Starbuck (or both!),  BSG’s powers that be have decided they wanted us to pity her, which is no substitute for effective storytelling.

iPod Touch: Best Games So Far (Galcon, Drop7, Distant Shore)

I’ve never embraced the mobile revolution. I have a piece of crap Virgin Mobile cell phone that I use mostly to store my friends’ and family’s phone numbers. I once had a Gameboy Color, made it a few hours into a Final Fantasy Legend game (I don’t even remember which one), and then never used the system again. I have no desire to get a DS, and I only want to borrow a PSP long enough to play the God of War and Final Fantasy games on it.

About a month ago, I got an iPod Touch, because I needed to redesign my work website to display properly in its browser. I figured I might use the Touch to check my email, and I knew I’d transfer some songs to it for a vacation Kathy and I were taking. But I didn’t think I’d be sinking any money or time into games from the iTunes App Store.

I was so, so wrong.

The iPod Touch has become my (and my wife’s) main gaming platform. We already own more games for it than we do for the PS3. It’s just so easy to get addicted to churning through iPhone games, both free and paid. And there really are some great apps out there.

Here are quick thoughts by Kathy and me on the best games we’ve tried, so far. Though, at the rate we’re downloading new ones, they might be replaced by next month.

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Favorite Game (Greg): Galcon

This is, easily, my favorite app on the platform. I downloaded it within a week of getting the Touch, and it’s still my go-to game.

Galcon is like a high-speed version of Risk, only with planets instead of countries. In the basic game (included in the free Lite version), you and an enemy send fighter ships from your respective home planets to take over other planets on the game map. Once you’ve taken over a planet, it starts to manufacture fighter ships of its own, for you to take over more planets — or to defend your own. The game continues until one player has taken over all of the other’s planets.

Gameplay is simple, and the interface is perfectly designed for the iPhone. Touch one (or more) of your planets to select its ships, and then touch (or swipe toward) a neutral/enemy planet to send those ships to attack it.

Games are quick — usually just a couple of minutes. And, should you fail, you can always try a new map or switch to another of the game’s dozen or so difficulty levels. So, frustration is kept to a minimum.

The paid version of the app ($4.99) includes multiplayer support and several other game variations, all of which are great.

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Favorite Game (Kathy): Drop7

I’m our home’s resident puzzle game fanatic, and Drop7 is the best the iPhone platform has to offer. It’s a mobile version of the online Flash game, Chain Factor (which developer Area/Code originally created as part of a promotional experience for the CBS show, Numbers).

The creators wisely eliminated some nonessential features from Chain Factor, resulting in a game that’s perfectly sized for the iPhone. Unlike some iPhone games that require pixel-perfect fingers, the spaces on the Drop7 grid are large enough that you’ll never catch yourself saying, “No, that’s not what I meant to hit!” Games can be as long or short as you want, depending on which gameplay method you select. A strong game concept makes even short games satisfying, and the comparatively large graphics make Drop 7 less frustrating than many other iPhone games.

You can learn the basics of Drop 7 in about a minute, but — well over a year after discovering Chain Factor — I still play it as much as any other game. There isn’t a Lite version of Drop7, but you can always try Chain Factor before buying the iPhone version ($4.99).

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Honorary Mention (Greg and Kathy): Distant Shore

Distant Shore is hardly a game at all; it’s more of an anonymous messaging system. But it’s definitely fun.

By touching the screen, you guide your avatar (who appears only as a set of footprints) across a beach, picking up shells and glass bottles. When you pick up a bottle, it contains a short text message from someone else who is currently playing. Sometimes, people will just tell you how they’re feeling or what they’re doing. And other times, the message will be a question (e.g., one player recently asked if I liked Chipotle). Once you’ve received a message, you can respond, and a lengthy bottle-mail conversation will likely ensue.

For every five shells you find on the beach, you get an empty bottle of your own, so you can send new messages to random players.

The game is addictive. Whenever I think I’m about to quit, I comb the beach for just one more bottle, and then another, and so on. And when I’m not playing, I can’t wait to log in again to see if anyone’s responded to one of my own messages. I think I’ve become much better at writing to random people than I am at responding to emails from friends and family.

One thing I love about Distant Shore is how nice all the other players are. I’ve received (and sent) some goofy messages, but I have yet to see anything mean or stupid. All the players seem to be invested in the virtual world they’ve created. I suspect things might be different if it were a free app, but Distant Shore’s minimal price ($0.99) seems to be enough of a barrier to keep the riff-raff at bay.

Distant Shore will be great so long as there are plenty of people playing. And, for now, it seems to be going strong.

Elf Reads Books: March, 2009

Because man cannot live on videogames alone, here are some quick thoughts on a few of the books I’ve read lately.

Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold
This novel takes place in the same world as — and stars some of the minor characters from — Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion (which is the best fantasy novel I’ve read in the last four or five years). Many authors are good at writing interesting supporting characters. But, judging by the two books I’ve read, Bujold’s specialty is making her protagonists the most compelling and likable characters in her books. I loved everything about Paladin of Souls: the characters, the dialogue, the mythology, and the story.

Matter, by Iain M. Banks
I’d heard good things about Banks, and I’m a sucker for space opera, so I picked up this book to read on vacation. The first 500 pages (of over 600) were mediocre, but I kept reading, in hopes that things would get better. They didn’t. The last act falls apart completely. (Spoilers ahead…)

Banks spends hundreds of pages introducing us to about a dozen major characters, only to kill them off unceremoniously — and often “offscreen”! — near the end. And the main antagonist is a kind of planet-destroying deus ex machina who appears only as a plot device. Some of the book’s otherwise unlikable protagonists are supposedly redeemed by their decision to sacrifice themselves in order to stop the big bad guy. Whatever. They also would’ve died if they hadn’t done anything at all, so what they did wasn’t all that brave.

KOP, by Warren Hammond
KOP is a sci-fi noir story that stars a miserable, corrupt cop on a planet of miserable, corrupt citizens. Despite its dumb title, it’s a good, fast-paced read. It’s more of a mystery novel than a sci-fi book, and the mystery is very well-crafted. It was like reading a Michael Connelly or George Pelecanos book that just happens to be set in a bleak future world. It was the perfect junk food reading for a cross-country flight.

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this 1974 sci-fi classic. Just like KOP is really a mystery novel, The Forever War is really a novel about Vietnam. In fact, it may have supplanted Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato as my favorite Vietnam book. Like Bujold, Haldeman does a great job of making his protagonist the best character in the book. The Forever War is funny, horrific, philosophical, and touching. I don’t want to say too much about it and spoil anything; if you haven’t read it, do so!

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
I hadn’t read this since I was a teenager. And I was a little scared to re-read it, just because I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to how I remembered it. I didn’t need to worry. It’s still great. I was amazed at how well its aged. In fact, it seems pretty obvious that current genre TV shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica are just now trying to emulate the mature storytelling style of this 1980s graphic novel — probably because the young readers of Watchmen are now old enough to be the writers of those shows.

Show Me the Money!

I have to admit, I’m a bit surprised by many PS3 game developers’ lack of business acumen.

For instance, I play Resistance 2 co-op.  A lot.  They are making no money on me for monthly fees, but they must be incurring significant server costs to host an ever-expanding (hopefully) player base.  So sure, they are making money off new sales (though not secondary sales), but they could be making more.

So why aren’t they selling the advanced weapons/upgrades in the Playstation Store?  You could still let others earn them through experience, but gamers w/ disposable income and limited time like myself aren’t that impressed with “earning” things.  I’m too old for that shit.  I like to buy things I want and have them now.  That’s why I went to law school

Dead Space took advantage of this by allowing you to purchase, for a nominal fee, some great suits of armor and upgraded weapons.  It was a win-win-win.  1st, purists could choose not to buy this stuff and earn similar weapons/armor through their superior gameplay (and their superiour time-commitment).    2nd, people like me could get their rocks off by paying for it and fast-tracking ourselves through gameplay, thus maximizing our gameplay efficiency while concurrently keeping our wives happy by minimizing playing time (a joyous paradox).

Little Big Planet has made an art form of these minor add-on costs with their ever-growing catalog of outfits.  And you know what?  People buy them.  In droves.

If I were an investor at Insomniac (Resistance 2), I’d actually be pretty pissed.  Why aren’t they offering (and charging for) additional co-op player uniforms/clothing (or allowing you to buy the numerous physical/clothing character upgrades that you can earn through competitive)?

Why aren’t they selling specialized weapons, even if the alteration is merely cosmetic (e.g. a cooler looking Wraith, Marksman)?   These are simple to program and offer.

I’m sure they are busy building new maps that will be for sale (I can’t wait), but still, why aren’t they making even MORE money in the meantime?

There will be a lot of gamers out there who will think I’m an a-hole for suggesting this, but the more these companies make on these games, the more money they have to make more updates/levels for a specific game and more games in general (at least that’s what I’d hope).  Not to mention, it’s just bad business to not be creatively thinking about ways to maximize profits.

Battlestar Sucklactica

Spoiler Warning: This post contains info about the latest episode of BSG.

GREGOR SAYS:

Sent: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:17 am

Subject: Re: Battlestar Sucklactica

More like Daddystar Galactica. K and I were just talking about it! What a fucking shitfest. What a big bowl of ass.

We watched it last night. I was going to email you and tell you I’d just watched some show that has all the stars of Battlestar Galactica, but sucks much, much worse.

What the fuck is wrong with the writers? The whole imaginary world shit with Boomer and Chief was idiotic and cliche. In fact, the only thing more idiotic and cliche would be ruining a show’s strongest female character by making her a total pussy with daddy/abandonment issues. Oh wait, they did that too!

I mean, what the hell? Such a stupid episode. It was about 10 minutes of content (Boomer escapes and steals Hera, and we learn that Starbuck may be the daughter of Daniel the missing cylon) squeezed into an hour of complete character destruction.

Fuck you, BSG! Just end, already.

EUGENE RESPONDS:

Seriously, I couldn’t agree more.  Why did I waste my time watching the first 55 minutes, when all that mattered was the last 5?

Piano playing?  Mysterious piano songs to save the universe?   Did Billy Joel write this episode?

Boomer having the magical ability to create an imaginary world for her and Chief?

A total waste of time.

Mirror’s Edge 2D: Better and $50 Cheaper than the Original

I just played the 2D Flash version of Mirror’s Edge, and I had way more fun with it than I did with the real PS3 game.

Try it out here.

May the Farce Be With You!

Wow, there really are a lot of dumb gamers out there!

That being said, I did play through Turok and Viking, but I have always been a pot who liked to call the kettle black.

Here I Am, Rock You Like A Scorpion?

Gregor mentioned this previously, but I want to vent too.  Why is it that a disproportionate amount of action sci-fi/fantasy games seem to have some form of the dopiest of “fiends,” the scorpion?

Currently I’ve identified them in one form or another in:

Turok

Resistance

Resistance 2

Resident Evil 5

Guild Wars (PC)

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!