Taven Moore's Blog, page 16

Flash Fic

Some more flash fic, courtesy the warm and wonderful Bre.

First line prompts

* The entrance to the tunnel was his only way out

* There had been many theories about how she had been murdered

* The pen hadn’t been worth stealing

Tami’s Story

There had been many theories about how she had been murdered, but they were all wrong, and that was the most vexing thing of all. They even had the body and all the evidence they needed! But APPARENTLY it was more entertaining to wonder if she’d been mauled by a bear or a dog, or possibly even fallen under some sort of backhoe. Marks for creativity, but fucking F-minus for stupidity.

She haunted the werewolf, though. Oh, sure, he was big and scary when the moon came out, but the rest of the time he was an accountant and it turns out he was afraid of ghosts.

She flicked a finger across the back of his neck and giggled as he cringed away from the cool breath.

A BEAR, honestly!

Bre’s Story

The pen hadn’t been worth stealing. In the end, after all that effort and subterfuge, it was actually quite boring. There were indents on the top marking the nasty habit of him biting down on the pen when he had been in thought. The worn rubber around the grip, leaving ghosts of his fingers, echos of his thoughts dripping down through the ink; the brilliance sparking on the scraping of the tip onto the page.

She thought if she touched it, took it, used it, it would bring a part of him back.

But it didn’t…

Perry’s Story

(Using the proffered picture prompt because I’m a pretty snowflake)

Why sure, sure. C’mon down and sit by me a spell. Take a load off. You look like you’ve been travelling quite a while now.

Where’re you from? If you don’t mind an old codger askin’?

Orville? Ha! I knew you was from the west soon as I clapped eyes on ya. Sides, to be honest with ya, there’s been a lotta folks heading east since the Fallow hit. Lotta folks just packin’ up their things and heading as far east as they can get.

Skytop’s the last stop on the list before you reach the Barony. And there ain’t no one desperate enough to head out there.

Still, Skytop ain’t so bad, innit? I see the way you’re craning your neck to take it all in, boy. Don’t you worry, ain’t no shame in it at all. Damned top-heavy place takes all newcomers the same way.

You get why we had to build upward, don’t you? What with the Ravagers runnin’ around, killin’ and eating folk out on the valley floor and the Barony to the east of us and the Fallow approachin’ from the west, there just ain’t any room to spread out.

The old guard picked out this mountain top and built a small town atop it. But we kept getting more folks come streaming in and pretty soon, the town was just about bustin’ at the seams.

If it weren’t for them Kenkari mages that set up shop here, I dunno what we woulda done. You can still find their guild hall, round floor two hundred thirty-five or sommat.

They made a deal with the city masters, ages back. That they’d get sanctuary from the Mages Council that was chasin’ them down for heresy or some such, and in return? They’d spell Skytop so that we could attach buildings directly to the stone face of the mountain.

That’s when we started buildin’ up instead of sideways.

What’s that?

Ah hells. Lookit me, nattering away like an old coot while you look just about dead on your feet. Been walking a hell of a long way, and you could probably use a place to set your pack down and rest your legs a mite.

Why don’t you try Cora’s place? It’s not far, just a few levels up. Here, give me a sec to get these old rustbucket legs workin’ again and I’ll take you up my own self. She’s a friend…sort of. I might be able to get you a decent price for a few night’s stay while you get your feet under ya.

Still, ain’t no better place than Skytop if you’re lookin’ for a fresh start. The lower levels can get a bit seedy at times, but tis all just part and parcel of leavin’ your past behind and living life anew.

Why, if you manage to find a niche to call your own here in Skytop, there ain’t no reason at all that you can’t make a name for yourself and work up the levels, ya hear?

Skytop’s givin’ you the chance for a fresh start, youngster. Ain’t no reason why you can’t leave your past troubles behind you and become just about anything your mechanical heart can imagine.

Anything at all.

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[Perry] Warlords of Draenor

So I finally caved.

I’ve been clean for years. Completely clean! Didn’t even follow the news or anything.

Then various factors converged.

My cousin and his friend started playing again. On top of that, my current MMO home, Wildstar, has been dealing with some rocky news that makes everyone thing they’re going to crumble soon, which made me start looking around for a new MMO home.

On top of everything else, Blizzard, those diabolical bastards, apparently threw Mists of Pandaria my way for free as a bright and shiny lure to drag me back in.

Next thing you know?

I’m back.

God help me, I’m back.

A new expansion just launched as well, so let’s take a look at how things have changed and how things have stayed the same.

Difficulty

It’s undeniable that the game has gotten a LOT easier since the last time I played (early Cataclysm). Part of that has to do with the way the game’s systems have been streamlined for user friendliness.

Gone are the old talent trees. Gone is hit rating and reforging gear. A whole whack of abilities on each class got the axe and what’s left feels sort of like the bare bones of what used to exist.

From what I’ve seen, most damage dealing classes are down to rolling across 3-4 abilities for their usual rotation and then maybe 1-2 more to use as cooldown abilities.

When you get crowd controlled, there’s a huge icon in the center of your screen telling you exactly what’s happening to your character.

It’s a bit of a disconnect from what I remember.

Normal mode dungeons are an absolute joke to get through. I remember the first dungeon I ran in Wildstar, with Tami and Steven. And it was refreshingly difficult. Multiple wipes, and none of them felt unfair. Every death felt like it happened because we’d fucked something up.

Such is not the case right now in Warcraft. I ran the first dungeon or two of the new expansion and just rolled right through it with a damage dealing monk as our tank.

It wasn’t even close.

And don’t even get me started on the Raid Finder.

It’s a nice idea and all? But honestly, toning down the difficulty of raids THAT low made me…honestly? Made me a little sad.

I know what Raid Finder is there for. For the people who don’t have time to stick to a consistent raiding schedule, who just want to see the end game content?

Neutering the bosses THAT badly just…makes the whole thing really sad. Like going after the low hanging fruit. Makes me feel like I’m picking on a crippled four year old at Disney land.

…A crippled four year old at Disney land WITH CANCER.

Yes, it was that bad.

Pretty!

Every expansion, as crazy as it sounds? Warcraft just looks better and better. I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know what sort of technological trickery they use to eke out just a little more bang out of their TEN YEAR OLD game engine…but they somehow do.

When I resubscribed and took a look at Pandaria, I thought it was lovely.

The new Outlands? Draenor? Looks gorgeous. All of the environments look lovely and detailed, the trees and plants look vibrant (especially in Tanaan). The sky!

The sky looks gorgeous! There’s random weather! Well, more random weather. Rain and snow and fog. It looks great.

The updated character models do look nice, though in some cases, the faces can look a little wonky.

All in all? The game looks wonderful now. And looks unbelievable for a ten year old game.

Incremental Upgrades

Something they seem to have refined is…like…

Warcraft feels ‘productive’ to play in short spurts. If you look at a game like Wildstar, there’s almost no point in logging on if you don’t have a nice chunk of time to play.

In Warcraft, especially with the new expansion, there seems to be something to do whether you have time to play for fifteen minutes or several hours.

Whether you just want to wander around hunting up some rare mobs or treasures, or play with your Garrison a little (getting to that), there always seems to be something small you can do to advance your character.

Speaking of hunting rares and treasures? That was a wonderful idea.

All around the map and in every zone is a PLETHORA of rare mobs that you can tackle. These mobs can drop garrison resources or a blue item, or a toy or a pet or something. Makes them worth hunting down.

All around the map and in every zone is also a whole boatload of little treasures to seek out that can similarly grant you items or coin or toys or whatnot.

It reminds me a lot of the open world games and their host of missions and minigames and things like that, scattered all about the map. Giving you a reason to explore and to poke around into every nook and cranny.

The Garrison

This was Warcraft’s take on player housing and it’s honestly not bad.

Housing is a bit of a misleading term, though. As it’s less ‘housing’ and more like a small town that you build up and populate.

It can be satisfying to collect little followers that you can send out on missions to gain exp or to bring back coin. It can be fun to manage buildings to build, or to decide whether you want to upgrade your lumber mill for more garrison supplies, or if you want to upgrade your bunker for better chance at drops.

The Warcraft Garrison is like a weird mix between one of those horrible Facebook/free mobile games and something…charming. Quaint.

It’s really something that deserves a look before judgement is passed.

My only complaint about it? Is the lack of customization.

Especially when one comes from Wildstar? With their CUSTOMIZE ALL THE THINGS approach? The fact that everyone’s garrison will look more or less the same, save for which buildings are planted where, is a little disappointing.

Hopefully, they have plans to add some more customization options later.

Other Things

I can’t really speak for the raids this expansions, or if the heroic dungeon difficulty is well done or not. I’m not quite that high yet, though I should hit the cap sometime this week.

I also can’t speak much about the PvP at the new level cap, though to be honest? I doubt it’s changed all that much. Tab targetted, pillar humping combat simulator 2.0. If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t.

Conclusions

As with many things, the Warlords of Draenor expansion feels a lot like a case of two steps forward and one step back.

Though to be fair, maybe in this case it would be closer to two and a half or three steps forward and one step back.

There really is a lot to love. There’s a lot of charm and heart put into the game, even as the difficulty has been pared away to a shadow of what it used to be.

And maybe that’s alright. Maybe that’s what a lot of people are looking for.

I can say that despite the things I find annoying or frustrating about the game, I’ve logged in more hours than I’d care to share across this past week.

Despite the incessant queues and weird lag issues, I’ve still put in the time to wait to get on, just to at least send out my Garrison followers on new missions and to reap the rewards of the old ones.

Despite other pressing and more productive uses of my time coughwritingcoughcough, I’ve always stayed on longer than I’d planned, thinking to myself that I’d just do one more quest, then log off. I’d just kill that one rare around the corner, then I’ll log off. I’ll just go check on my Garrison one more time…but my Garrison hearth won’t be up for 6 minutes. Perfect for doing just one more quest.

Warcraft seems to have been designed as a game of “Just one more…”

So in that spirit? I tell myself now…

…Just one more expansion…then I’ll quit >.>”

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My Wildstar House

Worldbuilding Woes

I’ve been sick, which is a wonderful excuse to not be doing the writing thing. Past week or so, the sickness has mostly been with the coughing and less with the general feeling of ickypooawfulness, so I gathered together the tattered fragments of my motivation and forced my ridiculously grumpy self into a chair, in front of a keyboard, with the wifi turned off.

No dessert till I eat my green beans.

(This tactic never actually worked on me as a child. My stubbornness and hatred of vegetables and strong smells was such that I fell asleep at the table rather than eat them. It works better when I’m the one setting the ultimatum, since I actually BELIEVE in my motivations, even if I superficially dig my heels in at them.)

ANYWHOO, I wrote for about an hour, hated the whole thing, and gently patted myself on the head for having done anything at all.

As I fall asleep, I tend to play with stories. Daydreaming, mental fanfiction, planning for my own stuff — whatever seems like a fun toy at the moment. That night, I mentally unshelved the bit I’d written and tried to imagine where I’d go from there, and I hated it.

So I mentally shelved it and became a unicorn. Don’t judge.

Next morning, while doing dishes, I unshelved it again. Not intentionally, mind you. Just sort of idly, because I KNOW that I loved the idea for this story when I got started, so I knew I could love it again. This was less of me being a good productive writer, and more me prodding reflexively at a sore tooth.

And I thought of a new way to open the story.

I had zero confidence that it was the RIGHT way, but I realized it wouldn’t cost me much to at least start it and see how it felt.

So I wrote the new beginning. And it IS better. Punchier. More fun. More active.

It feels really weird to just … idly mention something without any point of reference. But that’s how I’m writing this one. I’m writing it as if the reader already knows what I’m talking about, with as little explanation as possible. I’ll add more back in when I do my revisions, of course, but for now, I’m blazing through dialogue and action and not worrying about it too much.

In other words, I’m writing the STORY first, and worrying about the explanation for things as a secondary concern instead of doing it the other way around by trying to make sure that the reader is on comfortable ground before the story kicks into high gear.

We’ll see how successful it is, but for now it feels like a stronger story.

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[Perry] Interstellar

Note: The POST is completely spoiler-free. The comments section may not be. Read past the post at your own risk!

Silence and thinking.

That’s all I had to go on when the movie ended. Sitting in the theater once the lights came back up, I glanced over at my friend, who glanced back at me. I raised an eyebrow, and he raised his in return. Then, shaking my head, I gathered up my coat and got ready to leave.

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to think of it. It was too immediate, too big to put into words at just that moment.

For those not in the know, Interstellar is the latest movie from Christopher Nolan. The trailers you can find give away almost nothing about the movie except for the barebones premise: The earth is dying, people are sent up into space to somehow save the day.

And truthfully, it’s better that way.

It’s better to go in blind, with only the vaguest idea that the movie is going to do with space and not much else.

It makes everything hit a lot harder.

So what can I tell you about the movie without giving things away?

The Good Bits

For starters, visually speaking? Holy hells. Go and watch this movie on the biggest movie screen you can possibly find. If you’re at all into space porn (shots of stars and galaxies and space vistas), this movie has got that waiting for you in spades. The planetary vistas are also very, very lovely. And the shuttle/spaceship also looks very nice.

The music and the score was also incredibly fitting. Hans Zimmer was instructed by Nolan to do away with the endless strings and the big drums that seemed to be the go-to for big, epic sounding scores and to try something new and fresh. What he did? Worked, and boy howdy, did it EVER work. The music fits every scene in the movie so damned well, and is ESPECIALLY effective during the tense, edge of your seat moments.

Speaking of which…

The edge of your seat moments? The nail-biting, pulse-pounding, “holy shit, will they make it?” sort of moments are just…Grade A material here. There’s a bunch of them sprinkled throughout the movie. Their frequency is just enough that you get to almost, but not quite, catch your breath after each one before the next one comes along. Of especial note is the one that comes about halfway into the movie. You’ll know which I’m talking about once you see it. But I was right there in that scene, RIGHT THERE.

It was glorious.

That’s not to say the movie was perfect. There WERE definitely some issues to be had.

The Not So Good Bits

The movie is fairly slow-paced. There are definitely some nail-biting, edge of your seat moments sprinkled throughout, but largely speaking, it IS a slow moving film.

Think of…think of an elephant. An elephant ballerina. Underwater.

Do you have that image?

There’s grace there, for sure. The balletic movements and the slow, languorous movements of being under water are graceful as hell. But there’s a lot of…mass? I’m wondering if this makes a lick of sense. It’s graceful, but huge. Looks like it’s moving on purpose and with slow deliberation, but DEFINITELY doesn’t seem the type of movie that can change tones on a dime like your average summer blockbuster.

There ARE various little flaws and plot holes. None of them struck me as all that huge, and to be honest, there was nothing that really stood out to me until hours later, when I was at home and had more time to digest it all. But they ARE there. I didn’t think they hampered my enjoyment of the movie much, but depending on how badly those types of things bother you, your mileage may vary.

A background in science (specifically, astronomy and the theory of relativity) isn’t NECESSARY, but it helps a lot. A lot, a lot.

 

Finally, there are some deus ex machina elements here or there. I never felt they were too glaring and could be easily explained in the context of the film, but depending on your abhorrence of such devices, it might be something to watch out for.

Final Thoughts

It’s a powerful fucking movie.

I use that word with purpose and with great deliberation. Interstellar is a phenomenally STRONG movie.  It has big tense action-y moments, and swings at you with huge emotional blows, not just jabs or punches, but more like getting hit by a mountain. You’ll see them coming, but you’ll have a hard time doing anything about it, or preparing yourself for it, if you catch my drift.

I overheard some folks, as I left the theater, complaining that they had a hard time following it, or that they didn’t know what had happened. But to be frank, if you can follow along with Nolan’s other movies? Movies like Inception, or Memento, or The Prestige? Interstellar shouldn’t give you any trouble.

I very highly recommend checking this one out.

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Chopped

Mmm, Delicious Brain Candy

Whilst I was laid up with the plague, I did a lot of reading and a lot of TV watching. (More specifically, Netflix-watching, but you know what I mean).

Food Network recently plonked some “best of” collections for a few of their shows.

Good Eats is amazing. Alton Brown is like the Bill Nye of cooking and he’s incredibly entertaining and educational.

That’s not what I’m here to talk to you about today, though. Nope. Today, we’re going to talk about the almost-but-not-quite-reality-tv show Chopped.

Chopped

For the uninitiated, Chopped is a competitive cooking show, where contestants are eliminated via three rounds of timed cooking with mystery ingredients until a single winner emerges, festooned with both fame and cash.

It’s pretty entertaining, especially if you like cooking shows (which I do). The reality tv levels are definitely there (plenty of solo-interviews interspersed with some creative editing) but I DO feel like the contestants — their mishaps, their reactions, and their victories — are genuine. YMMV.

My Realization

Entertaining or no, it’s a pretty standard formula for a show, and I watched far more episodes than I normally would of something that has no consistent plot. I like to pretend I’m learning writing skills by analyzing plots, you see, and therefore don’t feel quite so guilty about the time spent on them.

At first, I thought it was just because I was sick. Mindless, entertaining shows were definitely what the doctor ordered.

But the more I watched, the more I realized I was completely wrong. I wasn’t watching despite it not helping my writing — I was watching BECAUSE I write.

I was watching the JUDGES.

Hear me out.

Critique

Every dish the judges tasted was accompanied by praise and condemnation.

EVERY dish. I’m not sure I ever heard a single dish given unanimous perfect commentary, regardless of how skilled the chefs in question were. (In some cases, the chef’s attitude was critiqued in addition to their food).

In the beginning, I figured this was just good TV. I mean, the people watching need a MYSTERY, right? And the obvious mystery is “who will win?”. If one person never receives critique and is praised only, the mystery is gone.

So no matter how glorious a dish they’d been served, I believe the judges went out of their way to find something to negatively comment upon.

But I also feel that they went out of their way to find POSITIVE things to comment on as well. Again, good TV, but not JUST that.

These are human beings doing the critiquing, after all, and human beings RECEIVING the critique as well. I saw multiple contestants with red faces and shaking hands, voices cracking as they tried to contain their terror — and I SAW the judges change the way they talked about the dish.

They weren’t trying to break ANYONE. It would have been SO easy for them to go all Simon Cowell for the sheer “entertainment” value of watching these people break apart.

They never. Ever. EVER. went for the kill. They never backed down, and they never let chefs with a big ego push them around, but even with the relative jerks they projected an aura of fairness.

The longer I watched, the more in awe I felt of the judges.

Okay, sure, but Writing?

I’m getting there, I’m getting there.

Then I started paying attention to the contestants again. Their eagerness, their confidence, their fears, their challenges. Sure, there was some stirred-up drama in there as well, but for the most part, these people were ARTISTS and SCIENTISTS being called upon to perform their craft for a critical crowd, and in VERY unfriendly circumstances.

In most cases, they accepted the critiques of the judges while still feeling that they shouldn’t have been chopped. In many cases, the closing interviews included tears or red faces, obvious shock and grief.

In only a few very rare cases did someone get chopped and say “I can see why they did that.” Most of the time, it was because of equipment failure or something similarly out of their control.

Not. Once. Not once did I see someone leave who said “wow, yeah. I was totally out-chef’d in there.” People acknowledged the skill of their opponents, agreed that they could always learn and grow and do better. But I never saw a single person who believed what they did was utter crap at fault of their own skill.

Writing

(See, I told you I was getting there).

When we write, we are weaving imagination and skill and grammar and inspiration and (in some cases, whiskey) into a story that we hand to someone and hope they enjoy it.

Just like those chefs, we’re fighting against things we can and cannot control and trying desperately to prove that we are good enough.

Thankfully, we’re not tossed in a hotbox with a few other authors and told to write on command, then stand and receive critiques for our short stories in front of an audience of millions, but I think the analogy stands.

I looked at the faces of those chefs and in their expressions I saw myself, just after submitting a story. The hope and fear and worry and frantic desire to have just a few more minutes to fix something — I KNOW that cocktail and it is a bitter drink indeed.

I looked at the faces of those judges in in their expressions I saw myself, just after being handed a fresh story written by another person. The desire to be fair and help them grow coupled with the fear of crushing a delicate ego. (Okay, the ego thing is more something I feel than they did very often, but they’re dealing with the equivalent of J.K. Rowling up there, not my fellow Inkers).

An Extra Note

When I wrote my short stories for the Saucy Ink collections, I remember finishing the Dragons story. I sent my final version off to the talented Mr. Hall and I thought to myself that I’d knocked it out of the park.

That feeling of confidence in my work lasted for a long time, but I reread the story again recently and I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach.

It’s good, sure. But it’s not anywhere NEAR as good as it was in my head. Not as good as I remember it. Not as vibrant.

I’m not pointing this out to knock the story, so my darling readers who are getting ready to rush to the story’s defense, please don’t worry about it — I say this because EVERY time we write something, we believe it to be wonderful.

That’s why it’s so difficult to revise just after writing a draft. Our perception of the piece is skewed (some folks probably skew more to the “utter garbage” end of the spectrum, but it’s STILL SKEWED, so be nice to yourself).

The story on paper is NOT the same thing we see when we read it.

Who I want to be is not who I am.

This is what makes accepting critiques so difficult. THIS is what makes those chefs pull the shocked face when the judges point out that a potato is undercooked or a sauce is too sticky. Yes, they are skilled enough that they probably could have picked out the problem given enough time, but AT THAT MOMENT, all they could see is victory on their plates.

Even fully knowing and believing that we will continue to improve and will always make mistakes, it is SO hard to hear those negative things and not take each syllable like a blow to the heart.

I don’t know the answer. I still cringe, my courage still falters, I still doubt myself, and I still grant far too little weight to positive comments.

My logic knows better. My heart just feels.

Watching those chefs, though? I know which reaction I WISH I had when rejection finds me. I know that I would want to be the air-punching never-give-up learning-experience do-what-I-love wink-at-the-camera person.

Watching those judges? I hope I can find the way to balance my commentary like they do. To find the one good thing on a horrific plate of burned and battered awfulness and offer it like a balm to soothe a tortured soul. It’s hard, especially for beginning writers who may not have any clue that they’ve severely overcooked their plot and underseasoned their main characters. But it’s worth learning.

So. Um. Anyway. That’s what I did last week betwixed deathly coughing fits.

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[Perry] If Music Be the Food of Love…

…Play on.

So here’s the deal.

I recently picked up a new car.

This post is not about that.

This post IS about the fact that this car has some sort of new-fangled USB input for music option.

My old car? You either fed it CDs or you listened to the radio. So with this whole USB nonsense, I admit I went a little mad.

A friend of mine had a 64GB flash drive just sort of hanging around that he’d imparted to me, which I now have plugged into my car with the PALTRY amount of music that I’d amassed.

But with so much space to fill with delightful tunes? I’m at a bit of a loss.

That’s where you come in.

Throw some suggestions my way! Music, music, music!

Current plan is to say fuck organization. When it comes to music, I tend to prefer the buffet option. I rarely enjoy listening to a full album of one artist all the way through. I tend to enjoy listening to a song or two from someone here, a song or two from someone there.

To that end, I’ll likely have four folders and I’ll generally play with the shuffle on.

The folders in question?

Fast music: For when I’m feeling ready to take on the day and want to attempt singing things I know I can’t keep up with.

Slow music: For when the day’s done and I’m feeling relaxed and I want to attempt singing things I know is out of my range.

Instrumental: For when I don’t feel like singing.

Albums: Some albums form lovely cohesive wholes that just sound so much better all together…but I find these a fairly rare enjoyment for me.

Some examples of music I’ve enjoyed in no particular order…

The Foo Fighters

The Guardians of the Galaxy Soundtrack

Florence and the Machine

The Across the Universe covers of Beatles songs

Rise Against

Transiberian Orchestra

USS

Music from Avenue Q

Jonathan Coulton

Aimee B

Kenichiro Nishihara and his Humming Jazz album

A couple of Elvis songs

A few songs from Queen

Bit of Nirvana

The Goo Goo Dolls

Switchfoot

Bastille

Among many, many others. My tastes tend to be pretty eclectic and I’ve got a lot of space to fill on this drive so please throw some suggestions my way! Even if you think I might not like it? If it’s a song that really got to you or that you haven’t been able to get out of your head lately? Throw it my way and we’ll see if it sticks.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

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2014 Booklist (as of October)

July 2014

Farthest Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks

Childhood book, re-read again for the final time. In which a mostly-sensible and intrepid young heroine goes on a magical adventure to the Farthest Away Mountain and meets trolls, an enchanted frog, a horrible witch, magical colors, and oh-so-sad gargoyles.

This book will always hold a warm place in my heart, but I’m afraid I’ve finally outgrown it. Highly recommended for younger readers and their young-at-heart parents.

A Nostalgic 10 of 10

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

A YA offering by this author whose shorter works resonate VERY well with me, but whose longer works don’t tend to stick as well.

In the world of the Rithmatist, magic is done through rigid rulesets governed by chalk magic. Lines, circles, and art come together to defend and attack — not just other chalk wizards, but also dangerous wild chalklings. Our young hero has no chalk magic of his own, but he can draw incredibly complex and nearly-perfect chalk circles. The plot revolves around chalk wizard children who are disappearing under mysterious and horrifying circumstances, and is very well done.

This one sort of muddled in the middle. I feel like it rambled a bit and involved rather a lot of pre-teen angsty whining from BOTH primary characters, which made it less fun to read. The premise of the worldbuilding is very nice and the story is set up to continue with a lovely not-quite-a-cliffhanger, but overall it’s not a book that’s in danger of appearing on my bookshelf.

That being said? One of the BEST, most entertaining and wonderful final battles I’ve read in a while. That final chalk battle was so good it made the entire book worth reading.

A Gloriously-finished 7 of 10

Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron

Dragons are supposed to be powerful, greedy, untrustworthy, and vicious. Julius (smallest dragon in his clan) is none of those things, which makes him a liability. To punish him, his mother locks him in human form and sends him to prove himself or be eaten. Adventure, battle, romance, hilarious oraclular characters all come together to fuel this wonderfully high-octane adventure.

(Pretty sure Rachel Aaron hasn’t written a book yet that I haven’t enjoyed.)

An exciting 8 of 10

Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce

Rereading a book from my shelf, this is the first book in a new Tortall series. Daughter of the Lioness, Aly takes after her spymaster father rather than her warrior mother. During a bout of youthful rebellion, she’s captured by slavers and ends up entangled in the machinations of the Trickster god.

The highlight of the book is EASILY watch Aly use her wits and training to solve problems. Her romance is sweet and light, but from the moment she’s captured by slavers, her mind is her sharpest weapon and she uses it to great effect. I’m not one who really likes political plots, so much of the trilogy arc is uninteresting to me, but Aly herself is vibrant and fun to read.

A witty 8 of 10

August 2014

Toad Words and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher

A book of varying-length short stories written by the pseudonymm’d Ursula Vernon, who was nearly killed by whales on her honeymoon. I’m pretty sure there’s almost nothing she could write about that I would dislike, so feel free to add a grain of salt or two on to this review.

Most of these are retold fairy tales. I love retold fairy tales.

All of these have incredibly sensible heroines. I love incredibly sensible heroines.

There was pretty much nothing about this book I did not like. It was by turns entertaining, heartbreaking, hilarious, thought-provoking, and clever.

A sensible 10 of 10

September 2014

Iron Druid 2 by Kevin Hearne

Real title: Hexed

Fun, fast-paced, funny … and somehow, this series is still just not quite working for me. I look at a line, and I can see that it’s supposed to be hilarious, and yet I so rarely actually find it funny. I don’t know. I’m not rating this one, because I feel like it’s not fair.

Monster Hunter International 1 & 2 by Larry Correia

Wow. And I thought OTHER books I was reading were fast-paced. Halfway through a battle, I realize I’m not even a third of the way through the first book and it FEELS like a final battle.

… and then it amps up from there.

Werewolves, elder gods, vampires — you name it, and MHI hunts it. Saving the world is just another paycheck.

FUN to read, fast, easy, but holy cow, the escalation on this series is insane. I’m a little afraid to keep reading because I’m not sure how to make the next book MORE IMPORTANT than the previous one.

A Breathless 8 of 10

October 2014

Digger Omnibus by Ursula Vernon

Ursula Vernon’s typical no-nonsense, sensible heroine strikes again. This time in the form of a wombat who hits some “bad earth” and winds up in front of a talking statue of Ganesh. Throw in a pack of tribal hyenas, a nameless outcast, a shadowchild, and a chained demon, and it’ll take more than a pickaxe and a vampire squash to save the day.

This comic strip is COMPLETE and it is absolutely wonderful. The art style is a joy and the overall story is wonderful but my favorite things were the little bits and pieces of society-building that were thrown in. Comments about types of rock and digging from the wombat, a Matriarchical society for the hyenas, and then you have shadowchild, who is as likely to ask a difficult question about morality as they are to eat a sock.

An Utterly Delighted 10 of 10

Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

I tried, I really did. I forced myself to finish the whole book, and I even started the next book to see if it improved.

The Chronicles of Prydain may be a hugely significant story for many, but I’m afraid it’s almost unreadable for me now. No rating, because it’s not fair when I know it’s got it’s place in many libraries.

Miss Mabel’s School for Girls by Katie Cross

If you’re a girl, and a magic user, Miss Mabel’s School will set you up right. Our main character joins the school and immediately forces her way into the super-dangerous combat trial that is normally open only to graduating girls. As the story progresses, we learn more and more about our mysterious heroine (and her newfound friends), but the fiendishly clever Miss Mabel is always one step ahead.

I … did not like the way this book ended. It sets itself up very nicely for the other books and isn’t a cliffhanger or anything like that, but it felt cheap. I’m glad I read the book — it was well worth the low price I paid for it, and had more than its fair share of wonderful concepts and worldbuilding moments. I worry that the rest of the series will be full of angst and rage and politics, though, so I may hold off trying the sequel until some time has passed.

A Pensive 7 of 10

The Dresden Files 3, 4, & 5 by Jim Butcher

Actual Titles: Grave Peril, Summer Knight, and Death Masks

Harry Dresden, Wizard for Hire. He doesn’t get much sleep in any book I’ve read, but he does his best to abide by his personal moral code and save the world … without getting too far behind on his bills.

Perry told me that this series starts to get really really good about book 4.

I should listen to Perry more often. The first books were GOOD, mind you. I enjoyed them, they were awesome, but books 4 and 5 felt so much better paced, with more fleshed-out side characters.

I gobbled these up during the worst of my recent sickness, and I’m forcing myself to slow down and enjoy the remaining books while I can. It’s not a short series, but it doesn’t last forever, and I’d regret rushing through them.

An explosive 9.5 of 10

Related posts:

2014 Booklist (As of June)
Harry Potter 7 Discussion
2014 Booklist (Part 2)

[Perry] Tales from After Dark

The past week in Toronto featured the After Dark film festival.

It’s an annual thing. Whole bunch of horror, thriller, and science fiction movies converge on the city for a week and those of strong constitution can take part.

I usually check out at least a couple movies each year with my buddy, but we missed last year as he was in Korea, teaching the heathens how to communicate in english.

He was back this year, though, so we hit it up.

And boy, was the selection ever choice this year.

Just a note to start, though? We didn’t actually end up watching anything that was scary this year, for whatever reason. There was one film, called The Babadook that looked wonderful, but it was sold out almost instantly, and the other actually scary movies didn’t really pique our interest as much as the others ones.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at the pickings this year.

Zombeavers – Trailer here.

I will own up that this one was purely my choice.

But COME ON. Can you blame me? Zombie. Fucking. Beavers. Campy horror doesn’t really get much better than that.

The movie itself was a lot of fun, primarily because the crowd was into it. But, that’s to be expected really, I mean, how many people willingly drop money to watch a movie called Zombeavers in a movie theater? >.>

Still, the movie sold out haha. So we had a theater full of jovial folks to jeer and laugh and groan at the events on screen with us.

The movie itself, I’d rate at a solid 6/10. It’s fun enough that it’s worth dropping a bit of cash for if it’s a social gathering (catching it with like-minded friends), but generally not something you’ll want to spend money on.

Wait for it to come out on Netflix or whatever and have a good time on a rainy afternoon with it.

Predestination – Trailer here.

Wonderful, solid movie. It’s a little bit mind-bending, so this one’s best watched without the side effect of being tipsy.

It plays a little like Minority Report, in which it deals with the idea of preventing crimes and awful things before they happen. But does so in a bit of an interesting, kind of navel gazing way. Follows along one such agent of the time travel bureau as he works to try and identify and stop the “Fizzle Bomber” from setting off his masterwork and killing ten thousand people.

Heard some people complaining about how twisty turny it was on the way out of the theater, but honestly, if you can easily follow along with a movie like Inception? Or The Prestige? This one shouldn’t give you much trouble.

Special mention to Sarah Snook’s performance in this movie as something really, really special.

Time Lapse - Trailer here.

This one and Predestination played on the same night, as a double feature. Which just served to show me that I’m very clearly not a young man anymore and that I can’t do this kind of shit on a work night haha.

In the movie, three friends discover their neighbor has a camera that takes a picture 24 hours in the future. The camera is huge, and set up so that it takes a picture of said friends living room.

They don’t really explain the mechanics of it, and it’s better that they don’t. They gloss over the discovery pretty quickly and jump immediately toward what that means for our heroes and how it affects them.

It was pretty neat stuff. Great performances from the three main characters, and enough twisty turny to keep things interesting without going off the deep-end into navel gazing.

Add in a very neatly avoided paradox situation at some point in the movie and it makes for a wonderful, suspenseful watch.

Wyrmwood – Trailer here.

Note, the scene in the linked trailer wasn’t actually in the movie, but it does a good job of setting up how the movie looks/feels.

Billed as a mix between Dawn of the Dead and Mad Max, the movie certainly delivered on all fronts.

Zany humor, action and a bit of blood, plus a fucked up plot concept leading to some interesting and black humor type moments?

It was quite a fun movie, really.

Keep in mind, though, that it IS an Australian film, so if the accent and understanding it is a problem, you may want to stay away.

Conclusions

Zombeavers: Worth checking out on the cheap. Should prove to be quite the hilarious movie night undertaking with the right group of friends and some liquor. 

Predestination: Wonderful time travel concept. Definitely a bit of a thinking movie but if you’re in the right frame of mind for it? It’s a wonderful movie to check out.

Time Lapse: Not quite as serious and reserved as Predestination, but does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat once the story takes off about twenty minutes in.

Wyrmwood: It’s definitely a few steps up from Zombeavers when it comes to gravity and overall quality, but make no mistake, it IS definitely a bit of a campy zombie movie, so go into it with the right expectations and you’ll have a wonderful time with it.

 

 

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Nostalgia Movies
[Perry] A Tale of Two Movies
[Perry] Wherein Not All Things Need To Be Ambitious

[Perry] Shadows of Mordor

Recently, I’ve spent some time in Middle Earth again, slaughtering a nigh incomprehensible number of orcs.

A game was released somewhat recently titled “Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor”.

Because apparently? Without the “Middle Earth” in its title, no one would recognize that it was supposed to be part of the Tolkien IP, apparently.

But forget all that.

Let’s move away from the silly, overly long title.

In the game, you play as a fellow named Talion, a ranger who lives in Mordor with his family. Apparently, Mordor was livable in back in the day before Sauron woke up again, all big and bad…or something?

Listen, I don’t know, alright? The game, really isn’t known for its story.

I mean, the story is there and it’s kind of serviceable…but that’s really it. It’s just a vehicle to explain the various ways that you get to kill orcs.

And you will kill orcs.

It’s probably fair to say that you’ll kill a LOT of orcs throughout the course of the game. Single-handedly, you’ll commit what amounts to an orcish genocide.

And it never really becomes boring.

That’s the important thing.

The story is just there, the visuals are clean but nothing to write home about, and the game steals a lot of its DNA from other successful games in the past…but it never really gets boring.

So here’s a look at how the game works and plays.

In the introduction, you see Talion given his reason for slaughtering ALL the orcs in the world, and you also see him imbued with the power of immortality….but not quite.

He can still die? He just…sort of doesn’t stay dead.

If you’ve played any of the recent Assassin’s Creed games, the running, climbing, and general traversing of the environment will feel incredibly familiar to you.

If you’ve played any of the Batman: Arkham games, the combat will be as comfortable as slipping on a well-worn shoe.

If you’ve read ANYTHING, EVER, the story will not surprise you in the least.

And yet…

Here’s what they add that’s new.

They call it the Nemesis system and this is how it works.

Sauron’s orcish army is arranged in a command structure, of sorts. You have your warchiefs at the top, captains under them, bodyguards, commanders…what have you.

During the course of the game, if you KILL someone, generally, another orc will get promoted to take their place. If you kill the right orcs at the right time? Various orcs can end up getting promoted to warchief. And YOU will be directly responsible.

If an orc kills you? They get a raise in their current power level. And if they get strong enough? They will go and challenge the next orc up, all on their own, and fight him for his spot on the command chain.

If he wins, he’ll take the guy’s spot, usually gain additional power levels, new innate traits (things like becoming immune to stealth attacks or ranged attacks), and often gain a little coterie of bodyguards in the process.

That’s not all, of course.

Throughout the game, you’ll see various “power struggle” icons on the map that you can go to and participate in? Or ignore as you choose. And these struggles will resolve themselves over time.

It makes for a shifting and fluid orcish organizational structure for you to try and exploit at the right moments.

Furthermore, later in the game, you get the ability to brand orcs with your power and make them your servants. Enslave a lowly nobody orc? And you have a useful distraction in combat.

Enslave a war chief? And you get control of him and all the orcs under his command.

Oh yeah.

Now, there’s a reason why it’s called the Nemesis system.

Because you can actually get killed? But you’ll always come back? Orcs you fight will remember you.

If you fight an orc and get killed, the next time you come back to life and face him again? He’ll remember and taunt you. Do it enough times and the orc will claim that you’re boring him and that he wants you to stay dead this time.

You can also leave orcs alive when you challenge them (the captains at least). You can execute them as they get low health (head choppy choppy), or you can ‘injure’ them enough to defeat them, but not kill them? Or they can freak out at the sight of you and run away.

Every time an orc is defeated in an encounter with you but survives? It’ll show some mark of the encounter next time. Defeat them but leave them alive once or twice? And they’ll bear additional scars or maybe have lost an ear or something the next time.

If you get really curious and you hunt one orc down, over and over again, and never execute him and just constantly defeat him to hunt him down later?

Well….After about the 5th or 6th time, he’ll look like he has a canvas sack tied to his head to keep it together >.>”

It’s a really fun game.

The Nemesis system gives even the little peons a decent amount of personality, which makes it fun to hunt them down for more killing. The elements of design borrowed from other games are used with enough flare here that you don’t care that they’ve been lifted.

If you wanted a new, fun title to pass a bit of time as the holiday season approaches, or if orcs killed your family and you feel the need to get some revenge?

I’d really recommend checking this one out.

Related posts:

[Perry] Shaping Player Behavior
Missing Pokemon? Meet Mino Monsters!
[Perry] Thomas Was Alone

Comment Policy Update

I’m closing down comments on posts older than 100 days. I’m a little sad to do it, but 90% of the activity on the older stuff is spam, and when a real comment DOES come along, it pings everyone who had subscribed to the thread, which can be super jarring.

Shouldn’t affect most of us excepting to cut down on some email spam. =]

Related posts:

5 Ways You Are Making Your Blog An Unfriendly Place
Blogs As Conversations
How to Encourage Comments