A.C. Flory's Blog, page 132

‘Ready Player One’ a #5star review

Before I begin, a warning to all non-gamers – tune out now.

Okay, for those of you left, let me begin by saying that ‘Ready Player One’, by Ernest Cline, is the first non-Indie novel I have read in a very long time. I broke my unwritten rule about supporting only Indies because I’d heard the story was brilliant. It is. It’s a tour de force of imagination, but not for everyone.

Why? Because it’s all about gaming. MUDs, consoles, MMORPGs, VR, you name it. There’s even an homage to all things 80’s thrown in to season the mix. But if all those acronyms mean nothing to you, then neither will the plot because gaming provides the structure and mindset that makes the plot compelling.

And it is a compelling story. Set in the 2040s, ‘Ready Player One’ paints a dystopian picture of a world in which we left things too late. Climate Change is no longer a theory to be disputed, it is a reality to be endured, and for the majority of America’s population, that means living in abject poverty.

With the real world so grim, most people escape to the virtual reality of the OASIS, which is like our internet on steroids. VR immersion rigs – goggles, haptic gloves and suits – and cheap OASIS access mean that even the very poor can escape reality, at least to some extent.

But as with all good stories, there is a villain of the piece, and in the case of ‘Ready Player One’, that villain is a corporation known as IOI.IOI want to control OASIS because by doing so they would gain control of vast swathes of the world’s population.

Standing against this corporate threat are a bunch of teenaged geeks – Parzival, Aech, Art3mis, Daito and Shoto – called gunters. The action, however, unfolds on both the VR and real world planes, blurring the lines of both.

Is the plot innovative and new? Um, yes and no. At its core, the story is about the fight between good and evil, which is as old as human time itself. But how it’s done is why the story is so compelling. Being able to empathize with all of the main characters also helps.

The main character is an avatar called Parzival. The young man behind Parzival is Wade, an orphan who lives with his aunt and her abusive boyfriends in a ‘stack’. Stacks are trailer parks that have been built upwards rather than outwards [to save space] and they provide shelter to the very poor.

Wade can access the OASIS because at the beginning of the story, he is a school-age boy and all school-age children are provided basic access for free – so they can attend virtual schools on a virtual planet called LUDUS.

As always, of course, money talks, even in a virtual reality, so we become invested in Wade’s life because he is the stereotypical geek. The big difference between him, and say someone like me, is that Wade/Parzival is one of the smartest geeks around. Luckily, his insecurities make us love him even as we wish we were more like him. -cough-

And then there is the gentle love story I mentioned. It’s there, and it’s an integral part of the story, but it is not the integral part of the story, the pivot around which all else revolves. If you need a comparison, think Chani and Paul Muad’ib from the Dune saga.

For me, the love story in ‘Ready Player One’ struck just the right balance because it provided a change of pace when needed, as well as motivation for parts of Wade’s character development. All without ever overshadowing the science fiction element. Then again, I may be a bit old-fashioned when it comes to science fiction and romance.

And finally a word about the writing. Here too, the word that springs to mind is balance. At its core, science fiction [like its cousin Fantasy] is all about world building, so info. dumps are almost inevitable. The trick, then, is to balance the info. dumps with the action so the reader wants to keep reading.

As you can imagine, balancing two such conflicting elements, whilst also juggling character development, social commentary and that hint of romance, is one heck of a job. Ernest Cline, the author of ‘Ready Player One’ manages to keep all his balls [pun intended] in the air…most of the time.

I think I only really became aware of the info. dumps once or twice during the entire story, and even then, I was interested enough in the world to feel no resentment.

This was a story I enjoyed from start to finish, and it saddens me to think that such quintessential science fiction has been largely ignored by the establishment. It did win the Prometheus Award in 2012, but for my money, it should have won the Hugo and Nebula awards as well. It didn’t, but perhaps, as with The Martian, Ready Player One will gain the recognition it deserves when/if Steven Spielberg turns it into a movie.

In the meantime, why not read the book? Honestly, if you have ever played a video game, of any sort, then this novel is a must read.

cheers

Meeks

 

Filed under: Reviews, Sci-fi Tagged: 5/5, avatars, Ernest-Cline, gaming, movie, Prometheus-Award, Ready-Player-One, review, science-fiction, Steven-Spielberg

Target Employee’s act of Kindness Will Inspire YOU to Practice Kindness

I’ve been following the Kindness Blog for a while now, but this story really struck a chord, perhaps because I will be old, and maybe a little eccentric one day too.

Mostly though, I wanted to draw this blog to your attention because it’s not often that someone consistently seeks out the best in us, and in doing so inspires us to do even better.

-hugs- Meeks

Kindness Blog

A random act of kindness (and a little patience) goes a long way on the Internet.

Ishmael Gilbert, a Target employee in Glendale, Indiana, inspired many people with his kindness when a customer took a picture of him patiently helping an elderly woman pay for her groceries with coins.

Sarah Owen Bilger wrote on Facebook;

“[I] was frustrated with this woman and the inconvenience she had placed on me…I watched him help her count her change, ever so tenderly taking it from her shaking hands. I listened to him repeatedly saying “yes, mam” to her…Never once did this employee huff, gruff or roll his eyes. He was nothing but patient and kind,”

Bilger was also with her daughter and she was especially happy that her child was able to witness the interaction.

“I realized I hadn’t been inconvenienced at all.That my daughter was instead witnessing kindness and patience and…

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Preserved #apricots and a #Wüsthof to grind

After the sadness of the Rickman and Bowie posts, I thought it would be nice to talk about joyful things for a change, and what could be more joyful than food and gadgets?

Before I begin though, let me tell you a little story. Back in the mists of time when The Offspring was but a twig, we lived in a leafy suburb of Melbourne called Heathmont. There I planted an apricot tree which flowered, fruited [abundantly] and sprouted a baby apricot tree of its own. When we sold the house, I potted up the baby apricot tree and it travelled with us for over fifteen years before we finally settled again in Warrandyte.

How that small, stunted apricot tree survived for so long in a pot I’ll never know, but it did, and more amazing still, it’s managed to survive and thrive in the not-so-welcoming soil of Warrandyte. But the proof of how special it is lies, as they say, in the eating, and boy are these apricots amazing. Store bought apricots may look luscious but the flavour is generally tart and ‘bland’. By contrast, the sun-warmed, sun-sweetened apricots from my little tree are incredibly sweet, even when they’re not completely ripe, and I’ve been eating them until they’re coming out of my ears!

Sadly, even my stomach has limits so this morning I stared long and hard at the 20 or so apricots left from the harvest. I tried drying the surplus last year, without much success, so what should I do with them this year?

I dismissed the idea of apricot jam without any hesitation; even I am not stupid enough to make that much of a mess for just 20 apricots. But what about compote? That would be quick and easy with minimal clean-up.

True, I thought, but compote will only last a couple of days in the fridge and I’m really sick of apricots….

Ah! But what about preserves? a sly little voice whispered in my ear.

Are you crazy? I scoffed. What do I know about preserving?

Nevertheless, a few minutes later I found myself typing ‘preserving apricots’ in Papa Google’s search box. That, eventually led to this:

I’d like to say the process was simple and painless, but that would be a lie and I’m a nice girl. For starters, only one of the guides I read mentioned that it might be a good idea to have a specialist jar lifter on hand. For those not as au fait with this topic as moi -cough- a jar lifter looks like this:

As you can see, this nifty tool allows you to grip the lid of the boiling hot jar without burning yourself. The padded black bits on the feet [for want of a more technical term] stop the boiling hot glass from exploding when touched by a cold, metal implement.

Of course, I did not have a specialist jar lifter on hand, but I did know about hot glass and cold things, so I improvised with oven mitts like so:

[Don’t even think about doing this with multiple jars of preserves!]

I did manage to get the jar out of the boiling hot water without damaging it, or myself, but if I ever do this again, I will definitely invest in a jar lifter.

Another thing I might invest in is some proper, preserving equipment – like jars and lids. The jar I used originally contained Morello cherries, and I have no way of knowing if the seal still works. It looks as if it has worked as the lid has ‘sucked in’ a bit, but I still think we’ll be eating the apricots sooner rather than later. Just in case.

Once the jar was safely out of the pot, I wrapped it in a clean tea towel because another guide said to let the preserves cool down in a draft free place – again, to stop the temperature differences from damaging the jar…the kitchen…the cook….

And finally a word about the syrup. The first recipe I read called for a ratio of half-and-half for the syrup, i.e. half sugar, half water. Now to me, that would be unbearably sweet, and totally unnecessary as my home grown apricots are/were beautifully sweet already. That said, I wasn’t quite game to use plain water for the syrup, so I heated up 1/4 cup of organic demerara sugar with 2 cups of filtered water and let it boil for about a minute before taking it off the heat. As I was only preserving one jar of fruit, I ended up with about 1/3 of the syrup left over. I’ll update this post with the taste test once we’ve actually tried the preserves.:)

And now, as I’m still in a kitcheny mood, here’s an extra little bit about a wonderful gadget I was given as a gift by a foodie friend:

Sorry to make you wait so long for an explanation of the title but I’m in a playful mood.

So. A knife sharpener, a German knife sharpener. What’s the big deal?

Let me start by saying that I have been sharpening kitchen knives since the days of the Wiltshire Staysharp scabbard – you know, the one where you sharpen the knife every time you push it into the scabbard, at least in theory. I also own one of those sharpening tools that butchers use. It looks good, but I’ve never used it because I don’t know how. More recently, The Offspring bought me a handy sharpener that actually does work, but I’m a little scared of sharpening myself with it so it doesn’t get used as often as it should. Net result: my knives spend most of their working lives being blunt.

Enter the Wüsthof.

I swear, I am not getting a commission or any kickbacks for this, but I have never used anything that worked as quickly and easily as this little beauty. The two grinding ‘wheels’ are labelled ‘coarse’ and ‘fine’ so I tried one of my kitchen knives on the coarse one first. I could feel the sharpener biting into the edge of the blade. After a couple of swipes I switched to the ‘fine’ grinding wheel and gave the knife a few more swipes. Then I tested it on a raw chicken drumstick.

Now I don’t know if any of you have ever tried to fillet a chicken drumstick, but it’s not easy. The shape is awkward and the meat lies snugly along the bone, making knife work difficult. But you should see how easy it is when you have a truly sharp knife! I’m just grateful I have a knife block in which to store my newly sharpened knife because I wouldn’t trust it loose in a drawer. Honestly, this thing is like a razor blade now!

So there you have it, some tips on preserving home-grown apricots [from a complete novice] and two gadgets that would be a welcome addition to any kitchen.

Enjoy!

Meeks

 

 

Filed under: Food glorious food Tagged: apricots, jar-lifter, knife-sharpener, preserving, sugar-syrup, tips, Wusthof

Alan Rickman – 1946 to 2016

I’m in shock. Another ageless 69 year old gone, and this time it’s the brilliant man who played the Sheriff of Notingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves:

Too young to have seen Prince of Thieves? Then how about Alan Rickman as the baddie in Die Hard?

I could go on, including clips from Love Actually and the Harry Potter movies but it should already be obvious why Alan Rickman was such an extraordinary actor. He pretty much stole the show in almost every movie in which he appeared. Now there won’t be any more movies.

Thank you for the legacy of your work, Alan Rickman. You will be missed.

Meeks

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Alan-Rickman, Die-Hard, Harry-Potter, Love-Actually, R.I.P., Sheriff-of-Nottingham, Snape

Two #5star #reviews for two very different novels

I read all the time, but sometimes the quality of my reading material goes through a bit of a slump. Then, as if to make up for it, fate sends me two wonderful books in a row. The two wonderful books I’ll be talking about today are Pride’s Children: Purgatory, by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt, and The Earthquake Doll, by Candace Williams. And because I’ve already reviewed both on Amazon, I’ve included those reviews in full.

Click the picture to see the book on Amazon

Pride’s Children: Purgatory, by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

‘The writing in Pride’s Children, Purgatory is beautiful – literary without being at all pretentious – but if you’re anything like me, it’s the characters you will love.

Sexy, good-looking Irish actor Andrew O’Connell is the perfect foil for shy, retiring author Karenna Ashe, but this is no predictable romance. It is, however, a lovestory about grown ups who have to keep on growing in order to deal with the pain of loving someone they shouldn’t. It’s also a novel about choices. And finally it’s a novel about taking risks when your body suffers from a chronic illness. In other words, this is a novel about being human.

I loved every word and my only complaint is that there isn’t any more…yet. Very highly recommended.’

 

Click the picture to see the book on Amazon

The Earthquake Doll, by Candace Williams

‘I’ve loved all things Japanese for a very long time, but my genre of choice is sci-fi so I only just stumbled onto this little gem. What is so good about it? Pretty much everything:

-The characters are very likable, especially the main character, Miyoko who is a young Japanese girl growing up in postwar Japan.

– All the characters have a ‘voice’ – meaning each one is quite distinct and you know exactly who’s speaking or doing what at all times.

– The setting feels very genuine; definitely not the same old same old.

– Because the plot grows out of a culture that is very different to anything found in the West, even the simple plot of star-crossed lovers feels fresh and new,

– And the storytelling is clever. By letting us see through Miyoko’s eyes, the author has worked a gentle sort of magic which allows us to see our own culture through fresh eyes,

– And finally, the writing is clean and simple, speaking to the heart much like the Good Wife by Pearl S Buck.

I really can’t recommend this book enough. Simply lovely.‘

In many ways, these two novels could not be more different if they tried, both in style and content, and yet…they both have that touch of magic that lifts them out of the mundane into the extraordinary. These will be books you remember. That’s a promise. :)

cheers

Meeks

Filed under: Uncategorized

David Bowie, January 8, 1947 – January 10, 20162016

I grew up with Bowie’s music and my daughter’s favourite movie, for a very long time, was The Labrynth in which Bowie starred as the Goblin King.

A very talented man, gone too soon.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: David-Bowie, Rest-in-Peace

#Heavensward – 2 x 60 at last

Before anyone gets too excited -rolls eyes- none of my characters have hit level 60 in battling yet, but I am proud to announce that Takh broke the crafting barrier twice today – once on blacksmith and the second time on goldsmith:

And now to reveal a little secret – Takh reached 60 on two of his crafts without ever having set foot in Heavensward! And it wasn’t all that hard. Basically he did the Grand Company [GC] missions every day, handing in HQ [high quality] and starred items where possible.

Of course he did have some help from Meeka. She did all the gathering and provided him with melded crafting gear via her carpenter, weaver, leatherworker and alchemist, but if you have the gil [money] to buy all those things, it is possible to get a craft to 60 just on GC missions alone. As I never have a lot of gil, I had to do things the hard way, but that’s okay; I really just wanted to show that it can be done. Plus, if I’m honest, I also wanted to thumb my nose at Heavensward and all its gated content.

In the next week and a bit I intend to get 4 of Meeka’s crafts to 60 as well, then I’m going to pack up the Mist house, move what I can into a private room in the Lavender Beds house and jump into Blade & Soul [release date 19th January, 2016].

B&S is a buy-to-play mmo with no monthly subscription so I’ll actually save money for a while. And when I get sick of the PVP element, I’ll go back to Heavensward and hopefully my friendly house-sitter will have kept the Lavender Beds house going for me. If not, my characters will be homeless and I’ll be so angry at FFXIV that I may never buy a Square-Enix game again. Ever.

-hrumph-

Anyway, the weekend’s over and I need to go to bed. Goodnight all!

Meeks

Filed under: Games for big kids Tagged: Blade&Soul, crafting, ffxiv, gated-content, Grand-Company-missions, Heavensward, mmos, Square-Enix

#Audiomachine – An Unfinished Life

Music has always played a huge role in my writing, setting the mood and acting as a conduit for the emotions of the story, so it has to be something I can listen to for weeks and months at a time – literally, the same music, on repeat, for hours per day.

For Vokhtah, this creative soundtrack was provided by Two Steps From Hell [TSFH]. For Innerscape, however, I needed something more emotional, and dare I say it, romantic. Enter German composer Jo Blankenburg. His four albums – Elysium, Vendetta, Floatovations and Feather Dance – have been woven into the fabric of Innerscape since its conception in 2012.

But what do you do when the music you have been listening to for so long stops taking you to ‘that place’? You go looking for new music, that’s what.

As luck would have it, I did find some stunning new music by Jo Blankenburg, but there was a catch – as it hasn’t been released yet, the only way I can listen to it is by streaming it from SoundCloud.

Now don’t get me wrong, SoundCloud is a lot of fun, but when you have a 60 GB download limit per month, it’s not quite cost effective.

-avoids looking at the Offspring-

As a result, I’ve had to ration my music, and that is not conducive to creativity.

But I digress. While putting together my SoundCloud playlist, I stumbled on the playlists of other people with similar tastes and thanks to one of them, I discovered Audiomachine’s Guardian at the Gate, which eventually led to their Tree of Life album.

Those of you who have seen The Hobbit may find the tracks familiar. As I haven’t seen The Hobbit it was all new to me, but the track, ‘An Unfinished Life’, grabbed me by the gut and hasn’t let go :

The reason I’m making such a big deal about this is that I’d actually heard Audiomachine before… and didn’t like their music all that much. The tracks were all big and epic, much like Two Steps From Hell, but without that lyrical quality that TSFH’s Thomas Bergersen brings to all his music. So imagine my surprise at discovering this lovely, emotional, soft side to Audiomachine?

The actual composer responsible for Audiomachine’s Tree of Life album is Danail Getz. Finding information about him has been surprisingly hard, but apparently he was born in Bulgaria, studied music there and did so well he was offered a scholarship to the US. From there he progressed to movie soundtracks before finally turning to trailer music.

I guess that’s where Audiomachine comes in because it’s not a band, its a company and as such, it probably ‘out-sources’ to composers like Getz as the need requires.

It’s kind of an odd way of creating music, but I’m not complaining; I have new writing music, I’ve discovered a new composer and hopefully some time in 2016, Jo Blankenburg will bring out a new album featuring the tracks I want to hear. Life’s good. :)

cheers

Meeks

 

 

 

Filed under: Music Tagged: Audiomachine, Danail-Getz, EPIC, Innerscape, Jo-Blankenburg, romantic, trailer-music, TSFH

Vent – the worst New Year’s Eve ever

Here in Australia the countdown to the New Year has begun – 14.5 hours to go if my arithmetic serves – but my mood is anything but festive. I just learned that my car is ‘cooked’.

For the mechanically challenged, ‘cooked’ is a technical term that means the engine is cactus, dead-as-a-dodo, finito. :(

Apparently some part of my radiator broke off completely as I was driving home yesterday [in the heat with a car full of perishables]. The engine immediately started to overheat but I didn’t notice because…the engine was making a very worrying noise. Totally focused on the engine noise, and desperately trying to calculate whether I could limp home regardless, I didn’t notice the temperature gauge rocketing off into space. By the time I finally pulled over and the engine ‘stopped’, it was all too late.

I know all this because I have a wonderful mobile mechanic who checked the car out once it had cooled. He gave me the bad news just moments ago.

What happened to me and the shopping yesterday? That’s the fortunate part. I’d bought a bag of ice in case we have another blackout tonight so I was able to perch most of the perishables on the ice until The Offspring could come pick me up. My poor old car is still sitting by the side of the road though.

Once I hit publish on this post, I’ll have to ring the RACV [roadside assist] and get the car towed home. Then I’ll have to do a lot of grim thinking, and more sums. I’m not quite destitute, but the dog needs her –cough– anal –cough– glands removed so that’s an unbudgeted expense, and now I’ll either have to fix the car somehow, or buy a rust bucket that may end up being far worse.

Just for the record, I’ve had Jimmy [my Corolla] since it was 5 years old. Jimmy is now almost 28 and we’ve grown old together. I don’t want another car…unless it’s a Toyota Prius, but even second hand that aspirational vehicle is waaaaaaay out of my reach.

So, at this point it looks as if I’ll have to wait until the wreckers open up again in early January. Then I’ll have to cross my fingers that my mechanic will be able to find a decent second-hand engine. Then the actual wait while the work gets done. Finally, I’ll probably have to pay between 3 – 4? thousand dollars and I’ll be mobile again. All during one of the worst bushfire seasons we’ve had in a while. Not great.

All things are doable if they have to be done, but juggling everything with just one car in a fringe area like Warrandyte where public transport is…minimal…will be a challenge. It will mean racing out to do the shopping at the crack of dawn so I don’t leave the Offspring alone in the house with no way out for too long. It will mean feeling just a tiny bit fenced in. It will be unpleasant.

BUT!

If this is fate’s way of hitting me with the small stuff so I can avoid the great, big fiery elephant in the room then so be it. I can live with that, but I’m not going to enjoy the first couple of months of 2016 and that is the honest truth.

-sigh-

And now enough of this belly-aching. Thank you for letting me vent. My online friends have been both inspiration and consolation on more occasions than I can name. Thanks guys. Have a wonderful New Year’s Eve but stay safe, okay?

Much love,

Meeks

December 31, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 1988, 2015, bushfire, Corolla, New-Year, season, Toyota, Warrandyte

Open #submissions to Gollanz, January 2016

My thanks to the Offspring for alerting me to this, otherwise I would not have known that Gollanz is holding open submissions. -waves to the Offspring-

If you write sci-fi, fantasy or horror [I think] then you might consider sending your MS off. You can find the full details here:

http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2015/10/gollancz-direct-submissions-january-2016/

As I don’t have a print version of Vokhtah, and don’t fancy paying the postage on an A4 printout to the UK, I won’t be applying. That said, I hope my all my sci-fi writing friends take advantage of this opportunity. Win or lose, it’s an important experience and I wish all of you the best of luck!

cheers

Meeks

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 2016, Gollanz, January, open, publishing, submissions