c4p3n

[c4p3n]

Norco is good.

[c4p3n]

Unpacking

I’m not sure I have a healthy relationship with stuff. By stuff I mean physical items, the ones I have to buy, want to buy, or feel like I’m supposed to buy. Accumulating things makes me very anxious, so I try to put thought into almost every purchase of a physical item that I make. This is exhausting. I’m not a minimalist by any means. My home still has plenty of stuff in it that I don’t need. I’d like to look through it all and get rid of stuff I’m never going to use. But what to do with with it? Throw it out, where it will end up in a landfill with a bunch of other stuff that is perfectly useful? Recycle it? Fine for empty containers but harder for most anything else. Hard to know where to take it and hard to know the right thing is being done with it after. Maybe the thing I want to get rid of is worth something. Should I research it on eBay and then post it, which means I’ll be shipping it to someone at some point? And what if, horror of horrors, I end up missing that thing that I gave away? This has happened maybe 5 times in my entire life, but the next thing could be number 6!

It is with this...mentality that I began watching my wife play Unpacking. It’s a 2D game with gorgeous pixel art where you control a cursor that you use to lift an unseen person’s worldly possessions out of moving boxes and put them into their proper place. What’s a proper place? That’s mostly up for you to decide, though the game is opinionated about some items. These opinions lend the it more of a puzzle “gaminess” and also make it one of the most effective pieces of environmental storytelling I’ve seen in a long time.

Unpacking is also a great conversation starter. My wife and I had a lot of debates about where things should go. These are arguments on the same level as “is hot dog sandwich”. Fun to have for a little while and the answer doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re enjoying the journey. But it also sparked different conversations about when we got certain items in our lives, sometimes because we wanted them, other times because we were told we should want them. Her first Victoria’s Secret bra came because teenagers are awful and believe the color of your bra says something about you as a person.

After a few levels, my wife handed me the controller and I took over for the rest of the game. I don’t think Unpacking is too long, but after a while you do start to feel the burden of placing all these things you have been carrying with you. The game does not let you throw anything away or leave anything on the floor that doesn’t belong there. As someone averse to clutter I thought this would bother me but it was reassuring to find by the end of every level that there is a place for everything, even if sometimes it’s in a cabinet with the doors closed.

If you can, play Unpacking with someone else in the room with the volume turned up. There are 14,000 audio files, and they’re mostly for the sounds items make when you put them on different surfaces. Please respect the foley. It’s the best short game I played in 2021, and it’s hard to beat for simple, soothing fun.

#game review #video games #unpacking #game #review #witch beam

[c4p3n]

The 7.5 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

This book kept coming up on gaming podcasts I listen to, which is weird. It's not a game at all. I felt a little wary because it seemed like people were pitching it as a book for “gamers”. But the people saying this are people I like, so I gave it a go.

I’m glad I did. Evelyn Hardcastle is a fascinating combination of tropes in fiction that sum up to something unlike anything else I’ve read. At first the framework, premise, and characters do feel video gamey. A man wakes up with amnesia in a body he doesn’t recognize. He has 7 more days to solve a murder that will keep happening every evening. If he is successful, he will escape the loop. There are people competing against him, at least one antagonist out to kill him, and those who try to help along the way.

The modern comparison point for this type of thing is Knives Out, and if you've seen that you know the foundation. Now add a time loop and body possession. Voila. The characters are fleshed out a surprising amount. I was worried that the simple stereotypes that crop up in mansion murder mysteries would permeate this book but Turton does a good job digging a little deeper with most people. You know there will be twists, and this one piles on a LOT of them. Not so many that it feels like a cheat, and many of them tie up loose ends in a satisfying way. You'll be thinking Turton is going to leave a convenient plot device unexplained and hope you forget about it but no, he has an explanation. It's not always satisfying, but nothing so bad that you regret your investment in the story.

The really striking thing about Hardcastle is just how miserable everyone seems to be. Every character involved has a toxic relationship with at least one other person. There is a reason they are all gathered at the mansion, but no one wants to be there. There are some happy memories recounted, but all of them are tainted in some way. Except for servants, everyone is at least moderately wealthy, and it hasn't brought them any happiness.

#books #fiction #book review #fantasy #mystery #evelyn hardcastle #stuart turton

[c4p3n]

Ariana Grande and Fortnite's Metaverse

Ok, I have to get this out, if only so that later I can read this and think one of two things:

Boy that sure was a weird time in video games/my life.

Boy I sure had no idea how much weirder video games/my life were about to get.

I attended an Ariana Grande concert in Fortnite yesterday. This isn't the first one of these they have done and I think it's actually pretty deceptive of them to call it a concert. The only part of this that could be described as concert-like was a medley of her songs that lasted maybe 10 minutes total. Interactive Music Video doesn't quite cover it and certainly doesn't have the same marketable ring to it.

It was one of the weirdest things I have seen in a video game, while also being polished and cleaned up for maximum mass appeal. That's kind of the story of Fortnite over the last year. You can now run around as Superman while holding an M16 wearing Captain America's shield on your back. Maybe you'll shoot Batman, or a sentient stack of pancakes dressed as a cowboy (my current favorite skin, I love the freaks). This kind of mash-up of intellectual property is supposedly the beginning of the "metaverse".

The problem is that no one can really explain what the metaverse will end up being, and the explanations I have heard sound awful. What if you could buy virtual items using the blockchain and move those items between game worlds? What if you were inundated with marketing in a game the way you are now on every web page you visit? What if simply interacting with other people online required you to own a plot of digital land that you bought with money you used to spend on games that entertained you?

The fact that Fortnite can get all this IP in the same space together is because it is so popular and even though it is weird, it can only get so weird and still get the IP it wants. Roblox can get much weirder but isn't going to get the kind of Hot Brandz that Fortnite can because Roblox weirdness is user-created. Yes, there are some user-created game modes in Fortnite, but the verbs are limited. Right now it's still "just" a third-person shooter with building mechanics.

So with all these claimed aspirations for achieving a "metaverse", I wonder what Epic thinks they need to do to get there. I have a feeling it's more and more brands colliding and maybe some integrations with another game. Unfortunately none of that makes it a more fun game to play. The Ariana Grande concert was a really fun and enjoyable experience, but it was not a game. I don't know if that bodes well for my future interest in it, as someone who wants a game first and foremost. But hey if there are some sick Halloween skins next season you can bet I'll be dropping boys.

P.S. They edited out the word "bedroom" in one of the songs in the concert and really come on this is a game about murdering as many people as possible with guns.

#Fortnite #metaverse #Ariana Grande

[c4p3n]

The Art Museum

I wrote this for the Wake County Library writing contest and I was pretty happy with how it came out. We had a really limited word count and it was fun to write with those restrictions. Alas, I was not selected as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in my age group. I guess there's always next year. --- He liked to take his runs at the art museum park. It felt like multitasking, the most popular lie millennials tell themselves. Taking in culture while expelling calories was the antithesis to his day job of trying to convince a computer to do what other people wanted. So he pounded his feet down the paved path winding through sculptures and benches and trash cans.

There is one piece that always shows up in pictures. It's the first one you notice and the first thing you stop noticing after enough visits. He just called them the 3 brown rings. They made for a nice waypoint but he never knew what they meant to the artist, whoever they were.

Today he saw them steaming with morning dew. 2 story rings made of hardened earth, they appeared to be buried just enough to keep them standing. As he trotted up, they seemed as good as any companion in a social media Proof Of Life post. He had been secluded for months and felt the need to show family and friends that he still got out and did things. Healthy things even. He was fine, really. Don't worry.

He leaned his phone against the first ring to the left of the path. With the camera pointed at the other two rings, he started the timer and jogged over to the last ring, passing through the middle one on his way. He turned back to look at the camera and struck a pose he hoped conveyed the opposite of loneliness.

As a flash warned that time was up, an arc of light shot from the phone to the air in the center of the ring. Before he could start wondering if that had really happened, he had to start wondering why a spaceship was hurtling toward him.

When he awoke, what he noticed first were the sounds. A bunch of beeps having an unwinnable argument. These faded to the background, overtaken by what he would soon find out were two voices. Right now one sounded like a barrel full of rocks rolling downhill. The other was a garden hose being dragged across dead leaves in late autumn.

As his eyes adjusted he found himself in a cockpit of sorts. Bigger than one on a plane, because he was lying on a cot folded out from the wall. In addition there were two chairs behind a whole array of blinking lights, the origin of the beeps. Beyond those, a half dome of clear glass that allowed him to see the unending light show of space whizzing by. It was a dizzying, frightening array of purples, blues, pinks and greens, twisting and smearing across the glass. It caused him to notice the two aliens much later than he normally would have.

They were standing a few feet from his cot by the door to the rest of whatever this was. The one facing him noticed he had awoken. With that many eyes, how could they not? His first communication with an alien species was less than impressive.

“Who is this?”

Later, he wouldn’t be sure what he meant to say. The being perked up at the sound and started fiddling with a screen on their wrist. They looked up and responded, the crunching of dead leaves now overlapped with a digitized translation.

“Hello, and please do not move. We are not authorized to give medical assistance, and we are not liable for any injuries you sustained while boarding the ship.”

The other alien turned around and widened their two eyes, then narrowed them again to look at the first alien.

“You have to speak in their language if the computer recognizes it. Those are the rules”

Some rock-like grumbling and wrist fiddling, then:

“There, happy? Now they will know the exact right time to attack us!”

“That has never happened.”

"You don't know that!"

“Please tell me where we are. Anything.” The man had ruled out dreaming when his head started aching from the flashing lights and sounds. He wanted to learn something that would make him feel less than completely powerless over his predicament.

He didn’t.

“You are aboard an Interplanetary Alliance Transit Ship. We...found you on the route of this ship when it slowed to replenish oxygen for our passengers.”

“Other humans are on this ship?”

“Maybe, but doubtful. There are no stops on Earth. But there are passengers who need oxygen to maintain vital functions, and Earth is on the route.”

“We’ll probably use that station for another hundred years, but at the rate you earthlings are going it won’t be the best source of oxygen on the route for much longer.” This was said by the alien who didn’t want to use English.

He started to feel sick from the sheer torrent of new information being thrown at him.

“So who are you two? Conductors?”

“I am ITA Pilot 31420.” They looked expectantly back at the other alien, who was not forthcoming.

“That is ITA Pilot 40119. We are both recent recruits to the Interplanetary Transit Authority.”

Pilot 31420 couldn’t keep the excitement from rising in their voice while mentioning this last part.

“Do you not have names?” Despite the surreal circumstances, he couldn’t pass up a chance to learn what a couple of aliens answered to when called for space supper.

“We are not allowed to give out our names to passengers. It is against the rules.”

40119 let out a gravelly sigh.

“We’ve told the earthling enough. We haven’t figured out what we are going to do with them.”

31420 looked crestfallen as they turned back to 40119.

“Was I the only one reading the handbook those nights we stayed up studying?”

He thought he saw a brief wave of guilt pass across the surly alien’s features.

“It clearly states that we keep any pickups, stowaways, or mistakenly loaded sentient freight onboard until the ship returns to their home planet.”

He briefly wondered into which category they had sorted him. Irrelevant. Focus on the problem.

“Ok so I just stay put until the ship completes a loop then? How long until we come back around to Earth?”

Excitement returned to 31420's face as they started tapping again at their wrist.

“This is one of the newer ships in the fleet, an ITA-XJ4, so it can complete the route in record time. We should be back to Earth in...”

They gave one final decisive tap and looked at the man with a grin. A monotone voice emanated from their wrist.

“Two. Earth. Years.”

At the sound of the third word, his heart bounced off his stomach.

“No. No. No I can’t be here for -“

An insistent klaxon cut through his voice. The two pilots turned to the immense console, then to each other.

"I thought you-" cried both in unison. They raced to the source of the problem on the instrument panel.

"Why didn't you refill our oxygen while I was hauling the earthling onboard?"

"I had to give the passengers a reason why we were stopped so long. I thought you started refilling!"

"What did you tell them?"

"That we were...filling backup oxygen tanks."

"Blix! You can't be serious." The man thought he was learning the name of one pilot when in fact it was a swear word the wrist computer refused to translate. He saw an opportunity and jumped.

"31420, Blix, just calm down and listen. We can go back to Earth, refill on oxygen, and you can drop me off. No one gets in trouble, no one dies, and we all pretend this never happened."

Pilot 40119 was appalled to hear an earthling insult them and and lay out a plan to save them all in the same sentence. The pilots conferred for a moment before turning back to the man. Both their faces had turned quite solemn. The alien who was not Blix held up their wrist computer, the screen turned towards the man. A series of lights issued from the screen, filling his vision. Then blackness.

He awoke on the grass under the arch of a brown ring. His back was wet with dew. It was very late. He rolled on his side and saw several empty beer bottles scattered next to him. He picked one up and read the label. "Earth Beer" it said in a simple font over a photo of Earth taken via satellite, or spaceship. He smiled, knowing he would never tell anyone and wondering if this was all in the handbook.

He walked over to the single ring across the path. Somehow his phone lay right where he left it that morning. He picked it up and the harsh light of the screen hurt his eyes. Deja Vu. It was later than he thought. He swiped up out of habit.

Zero notifications.

#fiction #creative writing #writing contest

[c4p3n]

Florida, Lauren Groff

You try not to think about it, but it's always there. A dangling, flaccid reminder that lawlessness, murderous wildlife, and hateful retirees all dwell together in a muggy, damp stew. Florida is almost never on your mind for the right reason. This book carves out a rare exception in my news-addled brain.

There's a quote by James Baldwin: "You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal." Groff meets that goal again and again in Florida. Each story is filled with sentences like fireworks. You read them and as they hit you they explode and you see all the colors and patterns packed into this tight little ball. She also does the thing that makes me jealous of any author. She encapsulates a common feeling in a specific way, with a fraction of the words I would need to express it.

“Jude understood then how even the things you loved most could kill you. He stored this knowledge in his bones and thought of it with every decision he made from then on.”

Groff is so succinct that the very little dialogue in the book is never delineated with quotation marks. It's as if she can't be bothered, and it's all so good that it didn't bother me.

Most of the stories, maybe all except one, are written from a female point of view and often a mother's. As a childless male I can't say how well she has captured that perspective but it felt very real to me. Full of fear and doubt and guilt with brilliant moments of intense love and affection. I don’t read much horror but some of the stories were as tense as anything I’ve read. The stories are very much aware of the anxieties of the present moment. Climate change, loss of control, and isolation are all treated as real threats to the characters.

These stories are to be read when you have the mental fortitude built up to handle them. That may not be soon considering the past year. But they might help you process a difficult part of your own life. They might remind you that many people are going through the same thing. They will definitely remind you that Florida is absolutely lousy with snakes.

#book review #short stories #lauren groff #Florida

[c4p3n]

Control, Remedy

When I was about 80% of the way through Control, I turned on the option that allowed me to kill every enemy with a single bullet, and to never die.  I am so glad I did.  

The one sentence summary of mainstream reviews for Control is, roughly: "A beautiful game with an engrossing story, aesthetic, and characters...and the shooting is fine."  I think that's true, but when you're playing a recent game where the shooting is just fine and everything else is so good, fine quickly turns to "in my way".  

There is so much cool stuff to see and hear in Control.  The Oldest House is a terrific maze of banal, mid-century modern offices that ooze with ominous otherworldly horrors.  The premise of the Federal Bureau of Control leaves open the possibility of almost anything while building a believable explanation of why everything is so weird.

Then there is the combat.  The idea of the Service Weapon is a cool one, but it isn't explored very deeply in the game.  On the literal other hand, there are the telekinetic powers you get which let you grab stuff and throw it at people, use it as a shield and later on, fly.  Throwing a huge chunk of concrete or a desk or another person at an enemy is satisfying every time.  The sound is great and the devs were so smart to give you something to throw no matter what's around you.  The main problem I have with the combat is twofold:

It draws me back into the menus too often for upgrades and mods that don't feel like big changes

As the game goes on, combat felt more and more like padding.  

There isn't much to explain about the menus.  I loved to pause and check the audio log or memo I had picked up to get another little piece of color about the world.  I didn't like pausing to pick a different upgrade or try a different shooting style (pistol, submachine gun, sniper) in case it helped get me past an annoying enemy.  

But when I say the combat feels like padding, I mean it is conspicuously getting in the way of the next cool area of The Oldest House or getting some more information. After about the halfway point, there aren’t even new types of enemies to fight.

And that’s fine, as long as you turn on One Shot God Mode. As cool as it feels to play a badass like Jesse Faden, it does not feel cool to get shot in the face by some guy who used to work on the HVAC. There’s a level called The Ashtray Maze that’s way too close to the end of the game. You know as soon as it starts that this is your special gamer treat. The developers give you a bunch of weaker enemies to crush. At this point in the game you would probably have no problem dispatching them but why chance it? One Shot God Mode baby.

If all that wasn’t enough reason to trivialize the shooting, here comes the "boss" fight to make my point for me. It’s more or less a gray box level where you do a short horde mode of all the enemies you’ve faced so far in the game. There’s no big bad that fights differently than any other enemy in the game. It’s just more of the same in a featureless level.

So why am I justifying this decision so much? I bought the game, I can play however I like.  Well, there was still that nagging voice in the back of my head saying "You're not playing the real game.  You're cheating."  That's an old voice, from a younger me and a different time in video games.  A time when my friends and I would play shooters and try to either beat each other or not drag our team down.  That doesn't happen anymore.  When I rarely play games with my busy friends who have children, we are still playing shooters.  We are still talking about other games.  But no one is blaming me when I miss a headshot.  No one is checking to see what difficulty level I beat a game on.  So I was finally able to tell that voice: "Yes I am cheating, and it is so much fun."

#video games #review #Control #Remedy

[c4p3n]

Hades, Supergiant Games

I wouldn't have thought I'd be comparing Hades to Breath of the Wild, but I can't get the one similarity out of my head.  They both change the way I look at an entire genre of games.

Super Duper Spoilers Ahead

After you beat Hades for the first time, your cool goth stepmom Nyx reminds you that the limited time you got to spend with your real mom on the surface is the only way mortals know.  She says if that's all they get, then it must surely be worth it for you to fight your way back to her again and again.  This was at a point in the game where I thought I would finally put Hades down and move on.  That exchange is one of many things that has kept me coming back since then.

I have never been great at rogue...whatevers, and I have never stuck to any for very long.  Slay the Spire and Dead Cells both kept my interest longer than most, but I never felt like I was gaining either the skill or the in-game power to keep going.  I always hit a wall and the repetitive nature of the genre would drain my motivation.  Not so with Hades.

The art, the writing, the feeling of combat, and the narrative arc in which all that exists is so compelling that I know I will be coming back to this game for months.  I don't think I can write anything that hasn't already been written about Hades this year.  It's going to be at the top of a lot of GOTY lists.  The irony that 2020 was the year a game came out where you are caught in a loop trying to escape an inescapable hell world is not an original thought.  So I'll sum up my perspective like this.

I don't finish a lot of games or see them through to what could be called any kind of conclusion.  I have discovered that often what keeps me going in a game is that psychological trick that can be defined concisely as "the numbers go up".  I'll keep coming back when there is a thing to chase or if there is a well-made mirage that makes me feel my character is getting stronger.  Hades has aspects of this.  You collect dark crystals to improve abilities and buy new ones.  You improve weapons and bribe the denizens of the Underworld for keepsakes that provide a benefit.  But none of that pulled on me as strongly as the reason Zagreus was trying to do any of this in the first place.  I wanted to see what the characters had to say the next time I failed or succeeded.  I wanted to know if they had changed their mind about me, or anyone else.  Hades is the video game equivalent of a page-turner novel you can't put down.  You have to fight to turn the page, but it's worth it every time.

#hades #supergiant games #video games #review

[c4p3n]

Calico

Calico is what happens when you are making other plans. It is a cruel teacher of letting things go wrapped in a warm, cat covered quilt.  I love it.

My wife and I picked up Calico almost entirely based on its box art.  It's cute folks.  In a year like this one, if you can look at Calico's box and not wish to climb inside the scene it is depicting, I envy you.  You must be doing alright.

When the cashier at our local board game store described it as "cerebral", I had my doubts.  I thought we would have a nice time drafting quilt tiles and saying "aw" a bunch.  I didn't believe I would be trying to hold 3 or 4 different scoring possibilities in my head at all times, frozen with indecision about which one to pursue.  I never thought I would be eagerly awaiting the next tile from the bag, hoping for one pattern or color and lamenting the number of purple polka dots we've seen this round.

There are 2 or 3 ways to score in Calico, depending on how you play.  The main way is attracting cats to your quilt by building certain patterns.  The other ways are connecting 3 or more tiles of the same color to earn a button, or by arranging tiles around one of three tiles that give you a pattern to go for.  This is a lot to think about, and because of the randomness of drawing tiles from a bag each turn, you are constantly wondering if you should abandon your plan and aim for something that seems more possible.

The subtle genius of Calico is how much you can tweak the difficulty and cognitive load of playing.  The "normal" playstyle does not allow for much casual chatting during gameplay.  So if you want to hyperfocus on a quilt of ever-narrowing possibilities, you can do that.  But, let's say those unique pattern tiles are causing you anxiety.  Flip them over and forget about them.  Only worry about buttons and kittens, the way we all wish we could live our lives.  Certain kittens want more complicated and difficult patterns.  Don't use them.  Use the one who is just proud of you for making 4 of the same pattern touch.  Tibbit, I believe they’re called.

What if you're alone?  Calico has an answer for that too.  There is a modified solo mode, and the instruction book even has achievements!  It feels like the designers want you to wring out every bit of value from this one purchase.  It is one of the most welcoming and flexible puzzle games I have played in a long time.

#Calico #kittens #quilts #board game #review

[c4p3n]

The Devil in the White City, Larson

It's become clear to many these last four years, just how much a white male sociopath can accomplish if he has enough money and ambition.  But Erik Larson has convinced me that today's nightmares pale in comparison to those wrought upon Chicago in the 1890s.

Devil in the White City tells two stories in parallel.  One is about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and its primary architect, Daniel Burnham.  The other follows H.H. Holmes's journey to Chicago and the murders he committed around the time of the fair.

Both stories are fascinating because they remind you just how much could be gotten away with in America at that time.  The Wild West, whatever that means to you, has nothing on what went down in turn of the century Chicago. Burnham and his team built the most advanced and arguably most beautiful city in America in about two years.  They were able to spend massive amounts of money and throw thousands and thousands of people at a project that was meant to show off Chicago and to outdo a fair that Paris had put on a few years earlier.  It's impossible to imagine anything like this even being attempted today with public money. 

At the same time, Holmes was charming his way into owning an entire city block in Chicago, which he used to cover up murders that escaped notice for years.  It is painful to read how little attention he got when the people around him disappeared one day.  Police and others were satisfied with the explanation that they had simply moved away.  In true American fashion, it's not the cold-blooded murder that catches up with him...it's debt.

Larson often writes in a style that lets you know he is about to reveal some interesting historical fact.  Things that make you go "So that's where that came from!" You get a sense of just how much the Chicago World's Fair became the center of America and the world during the time it was open. You'll also come away with enough tidbits to make you a little annoying at your next gathering!

I was struck by how impossible this book would have been without the frequent habit of writing people had at the time.  Burnham, Holmes, his victims, everyone seems to have written multiple letters a day on top of keeping a diary.  The details within those writings are what make history like this fascinating in a way that fiction can never quite duplicate.  Simple, silly human mistakes like forgetting to finish the chimney on a building cause horrific tragedy.  Greed and the pursuit of greater knowledge make people forget their questions about the source of donated corpses.  As much as it is about anything, this book is about the complete mess that is humans trying to live together.

#The Devil in the White City #Erik Larson #book review #books

[c4p3n]

Sand Omnibus, Hugh Howey

If I didn't know that Sand and Wool were written by the same person, I think I would like Sand more.  Since I do, it is hard not to see smudges in the places where Wool shines.

It might be unfair to compare Sand and Wool, because they are going for different things. Where Wool was bounded by a Silo buried mostly underground, Sand spans across a huge desert with shantytowns, high walls, and buried cities. Wool posits a future not far out of bounds of reality: people confined in a small space that has become self-sufficient. Sand imagines near magic technology for suits that can manipulate sand around the wearer to allow scuba-like sand diving and kick-ass sand fighting.

We follow a mother and four children, often jumping between perspectives. All the children either sand dive or are trying to learn. Sand diving is a special skill that not everyone can learn, though it’s never explained why. The main purpose of diving is to go after treasure from the old world (Colorado) that has been buried deep beneath the sand.

One of the sons discovers the lost city of Danvar (get it?) on a dive, and this sets off a chain of events. There is a group of mercenaries with unclear motives trying to blow up a town for unclear reasons.  There's a class of  "Lords" that exist somewhere beyond a wall.  I was never sure how they maintained their class position or what use they had for the lower class in the book.  For those who lived in the book's shantytowns, time seemed to be eaten up by just keeping the sand from burying them all or cutting off their water supply.  

The story is at it’s best when it is exploring the complicated relationships of its protagonist family, or when building the tension of a claustrophobic sand dive. Luckily, this is a lot of the book. I was rooting for the family, but I didn’t know what I should want for them. To escape their town? To stop needing to dive for junk? Then what?

The world of Sand is one that I desperately wanted to learn more about.  It sets up characters that feel real in a place that you can believe might exist were we to ruin the earth in a very specific way.  The sand-diving tech is cool and Howey teases other interesting uses for it throughout. The problem is that this feels like a book that builds to something over its whole length and is still building when it’s through.

#sand #book review #hugh howey #sci-fi

[c4p3n]

A Study In Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle

Whaddya know, Sherlock Holmes holds up.

I would not have guessed a lot of things about 2020.  A. Lot. To that list I can now add "reading a Sherlock book."

You probably already know the format of one of these. Consulting Detective Holmes sees evidence that others don’t, and he knows what it means! I was a bit worried about this at the beginning. I didn’t want to read about a bunch of confusing clues that Holmes swoops in to smugly explain to Watson at the end.

Luckily that's not what this is and in hindsight it was presumptuous of me to think that a character could endure so long from that well-known formula alone.  In fact, the real meat of this first story doesn't feature Holmes or Watson at all.  It's chock full o' Mormons.

Apparently Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not a fan of Joseph Smith or his shenanigans, i.e. founding a religion.  About halfway through the book we go back in time to learn the origin stories of those who were murdered and their suspected killer.  It involves the Mormons' journey to Utah to found their perfect city.  It's a harrowing and fascinating reminder that the original Mormons were pretty messed up.  

Once the story within a story wraps up, most of the clues introduced at the beginning make sense to the reader, though Holmes still has to explain a few of them.  It's a satisfying structure that doesn't feel old fashioned or dated over 100 years after it was written.

#Sherlock Holmes #Arthur Conan Doyle #books #book review #A Study in Scarlet

[c4p3n]

The Forever War, Joe Haldeman

The Forever War is a sci-fi metaphor of the Vietnam War.  That is what you are getting.  It is a well-written metaphor that is very interested in sexuality and the logistics of space war.  I can't believe I've read two future novels that both fail to predict cell phones.  It's so obvious says me, a future man.

Anyway, the paper-thin excuse for the war in this book is basically that a colonial spaceship from Earth becomes lost, assumed blown up.  The nearest race of aliens gets blamed and away we go.  Yes folks, it’s Gulf of Tonkin in space. William Mandella is deemed smart and strong enough to fight these aliens, and we follow him across the galaxy and hundreds of years.

Time and distance are huge factors when fighting in space, and Haldeman does a great job of explaining a little about how it would work without talking down. Plus, right as I felt myself losing interest or getting confused, the physics lesson was over and I was grateful.

The fascinating effect of all this is that while very little time passes in space, a lot passes in other places, namely Earth. The world looks very grim on William's return. People everywhere are armed and many have bodyguards. Back-to-back drought and plague has made people desperate for resources. Jobs are limited and people split up single incomes in a complicated scheme where others work your job for you in return for a percentage of your pay.

I found the parts on Earth and the parts outside the war to be the most interesting. I liked seeing Haldeman’s take on what humans might create on other planets and how we will continue to ruin our own. Vacation planet anyone?!

The other thing that comes up in the book all the time is sexuality. At the beginning, the military allows and encourages sex between soldiers. Monogamy seems to be rare in the United Nations Expeditionary Force. There is a quick and jarring mention of a rule for women in the military saying that if a man wants to have sex with them, they have to go along. This is never really examined further and it never causes any problems throughout the course of the book. Sure.

We gradually learn that Mandella is a bit of a homophobe, but joke’s on him because by the end of the book everyone is gay. That is humanity’s solution for population control. Make everyone gay and produce babies in pods, basically.  It's hard for me to say whether Haldeman makes this choice in the book because he believes this is some horrible outcome.  This seems unnatural and foreign from Mandella's point of view, but he does his best to fit in and get along with others as a heterosexual.

It may seem like I'm a bit down on The Forever War but I really enjoyed the book.  The soldier returning from war to a home he does not recognize is about as well worn as a media trope can be for America, but Haldeman did it in 1974.  I still came across things that I have not seen again in other sci-fi war novels. You see the subtle ways in which the military machine holds a person hostage while promising freedom.  Characters die in random and horrific ways, and neither side ever seems to gain anything worthwhile or permanent.  The book pulls off the feeling that this is all very plausible, but still convinces you that of course it is utterly pointless.

#books #reviews #The Forever War #Joe Haldeman #sci-fi #novel

[c4p3n]

Neuromancer

Neuromancer might be the first book I didn't like that I have already committed to rereading. This was supposed to be the one, after all. The book that created the cyberpunk genre. It's a terrible cliche to say you wanted to like something in a review but it's appropriate here. You ever read something that seemed like a dream? Not in the way dreams are represented in media: crystal clear, coherent fantasy fulfillment. A real dream. A random collection of barely remembered events about as sharp as a watercolor painting. That was Neuromancer for me. One long dream that slips from my mind as I search for the words to describe it.

I know that there’s this young guy Case who was a hacker until he tried to steal from a client. The client burns out his nervous system so he can no longer connect to...cyberspace? It’s called the matrix a few times, but it’s not The MatrixTM. He gets involved with a girl named Molly and a guy named Armitage...or Corto? Not quite sure. Molly has reflective lenses grafted over her eyes and retractable claws in her fingers. Case can look through her eyes sometimes. I was never clear on whether he could do that while she was in the real world or the matrix. They all team up to go steal an AI... or shut it down?

I wanted to look up a guide on what happened in this book after I finished reading it. I needed someone to explain it to me. But I already know I’ll read it again. I’ll have the research and some context in my head, and that may be key for enjoyment. If those aren’t enough, there are still great sentences to read in Neuromancer. Even when I had no idea what was happening, the way Gibson strung words together kept me going. Sometimes, it was out of appreciation. Other times, consternation. My favorite thing in reading is finding novel collections of words that capture a feeling. Even better if the feeling doesn't exist in the real world.

“And in the bloodlit dark behind his eyes, silver phosphenes boiled in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking past like a film compiled of random frames. Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information.”

I learned three new words from that quote alone. I don't remember if it's referring to the feeling of doing drugs or being in cyberspace, but both feel right to me.

Even though I didn't enjoy my time with this book, I came away more fascinated than frustrated. That's usually how I feel when I don't like a seminal work in some medium or genre. If I love something that seems universally loved, I assume it’s for the reasons I was told. So I check it off in my brain and move on. But for something like Neuromancer, I take time to examine it and interrogate my own tastes. I tend to learn something about the work or my tastes in that process.

I learned something in reading Neuromancer and writing this. And I’m not saying this thing is true or not I’m just saying it’s what I learned. My wife and I have been watching The Simpsons since it came to Disney+. The other day she told me she can't see why I like it so much, because it's kind of boring to her. We also watch a lot of Bob's Burgers which she thinks is a better show. That makes a lot of sense to me. The Simpsons became a touchstone of American comedy because it did so many things first and did them well, but it's hard to tell that watching it today. Neuromancer seems the same to me.

In the forward of the edition I read, Gibson himself says that he can't believe he missed cell phones and how the book might seem dated to new readers because of that. I live in 2020, and I consume so much media that has been directly or indirectly influenced by Neuromancer that the book itself seems like a version 0.1 of the genre it birthed. But of course that is why it is so valuable, and why I know I'll have to jack back in at some point.

#Neuromancer #William Gibson #books #book review

[c4p3n]

Clubhouse Games

Clubhouse Games is perfect for adults who are also only children.  I had this revelation after I bought the game, expecting it to be perfect for my wife and I.  I then asked her to play with me and after a quick glance at the menu she said that she played most of these games 10,000 times with her brother as a kid and they were boring.

Oops.

Yet I remain confident in my purchase.  I barely played any of these games growing up and the more I work through the list, the more I realize that the ones I did play were the bad ones.  Things like Checkers, Sorry! (Ludo), and War are just pacifiers that your parents can use when they would rather be bored than agitated by you.  Having this game on a portable console feels like having a boredom vaccine.  Even if I can't convince someone to play Mario Kart with me, they might be up for a round of poker or air hockey.

For me the real gems in this pack are games I heard about but never learned.  Nintendo is going to teach me how to play Chess at the age of 29.  Hanafuda is gorgeous and I have no idea what I'm doing but I'll probably keep playing until I do.      It even has the added bonus of being the first game to teach me something I can use in the real world.  Math and typing don't count, no one wants to do those with me no matter how much I ask! Thanks to Clubhouse, there are more fun things I can do with other people. I can’t give it higher praise than that.  

#Nintendo #Switch #video games #review

[c4p3n]

A Short Hike

I thought A Short Hike was something else. I was delighted to be wrong. I admit that I saw a trailer and heard some buzz and thought it was an Anthropomorphic Animals With Feelings game. While I don’t mind that at all, I wasn’t sure it could sustain me.

I was pleased to discover that while these creatures do have some things to get off their furry chests, the game also has very good gliding and climbing mechanics. Think Breath of The Wild with extra jumps. You know early on that you are going to get to jump off of a very high place and glide all the way back down to the ground. It's weird how much that doesn't get old.

You climb a mountain through the course of the game. The mountain itself is home to a cast of characters who are all eager to tell you their story or introduce you to a new mechanic. I imagine everyone who plays will have their own favorite interaction. Mine is with the painter who can’t quite get happy with the work they produce. Instant connection.

A Short Hike is special on its own, but even more so because it makes me wish there were a hundred games like it. Beautiful art, addictive mechanics, and engaging characters are usually things you get in small doses over large games. You can finish your hike in about an hour, but you won’t want to leave the island.

#A Short Hike #video games #review #indie game

[c4p3n]

Fortnite

I think I like Fortnite now? I have played it off and on since the Battle Royale came out and when my friends and wife find out I am playing again, they always ask why. I started saying that I like everything about it except the building and the shooting. OK, yes, at first glance it seems like that's all of it. But while I think Epic knew pretty quickly that Fortnite was more of a place to hang out than it was a children’s murder competition, they didn’t really make good on that idea until Chapter 2.

I saw that idea floating around the most when it wasn’t true. “Fortnite is really a place to hang out and show off skins and dances.” It was written in mainstream news a lot to placate nervous parents. But for a long time there were a few cool places to visit and a handful of neat, non-shoot pursuits you could go after in the map. Mostly though, it was about mindlessly chopping up the assets and trying to put a wall between you and someone with a shotgun laser. That stuff kind of sucks.

But I kept coming back. The battle pass grind was and still is one of the most generous in free-to-play BRs. The art and animation on the skins, dances, and loading screens are excellent. That wasn't quite enough to keep me in it though. The moment-to-moment play, especially solo, wasn’t fun. Shooting the guns felt weak and unresponsive, and if you couldn’t build then you were better off avoiding people as long as possible.   Some quests were interesting, but many were tedious and were made even more so by constantly being sent back to the lobby.

After a long stint with the excellent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) feat. Cpt. Price, I wanted something a little more lighthearted. Instead of shooting people in a realistic, gritty representation of this world, I wanted to shoot people on a whimsical fantasy island. I was not disappointed.

When I came back to Fortnite it was Chapter 2, Season 2. I had heard about some changes but figured Epic was never going to change up the core of building and super-powered shotguns being the One True Path to victory. I was partly right.

First, the building. You just can’t get away from it. But it does feel a lot easier than it used to, at least with a controller. If you haven’t tried Turbo Building, give it a shot. It let’s you paint walls into the world by holding a single button rather than tapping that button each time to build another piece. That, coupled with a setting that places a piece as soon as you switch to it means I can build to gain an advantage.  This is far preferable to my earlier building which placed me in a cage of my own making.

There are bots now, and it's a good thing. I will admit to thinking about the person that I just eliminated more.  Were they barely hitting me and building erratically because they are a child or an AI?. But I still get the XP, and I still get into a match quickly with at least a handful of people around my skill level.

What else? A ton. The water looks amazing, and swimming in that water is way better. Now when you die, you can just start another game instead of going back to the lobby. Why would every BR not do this? The Battle Pass itself has become its own little story arc, complete with explorable rooms in the menu itself.

Overall, the changes I deem as positive remove some of the barrier to entry for new Fortnite players. Epic are trying to solve that pernicious service game problem of bringing new players in and not having them bounce off immediately because of a challenging, frozen meta.  They are succeeding.

#Fortnite #video games #free to play #review #battle royale