Category Archives: Criticism

What’s the appeal of MMO’s? Nevernevernever

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Slim Henry is slim.

MMOs – the games of waiting.

Today is another posting day that I’m wholly unprepared for. While my colleague gave me an excellent topic involving algae, I feel a more pressing matter is at hand. And I do have some backup D&D stories waiting in the wings so don’t fear that I’ve been posting more opinion pieces and less trashy shorts. Those are coming in good time.

You see, my friend has wrangled me into playing a delightful game called Neverwinter. And he’s done this mostly for the title. And because he knew it would annoy me.

Neverwinter is a free-to-play massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO). These delightful beasts have been around for some time, the first notable ones created back in the late 1990s with Ultima Online and Everquest. The most famous, without a doubt, is World of Warcraft (WoW). Millions of people log on to Blizzard’s behemoth every month and it has worked its way into the public consciousness through television shows like The Big Bang Theory and South Park. I’d be very surprised if someone hasn’t heard of it at least in passing. For a time, WoW’s success had a huge impact on the gaming industry. The amount of money it brought in through the combined revenue of the game’s purchase ($60 – and Blizzard is loathe to ever put anything on sale) and it’s monthly fee ($15) made it one of the most profitable ventures in gaming. Its success inevitably spawned numerous copies and clones with many industry experts predicting that this new online development was the wave of the future. And, for a time, that almost seemed right.

But whatever WoW was, one thing became clear: it was one of a kind.

A strew of failed games and collapsed companies piled at Blizzard’s feet. No single contender could match the subscription base even with some developers reportedly throwing billions of dollars into the development of their own monstrous MMO titles. The core base of WoW was reticent to leave and unlike the early predictions, it didn’t seem that this game was the next evolution in game design  so much as the birth of a new genre. Thankfully not every company chose to chase this new market and their titles those sold well prompting the multi-million dollar publishing houses to pursue those next ‘big things’ that will undoubtedly revolutionize the industry this time! In the meanwhile, small studios have attempted to carve out their own niches in the shadow of WoW. Neverwinter is such a creature, wielding two unique weapons it hopes to win its player base with.

For one, Neverwinter is the first MMO to use Wizards of the Coast’s D&D brand combined with its 4th edition ruleset. This is a little surprising, since out of all the editions the king of table-top role-playing developers have made, 4th edition is the one most like a video game. The designers even admitted to drawing inspiration from none other than WoW itself when creating it. Wizards had quite a bit of success shopping around the D&D property in past years. Games like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape and Icewind Dale have achieved various degrees of critical acclaim and commercial success. Perhaps the largest brand is Neverwinter Nights which saw two separate releases from different developers. It was also the most recent releases which doesn’t surprise me that it’s become the setting for Cryptic’s MMO.

Now, I’m no expert on the genre. I played WoW for a grand total of five hours and promptly deleted it from my hard drive. I played it at the bequest of a friend but knew I was never going to get into it. Its price scheme I disagreed with and I don’t think any game could justify both a full price purchase on top of monthly subscriptions. Especially when I’m so used to free multiplayer as a PC player. But there’s no doubt that Blizzard makes the majority of its money through subscriptions so most of its competition has attempted the same. The only MMO I played to any serious degree was Guild Wars which required a one type purchase of the core game though it sold expansions to keep up its revenue flow.

So, Neverwinter is rather the perfect offering to return to the genre. For Derek, it’s in the damnable Forgotten Realms and has us treading through the old familiar stomping grounds of Neverwinter Nights 2. For me, the game doesn’t cost a dime.

I’ve found the experience so far to be… interesting. These games are billed as role-playing though there’s even less of that than in your regular RPGs. There’s a decent character creator with standard D&D characteristics like hometown and religion but none of these have any sort of impact on either the game or your interactions. It’s strange to me that the greatest appeal of MMOs is the idea that you’re inhabiting a shared world with others that should make it more realistic and engaging. You aren’t interacting with scripted NPCs anymore whose dialogue is limited to what is written and usually walk the same paths doing the same activities every time you greet them. No, in an MMO that stranger on the street is another player – another human being – with their own goals, quirks and attitudes. It’s the sort of situation that should give rise to an unending series of unscripted play. However, in execution, this is never the case.

I don’t know what it is, but massive multiplayer experiences seem to strip all of the creative layerings of a game and focus almost primarily on the mechanics. The quest systems are nowhere near as dynamic as a single player game and are essentially variations of ‘go here and fetch this.’ You will either be directed to spacious maps filled with static camps of enemies and asked to scrounge around for four feathers, heads, crates or whatever and watch as other players run by on their own menial errand. Given the free-for-all nature of these areas, it is not uncommon to come across your goal only to find someone has already cleared it before you. This requires you to stand and wait for whatever it was you were sent after to poof into existence before your very eyes. There is no real excuse or explanation for this in the world itself. It’s as if the game is kindly asking the players to ignore its bare gears while they churn distractingly before them.

There are also dungeon instances which are a little better. These are areas you enter by yourself or with a group and it locks you out from the global maps. While you’re rummaging around these dungeons, you won’t ever run into some random player who stumbles in after you as each of these instances are generated separately for every visitor. Here is where you’ll find the slightly more complicated quest sequences reminiscent of your single player RPG since the designers don’t have to worry about the player arriving only to find everyone already dead. However, even these instances have an artificial feel to them since they are so removed from the experiences of the rest of the game solely because they remove that ‘massive’ component. Furthermore, the design for these areas inevitably turns into a long corridor, encouraging the player to power through all opposition in a race to the finish. There they will expectedly have a big fight with some large boss, get whatever treasure they came for then are spat back out into the world where other players are rushing past with a conga line of enemies pursuing them on their way to the next checkpoint.

The result is this sort of mutant world that is far more plastic and unreal than if you were to strip the players from it. You load into a town and are flooded with trading messages, bunny hopping elves, and stampedes of horses or other exotic mounts trampling the poor citizenry into dust in their haste to complete the next big collectathon. Crowds of players will just stand idly before vendors waiting for auctions to finish or the start of some new quest or dungeon. It really feels like an amusement park than an actual world with queues forming before the next ride and visitors waiting their turn before rushing to the next line. It’s a bizarre product in a genre that’s always strove the most for immersion and the illusion of real worlds. Role-playing games arguably spend the most of their development trying to realize these fantastic worlds to such a degree that the players will – even if for a moment – get lost in them or believe them to be real.

Now, the reasons for this are obvious. Because the goal of games are to entertain, developers strive to make a homogeneous experience for every player. This way, no one person will feel like they missed something great or exciting because it was done before they got there. Thus, every NPC stands rigidly in place, waiting patiently for the next visitor before doing its routine, retiring and waiting once more. Players are aware of this, and likely feeling they are in a playground, they just fool around in the manner of the system they’re in. The world never takes itself seriously – at least in any sort of execution with NPCs having barely any character at all and everything working on a rigid timer – so players react in kind. Interactions are left strictly to discuss the bare mechanics before them. You aren’t grouping up with some fellow adventurers to stop the evil frost giants from descending upon the halfling villages. You are grinding the dungeon skirmish in the hopes that it’ll take less then a dozen repeated runs for the orc shaman halfway through to drop the blue totem you want to improve your item build.

Now, I’ve spoken very little on whether the game is enjoyable. I think there is some entertainment here, but it’s mostly in the shared experience you have with your friends. Unlike other games, MMOs feel like a board game. They’re something you sit down to play. With single player games, discussion between players is often about the story or character development. With board games the story and dressings are always nice and a brief amusement, but no one plays Settlers of Catan to imagine being an individual on the edges of some frontier trying to carve out the the foundations of a society. They play to get the most points to win. I’m not entirely sure what winning constitutes in an MMO but hopefully I can find out and tell you whether the journey there is worth it or not.

Assassin’s Creed Review Part 2 – everything is permitted

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< Return to the Assassin’s Creed Review Part 1

This is the final one, I promise

The nice thing about reviews of games is that I don’t have to source my own screenshots.

Continuing with my summary of Assassin’s Creed II, I’ll just preface now that this is heavy on spoilers. Though you should know this as it’s a part two. If you haven’t read the first then what are you doing here?

Now, I’m sure no one is reading this just to get my opinion on a piece of entertainment. Most who know me already write me off as ‘the man that hates everything’ and naturally assume that I… well… hate everything. This isn’t true, of course, as I have a number of things I absolutely adore. For books, I’m a huge fan of the old Thieves’ World anthologies. They’re  a fascinating piece of literature that would actually make a rather decent discussion for this blog. You see, the world of those books – named Sanctuary – is actually a collaborative work slowly pieced and patched together by the numerous contributors to the books. They are like a professional take on a D&D role-playing session, where each author plays with the setting and their fellow’s creations in a manner well beyond what the original creator intended. How they created a comprehensive world with very little direction is rather impressive, as is seeing the impact of even the smallest details from one story rippling out amongst all the others. It’s a neat format that captures the creative process where you can see some authors begin to lay the foundations for one story idea only to be wholly swept up in the grand events of another.

I also really enjoyed WALL-E. The curious thing with movies is that often times anticipation plays a large role in the enjoyment I derive from it. With WALL-E I was expecting some middling affair but was really curious how they would try and create a full length feature film without dialogue. Well, if you’ve seen it, you know that expectation is not accurate. What I didn’t expect was for the movie to have some pretty deep themes and to explore them as much as they did. For that, I was caught off-guard and between the greater story that it told and the general skill in the telling, I really enjoyed it. I think its an excellent example in audience misdirection as well as demonstrating that character development doesn’t require brilliant dialogue and can be achieved even with Pokemon-esque entities that only repeat their names.

Then, we have Assassin’s Creed II which is just terrible.

When discussing with some friends about the game, I generally get the argument of “I don’t know why you focus so much on the plot” or “It’s just a silly video game.” I want to point out that neither of these are justifications. They are excuses. It’s a lazy defence that dismisses criticism without trying to properly analyze or examine the work in question. Put simply, I care because the writers don’t. And if no one cares then we won’t have improvement. While the vast majority of people might not care that their video games have ridiculous stories with unbelievable plots and paper thin characters, the vast majority of people will recognize something that has compelling stories and deep characterization. The average dribble that is ‘just good enough’ is often lost and forgotten amongst the rest of the mediocrity released yearly. When pressed for what are their favourite movies, books and games people will gravitate towards those of quality and excellence. There might be the odd nonsense here and there but in general things that are done well stand out far better than things that are done ‘well enough.’

And Assassin’s Creed II really isn’t even that.

Apparently these continents do exist. I imagine they have yet to be discovered. Or rediscovered...

Apparently an ancient civilization preexisting prehistorical humanity was able to accurately predict the plate tectonics that would form modern Earth. Which they then recorded with lemon juice on old scraps of paper.

I was originally going to rant about the bonfire scene where Ezio charges a tied Savonarola to run a knife through his face because he thinks public burnings are barbaric but indiscriminate murder is perfectly acceptable. He then gives one of the most heavy-handed and ham-fisted speeches on free will and personal liberation that seems so wildly out of character for an individual who only recently learned the secret organization he’s been following holds these ideals. He condemns the people for seeking vengeance against a tyrant, then hops off his podium to run after the man who killed his family in order to run a blade through his throat. It was a crystal clear moment of a writer breaking ‘voice.’ This was no longer Ezio talking but the author espousing personal beliefs and feelings. It was so bizarre and distracting because not only did it run against the setting of Renaissance Florence but it even went against the very motives that drove Ezio for this thirty hour adventure. The moment Ezio charged the stage, he had ceased to exist and the writer had suddenly and obnoxiously inserted himself into the fiction. It might have been forgivable (or at least forgettable) if the same moment hadn’t come immediately in the next chapter.

No. Killing you won't bring my family back... or these thirty hours of my life.

Says the man as he strangles the last breath out of the Pope.

I’ve already mentioned how the series is constrained by its attempts to adhere to historical events but completely ignores them despite forcing its characters to do stupid things to make them occur in the first place. The revolt against Savonarola is portrayed as some bizarre abuse of an ancient MacGuffin but ignores that he was excommunicated by the Pope for accusations of corruption. Which would paint the character in a surprisingly sympathetic light since the Pope is the leader of the secret Templar society whose sole goal is to obtain ancient power without any consideration for the organization he’s leading. And the finality of the game involves literal fisticuffs with the Pontifex Maximus. Why? Because.

I am at a bit of a loss though, since the story for Assassin’s Creed II not only falls from its precipitous hangings in the closing scene but plunges so far into a deep, yawning chasm as to disappear from any sort of logical or reasonable basis as humanly possible. And its quite clear that the inanity of its endings is solely due to poor writing. Our final reward for slaying the man that murdered our family and leading us on a merry chase through the tourist vistas of Italy is a holographic recording that makes BioWare’s Mass Effect look positively Shakespearian.

were more... advanced in time. Your minds were not yet ready.

Translations: We have no damn idea of what we’re talking about.

We basically get a recording telling us “we are beyond understanding” because the writers have no idea what this ancient society is suppose to be. The hologram then turns to the audience and informs us that whatever goal you thought there originally was is wrong and that the series is now suddenly about stopping solar flares and hunting down lost temples scattered across the Earth to do… something. It’s all vague and unsatisfying because the writers have zero clue where they are going with this. They recognize that they need to explain something but they just don’t know what that thing is. The process is embarrassingly fumbled and so transparent that it is ultimately unrewarding to the players that have sunk over 30 hours into achieving it.

As a writer, you need to consider what your pay-off is for your reader. They are going on this adventure with you, often investing numerous hours into following your characters and your plot. It is your responsibility to give them something for that investment. In video games, this is usually something cheap and simple. There are achievements that mark your progress or little cutscenes with smiling kids and sappy music. It is a rare company that actually rewards its audience with dialogue and manages to make it satisfying enough to actually justify the work. Knights of the Old Republic II is remarkable in that regard. At the endof its story arcs aren’t grand combats with floating fat Popes but a conversation tree with an important NPC. We have one in Assassin’s Creed II but instead of revealing something important about our character or the world it’s treated like an advertisement for the next game. “Congratulations, player, on achieving success. Tune in next time when you can run off and add eighteen lost temples to your collection of pointless objects. All anchored by a character so bland that he makes beige look positively festive.”

No, Ubisoft, I don’t think I will. You see, the reason writing is important is because it can be used as a reward and incentive for keeping your audience intrigued. Cop out and your audience won’t be engaged or invested enough to commit to where things go from there. They may even be like me who will turn to a company that can write decent stories and characters and forget all about your work in a couple of months. You’ll be little more than another leaf in the sea, drowned out in the mediocrity and washed into the horizon, never to be seen or remembered again.

Assassin’s Creed Review: Nothing is True (1)

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Pay no heed to the man burning behind me

Assassin’s Creed – Where we limit ourselves by history in order to completely butcher it anyway.

I’m not going to play ‘spot the paradox.’ It’s not the first time something meant to be profound ends up being completely inane and devoid of any meaning. Words have been written on the famous ‘Only a Sith deals in absolutes’ and I have no intention on delving into how these slight slips of the writer’s pen undermines their goals. I’m of the opinion that, if you can’t get profundity, you’re better off shooting for clarity. Otherwise you end up with such delightful gems like Assassin’s Creed II’s motto of ‘Nothing is true and everything is permitted.’

Now, I know that there’s an in-game explanation for that silly expression. And it’s true that Assassin’s Creed is a franchise that already starts on shaky ground. For a brief summary: Assassin’s Creed (AC) is a hybrid stealth and platforming game that follows a secret sect of assassin’s as they navigate historical events and cities trying to stop a secret organization from… doing… stuff.

I’m going to be completely honest, I’ve played the original and almost thirty hours of the sequel and I can say I have very little idea of what is going on. Some of that is due to laziness since details of the plot are revealed through exploring the cities and hunting down collectibles. While I enjoy the free-roaming/parkour system they developed for the game, collectible hunting doesn’t actually turn my crank and ends up generally being a large time sink with little payoff. However, the other reason I fail to follow the plot of this series is because it makes almost zero sense.

Point of discussion – http://youtu.be/hrz044bM_RE?t=5m30s

So let’s jump right into it. My first issue is this scene in the final half of the game. It’s the moment that all is revealed to Ezio about the Assassin Order and the secret motives of the Templar. It’s a rather tricky situation, as you are required to relay information to a character that the player is wholly aware of from almost twenty hours earlier. What’s really bizarre about this point is both its execution and it’s timing. First, it comes so incredibly late that it feels almost like an afterthought. It’s like the developers realized right before the finale that they never actually informed Ezio who he was actually working for. It’s a scene that feels it should have been performed much earlier. But what I found more bewildering is the complete fumbling of this encounter.

It’s obviously meant to be a grand reunion of all the characters and a twist reveal that all of Ezio’s friends have really been fellow assassins this whole time. Course, it makes you wonder why you were sent to do all the killing when Venice has no less then three full member Assassins stationed there and Ezio still hasn’t officially been welcomed into the ranks. I like this scene because it highlights the amateur attempt for cinematic flair for a complete disregard for the verisimilitude of the world. It’s been well established at this point that the Assassins are on the losing side of this war. The Templars are always better organized, connected and armed. And here, at the moment when they are known to be bringing in one of the most dangerous objects known to the Assassin Order, they all decide to randomly reveal themselves to the only identified Templar? And they just rush head long into a fight with him without attempting to set up a blockade or corner the man responsible for so much turmoil over the entire game?

This isn’t just blind foolishness but utter suicide. The game itself says that the Assassin’s greatest weapon is their anonymity and now their chief rival knows who they all are. None of them even have the decency to try and arrive masked! Even Ezio had the foresight to throw on a guard uniform. Ok, strike one for this scene. But wait, why are all these people here in the first place? I can’t even tell you who some of them are because their relevance to the story is so inconsequential. Why are the few Assassin’s no name leaders of street ruffians? Half of these characters don’t even live in Venice so either they all got the memo that Ezio’s surprise party was being held that night or they just showed up because they were needed to leap senseless to their deaths from the campanile at the end.

But my favourite part is when Machiavelli says, ‘the prophecy foretold that the prophet would come and it was you, Ezio, that arrived.’ Apparently, these characters are so profoundly shocked to learn that Ezio arrived at this midnight rendezvous even though they were the ones that arranged the meeting for him in the first place! Considering how Ezio has been a rather faithful lapdog this entire time, it shouldn’t really be shocking that he followed orders and came to this spot just like he was instructed. Course, these are the same people that took a year to find a shipping manifest from the warehouses they captured in the prior act so perhaps insight isn’t their strongest characteristic.

So, let’s ignore these piling issues and forgive the Assassins (whose sole activity is assassinations yet the Spaniard runs off rather effortlessly despite all of them being present) and examine this scene further. Ezio arrives in disguise to deliver the MacGuffin of great importance to the villain and though the Spaniard manages to sneak off, the first thing the Assassins do is not secure this device that apparently has the power to destroy the world but instead climb the largest tower in the city in order to fake brand Ezio’s finger before swan diving into the city’s smallest pile of hay. While I’m sure this scene was meant to be awe-inspiring, what it actually did was lend a real world explanation to a strict game play mechanic. In having every character Lara Croft into St. Marco’s Square, the game has now established that every Assassin possesses the super power to lock on to the nearest haystack and defy even the simplest physics without so much as a sprained ankle. For a game trying so desperately to ground itself in reality, this is one of those moments that completely shatters a person’s suspension of disbelief. The ‘leap of faith’ (as the game describes this action) is easily understood by the player as a mechanic of convenience. As the game encourages players to human fly up the largest buildings, the designers rightly assumed that once scaling the precious landmarks, players wouldn’t want to turn around and slowly descend the way they came. Having a quick jump to return to the ground saved time and was an easy reward for the player’s hard work. It was something that never needed grounding in the game’s world because it never served a real purpose in that world.

And in a game that’s trying so desperately hard to make a grand conspiracy involving every known historical event play into this grandiose struggle between two fictitious secret societies, they need as much help in maintaining that suspension of disbelief that they can get. But this isn’t the only time these characters actions don’t make sense with their motivations. Acquiring the MacGuffin was one of the most important motives of their Order but… you know… it’s okay to put that off and not worry about securing it because we have a hazing ritual to complete first for a guy that’s essentially been part of our order for almost ten years now.

However, character motivations and beliefs are a pretty universal problem for this game. I’m going to pull a Derek and leave the second part of my rant for another day where I discover that characters aren’t treated as living people but as vehicles for ham-fisting the most hypocritical heavy handed themes I’ve seen all month. Hopefully I can retain my fury to remember all of these grievances.

Continue to the Assassin’s Creed Review Part 2 >

Mask of the Betrayer Review

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Don’t ask about the image, there wasn’t a whole lot of options.

images

I have a friend and he hates me. After forcing me to finally finish Neverwinter Nights 2 the Original Campaign (OC), he was adamant that we begin the expansion. As a brief overview, Neverwinter Nights and Mask of the Betrayer are two computer role-playing games (cRPGs) set in the fictitious world of the Forgotten Realms. The Forgotten Realms, themselves, are one of a myriad of different D&D campaign settings published by Wizards of the Coast. Forgotten Realms has the auspicious distinction of being, arguably, the most famous of all the settings. So here, you get a Mask of the Betrayer review.

You have your dwarves, elves and halflings all running around such exotic locations as a city in the north (Icewind Dale) a city in the south (Baldur’s Gate) and a city with stupid names like Neverneath (Neverwinter Nights). It’s all very derivative Tolkien-esque fare made quite palpable for the masses. There isn’t any weighty christological morality, however, so it’s freed to explore more complex situations and conflicts than Biblical good vs evil.

It usually doesn’t, mind you, but the opportunity exists. Now, as I mentioned, my friend and I finished the OC and there hasn’t been many words devoted on my blog to this monumentous achievement mostly because the OC was probably about as exciting as parliamentary debate over a new highway infrastructure. Actually, if given the choice, I’d probably go with the debate to be honest. The plot for the OC was uninspired, convoluted, irrelevant and most offensive of all – boring. And to top it off, it was long.

It also had an annoying dwarf. Screw dwarves. The stumpy midgets aren’t useful for anything beyond dragon kibble. But given they’re all developing alcoholics, you’re more likely to upset your dragon’s stomach more than anything. At least they’ll slide down nicely.

I am pleased to announce that Mask of the Betrayer is everything that the OC is not. It’s short, interesting, explores the nature of love and faith and is, shockingly fun. I find this in direct negative correlation to the number of dwarves present. Which is to say there are none. Though the game adamantly insists on reminding you that there used to be dwarves like some sort of dangling punishment that they’ve been so benevolent in staying their hand over. However, we’re on the final act and we haven’t seen hair nor stench of the runty creatures so I’m feeling quite in the clear on this issue.

The story itself, however, poses a curious conundrum. I’m going to discuss spoilers but given the brevity of the game and the way it constantly reminds you about every plot point no matter what you do, I feel this isn’t too disruptive. Now onto my discussion!

For those not aware, there are two essential “magic” systems at play in your standard D&D setting. You have the arcane – purview of wizards and sorcerers – that often requires rigorous study and is usually theorized to shape the very fundamental nature of reality and the universe(s). Then you have the divine. This is the domain of clerics and is the powers bestowed upon them by their god for their strict piety and devotion. So separated are these two sources that they have unique interactions with their own spells and other profane creatures that stalk the realms.

Which is to say, it’s really, really, really obvious that when a cleric says he’s getting powers from a big bearded dude in the sky there’s probably some truth to that. Couple this with the fact that the Forgotten Realms has a serious issue with gods coming down from on high, getting killed and promptly shuffling around their seat in the celestial bureaucracy like a minority government trying in vain to oust their opposition, it seems that their existence based on the very nature of the world really isn’t one of uncertainty. For the Forgotten Realms, gods are and it would take an incredible amount of ignorance to deny this fact. Worship is more like a trip to the tracks where you chose the horse you think is likely to give you the greatest pay-out at the end.

But the story for Mask of the Betrayer revolves around a curious structure called the Wall of the Faithless. As the name suggests, it is a wall… formed of faithless individuals. As explained through their own characters, for all the people who insist on not laying a bet at all, when they die their souls are shunted into this ever stretching, moaning and howling structure to add their body onto its swelling length. The major events of the story are propelled by a character’s faithlessness but I find it most curious that the actual reason for this lack of belief rather perplexing.

It’s like basing a story on the actions of a globe-trotting journalist who insists that the world is flat. At some point there must have arisen a conflict when it seemed reality factually contradicted this person’s own beliefs. At the end of the day, Mask of the Betrayer doesn’t really delve into true issues of faith and faithlessness but uses these concepts as plot points to further the story. It tells a great tale without actually examining the elements that compose it.

Which is a shame since it’s almost a third shorter than then OC. I can’t help but feel like this is a gross missed opportunity. Wherein the OC had this plodding tale of some swamp man stumbling out of coddled ignorance into a world filled with two dimensional individuals and hours of inane fetch questing, Mask of the Betrayer jumps erratically between some rather heavy existential ideology with barely a moment to even ponder its own intrinsic consequences. There’s so much stuff here to actually explore, like self identity and the nature of souls, but it gets shuffled to the sidelines to push the story further at it’s frantic pace.

Why would someone believe? What causes people to lose their faith? What is the nature of man and gods and are either intrinsic or important to its own world’s functioning. For example, the nature of good and evil, justice and law. Are these the true creation of these divine beings (remember, they get shuffled about any time one of them has the misfortune of stumbling into the machinations of an epic level character) or are these concepts something far grander and primordial than petty deities squabbling over who gets the worship of stubborn hicks who refuse to move out of their swamp.

At one point, your party comes face to face with a dead god and have a brief conversation about how this divine hierarchy functions. The god then points out that one of your companions himself is faithless, and yet standing on the enormous spine of this echoing skeleton, said companion continues to profess his beliefs that gods don’t exist. Yet you’re given no time to actually point out or examine this contradictory moment as the narrative quickly pats you on the bum towards the next big point and click killing moment.

It’s the stuff you can write great stories about but they’ve given themselves so little time to actually explore it. The brief taste you get is tantalizing and I really wish that Mask of the Betrayer was the OC and that the OC was… well… just a unfortunate memory much like the dwarf.

Written in Red Review

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I have been struggling of late to find books worthy reading. It has been even more challenging to find one worth writing about – so this is going to be a short post. Nonethless, here is a Written in Red review.
However I was pleasantly surprised by Written in Red by Anne Bishop. I had noticed the covers of this author previously when browsing the library bookshelves. Until now I had been scared off by the blond-haired curvy female dominating the front. Further, I took the enlarged size of the author’s name – bigger than the title – as solid indicator the story is likely to be trash. So this was the first of her novels I actually cracked open.
Inside I discovered a world parallel to our own where humans have not dominated the land. Though they have spread to different corners of the world and have developed our modern conveniences, they do not have supremacy over nature. Instead, humans have been restricted to living in only a few cities and towns scattered across the continents and isolated by large, untamed tracts of deadly wilderness. The resources on which humans depend for manufacture and economic growth are controlled by the Others – essentially the fay.
Now, I don’t always like the employment of fairies in stories – they are silly. However, I did appreciate the way Bishop tried to portray these fay as Not Human. She seemed keen to emphasize the fact they are different, wild creatures lacking our narrow opinions and judgements. It was the Others that dominated the world, that won the battle between man and nature that came to control our destinies. I was particularly fond of the Other’s view of humans – intelligent meat. That view point, held pretty consistent throughout the book, was refreshing.It gave the story telling a clean, bright voice that feels different and exciting when compared with the other narratives saturating the market.
Although, I foresee this hardline attitude changing if she were to continue developing the world – which would be a sad loss to the tone of the story. I will not be surprised, after all it is the most common element of paranormal/fantasy to have humans tame the wild creatures of their environment – or enslave, depending on whether we are going for sappy and romantic or asskicking story styles.
I also liked the pseudo-modern, urban fantasy seeting that both was and was not our world. For once, wild spaces and trees were not a distant memory but the truth of the world. Although cities exist, they are contained, hemmed in and overseen by the fae. This was a refreshingly different point of view, neatly separating it from the numerous paranormal-cop-chick-trashy-romance novels breeding on the library book shelves.

Not only do I give this book a pass, but I would be interested in reading another story set in this world.

My Writing Process: Something Different

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I think I made mention of this earlier but I’m currently in the throes of attempting to write a full novel (90k words) in one month. Which leaves me with 3k words a day. Which leaves me with little time to do any actual writing.

So, this has led to the recent spat of back to back D&D stories. Well, to try and break some of the monotony, I’m going to post a bit of my creative process instead. As a forewarning, this is my rough work so is wholly unedited as it isn’t really meant to see the light of day. This is more akin to a quick peek at someone’s unmentionables. They’re worn for comfort but with the sole expectation that others won’t see them.

(But why do we buy ones with such interesting designs then, you ask. Well… shut up. The analogy works. Sort of.)

The current story I’m working on is a lighthearted idea at land piracy. Since I knew I was going to be running a facsimile of a crew, I needed to have a collection of fairly detailed individuals to populate my “ship” with. To set about defining and developing these individuals, I had two important steps. The first was to come up with a base outline – a bunch of thoughts and idea of this character’s appearance and personality.

So, let’s take the example of the first mate.

Here is my character sketch for Walter Samuel Schroeder:

Walton Samuel Schroeder (Schroeder) – Second in command. Landed gentry, old world blood and attitude, the youngest son of a colonial governor and plantation owner. Insufferable gambler and louse whose debts often precede his reputation. Daddy cut him off from his stipends in an effort to curb his limitless spending. But ‘just because we live in the colonies doesn’t mean we have to live like a colonial.’ Instead of finding honest work and pay turned to the life of an outlaw. Hates his name and usually referred by his last. Breast pockets, polished shoes, clean shaves, stacked decks and imported alcohol are his trademarks.

From here, I took some time to try and write a scene from their perspective. I find working from a character’s point of view and trying to see the world through their eyes really helps to bring them to life in my mind. When forced to consider their ideals and put them in conflicts that they must react to do I develop more and more of their personality. For this exercise, I chose to write them in a “bubble” that would try and extract as much of their personality as I could. I took a setting that I felt really encapsulated the idea I had for them and tried to create a situation that would shine them in the most revealing light. This also gives me the added bonus of developing and playing with my setting in ways that may never come up in the story proper.

For my insufferable gambler, this manifested in a paddle boat casino:

Walton Samuel Schroeder II
“If you ain’t holding aces and eights, it might be high time you backed down son.”
A twitch of whiskers and puff of smoke was the response. The two men passed daggers across the table. A sizable bounty lay between them but neither feigned to pay it attention. Their focus was more on the read of the other. They searched for some unforgiving tell.
Neither could be more unalike. Bradley Meyer was likened to a tough bite of roughened leather. The plains and sun had worked hard his body, creating thick skin that seemed cracked and split from the long years. A shaggy mane spilled beneath this crooked derbie – a mess of black and silver caked with the dust of the trails. A great matching moustache bristled beneath a bulbous nose that flared any time the man’s ire rose.
Which, if his epitaph were accurate, was quite often. The Untamed Meyer had a fearsome reputation on the plains as he did at the table. He took no prisoners and he gave no quarter. Few dared to take his challenge and those that did passed judgement to the wind in favour of the bulging sack by his side.
Almost all paid in the end. If careless words were truth, either with their pockets or their souls.
But every caravan needed its mule and the pompous smile on the young dallier across the carved mahogany seemed like tonight’s.
And Walton Samuel Schroeder II looked the fool.
He lounged amongst a throne of silken cushions, his left arm hanging loosely around the shoulders of some exotic creature. With painted eyes and woven black hair, she leaned crimson lips to whisper in his ear but Schroeder merely smiled before waving with his right.
On cue, a second exquisite creature slipped to his side, a cup held in her petite fingers. Schroeder raised the wine in salute to his adversary as his pet leaned into him, her fingers playing amongst the carved ivory buttons of his stylish silken vest. Elegant curving patterns of the western peoples depicted stylish clouds and waves on a soft sea of deep azure.
Or were they Eastern styles? If there was one thing that blended on this great smoke spewing paddle boat, it was the cardinal points. Red paper lanterns swung from their nailed lines with strange symbols adorning their crisp sides than any alphabet. It was a world where tight clasped cheongsam dresses blended with ribbed bodices and puffed sleeves. On this polished wood deck, the lion and the dragon entwined in a chaotic and dizzying dance that melded them both into one grotesque creation.
And Schroeder breathed it all in. The dry husk of smoking tobacco and sickeningly sweet opium filled the evening sky into an intoxicating perfume. The chatter was a mish-mash of two old languages struggling against one another but the laughter was all the same. At the height of nauseating drunkenness, it always washed away to be the same.
And with the tailored legs of his pants crossed, Schroeder bounced an impatient polished shoe in the air. This was his world and while Untamed Meyer may rule the wild open plains, these painted rails and puffing smokestacks were the younger man’s. And its king was getting restless.
“Begging your pardon,” Schroeder intoned in an accent only found by those wishing for the airs across the sea, “but this voyage ain’t getting shorter. You’ll be putting down that hand either way but if you be parading their pretty little faces, I want to see you shine this deck.”
He patted the tabletop with a pristine white glove.
Untamed Meyer’s nostrils flared.
He bent the tips of his cards. It was his fatal mistake. Schroeder could see that flicker of doubt, the nervous flinch in his prodding thumb. The man held nothing. Perhaps he had hoped to strong arm the young man into submission like the empty chairs around the table. He seemed more adept in staring daggers than dealing cards. But his attempt to address the pistol handle by leaning forward and adjusting his jacket was only an effective method to those that felt they had more to lose than their coin. And in a game less about playing cards and more about playing the people, it was a disastrous assumption.
“I ain’t be aiming to wait for this wine to get better.”
Untamed Meyer grunted. Then he did something quite extraordinary.
He played his hand.
With dismay, Schroeder watched the traitorous face of Machabeus overturned with a matching pair of nines.
It wasn’t a decent hand but that bearded prince held a far more dangerous sword. For Schroeder had dealt the young man to himself for a pair of princes that certainly beat Meyer’s hand but revealed the gambler for the cheat he was.
And yet, that was a lot of money to be had on the table.
Schroeder set down his cup.
“How modest but the world is not made by small hands.”
Schroeder revealed twin aces from his hand. He stood holding, offering his foe an apologetic shrug.
“Perhaps next time.”
The young man began to collect his ill gotten gains.
But Bradley Meyer burst from his chair, a wicked knife appearing in his hand and slamming into the wood mere inches from Schroeder’s glove. The ladies on the couch gasped at this sudden ruthlessness and the din around the two men began to quiet.
“I want to see the rest.”
“You’ve been beat, my fellow. Perhaps it’s best to accept your-”
Meyer snatched the young man’s pinned cravat, lifting him roughly from the ground and upon the table.
“Show me.”
His lips snarled, revealing a set of yellow and rotted keys protruding from his gums. The decayed stench of whiskey and lawlessness wafted from his mouth. Eyes narrowed beneath thick, bushy dark brows.
Schroeder coughed.
“Very well.”
The hand released his throat and he stumbled to the ground, rubbing his neck softly. He turned and coughed to clear his airway, motioning to his hat with his eyes while his head was turned and he could see one of his girls. She merely cocked her head back.
Schroeder turned back, smiling. He bowed dramatically, holding his right hand at the small of his back and pointing frantically at his resting chapeau. With his left, he displayed the three remaining cards, slowly turning over a seven of swords.
“And the next.”
Schroeder wiggled his right fingers before turning over a six of coins.
“One more.”
At last he felt the brim of his cap pressed into his waiting hand. Schroeder slowly picked the card from its place upon the wood. He held it before him, staring deep into the dead warriors eyes and musing if, perchance, that were not some mischievous twinkle captured upon the card. Trickery was no more a foreign mistress to the field of battle as it was to the playground of confidence.
“The coup de grace!”
Schroeder snapped the card at Meyer’s face. In one broad stroke he swept his arm over the pot, raking as much of the clattering coins into his awaiting cap before mounting the table. His polished shoes squeaked over its surface as he stepped towards his ally who rubbed at the sting where the card struck his skin before he looked down to see the duplicate grinning back. When next he turned to his rival, Schroeder’s polished shoe was connecting with his temple.
“Ladies, as always, it’s been a pleasure!”
He tossed a handful of coins at the cushions before leaping from the table and dashing across the deck.
Moments later, the familiar crack of a pistol chased after him.
“I’ll split you from nose to navel you weasel!”
The party gave a gasp as the gentleman burst through them. Coins and bills fluttered from the cap bouncing in his pack, leaving a valuable trail as he duck and wove amongst the dresses and dress coats lining the paddle steamer’s deck. This was not a jaunty two-step but nor was it an unfamiliar dance to Schroeder’s feet.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” he offered as he burst through the side door and nearly collided with the serving girl holding a delicate platter in her hands. “Rough day at the tables.”
She stared back from a dark, uncomprehending face as he bound down the stain wood corridor. Shortly after, the crash of the platter informed Schroeder his pursuer was hot on his tail.
A lady of delicate fortitude gave a shriek as he skidded around the corner, nearly colliding with her great bustle. The gentleman at her neck quickly disentangled himself, puffing up his chest in indignation. Schroeder gave a raise of his hat in poor substitution for a tip of his hat. But the offered condolences were cut short as a crash of broken glass and ripple of thunder announced Meyer’s volley.
Schroeder took to his heels once more.
Doors opened as unsuspecting patrons investigated the noise. With surprising agility, the gentleman twisted and bounded about the protrusions, bursting out upon the deck of the great, red steamer. He leaned over the rail, attempting to gauge his best route of departure. He spotted an escape boat dangling from its ropes just off the port bow.
The crash behind him was all the motivation he needed. As raised voices echoed out the corridor, he put shoe to rail and dropped from the second story deck, landing roughly on the floor below. Guests gave a great shout and men stood from their tables. A few enterprising individuals took the distraction to pocket a few of their own earnings, Schroeder noticed. He stood, brushing his suit and sighing at the scuffs on the knees. And he’d just purchased these trousers.
He cast a quick look skyward.
Meyer burst from the cabins, slapping his palms against the rail. His six shooter clattered against the wood as he leaned over, scanning the crowd for his quarry. Schroeder gave the man a cheeky wave.
The ruffian raised his pistol, unloading a round at the scampering man.
But now things had gone too far.
A few of the patrons turned to their own coats, retrieving their own pistols to bear against the unprovoked shooter. With circumstances unclear, these free men were not going to let some outlaw disrupt their perfectly pleasure night of cards.
Meyer ducked behind the rail, returning what fire he could. Tables were overturned to the shrieks of hysterical women. A firefight erupted as the horn blared in a futile attempt to wrestle back some civility. The crew of the steamer emerged, looking on in horror at the disruption of their business but unsure whose side they should support. Schroeder made to the deck, crawling on gloves and knees towards his blessed escape.
Bullets struck tables, splintering debris in worrying close proximity as he slid his hat. He paused before one table still upright, his hand snaking to its surface and patting its way until he caught the slim stem of the crystal glass. He brought to wine to safety, sampling its heady scent before raising it to his dry throat.
He motioned to pass on but caught the distressed look of one gentlewoman with a glove pressed against her heaving bosom. Schroeder offered a congenial smile, passing the crystal to her surprised hand before raising fingers to his forehead and presenting a flourish to his departure.
The lady was quick to quiet her nerves.
A stamping of boots and shouts signalled reinforcement to the confusion and Schroeder peered over the lip of a table to gauge the development. A man in crisp Thyrian military garb shouted over the din, hefting a mighty rifle to his hands. He cried for peace, letting out one great shot into the air for attention. A brief respite was bought in the firefight.
“This disturbance is over by decree of her majesty!”
Alas, the great tributaries of the Misi Ziibi were far afield of the eastern coast and the iron influence of the loyalists. There was much bad blood that had washed down its waters. Blood of men who held more vitriol for the crown and Queen than to the strange foreigners with their long moustaches and trailing hair knots. Here were waters far from the steel fingers of the rail works, running own the spine of that unbridled land where only the wild and the uncivilized chose to dwell.
The soldier would have been better served sticking to his room and his whores. That bad blood burned an older fire that was far brighter than any cheated cards.
It was seconds before some embittered separatist cried out at the man, leveraging his gun and anger at the well to do red suit. At least the soldier had reflexes to match his senses and he sought cover as a hail tore the wood about him.
And it was all perfect for Schroeder. He made a dash for the life raft, tossing his hat in with a jangle for going to work at the pulleys to lower the craft. The rope was wound tighter than a lady’s bodice at spring fair. His gloves slipped against their damp cords.
A bullet sang past his head as he threw himself to the deck. A quick glance back confirmed pure pandemonium had taken over the preceding. Turning back to the reticent life raft, Schroeder rolled onto his back, kicking at the support keeping the boat anchored to the steamer’s side. Each pound of his foot caused the boat the slam loudly against the deck.
Eventually, the wood cracked beneath his insistence. He stood, testing the rope and finding it give beneath his fingers.
As he turned to the other side, he smiled as some pretty creature rushed to the rail. She wore a sleek dark black dress with great deep purple bustle that seemed to shimmer in the glow of the paper lamps. A frilled bonnet framed a rather beautiful, if exasperated, face. After pulling on the rope for a few moments, she turned to her matching satin handbag and produced an extraordinary long knife.
“May I?” Schroeder offered with a bow.
The woman turned, as if noticing the gentleman for the first time.
“You may, good sir.”
She placed the handle gently in his outstretched palm. Holding his left hand aloft, he assisted the lady onto the rail and into the raft.
“Take this end, I’ll loosen the other,” Schroeder smiled, unwrapping his cord from the fractured support. He moved to the second restraint, plying blade to reticent rope. The cords snapped beneath its sharp edge and he clutched it tightly as it began to fray.
“You are quite the gentleman,” the lady smiled, standing from the wooden bench as bullets flew by. She held out her hand and Schroeder returned the knife with a smile.
“Perhaps we shall meet again someday.”
“Why delay?” Schroeder smiled, stepping to the rail. She gave a brief smile as she placed her hand on his chest.
“’Tis only proper. I’m afraid I must bid you ado.”
She waved the knife at him, but only customarily as she took the rope from his hands.
“It has been most pleasurable, good sir.”
And with that, she let the ropes release, plunging the raft into the churning dark waters below. Schroeder pressed up against the rail as she fished out a paddle and pushed herself away from the steamer. He watched as she worked, the dress shifting like an intoxicating wine about her shoulders as she dumped his gains into her purse before holding the hat up in a farewell salute.
Schroeder afforded a brief moment to watch her go.
“My boy, you’ve got to stop falling for every pretty face with a delightful smile.”
But then she tossed his hat casually into the waters and whatever remorse he felt immediately evaporated.
“That was custom fitted!” he shouted.
A smash of metal into wood brought him back to reality. Schroeder glanced back at the mayhem overtaken the gambling ship and looked back at the dark waters churning beneath the grand wheels of the steamer. Without anything truly to lose now, he mounted the rail, took a deep breath and plunged into the waves.

Olympus Has Fallen Review (Olympus was Ballin’)

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So, this weekend I saw Olympus Has Fallen. Which is unfortunate since I was planning on doing some more rambling on world creation. Instead, you get a shitty review. Here’s my Olympus has Fallen review.

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But, Kevin, what is Olympus Has Fallen I hear you say. Is it some interesting movie dissecting the decline of Grecian cultural hegemony over western development? Why are there so many American flags being waved. And is that Morgan Freeman? I love that guy! I hope he plays Memnon.

Well, my beloved readership, Olympus Has Fallen (abbreviated to OHF which should be easy to remember since its so close to Oh F@#$!) is Gerard Butler’s grossly self-indulgent, narcissistic, fantasy indulgence centering around the ridiculous modern ubermensch and the failing of the outdated classical action hero trope in carrying current cinema. But that’s a bit long of a tag line so it’s normally billed as a story about the White House being taken over by terrorists.

That sounds like it could create a compelling story right? A movie that examines the frailty of the American illusion over its own supposed invincibility. Gosh, post 9/11 America has become really self critical and introspective has it not?

No, no it has not. OHF is easily the blandest, driest and boringest movie I’ve seen all year. Granted, it gets that through sheer convenience of being the only movie I’ve seen this year but I have high hopes for the new G.I. Joe flick. Suffice to say, the movie is more than deserving of its rotten status on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t expect this to be winning any awards. Don’t expect it to win anything period. I was literally bored ten minutes into the movie.

And let me tell you why.

The narrative, story and characters of this movie are about as cliched and one dimensional as you can possibly get. If you’re worried about spoilers well… you shouldn’t since this movie is about as predictable as the outcome of the Trojan War. Now, I could probably write thousands of sentences on how this movie is bad (I know my family has listened to just about as much Saturday afternoon) but I’ll try and keep with the initial stumblings of the film and not even touch the some of the more ludicrous elements that most viewers will probably notice (Cerberus and Dylan McDermott).

This movie is bad right out the gate. The story opens one blistery winter evening up at Camp David where we’re treated to some nonsensical moment where Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart are rolling around in some sweaty embrace that’s suppose to mimic boxing. No doubt this moment was meant to establish the close bond between Butler’s secret service agent and Eckhart’s President character. Perhaps we were meant to see these two at their most intimate time, when both their guards were lowered and they had shed all pretenses of job and protocol so they could express their own deep seated worries and fears.

Well, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s… something about Butler teaching the President to stop sucking at boxing. He gives him some times to improve his game but if you think this is foreshadowing a moment where Eckhart is going to knock some jerk out then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. In fact, this entire Camp David scene which ostensibly is suppose to be introducing us to the major players is nothing more than an enormous waste of twenty minutes. The only thing established in this time is that the secret service are incompetent drivers and could never survive in Canada. If the President had hired some Mounties to be his chauffeurs then maybe his wife wouldn’t have taken a forty foot plunge off the world’s flimsiest bridge.

At least the cars don’t explode when they crash against ice.

So, here the audience sits, twenty minutes in and the only thing of note is that the First Lady has died in a car crash. What does this have to do with terrorists and the White House? Absolutely nothing. Because if you think this moment is important in developing some deep character conflict between the President and his secret service agent then you’d be wrong. Because all that’s changed is that Butler has been moved to some cushy job at the Treasury since he reminds Eckhart “too much about that one time at band camp.”

The best part, is that the entire twenty minutes is literally recapped in the next scene when a bunch of secret service agents walk into a caffe where Butler is on break to explain that he doesn’t have a job with them anymore because the First Lady died eighteen months ago in a terrible car accident. Look, if you’re going to summarize immediately something that’s juts happened, why bother showing it in the first place?

On top of which, none of this matters for the overall narrative other than it delays Butler’s arrival at the scene when the White House inevitably comes under attack. So we’re twenty five minutes into the film and already you know that it’s going to be a stretched time sink padded with pointless moments because the writers and director really had nothing to tell with this film.

Speaking of a waste of time, cue Butler’s contrived marital troubles with a wife that thinks he “works too hard” and a man that is sad because he can no longer tell the brat of the most powerful man in America to stop playing violent video games. Wait, isn’t this the exact same conflict that the First Lady and the President had before the First Lady’s inappropriate bridge jumping exercise? How astute of you!

Which brings us to the boring ass characters. There is nothing to any of these people parading across the screen. I challenge any viewer to try and describe the characters without referring to their job. Because at most you might get one or two lines about how everyone seems whiny and that’s about it. These people have the emotional complexity and depth of second grader’s family portrait. And yet, oddly enough, the movie tries so hard to get the audience to feel some capacity of sympathy or emotion towards these beautiful, rich, white folk whose biggest troubles is that their husband missed the latest weekend barbecue and can’t remember who Patty or Paula is married to.

All this, and we haven’t even touched the silly terrorists yet. At any rate, we’re now thirty to forty minutes into the movie with the only established fact being an unnecessary job promotion for Gerard Butler that he’s going to just leave anyway to rush headlong into the White House to save the President. So, what was the point in having all this time wasted? It certainly wasn’t because the terrorists plot was so well co-ordinated that if Butler was there then he would have surely been killed. I mean, the first phase of their plan was to fly a heavily armoured military craft over DC and miraculously not get shot down before gunning its stupid escort and opening up a whole bunch of Gatling fire onto the unsuspecting tourists strolling through the National Mall.

Of course, our heroic Butler is the only one who can run through this gunfire while surprised men and police officers are mowed down like it’s the last charge on Vimy Ridge. He even has the time to rescue a woman and her little child by tackling them to the asphalt before sprinting to the White House before the airplane is shot down overhead, taking out the enormously phallic Washington Monument in its descent. There, he nearly foils the terrorists plans to irrevocably mar the cast iron fence before that’s blown up. But while he now runs through the gap in the fence, he has the opportunity to casually shoot the only two female Korean terrorists in the head before reuniting with the secret service on the steps of the White House.

Basically, this is a long winded way of saying that Butler is the only one capable of doing anything. This becomes painfully obvious as he’s the only one to survive the next wave of spawning baddies like the producers already had plans to turn this into a video game before rushing up into the White House’s interior to be the only man capable of finding the wayward President’s son. And, by now, I’m sure you’ve figured out he’s also the only one to single handedly rescue the President and kill the main baddie after single handedly disposing of the automatic, highly advanced and secretive turret the White House had installed by didn’t have the foresight to use when it was under attack (but the terrorists knew how to operate in order to shoot down the only back-up he was going to receive).

Needless to say, it’s all a little eye-roll inducing.

Which brings me to my original point. The biggest problem with OHF is that it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It tried taking itself far to seriously and realistically to be considered a throw-back to the bygone era of the 1990s action hero but had too much nonsense to be considered remotely logical even within its own narrative. I mean, three quarters of the way through the introduce an almost James Bond-esque plot contrivance because it seemed that the producers almost feared the audience wouldn’t care about troop movements in the Korean peninsula (or the life of a very bland President which was probably accurate).

So what could it have done? Well, first, suck less. Second, ditch Gerard Butler. No one cares about your Mary Sue superman that is the only bad enough dude capable of rescuing the President. I’d cut most of the pointless nonsense surrounding the First Lady’s death which, by the way, never once came into play (the briefly hinted emotional distress that President and son had over not yet getting over the grief was completely brushed aside by the end and never mentioned again). What I would have done was had four lead secret service agents who end up being the leaders and key players in the defence of the White House. Have most of the movie revolving around the attack and resolution of the assault on the building. Instead of having the terrorists “win” and then squat on the property for so long, have these four agents working together and with the Pentagon to try and stave off the assault and, ultimately, bring about the conclusion. Between the four of them and their different circumstances you could easily fill a movie with compelling situations and challenges. Have one agent end up holing up with a bunch of staff and tourists who then has to decide between abandoning their post as this groups sole defender for serving the greater duty of trying to rescue the President. Have another agent with the President holed up in the bunker doing her best to try and keep channels of communication open and the President alive while enemies close in on all sides. Hell, if we’re so hell bent on having the little brat play any role in this, one of the agents could be his personal detail and spend most of the time trying to evade the captors and get the kid to safety.

Between four different agents you can have four more compelling individuals and perspectives to detail one single ‘day of hell’ that could bring about that touch of humanity that Butler’s wooden acting could only dream of.

Also, can we have some female secret service agents? I’m sure they exist.

In total, I’d give this three Morgan Freemans out of ten illogical consistences.

Writing Writers

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So, it’s Monday. And I don’t have anything to say. Quite the conundrum.

So let me just update what I’m doing!

I’m currently working on my next project – tentatively titled The Clockwork Caterpillar Affair. It’s a work in progress. However, I find that I’m absolutely rubbish at coming up with titles. Sometimes, I create a story only because I’ve come up with a great title for something. And if I don’t have a title but a story, then I can’t seem to create anything decent to call it.

Which I suppose brings me to the creative process. How someone writes and creates their stories is a deeply personal affair. Some people meticulously research and plot, creating complicated word webs of ideas and relationships that they distill into a narrative. Other people will have a scene and possibly a character and just jump in, letting the story essentially write itself.

I lean more towards the ‘by the seat of my pants’ approach than the planning. My story of Thyre came about after a long walk in the countryside when I got the ludicrous idea of combining Scooby Doo and Batman in a Victorian steampunk setting. That’s all I had, just some smattering of mood and styles that I thought would be really entertaining to create. From this little nugget of inception arose the characters. I had to turn Scooby and the gang into something my own that I would enjoy writing.

So, humorously enough, the original Thyre had a loyal hound that would bound around with the group on their adventures. Needless to say, this lovable little pooch didn’t survive the first draft and is barely a footnote in the final creation. Which is probably for the best because we got the far more lovable Count Theodosius (who is still somewhat of a dog). But the hound isn’t the only character to receive substantial rewrites.

The “Fred” of the group is now the haunted Jarret Renette but he didn’t start out as the wounded soldier alienated from his own home and country. In fact, Jarret was originally a rather well respected member of the aristocracy and rubbed shoulders with the Prince in lavish gentleman clubs. However, I really struggled writing his character and creating something interesting to hook the reader into his troubles. He was too smart, too handsome and too well placed for any of his issues to really resonate. As the author, I couldn’t stand writing him so I can’t even imagine what it would be like for the reader.

Curiously, the great revamp of Jarret happened after my return from Japan. I remember riding a bus to visit a friend and looking out over the Canadian countryside and thinking how odd it all seemed. It was, at the same time, comforting and alienating in its strange familiarity. It was then I got the inspiration for a returning soldier looking out over a land he fought for and feeling completely disconnected from. I think the first chapter really captures that reverse culture shock and suddenly I had my new hero.

The cane and limp were added for flavour but imbued a certain interesting juxtaposition in Jarret’s struggle. Here was a young man so used to being able bodied and strong now reduced to a cripple. He had defined himself as a man of sport and strength and would have to reconcile his new reality with that outdated self perception. The added bonus was that he was dressed as my classic hero – so sure of himself and his strength – and yet he was now physically outclassed by even a lady of leisure. There is more I could discuss on this aspect but I’ll save that for another time.

So that’s my old novel, what about my new project? Well, it came about by visiting a museum. I was with my friend and his girlfriend and laughed to myself when she got very excited over the train display. My sister often goes on about how fascinating trains are and to find another woman to share that interest struck my funny bone.

But as we poked about the old engines, I began to have some ridiculous thoughts. What would it be like to live on these old machines? Was that an old style bathroom? Could these be used as a facsimile of ships? Could we have train pirates?!

And thus, the Red Sabre was born. Unfortunately, unlike Thyre, this story didn’t come with five templates to create characters with and so I’ve been reduced to another creative method to begin this work. But I’ve rambled on enough for today so maybe next time I’ll detail how I went about assembling my crew for the Clockwork Caterpillar.

Writing Serial Killers

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I’m feeling like giving a break to our intrepid readers. There’s been a lot of bards and sorcerers and what not, but I felt I should share some more thoughts on writing in general. Today, I want to tackle serials and the impact this format of story-telling has on your narratives and characters.

I’ve been giving some thought to the serial nature of writing, not least because my D&D stories are essentially that. I’ve taken a rather peculiar approach to it – one that I’m not sure could really be replicated and certainly not in another medium. But before I get into that, I want to talk about serials people are going to be far more familiar with: television shows.

Now, the serial format isn’t particularly new. Radios had their famous series and even before that papers and magazines were bringing readers monthly updates for their favourite characters. Some classic literature was originally published as monthly serials. Pride and Prejudice is the first that comes to mind and probably explains partly why Austen adopted the letter format. However, television is easily the king of our generation. Most shows are serial by the nature, with mini-series and made for television movies the only thing I can really think of that don’t quite fit the category. Watching television, I’ve noticed there’s really only two prominent styles.

The first is the series that tells an overarching narrative with each component fitting comfortably within its thirty to sixty minute time slot. These shows generally have an overarching premise or focus on character development. Twenty-four is an obvious example, with each episode representing one hour from a rather action packed day. Each episode builds on the last, often requiring a quick “Previously on…” segment to remind its viewership what occurred before.

Running counter to this style is the episodic, slice-of-life, return to normal style of show that’s almost ubiquitous in sitcoms. Here, the emphasis is on some quirky situation for that single episode and the emphasis is shifted away from the narrative and to character interactions. There is little theme or connectivity between episodes and the characters are pretty immutable once they’ve been established. These shows are immediately evident by having quick opening segments that will immediately familiarize the audience succinctly with the primary actors. Typically, there will be a shared location that most of the cast convenes on that they can use to draw out these interactions. The Big Bang Theory is a prime example and Sheldon’s apartment serving as the de facto ‘hang out’ for the gang.

Now, from this break down, it should be rather obvious the biggest difference between these two approaches. The first has a story it’s going to tell and places that narrative first and foremost to its audience. The second cares less about the narrative and is more concerned with interactions amongst its characters.

So what does this mean? Well, probably a lot of complaints for different series will arise from these different aims. Sitcoms are notorious for the ‘return to normal’ in that, at the end of every episode, nothing is lost and nothing is gain. Sheldon and Leonard are generally the same from episode to episode and season to season. Contrast this with, say, The Walking Dead, where you can’t even be assured that some of the primary actors will even be in the next episode. The benefits of an unchanging format is that it makes it incredibly easy for people to jump into your show. There isn’t a rich history or story for them to catch up on. Most interactions will be evidently explained in that one episode and after watching a couple, a new viewer will have as good an understanding of the show as someone who’s been watching from the beginning.

The biggest problem with this format is stagnation. It’s very easy for characters to slip into caricatures – to boil down their personalities to a simple trait that can be expressed in seconds but depriving that character from any deep or intricate development. Since there is no grand narrative, these shows often become a bunch of stock characters parading through samey situations parroting the same contrived jokes and interactions from episode to episode and season to season. This immediate accessibility breaks down to shallowness and two dimensionality. Look at any sitcom in its twilight years and most you’ll find are poor shadows of their original selves. Like the Simpsons. It’s awful.

How can this be avoided? Well, for one, a creator can be wary of the first signs of this stagnation and end it before the show has truly jumped its shark. Alternatively, they can always start introducing elements from the other format – creating a continuing narrative that will fundamentally change the nature of its actors and premise. But this runs its own risk of alienating the audience.

What’s my solution – to try and avoid this type of serial altogether. My D&D stories follow a narrative – well a timeline at any rate. In my mind, different stories fall at different points in the characters lives so I know that they’re changing and if I’m successful, the readers do too. I already have some grander story arcs that are often alluded to in the passages that provide me the freedom to explore a grander story should I choose. Finally, I have new characters constantly coming and going. While this mostly reflects the changes in the inspiring people’s lives it also helps keep things fresh and exciting. But I know that my characters change. The challenges they face at the start of their journey are not the same that they encounter later on. And while some troubles haunt them for a time, as they grow and mature so do their personal conflicts.

Sadly, this post is getting quite winded now and I’m trying to not spew too much rubbish on this blog at once. I never really got to go into the weaknesses of the first type of serialization. Nor address series that mix the two styles and the benefits of that approach. Perhaps I’ll pick it up in another entry. But for now, I’ll leave it at that.

A History of Britain – Documentaries

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Recently I have been had the pleasure of watching A History of Britain. What I like about this 15 part series are the narratives of each episode which set out to tell a story and the language with which it is presented. Perhaps it is because it is a BBC production the narrator was allowed to use more advanced language then is often found in North American documentaries. I certainly find the episodes filled with information and witty commentary. I also appreciate it the way the series moves from the very earliest times of the Roman invasions to modern, post-world war II. My largest criticism is the shortness of time spent on the very earlier periods. Though I understand the reasons, the time constraints, I would like more information for these early years. I would love more details about the way people had lived their lives during the various periods of time. However, no series can include everything in a manageable amount of time.
In contrast to the linear production of A History of Britain, Mankind: The Story of All of Us is disappointingly jumbled. Each episode is a haphazard collection of moments that seem unrelated by theme or time. This recent documentary, of which I confess I have only watched two episodes, is difficult to follow and seems to say very little. It held such promise for me, tackling the world and not just one nation. But the presentation of its story, sloppy, disjointed and difficult to follow, does little to engage my attention. For this I am deeply disappointed.
I would love to watch a series, and I am happy to watch a lengthy series too, that covers history of mankind from our earliest records. I think it would be hugely interesting to look at pivotal periods of time and investigate not only what is happening in one corner of the world, but how contemporaries worldwide are living. So often, I pick up bits of history in isolation and certainly my history is heavily focused on Europe. Yet, China has an equally long and complex story to share with the world. It has influenced Europe over the ages. I would love to know what was happening in that distant land at the same time various acts are playing out on the European continent.
While they may not have yet produced the documentary I truly wish to watch and while the library may not have every interesting historic show in its collection, I have found a website full of promising titles that will allow me to continue my historic studies in pieces.