A New New Hope

The following typage is about Star Wars Episode VII. If you haven't seen it yet, don't read on until you have.

A beautiful poster as always, even if it does rely on the now standard red vs. blue contrast trope. 

If you're still with me, you've felt the awakening. The franchise's return to the light side of the Force. For the first time since 1983, longer than I have been on this rock, we have a new Star Wars movie. There has been plenty of other legitimate Star Wars stuff, some great expanded universe novels, a couple excellent video games, and some decent kids' shows. But the prequels and Lucas' edits to the original trilogy are things that misapprehend his own universe so profoundly that the world appears to curdle on screen. So I was worried that the franchise had gone the way of Palpatine rather than Vader. But JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan have restored balance. Watching TFA, I felt the same unqualified joy I felt watching those first three films as a kid, waving around a flashlight like a lightsaber. Now that the credits have rolled, I want to know what is going to happen next. And I want to spend more time with these people, aliens, and droids.

That's the greatest victory I think. To my eye, Star Wars has always been about the characters. Their individual motivations and arcs drive the plot more than the titular war. That backdrop lends gravity and dressing to the individual characters' arc, but I always felt a stronger pull to Luke's trajectory as a Jedi or Vader's enigmatic presence than the fate of the rebellion or the ambitions of the Empire. Leia and the droids are really the only ones who are consistently dedicated to the cause, and even they end up putting aside the war long enough to rescue Han. Those personal motivations are once again at the foreground of Star Wars storytelling.

Rey (Skywalker?) comes to rival Darth Vader as the most badass character in all of Star Wars by revealing herself as a Jedi, and coming to captain the Millennium Falcon in the course of one film. Let's actually take a minute to talk about Daisy Ridley. Somebody handed her a platform and the expectation to be a role model for millions of girls around the world hot on the heels of characters like Imperator Furiosa and Katniss Everdeen, as well as the weight of a billion dollar franchise riding on your shoulders. Imagine that pressure. Imagine the self-doubt. And watch as she hits it out of the fucking park. Her lines were good, her scenes were good, but her performance made them real. Character-wise, she might be a little bit too awesome straight out of the gate. On her first at-bats, she mind tricks a stormtrooper (with an amazing "I am using the Force now" voice), out mind-melds Kylo Ren, and beats him in a saber duel without any kind of training. I always said I would raise my hypothetical daughter to be Han Solo. Now I am raising her to be Rey. Also, listen to this theme:

Finn has a crisis of conscience, immediately followed by a infatuation with Rey. I really like that inversion of Han's arc. An initial desire for personal growth helps establish him as a deuteragonist as opposed to a Lancer like Han. Boyega's comedy game is a little stronger than his dramatic delivery, but I always found him charming and convincing. Very curious to see where his character will go now that his spine has been raked with a plasma club.

People have been divided on the Sith formerly known as Ben (Organa? Solo?). He is a very different beast than Vader, and that is a good thing, because a straight up imitation would be doomed to failure. Some of my friends feel that he is a little too whiny; a problem compounded by goofy ears, and identity pollution with his tenure on Girls. Having seen all of 1.5 episodes of Girls this didn't really bug me, and I think that the signature Skywalker whininess works much better as a villainous trait than a heroic one. Cruelty and anger stemming from insecurity are very believable (and pertinent) breeds of evil, and I love the fact that he is already conflicted as a villain, feeling the pull from the light side of the force. And even though it is telegraphed a mile away, him killing Han was poignant and a meaningful point of character development.

We don't get to spend much time with Poe Dameron, the guy who I think will become this trilogy's Han (now that Han is gone), but what time he has is solid from the first line. Good deadpan and he really sells the fighter ace enthusiasm too. Captain Phasma was a bit of a disappointment, as we get to spend all of two minutes with her, but there is potential there.

And BB-8. Holy shit. So good. For better or ill, Star Wars has a legacy of cuteness in each film, and the little soccer ball-esque droid fulfills the quotient in a way that is neither excessive, offensive, or cursory. He occupies Artoo's role from the first film as a living McGuffin, catalyzes Rey's first act of heroism, and delivers one of the best sight gags ever. If you didn't smile at the lighter thumbs up, get yourself checked out. Not sure for what exactly; have the doctors keep looking until they find a serious problem.

It was good to see Han again. Better still to see him off. Harrison had a brilliant role, he got one hell of a send off, and apparently his character has an anthology movie on the horizon. He also wanted to die at the end of Empire so this seems like a fitting conclusion. Fisher didn't have too much screen time, and it should be some kind of crime that Mark Hamill got second billing, but I look forward to the roles they will play in Episode VIII, and possibly beyond, provided they continue to cede the spotlight to the new generation of heroes.

Like I said, all awesome characters. People I want to adventure with. An outer space D&D party I want to be a part of. That is the most crucial ingredient for a genuine Star Wars experience. And the prequels lost sight of that.

Another tremendously pleasing element of the film was its raw physicality. Elaborate costumes, richly dressed sets, practical explosions, and stellar make up made for a more believable world. Even amidst the intense dog-fighting and saber battling sequences, the film never took the dizzying plunge into the Wachowski-esque CGI hellscape that typified episodes I through III, and even a few of the more recent installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hopefully this will trigger a sea-change in similar blockbusters.

The visual effects aren't the only reason I'm glad I saw this in theaters (twice). John Williams' did the score, and once again stuns with his genius. But the sound effects are also incredible. Scenes where Kylo Ren tries to break into other characters' minds are almost entirely carried by the sound. Instead of looking at some dude extending his hands, you can feel the force pressing against you.

From a franchising perspective, the other fascinating thing about TFA is that it is the first film that I've seen which manages the weird hat trick of being a simultaneous reboot/remake/sequel. Terminator Genisys made an attempt this summer and failed miserably. The Prometheus sequel seems to be angling for the same thing as evidenced by re-framing itself an official Alien prequel. It's easy to understand why studios want to remake, reboot, and continue to serialize all at once; that execution is all things to all people. But it's a difficult paradox to pull off. How do you reboot continuity while advancing it? How do you remake something while managing to take the series in a new direction? If the movie falls short anywhere, that secondary point is probably it's biggest shortcoming. The film really is a new take on A New Hope, with a fresh cast and some more modern sensibilities.

It plays things very safe. Too safe, in at least one regard. In his effort to back away from the expository politicking of the prequel trilogy, JJ failed to sell the threat of Starkiller base, or emphasize the tragedy of the Republic's destruction.

This should be a really big problem. It should also be very sad. It is neither.

The galaxy is once again without a central government. Coruscant, the apex of galactic civilization, has been obliterated. On a personal scale, everything the rebels fought for in the first movie has been undone, and billions upon billions of people are dead. But there is no build up. The atrocity plays out of over a montage's worth of screen time, and worst of all, we are given no time to care. There are reaction shots from our heroes, none of whom have personal connections to these planets, and even this is brushed aside by a more immediate threat to the heroes. When Alderaan is destroyed in a New Hope, we get to see Leia's anguish. We hear Obi Wan's brilliant line about a great disturbance in the force. One planet is a tragedy and a star system is a statistic I guess?

Also, if the Republic has been reinstated, and Leia has the formal title of general, why the hell are the people charged with putting down the First Order (the rough equivalent to Neo-Nazi terrorists), called The Resistance, and not The Republic Peacekeeping Force, or something similar? Weird decisions. They don't do the universe's macro-fiction any favors. But these are surmountable problems.

Episode VII is much more than a good movie. I can say without hyperbole, it is a cultural phenomenon. The Friday after the film's release, I went to Lightsaber Battle LA. I hit strangers with light up sticks, hard enough to leave bruises, they did the same to me, and afterwards we hugged it out and laughed. At the same event, younglings set upon each other, also with light-up sticks (and greater restraint than the adults), giggling and pretending with abandon. On the train to the event, people complimented our sabers, asked us about the movie or spared smiles. It was like another holiday. And looking back, it felt like one.

I doubt the subsequent movies will have the same explosive reception; particularly the anthology films, but I am eager to see how this universe moves forward. Now that there is a fresh start, I'm thinking of diving into some of the ancillary materials like the comics and books. If anybody has already taken that plunge, and has recommendations, please lay them on me. You want to speculate about where Rian Johnson will take the franchise next? Me too! Let's do it.

As one of the trailers proclaimed, "Hope is not lost today. It is found."

Sick

At first I likened these shootings to natural disasters; periodic human hurricanes that could be prevented if somebody just noticed the instability at the right moment. But these events have become a daily occurrence, and their frequency is only increasing. We are dealing with a human virus. These shooters are the compromised cells of American society. And we literally cannot keep up with the infection. In the course of writing this, I learned about a new shooter in Savannah, Georgia.

I think the first step is to stop allowing shooters to act as successful vectors. To abandon this collective obsession with publicly exploring the lurid stories that motivate them. Every time we talk about what made them different on the screen, we’re telling other angry people that they can be special too. Every time we explore their motivations, and attempt to explain their inexcusable behavior, we are telling them that their agendas deserve consideration. Police must continue to investigate all the evidence. Experts should scrutinize these people as individuals and part of a larger pattern. As a community, we must do everything we can to pull people on the precipice back to rational humanity. But the next time there’s a spree shooter, I don’t want to hear his name on the news. I don’t want to know his skin color, religion, gender or agenda. Once he pulls the trigger, he is just another infected cell.

But that’s just triage, a way to slow the spread, and we need a vaccine. 355 spree shootings later, and we still can’t get people to admit that we have a gun problem. That’s not the only issue in play here, but this doesn’t happen anywhere else on the planet, and it is insipid to deny a connection between this virus, and the uniquely ubiquitous availability of guns in America. The blade itself may not necessarily incite acts violence, but damned if blades don’t make it easy to stab people.

I cannot acquire meds unless a doctor verifies that I need them and will not use them to do harm to myself or my community. It is high time we extend the same caution to bullets. Yes, you should have to explain what you need those fifteen clips of AR ammo for, whether it’s hunting, training, or self-defense. We need more opportunities for law enforcement and truly responsible gun owners and purveyors to throw red-flags on lunatics. What is that inconvenience weighed against dozens of lives? If you are truly responsible, you can admit that this epidemic is a graver threat than domestic terrorism, or an encroaching government.

We also cannot afford to pretend guns do not exist, or that we will magically confiscate them, or that more oversight is a sufficient form of control. A good way to impress the gravity of a weapon on a person is to train them how to use it. Classes on responsible gun ownership should be mandatory before a purchase, and freely available to anyone who wants to know how guns work. Such programs would also provide yet another opportunity to scan our crowds for people who are infected.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, we have to move past sentimental platitudes. Your “thoughts and prayers” are not going to solve a damn thing. They are spit in the victims' eyes. Such replies are compulsory, political lip service to dodge the issue and absolve the speaker of responsibility. To our president, to our congressmen, to our courts and lobbyists: you are not absolved. You are not forgiven. This is happening on your watch and you are failing your country. Each one of you must do more to solve this problem because we are sick and people are dying.

As it stands, being shot to death in a spree is now an assumed risk in the United States. And that is unreasonable.

Mo' MOBAS, Mo' Problems

So this was going to be about Aeronaut's Windlass, but I'm still only about half-way through. My back-up was Mr. Robot, but I'm not done with that either. Both of those things are good things, but neither one grabbed me by the throat like Jessica Jones did. You can expect write-ups on both next month. But I have an unbroken two review per month stream to maintain and I'll be damned if I break it. So I thought I would take a stab at describing the gaming genre that has sucked away the most of my time in the past two years: MOBAs and League of Legends in particular.

I didn't really plan this one out in advance, so it rambles. A lot of this will be me trying to explain a very complex genre to people who know jack all about it. Those of you who know it know it well, so there may not be a lot to glean from this monster for veterans. So much has been written about League and its ilk that there isn't an obvious avenue towards originality. But I think I eventually get at what I like about the genre and my chosen genre.

League is a game where two teams of five heroes fight on a square map with two bases at opposite diagonals, divided into three  lined with turret-like towers. Between the lanes there are jungles filled with monsters. Each base spawns waves of other monsters that do battle in the lanes. The goal of the game is to destroy the enemy team's base. This main map is always the same (with some year-to-year changes), like a chessboard, and playing the game is like inverse tug-of-war meets Diablo with a splash of real time strategy.

The real core hook of the game, the source of its seemingly endless variation, is that there are over 100 different playable characters (or champions), and each has their own spells and abilities which can be powered up as you level up, as well as a huge host of items you can use to further power up and customize  your play style. All of these fundamental gameplay mechanics were cribbed from DOTA, or Defense of the Ancients, which was a modded map from Warcraft III, and also serves as the basis of Valve's DOTA 2; League's primary competitor.

It is so similar in fact, that for a while, games in the genre were called "Dota-clones," until Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, introduced a stupid new name for the genre that seems to have stuck: the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena). That uninspired acronym could just as easily apply to any online game that features a death match mode. I'd personally call them something like "tri-laners," because, you know, the game is really about controlling those three lanes of aggression. "Pusher" would also work, because knocking down towers with teammates and waves of minions is called pushing, and the companies that run the games push them on you like drugs. Well, League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm do anyway; in those games, there is a free rotation of heroes that you can try every week (first hit is free). In order to have those characters available whenever you want, you have to buy them with real money (get bilk't), or a sizable sum of in-game currency accrued through many hours of play. DOTA 2 makes its money exclusively from cosmetic items, (which is something that the other two games also do).

Another thing MOBA's are known for is toxic communities. That can be true of gaming in general, but whereas COD and Halo kids will brag about how they fucked your mom, DOTA 2 and League players will routinely tell you to uninstall the game and quit forever, or kill yourself in very creative ways. If you are a writer struggling to capture trash talk, spend an afternoon on one of those games and let the bad times roll. Some titles have implemented solutions to try and improve the community. League has an honor and reporting system which can result in (paltry) player rewards, or bans for repeat offenders respectively. Blizzard cuts the Gordian Knot in HotS by disabling cross-team chat altogether, and invites you to turn off team chat at the beginning of every match. Which is... hmm. These are games where team-based communication is key, and honestly, some vicious hazing can be a powerful motivator to improve your skills. And you also miss out some more lighthearted, amusing exchanges.

Much has been written about why MOBAs are so toxic. My theory is pretty simple: it takes a team to win, and just one awful player to lose. See, in these games, every time you die, your opponents get in-game rewards that make them (or their entire team) more powerful. Dying repeatedly is actually called feeding, because you are providing your opponents with succor.

Sometimes I ask myself why I devote so much of time to these games. The matches are time consuming. It's not like I'm going to go pro. I actually have yet to play ranked mode in any of these games, because the pressure to perform is so high, and I have so little faith in my abilities. Really, I think it's because I want to prove to myself that I can become a competent player, and I get to spend time with a few of my exceedingly patient friends on a semi-nightly basis. Also being the weakest link among my friends in a game I admire lights a fire under me. It happened with Mario Kart, it happened with Super Smash Bros; after consistently being the weakest player among my bros, I binged each game until I hit a semi-respectable skill level; topping the charts at times, usually placing in the middle, and only occasionally winding up dead last. After two years of pretty dedicated play (with dry spells here and there), I am still consistently the anchor on my team. And I don't want to walk away from it like that.

I'm not a hyper competitive person when it comes to gaming--I reserve that psychosis for writing. But League helped awaken a fondness for Player-Vs-Player combat that MMOs never really fostered. The big problem I have with PVP in MMOs, and grind-to-unlock shooters is their RPG progression systems. In a RPG, the more you play, the more powerful you get as a character because you level up and unlock better equipment. In a PVP game, you get more powerful as a player because your skills improve. Usually, when you combine the two, players with more time than you get better two ways; they have had more practice, and they have better gear. Don't get me wrong; I love RPGs. I love getting more powerful as I play. But competitively, knowing there are other people out there with huge amounts of time on their hands, possessing vastly superior skills AND gear, kind of saps my desire to play against them. It's a deck stacked twice over. Or maybe two decks stacked on top of eachother. I don't know. This may not be the best metaphor. It's really more like having strangers chuck bricks at your sensitive bits.

Anyway, one of the magical things about MOBAs is that every game you play is a complete RPG progression cycle of fighting bad guys, leveling up, and buying gear (sans narrative--more on that below). You start with a clean slate, and level up as play progresses based on your performance. So it is pure skill, save for how the characters stack up against each-other. (And in ranked play, where draft picking rules are in effect, team composition provides another layer of strategy).

In a perfect world, all of the characters have comparable power levels; in actuality, some are stronger than others, and require consistent adjustment. I imagine balancing these games is a lot like trimming bonsai, and League, with its enormous roster, requires more back budding than most.

This is especially since Riot's primary project is to preserve, legitimize, and refine League as an E-Sport; a videogame with sufficient tuning and complexity to be played professionally for the entertainment of others. More than any other MOBA, League has a bedrock meta-game, where players must adhere to the same general constellation of positions and roles to succeed, like positions on a soccer field: one guy goes to the top lane, one guy goes to the middle, two guys go to the bottom, and one guy goes in the jungle and helps the other lanes. There is nothing that mechanically prevents deviation from that layout, but the team that adheres to it has a huge inherent mechanical advantage, (DOTA 2 and Heroes of the Storm are both much looser). My strongest position is support; the guy who usually guards or heals the Marksman or Attack Damage Carry (ADC); so named because he will eventually carry your team to victory (provided he get enough kills under their belt early on). Right now, my big project is to improve my capability with other positions who actually do damage.

Why League, as opposed to DOTA 2 or Heroes of the Storm, if it has a game that by design, allows for less variance? There are lots of little mechanical reasons. DOTA 2 offers the most variance, and takes itself the most seriously, but it is the most brutal game. Movement is trickier, you have to kill your own minions on occasion to deny enemy players gold, and the games tend to be the longest of the three. Heroes of the Storm is Blizzards new challenger, and it is like the Super Smash Bros of MOBAS, in that it plays around with the genre, has the softest community, faster games, a wider variety of maps, and it does away with a lot of mechanics like buying items. Basically, I like League's balance between the two. Each champion has a kit with a passive ability, three active abilities, and one ultimate ability. You also have access to two 'summoner spells,' which usually serve as some variance of 'get out of jail free or send your opponent to jail cards.' It also currently has the largest roster of characters.

But the thing I think I really like about League is that it's maturation as a game reflects my own as a player. It has serious problems that it has yet to solve. There is a rune system that allows experienced players to give their heroes bonus stats before matches, which is great for experienced players, but it unbalances that self-contained RPG arc for new players. Players have also been clamoring for a replay system, but 6 years in, they still haven't figured that seemingly-basic shit out. They flat out refused to make a real sandbox mode, even though it would be tremendously helpful to people who want to practice. And good god, what they did to the story...

The game takes place in a prosaic fantasy world called Runeterra populated by a bunch of cool characters. It's great strength was the meta-narrative that explained why said cool characters waged a hellish forever war of perpetual resurrection and bloodshed; the titular League of Legends used such matches as a form of governance to settle land disputes and other political problems. Players occupied the roles of powerful magi called summoners who guided the characters in battle. Initially, lore posts accompanied game updates, explaining what the current round of matches were settling, and how they related to the world. This was a powerful system because it gave players an in-universe identity, and made the matches have some semblance of value. But Riot decided such a system was too hard to turn into a franchise and the characters were not getting enough development. Instead of attempting to solve those problems, they abolished all the existing lore, divorced the gameplay from the story, and started doing periodic, character driven updates with some accompanying writing. Their refusal to change the world in the context of their universe was lazy, even craven, and the ligatures they've introduced between gameplay and story are cursory or annoying.

But for each colossal fuck-up, they make considerable improvements. The quality of their writing since the massive ret-con has made marked improvement. The game mechanics behind their characters have made quantum leaps over their original characters. Furthermore, they have started to renovate those older, more generic characters to give them unique identities in modern games. Recently, they overhauled their mastery system, which now allows you to customize characters in impactful, interesting ways. And they periodically implement minor quality of life improvements. Their game design is an ongoing work in progress, much like my attempts to play it. In that respect, it doesn't get old.

That said, lately I've been looking into Heroes of the Storm, and finding more enjoyment there than when I tried the beta and early release. I'm not sure how far I'll go with it, because their pricing model really is punitive, and their matchmaking takes about as long as it takes to play a game, but the variety of maps and looser meta makes for a refreshing breather. But I know where home is.

If you frequent Summoner's Rift, send Sarcasmancer a friend request and we will stomp some scrubs or get rekt trying.

WWJJD?

I keep waiting for Marvel to fuck up their cinematic universe. For their gravy train to go the way of Guitar Hero games, saturating the market with too much of the same. Call it cynicism, but I keep waiting for them to put out something I find un-watchable. Well. Technically that already happened with Agents of Shield, where, despite my early optimism and professions of faith, I was driven away. But the beautiful thing about their long-game battle strategy is their stuff (in success) stands on its own. I am free to ignore AOS (and Agent Carter, for sheer lack of time) and keep enjoying their other offerings. So it is with Jessica Jones; which, if you will forgive hackneyed praise, is their best offering yet.

Brian Michael Bendis, the author of Alias, which serves as the source material for the show, is a polarizing figure in comic book fandom. He is almost as much of a character as those he writes, with an instantly recognizable back and forth conversational style, and a habit of radically re-imagining or re-tooling characters regardless of their established personalities or lore. On the one hand, that's kind of obnoxious. On the other hand, that's part and parcel of comic book storytelling. Mythologies are subject to serialized schisms; diverging, sometimes competing, interpretations of characters and canon. If he wasn't so willing to take a fresh spin on characters, we would never see this hard-drinking, short-fused, utter mess of a superhero turned PI.

The first volume of the comic didn't wow me. It was a flagship title of Marvel's MAX Imprint; a line of comics aimed at adults, where heroes were allowed to swear, have sex, and do more terrible things to each other than their mainstream books. Conceptually it was a great initiative, but V1 of Alias is laced with try-hard profanity and plotting that feels aimless due to clumsiness rather than by design. One thing it does manage to capture is the theme of embattled agency. Jessica isn't really in control of the story, or her own destiny. For example (mild spoiler), the first arc ends with Jessica unable to defeat the villain, and unwilling to side with him, leaving him to be taken out by a deus ex helicopter gunship.

And that's what the show is about: agency. What it means to make your own decisions, or to use people, and where accountability begins and ends, down to the moral implications of choosing between evils (or just two very dark paths). Up until the closing scene of the season, the show is presenting characters with difficult decisions.

The show outclasses the comic by is by using Jessica's best bad guy right from the start: Kilgrave, the Purple Man. His super power is the horrifying ability to compel people to do his bidding with nothing but his voice.Vincent D'Onofrio's portrayal of Wilson Fisk single-handedly elevated Daredevil from a pretty good show into something genuinely compelling. He stood tall as the best villain in the MCU to date, outclassing the world destroying threats of the blockbusters by having a personality worth exploring. His episodes (and character arc) were more engaging than Matt's. And Netflix managed to bottle lightning twice with David Tenant. Famous for portraying the much-beloved tenth Doctor, Tenant manages to transform a super villain (an archetype so manipulative and cruel that he feels like a parody) into a real person, which somehow makes him all the more hate-able.

JJ wins out over Daredevil for the simple reason that its cast of "good guys" are also interesting; morseo than Matt Murdock and his crew. Jessica is a wreck, tortured by more tangible and believable demons than a burning desire to punch bad guys in the junk. She's an alcoholic, played for pathos over humor. She's often selfish, self-destructive, and acerbic in a way that will still manage to bite jaded audiences. And she is wrestling with monstrous PTSD. Despite all that, she has a clearer drive to do good than Matt. She is desperate to be a good person. Kristen Ritter (who I knew and loved from The B**** in Apartment 23) breathes fresh life into that antihero package, resulting in the kind of character I cannot help but love.

Her supporting cast is brilliant too. Patsy Walker is perhaps the most straightforward character (performed by Rachael Taylor), but she provides a crucial counterpoint to Jessica. Eka Darville steals almost every scene he is in as Malcolm Ducasse. Mark Colter is perfect as Luke Cage, (it takes a very special man to deliver the catchphrase "Sweet Christmas" in an authentic way) and I look forward to spending more time with Power Man in the future. Erin Moriarty exudes conflicted guilt and vulnerability as Hope Schlottman. My impression of Carrie Anne Moss has always been that she is somewhat cold and wooden, (okay, the exact phrase I used when talking to Grace was 'frozen cardboard') but that actually serves beautifully in her portrayal of Jeri Hogarth, a shrewd dragon lady of an attorney. Despite her 'understated' mannerisms, she made my sympathies for her character do some very impressive contortions. The only underwhelmer is Will Traval's Will Simpson, and (spoiler to follow) that's primarily because the script calls for a very abrupt and forced Face-Heel turn in Episode 9.

JJ lacks the brutality (and stunning fight choreography) of Daredevil, but it is by far the darker show, touching on everything from abortion and rape to an incredibly acrimonious divorce, with murder and suicide sprinkled throughout. There is blackmail, extortion, and every other stripe of people using people that you can imagine. And, yeah, I think that is to the show's credit. That kind of content is not inherently mature; in fact, poorly handled it makes you look juvenile, but the presentation is strong enough to provoke thought and conversation. Once you hit that benchmark, to get people talking beyond "wow, that was poorly handled" or "wait, what?", you've succeeded.

I have very few complaints. JJ never really pays off the promise of its noir posturing, because there is very little mystery; just tension. Also, for the first 6 episodes, I felt like I was at least one step ahead of the plot (and oftentimes the dialogue) at all times. Even when things were slow, I never thought "that was a lame call," and I very rarely had quibbles with the lines, which is rare for superhero fare. Some people have complained about the sluggish start, but keep in mind that this was a show written with binging in mind, and once it edges past the half-way point things go nuts. I stopped feeling like I could call the shots. More importantly, I forgot to. Turning off your audiences' incessant inner critics is one of the surest signs of success, because it means your stuff is entertaining enough that the mental peanut gallery doesn't care, or it is finding so few faults in what you're doing that it gives up.

If Marvel's big screen and network offerings have struck you as either childish or canonically intimidating, the Netflix series are your best bet, and Jessica Jones is the stronger of the two by virtue of its characters. Somehow, defying all odds, there are legs in this thing yet.

Food Fightin'

2015 has been kind to anime fans. From the Black Lagoon-esque ultra violence of Gangsta, to the military fantasy mash-up Gate, to the MMO deconstruction of Overlord, to Hiromu Arakawa's take on the Legend of Arsland (Arsland Senki), there are a lot of solid options vying for your time. (Shout out to Marcus and Noelle for all of these recommendations). I thought it would be impossible for anything to overtake Gangsta, with its weird mix of criminals and drugged up super soldiers. Then Grace and I started watching Shokugeki no Soma, which roughly translates to Soma's Food Wars. It's not revolutionary, but it is a brilliant example of how Shounen structure can be translated to topics other than fighting. In fact, it is one of the best Shounen to date, provided you can ignore (or enjoy) all the fan service.

Here's the plot in a nutshell: Soma is a 15 year old cook who works in his father's diner in Japan. It's a humble, affordable joint in a neighborhood being targeted for urban development, but it is tremendously successful thanks to the phenomenal food. In the first episode, our hero gets a real estate vulture to permanently piss off just by serving her an amazing dish. It turns out that Soma's dad is secretly a world renowned chef, and he has quietly been grooming his son to one day surpass him by challenging him to no-holds barred cooking duels since he was six years old. But one day, dear old dad disappears, leaving instructions for Soma to (temporarily) close up shop, and head to an elite cooking academy.

This school has a fancifully low graduation rate where kids can be expelled at the drop of a hat, with its alumni going on to be the next world's next Gordon Ramsays, Julia Childs, Wolfgang Pucks, and Giada De Laurentiis. Furthermore, students challenge each other to cooking duels called Shokugeki to settle disputes. I know, I know, the cliches are already thick in rank and file. But like I said, the show isn't an evolution or critique of Shounen anime (go watch Kill La Kill or Attack on Titan for that), so much as an immaculate execution of the form.

Two episodes in, I found myself wondering whether the creator was a chef himself, or a food critic. Whatever his background, he is not writing from Wikipedia knowledge. The cooking techniques that are casually rattled off are insane, covering everything from carving monkfish to molecular gastronomy, and featuring dishes like diner food with tastes and textures that evolve over time, nine layer french terrines, and curries that use compression and convection to enhance their aromatic impact. Needless to say, watching this show while you're hungry is a poor life decision.

I also really love the cast of characters. Even when they get tropey, clever eccentricities and running gags make them relentlessly endearing. Everybody in Soma's dorm has a specialty (fermentation, smoking, game meats, food history) that adds another dimension to their characters. Soma himself is fearless, tenacious, and a little dense (defining qualities of the archetypal Shounen hero), but when it comes to food (this show's equivalent to combat), he is beyond innovative. And when he comes to his friends' rescue, he is every ounce the hero of a show where problems are solved by punching. Moreso in fact, because it requires more creativity from the writer and the characters.

The only thing keeping me from recommending it to every anime fan I know is the fan service. It doesn't approach the depravity of High School of the Dead, Triage X, or other aspiring hentai, but when a character serves a dish that is amazing, the diner goes on a journey. And usually that journey is an orgasm. They blush, gasp, cry out, and are often shown in the abstract, stripped near nude in an explosion of ecstasy. To its credit, the show doesn't discriminate by gender, though the female reactions tend to be a little more explicit. You also have the token stacked girl who walks around in a bikini (although, there's a male nudist who walks around in nothing but a cooking apron, too). Soma also has the habit of developing truly heinous dishes (like octopus with peanut butter) to prank his friends and these experiences draw upon the proud Japanese tradition of the Fisherman's Wife.

It's not all graphic innuendo and implicit tentacle rape. The show routinely employs brilliant imagery. A flawed dish is portrayed as an island paradise, marred by a parade of noisy hippo. A curry duel is showcased as Muay Thai boxer fighting a lancer. A molecular gastronomy dish becomes a metaphor for pioneering the edges of a new galaxy. All of these scenes are rendered with beautiful animation quality, and accompanied by the sort of bombastic music that makes you want to cheer for the good guys, and their opposition, just so you can see what they come up with. When people clash via cooking, everybody wins.

One day, after I get the book-writing thing nailed down, another project I would love to tackle is writing a shounen-style comic set in the ballet world. It features brutal competitions shaped by fierce rivalries set in adolescence, stunning feats of physicality that can easily be embellished in fantastic ways, and inspiring camaraderie. You could even throw in the tasteless sexual pandering and fan service scenes without much exaggeration, because why the hell not.

I haven't seen any other cooking anime, but I'm confident this one's cuisine will reign supreme in perpetuity. I can't wait for a second serving next summer. May even have to jump the gun and start on the manga.

The Dark Knight's Darkest Timeline

Rocksteady's Arkham series is the best video game adaptation of a superhero to date. Nothing else captures so many aspects of a character so perfectly, much less a figure as iconic, nuanced, and macro-mythic as Batman. Fans have had towering expectations for each version of the game and Rocksteady's titles have crushed them every time. (WB Game's Montreal's prequel offering, Arkham Origins, fell short in many ways, but it also has a much worse rep than it deserves. Very solid writing.)

I have so much faith in the franchise that I bought the PC version at launch, without waiting for any kind of reviews, only to have to wait several months for the second round of fixes to make the game playable. The nightmare port could be a post unto itself. Apparently WB outsourced it with almost no time left, and didn't bother to do enough Q&A to wait for a Halloween release, which really would have been so much smarter for so many reasons. Even after the second major patch, it's still not perfect, periodically suffering from graphical stutters and mass-slow down, but none of that stopped me from playing it in 2 to 6 hour binges. (In the course of writing this, I discovered a new patch has been released with more fixes and support for all the DLC. So yay!)

The game has stellar mechanics, beginning with combat that blends pseudo-Quick Time Event style brawling with the opportunity to deviate and improvise via movement, gadgets and special combo abilities. Getting a good flow going feels amazing. It feels like you're the goddamn Batman. On top of that, you have the incredibly liberating ability to zip through the city with his grapnel gun, sling-shotting yourself into mile long glides over Gotham. The combat and flying could get monotonous, and I think some of my friends have leveled that complaint against the game, but clever puzzles that require careful use of your gadgets, and compelling detective side-quests kept things fresh for me.

This game's signature wonderful toy is the Batmobile itself. You get to rocket around Gotham in a car that transforms into a tank, which you can use to get into shoot-outs with unmanned military drones. It strains disbelief a bit to believe that thugs and criminals you hit at 100+ miles per hour are merely "stunned" by the car's taser field, and weird to have Batman blasting tanks, but the gameplay is ridiculously fun, grafting an entire secondary combat system into the game's DNA. You also get a surprising amount of puzzle mileage out of the hulking video, via remote control and grapple cables.

All of that would be meaningless if the story wasn't stellar. Fortunately, the Arkham universe combines the best of the incredibly varied Batman mythos into one experience (save for Damien Wayne - nobody is perfect). You have Mark Hamill voicing the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman from the animated series. Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and Batgirl in the DLC), Dick Grayson, and Tim Drake from the comics. Lucius Fox from Nolan's movies. And between all the titles in the series, you get to face every villain from the best rogue's gallery in the history of all comic bookage.

What's more, the series takes risks with canon. It breaks rules that the movies and comics cannot afford to, for fear of alienating entrenched fans or scaring off new ones. Spoilers to follow until the final paragraph, but please read on if you won't be playing game.

The second game in the series, Arkham City, ends by killing off the Joker. Arkham Knight begins with you cremating him. Some people thought that the ol' Clown Prince of Crime was actually Clayface in disguise--a theory I dreaded might be true. But no. Joker really is dead. Dead but not gone. If you will recall, Batman was infected with Joker's blood at the end of the last Arkham Game, and thanks to the magic of comic book logic, his blood slowly starts to possess everyone infected with it. What does this mean for gameplay? Hamil's Joker appears as a hallucination in Batman's head, talking to him throughout the entire game, savagely (but hilariously) taunting him at every opportunity, and urging him to abandon his code and succumb to violence. There are a couple moments where Batman loses control too, giving us a glimpse at the most terrifying villain ever: Bat-Joker. So the net result is a prolonged exploration of their relationship. It doesn't really go deeper than any prior analysis, but it brilliantly illustrates the point that Joker subsists entirely on Batman. And there is also a nod to the theory that Batman depends on Joker, as the game suggests Bruce is finally making some preparations to hang up the cowl (via side missions where you play as Azrael, training to inherit the mantel).

That's only one stunning part of the story. The first fifth of the game ends with the fear-gas induced suicide of Barbara Gordon. Which, I mean, holy fuck. They say this is the story about the end of Batman, but I didn't believe it until he watches his already paralyzed, brilliant young protege blow her brains. She is trapped in a glass room which he doesn't enter, for fear of inhaling fear gas. At that point, Batman has already lost. He has lost so hard that no matter how hard the story plays out from here, there is no coming back. They make her death all the more destructive, by making her and Tim Drake into a romantic item, and having Batman tell bald-faced lies to him about her death; which is a legitimate aspect of the character that is rarely explored outside the comics. Batman keeps secrets that hurt his loved ones. You also get to see Jim Gordon discover his daughter's involvement with Batman for the first time. It's so brutal, and so unfair, that I actually had problems with it. Part of it was the feminist gamer in me, mad that they killed one of the few female bat characters, and one of the best heroines in comics, but the real issue was, it was genuinely upsetting. More so than deaths in the comics, because those have been proven, time and again, to be temporary setbacks. But the Arkham series started out as a trilogy, it would end, and that will be it.

Unfortunately, they cop out. It's all a hallucination. Batman was influenced by fear-gas. Babs is okay. Scarecrow had her stashed away to manipulate Jim Gordon. The funny thing is, I was simultaneously hoping they would find a way to rescue her, and that they would stick to her guns. My relief that she survived wrestled with my disgust that they didn't commit. Ultimately, I think it was the wrong call, but I was so relieved that I still love the game. And Batman still failed. He succumbed to fear and selfishness when he watched her die, instead of breaking into the glass room and rescuing her, hallucination or not. It is still the Dark Knight's darkest timeline. He got lucky instead of being good, and Batman should always be the best.

The most predictable part of the story is the Arkham Knight himself, who is inevitably, Jason Todd. The only thing that threw me off is that Red Hood had a separate, distinct costume and action figure with his own level pack and everything in preorders and promotions. But once you hear him addressing Batman as 'old man,' and talking about his tactics, it could really only be one character. Worse yet, despite laying siege to Gotham, and being party to Barbara Gordon's apparent murder, Jason is redeemed by Bruce through fisticuffs and a heart-to-heart that's about seven words long. I know, I know. How else would it end? Personally I would hope for an ambiguous heroic sacrifice, leading Bruce to wonder if Jason is dead again, just after he is effectively resurrected.

Narrative rough patches aside, Arkham Knight is still the definitive Batman experience. I can't see Rocksteady topping it, and I earnestly hope they don't try. Tackle a Wonder Woman game instead. Or Flash. Or Cyborg! Even Aquaman. Hell, these guys are so good they might be the ones to finally figure out a Superman game that doesn't suck.

Popular Gods

So I just finished volume 1 of The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, which was pretty great. It's a graphic novel about 12 teenagers who gain the mantle of gods every 90 years (the gods come from different pantheons, and they often change each recurrence). After 2 years of 'being loved and being hated' these young gods all must die for unknown reasons. Then the cycle begins anew.

 Each god has powers pertaining to their mythology, and some gods with multiple incarnations/interpretations have multiple forms.Usually, said gods become celebrities or pop stars, because how could they not. So there's some commentary on the nature of fame in addition to the genre staples of power and responsibility, which is a brilliant contrast to the secret world approach that is ubiquitous in Urban Fantasy. It is tremendously refreshing to see UF that breaks away from the typical "I'm discovering my powers," or "I'm a monster slaying detective" molds.

 Have Wikipedia handy, because I've got pretty strong mythology game and there were plenty of references I didn't recognize. Conversely, I worried that I would miss too many of the musical references to really enjoy the series, since tunes are my pop-cultural blind spot (particularly stuff before the nineties), but I feel like I got most of them since Gillen plays it safe with references to Bowie, the Stones and the Beatles.

McKelvie's character designs are stupid gorgeous, and Matt Wilson brings some of the most vibrant colors out of anything I have ever read. It was a very nice contrast to David Aja's more subtle and abstract (but also phenomenal) approach in Hawkeye, which I also just finished up--I'm going to miss that one, even if it meant the occasional year or half-year wait between volumes. Should be mandatory reading for people who enjoy superhero books, even if you 'only read DC'.

Anyway, back to TW+TD, the only flaw it has is the main character suffers from looking glass syndrome, almost to the point of self-parody but that looks to be changing in the next volume. The first one ends with a bang, so I'm very curious to see where things go from here. Mythology folks and UF fans should check this one out.

It's nice to have a new ongoing to read now that The Unwritten, Hawekeye, and Locke & Key have all wrapped. Anybody have any other new recommendations?

Ancillary Politics

It's been awhile since I read a book that really challenged me, which probably doesn't speak highly of my reading habits, but at DragonCon I finally got to finish up Ancillary Justice, which was a Christmas gift. Once I got a firm grasp on the world, I was in for the long haul and I'm looking forward to picking up Ancillary Sword soon. It took awhile for me to get into it though, due to a constellation of factors.

The premise hooked me straight off. Here's the high concept: ancillaries are former human who are mind wiped and essentially enslaved by AIs at the behest of a conquering empire. These AI are spread across numerous human bodies, with their brains effectively serving as cloud processors. So you have collective entities with shared perception and consciousness. They often make up armies, but our protagonist was part of a starship. Breq, formerly known as One Esk, was one of many ancillaries used to control and run an enormous battle cruiser that is several thousand years old; the Justice of Toren. The challenging part is the en media res opening in a very dense universe, and a story that tells itself in both directions as it progresses. I can learn a lot on how to avoid info dumps here, but I actually found myself wishing for some more explicit exposition earlier on.

What really challenged me was the language. It’s one of those books with a lot of unique terminology, and very alien words (there is a race of aliens named the “Rrrr,”) and very rigid codes of etiquette that are explained in fits and starts, but employed throughout the book. One convention hit me harder than expected, which was the use of ‘she’ for all gender pronouns in the Empire (the culture that uses Ancillaries). Maybe I felt ‘othered’ by it, and I cling to the patriarchy tighter than I admit (that may read snarky but it’s a real possibility), but my frustrations manifested as trouble picturing characters. Now obviously, that estrangement is part of the point. At first I thought it was kind of a trite way to hint that gender doesn’t matter, but really it’s a very clever way to characterize Breq. She (I think she is biologically female) often screws up other characters’ genders. It kind of taxes suspension of disbelief that a genius AI who can read facial expressions near-flawlessly would have trouble recognizing secondary sexual characteristics, until you realize that as a collective being, Breq is thoroughly desexualized. She thought of herself as genderless, and her culture also de-emphasized gender linguistically. Conversely, most human imperials don’t give a fuck, because they can tell who is what by looking at them.

The gender politics were less fascinating to me than the book’s political intrigue, which is weird because I generally prefer stories that operate on a more personal scale. Vague spoilers to follow in this paragraph only. Around midway through the book, it is revealed that Ancillaries, and other beings spread across multiple bodies, can be given a unique consciousness that exists independently in the collective being with personal agency. This allows them to advance opposing agendas simultaneously, hidden from the other facets of the collective (talk about a mindfuck). If that collective being happens to be the leader of an intergalactic empire, you can see how a mind divided against itself might be a problem.

Ann Leckie walked away with both the Hugo and Nebula for this one (and rightfully so), so I imagine most of my sci-fi friends have already read this or at least have it on their radar. But I would also recommend it to folks who are fascinated by gender stuff.

It’s encouraging to know that collective/shared consciousnesses are trending in sci-fi (as evidenced by this, Psycho-Pass, and Sense8), because it's a huge part of my book. And since you didn’t ask, the revisions are slow going, but I’m feeling good about them. It was cool to discover that I didn’t need to revise Part 1 as drastically as I thought I would. In a perfect world, Parts 2 and 3 would be done by the holidays, but since this is the first re-write for those parts, I suspect it won’t be done until the end of next spring. At that point, I will need loads of feedback, since I am serious about getting this one published.

Ant-Man Squished by MCU House Style

Last Sunday I saw Ant-Man. It was dumb but pretty fun. That's all most people need to know really, but I have reputation to uphold. If you're reading this, you want gonzo over-analysis of Marvel's Cinematic Universe.

I think it is worth noting this is the latest I've waited to see any Marvel movie since opening. It's tempting to blame flagging interest, especially after the fatigue I expressed with Age of Ultron, and that's definitely part of it, but you can bet I will be watching Netflix's offerings straight out of the gate. I think the main issue is that I was skeptical of the hero (why does this silver age chestnut get a flick before literally anybody else slated for a title?) and I heard something that made me sad: Edgar Wright's script had been scrapped. Whedon said it was one of Marvel's best screenplays ever. Lo and behold, my first thought when the flick ended was "There is a better version of this movie somewhere locked up in a desk."

Again, it wasn't bad. I'd rank it above the Thor movies, which I would describe as "earnestly watchable." Paul Rudd was a peach as always. Evangeline Lilly was hurt by a lame role (and make-up that made her look much older than she is). Douglas gave a good delivery of a very straightforward role. Michael Peña is fast becoming one of my favorite character actors, even if he was typecast as a pseudo-stereotypical Mexican friend/hood. I don't know what David Croll was going for but he didn't hit the mark. As with Lilly's character, it's mostly the fault of the script, but his manic menace and discordant sycophantry made him the most forgettable villain in the MCU to date.

You don't really watch these things for the plot or performances though. Or I don't know. Maybe you're a masochist? That's cool. Whatever waxes your ride. The ridiculous action and great one-liners delivered, even if they were trailer'd to death.

There were flashes of a film that stuck together better. Something as fun as Guardians of the Galaxy. I can't put my finger on exactly where things went sideways, but I feel like they didn't commit to the screwball comedy angle as hard as they could. The ant powers were presented in a way that was remarkably straight forward with very few laughs, which seems like a huge missed opportunity. I know Wright would have committed to that humor. Paired with his hyper kinetic cinematography, saturated with whip-cuts and graphic embellishments...(yearning sigh). But no. The need for stylistic cohesion is finally starting to show it's teeth.

It's very weird to me that Marvel is getting more cautious after the success of stuff like Guardians and Daredevil. Their comics are also wildly, refreshingly different from each other. Look at Hawkeye vs Rocket Raccoon vs. Captain Marvel vs. Ms. Marvel vs. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vs. any Spidey or Avenger's book. There was a place for Wright's vision in this pantheon.

My interest in the movies is starting to shift from intrinsic interest to this kind of morbid curiosity. I'm waiting for the moment when the gravy train goes off the rails. This wasn't the movie to do it, and Civil War, with the introduction of Sony's Spider-Man, will be a shot in the arm. But after that? Cummerbach's Doctor Strange is going to be tough. It is very difficult to make magic mainstream. Most magical fiction is the strict domain of book nerds and D&D dorks. Harry Potter managed to break through, but Game of Thrones and the Lord of the Rings (films) have marginalized it with more grounded stuff, like sword fighting, sex, and politics.

It hurts me to say this, but I would rather things go to hell with Doctor Strange than with Black Widow or Captain Marvel, because I can imagine some smarmy studio suit pounding his fist on the boardroom table, shouting "See? Nobody likes female comic book characters!" That guy can go fuck himself, preemptively. Black Panther would also be a very bad point for Marvel to drop the ball. Even worse than the lady-led films. At least nerd audiences can rally around Katniss Everdeen, whereas the only black superheroes we have are Anthony Mackie's Falcon, and Cheedle's War Machine who have both been relegated to sidekick status. (Falcon makes a fun cameo in Ant-Man tho).

When things inevitably go to hell, it won't be supernatural plots, or female, or black superheroes at fault. It will happen because they've made like twenty of these things, and people have moved on, or moved back to whatever was trendy before tights and capes movies.

No twist ending here. Fans of Marvel, heist movies, or Mr. Rudd should go check it out. Less dedicated fans can afford to give this one a pass with Civil War right around the corner.

What it Means to be a Magician

I finished Magician's Land a year ago now, and I can tell you that Lev Grossman's three books on twenty-something spellcasters are my favorite trilogy. Books, movies, whatever. These are the stories that are closest to what I want to write myself. I'm still not sure I've nailed this, but I think I could write about it in circles for years, so it's going up now.

My wife, my dad and a few of my best friends gave up on it after the first book, and I can't think of any people whose literary opinions I hold in higher regard. And usually, their critiques sway my opinion somewhat. Not so here. Rather, I felt compelled to try and share what I found in them that felt so profound. So if you've given up, read on. At the very least, you'll get to see how things play out. Needless to say, stop here if you still want to read them, or if you're waiting for the SyFy series (please be awesome), because this will spoil EVERYTHING.

The grander the scope of a fantasy novel, the harder it is for me to engage with it. I grow distant from the tale once it becomes more about politics and history than individuals. One man is a tragedy, while a hundred is a statistic and all that. Call it narcissism, or blame it on my ADD baby, but I need characters I can project myself into with personal problems I can relate to. Nations and empires, or even lineages spanning eons like Lord of the Rings tax me, because the character's personalities feel secondary to the world. I only found Dune and A Song of Ice and Fire more palatable because of their use of close POVs.

Maintaining that kind of human-driven drama is something I wrestle with in my own writing, because long-form fantasy seems to gravitate toward tropes and trappings of epic scale.

Star Wars and Harry Potter come closer to what I'm after, without the black and white reductionism. They have an epic scope, but at heart, they are family dramas that deal with about three generations of people. By the end, the Potters and Weasely's are one family, as are the Skywalkers and Solos (even if you discard the now non-cannon EU, the sentiment is there), and they are a mircocosm for the world they live in and shape. The main characters are broadly drawn, but the supporting cast is eccentric. Both invite us to project our own relatives and acquaintances onto those people, and fall in love with them all over again.

The Magicians finds an arc that is even more personal, with a cast of characters that hones closer to real people. I've been spoiled by a charmed life. As an only child with two incredibly successful parents, the only baggage I've really had to carry are the huge expectations I've created for myself by looking to their example. So there is something that resonates even more strongly with me than family drama: the pursuit of personal growth.

Courtesy of Better Book Titles

Growing up I had everything in the world, but once I hit my teenage years I was terribly unhappy. That's everyone to an extent, but I think I was madder about it than a lot of people. I confused my expectations of myself with my expectations of life. It's not hard to see how a frustrated teenager and young adult could transmute a lack of fulfillment into perpetual dissatisfaction, or assume happiness is inherently frivolous. Quentin was also an only child born to well-off parents (though they never really "got him") and on top of that he was told he was a genius his entire life, (up to the beginning of the books). He was raised on fantasy books and wanted to be the hero. But he couldn't do magic for real, and he didn't have the girl, so everything sucked. But even when he could do magic, and he did get the girl, and he discovered the beloved fictional land that shaped his boyhood was real, things still weren't right.

I like to think I was never that petulant, but I came close enough to recognize the same root problem: we were waiting for the world to make us happy instead of doing something about ourselves. Sounds simple, but it took me years to figure that out and I'm still trying to do the work. I guess that's why I was more willing to be patient with him. I get why he's an asshole. His acerbic voice and aimless but incredibly fervent ambitions struck a chord.

Despite being a cautionary tale, The Magicians outclasses standard "be careful what you wish for" stuff because it never loses sight of why the wishes were worth pursuing in the first place. It's not about scoring points, or putting line items on your CV, but about figuring out how your dreams can make you better, and getting it wrong--a lot.

The first book just hints at that broader message. If you have to read just one, the is the one to read, but I think stopping there takes a hard heart, or at least, less patience for very believably flawed people. He is not as sensationally fucked up as Joe Abercrombie or GRRM's characters, who I think hold broader appeal because they are more distant from reality. You don't have to deal with masochistic boy-kings and schizophrenic berserkers on the daily. Quentin is just kind of a prick and everybody has to put up with pricks.

The Magicians closes with him going back to Fillory, the magical land from the books of his boyhood, even though it ended up being horrifying, and later empty, because it cost him his lover. I read that as hopeful; maybe I can still find something to love about magic. Maybe I was wrong about myself. But "hopeful" isn't closure, and recognizing so many of Quentin's flaws in myself, I wanted to see how this played out.

The Magician King I think, is the weakest link of the trilogy. This one is really Julia's story, told in the middle of Quentin's, and while it's deeply compelling, it fits oddly into the arc of the other two. I think it taxed the trilogy in ways Lev could not anticipate when he started out with just one novel.

We come back to old Q at the end, and it's an important turning point: for the first time, he is subjected to true unfairness. He is viciously punished for doing the right thing. What happened to Alice hit him harder, but it was also his fault. Here, he saves magic. All the magic, in every world, and in response he is stripped of his crown and exiled from Fillory. Why? Because fuck Quentin Coldwater. That's why.

How a person reacts to punishment for doing the right thing is the truest test of their character. In Magician's Land, we finally get to see if Quentin passed. Given the veins of despondence shot throughout the series, I was afraid. I expected something brutal. Which is why the last book is truly magical. Quentin becomes a good person. Not all at once, but rapidly.

Even though his friends have seemingly abandoned him, he keeps fighting. He begins by swallowing his pride and seeking a job at Brakebills, a college he initially loved but came to resent. When he is fired for doing something risky, he acknowledges it and takes it in stride. When he hypothesizes a fantastic cause for his estranged father's death, and turns out to be wrong, he carries on instead of moping. And when he is presented with a terrifying opportunity to correct his gravest mistake, he seizes upon it.

It works, but doesn't go as planned. He rescues Alice and she hates him for it. She was utterly consumed by magic and disconnected from the world, in a blissful state of power. When he brings her back, gives her emotions, and taste buds and a body again, a life with meaning, she is livid. The first Quentin would go "this is bullshit," and give up. This Quentin keeps trying and manages to remind her that being a human beats being a selfish monster; I mean, talk about epic role reversals. At the end, things aren't perfect between them, she flat out tells him "we're not dating." Given her actions at the end, I think that they might pick things up again, but even if they don't, Quentin is just happy to have rescued her from madness.

He also becomes a dragon and then, briefly, a god, which is, you know, freaking awesome.

I love the way Lev does magic. Sure, the study and theory might be a little mathematical; not sufficiently subjective, (which was Robert's gripe), but when it actually goes off, wow is it cool. I can't decide whether the fox transformation or Quentin's first spell cast is my favorite scene of magic, and the probability-shifting card game that starts the third book is great as well. The first appearance of the beast, and Reynard's rape of Julia are both as terrifying as they need to be, which is no mean feat.

One of my favorite scenes in the whole trilogy is in book one, where Fogg speculates as to why certain people can use magic. His hypothesis is that magicians are inherently unhappy. Which made a lot of sense to me. Maybe I just liked it because I can be a broody sumbitch, but there is logic there. You won't try to change the world in earnest unless you feel like there is something wrong with it. I was bothered by the implied corollary, however. Once you find happiness, or worse, in order to find happiness, you have to break your staff, bury it fathoms, and drown your book. Prospero could have done better.

Quentin's story is a journey to another conclusion: you can keep your magic, and have happiness too, as long as you work on yourself in tandem with the world. Find your magic, find a goal, and use them to figure yourself out. That's what it means to be a magician.

Half Life 2 and Black Mesa: Subtlety Between Shootouts

This was originally supposed to be about Black Mesa but it turned into a bit of a ramble touching on emergent versus linear storytelling.

A friend once asked me what my favorite video game stories were. I went to grad school for that, and it's my job description, so I wanted to impress. The first couple titles that sprang to mind weren't terribly unusual. I think I said Final Fantasy 6, The Last of Us, Arkham City, and Gunpoint, all for different reasons. If he asked me now, The Witcher franchise would vault to the top of that list, followed closely by Wolf Among Us, and Tales of the Borderlands. Again, pretty standard stuff. I did manage to throw him one curve ball though.

"Half-Life 2."

"...Really?"

Yup. The story is unfinished (and sadly looking like it might stay that way), it has a silent protagonist (which I hate), and on the surface it looks like your standard re-telling of War of the Worlds, right down to the tripodal alien war machines. But there's more happening behind the scenes. Or maybe between the scenes is more accurate.

If you rush to the next firefight or puzzle, you'll miss out on ambient dialog and broadcasts that flesh out the plot. The writers are humble enough to not cram their tale down the player's throat. Instead of saying "OMG this is so important, the fate of the universe depends on you!!" they let the level design and mechanics make you fear for your life, feel oppressed, and then in the quiet moments, the game gives you little glimpses of what went wrong, and how bad it really is.

The cliff notes version of Half-Life 2 is that Earth has not only been invaded, but already conquered by an alien collective called the Combine. As befitting their name, they genetically remix every race they conquer to refine their race of super soldiers. The entire world is now an Orwellian police state and the bulk of humanity has been penned in old cities that have been redistricted and augmented by the Combine's sci-fi tech. You start out in a bleak Eastern European metropolis called City 17, and its aging already-dystopian architecture, is merged with the Combine's pristine, geometric tech is a great juxtaposition. There is, of course, a resistance, and you do, of course, join and lead it. That's all you really need to know.

Now here are the cool details you can miss: the Combine have set up 'inhibitor fields' that prevent us from breeding, but promise our race will have 'genetic immortality' and travel the stars, which, would actually be compelling carrots for a lot of people. But they put chemicals in the water that make the populace forgetful and docile. The alien species they've introduced as biological weapons (and maybe crude terraforming tools) have ravaged the environment. It took them only 7 hours to completely dominate the planet, and--oh yeah: this is all your fault.

A lot of people aren't clear on how Half-Life 1 and 2 are connected, especially since many people jumped on at HL2. That's unfortunate, because the connection between the games is in my opinion, the coolest part of the lore. At the beginning of the first game, Gordon performs a science experiment at Black Mesa research facility that opens portals to an alien planet. A hostile army of aliens invades, and the military is called in to kill everyone and everything involved. Gordon of course, kills them better, goes through the portal to the alien planet, and kills the leader of their alien army, Nihilanth. In the process, you free a race of enslaved aliens and thwart an invasion on Earth. Yay! Awesome right? No. Turns out Intergalactic assassinations have huge consequences. By killing Nihilanth and crippling his army, you paved the way for the Combine to sweep in and conquer Earth. Nice job, slick!

Then there's the G-Man: one of the most enigmatic characters in all videogame-dom. He's pasty, suited man who speaks like one of the supernatural denizens of Twin Peaks, has a talent for appearing and disappearing in impossible places, and the ability to freeze space=time. At the end of the first game, after you've committed your "one-man genocide," he offers you a job. The terms kind of suck: you don't know what work you'll be doing, and if you refuse, he strips you of your guns and leaves you to inevitably die fighting hordes of aliens, avenging their comrades. If you accept, he puts you into suspended animation until Half-life 2.

The original Half-Life has not aged well, but fortunately, a dedicated team of modders and programmers called The Crowbar Collective have remade Half-Life 1 practically from scratch. It is known as Black Mesa Source, and you should buy and play it. Consider that endorsement an imperative if you have yet to play Half-Life 2, provided you have patience for somewhat dated graphics. Incidentally, I discovered that my threshold for old graphics is Source 2. It is just realistic enough for me to feel immersed, which is a testament to the engine considering it's now a full decade old.

Why bother with Black Mesa? Well, it also has that slow burn. The beginning of the game is arguably a fist-person survival horror affair, that ramps up into some of the most intense firefighting of any shooter you'll play. And there are puzzles throughout. Most of them are very basic, some are jumping puzzles, but they provide enough variety to break up the bouts of action. The fights themselves, in fact, are like improvisational puzzles. Unlike most modern shooters, where you have a regenerating health bar, you have a shield and a health bar that can only be restored with items. I miss this trope, because it allows the designers to exhaust you. To chip away at your sense of security, and thrust you into fights where you feel the weariness and desperation of your avatar.

The level "Surface Tension," may be the best I've played in a shooter. You start by storming a dam in one very intense firefight. Immediately after that, you must ward off a helicopter with a laser weapon. Then you flush yourself down the dam, and navigate an incredibly claustrophobic cliff face as more soldiers try to kill you. The helicopter returns, but you can ground it permanently with a new laser-guided rocket launcher. Most games would call it a day there. But you are just getting warmed up. You have to escape a tank; a rare firefight where your only chance is to run. Then you must navigate a warehouse, rigged with dozens of trip mines and ordinance, Entrapment style, in one of the most nerve wracking sequences you will experience in any game ever. Then the tank catches up with you and you have to take it out with an environmental weapon. Finally, you have to kill an alien giant with a mortar as it shakes the tower you are standing on--this last part was pretty badly glitched, regrettably, marring an otherwise incredible experience. But the game is still in early access, and the developers are actively engaged in fixing up the title.

Both titles excel at immersion because they commit. They trap you in first person the entire game and there is a single linear path that you must follow through the levels. At Georgia Tech, I remember a lot of the teachers and my fellow students felt that videogame storytelling was hobbled by cinematics, set pieces, and linearity. It was regarded as "a legacy approach to storytelling," inherited by analog media. When you look at drek like COD it's easy to empathize with that complaint, and when you see just how creative you can get with something as simple as Twine, it's hard to not want games that take that versatility a step further (I think Tell-Tale has successfully made themselves the sovereigns of that dimension).

But my professors and peers were chasing an even more elusive whale: truly emergent storytelling. This describes systems that would effectively improvise valuable (emotionally potent) stories in the course of play, as opposed to taking you down a number of branching corridors. I was a member of the project group that tried to develop that kind of gameplay. It's been long enough now that I can admit it felt like a bit of a bust. With the crucial exception of tabletop roleplaying, I haven't found a system that creates meaningful narratives on the fly. I know you can find good RP if you find the right people in the right MMO, but what results is effectively collaborative fan fiction. The onus of storytelling is on the player rather than the system.

Other than failing to leverage the 'affordances' of digital media, the backlash against linear stories is that they are didactic; you are forced to engage with the world a specific way that elicits a specific emotional response. I think that only becomes a problem when you feel the strings tugging you, because that breaks the immersion. If you are leaning into the strings though, it feels a bit like flying, or riding a roller coaster. Yes, I would love it if Gordon Freeman spoke, and I'd be ecstatic it if you could speak for him and make choices... but when I played, I wanted to know what happened next rather than the ability to do things differently.

I guess there are two main takeaways I'm trying to convey here: you can make familiar linear stories compelling with enough experiential immersion, and squeeze in some meaningful subtlety,even when paired with huge scripted action scenes. That and the Half-Life franchise rocks. Here's hoping Valve comes back to it some day.

CCSD 15 Hall H Postmortem

So. I've reviewed what I could of the Hall H news and trailers that came out of Comic Con.

Star Wars wins. Hands down. The behind the scenes video was beautiful, even if it doesn't tease too much about the story (which may actually be for the best). That impromptu live concert for panel attendees also sounds (ha) incredible.

Batman V. Superman had a much stronger showing this time around. The shots of Bruce in Metropolis amidst the destruction were really compelling. Interesting to know he has at least one dead Robin under his belt. I doubt we'll see Tim or Dick due to the number of Justice Leaguers who will already be making cameos. Carrie Kelly is a possibility, just because of Snyder's hard-on for all things Frank Miller. Wonder Woman seems suitably bad-ass, and I am still very curious about those Superman soldiers. The Suicide Squad trailer had a cool aesthetic, but it came across as kind of soulless and dry. If there was ever a DC movie that needed some levity, it's this one, and they have the cast to exploit it.

The leaked Deadpool trailer on the other hand is looking pretty good. Almost a "here's how you should have done it" to Warner Bros. I think it does a good job of capturing the "I can't tell if this is just dumb, or so dumb it's smart" vibe of the comic character. Post PG-13 big brand superhero movies are also just a rich vein to tap; think Kick-Ass with a bigger following. Even if the thing is a bomb, I think Fox will be pleased with the opening weekend results. Almost guaranteed that critics won't get it, but a lack of artistic acclaim hasn't hurt Transformers or Fast and Furious. I was less wowed by their X-Men stuff, even though the last movie was arguably the best yet, and Wolverine 2 was better than Wolverine 1.

Weird that Marvel sat this one out. Despite their fairly big media push, I am not feeling the hype-train for Ant-Man like any of their recent films. A Comic Con nudge may have done it some good. Something to tease Doctor Strange and Ms. Marvel would have been nice too, but you can't always get what you want.

In terms of smaller stage stuff, ConMan is looking like a lot of fun. The Battleborn, Halo, and Assassin's Creed "play this game in real life"-style installations made me sad that I wasn't there.

That's my 2 cents, having not been there. People who attended, am I missing anything huge?

Rekindling Library Romance

Working at a bookstore killed my relationship with public libraries. Well, that and college libraries. Seeing fresh releases, and hearing all the positive buzz about big deal books fostered a compulsion called tsundoku; the acquisition of so many books that one has no hope of reading them all. (I do the same thing with PC games, as do many others; a practice my friend Jose suggests we call Steamdoku. I agree. Digression over!) College, in turn, made me associate libraries with doing research or serious work.

So I stopped checking out libraries. But is that really a problem? If I buy so many damn books, why would I go to a library ever again? Well, precisely because I have so little time to read any more. Stick with me.

When I broke up with libraries, I also let myself believe that their selections were hopelessly outdated. I pictured collections consisting of James Pattersons gone by two years and yellow paged paperbacks that have somehow held on since the sixties. Maybe I did it to help justify my buying compulsion. Or maybe that's an accurate assessment of the Pasadena Public Library. I don't know anymore, and it doesn't matter because the Burbank Public Library is freakin' awesome.

There was one category of bookstore purchases that were always out of my budget: audio books. Before you roll your eyes, or rail about how real authors must read on paper to keep notes, keep a couple things in mind. A) I have a full time job. B) working out feels like a waste of time. C) driving feels like a waste of time. Audio books help me fit more fiction into the cracks of my life.

Burbank has a ton titles in audio form. And lots of stuff by authors I would like to read, but never buy, or think to seek out when visiting a Barnes & Noble. This is the real benefit of libraries. Getting books for free is nice, but finding books you would never encounter under other circumstances is really what makes the difference.

Perusing the audio book selection reminded me that I love Joe Hill and I love William Gibson. From Hill, I picked up Heart-Shaped Box. It's a story about an aging rock star with a menagerie of messed up detritus who buys a ghost. It's my workout book, because it is brutal enough to distract me from the task at hand. I mean, this fucking guy. He knows how to hurt characters (and by extension, readers). People drone on and on about how mean GRRM and Joss Whedon and even Jim Butcher (really?) are to their characters because they kill people or beat them up. Bull. Shit. A quick death or cracked ribs are so much kinder than what you can do. Even maiming pales in comparison to the emotional trauma you can inflict with a single brutal line or revelation. That's something Hill borrows from dear old dad, but I greatly prefer his work. His stuff is also more concrete, pairing physical violence with psychological, or using one as a metaphor for the other. He has sharper, darker teeth, and his narratives feel more complete and cohesive. They may be more traditional, but I like his beginnings, middles, and most of all his endings.

On a related note, I finished up Locke & Key, and it is fantastic. I can't think of a comic book series that does a better job of capturing the angst that is 15-18 years old. The finale is great. Again, brutal. Again, fairly traditional, but it will make you genuinely sad, balancing very tender moments with some very sharp sticks, with great heroism interspersed (not so much with the laffs), and most importantly, you will have a sense of closure. Would love to read more short stories and side stories that leverage the universe's concepts, but happy to see Bode, Kinsey, and Tyler's tale come to a satisfying close.

Back to the bounties of the Burbank Public Library, I've picked up The Peripheral from William Gibson to listen to while driving. It's been a long time since I've read anything by him, so I forgot how much of an impression he made on my writing still. This book feels a little more accessible than the super-slangy cyberpunk of his Sprawl trilogy, but it still has that great environmental/conceptual mystery quality that typifies his work. You are thrust in a world, and by about midway through the book, you have a handle on the setting, but you still have to work out all the mysteries of the plot. I highly recommend it to Sci-Fi fans, and already gifted it to one person.

Very strong central premise about communicating between adjacent time streams, but it also focuses on post-humanity, and long-game evolution of telepresence technologies. Think Ghost in the Shell, dialed back a couple notches, with less emphasis on an ephemeral cyberworld, and a deeper examination of being able to inhabit other human bodies. There's also some stuff in their about drones and gaming. Very high concept cocaine.

The library also has a fairly extensive collections of movies, including some new releases you can rent for a dollar. Seeing how Blockbusters are a thing of the past and Redboxes are scratched to hell or have the wrong discs half the time, that's super convenient.

Moral of the story? Do yourself a solid and check out your local public library. You may be pleasantly surprised. If not, you will have restored an old librarian's faith in humanity.