HabitRPG: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

In my ever-continuing quest to keep myself on track, I've been experimenting with HabitRPG, a website that promises to help you build good habits and track your tasks by treating your life like a roleplaying game. Earn gold and experience points (EXP)! Level up! Lose health because you hit snooze on your alarm clock for the fifteenth time! And so on.

Welcome to the world of task lists.

I've been using HabitRPG for nearly a month now, and here's what I know:

The Good

The system works. The basic premise of HabitRPG does a great job of modifying your behavior. Good habits give you EXP, so if you add "Take the stairs" as a habit, you'll damn well take the stairs, because if you don't take the stairs you're going to lose hit points and your little sprite man might die. Daily tasks act the same way, except on a timer. You can also tweak your version of a "day" to start and stop at, say, 3 a.m. to cover staying up past midnight on a spontaneous writing jag. To-dos, tasks with no time limit, will gradually become worth more EXP as they age, which counter-intuitively manages to train you to complete overdue tasks when you get a chance. And once you've done enough tasks, you can treat yourself to a simple reward for a small (or large) amount of gold.

You know why World of Warcraft is so addictive? HabitRPG knows, and it's using that power for good.

It looks good. The user interface is clean, simplistic, and does the job in a pixelated style. Your character is roughly customizable to fit a variety of appearances, and you can upgrade him to wear cooler gear and hang out with pets as you progress. There are ads on the page, but they're as unobtrusive as possible and can be dismissed if you donate to the development team.

It's free. As noted, you can donate to the developer, but it's not required. Enjoy the full features of the site for absolutely no money.

It's social. If you feel up to that sort of thing, you can form a Habit Adventuring Party (patent pending) or spend some time chatting with other HabitRPG folk in the tavern. Another plus: while you can log in with Facebook, HabitRPG won't spam your wall for no reason.

The Bad

The system is easy to cheat. If you play by the rules, you'll find yourself making new habits, but it's very easy to avoid any consequences. Check off your dailies! Ignore your bad habits! Basically if you can't stick to the honor system, this website is useless.

Tasks are tricky to organize. You've got habits, dailies and to-dos, which is fine, but the to-dos can be hard to organize, especially if you build up too many to fit on one screen. It's not great to find out you were supposed to bathe the dog two weeks ago, but the task ended up five screens down on the list. Some sort of folder system (perhaps based on the recently-introduced tags) would help make it easier to keep tasks organized.

The Ugly

The user interface ranges from unstable to broken. I'm not sure what code base HabitRPG uses, but the GUI is tricky at best. Simply marking a task complete might require refreshing the page three times, and moving a task entry can send it flying across the screen for no reason. These aren't things that should be happening in a modern user interface, even one that's still technically in development. I'm hoping the planned mobile apps for HabitRPG will be an improvement, but they need to get these things fixed regardless.

Overall, HabitRPG has some kinks that need to be worked out, especially in the user interface, but it's still a worthy tool to help you increase your productivity. Especially if you like EXP.

Ten Ways To Look At Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is a great game. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with that assessment. Ken Levine's tale of Booker DeWitt, the down on his luck Pinkerton detective and Elizabeth, the girl who can give him his life back had been winning awards left and right even before it came out, and now looks likely to take home Game of the Year more than a few times.

But if you had to sum up Bioshock Infinite in a sentence, what would you say, exactly? That's not an easy question for a game with a story this complex.

Here are ten possibilities. Note that from here on the SPOILER WARNING is very much in effect, because I'll be flat out summarizing the game's ending.

Once Upon A Time - Reflections on Season One

Well, Once Upon A Time has finished its first season, and with confirmation that the show will be coming back for another round of episodes, I felt like revisiting an earlier post. I liked the show then; I still do now. And I'll give them full credit, they've gotten a lot of things right. But still, there's just a few little things that bother me...

I'm writing this assuming that you've watched the whole of the first season. If you haven't, read no further. Spoilers ahoy.

On Once Upon A Time

Not the opening phrase, the new television show from ABC. Consider this your spoiler warning for the first two episodes.

Review: Nail Your Novel

Dear readers: Can't finish writing your books? Do you habitually get stuck on word 5,000 of that 8,000 word short story? Is there a pile of abandoned manuscripts threatening to bury your dog? Then I have a solution for you.

Nail Your Novel - Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence, to give the full title, is a little book by Roz Morris, an author who runs a blog by the shorter name. It is not a manual on how to write well. It does not dwell on the best ways to improve your characterization, your settings, or your plot (well there's a bit of that, but not much).

What Nail Your Novel does do, and it does it very well, is give you a structure for writing a book or short story or whatever you want. It lists of series of steps you need to take, from before you put word one on paper to the moment you send a pitch off to the agent/editor, to get the job done. And it does it in a clear, easy to follow style that you can absorb and put into practice quickly.

I tried out the Nail Your Novel method for my latest short story pitch. Before, my writing process was something like this:

1. Come up with an idea.
2. Write an outline based on the idea.
3. Write as much of the story based on the outline as possible - usually 2,000 to 3,000 words.
4. Revise the text I need to include in my pitch.
5. Mail out the pitch on deadline day.
6. Pray. And drink.

Note the thing I wasn't doing: finishing the damn story. I'd get enough together for a pitch and send it out, undoubtedly overlooking massive structural problems I couldn't see in the parts I hadn't written yet.

After using the methods detailed in Nail Your Novel, I have a big pile of (virtual) index cards with character, setting, and plot points listed. I've got an outline, but also a beat sheet, which sums up every character's story arcs and the dramatic high and low points in the story. And most important of all, I have a finished first draft of my story, straight from beginning to end. It's rough (I haven't revised the whole thing), but it's complete.

I cannot overemphasize how much of an improvement I saw just from working out the structure of what I wanted to write in advance. I wrote out nine excellent short scenes, then cut them because I was able to recognize that they didn't connect to the rest of the story. And one of the major plot twists in the story became ten times better after I was able to look at the characters' story arcs properly. Prewriting and structuring don't raise your word count, but they are absolutely vital.

NaNoWriMo is coming up next month, and if you have trouble finishing your books, I recommend it as the ultimate motivational deadline (that doesn't involve money or death). You'll have fun, you might get your 50,000 words, and who knows, you might even publish the result. But if you want to learn good writing habits that will help you finish your work on a regular basis, pick up Nail Your Novel. You won't regret it.

Comics I Liked This Week

It's Wednesday, and that means another in my intermittent series of comic book reviews. I'm just focusing on what I liked this time, so if you don't see something here assume it got 3/5 stars.

Here Comes... Daredevil #2 is probably the best comic this week, and honestly I think the new series is the best Daredevil has been in years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slandering the past couple of (much darker) runs, but I like Daredevil as a happy-go-lucky, witty, gymnastic... well, daredevil, and Mark Waid is nailing it. (And if you'll permit me a brief tangent, the same holds true for Nightcrawler. Marvel, if you bring him back, bring him back as the fuzzy swashbuckling elf we loved for so many years. Please?)

Legion of Doom #3 wraps up this Flashpoint tie-in miniseries in high style. If you don't know, Flashpoint is an alternate-reality crossover where heroes are villains, villains are worse villains, and you've seen this before. Legion of Doom follows longtime Flash villain Heat Wave as he attempts to escape from a supervillain prison (modeled after the Legion of Doom's headquarters) and take revenge on his nemesis (in this reality) Cyborg. The in-prison villainy is pretty cool, but the real standouts here are Heat Wave's crazy ass and a surprise guest star who isn't quite as heroic as he usually is. All three issues are well worth tracking down.

Journey Into Mystery #626 continues Loki's adventures behind the scenes of Fear Itself, Marvel's summer crossover. Having been reborn as a somewhat innocent child, Loki is trying to help Thor by wheeling and dealing with some of the most diabolic beings in the Marvel Universe - and somehow, so far, he's coming out on top every time. I've found Loki is much more interesting as a hero than he was as a villain, and this series shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Abin Sur: The Green Lantern is another Flashpoint miniseries that wraps up with its third issue this week. For years, Abin Sur's only been the dead alien who gave Hal Jordan his ring (except when he was being manipulated into an early grave by demons under Alan Moore). In this series Abin is alive and well, and proving that he's a more than worthy predecessor to Jordan as he takes on his best friend, Sinestro, and tries to preserve life on Earth at all costs. A fine read for Green Lantern fans.

Avengers Academy #12 continues strong this week, as the kids take on two supervillains that have been turned into Asgardian demigods (Fear Itself again... I swear, tie-ins...). This book's traditional superhero action: fantastic settings, dangerous villains, and heroes trying to save the day while dealing with their own life issues, all done excellently.

Finally, Thunderbolts #162 sees the team of former supervillains start to fracture while battling an army of monsters. Baron Zemo, the original team's founder, is making his presence felt in the book again, just as half the team decides to break away and turn villain again. Whatever comes up in the next few issues should be damn interesting to read.

I Love My Droid Apps Too

Yesterday I discussed some of the reasons I bought a Droid 3 instead of an iPhone. Today I'm going to talk about why I really wanted a smartphone in the first place. Apps, baby.

But first let's talk about the Droid's hardware. It's a fairly hefty phone, probably the biggest I've ever owned, but it's not oversized; to fit in a full keyboard and a touchscreen, the Droid is just as big as it needs to be.

I already wrote a love letter to the keyboard. The touchscreen is also nifty. It's responsive, and most of the things you'll press give you a little jolt of haptic feedback to let you know you've pressed the thing correctly. It can be a little tricky to hit a button on the very edge of the screen, but I've never had to press anything more than three times to get it to respond, and that very rarely.

There are four buttons on the bottom edge of the touchscreen: a Settings button, a Home button, a Back button, and a Search button I've never had cause to use. They all change their function based on what you're doing with the phone - for example Settings gives you a way to edit phone settings by default, but if you're running an app it'll let you change the app's settings instead. These buttons aren't full keys, but haptic feedback again lets you know when you've pressed something.

What else? The keyboard slides out with little difficulty, though I get a bit of a squeak every time I do it - I may need WD-40. The camera works fine, and is a massive improvement over my old phone's camera, but I haven't played around with it enough to say anything conclusive. Battery life is good enough to get you through a day. The phone charges very quickly from an outlet, and very slowly from a USB port. And I think that sums up the hardware.

I said I'd talk about accessories, didn't I? I'm not sure why. The case snaps on and protects the phone adequately, and I've got a clip for my belt if I want to use it - mostly I don't. My old Bluetooth headset still works with the phone, though the sync isn't 100%. I don't really have anything else for the phone except chargers. Let's move on to apps.

Most everything on the Droid is an app, even basic functionality like an alarm clock. Once you figure this out it's all very intuitive. The Droid ships with a selection of starter apps and Let's Play Golf 2, which is just one piece of the bloatware Verizon curses your phone with. It's easy to hide, but good luck getting any of it off your phone entirely - if someone figures out the trick to this let me know. I never even liked Let's Play Golf 1, and I'm pretty sure that game doesn't exist!

All of the Google and social networking apps work great. I've got Gmail, Google Reader, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter at my fingertips. The Twitter app even does you a favor and memorizes where you are in the stream, which is a huge plus if you're prone to losing your place. It's also very easy to upload photos - I needed to use my old phone's crappy email client to do it before, so this is a big improvement.

Games are great so far. I've got the whole OMFG ANGRY BIRDS library already - all free, though there's a bit of advertising included that can get irritating. Words with Friends is also free, and I've already found myself in four games at once. So far I'm holding my own, though I've already been stomped into the ground by my Aunt Susan. Cut the Rope, the third game I was looking forward to playing, is not free, but it is dirt cheap and I'll get around to buying it any day now. But, y'know. OMFG ANGRY BIRDS.

A brief aside on ringtones. I was worried about getting my iTunes library onto the Droid. For videos this is indeed a pain in the ass, and one I've given up on fixing. But my actual music is, for the most part, the DRM free stuff Apple switched to a while back, and plays on my Droid with no problems.

I've got a Final Fantasy victory fanfare set up as my main ringtone, and I get to wake up to Ke$ha's Tik-Tok in the morning. I originally wanted to use Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf as my alarm clock - that's the Kick from Inception, if you were wondering, and if you still don't know what the hell I'm talking about go rent the movie. Unfortunately the first time I tried it my wife wanted to know why the hell I was playing music from a horror movie on my phone. When I explained where it was from she got the joke, but I'm still forbidden from using it. So I wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.

Back to apps. I downloaded FBReader, a free eBook reader app, and after using Calibre to convert a ton of .mobi files into .epub files, I'd turned my phone into a perfectly functional eBook reader. The screen size is problematic (it's a phone, this is a given), but the text is clear and readable regardless. And, since the screen is backlit, my phone makes a useful substitute for my Kindle if I'm in a dark space.

The Barcode Scanner app is technically impressive, though I can't see myself getting much use out of it. I was able to use it to scan a QR code at my bank and download a mobile banking app, at least. The banking app is nice, but too much like the bank's normal website to be truly excellent.

I've just now set up HBO Go, HBO's free streaming app for, well, pretty much every series they show, and a bunch of movies too. So far it works great, much better than it does on a computer, though I'd never dare use it without a wireless connection. I may end up watching every episode of Game of Thrones on my phone. This is weird, but also pretty cool.

What else? I've got the Kindle app, but with all the non-Amazon books I buy FBReader is the better option. Text messaging looks very nice. Contacts include all the information you might want, although there is a wrinkle in that the phone will automatically import your Gmail contacts along with any numbers you already had in your phone - for me, this meant merging quite a few contacts to get rid of duplicates.

Overall I'm very happy with the Droid 3 and with Android, and if you're looking for a smartphone I'd recommend them. As of this moment, the only thing I can think of that I'm missing out on from the iPhone is Futurama's "Put Your Head in a Jar" application. I'm pretty sure I'll live.

I Love My Little Droid

Look there, to your left. Say hello to my new little friend. Hello new friend! See the red eye-looking logo? It is staring at you. It is staring into your soul.

I've been interested in a smartphone ever since I heard the iPhone was coming to Verizon. Well, that's not true, I've been vaguely interested ever since my coworkers all got some and started bragging about the cool shit they can do on a smartphone. And I listen to Tech 411 which is always going on about some cool new app of the week. And OMFG ANGRY BIRDS!!!

This bird will fuck you up.

So I've had an interest for awhile, and two weeks ago my phone plan discounts finally vested. If you don't have a cell phone plan, understand that the bastards phone company likes to lock you in for two years at a time, and charge you ruinous early termination fees if you jump ship early. To sweeten the incarceration deal, they'll give you a discount on your next phone if you stick it out. Well, Verizon used to, they don't do that anymore because they sell smartphones and they know that people who buy smartphones are like crack addicts for hot new technology. Luckily I was still grandfathered in on the fabled "New Every Two" deal, so I got the discount this time (for the last time).

I was dead set on an iPhone, but my wife suggested that I might like one of the new Droid 3 phones instead. This sounded like blasphemy, but she convinced me to listen to her before I broke out the rack. Why would I want a Droid?

"They've got a real keyboard, and they're on a two-for-one sale."

Compelling arguments for a heretic, it must be admitted.

I went to the store two days before Purchase Day and checked out the two phones. Now, iPhones are famous for not having a physical keyboard. There's actually a cottage industry of massive bluetooth keyboards being built into cases to make up for this shortcoming. But they do have a touchscreen with a keyboard. Surely, I thought, Apple would be an improvement on the touchscreen keyboard I was used to, the one on my enV Touch, which is a sort of short-bus smartphone. Right?

Well, no... I can't get the hang of a touchscreen keyboard. Haptic feedback helps, but I still end up fouling up one button press in three when I'm trying to type. I'm also reduced to two-fingering on a touchscreen, which is a real pain for someone who's been trained in the deadly art of touch-typing.

(As an aside, since this is still nominally a writing blog: Take a fucking touch type class. I don't care how much you like writing longhand. That goes for any programmers who might be reading as well. It's a simple skill to pick up and it will massively improve your output.)

As for the Droid, it does touchscreen too, but that slide-out keyboard is nice. It's full QWERTY, with numbers in a row on top and no squirrelly space-saving bullshit. They keys feel nice under your fingertips, soft and rounded and vaguely like leather. Mmm...

Plus I'm familiar with Android as a smartphone OS. I'm up to my neck in Google as-is, so I'm not shy about adding something else to my omni-account. Plus it's pretty easy to develop Android applications on a PC, if I'm so inclined, and of course there's a great app library in place with OMFG ANGRY BIRDS:

Seriously man, just walk away.

Sure, I miss out on iTunes syncing, which is a pain. I've got more music in iTunes than I could sync to anything short of an iPod Classic, not to mention a few movies I'd like to have available on the go. But then again, I've got the iPod Classic. I don't need my phone to play movies for me; I've got that covered.

And I mentioned that one of the Droids would be free, right?

Next up: Apps, accessories, and using French music to terrorize my wife.

Review: Marvel vs Capcom 3

Well, I've flubbed my attempt at posting two blog updates per week, and it's only been... six weeks? Hell, that's not too bad. Never mind.

So here's my review of Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Story - You're joking, right? It's a fighting game. Well, I guess they can have stories if they really want...

In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the villains of the Marvel universe (Dr. Doom, Dormammu, M.O.D.O.K., Magneto, etc.) and the villains of every Capcom game ever made (really just Albert Wesker, although Akuma turns up later) join forces to merge their respective Earths together so they can team up and take over. As in every great villain plan, this falls flat on its face when the heroes of the two Earths team up to beat down the villains. And then Galactus turns up and threatens to eat everyone.

Honestly, there's just enough story here to justify a single-player Arcade mode, and that's it. The endings don't tie together; most of them are just "if this happened, what would X do?" sequences, and with only two illustrations per ending there's not a lot to look forward to. So let's move on.

Gameplay - Now we're talking. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a fast-paced cheesefest par excellence. Each player gets to pick out a team of three characters from a roster of thirty-eight (thirty-six of whom are now available). Despite the title, you don't have to pick just Marvel characters or just Capcom characters - mix and match to your heart's content. A fight takes place in one round where the goal is to defeat all three of your opponent's characters in a specified time limit.

The fighting style works best when you focus on setting up and executing devastating combos on your opponent. For example, you might jump in, punch somebody in the face with three quick hits, then uppercut them thirty feet in the air, jump up after them, and start beating on them again until you get tired, call in a friend to keep up the beating, then call in your third teammate to finish things off and smash your hapless foe back into the dirt. When the poor unfortunate soul lands, you're ready with an attack called a Hyper Combo that takes up the entire screen and does massive amounts of damage. And that could be the first ten seconds of a match.

The cast of thirty-eight characters is smaller than Marvel vs. Capcom 2 had, but you'd hardly notice. Because you pick three fighters for every match, the game has a lot of built-in replay value just from trying to assemble the ultimate fighting team. That's not to mention that all of the characters are great fun to watch and listen to: Iron Man sounds and acts like Robert Downey Jr. is reading his lines, M.O.D.O.K. makes giant heads look threatening, and Deadpool will grab the camera and shake the stuffing out of you after every match.

It does take some time to get used to the controls, and Capcom doesn't do a damn thing to help in this regard, besides providing a robust must-read game manual. But once you know what you're doing, the game is a lot of fun.

Online Play - This is one of the big deficiencies of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, so I have to call it out. Capcom's last fighting game, Super Street Fighter IV, had a robust online matchmaking system - you could search for opponents in a ranked or unranked match and link up easily. You could set up a tournament where you watched each fight real-time, while waiting for your turn to battle. You could save your best fights as replay videos to watch or share with the gaming community.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 junks most of that. You can still search for ranked or unranked matches, but odds are about 50/50 that you'll be kicked out of whatever match you find. This wouldn't be too bad - Street Fighter had the same problem - but for some reason the game then kicks you back to the main menu, wasting your time as you navigate down to search for another fight.

Tournament play is still there, but you can no longer watch any fight other than the one you're participating in. For every other fight, you see two game cards duke it out (read: bounce off each other) as lifebars for the respective fighters slowly diminish. The only real use for tournament play is to set up a game between friends - random gamers will not be interested, other than to get the Achievement for participating in an eight-player game.

And replay videos? Gone completely, with no explanation. I assume there were too many technical challenges to overcome, and given the amount of stuff happening on camera in a given fight, I can understand why; but it's still a little disappointing.

I've heard rumors that Capcom will slowly patch in some fixes for these issues, and I hope they do. Thankfully, the annoyance involved in finding a pickup game online doesn't detract from the fun once you actually get into a match.

Verdict - Despite its flaws, I think Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a superior fighting game to the last few Street Fighter games. The fights are quick, insanely beautiful to look at, and rewarding when you grind your opponent into the dirt. None of the characters seem badly unbalanced, and with six of them fighting in any given match there's always a way to bring down even the nastiest character combinations. As long as Capcom delivers on fixing a few of the weaker features, this game is sure to be a classic. 9 review points out of 10.

Review: Amazon Kindle

It's my 100th post! Thanks to everyone who's been reading, and I hope you stick around for the next 100.

I read a lot of books. Even if I don't count graphic novels, I probably break triple digits in a single year. And while I'm not shy about using my local library, there are some books I just plain have to buy if I want to read them. So my bookshelves are, shall we say, well-stocked.

Despite a desperate need to clear some space, I've been resisting the eBook revolution. I had my reasons. The readers are expensive uni-taskers, excepting the iPad, which to me is a really expensive reader that also plays games. The books I like to read weren't necessarily available as eBooks. And while I can always bring a paperback along with me to work for lunch or time on a treadmill, an eReader is trickier to get away with; some rubbish about vulnerabilities and enterprise security...

But, times change. The price of readers like the Kindle have come down in the past year. And Black Library has kicked off a digital publishing venture that means a lot of my must-read books (*cough* Horus Heresy *cough*) are going to be available first in digital print. And, let's face it, I'm running out of bookshelves. So when I got a Kindle for Christmas this year, I was pretty excited to start playing around with it.

This is my Kindle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

The Kindle is held in the hand much like an ordinary book, if a bit thinner. This was a huge concern for me; Staples carries Kindles, but they're so tightly bound to the store display that it's impossible to get a proper feel for the device. Now that I have one, I'm quite pleased with how it sits in the hand. The Kindle's case (bought separately) is a nice black leather-bound thing that improves the illusion of holding a physical book; I strongly recommend picking one up.

There are two buttons on each edge of the device, which are used to turn the "pages". I'm right-handed, but I imagine it would just as well for a left-hander. A physical keyboard and a four-arrow control sit at the bottom of the device. The keyboard works great for typing letters; numbers and symbols are a bit trickier, but once you get used to the controls they work well.

The screen uses eInk technology, which supposedly manipulates actual ink into place to make up the words on the page. However it works, it's easy on the eyes, much easier than the average computer screen. You can read a book for hours on paper and on a Kindle, and have about the same wear and tear done to your eyes. On the downside, you will need a proper light to read - the screen has no backlighting option.

The default font is large enough to read easily, and you can adjust it to whatever size you like. When reading a book, it's pretty easy to skip to whatever chapter you like (depending on the quality of the eBook), and you can bookmark your place or your favorite quotes using without any trouble.

The Kindle's firmware updates surprisingly frequently; I've had at least six updates since I started using it. This can cause you to lose your place in whatever book you're currently reading; just remember to go back to the Home screen when you take a break, and there won't be any trouble.

eBook quality varies, but the rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. Amazon offers many books in the public domain for free download; their chapters aren't always bookmarked properly, but the typesetting is usually fine. Other, more expensive books generally read better.

I'd recommend the Kindle for anyone looking for an eBook reader at an affordable price. There are others that might work better for your needs (i.e. color screens, other features), so look around; but the Kindle is a solid baseline device that should be on any candidate list of eBook readers.

Barfly Post: On Salable Kingdoms

Somehow I ended up at a bar tonight, not drinking, with my wife and a bunch of people I've only met once before or not at all. This wasn't a bad experience - I like these people, even if I don't have much in the way of anything to discuss with them, and the bar has decent fries. It just kind of threw me off my blogging mojo. That and the brandy I had when I got home as a reward for being the designated driver.

So! Growing up one of the first "serious" fantasy books I ever read was Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold!, by Mr. Terry Brooks. The story follows Ben Holiday, a lawyer looking to escape from his life and a slew of bad memories. Enter Meeks, a mysterious man who offers to sell Ben a genuine magic kingdom named Landover. Ben takes him off on his offer, expecting something like a Renaissance fair... and then he meets a great damn dragon, and realizes that he might be in over his head...

The book is a real delight to read, full of humor and genuine emotion. Ben's struggle to become a hero is utterly believable, and the cast of characters are all well-fleshed creations, even though a lot of them are fairly standard fantasy characters (the incompetent wizard, the dragon, the witch, etc). The main villain isn't particularly compelling, but he's scary enough that you won't really mind; and when you get right down to it, the book is less about good versus evil than it is about a good man fighting against the urge to give up.

Now, the image at the top of this post is the cover of the printing I read when I was younger. Note the dog on the left. He is awesome. Note also that there is no indication that this book is part of a series. So imagine my joy when I check to see if the book is still in print and find these:

  

Not only is the book still in print, but Landover has spawned a five-book series, available in a fine cheap omnibus format for the discerning consumer. And it even comes in e-book format, so I don't need to worry about finding space for it on my shelf! (If I don't mind reading them on my computer, that is.)

Needless to say, I'll be picking these up as soon as I have room in my reading schedule. Which, given that Prospero Burns is imminent, will probably be next month.

But I can be patient. Hopefully, Landover can too.

Review: Transformers: Exodus by Alex Irvine

Transformers: Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron claims on its dust jacket to be "everything fans ever wanted to know about one of the fiercest rivalries of all time". In truth, Alex Irvine goes the route of Kevin J. Anderson in his novel Last Days of Krypton, creating a new history of Cybertron that combines some of the best elements that various writers have created over the years. While the book has a few flaws that make it tricky for someone new to the Transformers mythology to pick up and enjoy, fans of any of the series' many incarnations will find it a worthwhile read.

The book begins with Orion Pax, the future Optimus Prime, operating as a simple data collector for the Cybertronian archives. As part of his duties, he collects and becomes interested in a gladiator named Megatron, who agitates against Cybertron's rigid caste system and insists on the right of self-determination for all Cybertronians. Orion Pax is inspired to join Megatron's cause, quickly rising to become a leader in his own right, as schisms in the two robots' beliefs threaten to bring them into conflict. Fans of the series can guess where things go from there.

Transformers: Exodus doesn't take place, so far as I can tell, in any established Transformers continuity, although it might fit in with the recently released War for Cybertron video game. Many of Cybertron's historical elements are taken from the live-action movies, but there are plenty of concepts borrowed from the comic books and cartoons as well. Fans trying to fit the book into any existing series are going to end up with a headache, so it's best to just shrug and consider this another entry in the Transformers multiverse.

Happily, all of the concepts are used thoughtfully, so there shouldn't be too much for fans to gripe about. Cybertron in the novel is a stagnant world, long since settled into a pattern of decline. The legendary artifacts are history are mostly forgotten, or at best regarded as myths. Every Cybertronian is assigned a role at birth (which we finally get to learn something about) by the leaders of Cybertron's castes, and carry out that role for their entire existence.

In this sort of background, it's easy to identify with a revolutionary, as Orion Pax quickly discovers. The first part of the book takes a fascinating look at the alliance between Pax and Megatron, both of whom have similar goals, but vastly different ideas about how to achieve them. If there's any disappointment here, it's that we only get a cursory look at Megatron's motivations, and he comes off as a too-obvious villain. The reader knows that's where he's headed, obviously, but I would have liked the chance to identify with him more than I did.

The second part of the book is a longish interlude in which a Cybertronian historian describes the main thrust of the civil war between the newly-created Autobots and Decepticons. While it would have been nice to see the war from the perspective of the robots fighting it, there's simply too much conflict to handle in a reasonably-sized book. You do get an idea of the level of destruction being committed, and the interlude sets the stage nicely for the final part of the book, which chronicles the war's closing days.

By this point there's no real hope for peace between the two factions, and the last part of the book focuses on the discoveries of various hidden artifacts by both sides. One of the few truly new additions to the Transformers mythology is introduced here, in the form of a new power source that poses devastating consequences for the planet Cybertron. While interesting, it's hard to build up any real sense of concern about the threat this new power brings, simply because the reader knows the gist of what's going to happen in advance. One of the brilliant touches in Last Days of Krypton was Anderson's ability to make the reader believe, or at least hope, that events would play out differently then the reader knew they would have to. Here, the final result of the civil war is pretty much a foregone conclusion, and there's nothing to suggest any other possibility.

The characters are all fleshed out well enough to fit in with what fans already know about them, but generally not deeply enough to incite any strong feelings for them. Given the size of the cast, this isn't really a surprise; and to the book's credit, a lot of fan-favorites turn up, with none of them being handled badly. Orion Pax is probably the book's strongest character: his journey from data clerk to leader of a planetary-scale army is fascinating, and carries through the entire book. Among the villains, Starscream is the big winner, portrayed as his usual treacherous, scheming self, but with enough competence to make him a valid threat.

A weakness of the book, but one I'm not sure any author could have avoided, is that the physical descriptions of Cybertron and the Transformers rarely amount to anything more than bare sketches. You might get a flash of one robot's color scheme, or a weapon they use, but unless you are already a Transformers fan you're going to have a very hard time imagining what these machines actually look like. Illustrations, even in black and white, might have been a very big help to the new Transformers reader.

Overall, if you've never been a fan of the Transformers before, this probably isn't the best place to start. At the very least, you should see the first live-action movie before you pick up the book. Transformers fans, on the other hand, will find this an interesting read. You might get angry at a few perceived violations of canon, but if you're willing to sit back and enjoy a new take on the subject, this history of the war for Cybertron is well worth reading.

--David

Something about writing coming soon, I promise.

Review - Alice in Wonderland

I don't think I've done movie reviews here before... Nope, nothing in the archives. So, this will be a little bit different. Bear with me, we'll get through this.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is not technically a remake of the Disney cartoon - rather, it's a sequel of sorts that shares the same title. Alice Kingsley (no relation - but it might have been fun to see HIM turn up) is a young woman facing a marriage proposal that she doesn't want, but which everyone she knows expects her to accept unconditionally. Rather than say yes or no, Alice goes chasing a white rabbit down a rabbit hole, and...

...well, if this were a remake you'd know what happens next, but again, it's not. Wonderland has fallen on dark times, and only Alice can set things right. Except this Alice isn't the Alice that Wonderland's inhabitants expected, and she's not at all interested in putting her neck on the line for what she thinks are nothing more than figments of her imagination.

The story falls into a fairly standard journey of the reluctant hero - in some scenes, you feel as if Burton has been borrowing set and story from the Lord of the Rings. It's a passable plot, but nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly not as demented as you might expect from the subject matter.

Everyone in the cast turns in an adequate or above performance, with some of the CG characters (the Cheshire Cat, the March Hare and the Caterpillar in particular) doing sterling work, both in actors and animation. Johnny Depp is suitably mad as the Mad Hatter, especially when he's at his tea party. Unfortunately the script puts too much weight and screen time on the character for him to carry, and towards the end you just want him to get off the bloody screen.

Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover play the villainous Red Queen and Knave, respectively. Both characters are suitably villainous, but not nearly as mad as you'd expect. Aside from their strange appearances (and Glover is oh-so-subtly creepy), you'd be able to drop them in any Tudors episode and they'd fit right in.

Anne Hathaway, as the White Queen, plays a sort of demented fairy godmother with aplomb. She's nice, yes, but spend too much time with her and you'll start to feel nervous about what might happen if she stops being nice. Very well done.

The score is good but not memorable. The 3D effects work well most of the time, but sometimes come out blurred from trying to follow small flying objects; I doubt you'll miss anything if you go see the 2D version.

Overall Alice in Wonderland is good, but not great. It tries to fit Wonderland into a coherent story structure, and succeeds. But by doing so, it loses a lot of the lunacy and manic energy that made the original so much fun. Worth seeing, but not something to go out of your way for.

--David

Author's Log

Laying out plot for a short story. I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go, so I need to beef up my characters and let them figure it out for me. Should be fun.

Current Reading

I'm just finishing up Salamander, by Nick Kyme. It's a solid Space Marine story featuring the Salamanders, probably the most humane (relatively speaking) Space Marines in the Imperium of Man. Lots of conflict, brutal warfare, and ugly aliens getting blown into sticky bits; with more to come, as its the first book in a trilogy.

Deadlines

I'm going to tell you guys a secret. Come a little closer, okay? I don't want this getting around.

A little closer. Okay.

I love deadlines.

Love love love deadlines. There's nothing else that motivates me like knowing without a shadow of a doubt that something is due on This Day, and if it's not done on This Day then it might as well never be done At All.

I thrive on watching the clock stretch to midnight. I eat hand cramps for breakfast. A hard drive crash just cost me a week's worth of writing? Sir, I accept your challenge.

What I am not so good at are self-imposed deadlines. These are deadlines of a different color. They're a bit... weedy, shall we say. Soft touches, the lot of them. "Yes, I know I said Thursday, but just think of how much better you could do if you took that weekend coming up..."

Self-imposed deadlines = slippage. Or at least they did.

I've got a synopsis due in "a few weeks," editor's words. That's just asking for slippage. I'm not going to stand for it. I don't want to be Johnny Procrastinator. Certainly not where the editors can see.

So: December 11th, one month exactly since the word came down. Written on my calendar in black Sharpie, as close to set in stone as I can get. I will have a complete, fully-featured synopsis ready to go on that date or die trying.

You are all my witnesses, and I fully expect public scorn if I fail. Tar and feathers are to your left.

--Dave

Author's Log

Some character sketches, a dozen sticky notes with plot points written down on them, and some tentative steps towards filling out the parts of the synopsis that lie between The Beginning and The End.

Current Reading

Finished reading Overclocked by Cory Doctorow, excepting the last story in the collection, mainly due to maxing out my renewals at the library. Recommended for people who like their sci-fi to make a strong point about our modern world.

I have started on Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, but set the book down at the end of chapter seven. The premise (steampunk and zombies and airships!) hits all my glee buttons, but if the plot doesn't grab me by the throat in the next few chapters I might give up on this one.

An Independent Book on Politics?

First off, can I put a disclaimer here? I don't want to talk politics on this blog. I don't like getting my blood pressure up. I'm making an exception here for a book which represents something increasingly hard to find in the modern news.

What You Should Know About Politics... But Don't, by Jessamyn Conrad, calls itself "A nonpartisan guide to the issues". For the most part, it succeeds in this goal. The book opens with a chapter explaining how politics in America works, focusing on elections and the division of political parties (and the divisions within political parties). It also covers some ongoing controversies in elections, including voter fraud and gerrymandering.

Every remaining chapter in the book covers a single issue:

-Economics
-Foreign Policy
-The Military
-Health Care
-Energy
-The Environment
-Civil Liberties
-Culture Wars
-Socioeconomic Policy (Immigration)
-Homeland Security
-Education
-Trade

Each chapter starts with a background on the issue, followed by a description of current debates on the subject. Arguments on both sides are presented in a dispassionate, fact-focused manner, identifying and describing positions one by one. None of the issues are described in depth, but each subject gets enough detail to form a basis for further research. The health care chapter, in particular, is an excellent introduction to the current debate, and should be considered a must-read.

The book was published in 2008, so there's a strong focus on the Bush administration debates. I thought this gave the book a slight lean to the left, but I may be projecting my own opinions onto the text.

Overall I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants an unbiased introduction to modern politics (and quickly, before the whole thing changes again). I'd also recommend it to people who suspect that CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News are lying to them, and always have been.

(Hrm... This probably could have been an Amazon review.)

--Dave

Author's Log

Still early, but so far today I've dictated notes (maybe 15 minutes' worth) on a short story and my novel. Tonight I'll be revising my super-short story for the Writer's Digest competition and submitting it over the web.

Current Reading

Just finished reading Grey Seer, by C.L. Werner. This is a very "niche" book: It's set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, and features the primary antagonist from the long-running Gotrek and Felix series in his own adventure. If you have any idea what all that means, this book comes highly recommended.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Well, I seem to be getting focused on reviews here. Still, if I'm going to review a video game, it might as well be an awesome one.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has you play as Batman. The Joker has taken control of Arkham Asylum, and you have to beat your way through its inmates, make your way past the island's security measures, and stop the Joker from unleashing an army of madmen on Gotham City.

It's a simple premise for a Batman game, and it's almost perfectly executed. Picture this: Four thugs are patrolling a room with machine guns. A direct attack is suicide, so you use a grappling hook to perch on a gargoyle. As one of the thugs passes underneath, you swing down, drag him up, and leave him dangling from the gargoyle shouting for help. You find another perch as two of the other thugs run to investigate. That leaves the final thug isolated, so you glide through the air and execute a perfect kick to his head that leaves him cold.

By the time the remaining two thugs get there, you're back in the shadows. They're discussing what to do next in panic-stricken voices. You can see their mood, and they're terrified. You pull out a Batarang and get ready to go to town...

And that's maybe a minute of gameplay.

The voice actors and character designs are excellent. Mark Hamill in particular remains the perfect voice for the Joker; you hear a lot from him, but it never gets old.

Puzzles are challenging, but not cripplingly so. The Asylum is massive, but you'll generally be able to figure out exactly where you need to go to continue the game's story.

Arkham as an environment is gothic, brooding, slightly mysterious, and almost definitely haunted. Speaking of which, special mention goes to the Scarecrow sequences. When Batman gets dosed with fear gas, he experiences progressive hallucinations, causing the asylum to gradually twist into a hellish environment where Scarecrow himself takes on a godlike, nightmarish aspect. These hallucinations also explain Batman's origin about as well as any comic book or film ever has.

If you have an XBox 360 or a Playstation 3, I can't recommend this game enough.

Author's Log

Wrote about a page of character notes for the novel today, a stream of consciousness conversation with myself trying to figure out what job my main character should have. Nothing that's likely to ever see the light of day, but vital nonetheless.

Current Reading

Crooked Little Vein, by Warren Ellis - I'm enjoying this book, but it's completely insane, totally twisted, and I don't feel safe sleeping with it in the house. It's a whirlwind tour of the most depraved parts of the American subculture, which also manages to point out that the bits we think are normal aren't quite right either. Recommended for Gonzo fans and most sexual deviants.

Inglourious Basterds

There have been a number of things delaying this post. Guilt, as you'll see below... also paperwork that needed doing, yard work, visits with family, and the new Batman game, which I recommend to anyone who likes Metroid or Castlevania style games, or the Batman comic books and/or cartoons. Also Mark Hamill fans, because his Joker is probably the only one that can equal or exceed Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight.

The other time eater recently was today's trip to see Inglourious Basterds, the latest Quentin Tarantino film. Anybody who follows Tarantino's work knows that it's going to be an excellent study in good-to-great dialogue. But where the movie really shines is in building up tension over the course of an entire story.

The movie is divided into five chapters. Each chapter starts out mildly, but over the course of twenty to thirty minutes, raises the tension between all the characters involved, usually through nothing more than creative dialogue. The last few minutes are devoted to Tarantino's customary ultra-violence, and then we're in a new chapter, a new situation, and a new low that builds to an inevitable high.

That would be enough to make a good film, but every chapter after the first two (which are, when you come right down to it, extremely well-played back story) also builds on unresolved situations from the previous chapters, until you hit chapter five and everything comes together in an inspired, apocalyptic finale that changes the very course of history.

The acting is excellent. Brad Pitt is a natural scene-stealer, but even he loses out occasional to Colonel Landa, SS officer and the movie's main villain. I can't think of anybody who does a bad job in the movie, and I think there's only two seconds of the film that should have been left on the cutting room floor. If you see the movie, you'll spot it instantly, but it won't do a damn thing to sour your experience.

If you're not squeamish about blood, and you feel like having a true edge-of-your-seat experience, go check out Inglourious Basterds. You could do a lot worse this weekend.

-Dave

Author's Log

These past few days I've written zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. I am a failure as a writer and deserve to be damned to the deepest pits of procrastination hell.

Current Reading

I've finished reading Living Dead in Dallas, which differs from True Blood so much that I'm no longer worried about spoiling anything. The writing in this second book has improved a lot from the first, and I'm hoping this upward trend continues. Unfortunately I won't find out for a few weeks, at which point my wife gets the rest of the books back from a friend.

In the meantime, I'm going to be rereading All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. These two graphic novels are simply the best Superman story that's been written... possibly ever, if I'm honest, and there are enough subtle Easter eggs contained therein to make another reading more than worthwhile. Highly recommended.