Category Archives: Cool Things

Cool enough to be a category and a tag.

Drafted!

Posted by natechen on

No, this post isn’t about writing your first draft. (Note to self: Topic for the future…)

Instead, this post is about how I don’t have a post for this week. See, I kind of got last-minute shanghaied into working sound for my local theater group – the fabulous all for One Productions – and so I haven’t really had “free time” this week. Because tech week.

Normally when I do theater I plan my tech week posts out way in advance but that didn’t happen this time around due to the short notice. Rather than fall a week behind in posts and try to catch up later, I’m just going to recommend that anyone in driving distance of Fort Wayne, Indiana should take time out this weekend or next to go see Bend Us, a truly fantastic world premier musical at the Arts Lab, 300 Main Street, Fort Wayne. More information here: https://allforonefw.wordpress.com/about/announcing-the-2014-2105-season/

Now please excuse me. I hope to get more than six hours sleep tonight, which means I’d better get started. Hope to see you at the show!

Cool Things: The Conquorer’s Saga

Posted by natechen on

Who’s the master of modern day sci-fi suspense? Well that would probably be Timothy Zahn. Don’t believe me? Didn’t read the Quadrail series? Choo-choo trains in outer space just a bit too far fetched for you? Don’t like the idea of a digitized soul? Then try this series on for size.

As the title implies, the Conquerors’ Saga trilogy consists of three books – Conquerors’ Pride, Conquerors’ Heritage and Conquerors’ Legacy and they can only fairly be looked at as a whole. The basic premise is as familiar as space opera itself – humanity has expanded into the cosmos and winds up leading a multiplanet group of aliens that it has dominated primarily through fecundity and martial prowess. The story opens with a human task force (or group of warships) encountering another task force belonging to a previously unknown starfaring species. Being responsible sorts, the human task force fires up the radio and broadcasts a first contact package intended to establish peaceful communications.

The aliens promptly blow up the human fleet.

This marks the beginning of a war, one where humanity is actually on the losing side for the first time in a long time. The aliens capture a single soldier from the human fleet who must endure imprisonment by the seemingly savage Zhirrzh while his family struggles to recapture him. The first book closes with humanity reeling from the might of the Zhirrzh fleets even as the sole survivor of their first encounter is brought home to his family.

The second book switches things up like no one’s business because suddenly we find ourselves seeing the world through the eyes of the Zhirrzh who was in charge of looking after the alien’s one and only human captive. With his prisoner escaped our new protagonist finds his career plunging  into a downward slide. This is what sets the Conquerors’ Saga apart from most other space operas – it makes a wholehearted attempt to show both sides in a fair and positive light. There’s no moralizing or attempts to brush off differences between species as unbridgeable chasms created by circumstance, there’s just solid characterization and a fair shake given to each side.

That’s not to say these books don’t have problems. Characterization can be weak on some fronts and the end of the story feels very coincidence driven. Some people will say the technology end of things seems a bit weak, based on “old theories” about faster than light travel and such, but since none of those theories have been proven beyond the blackboard I tend to be more forgiving of that kind of thing. The biggest problem as I see it is a failure to develop anything outside of the two warring races – only the Zhirrzh and humans get a good examination even though both races are over hegemonies of other spacefaring races they have conquered.

Still, as a space opera that manages to tell a story with a grand scope, an even balance and a suspenseful tale, the Conquerors’ Saga is pretty good, and well worth your time.

Cool Things: Insufferable

Posted by natechen on

Imagine, just for a moment, that there was a man driven to fight crime. Although he has no special powers he still dons a cape and dark clothing, goes out every night and pummels injustice. In time he takes a grieving boy under his wing and they fight crime together. Sounds familiar, right?

Except this caped crusader isn’t Batman, he’s called Nocturnus. And his crime fighting companion isn’t an orphaned boy who takes the name Robin, it’s Nocturnus’ son and he takes the name Galahad. And he’s not exactly easy to get along with. In fact, Galahad and Nocturnus eventually split ways when Galahad unexpectedly reveals his identity in front of the press and things get ugly. Galahad becomes a grandstanding, glory mongering ingrate more concerned with building his own image than actually fighting the good fight. Nocturnus continues to do things his own way, working on his own once again, until someone finds just the right button to push in order to get the two of them to work together again.

When the urns each man keeps containing ashes of the woman who was wife to one and mother to the other mysteriously explode leaving the message “help me” behind differences will be set aside to find the culprit. While neither man ever seems to indulge the idea that a ghost could be at work they both know there are people out there who wish them harm and both loved the woman who’s remains have been desecrated. So, like it or not, Nocturnus and Galahad are together once again.

Insufferable is a variation on themes for author Mark Waid. He’s looked at what it means to be a hero in many of his previous works, contrasting modern notions of the antihero and the protagonist with the heroic archetypes more common in the early days of comic books. He did this in his DC Elseworld series Kingdom Come and then again in longer form with the twin series Irredeemable and Incorruptible. However, where those books were concerned with notions like accountability, justice vs. revenge and the dangers of power Insufferable is all about humility.

Simply put, Nocturnus has it and Galahad doesn’t.

The fact that neither man has traditional “superpowers” and must rely on his wits and training to solve problems really lets the difference in attitude shine through. While Nocturnus is verging on obsolescence – he’s not as strong or fast as he used to be and he doesn’t get the electronic side of crime fighting at all – he still outperforms his son almost every time because he’s willing to listen, ask for assistance when he needs it and always takes people seriously, be they friends or enemies. Galahad gets technology and uses Twitter to help collect tips but he gets too caught up in himself and his image to stay on top of what’s happening in the real world and he abuses those around him to the point that very few of his staff can stand to help him out when he really needs it.

And this series is funny. Galahad’s the only one in the series that seems to lack a sense of humor, or if he has one it falls so flat as to be effectively invisible, but better yet the comic seems to be aware of it’s own absurdities and revels in them. There’s a piranha tank sequence for crying out loud – you only do those for laughs these days. Most of the humor hangs on the characters themselves, particularly the weird relationship between Nocturnus, Galahad and Meg, Galahad’s assistant and the only person who can tolerate him for any length of time. This well written, character based humor is timeless and will appeal to most everyone, except for all the real Galahads out there, and it’s one of the things that has always set Waid’s writing above most of his peers in the industry.

If you like your comics to be serious, well written examinations of human nature without being self-important handled then Insufferable might be right up your alley. You can read it as part of the subscription portion of Waid’s publishing website, Thrillbent.com, or you can buy it off of that same website. Either one will give you a great story although the comic is formatted for the website reader and the PDF layouts are a bit wonky.

But seriously, layout wonkiness is the one thing against it I can think of. Check this thing out, it’s well worth the price.

Local Theater: Around the World in 80 Days

Posted by natechen on

Jules Verne’s novel  about the English gentleman, Phileas Fogg, circumnavigating the globe is a fairly well known tale and all for One Productions will be brining it to life on the stage this month! (In the spirit of full disclosure I will once again be among the cast for this show and if that’s a minus for you well… you had plenty of chances to see shows without me this season so I don’t want to hear about it.)

While not one of Verne’s most famous works 80 Days does hold a special place in literature as something like the world’s first travelogue and offers a lot of tongue in cheek looks at English and French mannerisms, towards each other and in a vacuum, circa the late 1800s. At the same time it offers a look at the importance of personal integrity, something Fogg has in spades, and the importance of priorities, something Fogg is not exactly good with.

Now if you’re familiar with the Pierce Brosnan TV miniseries that adapted the work the idea that this story is a comedy may be a surprise to you – it was my first introduction to the work and still probably the definitive one in my mind. But this is a really funny story of the fish out of water variety. Not all of the humor comes from the contrast between the straight laced Fogg and the world at large. A great deal of it comes from the differences between Fogg and his manservant Passepartout and those between Passepartout and the irascible
Detective Fix.

While humor abounds in the story and the impetus of the trip is a bet between Fogg and some of his associates in London the real center of the story is when Detective Fix mistakes Fogg for a notorious bank robber and chases him around the world. It’s Fogg’s unshakable integrity that convinces Passepartout to stand with his employer when the accusation comes to light. In turn Passepartout’s solidarity
lets Fogg stay just ahead of Fix… for a while.

All for One is proud to present this classic story. Show dates are April 24th-26th and May 1st-3rd. Tickets can be ordered from the afO website so if you’re going to be in the Fort Wayne area then go ahead and give it a look. I will personally guarantee you’ll have a good time.

Although I wouldn’t go so far as to wager 20,000 pounds sterling on it…

Cool Things: Ticket to Ride

Posted by natechen on

Board games are a great way to spend an enjoyable evening with friends and family but many of them are thematically “out there”, focusing on things like world conquest, clashing armies or other stuff that may feel too contentious for some people. Fortunately there are games that provide very intriguing and challenging gameplay while presenting a friendlier aesthetic.

Ticket To Ride is one of them.

The theme of this game is trains! Nice, safe trains, carting thousands and thousands of tons of freight and passengers daily at breakneck speed all over America and occasionally running over cars or pedestri- well, anyway. The goal of the game is to score the most points (surprise!) by laying claim to various rail lines by using (more surprising!) tickets. Tickets are color coded to certain lines and lines are worth more points depending on their length. Finally, players are secretly assigned the goal of building a long unbroken line between two cities on the map. The farther apart the two ends are the bigger the bonus but failing to finish by the end of the game gives a penalty instead.

The charm of Ticket To Ride is its simplicity. All a player has to do on their turn is decide whether they want to take new tickets or lay claim to a railway. At the same time, the ability to do only one thing on your turn makes all the other players a serious obstacle. Grandiose plans can be upset by one ill timed opposing play but, at the same time, the board is full of alternative routes and creative players will be able to do an end run around most obstacles with a little lateral thinking.

In short, the game is very simple and can be easily picked up by fairly young people but it’s still complex enough to keep experienced board gamers interested. If you’ve been looking for a board game to share with a skeptical crowd then this might be the game for you. Likewise if you’re looking for a game you can share with children age eight and up and still enjoy yourself as you play this might also be a good choice. Look around for it if you have the chance.

This War of Mine

Posted by natechen on

This War of Mine is a computer game about a familiar topic: War in the modern age. Mechanically it’s very cool, combining elements of resource management and base building with careful, stealthy gameplay. Basically, during the day you keep your base running and during the night you go and collect resources without drawing too much attention. While none of that is new or groundbreaking gameplay it’s solid in concept and well executed. That said, the game would be pretty bland if that was all there was to it. In fact, there are a number of zombie survival games that probably do the base building half of the game better and there’s certainly at least two ninja/commando style games that do the stealth parts in a more interesting way.

Or, at least they do if approached from the direction of most game stories.

See, the typical video game is an examination of what the player would do with unusual powers. Could you manage to rescue a princess? No? What if you could jump really high, throw fireballs and utilize plumbing in surprising ways? Well play a Mario game and find out!

Strategy games give players the chance to command armies, first person shooters give players unlimited stamina and military gear they’ll probably never see, RPGs let players develop powers that could never exist in real life and Minecraft lets you make just about anything you could ever want. It’s no surprise these games are popular since they let you do things that, for the most part, you could never hope to actually do. This War of Mine, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It challenges you to do something that you would never want to do in real life and gives you no special powers to accomplish it with. While that doesn’t sound interesting at first it is still an engaging experience.

You see, in This War of Mine your base is a small house in the middle of a civil war somewhere in Eastern Europe. The stealth portions of the game are you going out to look for supplies in the night, so soldiers won’t see and shoot you. And you play a civilian with no special training just trying to stay alive while bullets and shells fly by outside.

This War of Mine is a nerve-wracking game. I don’t recommend playing it in large chunks, the decisions you have to make are sometimes unpleasant and emotionally draining. You will probably wind up turning away other refugees looking for shelter because the house just cannot hold anyone else. You will run like a coward when the soldiers outside spot you on a foraging run. You’ll have to decide whether running a risk to help someone you meet outside is worth your possibly not getting back to the house and the hungry people there. Especially if helping means standing up to a soldier with nothing but a crowbar in your hands.

As a game, from the angle of gameplay mechanics and execution, This War of Mine is not groundbreaking even if it is solid. But it manages to convey an experience that people must live through every day in a way that is gripping and rightly draining. For that alone, the game qualifies as an unmitigated success.

Cool Things: Master of Plagues

Posted by natechen on

If you’re not reading E.L. Tettensor‘s Nicholas Lenoir novels you’re really, really missing out.

In her first novel Tettensor introduced us to Lenoir, a tired old detective who spent a good chunk of his adult life in terror of an otherworldly creature that pursued him for crimes he barely understood. Now, with his peace made to the higher powers, Lenoir has to try and find a new purpose to a life he long though forfeit. His passion for his work has returned, his brilliance, once shaded by apathy, now shines all the brighter and things are generally going well for him.

And then the plague breaks out.

Normally this wouldn’t be the territory of the Kennian Metropolitan Police but some of the doctors working to contain the plague have become convinced that it was started on purpose and that… well, that most definitely is a crime. Problem is, even if they catch the people responsible Lenoir and his fellow hounds won’t be any closer to actually stopping the plague.

Or will they?

Master of Plagues is a wonderful progression from Tettensor’s first Lenoir novel. It changes the game in a number of ways – supernatural elements in this yarn are much less pronounced, although one paranormal character from the first book returns. Lenoir is up against criminals with totally mundane motives this time, even if their methods are spectacularly unusual, and he’s not looking over his shoulder for specters or fiends any more either, making the threat of death by misadventure or disease somehow more intimidating.

What’s more, Lenoir now has to juggle his desire to see criminals brought to justice with his desire to see the suffering innocent brought relief. He’s trying to find a cure as well as catch a mass murderer and every step he takes in one direction seems to take him further from the other goal. Lenior’s trying to reconcile this quandary gives us great insight into his character and motivations.

On top of that, there’s a new dynamic between Lenoir and his Sergeant, Bran Kody. Kody is ambitious and worked with Lenoir to learn how he solved cases. Kody’s goal was to move up the ranks as quickly as possible. He didn’t really like the apathetic Inspector Lenoir, even if he did respect his superior’s brilliance. But now, with Lenoir more invested in what’s going on around him, Kody is starting to see the foundation of a good man emerging from the stagnant soul that once was Nicholas Lenoir, and, for his part, Lenoir is starting to value Kody’s drive and goals as well. The pressure the plague puts on both really brings out the changes as they happen.

The story itself is well written, well paced and suspenseful. There’s a real mastermind at work here, scheming for their own profit at the expense of others using a scheme that is as brilliant in it’s simplicity as it is chilling in it’s callousness. Lenoir’s (and really the whole culture’s) unfamiliarity with disease and the unusual angle the criminals are exploiting make it no surprise the police don’t catch on faster making it a story uniquely suited to Tettensor’s world as well.

Master of Plagues is a well written story, perfectly suited to its characters and its world and offering deep and satisfying insights into the people that populate it. What are you waiting for? Go read it now!

Cool Things: Blue Beetle

Posted by natechen on

Okay, we’re back to our regularly scheduled segment which contains considerably less romance than last month’s installments. This week we’re taking another look at a comic book that tackles the ever-popular (in American comics) superhero genre in a different and refreshing way. Today we’re going to look at the Blue Beetle.

What’s that? Not familiar with the big blue bug? Not surprising. He’s never been an A-list hero and he’s had three different gimmicks over the years. I’m only familiar with his most recent incarnation, Jaime Reyez (pronounced “high-may ray-ez”) who first appeared in the DC event comic Infinite Crisis. I haven’t read Infinite Crisis but Blue eventually got his own series and I have read some of the trade paperbacks collecting his adventures there.

In the form of most superhero books, the Blue Beetle series was not really interested in telling a single overarching story but rather just takes us along from story to story as Jaime tries to balance being a high school student and being the Blue Beetle. Notice that I don’t mention anything about maintaining a secret identity. That’s because Blue doesn’t have one.

Yes, just like Shazam/Billy Batson Jaime makes no real effort to hide his superhero identity from his friends and family (the world at large is in ignorance of his identity). In fact, almost the first thing he does after his first hair-raising superhero adventure is reveal to his family – who haven’t seen him in a year – that he’s the Blue Beetle. No excuses. No hastily constructed lies. A simple explanation that, yes, weirds his family out quite a bit but they also come to accept.

In fact, short term weirdout for long term understanding and cooperation is a theme of Jaime’s career. Both his family and some of his closest friends are in on the secret, helping him spot crime as it happens and running interference to keep the world at large from knowing who he is. Even his girlfriend knows about his other career, in fact she’s a superheroine herself, working the magic angle of things even as Jaime works the technology side.

The upshot of all this is that Blue Beetle reads more like the adventures of a tight knit group of friends with a passion for justice than a single knight suffering through a lonely crusade. It gives the title a warm, energetic feeling missing from many comics these days.

To go with that, the story also has a great sense of humor. Blue announces his victory over thugs by using the power of Science, wears a suit of armor that thinks for itself and believes it’s onboard weaponry has theological implications and faces a giant robot named Thinko! that always spells its name with an exclamation mark. The humor is quirky, charming and fun, never mean-spirited or hostile.

Most of all, the title is nuanced. In one story line Jaime, who lives in El Paso, Texas and is the son of a Mexican immigrant, gets roped into being a kind of figurehead for the border patrol. The story carefully examines the issue, Jaime’s father taking him back to Mexico to see the kind of circumstances that drive people to sneak across the border while Peacemaker, his mentor and trainer in the field of superhero work, points out that even the vigilante boarder guards aren’t really that different from the people who don capes or cowls and go out to protect their communities. And through it all we’re shown that an unsecure border will be exploited by those who seek to profit off of moving things like drugs or guns illegally and such activities often come at the expense of those with more legitimate reasons to want to cross the border.

You don’t get that kind of careful, nuanced, detailed coverage of muddy situations from mainstream newspapers. But this “comic” book? Yeah, it manages to do all of that in spades.

Blue Beetle sadly only ran for a few years before low sales caused the title to be canceled. But what is there is really good and worth your attention, so go check it out. With the New 52 in town enough popularity for an old character like Jaime may even bring him back for another crack at breaking into the market. Or at least so we might hope…

Sense and Sensibility

Posted by natechen on

I still don’t understand how the man who made this film could have gone on to make… every thing else Ang Lee has made. Yes, it’s still romance month here at Nate Chen Publications and we’re wrapping it up with a true classic. This film is fairly old, in fact it turns 20 this year, but it’s based on a story by Jane Austen so it’s less a question of whether it’s aged well and more a question of whether it’s timeless.

Sense and Sensibility is two love stories in one, the first focusing on Ms. Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars, a pair of people eminently suited to one another. Both are quiet, serious people of good sense who see in the other admirable qualities and good character. If this sounds kind of boring don’t worry, circumstances and previous history are very much set against them. There’s inheritances, overbearing mothers, previous commitments and general social standing to take into account, after all.

The second romance focuses on Elinor’s younger sister Marianne, a free sprited and sentimentally minded young lady who faces no obstacles to her paramour, John Willoughby, except that of Willoughby’s character itself. He’s a real cad, eventually proving to have gotten another woman pregnant and run from the fact. When he looses his inhertiance over the matter he leaves Marianne and goes looking for a wife who can support him. Marianne eventually winds up married to the kind, generous but reserved Colonel Brandon.

This story contrasts two different ideas of romance. The first is represented by Elinor and Edward, who don’t have a particularly exuberant or emotional connection. That’s not the same as saying they don’t connect, because they do. It’s just not in the big, expressive way most of the people around Elinor can understand. Marianne is even worried about her sister, wondering if she gets what love is. Marianne, on the other hand, falls hard and extravegantly. She practically throws herself at Willoughby (by the standards of the time) and takes not time to build a connection beyond a superficial emotional reaction. She never stops to see where she stands with him, instead building castles of dreams that ultimately prove to have no foundation.

Like all of Austen’s stories, in most of their adaptations, Sense and Sensibility takes a lot of time to look at the characters and how they relate to each other. With Emma Thomson and Kate Winslet staring as the two leading ladies we can see a lot of the contrast between the two characters, with the less expressive Elinor coming across as a woman who says little but feels deeply and the vibrant Marianne practically floating across the screen in most of her scenes. Of course, this is most effective when the romantic couple are together. Both Elinor and Edward and Marianne and Willoughby spend a lot of time in conversation. They manage to avoid boredom while clearly illustrating the character traights and connections that will eventually make Elinor and Edward’s relationship work when Marianne and Willoughby’s will fall through.

What I love the most is how the film manages to stick to a dry tone, rarely taking love entirely seriously but still recognizing that the people it portrays could very well be us. The mixture of humor and sympathy, along with an understanding of the importance in a meeting of characters and minds, as well as hearts, makes this a great romantic film. If you’ve never seen it, now’s the time to go and check it out.

The O’Malley Serries

Posted by natechen on

It’s the month of romance so we’re taking a look at a handful of romance stories that I feel really do romance right, avoiding cliches of sentimentality and accidental relationships and instead providing thoughtful, emotionally and intellectually satisfying looks at romance. This is going to be a particularly hurried look because we’re not looking at a single book but rather a series of six. The story goes like this.

Seven orphans meet in a group home in Chicago and start looking out for one another. With time they reach the age of legal adulthood, change their last names to O’Malley and declare themselves a family. The first rule of the O’Malleys is family will always come first. (No, nothing to do with Fight Club. Not anywhere in the rules.)

So far this probably doesn’t sound like much of a romance series, right?

Well, as it turns out the O’Malleys have found themselves a wide and diverse set of careers to work in, the family includes a U.S. Marshal, a hostage negotiator, an EMT, a firefighter, a trauma counselor, a forensic pathologist and a pediatrician. With such a crazy line-up of careers, and the kinds of personalities that tend to get into such careers, the only logical thing to do is try and marry them all off, am I right?

At least, such is the premise of Dee Henderson’s six book series that explores this wacky and unusual family and exactly what it might take to get such people to the alter. There are a lot of things I like about the O’Malley series but probably the biggest is the way the characters look at each other. Most of the couples meet on the job – no matter how crazy the job is, what they do is never a source of tension in the relationship. Way, way too many romance stories try to treat work as this terrible, horrible thing that will only be a barrier between you and the one you love.

What Henderson does in her books is show how the O’Malley family have chosen their paths as a result of the burdens they bear from their time as orphans or abandoned children, a way to fight back against the wrongs they’ve seen and suffered and make the world a better place. What’s more, she shows how the people who come into the lives of the O’Malleys understand the choices they have made. These are not romantic interests with no connection to the callings the O’Malley’s have undertaken, these are romantic interests who understand those callings and share in them.

In point of fact, each and every one of the O’Malley books centers on a situation that demands the unique talents of one of the family. Solving those situations, whether it be the murder of a Federal judge or a string of arsons across the city, brings one member of the family closer to someone they know or meet and sparks of a relationship built not only on feelings but on shared purpose and the promise of a brighter future. At the same time, the O’Malley family itself is drawing closer together, dealing not only with the promise of better futures but the troubles of jobs that are not always forgiving and the specter of hard times in the distance.

That’s probably what I like the most about the stories – aside from the healthy dose of suspense and intrigue next to the romance. They have a healthy emotional equilibrium. While each story has heroes and villains, romance and filial love, they also balance these things against very difficult personal problems that the O’Malleys have to face when dealing with a world that needs professional firefighters and hostage negotiators.

In a way, the O’Malleys themselves embody what makes their stories so great. Their powerful bond exists only because each and every one of them was once without family or friends and they are grateful for it every day and work to make it a continued reality every moment. It’s a good background for romance – one we can all try to cultivate, whether we find romance there or not.