Tag Archives: Cool Things

Silence of the Lions

Posted by natechen on

In the decade since Rei Kiriyama’s family died in a car crash he’s made very little progress. Orphaned at the age of seven, and already emotionally subdued to begin with, Rei has become a master introvert. His only real gift is for shogi, a Japanese board game halfway between chess and checkers. Fortunately, Rei is very good at shogi and makes a living as a professional shogi player in between attending classes at school and living alone. It might seem like a great way to live but for Rei it’s a necessity. Life with the family that adopted him wasn’t easy. His adoptive siblings resented him and he felt awful about it. His adoptive father was a shogi pro, after all, and Rei was the only one of his children skilled enough to follow in his footsteps. There are many things plaguing Rei as it turns out. Plenty of reasons to become more sullen and withdrawn.

Naturally, the world keeps throwing funny, cheerful and energetic people in his path.

For me, it was this conflict, the clash between Rei’s normal disposition and that of the people around him, that really kept me involved in March Comes In Like a Lion. Yes, there’s good character conflict in the story, Rei’s shogi matches have solid stakes for both him and his opponents and there’s a lot of good humor and serious situations. But far and away the best part of the show is in how it sets up great contrasts between the conflicting moods Rei grapples with.

At it’s heart, March Comes In Like a Lion is a study in how an emotionally wounded introvert faces the world and how the people around him help him to do that. The broad strokes of the conflict are character versus the world and the show brings these points to bear by showing us the two sides in strikingly different terms.

The first minute of March Comes In Like a Lion, opening credits aside, are a series of stark monochrome images showing Rei’s silhouette, images of running water and roiling clouds, and a truly beautiful sequence of Rei standing under a bridge as gusting winds batter him. A mocking female voice over reminds Rei of how he is alone and lost until her words are lost in the sound of howling wind. The title card tells us this is Chapter One, Rei Kiriyama.

Rei wakes up and goes through his morning routine in total silence, then walks to the Shogi Hall, upbeat yet wistful music playing in the background. He greets his opponent, a man who appears to know him well, and then proceeds to best him in a game of shogi. The man compliments Rei on his growth as a shogi player, mentions that, “Ayumu and Kyoko miss you,” and departs.

The first words we hear Rei say accuse his opponent of lying, although we are the only ones that can hear it and we’re not sure if Rei thinks part or all of the other man’s statement is a lie.

As he’s headed home Rei gets a text message inviting him somewhere for dinner. He’s about to refuse when he gets another message asking him to pick up ingridient’s for the meal on his way. Just like that the chessmaster is checkmated. Abruptly the story turns from a gripping look at a grieving young man to a fish out of water comedy as Rei goes to visit a small family – a grandfather and three granddaughters. While it’s not slapstick it is funny and irreverent, going so far as to give the pet cats their own internal monologues. Rei can barely squeeze a word in edgewise but, quiet nature aside, is barely recognizable as the character we saw in the first half of the show. He’s unsure, unsteady and bemused the whole time. The contrast is striking, and encapsulates the appeal of the show quite well.

What’s so impressive about March Comes In Like a Lion is how it manages to have it’s main character say so little while expressing so much. Rei’s posture, expression, even the way he moves around the world tells us a great deal about his moods and how he is thinking. That level of expression extends to every character in the show but, as Rei talks so little, the strength of the animation comes through that much more. March Comes In Like a Lion is a masterclass in emotional storytelling and in no small part due to how little it’s protagonist says. Check it out if you get the chance.

The Reading List, Act Four

Posted by natechen on

See previous reading lists here, there and everywhere!

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Doomed by Cartoon by John Adler

Genres: Nonfiction, Political History

The election was tense. A controversial candidate was running for office, backed by the corrupt New York political machine and partisan journalists, only to find the way blocked by a ragtag conglomeration of other partisan writers. The final thorn in the side was a constant barrage of stinging pictures aimed to highlight the ridiculous, corrupt nature of the Democratic party. In the end, they were swept from power.

It was 1871 and Thomas Nast, father of the American Cartoon, had won his greatest victory.

After three years of campaigning “Boss” William Tweed and the Tammany Hall political machine that had bilked New York for millions of dollars was driven from public office. Doomed by Cartoon is a history of how it happened and includes every cartoon Nast drew against Tweed and his conspirators. As much a record of the formation of modern political cartooning – Nast is credited with inventing or popularizing both the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey – this book analyzes each of Nast’s cartoons, their themes and what context led him to draw them. It’s a fascinating look at an era of politics that, lets face it, we still live in.

It’s also a study in ironies both delicious and tragic. A must for anyone who loves politics.

Irredeemable by Mark Waid

Genres: Comic Book, Superheroes

Volumes: Ten in total

Comic writing legend Mark Waid wrote this tour de force to explore the question of what happens when the man the whole world counts on goes bad. This series isn’t tied to either DC or Marvel’s comic universes, although it takes strong cues from the lore of DC. It focuses entirely on the central conceit and never shies away from the idea that sometimes people who have legitimately earned our love and respect can be come reprehensible villains. The question we must answer is, are they irredeemable?

Not to spoil anything – it’s never a plot point in much debate – but the Plutonian, who was the Superman of his world in both power and moral character, doesn’t go bad because of mind control or coercion. He just makes a choice to stop being a protector and start being a destroyer. Worse, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy with why he did it.

But the Plutonian’s swath of destruction takes a horrific toll and the people who used to support him are faced with hard questions. How far do you go in fighting a friend? When is he no longer the person you knew? Is there a point where mercy for a criminal is the greatest crime? And how do you take the measure of a man who is both the world’s greatest hero and it most despicable villain?

Incorruptible by Mark Waid

Genres: Comic Book, Superheroes

Volumes: Seven in total

The companion to Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, Incorruptible gives us Max Damage, perpetual anarchist. Few people on earth hated the Plutonian as much as Max. To Max, he was the symbol of everything keeping the little guy down – morality, social acclaim and order. Unfortunately for Max, he was there the day the Plutonian went mad.

If the Plutonian was the world’s greatest pillar of order his fall from grace was the world’s greatest moment of chaos. Max saw that and it doesn’t look like he enjoyed it as much as an apparent hardcore anarchist should. After a month off the scene Max comes back, burns all his illegally obtained cash, turns his gang in to the police and sets himself up as the new protector of his home city of Coalville.

People are naturally skeptical. For a long time he was a vicious and self serving man. Worse, Max’s superpower makes him stronger and tougher in proportion to how long he’s been awake. While the nature of his unique metabolism spares him the physical fatigue of staying awake his mind still goes loopy – and who wants a superhero suffering chronic sleep deprivation?

Still, Max is sure he can handle it. He was one of the world’s supreme supervillains for years. All it takes to be a hero is to do all the villainous things in reverse.

…right?

Pegasus Bridge by Stephen E. Ambrose

Genres: Nonfiction, Military History

Bridges are probably the most important structure in warfare. Without them it is difficult, if not impossible, to get all the things an army needs where they need to go. In medieval times a bridge could be held for hours or even days by a handful of people with the right armor, enough supplies and strong nerves. In modern war they can be taken by the same. Only a few people have done both in the same day. If you’ve ever read about Operation Market/Garden (a recommend book on the subject is A Bridge Too Far, mentioned in one of my other reading list posts) you know how badly it can go when an airborne division paradrops into enemy territory to do just that.

But you probably haven’t heard the story that proved that, as badly as Market/Garden went, what they were trying to do was more than plausible. It happened successfully just months before.

Operation Overlord was the turning point of the battle for Fortress Europe, the beginning of the fall of the Nazi war machine. The first stage of the journey was called Operation Deadstick, a simple operation by the British 6th Parachute Division. All they had to do was precision land their gliders full of gear near a river, rush across a bridge rigged to explode before anyone blew it up, kick the Nazis off and not let them drive their tanks up and get the bridge back.

And the Sixth did just that.

Pegasus Bridge is the story of how they did it and how the people in England and Normandy helped. It’s the story of courage under fire. And it’s an explanation of why a bridge came to be named for a flying horse – the same flying horse the soldiers who took the bridge wore.

Angelmass by Timothy Zahn

Genres: Science Fiction

Sequels: It stands alone

Premise: A handful of worlds in the galaxy lie clustered around a microscopic black hole from which emanate unique particles called angels. These worlds work together to harvest these particles and distribute them to as many people as they can, particularly leaders in politics, military and law. Why? Because angels make people nearby good.

Nothing sinister to see there.

Okay, there’s probably something sinister there. To the point that the government outside has sent in a military ship to seize the black hole, known as Angelmass, and deal with the local government. Meanwhile, a physicist has gone in to study the angels and try and figure out how they work and a down on her luck drifter takes a job with an angel harvesting crew in the hopes she can pick up an angel and make a quick buck. By the time the dust settles, nothing that people thought they knew will hold true.

Angelmass is a fun, fast tale about free will, morality and the ways people get in touch with their better angels. While hardly a home to Zahn’s most inventive ideas or his twistiest plots, it is a great introduction to the work of one of SciFi’s most prolific and zany authors.

Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Posted by natechen on

Saitama doesn’t enjoy life.

He used to. Three years ago he set out to become a part time hero, saving people to get an adrenaline rush that would let him shake off boring everyday life and really live, if you know what I mean. Problem is, after three years Saitama has become so good at fighting evil he always defeats it in a single punch. It just isn’t satisfying anymore.

Then he bumps into the cyborg Genos while swatting a mosquito (long story) and suddenly finds himself with an aspiring apprentice. Like most people suddenly faced with unexpected responsibilities, he tries to walk away. The problem with people (or cyborgs) is that they can follow along with you.

One Punch Man is the story of Saitama’s search for fulfillment. After three years of winning difficult fights against every stripe of evil you’d think he’d have made some progress on that front, but nope. He’s still living in a small, rundown apartment by himself in a mostly abandoned part of town. He joins a hero team and chases fame but satisfaction eludes him. The fights still aren’t challenging and most of the other heroes are jerks. Saitama gets that being a hero means fighting to protect people but he doesn’t seem to grasp why that’s important, just that it is.

The heart of the story, the moment when Saitama starts to see a glimpse of what’s wrong, comes with the appearance of the Sea King. It’s a neat bit of symmetry, we first got a full understanding of why Saitama was so frustrated in his brief  encounter with the Earth King, now the Sea King offers us the solution to the problem, but I digress. The Sea King could serve as a master class in how to build up a villain, as most of his story arc is dedicated to his ascendancy, but the part that’s important to us comes at the very end of his story.

The Sea King has defeated heroes of every type and level of power and is about to wipe out a shelter full of bystanders when he’s brought up short by Mumen Rider. Basically an over glorified bike cop, Mumen Rider is technically Saitama’s superior, although the only category Mumen might outclass him in is book smarts. The chances that he could defeat the Sea King are nonexistent. Mumen fights anyways, throwing everything he’s got at the Sea King. In turn, the Sea King brushes him off like a gnat.

As Mumen falls to the ground Saitama catches him and lays him out gently.

Of course, with Saitama on the scene the fight is essentially over. The Sea King is defeated between animation frames with a punch so hard that it blows rain clouds away and the day is saved. The twist comes after the villain is dead.

Remember that Mumen Rider is considered to be a better hero than Saitama, although the only aspect Mumen is ahead of Saitama in is book smarts. In all other categories Saitama is, by the rules of the story, the most powerful being in existence by a wide margin. As a result, Saitama’s easily defeating the Sea King makes Mumen Rider – and all the other, much more powerful heroes who confronted the Sea King – look pathetic. So Saitama throws himself under the bus, saying that the Sea King seemed incredibly weak after fighting all the other heroes in rapid succession in order to salvage the reputation of his fellow heroes.

Later, Saitama gets his first piece of fan mail, thanking him for saving the anonymous sender’s life. With it comes a couple of other letters, calling him a fraud for stealing glory from other heroes who did all the work for him. Later, Saitama stumbles across Mumen at a food stall and we learn that Mumen Rider was the source of Saitama’s one piece of positive mail. The two heroes, one the best of the weakest the other the best in the world, pause to share a moment of camaraderie and for the first time in a while Saitama finds something he’s been missing – a sense of satisfaction.

Many young people set out to do something for their own satisfaction but the fact is, most humans find satisfaction not when they’re focused on themselves but when they’re focused on others. Fiction rarely tackles the challenge of showing how that particular aspect of a coming of age comes about. But under the over-the-top action, slapstick humor and biting satire One Punch Man tackles that question with surprising gusto. While the evolution is by no means complete it is an interesting story to watch.

The Burden of Being Normal

Posted by natechen on

Let me wax philosophical about one of the greatest heroes I’ve seen recently. His name is Reigen Arataka and he is a master of the salt.

No, he’s not the main character of Mob Psycho 100. But he is it’s heart. The titular character, Mob, is a taciturn, antisocial kind of person who is hard to relate to. That’s kind of his schtick. But Reigen is his mentor, his source of morals, his emotional core. He frames Mob’s understanding of normal people and, as such, tends to serve as the audience’s point of view into Mob’s mind as much as he’s Mob’s view into other people.

Which is initially terrifying, since Reigen is an atrocious con man. Mob is a legitimate psychic with telekinetic powers, the ability to see spirits and who knows what other kinds of absurd abilities and, as an elementary student, he comes to Reigen’s entirely fraudulent psychic medium business in the hopes of finding some help in understanding his powers and abilities. What he gets instead is a very simple principle to live by – psychic abilities are talents just like athletic ability and academic skill. It’s an interesting point of view, especially given who it comes from.

Reigen fits an anime mold I like to call “The Omnicompetent”, a person who has literally every skill a given situation calls for other than the skills the rest of the cast bring to the table. He gives perfect massages, photoshops brilliantly and out cons conmen in between helping Mob keep his powers under control by diffusing the emotional time bombs that cause them to run rampant. There’s very little that can keep Reigen from getting what he wants besides his own rotten personality.

Reigen is not a great role model for Mob. He is a con man, after all, and no amount of good life advice changes the fact that he’s using Mob as ludicrously underpaid exorcist for the occasional client with a real supernatural problem. Reigen lacks honesty and purpose, beyond being life coach for a middle schooler of apocalyptic power, and that’s why he hasn’t moved beyond being a simple con man and actually made something of himself.

Reigen is normal. In spite of all his unbelievable number of professional level skills, he is normal. Changing, becoming someone truly exceptional, would require hard work, sacrifice and other hardships that he can’t bring himself to make. At least, not on behalf of himself. Mob is a very different story.

When the two first meet Reigen tells his newly minted pupil that his powers are just like the ability to study, to sing or to run fast. They are a talent, and they can be nice to have, but they don’t make him special. Psychic powers will let him do some things, but they aren’t a panacea.

Mob takes this lesson to heart and sets out to achieve his goals by developing whatever set of skills will take him that way, rather than bulling his way through with psychic powers. He wants to be charismatic and get a girl to like him so he joins a bodybuilding club and starts trying to understand how people work in spite of his own insular nature.

This dynamic is written large when, at the show’s climax, Reigen winds up as Mob’s surrogate against a group of super powerful espers who seek to rule the world (of course!) and be worshipped for how special their powers make them.

“Normal” versus “special” might very well be the central conflict in Mob Psycho 100. It might strike you as odd, then, that the protagonists, who are one in a million deviations from the norm, are making the case for normal. But as Reigen weilds Mob’s powers, strolling effortlessly through dozens of building wrecking attacks, and lecturing us on how anyone who is so arrogant as to think they’re special and entitled to anything hasn’t lived in the real world we can’t help but find his argument compelling. After all, he’s many times more powerful than they are and still a commoner.

Reigen has a very simple message, and in our day and age it’s a useful one, too. If you think you’re special you haven’t lived yet. If you fail it falls to you to improve. That’s the burden of being normal. And it’s what makes the dedicated commoners who work to change, little by little, truly special.

For a story with a nuanced message – but absurd action – Mob Psycho is worth a look.

Pawn’s Gambit and Other Stratagems

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I don’t make much of a secret about my Timothy Zahn fanboy status. I’ve written approving reviews of several of his novel series and stand alone books. Today we look at something different but still decidedly Zahn. Pawn’s Gambit and Other Stratagems is a collection of short stories and one novella.

In spite of the title, Pawn’s Gambit is not unified by a theme of strategy to the stories. They are, by and large, just fun stories that touch on the idea of point of view. The title story, Pawn’s Gambit, is something of the exception as it is exactly what you’d expect from the title, especially as written by this author. The narrative revolves around a man kidnapped by aliens as part of an experiment to work out how humans think by watching them play strategy games against alien players. It sounds like the perfect job to me but it actually carries a fairly sinister hidden purpose and, in the end, only one player gets to go home.

But as I said Pawn’s Gambit is actually the odd story out in the collection. The centerpiece of the novel, Cascade Point, is a Hugo winning novella that revolves around a space captain who works with a faster-than-light drive that lets him see into alternate timelines and has to grapple with seeing the possible outcomes of his decisions on a day to day basis. The question of what could have been is a more literal one for him that it is for most people and it turns out glimpsing the answers can be worse than not knowing.

Stories like The Price of Survival and Hitmen – See Murderers revolve around what we know, when, and how it distorts our decision making process. Reality may be objective but our ability to grasp it is pretty limited. Likewise, stories like Protocol caution us about our limited understanding of others and The Giftie Gie Us reminds us that even our understanding of ourselves can be limited.

Whether the protagonist is a telepath who thinks to find the truth about human nature but is foiled by his own id or a wizard who’s magic carries a terrible price that paradoxically drives him to use it all the more, Zahn’s stories are simple, effective and engaging. What’s more, unlike much science fiction, they don’t speak to the intricacies of culture, science or progress but rather delve deep into human nature and the limits we will undoubtedly face no matter how advanced we think we’ve become. And that makes Pawn’s Gambit more than worth your while.

Something Like a Reading List (Part 3)

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It’s part three of books you should read. What more do I need to say by way of introduction?

Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon

Genres: Superhero Literature

Sequels: Four and counting

When Hope Corrigan was eight the first superhumans appeared.

When Hope was sixteen, her best friend jumped off a building in the futile hope that she would be one of the few who would be blessed with superpowers.

When Hope was eighteen the Teatime Anarchist blew up a highway overpass and dropped the wreckage on top of her.

The Event – a 3.2 second period when humanity experienced shared sensory deprivation and marked the beginning of the superhuman era – changed Hope’s life three times over. The last time it left her with superpowers. At just shy of five feet and only a little over a hundred pounds, she is now one of the strongest and most durable people in the nation. Add in flight and superhuman senses and you have readymade superhero.

She has a chance to join the Chicago Sentinels, the first and best known superhero team in the nation. She can work with Atlas, Ajax and Blackstone, people who have been the gold standard for heroes since her childhood. She can have her face dragged into the media every day. She can spend hours reviewing national, state and local rules regulating superhero activity so she can test for certification! Fun!

The truth is, it’s not easy being a hero. You have to work very hard, know what you can and can’t do (in every sense) and do your best to keep your spirits up and your wits about you. For Hope, that means adapting to new abilities, new surroundings and new responsibilities. It means trying to sort out what parts of her old life she can keep and what she has to give up. And it means trying to calm down a drunk and disorderly man who can crush cars with his bare hands.

It’s a lot for a girl to take in. And then the time traveler shows up…

Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn

Genres: Space Opera

Sequels: First in a series of five books

It’s weird when you walk out of a building and a man collapses at your feet. It’s weirder when his last words before dying are “Frank Compton.” The weirdness doubles if your name is, in fact, Frank Compton.

Such is the situation of our intrepid hero at the beginning of Night Train to Rigel. Being a sensible man, Frank immediately rifles through the dead man’s pockets and finds a ticket for the Quadrail. Naturally, the ticket is in Frank’s name and there is nothing to tell Frank who the dead man is. With a dead man at his feet and no idea what’s going on Frank makes a snap decision. He plays along.

Frank quickly packs his bags, grabs a cab and heads out of New York. A week later he’s in out just beyond the orbit of Jupiter, getting ready to board the Quadrail for Rigel, a star in the constellation Orion. And if you’re wondering, the Quadrail is exactly what it sounds like: A train track with four rails that runs between every inhabited star in the galaxy. It’s also the only known practical method of interstellar travel. Twelve civilized species ride the rails under the watchful eyes of the Spiders, a thirteenth race that administers the Quadrail in eerie silence. At least, they were silent until now.

As it turns out, the Spiders want to talk to Frank. They believe someone or something out in the galaxy is getting ready to break their primary rule: The Quadrail is not a weapon of war. Since the Spiders’ flat refusal to ship weapons to any place that isn’t ready and willing to receive them has essentially made interstellar war impossible. But the Spiders have reason to believe that will change soon and, since humanity is the youngest and weakest of the spacefairing races and in the worst position to survive an interstellar war, that means Frank has more than an academic interesting in keeping the status quo.

But Frank got fired from his old government job for rocking the boat. He doesn’t have many friends at home and even fewer out among the stars. With nothing but an agent from the Spiders to help him get around (and make sure he follows the rules) will he be able to prevent interstellar war?

Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger

Genres: Historical Fiction

Sequels? Nope

This one is a pretty simple rags to riches story about a self-styled knight in the era of Italy’s dueling city-states. Andrea Orsini works for Cesare Borgia, Italy’s rising star. Cesare has promised him wealth and influence once the Borgias rule Italy and all it will cost Andrea is his integrity. Being a modern thinking man, Andrea is kind of okay with that.

At least, until he meets a collection of people who begin to teach him to think differently.

Prince of Foxes is a fun book with a timeless message about youth vs. experience. It gives a good picture of what Italy was like in the late 1400s with all the fighting, scheming and kidnapping of nuns (seriously!) that went on then. It also gives a more timeless tale of a man who thinks he can live with sacrificing a part of himself to get all the things he never had but begins to see that his integrity is worth more than just gold or fame.

This is a great example of historical fiction at it’s best – on their own, the halves of this story would only be average. But together they are memorable and fun. Well worth the effort to track down, although at seventy years old finding a copy might be difficult.

Clean, by Alex Hughes

Genres: Paranormal Investigation

Sequels? This is the first of the Mindspace Investigation series, which is four books long so far

Imagine, if you will, that humanity created technology that let you plug the Internet into your brain.

Then humanity, being human, decided to create computer viruses people could catch.

And in the meantime computers got to be sentient and decided to wipe out humanity because really, those viruses were kind of a pain.

And to top it off the psychics showed up and took care of all those nasty thinking computers and restored Order to Earth, terrifying the larger human population in the process.

This, as near as I can tell, is the backdrop to Clean, a story about a once-powerful psychic who got himself kicked out of the powerful psychic club when he got hooked on drugs. (For science.) Anyway, to stay sober our hero managed to get himself a job as an independent contractor for the Atlanta police and uses his gifts to provide a unique perspective into ongoing investigations.

Mindspace Investigations is an interesting series in a lot of ways. It presents us with a future where antigravity is an everyday thing but people are terrified at the thought of the Internet and psychics live in a kind of parallel society, teleporting from place to place and providing powerful medical and scientific assistance at a price without ever really integrating into society. The world building is great, but the characters are better.

In the hands of a weaker writer Hughes’ protagonist and supporting characters might come off as stereotypes but he manages to give the struggling addict, the tough girl cop and the tired police captain a distinctive presence and sympathetic character traits without slipping into cliche. All in all, a book worth reading.

Troubled Waters, by Sharon Shinn

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Sequels? One so far

So before you say anything – Troubled Waters is as much a story of political intrigue as actual romance. This is one of the reasons I like it – the characters grow in affection even as they struggle over the bigger things going on around them and have to balance their responsibilities to the world around them with their feelings for each other. In fact, finding that balance point is pretty much the theme of the story.

Zoe Ardelay’s father was an advisor to the king, until he got himself exiled. And while Zoe loved her father there was a lot he never told her – the biggest part being that her maternal grandmother had appointed her successor to her position of family leadership before her death. The politics are serpentine but that’s okay, Zoe was raised in exile and doesn’t really care about them anyway. She’s just annoyed that no one told her about them.

And most people don’t seem interested in enlightening her now, not even Darien Serlast, an old friend of her father who brought her to the court in the first place.

Much like Clean, Troubled Waters puts a lot into world building but it does so in a very different way. There are a lot of scenes of simple, human interactions build around what are clearly deeply loved local traditions. Traditions that just so happen to come from worlds that don’t exist.

Balancing those non-existent traditions are people that feel as real and human as the people you meet on a day to day basis. Troubled Waters is fantasy and romance at its most believable and most entertaining.

Drafted!

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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

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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.

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.