Problems

After acquiring the legendary games Fallout and Fallout 2, my computer’s monitor broke down in such a manner that the system cannot be used. And it can’t be fixed – first the vertical scan broke, now the monitor only makes ominous clicking noises and will not turn on at all. This is immensely frustrating.

I’ve only gotten to Junktown in Fallout, but thus far it is the third grimmest thing I’ve ever seen, following closely on the setting material for Warhammer 40,000 and “Requiem for a Dream”. It’s interspersed with humor, but the gleams of light only serve to make the darkness seem darker.

I’m enjoying it immensely.

The Book of Joby

At first glance, this first novel by Mark J. Ferrari would seem to have a lot of potential. But then the first chapter begins, and everything is ruined.

A ludicrously pompous and oblivious Satan approaches God with an absurd wager, which God accepts. Despite the wager’s winning conditions having serious negative consequences for Satan (which is clumsily lampshaded despite or perhaps in order to set up the eventual reveal at the end of the book), he busily begins making life miserable for a child God has selected (in guise as King Arthur) as his representatiave/gaming piece.

Except this child was offered the choice to turn down this task, and accepted. And is quickly mislead by Satan (taking the form of Merlin) into striving to be perfect, which is presented to the reader as an effective stumbling block for corruption of the soul. Except… that’s precisely what Christianity tells its followers to do. And the true path of virtue? “Feed your heart.”

Basically, take everything that a hippie would object to in organized Christianity. That’s presented as evil and the work of the Devil. Now take everything that a hippie would approve of, and file down the sharp edges as bit. That’s God’s true path of righteous living. The emphasis is on feeling, and feeling good. Thought – especially to the degree that it inhibits, controls, or restrains emotion – is bad.

Imagine the most modern-liberal, watered-down form of Christianity you can imagine. This sugary pap of a book views that as restrictive and evil.

I am personally opposed to Christianity, and even I was offended and annoyed by the theology in this book. And the characterizations… ugh.

Summation: save yourself the 638 pages worth of reading and skip the novel.

Beautiful

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Voodoo Acupuncture. Instead of having to stay still while people poke needles in you, they just take appropriate samples of hair, skin scrapings, and fingernails. Then those things are used to construct an effigy. Needles are then poked into the appropriate places on the doll in order to complete treatment.

The best part is, once the initial figurine is made, there’s no need for the patient to come into the offices! Treatment can be engaged in while the patient is elsewhere, living their life as normal. And they can be billed for a full visit, because the witchdoctor is ministering directly to them through the medium of voodoo.

The Magicians

Today’s review is of Lev Grossman’s new novel The Magicians.

So what’s it about? Imagine a self-conscious deconstruction of the Harry Potter novels and The Chronicles of Narnia, with a little Dungeons and Dragons blended together with snippets of Gulliver’s Travels thrown in to even out the mix.

Basically, a desperately unhappy young man goes to his alumni interview for Princeton and ends up taking a bizarre examination for a college he’s never heard of, where it’s the middle of summer despite it being early November. It turns out to be a school of magic – one that is in all ways almost nothing like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Magic exists, but it makes brain surgery look like kindergarten painting day. Everything turns out about as well as you expect.

The novel is really about happiness and how you can’t find it even if you’re given your heart’s desire if what you’re seeking to escape if yourself – approximately. Also, the absurdity of certain kinds of escapist fiction and the worlds it postulates.

It’s not a bad book by any means, but I’m not sure it satisfies.

More Borgstromancy

More of the informal work of Jenna K. Moran, taken from this rpg.net thread.

The phone call is coming from *inside the house!*

The butler did it.
. . . well, the butler, and Cthulhu.
Cthulhu did most of the butchery.
But the butler let him in.
And held his knife.
And dusted him off afterwards
To help him disguise himself as the Christmas Tree.

He’s actually . . . Luke’s *father*.
But more astonishingly
Luke is *his*.
In episode three Luke warps too fast around the sun
Due to a problem with communication
And winds up in the past.
He builds two robots
And saves some whales
And has sex.
That’s why almost a quarter of his genes are an exact match with his own.
Remember, kids!
Midichlorians measure inbreeding!

The Iron Giant is friendly.
He loves people.
In fact, he loves them too much.
Just like Big Bird.

The owls are not what they seem.
They are luxury sedans with smooth, precise shifting,
High engine rev,
And dynamic performance.
See?
It’s a funky show.

Star Trek is based on the true story
Of Rasputin
And his faithful half-Vulcan companion,
Ivan.

What is the Matrix?
A tissue of false fate
Woven in the Wyld.

Sing, oh muse, of the wrath of Achilles
Sing, oh muse, of the birth of Ganesha
And of Iron John
And of that place
East of the sun, west of the moon.
And of all the old stories
Told by the Wyld
Before they were e’er told by men.

Superman comes back to life
Again
Later on.
Only now,
He’s radioactive.

A Teacup in a Velvet-Gloved Iron Fist

Erfworld had strips with remarkable writing. Hopefully, once the comic returns, it will again.

In the meantime, we’re left with “Summer updates”, which were previously interesting. Lately, however, they’ve become extraordinary.

See this, this, and this.

If you’re not familiar with the story thus far, those events will be moderately opaque. But if you’ve been following along… the complexity of theme and character is remarkable.

pandemonium

A strange and terrifying first novel by an author who lives in town.

I usually prefer to write my own reviews of works, but I thought the backcover summary was so good that I’m going to quote it in full:

It is a world like our own in every respect… save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There’s the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific.
As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del’s family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised… or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del’s head and clamoring to get out.
Del’s quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society dedicated to the extermination of demons. All believe Del holds the key to the plague of possession – and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.

The novel reads like a campaign of Call of Cthulhu run by a collection of truly gifted roleplayers. The situations encountered by the reader inspire genuine horror – not terror or disgust as is so often the case in media – and pity, which is more remarkable. Even the antagonists are, to some degree, sympathetic. It’s all too easy to grasp what might drive people to do such terrible things in a world where no one is safe from being seized by an unknown being and used like a hand puppet – and possibly discarded as an uninteresting or broken toy afterwards.

Another Dresden Codak Comic

Mr. Codak creates these things very infrequently; I wish he’d do more. The artwork is as lovely as the content is thought-inspiring.

See his latest effort, Fabulous Prizes!, here.

If you haven’t already read through the archive of his previous works, you should really do so. Although many of the comics stand alone, the more recent ones really require a familiarity with the “HOB” storyline in order to comprehend the background details.

Pan’s Labyrinth, Mirrormask

I’d heard great things about these movies, but each was a disappointment.

Pan’s Labyrinth had hardly any fantasy in it at all – it was too full of the ’serious’ drama of the fight against Franco and Spanish Fascism. The fantastic elements were squeezed into the interstices of the scenes in the adult world. It’s not magical realism, because as far as the adults were concerned none of the fantastic things ever happened. It’s not a story about the realm of the imagination, because too much happens in the child’s perspective that cannot simply have been imagined. It’s some strange, incoherent mixture that isn’t really about the fantasy after all.

The effects were nice, but they don’t make a movie.

Mirrormask was just completely disappointing. Characters did things without clear motivations, were introduced hurriedly and awkwardly, and behave in ways that simply don’t make sense merely for the purpose of creating drama.

The special effects were weak, difficult-to-see, and unimpressive. The city of light and the world of shadows looked pretty identical. I expect a city of light to be bright – or at least noticeably brighter than its gloomy spots; instead, we were presented with a sepia-tinged monotony. The antithesis of the city of light looked barely different.

It wasn’t even clear how real the events of the story were. Were they completely a dream, brought on by fear and anxiety about the mother’s illness? Did the dark princess actually do things in the real world while pretending to be the daughter? What exactly do the events mean? What was the mirrormask, and why was it actually important? This wasn’t explained nearly clearly enough to my tastes.

Gaiman can write fascinating text. Shame he can’t seem to make a movie script worth watching.