Video Game Critics Debate

February 23, 2011 philwade Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting set of letters between two critics of video games, one prioritizes personal experience and story, the other views the games in the context of all games since the beginning of civilization.

Tom Bissell writes about his approach: “I do, however, like to write about how games cross over into affecting, enriching, or profoundly messing with one’s life outside of game-playing.”

By contrast, Simon Ferrari explains: “It’s my contention that games are systems of rules and artificial spaces before they’re stories. And if we want to foster creativity, depth, and breadth in the design of future games, then we need to begin by teaching the reading, writing, and critique of rule systems at an early age.”

Music

Five Seconds of Every #1 Songs

February 22, 2011 philwade Leave a comment

This music sounds like a great pop culture final exam: listen to this track and name as many of the songs you can or the groups performing. It’s five seconds of every chart topping song since the chart began until 1992. I just heard The Temptations singing “War” from 1969. Wow. This is not my field of study or entertainment.

Fiction, Reviews

Snow on the roof, Blood On the Sun

February 22, 2011 Lars Walker Leave a comment

Tonight was Part Two of the heavy snow drill. First you blow out the driveway. The second evening, you rake snow off the roof, so that ice dams don’t build up and cause damage. This, unfortunately, causes snow to fall onto your driveway again, because your roof directly overhangs it on one side (if you’re me). Also the snow plow came by today and pushed its usual glacial detritus into the driveway entrance. So that has to be done too.

It would make more sense, of course, to rake the roof first, and avoid blowing out the same section of the driveway twice. But because of the early dark this time of year, that’s not practical unless I want to work by starlight. (Hint: I don’t. Especially when it’s cloudy.) Anyway, the snow plow never comes until that second day, so I have to roll it out and rev it up anyway.

Came in to make supper, and discovered my microwave oven is dead. And yes, I checked the circuit breakers. And I tried it in another outlet. And I tried something else in that outlet.

Tomorrow night: A trip to Sam’s Club. I’m a bachelor. Without a microwave, I’ll starve to death.

No soon. But eventually.

Just a quick review of a book recently finished—the late Stuart M. Kaminsky’s CSI: NY: Blood On the Sun. TV tie-in books can be pretty bad, but this is Kaminsky. He elevated anything he touched.

The plot involves the murder of a rabbi, shot execution-style and then crucified to the floor of a room in his synagogue. Then a suburban husband and wife are found murdered in their home, along with their teenaged daughter, who was molested before death. Their young son is missing, and some of the clues point to him as the killer.

I have a vague idea that I bought this book when it was first published in 2006, and then set it aside when I realized it would be dealing with the issue of Messianic Judaism. This is a sensitive subject, and I feared that even an author of Kaminsky’s understanding would be unable to treat it fairly. I’m happy to report I was wrong. I’m confident Kaminsky’s view of Messianic Jews was very different from mine, but I thought he handled the subject, and the characters, with great decency.

An enjoyable book. Better than the show it was based on.

Uncategorized

Winter's Toil

February 21, 2011 Lars Walker Leave a comment

Chad at Fraters Libertas quotes today from a Wall Street Journal column by Mark Helprin. He celebrates the glory and worth of winter:

And this may be the heart of it, that winter even as we fight it is both a measure and cause of our vitality. That though it may exist as an enemy, it is something of extraordinary beauty. And that though in representing the last season of our lives it symbolizes our death, year after year experience teaches us that, miraculously and invariably, after winter’s inescapable conquests the new life of spring comes nonetheless.

Wonderful stuff, and just the sort of thing you’d expect from the genius who wrote Winter’s Tale (and if you haven’t read Winter’s Tale, what are you waiting for?). Even I, the world’s champion heat lover, resonate a little bit with that. I’ve written before that I never felt right living in Florida. I need my spring, and you can’t really have spring without chopping your way through winter first.

Speaking of which, winter’s back in these parts. You may have heard about it on the news. A few days back it was almost 50 degrees. Last night and today we picked up about a foot of snow. But there was a good side and a bad to that, in my case. Continue reading Winter's Toil →

Writing

Bad Writing

February 21, 2011 philwade Leave a comment

From the latest World Magazine, Emily Belz writes in “Illegal Vacancy”:

When [Robert] Seiple first became ambassador in the Clinton administration, he said he wrote an op-ed on the importance of religious freedom: It had to be approved by 51 people. Once it got through, he said it was a “limpy wimpy rag. Who wants to work in that kind of environment?”

Just one of many ways bad writing sees the light of day. Our friend Loren Eaton points to this post with a trailer for a documentary on bad writing and common misconceptions about being a writer.

Religion

Upcoming: The weekend, and a Thor movie

February 18, 2011 Lars Walker Leave a comment

I approach another weekend with some anticipation. I suppose I’ve gotten spoiled, but the last three weekends have all held good surprises for me. Three weeks ago I did the radio show with Mitch Berg and James Lileks. Two weekends ago my car broke down, which wasn’t pleasant in itself, but it allowed me to spend a blessed time with my former boss, and to get (on top of the unwelcome work) my car’s four-wheel drive fixed at a very reasonable price, so that I’ll be ready for the next snowstorm (which is surely coming). And last weekend I got ushered into the wonderful world of the Amazon Kindle.

God may well have decided I’ve had enough treats for a while. But there’s no harm in hoping.

Transposing my thoughts to lower case gods, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Thor movie:

Now I’ll admit it looks kind of cool. I may even go to see it.

But I’m an amateur Viking scholar, so I can’t help but be bugged by some things. The particular thing that troubles me most is the image of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) talking seriously about peace.

That’s no Odin I’ve ever met in the sagas. Continue reading Upcoming: The weekend, and a Thor movie →

Non-fiction, Reviews

Eirik Bloodaxe, by Gareth Williams

February 16, 2011 Lars Walker Leave a comment

Eirik Bloodaxe

The name Eirik Bloodaxe conjures an obvious image of a great Viking warrior. This use of Eirik’s name to personify Vikings in general can be clearly seen from the way that the Jorvik Viking Centre, which mostly deals with the peaceful activities of the great Viking settlement at York, for many years sold a range of “Erik Bloodaxe” products showing a bearded Viking warrior (pp. 8-9).

Eirik (or Erik) Bloodaxe is one of the most famous Vikings of all time, right up there with Erik the Red, but that fact is due, alas, more to the evocative nickname he enjoyed than his actual achievement or the historical record. In point of fact, we don’t know a lot about this man. Was the Eirik Bloodaxe who ruled Norway and was driven out by Haakon the Good the same Eirik who showed up a few years later as king of York in England? Most historians think it likely, but there’s some dispute. Did he rule York once, twice, or even three times? The record is confusing and contradictory. Did he die in England or in Spain? Is he buried in Norway? Opinions differ.

This short volume (133 pages, including notes), Eirik Bloodaxe by Gareth Williams, Curator of Early Medieval Coinage at the British Museum, is the first attempt ever to write a biography of this shadowy figure, remembered as simultaneously a ruthless warrior and a hen-pecked husband. As a serious work of scholarship, it cannot give a complete or definitive story, but it’s valuable in compiling what we are able to know about the man, as well as discussing the many lacunae and contradictions in the record. In describing Eirik’s world and the forces that shaped him, it also provides valuable information to the reader on the story of Eirik’s father, Harald Finehair of Norway, and his achievement.

The book is handsome to look at, featuring excellent illustrations, many in color. The prose is clean and the editing (generally) good. As a specialized work on a relatively minor historical figure, it may not appeal to the general reader, but the serious Viking enthusiast will want to have it on his bookshelf.

Fiction

Russian Novel Retells "The Lord of the Rings" From Orc's Side

February 16, 2011 philwade Leave a comment

Russian Kirill Yeskov has written a type of spin-off of Tolkien’s epic, retelling the drama from Mordor’s prespective. It has been translated into English by Yisroel Markov and is released on the public. Laura Miller writes:

Because Gandalf refers to Mordor as the “Evil Empire” and is accused of crafting a “Final Solution to the Mordorian problem” by rival wizard Saruman, he obviously serves as an avatar for Russia’s 20th-century foes. But the juxtaposition of the willfully feudal and backward “West,” happy with “picking lice in its log ‘castles'” while Mordor cultivates learning and embraces change, also recalls the clash between Europe in the early Middle Ages and the more sophisticated and learned Muslim empires to the east and south.

Fiction, Reviews

Frankenstein: Lost Souls, by Dean Koontz

February 15, 2011 Lars Walker Leave a comment

I was surprised at first to see Dean Koontz’ Frankenstein series continuing beyond the original trilogy. I’d come away from that series thinking the story was pretty well wrapped up, and wrapped up pretty well. Also, Koontz has generally resisted writing series in the past, though he’s made exceptions here and in the Odd Thomas books.

However, on reading Frankenstein: Lost Souls, I was reminded of loose threads from the previous books which had indeed set us up for a continuation. So it’s all fair and aboveboard.

The main characters are back, but the locations have changed. New Orleans detectives Carson O’Conner and Michael Maddison, now married, have moved to San Francisco, where they work as private investigators and dote on their new baby. “Deucalion,” the reformed Frankenstein monster, has retired to a monastery (the same one, as it happens, that Odd Thomas lived in for a while, in Brother Odd). And Erica Five, Dr. Frankenstein’s android bride, is living near Rainbow Falls, Montana, along with Jocko, the android gnome, who serves as an object for her maternal instincts.

Then Deucalion has an intuition—a sure conviction in his psychic sense, telling him that somehow Dr. Frankenstein, who was horribly killed at the end of the previous book, is nevertheless alive. Continue reading Frankenstein: Lost Souls, by Dean Koontz →

Brandywine Books

Video Game Critics Debate

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Five Seconds of Every #1 Songs

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Snow on the roof, Blood On the Sun

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Winter's Toil

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Bad Writing

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Upcoming: The weekend, and a Thor movie

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Eirik Bloodaxe, by Gareth Williams

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Russian Novel Retells "The Lord of the Rings" From Orc's Side

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Frankenstein: Lost Souls, by Dean Koontz

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Book Reviews, Creative Culture

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