We Blog - We Live!

Blogging, yo. I still do it.

I'm not going to waste pixels on "blah blah blah, here's why I've been gone for oh so many years." I'm going to get right back into it. Screw the haters.

What I'm working on right now is an RPG setting that I plan to explore with my wife, the Abigail. The intent is to capture some of what made the Lord of the Rings special to me, but without all the stuff that either I have grown tired of, or that stopped the Abigail from every getting into that setting herself. Here is what I have got so far.

Rather than make the main conflict of the setting quite as Manichean as the Lord of the Rings, I want to do something with a little more subtlety. The Abigail can get behind purely antagonistic villains, but she needs to have an idea of their motivations, and those motivations need to make sense. Sauron always came off as too much of a dick.

So, my idea is to steal from The Whispering Vault, a little-known RPG from the mid-90s in which the main characters portray semi-spiritual beings empowered to hunt down refugees from the spiritual world who have invaded the physical world, seduced by its pleasures. This setting will have the same fundamental dichotomy: there is a spiritual world and a physical world, two sides of the same coin, and all the world's problems come from physical beings wanting to be spirits and spiritual beings wanting to be physical.

There is, specifically, a Dark Lord a la Sauron or Morgoth, but he's much more of a pitiful figure in my setting. He was the first spirit to force his way into the material world, and he has suffered for it. Now he longs for release from the various permanent wounds that have been inflicted upon his stolen flesh, swollen with power and sorcery as it is, but he's too afraid of oblivion to simply accept death. Like all spirits who have taken on flesh, he cannot escape at will - and even if he could simply shuck off his body, he knows that his spiritual cohort, the world's other spirits, are waiting for him. Perhaps in reality, they would forgive him and tend to his wounds and heal his soul... but he is too far sunken into misery and bitterness to accept that possibility.

So, the world sucks because this spirit wanted to know what it was like to eat and drink and screw. He tore a huge gaping hole in the veil between spirit and matter when he stole a body - there's a story to that, but I haven't thought of it yet - and lesser spirits have been taking advantage of this hole for millennia. The malignant ones, jealous of mankind's status as the only beings to naturally be both matter and spirit, have flocked to his banner (even though he is now too consumed with ennui and self-hatred to do much directing), while others have come through to try to repair the damage from the physical side, with mixed results. Some have remained true to their mission, while others have gotten too enamored of the flesh - or power, or whatever - and botched it up in various ways.

Hm.. I'm kind of stealing from Tribe 8, too... interesting.

At some point in history - probably at the beginning of some golden age - a spirit was sent through the gap with the goal of improving the situation by empowering humans, rather than possessing one and using him as a sock puppet to boss the other humans around. This human started lineage of humans who were touched by spirit, through their ancestry, but still fully humans (this would be my take on the Numenoreans).

Among other things - including starting said golden age - these blessed humans taught some humans how to temporarily separate their souls from their bodies, making themselves capable of magic. They taught some spirits how to merge with human hosts, rather than simply stealing their bodies. They taught other spirits how to merge with non-human material hosts, like animals or objects, in order to create "sinless" vessels whose efforts to fix things would not be tainted by the inherent problems of stealing a human's body in order to interact with the world. These gifts were intended to put humans and spirits on more equal footing, and for the most part, they worked.

But... inbreeding, decadence, and plain old boredom soured the plan. The noble lineage fell from power after a well-deserved revolt... which opened the field for the old enemy to begin planning, again, to dominate the world.

Why does he want to dominate the world?

Like I said... he's not even sure anymore, but he has generals and captains and industries of dominance who are sure that it's a good idea, and they don't really need his permission anymore. So, he's just going with the flow.

Arrayed against him are ordinary humans, humans who have learned a small measure of magic power, the tattered remains of the spirit-touched noble lineage that once stood astride the world - and they have the dubious assistance of various semi-spirit immortals, many of them tainted by the sin of having stolen the material bodies they are still wearing to this day.

And... that's all I got for now.

I'll be sure to check in soon with some more thoughts, especially as I begin to develop the system.

Is this a rebirth for the Burning Zeppelin Experience? I like to think so, but only time will tell.

Dear Norm, You Feminist You

This is an open letter to Norm Sherman of the Drabblecast.

Dear Norm,

Norm, I love you. Your are talented and creative. Your work on the Escape Artists podcasts and Abigail Hilton's audio fiction - not to mention your own groundbreaking podcast, the Drabblecast - is incredible. I am happy to call myself a supporter, though I admit that I don't often have enough money to donate. I do recommend you as often as I can, to everyone I can.

That said, you put something in your latest podcast that kind of annoyed me.

In the intro to one of your latest episodes - #274: Amid the Words of War - you described yourself as "not a feminist," and yet, you dedicated the podcast to female writers of science fiction and bemoaned the lack of female voices in genre fiction.

There is a campaign going on to discredit feminism. Regressive forces in our world who would love nothing more than to strip rights from women are trying to present feminism as radical, dangerous, and uncompromising. They find a few radicals - angry women with extreme positions - and claim that they define feminism. It's gotten to the point that women in arts and media - women who own property, act in the public sphere, and expect their voices and person to be respected - declare that they "aren't feminists."

Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler have written that "feminism is the radical notion that women are people." While I disagree with a lot of the rest of their writing - including the Muted Group Theory that made them famous - I think that this definition is better than any other I've heard. Feminists are just people who believe that women are equal to men and have the right to participate in society in any way they chose. We aren't people who believe that women are better than men, or that men are evil, or that every aspect of our society is secretly a twisted attempt to oppress women. We just think that women deserve as much attention and credit as men and should be allowed to participate in every arena of our society, including arenas that they have been traditionally barred from.

Including, you know, science fiction and other genre literature.

That's it. Feminists are just people who think women are people. We are men and women, we are all races and religions, we have all kinds of paychecks and talk in all kinds of accents, and we come from everywhere.

There are political forces that are trying to present feminism as a unified front of unpleasantly radical crazy women who are angry about everything. They want you to think that feminists are all man-hating lesbians or meek, guilt-ridden men. They want you to think that women want your job - not just to do your job if they're qualified, but to actually take away your personal job and deprive you of your livelihood. They want you to think that all feminists agree that men lose all rights to their property and children upon divorce. They want you to think that feminists condemn marriage and monogamy and God and country. They want you to be so angry and afraid about how they have presented "the feminists" that when they take rights away from women, or deny women access to a right they need, you'll side with them, instead of with the women.

The fact is that feminists don't agree on everything. For example, let's say you think that men should hold doors open for women - or at least that it's ok for men to do that if they want to. Does that disqualify you from feminism? Of course not! You can believe that women are fully realized, fully adult humans and still hold the opinion that it's polite for men to hold doors open for them. Can you be critical of the way that divorce law functions in America and still be a feminist? Sure! Feminism merely acknowledges that there are problems; the solutions are up for debate.

So, Norm, either you're a feminist and you really should own it, or you should think about why you're bothering to do a Women and Aliens Month on the Drabblecast. Do you think that women are people and that it's a shame that some areas of life - like writing science fictinon and fantasy literature - have been closed to them? Then you are a feminist! Do you think that women are not equal to men and don't belong in some parts of our society? Then you are not a feminist... but really, why are you promoting women writing science fiction? That's a man's world, isn't it?

I hope you'll reconsider your statement and come out in your next episode as a proud, card-carrying feminist. That, or stand by your convictions and cancel Women and Aliens Month. Or explain how you can be sad that women aren't on equal footing with men and still call yourself "not a feminist or anything."

Sincerely,
Mark


PS: Don't worry. We don't actually carry cards. Actually we get secret tattoos that give us magic powers.

PPS: I'm lying about the tattoos.

Burning Hobbit Experience

Getting ready to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been an unexpected rollercoaster for me. My emotions have ranged from hope and excitement when the movie was first announced, to joy and delight at the initial trailers and sneak peeks, to fear and dismay when they announced that they were stretching the movie to two, and then three movies, to disgust and despair when I learned about exactly how they were padding the movie to triple ticket sales, and finally back to a tentative hope when reviews from friends and Internet acquaintances showed that it wasn't as bad as it was feared, and might actually good.

I'll be straight with you here: my feeling swelled to glory and delight with the opening scenes... and quickly descended into a solid, abiding disappointment - the kind where there aren't enough good things to talk about without dipping into things that were "ok" or "could have been worse."

Will I see the next two movies? Certainly, and not just because it's The Hobbit. Will I love them in the same way that I loved the Lord of the Rings films? Is The Hobbit film a similarly brilliant testament to a sub-culture's love of a seminal text? No on both counts. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is mediocre at best, actively bat at times, and contains only a few gems of true greatness.

Let's break it down.

The Good

The first thing I liked about this is a weird one, because I'm also going to criticize it: the much-storied frame rate. 48 frames per second created a weirdly crisp image. Overall, however, I liked it. It was sharp, dynamic, and realistic. I'm looking forward to seeing more movies filmed and presented in this way.

The phrase, however - "looking forward" - is key. I feel like the director didn't quite know what to do with this new technology. The special effects weren't up to the task of the greater frame-rate, and looked unrealistic and pasted on. The customs and prosthetics that made the orcs orcs and the wargs wargs made them look like muppets. Even some basic movie things, like lighting and colors, weren't quite right.

But I'm patient. These things take time. I'd rather see movie-makers attempt to move into the world of this new and crisper technology than sit back and hang out in the world of the old, tired technology, just because they're afraid to be the first. I don't mind that they started with The Hobbit - in fact, I'm honored. Just... get better at this, ok? I felt like I was watching a moderate-budget BBC historical rather than an epic tale of, well... The Hobbit.

Also despite those problems, some of the visuals were striking. The first glimpse of Rivendell, for example, was as beautiful as it always was. The shots of Erebor, for example, and the way they contrasted with the probably-it-has-a-name-but-I-can't-be-bothered-to-find-it-out goblin city, were pure gold.

I also feel like the creators did a good job of capturing the spirit of The Hobbit. Oh, sure, there were problems - and you'll hear about them in good time - but their hearts were clearly in the right place. This was still the Middle Earth we all know and love, just a little brighter, gentler, and sillier. In other words, this was Middle Earth at the end of the long peace that preceded the War of the Ring.

Finally, there were the changes I liked. I know this is a sore topic among my fellow nerds, but I have long subscribed to the belief that some things need to change when a book becomes a movie and when an old work (guys, The Hobbit is 75 freaking years old) becomes new.

I liked that the dwarves developed distinct personalities and styles - even if it meant that Fili, Kili, and Thorin became man-candy. Let's face it, The Hobbit had four characters: Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, and Bob the Dwarf Blob. While that might have flown in the 30s, it doesn't work with modern audiences and isn't actually good writing. Giving the dwarves distinct styles, writing them some actual dialogue that actually distinguishes them, is all to the good.

I also liked some of the Silmarillion-esque digressions. The initial digression I could have lived without - the 1977 animated version did just as well in a third of the time by turning the dwarf song into a brief flashback - but I rather enjoyed the scenes that showed Gandalf's maneuvering and manipulation behind the scenes. Sure, the stuff about Radagast was kind of odd, and I'm not sure why they decided that they had to make the Necromancer (AKA Sauron in a funny hat) a modern occurrence, rather than something Gandalf had dealt with already... but all in all, it was a fun digression and it added to the sense of building tension, that this fantasy romp was more than it seems.

Because as we all know, it is.

Finally, I can't leave without talking about the songs. Tolkein's songs are another controversial point. Some of us can't live with 'em, some of us can't live without 'em. I'm one of the latter. I still sing the songs from the '77 Hobbit when I'm bored. I enjoyed this movie's rendition of That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates and Under the Misty Mountains Cold. I'm glad the creators of this movie chose to include them, and feel that they added a lot to the atmosphere.

The Meh

What could I have taken or left? Where's the "meh?"

First of all, as I mentioned previously, I wasn't a fan of Dwarven History 101 with Professor Mithrandir. Perhaps it really was too much. Perhaps it's just because I've seen that twenty minutes of movie handled with a five minute monologue (thank you, '77 Hobbit). Either way, I thought it was, frankly, sloppy.

Secondly, I just wasn't impressed with the violence of the movie. It didn't break my heart, either, but the fact is that they managed to cram eleven fight scenes into the first movie alone. Eleven! The Hobbit is supposed to be a story about how "if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." Frankly, The Lord of the Rings is about the same thing, but at least that story is intended to be story of the heroism of folksy regular Joes against a backdrop of the horrors of war. The Hobbit was not as bloody as The Lord of the Rings for a reason... a reason that the creators of this movie seem to have forgotten.

Ultimately, however, I wasn't surprised. Just a little sad that we live in a world where gore and glory is so important. "If more of us valued food and cheer and song" indeed.

Finally, there were moments that just seemed mailed in. The Goblin King is one example. He didn't sound like a goblin or move like a goblin. He spoke clearly and moved like the final boss of the Gobling City level of the inevitable video game. He was a joke, a delivery engine for one-liners, and a midboss, and it was a missed opportunity. Similarly, Azog (pardon me - Azog the Defiler) was insufficiently nuanced to be a three-dimensional villain and insufficiently evocative to be a force of nature villain.

The Bad

I know I try to be the kind of nerd who appreciates the need for change, but there's one - and only one - thing that just pissed me off, and it's a change, and I think I can make an argument for it.

Azog the motherfucking Defiler.

Seriously, was that really necessary?

The Hobbit already has a personified villain. It has Smaug. It already has plenty of midbosses, from the Great Goblin to the giant spiders of Mirkwood and the King of the Wood Elves. It has metaphorical villains in the suspicion and selfishness of the Dwarves, the clannishness and cowardice of the Hobbits, and, in the background, the fears of the Elves and the weakness of Men. The Hobbit didn't need Azog or rather, it shouldn't have needed him. Honestly, he was a cheap trick, included as a sloppy patch for the inertia the project lost by being between one and two movies too long.

The Last Math

In the final arithmetic (see what I did there?), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was mediocre. In this effort, Peter Jackson's reach exceeded his grasp, and the studio's mercantilism exceeded his spirit. This movie may have been a labor of love, but not the kind of love that really understands and cherishes. I don't doubt that Jackson loves The Hobbit, but he he doesn't understand it. He wants to take The Hobbit out on a date, but doesn't get what The Hobbit really wants. He dragged The Hobbit out to see a movie and paint the town red, but The Hobbit really just wanted to cuddle in front of the fire, maybe watch a rom-com on Netflix.

What we have here isn't really The Hobbit. It's the Star Wars prequel. It's The Lord of the Rings: Part 0. It isn't bad, but it isn't good. It was fun, but I've basically already forgotten it.

Blog Free Drabble

After a lot of deliberation, I've decided to stop writing drabbles on a daily basis for this blog.

There are three main reasons for this decision.

Firstly, drabbles bore the shit out of me. After writing quite a few - not as many as Nathan, but plenty - I can now say with confidence that I don't see the merit in them, at least for me. Drabbles have a very distinct meter that they all share, and it's getting repetitive. I don't even enjoy reading or listening to drabbles anymore.

Secondly, I am no longer convinced that drabbles have much to teach me. I'm already reasonably good at what I call "evocation" - implying the existence of a larger world or story in several very small brush strokes. I certainly know all the tricks of shaving off a word or two - I think every writer does, after a point. Drabbles can sell, though they don't sell for much, and they can be a fun way to get the dead leaves and squirrel skeletons out of the writing gutters, and I'm glad that I spent some time exploring the medium and expanding my repertoire. However, I don't think I can learn much more from them.

Finally... let me elucidate this point with a story. Recently, the ever-prescient Abigail Hilton wrote, in a comment to one of my posts about writing drabbles:

I kinda wish you'd write a novel instead of drabbles.

My response was "you and me both, sister."

That got me thinking. I haven't had a lot of time to work on my novel, or my other novel, or the short story I'm writing, or the other short story I'm writing, or any of the five short stories that I've gotten feedback on and need edits and rewrites. Why? Because I spend all of my (highly limited) writing time on these God-damned boring-ass drabbles!

So, I have come to a crossroads. Will I continue to write in a form that bores me, or will I break my oath and continue to search for a way to blog and write that inspires me?

Screw drabbles, man. I'm moving on.

I'm going to keep up the blogging momentum that I've developed here, so watch this space for more game material, reviews, links, and, yes, drabbles. I'm also going to keep up the writing momentum that this project has produced, though you will no longer see the results posted here every single (God-damned) day.

That's all for now. The future is bright and full of new and better ways to make stories happen. Till next time.

I Thought He'd Live Forever

I saw Ray Bradbury speak once, you know.

I was twelve years old. It was at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan - where I also took Tai Kwon Do lessons - walking distance from my school. Bradbury was... ancient isn't quite the right word, though he seemed that way to my adolescent self. Bradbury was venerable. Wise. One. Something he said really summed up the sense of peace and acceptance that he carried like an aura: "Because I am afraid that I won't be able to read once I have died, I am rereading all of my favorite books so I can carry them with me." This is why although I am sad to live in a world without Ray Bradbury, I am certain that he is doing just fine.

The second thing he said during that talk has really stuck with me is actually something he didn't say. Bradbury was the first author who didn't feed me that old BS about how writing is such a terrible profession, and if you can find it in yourself to do something else, you should. He had war stories to tell - stories of slaving away at his typewriter on the kitchen counter while his children tried to get his attention, knowing that if daddy came out to play there wouldn't be anything for dinner next week - but he never presented writing as anything other than a profession, a career, and a choice.

The works of Ray Bradbury have meant a lot to me over the years.

Personally, I think I am still living in Bradbury's definition of good and evil:

"Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun and he's guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells... On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt and sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two."

And good men? They're always concerned. Always careful. Always trying to do their best. This idea spoke to me, and I think it always will.

Professionally - creatively - Bradbury has had a greater impact on me than I can say. I learned about goodness from Something Wicked This Way Comes. I learned about sacrifice from The Halloween Tree. Nothing I have ever read about fear and madness has taught me more than The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl. I have never read anything sadder than The Fog Horn or There Will Come Soft Rains, or anything sharper-eyed than Fahrenheit 451 or All Summer in a Day. The Sound of Thunder will always send cold fingers up my spine, and no time travel story I've ever read has measured up to it. Not one.

I don't think my work will ever have Bradbury's poetry. I'm not that kind of writer. I like plots and settings too much, and I'm apt to hide my allegories behind more layers of gauze and trickery. But sometimes, in the moments when I stretch, I think I recall a little of how it feels to read Bradbury.

I'll miss him, but probably I shouldn't. After all, Bradbury has left so much of himself behind.

I should go soon. There are a few works of Bradbury's I haven't gotten to, yet. As I don't know if I'll be able to read once I'm dead, I should hop to it.

To Infinity!

So, I didn't manage to make up all those missing posts yesterday. Darn. I'll have to do a bunch posts today to make it up. Let's start with a post I've been meaning to make - and for Lizard's sake, not another drabble - a review of my newest obsession, Corvus Belli's miniatures game Infinity.

I first encountered Infinity through its minis. Gamescape SF has a healthy display of Infinity boxes and blisters, and a few painted models in their glass cabinet. The minis designed for use with Infinity are truly excellent: sleek and sometimes sexy, with evidence of a strong design bible. Unlike many other modern science fiction and fantasy wargames, Infinity is sculpted in true-scale (or "tru-scale," as some companies name it), which means that everything is perfectly proportioned, or as near to perfectly proportioned as Corvus Belli's sculptors can manage. By contrast, minis designed in "heroic scale" have squat bodies and exaggerated hands and faces, which also allows the sculptor to give them exaggerated weapons and gear. Although there's nothing wrong with heroic scale - thanks to their diminutive size, the models don't look weird until you actually put them alongside something in true-scale - heroic scale is a nice change of pace.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a short story:

You can find a couple more minis here, and of course on Corvus Belli's website, linked above.

There's a certain bias here towards factions played by myself and my friends, but I think you get the point. These minis are sleek and professional. They are exciting in a sci-fi action movie sort of way, but not absurd or over-the-top. These minis could be the art for a roleplaying game I would find stirring and take seriously.

From the miniatures themselves, I delved into the background - or "fluff" in gamer-speak - of Infinity.

Infinity is set in the not-so-distant future (about 200 years). This is a posthuman future, with cortical stacks cubes that allow individuals to be downloaded into new bodies after the death or infirmity of their original. With the discovery of stable wormholes, mankind has been rocketed into an interplanetary age. New powers have risen out of the ashes of the old nations. These new powers include:

• Pan-Oceania, the technological and economic leader, descended from former oceanic states including Australia, New Zealand, as well as most of Europe. They are also one of the forces behind the O-12, which is basically the space UN.
• Yu-Jing, a China-dominated combination of all the Asian states (and possibly parts of Russia) including Japan, which still attempts to resist total assimilation. Yu-Jing and Pan-O are trapped in an eternal rivalry.
• The Nomads, a loose affiliation of nomadic space-ship-dwelling societies formerly composed of exiled criminals, political prisoners, malcontents, rebels, and weirdos. The Nomad economy is based almost entirely on selling things that are illegal everywhere else, whether it's information, technology, or "services."
• Haqqislam, literally "The New Islam," a new liberal and humanist interpretation of Islam that has usurped the former (Muslim) middle eastern powers. Much like the Muslim countries of medieval Earth, they have a tradition of excellent medical science.
• Ariadna; are you wondering what happened to the good old US of A? Wonder no longer. Their first colony ship - a joint effort with Russia, France, and Canada - went awry and wound up lost behind a collapsed wormhole. They survived, but their long isolation has cost them all of their once-vaunted technological superiority. These days, Ariadna has the worst tech, but they make up for it with a rugged independence.
• Running everyone else's economy and transportation network (well, except the Nomads, who hate them) is ALEPH, humanity's one and only true AI. In times of danger, ALEPH can download aspects of itself into cloned or robotic bodies, which it uses to protect humanity's best interests, even when that means frustrating the ambitions of nations and individuals.
• Lurking at the fringes is the Combined Army, an alien consortium intent on conquering human space, enslaving the humans, and chopping up ALEPH to feed it to their own Evolved Intelligence, an AI charged with unraveling the mystery of entropy.

As you can probably already see, this game trips several of my switches, including robots, transhumanism, and optimistic - or at least not completely bleak - science fiction.

Now, let's get onto the rules.

From a mechanical standpoint, Infinity is probably one of the best games I've ever played. This is largely thanks to attention to the fun factor, attention to balance, and a unique system called "ARO."

As I wrote of 4th Edition D&D some time ago, the fun factor is an important piece of game design, something too many designers ignore. The question is, how can we maximize the number of players having the most fun at any given time? This is hard in cooperative games, like RPGs, and even harder in competitive games. It's easy to write a game where one player has tons of fun on his or her turn. It's harder to write a game where I'm having fun on your turn, when it's my ass getting kicked.

Privateer Press's Warmachine and Hordes - which I also play and enjoy - are great examples of excellent games that don't do a super effective job of maximizing the fun factor. On your opponent's turn, you're going to get your teeth kicked in. He's going to activate his feat, boost his attacks, and tear your giant robots/monsters apart, or make his own dudes nigh-invulnerable, so you have to spend a turn maneuvering and hope it doesn't cost you too much. There are lots of powers that lock down, incapacitate, obviate, and otherwise screw all to hell an enemy's capabilities, which is lots of fun when you use them, not so much fun when they're used on you.

Although there's a strong hacking and infowar component in Infinity, this doesn't seem to be the place here. For one thing, you always get a defense. Your opponent might be able to hack your Tactical Armored Gear (TAG for short - basically a giant robot) and immobilize it, or even turn it against you, but you have a chance to resist. This can make all the difference to a gamer's mood and experience of gameplay. Infinity also lacks global shutdown abilities - which Warmachine and Hordes are altogether too fond of - nothing that renders your entire army all but useless for a turn. These are all deliberate and powerful choices.

Secondly, there is the matter of balance. Unlike some companies (whose games I also play...), Corvus Belli has no illusions about their place. They are a game design company and a miniatures company, and they put a lot of work into making sure that their game is balanced. This is not a game where a quirk of a new edition will put your entire army in the "lose" list until further notice, and should that happen, Corvus Belli will update the rules within months, rather than years.

Finally, the Automatic Reaction Order, or ARO for short, is a revolution in wargames. The principal behind the ARO is that models can react to things that are happening around them. When an enemy soldier saunters up and start shooting, your own soldiers don't sit their waiting for their turn. They shout warnings to their buddies, dive for cover, or shoot back. Although Infinity still follows the basic "I go you go" pattern, AROs, make playing Infinity a singularly engaging experience. I can't go around the corner for a soda on my opponent's turn, because I'm still playing, still making tactical choices, no matter whose turn it is.

The last thing I want to say about Infinity takes me back to my (brief) days in Internet marketing. This is a game about the information future, marketed for the information present. The rules, army lists, templates, and tokens are all available for free online. Everything you need to play, except the actual minis, you can get for free. Of course, you can also also buy the beautifully crafted, illustrated, an generally created products, but you don't have to.

This means you can try the game out with your other figures. You can email the rules to a friend to entice her. You can create a bookmarked pdf rewrite of the rules, incredibly useful in play, and then host it on your website.

In other words, instant community - just add people.

Which Corvus Belli has.

And I'm glad of it, because this is an excellent game that I enjoy, and will hopefully get to enjoy for a long time.

Anyway, I've got to go and dress up like a vegetable. The long and the short of it, though, is that this is an excellent game and I'm happy to be playing it. Hit me up in San Francisco if you want a demo game, or say hi to me on Corvus Belli's forums (I'm ElectricPaladin, as usual) if that's not necessary anymore.

The Colossi

Is it cheating to post something I wrote, forgot that I wrote, stumbled across, and decided was cool?

Well, too bad. I'm doing it anyway.

I wrote this in response to a challenge issued by my friend Jon. I can't remember the challenge anymore, but I still have this. It isn't so much a story as it is a premise - or perhaps it's the introduction to an RPG or a video game. It's definitely not the kind of thing that gets published nowadays. Either way, I hope you find it entertaining.

The Colossi

By Mark L. S. Stone

This story is true.

Once, the Kingdom of Azarit stood at the heart of the world. Their goods were in every market, their gods were in every temple, and their name was on every lip. Their swords were at every throat, too, so all the other nations sent them tribute in metal, stone, and slaves, from the greatest nation that sent a hundred of the world's finest flute players – trained for this exact purpose – every twenty years to spend their lives playing in the king's court, to a tiny island monarchy that sent a handful of cowrie shells every year.

The center of the Kingdom of Azarit was the City Azar, which stood in the shadow of the Black Man of Azar, a huge black stone statue of a triumphant king. The Black Man of Azar was a civic treasure of the city and the kingdom. Poets came from far and wide to behold it and to write verses about its wonder and its glory. The Black Man of Azar was one of the Colossi – huge statues of mysterious origin scattered throughout the world.

The last king of Azarit was a man named Raam. Born to power and privilege, it galled Raam that there was a statue of another man at the center of his capital city, and that others came to adore it. Being a man of action, Raam set out to change this. He hired the best architects and stone-cutters of the world to change the Black Man's face so that it was Raam's face. Raam's priests and advisors warned him against this course of action; the ravens of the City Azar fed well on the entrails of priests and advisors for days.

The day that work began was the last day of Raam.

The day that work began was the last day of any kingdom in all the world.

Raam was brought low first. Other cities followed. Monsters had been unleashed upon the world, huge and powerful, with many strange abilities. Some could call up the winds with enough force to crush a man to death. Others could sing songs that drove women to murder their children. Some of them had smaller selves – or offspring, or something – to do their bidding. All of them were physically more than a match for an army.

The only safety was the shadows of the Colossi. The stone edifices which had once contained the monsters were still proof against their power. Those cities that were lucky enough to be built in the shadow of one of these statues survived. Those that were not were destroyed. People flocked to the cities built near the Colossi, or fled to the nearest Colossus and built new settlements, ramshackle tent cities beneath and upon the statue.

This was a little more than twenty years ago, and everyone knows that they can't take much more of this. Every day, civilization fades a little more. Perhaps soon there will be nothing left alive but the Titans and their children.

• • •

This story is a myth.

Once, there were a hundred thousand gods – more gods than you can imagine. Together, they made the world for their enjoyment. Then, however, they discovered that their ideas of enjoyment were very different. Some gods were content to be in the world they had made and enjoy its pains and pleasures. Others wanted to use what they had made to make bigger and greater things. Others enjoyed their creation in a very different way: by destroying at will and reveling in the pain and despair they caused.

Together, the first group of gods and the second group of gods banded together against the third. They refused to honor their enemies with the title 'god' and called them 'demons' instead. The battle between the gods and the demons stretched on for longer than time can tell – for how do you measure the length of a battle that happened before history began? In the end, it was neither gods nor demons who decided the outcome of the battle, but mortals. With frail mortal instruments, the gods forged weapons that could bind the demons forever within bodies of stone.

The demons defeated, the gods who wanted to build a better and greater world taught their loyal followers how to cut stone and smelt metal. Their followers are the race of man, who builds cities and nations and empires. Those who wanted to enjoy the world and its pleasures forgot their divine natures and became the spirits of the wood and field, the fey hosts who survive to this very day. There have been conflicts between men and each other, and between the children of men and the children of faerie, but none so great as that first war between gods and demons.

The demons were bound forever in their mausoleums of stone.

At least, that's what everyone thought.

• • •

This story is true.

The beast is everywhere and nowhere.

Our Colossus takes the shape of an enormous dog. It is fitting, perhaps, that our Titan is a gargantuan wolf who haunts the foothills around the ruins of our city. It is bigger than a hill, bigger than the ships that once sailed up the river to bring us spices and news from distant lands. Yet, despite its size, it comes as quietly as the night itself, to creep up behind us and snap us up with its terrible jaws.

Half our city lies within the Stone Dog's aura. The rest of our city has become a broken-down wilderness. We can't survive on what we have with us in the city, so our most courageous and most foolish young people have taken to raiding the ruined half of our city for what supplies they can find. In the decades since Raam's Folly, supplies in the ruined city have become difficult to come by. Every year our searchers must spend longer and longer in danger in order to bring us what we need. Every year they bring us less and less. Every year, more of them die.

It could be worse, I suppose. At least we have our wells. I've heard tell of a city whose only wells are beyond the range of their Colossus. They rely on cisterns and ration their water strictly. When there is not enough water for their population, the excess people are sent out to face the beast alone. Their families begin their funerals before they are out of sight.

We can't survive much more of this.

• • •

This story is a myth.

But we dearly wish it to be true.

Some travelers – those rare, courageous individuals who brave the space between the Colossi – tell stories, which they have of other travelers, which they have of other travelers still, of a distant city that has killed, or bound away, its Titan. They say that a young woman – or perhaps a young man – climbed their Colossus and found a secret room in its upraised spear. In this room, this hero found a tarnished spearhead. This hero's friends read secret books and learned the Titan's secret name. They found the wood that was this Titan's bane and fashioned a shaft for the spear. The hero went out at dawn – or possibly dusk – and battled the Titan alone with a magic spear, and slew it, and freed the city. The hero now rules as a benevolent queen – or king. Although the world is still a dangerous place ruled by dangerous creatures, theirs is a free city now. The only monsters who plague them are the children of Titans, not a Titan itself.

It's a nice story. We all like to believe that somehow we can find salvation.

The Zeppelin in the Woods

Last night, my friend Becca and I - the Abigail doesn't like horror movies, otherwise she'd have come along - went to see "The Cabin in the Woods", Joss Whedon's tour-de-gore. This review will take the place of today's story, but rest easy - I have already written tomorrow's tale.

"The Cabin in the Woods" begins innocuously enough: a young woman - a college student - dances about in her underwear while getting ready for a long-awaited vacation to begin. We meet her whacky friends, learn about her sad plights, and - this being a horror movie, after all - start to predict who will die, how, and in what order.

At the same time, "The Cabin in the Woods" has an innocuous beginning. Suited men and women in windowless facility talk about the banalities of work and life. One man's wife is nesting, and it frustrates him, another man complains about getting older, a woman grapples with inter-departmental politics. Here, there is an undertone of the sinister. We don't like these people nearly as much as we soon come to like the college students. There's a certain underlying pettiness. The conversation never seems to cover exactly what these people are working on, anyway.

Anyway, it soon becomes apparent that the suit-wearing engineers are manipulating the teens, using drugs and subliminal suggestion to force them into horror movie tropes. The teens inevitably screw up, meddling with things they shouldn't and inviting their own doom. Even as the net closes around them, they struggle against the roles foisted upon them, but one by one they succumb, and as they do, they... succumb.

Until everything goes wrong. Wonderfully, hilariously, and tragically wrong.

Neither part of this movie really stands alone. The suit-wearing puppetmasters are unsympathetic villains - human enough, and callous enough, that I gradually came to hate them. The college-kids-in-a-creepy-cabin half of the movie is bog-standard horror fare, albeit one partly written by Joss Whedon (say what you want about the man, he can write dialogue like a motherfucker). Together, however, they create a scathing commentary on the nature of art, and the relationship between art and audience.

You see, we are the men and women in suits (actually, there's a better comparison, but I don't want to spoil everything). We are the ones who demand obedience - conventionality - in our mass market entertainment. And we are the ones who punish anyone who tries to catch us by surprise with something new and fresh. And if we don't get what we want...

Well, I did just say I didn't want to spoil everything.

I have to admit, though, that the movie left an odd taste in my mouth. Coming from anyone else, the lesson would have been easier to swallow. Coming from Joss Whedon - an author of considerable creative narcissism, a man who actually believes the Firefly was perfect and its cancellation none of his fault - it seemed a little sly and a little bitter.

In my opinion, this is a creative commandment: THOU SHALT RESPECT THINE AUDIENCE, FOR IT IS WITH THEIR MONEY THAT THOU ART SUPPORTED. It's one thing to criticize your audience, it's something else to make fun of them, to have a joke at their expense.

That said, my overall impression was that this movie is the sendup that mass media horror movies have needed for a long time. I don't know how many people are going to get it, or if the right people are going to get it, or if it's going to have any kind of impact. I do know, however, that "The Cabin in the Woods" was a wonderful, clever, smart, and bloody sojourn through the land of horror, and I recommend it without reservation.

I give "The Cabin in the Woods" three zeppelins out of four, and a handful of zombies to boot.

Burning Anticipation

When I was a kid, I read Dragon Magazine.

I read it a lot.

One of my favorite parts of Dragon Magazine was the fiction. For years - and possibly up until the magazine finally bit the bucket, and was resurrected, and bit the bucket again (I think?) - Dragon featured Dungeons & Dragons-esque short stories. Some of them were explicitly set in D&D universes, others were set in universes that could be D&D, but weren't. Some of them were stand-alones, some of them were parts of serialized epics.

My favorites were a series by Greg Keyes. Fool Wolf was a thief, a liar, and a ne'er-do-well saddled with a dangerous spirit bound into his ribcage by is irresponsible, drunken father. Cast out from his people for crimes committed by the spirit, Fool Wolf wanders a Sword & Sorcery world, looking for adventure, women, money, and the opportunity to rid himself of his unwelcome guest.

For a long time, the tales of Fool Wolf lived in the basement of my brain, occasionally twitching, winking, and throwing iterations up into my higher brain. Certain phrases - "tattoos of singular blackness," "mansion of bone" - stuck in my head.

Then I discovered the collection: Hounds of Ash and Other Tales of Fool Wolf. Time passed, and eventually I made it mine.

I can't wait to read this book. I'll definitely post a review when I have.

Burning Myths, Flying Knives

Check it out: Escape Pod's blog has just published a post exploding the myth of the deadly flying knife.

I'll admit it - I don't know enough about physics to judge this particular post on the merits of its accuracy. However, I do know enough about the modern fantastic cannon to recall Vlad Taltos's entertaining description of thrown knives as a diversionary tactic; they flinch at the flying bit of pointy steel and miss the larger and more dangerous piece of not-so-flying steel headed for their guts. Or, more frequently, the fact that Vlad is headed for the hills.

Now, I'm much more of a creator of fantasies than speculation, even when I write in a science fictional mode, so I'm quite likely to give my heroes an explicitly magical "get out of physics free" card (I'm looking at you Exalted). I'm about as likely to set up my setting with an alternate physics - Heroic Physics, let's call it - in which throwing knives, swinging off chandeliers, or, say, running on the tops of trees are all possible for anyone.

That said, I like to be specific about where and when I depart from reality. I'd rather sit down to write a story thinking "this story will be set in a setting with general background of Heroic Physics, in which this, that, and the other thing are possible, and characters possessed of certain abilities will depart further in these specific ways" than just make mistakes. In that way, articles like this one are very useful.

However, I also have no problems with departing from reality in this way, when it's done clearly, consistently, and carefully. This is a sentiment it doesn't seem like the author of this article shares with me - she calls throwing knives in general "silly" and "cliched." Different strokes and all that. I can bring my throwing knives along when we visit a world that features Heroic Physics and leave them at home when we visit a world with Conventional Physics. It's all good.

Broken Robots, Burning Zeppelins

A... year ago, was it? A year agoish, I played a silly free flash game online. K.O.L.M. Recently, I played the sequel, K.O.L.M. 2. Both games are short, powerful, and incredibly atmospheric, and I recommend them to anyone and everyone, even people who don't normally go in for silly free flash games online.

The premise of K.O.L.M. is that you are a broken robot in a system of underground caves. After an unknown period of time, the voice of your mother prods you into action. You begin by crawling across the floor, the screen a blurry mess, until you find a pair of replacement eyes. Soon you also acquire replacement legs, a gun, the ability to jump, a more powerful gun, the ability to jump even higher, the ability to swim in water, and then in acid, and so on. K.O.L.M. 2 builds on its predecessor with sad little robot's quest to reunite with his father and his sister.

Gameplay focuses on the acquisition of new bits for the little robot. Often you are presented with a puzzle that you just can't solve until you find something that adds some new functionality to the robot. The overall effect is very satisfying - there's nothing quite like watching a puzzle that previously stumped you fall before the awesome might of your new laser or swimming capability - though there are a few moments of frustration.

The game very quickly establishes that something is a bit... off-kilter. I know from passive-agressive mothers, and this mother definitely fits the bill. Definitely much more GLaDOS than Ma Ingalls. The format of the game is classic side-scroller, but instead of the usual smooth transition from frame to frame, each "zone" is a view from a security camera. In addition to being, frankly, just a bit weird, it allows the game to zoom unexpectedly in and out. Trust me - it's hard to explain, but the effect is extremely creepy. Between the mother's creepy dialogue and the weird atmosphere, the game sucks you in very effectively. For best results, play at night. Alone.

I will concede that K.O.L.M. 2 is somewhat weaker than its predecessor. The gameplay introduces two new wrinkles: sunlight pouring in from holes in the ceiling which can harm or even destroy the little robot and, later, the robot and his human sister (now now, that would be telling) cooperating to solve puzzles that the robot couldn't solve on his own. However, the game is much shorter and much more... is linear the right word? Both games are linear, but the first game seemed to have a lot more problem solving and atmospheric wandering, while the second game seemed much more straightforward. Both games - and the third game that I fervently hope for - are certainly worth playing.

I believe that video games are fiction, but I don't normally talk about them because I don't normally play them. The K.O.L.M.s would make a great introduction for someone who doesn't believe. Both games tell a beautiful, sad, and creepy tale that I was very pleased to be a part of.

So Sick of Sad, Special Sorcerers

I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with me. No normal person should like alliteration this much.

In the world of things that I'm getting kind of sick of, I'm starting to develop a mad-on for, as the title says, sad, special, and oppressed magic users. They're a common - and, I will admit, sometimes incredibly well-written - trope. The most recent stand-out example is Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, but the subgenre is full of a wealth of excellent and not-so excellent works.

Before I continue, let me explain exactly what I'm talking about.

A lot of modern fantasy takes an approach to magic that mirrors the X-Men. Magic is (usually) an inborn trait, something that either can't  be repressed forever or can't be repressed without serious consequences for the mage. Mages are not a ruling class - rather, they are a hated minority. Their magical powers are only enough to help them survive, sometimes, with effort and great sacrifice.

I have a problem with this scenario. If you have a world where people periodically arise with special powers, I can't think of any reason that they would not ascend to roles of leadership. I mean, a lot of people hate fat-cat bankers born with silver spoons in their mouth, but these folks have been unseated in precious few parts of the world. Power (and talent, skill, and luck) may attract envy and animosity, but it also tends to attract more power. The best stories (The Twelve Houses again, is a good example of this) provide a good explanation: magic has limitations that its enemies know how to exploit, magicians have nemeses with their own, less objectionable power, ancient magician-kings were overthrown (which explains why they are so hated and no one will work for them), or whatever. A lot of the rank-and-file of this trope, however, never bothers with a justification.

Beyond that problem, though, I'm getting a little sick of it.

Perhaps it's over-exposure. This trope seems to have become very popular in fantasy since I was first exposed to it. Perhaps, though, it's something else. I wonder if I haven't grown out of it. As an adolescent, I was very caught up in being special. I worried that I wasn't special enough. I wanted to be assured of my uniqueness and value. I felt that the people who didn't recognize how wonderful I was were either right - which would have been terrible - or wrong, in which case they were oppressing me.

As an adult, I've realized that I don't really care about being special anymore. I'm content to be pretty average in a lot of ways. I have a purpose in life - several, in fact - and I'm happy to be used by them. I don't need to stand out in the eyes of any but the people who know me and appreciate what I bring to them and the world. Perhaps that's why the shine has worn off the story of the magic few.

Finally - and this is probably also part of my growing up - I think that there's something distressing elitist about the myth of the magic few. Let's look at this critically. Imagine that you actually lived in this world: there are a class of people, chosen at random, with magic powers. They can burn you alive with a gesture, invade your memories by looking at you hard, or bend your mind with a glance. There's nothing you can do to stop these people from taking what you own, coercing your obedience, engineering your humiliation, or ending your life. Remember that these people weren't chosen by a higher power with your best interests at heart. They aren't the best, the kindest, or the wisest. Some of them are great people and some of them are jerks. Their power is inherent, so there's nothing you can do to join them, ever.

You can't stop them, you can't compare to them, you can't join them, they don't deserve what they have, and they could be anyone.

Scary? Depressing? Both? Remind you too much of the real world?

Yeah, me too.

I feel that the story of the oppressed sorcerer is founded in the assumption that you are one of the special ones. But special has to equal rare, or it wouldn't be special anymore. Assume that you're a farmer caught in arcane crossfire, watching her home burn; assume that you're a merchant who just gave away goods worth a year of overhead thanks to a magician's charm; assume that you're a twelve year old girl who just caught a magician's eye - the equation changes. You start to think that maybe there needs to be some way to control these people. Maybe you even think that if the best solution you can think of is to put them in the ground, then maybe it's ok. Maybe it's the least of all available evils.

Now, all of this isn't to say that I don't ever want to read this kind of story again. What I'm looking for is a story that takes a more nuanced approach. I want the story to have a is well-built setting, of course, one that answers all the questions I raised above, but I also want it to provide multiple points of view on the problem of magic. Let's have the usual rag-tag band of heroic magicians and their hangers-on, but let's also have mage-hunters with legitimate grievances, people who have suffered at the hands of the "special few." Let's have a resolution that amounts to more than "the magic people should be free to do whatever they want, but don't worry - all the magic people who have been main characters are great."

When you find it, let me know.

The Subtle, Sinister Side of Sexism in Speculative Stories

Six S's sequentially! Seventy supplemental... uh... points!

First of all, have a fascinating article about sexual dimorphism in the world of WoW from Wired.

Also, check out this picture from the oft-hillarious, sometimes disturbing, and rarely safe for work Boobs Don't Work That Way:

Arguing about the portrayal of men and women in fantasy (especially on the internet) is something of a hobby of mine. In fact, I've gotten a little sick of discussing this, so I'm writing this post in part so whenever this comes up I can simply post a link and say "see this - this is what I think."

First of all, I will the first, second, third, and last to admit that I appreciate fantasy chicks. The Chainmail Bikini has a place of honor in my heart, alongside the Naked Powerful Evil Queen (the Abigail loves to mock me about this one), Swords of Unusual Size, and Extremely Flash Magic.

That said, you need to watch what you're doing. Fill your story (or video game, or movie, or RPG book, or whatever) with half-naked women and you are sending an extremely powerful message: this work is intended to excite and titillate the men in the audience. Women who like women may glean some enjoyment if they can get past the discomfort of seeing their own gender blatantly and unfairly sexualized. Women (and men) who like men need not apply.

This is not a message that I intend to send with anything I create. It's also not a message I like to see in anything I consume.

"But Mark," I hear you say, "you just said that you're a fan of chainmail bikinis and wicked sorceress-queens lounging nakedly on thrones of skulls!" I hear you say it through the Internet. It's a new app I just bought, and it's awesome.

Ahem.

The thing is, there's nothing wrong with sexualized fiction. Mighty thews and heaving bosoms have been with us for as long as there has been writing; check out an accurate translation of the Song of Solomon if you don't believe me. The trick is to consider what message you are sending with your work. Are you excluding someone? Are you only giving eye-candy to a segment of your audience? If the answer is yes, you need to deal with it.

This is where the chart I posted at the start of this post comes in. It may be intended as a bit of tongue-in-cheek commentary, but I think it's actually useful as a guide for balanced titillation. What you need to do is this:

1. Decide where on the X-Axis your story is going to fall. Is your work Realistic? Heroically Idealized? Sexualized? A combination of the two (for example: largely Heroically Idealized but with a few sexy bits that slip over into Sexualized or largely Realistic but with a Heroically Idealized climax scene).
2. Keep yourself in that category for both male and female characters. Period.

I mean it with step two. That's where the magic happens. Balance between the depiction of the sexes is what sends the message "this work is for everyone to enjoy!" For every man covered in grime and sweat I want to see a woman who hasn't had a bath since she set out from Caer Amithar a fortnight ago. For every heaving bosom I want to see a mighty thew. For every levitating breast I want to see a buttock of a tautness that defies the durability of human flesh. And no fair skimping on the narration - you must describe everything with an equal degree of loving, sexy, titillating detail. If you aren't up for appealing to everyone in your audience, aim for the left side of the diagram and leave the sexy stuff to the professionals.

And by the way, you should probably take some of those examples with a grain of salt. I'm not into guys, so I'm not sure what actually qualifies as the equivalent of a heaving bosom or levitating breast. Do some research with your female-favoring friends of the male and female persuasion.

There is one more objection I hear a lot, usually from people who make more of their money in one or another artistic industry. "Mark," I hear them say (through the app), "the thing is, people who like to look at guys are used to this sort of thing and they'll buy our art anyway; people who like to look at girls (specifically, male people who like to look at girls) won't."

To this I say: grow the hell up.

Artists - quit being lazy wimps. You want to change the world with your work? Take a stand. The days of fantastic fiction being the purview of men and men alone are long gone - and good riddance to them. Don't hide behind the need to make money. I guarantee you that you can find a way to make a statement you can actually be proud of and also make a buck, if you try.

And all the girl-looking-at-male-people out there - guys, we can do better. I guarantee you that photons bouncing off words describing buff guys (or even - and I know this can be hard to believe - pictures) won't do you any harm. They don't cause eczema, hair loss, or cancer. Everybody else has had to look at what you like for centuries, and they're all fine. You'll live.

Before I go, I want to hear from you. Who does a good job of balancing appeal for those who like boys and those who like girls? What are some works of fantastic fiction that pass the Zeppelin Test?

Latin name: Unicornis

You know what doesn't get enough attention? Unicorns.

Maybe it's just me - I watched The Last Unicorn so many times I'm surprised I can't recite the thing from memory - but I remember when unicorns were all over the place. The wicked and selfish hunted for them, the virtuous basked in their presence. I read short stories about unicorns and books that featured unicorns, and I generally thought they were pretty awesome.

Then, it all seemed to dry up.

The problem seems to be twofold. Firstly, along with talking horses and magical soulmates, unicorns have been relegated to "girl" books. This is silly, because like talking horses and magical soulmates there is nothing inherently gendered about unicorns.

Unless you're talking about a given unicorn's particular gender, or something. I mean, I guess there are boy unicorns and girl unicorns - otherwise where would baby unicorns come from? Unless unicorns reproduce parthenogenetically. Do you think they reproduce through spores? Budding? Ew. Or do they just get pregnant? And if so, do they have to have mock sex, like the so-called lesbian lizards (link is safe, I swear)?

Right. Back on topic.

So half the problem is clearly sexism. If unicorns are girl stuff, and girl stuff is unworthy, then unicorns are unworthy and don't get into mainstream fantasy. This is clearly bullshit, but it explains more than it doesn't.

Before I explain the second thing that seems to me to have driven unicorns out of modern fantasy (and, obviously, into the sea), I need to explain what it is that makes unicorns quite so cool.

In addition to being great big horses with horns (because almost everything is cooler with horns), unicorns represent virtue and purity as active, almost aggressive. This is not virtue that gets despoiled - this is virtue that stabs you in the face if you mess with it. This is virtue as a force of nature. This is why Dan Lacey's paintings of a naked Barack Obama astride a unicorn made perfect sense to me, and were such an internet sensation.

It sometimes seems to me that modern fantasy has lost interest in virtue. We like antiheroes, non-heroes, villains, and complications. We like to watch our heroes suffer, compromise, and fail. We don't want Frodo and Sam, whose love and friendship saved the world while armies clashed needlessly outside the Black Gate. We don't want Thomas Covenant, who laughed god's evil brother to death. Or, at least, we don't want them quite as much as I do. We want things more like the work of Brandon Sanderson (which I like, by the way), in which cleverness, alliance, and skill at arms (or magic, or geometry, or whatever) win the day.

Though, as the Abigail pointed out in conversation, this may also be a gendered issue. The Abigail was able to list several recent fantasy novels marketed for women and girls in which virtue (or love, or some other positive passion) is the defining engine of victory.

Anyway, I want more unicorns, more friendship, and more evil gods laughed to death in my fantasy. I like it when virtue lifts up its head (or lowers its horn) and takes action. If you do, too, let me know in the comments.

And by the way, if you agree that there isn't enough about unicorns out there, then the Abigail tells me to recommend Rampant by Diana Peterfreund and Zombies vs Unicorns, an anthology. I have read neither of these (yet), but the Abigail has and I trust her judgement.

Until next time, the Zeppelin is hoping that if it's careful enough when talking about books it hasn't read yet Diane Duane might someday forgive it.

Arise and Go Get McDonalds

I the comments to this failed creative prompt post, one of my new readers requested something related to the content of earlier editions of D&D. While I'm still failing to think of anything related to 3.5e and earlier D&D, here's something spinning of the D&D franchise as a whole:

Tell me about resurrection.

The rules are (or at least seem to be) exactly the same as D&D. For the right price, a sufficiently powerful spellcaster (and there is no shortage of those) can bring the dead back to life. The dead person must agree to be brought back, which means that good people who lived full lives and have gone on to whatever reward awaits them are usually fine with staying dead, bad people are eager to escape, and heroes usually come back, but might take death as an excuse to retire from the whole painful, messy business. Being brought back to life costs you something, but it's something you can regain with time and rest.

I want to hear about the deeper consequences of this idea. What kinds of cultural and artistic quirks would develop, given this "technology?" Basically, I want to hear what you come up with when you attack the idea of fantasy resurrection with the rigor usually reserved for science fiction. Bonus points for truly original ideas. You get docked points for falling back on tired old standbies, though if the idea has legs it'll still walk.

Go.

'Cause It's Cool

I realized belatedly that I might have overstated my point in my last post, so I wanted to make something clear. There's nothing wrong with including something in your story simply because it's cool. I am a full supporter of stories that include cool things.

What I'm against is writing words just because the words are cool.

What's the distinction?

Something that's in your story has a place. It is thought out, considered, and connected to other story elements. It exists to serve the story - sometimes, simply by being cool.

Words that just happen to occupy the same page as your story are not connected. They simply exist, for their own sake rather than for the story's sake. They are selfish, disruptive, and parasitical. They take up space without contributing anything, not matter how cool they are.

For all my pontificating, I don't pretend to always know the difference between the two. Cool but parasitical words can be very good at masquerading as cool stuff. I am still a wannabe, after all. Though, I am swift to point out, I firmly believe that even when I am an actuallyis I'll still need editors and good friends to help me figure it out.

War on BAUF

Hard to admit I fought the war on BAUF

My hands were tied and the phone was... BAUFed.

Ahem...

BAUF is an acronym of my own devising for a thing that I would like to see eradicated, or at the very least reduced: Business As Usual Fantasy. I'm sure you've heard me ranting about BAUF before, when it comes to fantasy species, and the prevalence of BAUF themes was my main criticism in a recent podcast novel review.

Now let us define our terms: what us BAUF?

In my opinion, the fantasy genre is plagued by a tendency to include fantasy elements for their own sake, rather than because they serve the story or contribute to the setting. It's the kind of logic that leads to elves somewhere in the world - it's a fantasy, after all - even if there are no elves or elvish works in the story itself. Worse, this is the kind of lack of thought that leads to the presence of elves even when the elves add nothing to the story.

For a relevant counter-example, check out science fiction. In science fiction, story elements are generally well-considered and weighed out, included because of what they add, not simply because it's science fiction. Space ships are usually only present in science fiction stories that need space ships - because the story takes place on an alien planet, or the social and economic effects of space travel help drive the plot, or whatever - and are absent from stories that don't. There are warlike cat-people-aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space - a seminal work of science fiction - but there aren't warlike cat-people-aliens in Carl Sagan's Contact. That's because Carl Sagan and Larry Niven both thought long and hard about what was needed to drive their stories and only included those elements that were needful.

Just to be clear, I've got nothing against orcs and dwarves, dragons and spellcasters, when they are necessary to the story. I've even gotten over my elf rage (mostly). I'm even writing a novel that includes elves as a major plot and setting piece. What I have a beef with is the practice of including these elements when they are totally extraneous. Business As Usual Fantasy. Fantasy elements that are included for no reason other than that they are expected.

So, I've explained what I mean by BAUF. But what, you ask, is the problem?

The problem with BAUF is that it's fat, pure and simple. Although I'm not always good at it - just ask everyone who critiqued The Dead of Tetra Manna in its earliest incarnations - I believe that slim and focused writing is a virtue in and of itself. Unnecessary and extraneous elements don't belong in a tightly written narrative. Readers shouldn't be distracted by stuff that doesn't need to be there. Everything you include takes attention away from everything else you include, so include as little as possible (without rendering your story completely sparse) and spend your narrative energy on what matters.

Let's keep it positive - I don't want to condemn specific works as BAUF here. Rather, let's take a little while to talk about a couple of works that are definitely not just Business As Usual.

• The Guild of the Cowry Catchers (and The Prophet of Panamindorah, which I have never spelled correctly the first attempt), both excellent podcast novels by Abigail Hilton. The world of Panamindorah (I got it right!) is completely free of BAUF, and quite compelling besides.
• N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is exactly what I'm talking about when I ask for tightly written fantasy that only includes what it needs and excludes what it doesn't. In addition to being a tightly-written novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms takes place in a truly unique setting that is lean, mean, and evocative.

I'd love to see more examples of BAUF-free fantasy in the comments.

Until next time, folks, remember: go not to the elves for council, for they will say both yes and "zeppelin!"

Frickin' elves.

Free (From) Agency

I've been listening to the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine a lot lately. The podcast is distinguished in two ways: firstly, they do professional quality full-cast audio productions that are really fun to listen to, and secondly, they are still a relatively small and young non-professional market, which means that goons like me stand a snowball's chance of getting published there. Most of my other podcasts are single reader and professional or near-professional, which makes the Dunesteef a welcome change of pace.

As a sub-professional market, the Dunesteef also publishes a lot of stuff by relatively inexperienced writers, which has given me the opportunity to notice something interesting. Many writers - myself included - siaplt a fondness for what I call the "Agency Hook." While the Agency Hook is a venerable tradition and has spawned numerous popular books and television shows, there are problems with it, and reasons that inexperienced writers find it so attractive.

I can hear you asking me: dude, what the hell are you talking about?

The Agency Hook works like this: the main character(s) are operatives of some organization who sends them out to do its bidding. The characters might be cops, soldiers, FBI agents, part of a secret cult, or members of some shadowy and clandestine bureau. Almost invariably, there are problems of organizational politics, bureaucratic incompetence, and secret agendas. Famous examples of the Agency Hook include Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, and many other spy shows and movies.

The advantages of the Agency Hook are manifold. The agency at issue can provide numerous premises; want your characters to go anywhere, do anything? The agency sent them! Need a complication? From agency politics and antagonistic superiors to simple disorganization and stupidity, the possibilities are nearly endless.

So, then, what's the problem?

In the hands of an inexperienced writer (or, for that matter, someone who just made a mistake), the Agency Hook can have the side effect of deprotagonizing the protagonists (which is never a good idea). Put bluntly, (in my opinion), when a main character is only doing what he does for someone else's reasons, what you have on your hands is a dead fish of a story. Characters are good when they take charge of their destinies and make both interesting decisions and interesting mistakes (or, alternately, dramatically fail to take charge of their destinies, which is itself an interesting mistake).

In my mind, the best way to make sure you're using the Agency Hook and not the Agency Crutch is to carefully examine your story. Is your character personally, deeply, passionately involved in what he does, or is he only doing it because it's orders? Does your character have a unique style that shines through the narrative, or is he simply falling into the role of Yet Another [Insert Organization Here] Agent (or - and this is harder to spot - Yet Another Archetypically Styled [Insert Organization Here] Agent. Spooky FBI Dude, anyone)?

I've kind of moved away from the Agency Hook these days - not because it's universally bad, but because it doesn't really interest me right now. I'm finding it more interesting to explore character who act wholly on their passions and experiences rather than being tangled in an organization that dictates their actions. That said, I still engage with the Agency Hook - anyone who's ever run or played a White Wolf game, especially the old World of Darkness, plays with the Agency Hook - so I'm definitely not condemning it. I'm just saying that it has its flaws, and you should remain cognizant of them.

That's all for now. Until next time, remember that orders are orders, and if you've got a problem with that you should take it up with the boss.

Lady Burn

Ah... the Creative Prompt Post. It's the new Lame-Ass Link Post. Fun to make and quick to write. The only reason I'm still able to post on school days, even now that it is autumn. Oh, how I love thee.

Today's post is inspired by this and this (these entries are clean, but the blog is not always safe for work - be forewarned), posts deconstructing the trope of the  iconic super hero costume by re-imagining Dazzler as a Lady Gaga-esque woman of many daring costumes.

And, you know, super powers.

Riff off that, my faithful reader(s). Comment with your tales of super heroes who wear many odd costumes and not just the one.

Comic Depression

For the longest time - about as long as I can remember being aware of the art form - I have wanted to be a part of the team that writes a webcomic. The first reason is pure arrogance: I often want to do things right that I see done wrong. Actually, this can get really frustrating when I experience something that has maybe, the smallest seed of quality and I find myself obsessing over how I'd do it, and how I'd make it good. A lot of webcomics... well, they're clearly written by artists who think they can write, rather than writers who think they can draw (the latter, when I have to choose between the two, is the one that I prefer).

The second reason is that I love dialog, I love character development, and I love plots. While I have a good visual imagination and like deciding on the appearances of things, it isn't my favorite thing to do. Frankly, I get stressed out trying to figure out how often to reincorporate so-and-so's appearance, such-and-such's smell, the fact that what's-her-bucket has a pet weasel-hawk.

So basically, writing a webcomic means that I get to do just all the fun stuff and none of the less fun stuff? And also it's serialized, long-running, and full of potential? What's not to love? You'll notice that I don't want to get a job in the comics industry, and that' because I do like writing descriptions. I'd feel incomplete if all I did was plot character arcs and write dialog. But, as a project, as something to do (along with everything else I do) it'd be... glorious.

Despite my rather arrogant and cynical description of the webcomicist's art above, I do read a number of truly wonderful webcomics:

• Collar6: It's ridiculous, it's absurdly kinky, and the setting seems like an absurd mix of a modern version of Exalted and a bondage fantasy... but I like it. Take from that what you may.
• Digger: The comic's own tagline says it best: "a wombat, a dead god, a most peculiar epic." I remember wanting to read this one back when it was on a pay site, and how happy I was when it finally went free.
• Drowtales: I've been meaning to write a longer ode to this comic, which actually has done a great deal to cure my elf rage. Seriously.
• Girl Genius: Does anyone not read Girl Genius? Really?
• Keychain of Creation: Like ORder of the Stick, but younger and for Exalted.
• MythAdventures: The team behind Girl Genius, bringing Robert Aspirin's creation to the screen. Top quality stuff.
• Order of the Stick: Rich Burlew's gently mocking presentation of a D&D-themed fantasy world is practically required reading for fantasy gamers everywhere. This story manages to oscillate perfectly between humor and drama, with real characters, really developing, in a hillarious and absurd world.

Unfortunately, I have never made the acquaintance of my opposite number - an artist with lots of time on his or her hands, eager to bring my mindchilds to life.

But some day. Someday...