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newnumber6Anyway, let's move on to Book Foo.
Finished: Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Excession, by Iain M. Banks (reread)
Iron Sunrise, aside from the slightly ridiculous Space Nazis (not quite but almost) works much better as a reread than the first book in the series, feeling more mature as a whole. But I don't have a lot to say on it. I would like to see more in the universe, but I don't think Stross plans on revisiting it anytime soon. Pity.
Finished: To Your Scattered Bodies Go... (Riverworld, Book One), by Philip Jose Farmer (reread)
Like I said last time, I think this book is one of the top ten Great Ideas in SF (although, perhaps I'd modify it to "The Top Ten Great Ideas Which Somehow Haven't Been Pounced On By Other Writers And Repeated Millions of Times"), and maybe one of the reasons for it is writingwise it's a little flat. It has some great characters as protagonists but it just doesn't come alive very much. Now, part of it is the book's age... SF books written in the past have a certain style that's different than more modern books (I'm not sure exactly where the split is, but I want to say it happened sometime in the 80s)... it's hard to define exactly, I suppose some of it's more of a focus on character than plot, so the books read a little like you're at a distance from the whole thing instead of immersing yourself in the wonder... and I usually like newer ones better.
It's not bad per se, it's just a weaker than it should be. Since I've given up on a good Riverworld TV adaptation, I'd almost settle for a Riverworld novel reboot (or, again, taking the same idea of everybody in humanity resurrected on the same alien world and being immortal, but dropping some of the specific elements that make Riverworld unique), written by somebody else... which is perhaps less likely.
Started and finished: When Graviy Fails, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
Started: A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
I don't know why I felt a desire to read the Budayeen novels again, but I'm glad I did. Enough time has passed where I was unfamiliar with the specifics of the mystery, so it was still surprising and almost as enjoyable as the first time. Effinger DOES manage to do what Farmer does not, really immerse you in a radically different world and make you feel not only the differences but that somehow you belong, and, even though most of the characters are unsavory or downright despicable in one way or another, you feel a little sympathetic for them. So I moved on to the second, which as I recall wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed it.
-
So, other than books, what else is there? TV's almost completely dead now, just one last episode of Doctor Who (which has been mostly enjoyable, with a few exceptions, this year, an improvement over last).
So, there's video games. Or, rather, a video game. I've been playing Left 4 Dead, and doing so on X-Box Live. I splurged and bought a yearly membership but promised I wouldn't activate it until I'd met a few conditions... 1 being finishing my Runaways Alternate Volume 3 thing, the second being submitting a story off for possible publication (though I'm not getting my hopes up, this time it's to one of the biggies, Asimov's), and 3rd being a couple of achievements in the single player mode I wanted to unlock. All of them were done a couple days ago, so I activated it and got to playing.
Mostly I've been playing Versus mode... I just like playing as the Infected, lying in wait and trying to surprise/trap the unsuspecting other players. I kind of wish there were a few more different Versus modes (I'd like to see something like a normal campaign mode where you play all the way through as one or the other, and can switch at will if there are spaces free on the other side, so if you JUST like playing infected, you can do that), and a little more variety in what you can be, (maybe I'll have to move on to L4D2 so I can get Spitter and Jockey added to the mix).
Anyway, I unlocked all but one of the Versus Achievements by now (The one where you get a survivor to leave a saferoom to come after a friend, and kill him, is remarkably hard to get - mainly because too many players are selfish and just lock themselves in the room when they get to it and leave their friends to die. When I'm playing on the Survivor's side, I actually like to go rescue people), and most but not all of the Survivor Achievements (I'm not yet a Zombie Genocidist, and I haven't yet killed enough with a minigun... most of the others are the really hard ones, like suriving campaigns on expert or making it through without taking damage from the special infected types).
The game generally does a very nice trick of leading you along a fairly narrow, specific path, while not making it LOOK like it's doing so, particularly on the first playthrough. It's almost like you just follow the general policy, 'if it looks like you have a choice of multiple directions, just look for the most interesting thing you see that you haven't already been to'. Sometimes that's a stairway, sometimes that's a door with a little light coming through, sometimes it's a stairway. It is a bit simplistic at times and can be repetitive, but for now I'm really enjoying it.
Finished: Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Excession, by Iain M. Banks (reread)
Iron Sunrise, aside from the slightly ridiculous Space Nazis (not quite but almost) works much better as a reread than the first book in the series, feeling more mature as a whole. But I don't have a lot to say on it. I would like to see more in the universe, but I don't think Stross plans on revisiting it anytime soon. Pity.
Finished: To Your Scattered Bodies Go... (Riverworld, Book One), by Philip Jose Farmer (reread)
Like I said last time, I think this book is one of the top ten Great Ideas in SF (although, perhaps I'd modify it to "The Top Ten Great Ideas Which Somehow Haven't Been Pounced On By Other Writers And Repeated Millions of Times"), and maybe one of the reasons for it is writingwise it's a little flat. It has some great characters as protagonists but it just doesn't come alive very much. Now, part of it is the book's age... SF books written in the past have a certain style that's different than more modern books (I'm not sure exactly where the split is, but I want to say it happened sometime in the 80s)... it's hard to define exactly, I suppose some of it's more of a focus on character than plot, so the books read a little like you're at a distance from the whole thing instead of immersing yourself in the wonder... and I usually like newer ones better.
It's not bad per se, it's just a weaker than it should be. Since I've given up on a good Riverworld TV adaptation, I'd almost settle for a Riverworld novel reboot (or, again, taking the same idea of everybody in humanity resurrected on the same alien world and being immortal, but dropping some of the specific elements that make Riverworld unique), written by somebody else... which is perhaps less likely.
Started and finished: When Graviy Fails, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
Started: A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
I don't know why I felt a desire to read the Budayeen novels again, but I'm glad I did. Enough time has passed where I was unfamiliar with the specifics of the mystery, so it was still surprising and almost as enjoyable as the first time. Effinger DOES manage to do what Farmer does not, really immerse you in a radically different world and make you feel not only the differences but that somehow you belong, and, even though most of the characters are unsavory or downright despicable in one way or another, you feel a little sympathetic for them. So I moved on to the second, which as I recall wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed it.
-
So, other than books, what else is there? TV's almost completely dead now, just one last episode of Doctor Who (which has been mostly enjoyable, with a few exceptions, this year, an improvement over last).
So, there's video games. Or, rather, a video game. I've been playing Left 4 Dead, and doing so on X-Box Live. I splurged and bought a yearly membership but promised I wouldn't activate it until I'd met a few conditions... 1 being finishing my Runaways Alternate Volume 3 thing, the second being submitting a story off for possible publication (though I'm not getting my hopes up, this time it's to one of the biggies, Asimov's), and 3rd being a couple of achievements in the single player mode I wanted to unlock. All of them were done a couple days ago, so I activated it and got to playing.
Mostly I've been playing Versus mode... I just like playing as the Infected, lying in wait and trying to surprise/trap the unsuspecting other players. I kind of wish there were a few more different Versus modes (I'd like to see something like a normal campaign mode where you play all the way through as one or the other, and can switch at will if there are spaces free on the other side, so if you JUST like playing infected, you can do that), and a little more variety in what you can be, (maybe I'll have to move on to L4D2 so I can get Spitter and Jockey added to the mix).
Anyway, I unlocked all but one of the Versus Achievements by now (The one where you get a survivor to leave a saferoom to come after a friend, and kill him, is remarkably hard to get - mainly because too many players are selfish and just lock themselves in the room when they get to it and leave their friends to die. When I'm playing on the Survivor's side, I actually like to go rescue people), and most but not all of the Survivor Achievements (I'm not yet a Zombie Genocidist, and I haven't yet killed enough with a minigun... most of the others are the really hard ones, like suriving campaigns on expert or making it through without taking damage from the special infected types).
The game generally does a very nice trick of leading you along a fairly narrow, specific path, while not making it LOOK like it's doing so, particularly on the first playthrough. It's almost like you just follow the general policy, 'if it looks like you have a choice of multiple directions, just look for the most interesting thing you see that you haven't already been to'. Sometimes that's a stairway, sometimes that's a door with a little light coming through, sometimes it's a stairway. It is a bit simplistic at times and can be repetitive, but for now I'm really enjoying it.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 01:27 pm (UTC)The reason L4D forces switching is that the Infected are so much more powerful than the Survivors--and human-played Infected usually win unless the Survivors actually work as a team. A lot of people like playing them best, and only play Survivor as long as they have to.
Still, though L4D is a pretty neat game. L4D2 adds some more variety and balances the versus mode a little, though it's still very Advantage-Infected. I don't mind the imbalance all that much, but I actually played L4D/2 in co-op campaign mode a lot more, generally with people that I knew.
(I only have it for PC)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-28 12:20 am (UTC)If we include "The Top Ten Big Ideas That Haven't Really Been Pounced On", there are only two I can really think of at this time, Riverworld-esque "everybody dead returns to life" types of stories, and Asimov's Psychohistory (both have, I'm sure, had a few cases of people picking up the idea, but it never really caught fire like some of the other Great Big Ideas that HAVE been pounced on")
Yeah, I see what you mean about people preferring o skip the Surivvor part, still, I think a couple different modes could be done that still keep that in mind.
I've played a bit of L4D2 when they had the demo out, on computer, and actually played Versus-like as well (there were console commands involved and a patch) (though you stayed as infected until you switched out). One of the things I liked was playing Infected against computer controlled survivors, cause they were preternaturally accurate at spotting you, it was actually a challenge. I dont' think you could do that in the official game (nor at all, in L4D1, because in L4D1 the computer players just act like lumps if there's no human playing).