Narmer And the God Beast Cover Reveal!

As I alluded to in my July Newsletter, I have worked up a short story in my ‘Egypt and Dinosaurs’ setting. It is called Narmer and the God Beast. As I so eloquently put it then:

“I even paid for a cover and everything . . . “

https://alligatorsandaneurysms.wordpress.com/2021/07/02/july-newsletter-new-fiction-master-of-secrets/

Well, that cover is here. It was created by illustrator Lee Eschliman who is absolutely fantastic. You can take a look at his other work on instagram. Lee’s artwork has been in my life since I can remember. One of his logos graced the deck of my very first skateboard (if you can believe I used to skate) and he’s influenced several of my hobbies overs the years. I was absolutely ecstatic that he was willing to craft the cover for my story. It turned out simply amazing.

Anywho, without further ado, here’s the cover for Narmer and the God Beast (and the back cover blurb to pique your interest):

“Had I anything in my heart but hate for my brother and pity for myself . . .

I may have suspected I was about to meet a god.”

Broken and bleeding into the cool Nile waters – shattered by his brother’s cruelty – young Narmer pays the crocodile no heed as it enters the stream. Let it come.

But the hunter swims on, and only then does Narmer know its aim, the defenseless god-beast drinking and playing up-river.

Dinosaurs will again roam the desert sands, uniting the disparate Two Lands into one great Egypt, if Narmer can drive off the crocodile, if he can endure his brother’s malice.

If he can save this sacred creature and be saved by it . . .

---

So, there you have it. Narmer and the God Beast is officially announced. The launch on Amazon will take place on October 4th, but you can also preorder it now. I’m going to be doing a series of posts this month about my influences for the story and how it came together so stay tuned for those. Some stories and teasers in this world have already been posted on this blog so look for them on my fiction page.

And finally, you can just follow my progress on things and get quarterly updates and new fiction by subscribing to my newsletter at https://jdweber.news/EgyptAndDinos. For signing up, I’ll send you a copy of the first story I every wrote about a warlock doctor.

See you next time!

*Update 9/14 – I’ve begun posting some of the “influence” posts I mentioned before. Here’s what I’ve completed so far:

• Pharaoh: The Boy Who Conquered the Nile (Book Review)
• Who was Narmer IRL?
• Dinotopia: A Remembrance and Review
• Paralititan Stromeri: The Tidal Giant
• Death Dogs: The Jackal Gods of Ancient Egypt (review)
• From the Primordial Ooze: The Gensis of an Idea
• The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt (review)

Should ‘Chants of Sennaar’ Win the Hugo?

I love that Chants of Sennaar is on the ballot for ‘Best Game or Interactive Work’ for the 2024 Hugo Awards. I was already playing through this game, and was likely to post about it (because it’s great!) but now I just have even more of a reason.

Not that I need a reason (after all isn’t that the whole point of this blog?) . . .

Anyway, Chants of Sennaar is a striking, almost compulsive, experience for many reasons, but I think what stands out immediately is its art style. I’ll be the first to admit that art, and art history are not really my strong suits in terms of knowledge base, and I was initially at a loss for words (ironic in a game about communication) for how to approach the description of this game’s utterly incredible art direction.

Luckily, art director Julien Moya is already talking about this over at GameDeveloper.com. In Deep Dive: The Visual Tapestry of Chants of Sennaar, he says:

“We drew a lot of inspiration from diverse building styles such as brutalist, Indian, sub-Saharan, industrial, and art-deco; we’ve also been researching the history of sculptors like Thierry Urbain and comic designer François Schuiten.”

and

“. . . we took guidance from Franco-Belgian comics masters like Mœbius, François Schuiten and Philippe Druillet. We immersed ourselves in their work, and learned how to play with radical colors, while the iconic “clear line” style of Franco-Belgian comics allowed us to emphasize simple shapes and vivid hues within a rich and familiar whole.”

Really I think we can just let the game speak for itself:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the second element of the game which stands out is the gameplay itself in which you slowly become more fluent in five different made-up languages by solving puzzles and interacting with NPCs on each of the different levels of a giant tower (Rundisc was inspired by the myth of Babel, and while there doesn’t seem to be any connection other than the original myth, I think fans of the Books of Babel series by Josiah Bancroft will definitely love this game).

Some of these puzzles are quite difficult, but luckily you do not need to solve every single one to progress through the game or enjoy playing. I felt this was an important choice on the part of the designers, and one that makes the game more fun and inclusive. I’m a bit of a completionist, and so I went back and tried to solve everything, but I think if this had been forced on me, the game would have quickly become frustrating. As it is, you sort of make your own journey through the tower, solving what you can or want to, and leaving the rest.

As you ascend, a story begins to take shape, and the ultimate goal of the game, to unite the different cultures of the tower, becomes more clear. It is quite compulsory, with each new success hinting at the next piece of story, and making the next puzzle just a tad easier to solve.

It’s obvious a ton of worldbuilding went into creating each of the five levels of the game. Normally, I love to try and work out as much of the inspiration and allusions to real world cultures as I can, but Chants of Sennaar‘s pedigree in this respect is quite long and varied. I again have a quote from Julien Moya which lists some of the influences for the languages:

“Drawing from a wide range of graphic and semantic systems, including Phoenician, Kufic, Sanskrit, Futhark, Korean Hangeul, or Cistercian numbers”

I know essentially nothing about any of these cultures and so I won’t attempt to deconstruct any of its uses here, but if you’re curious it seems like some play-throughs (watch video 1, 2, 3, & 4) on the Save Ancient Studies Twitch channel might answer some of those questions for you (I haven’t watched them yet but am hopeful to do so someday).

Finally, the last part of the game which I enjoyed was its message which seems woven into nearly every part of the game. Again, from Moya:

“It highlights the transformative power of communication, open-mindedness, and embracing diversity.”

I would be hard pressed to think of a theme more relevant to today’s world.

Should It Win the Hugo Award?

In my opinion, absolutely. This is without a doubt one of the best games I’ve played in recent memory. The only game I can compare it to is Heaven’s Vault (which Rundisc said was an inspiration), which I’ve not yet reviewed on this blog, but IS one of my all-time favorite games.

What sets this game apart from basically everything else available, is its beautiful art direction, compelling puzzle based gameplay, and a compulsory narrative which is revealed to players slowly through their own ingenuity and puzzle solving ability.

Finally, why I think the game is important as a Hugo contender, is because of its themes surrounding diversity, inclusion, and communication.

I kind of suspect Baldur’s Gate 3 will win the award because it seems to be winning everything right now, but I sincerely hope that Chants of Sennar wins instead!

That’s all I have for now. How’d I do? Are you looking forward to playing Chants of Sennar? Which culture is your favorite? Let me know in the comments.

See you next time!

Celebrating 25 Years of The Mummy!

Today, May 7th 2024, The Mummy (starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz) celebrates its 25th birthday!

This is something of a special (*cough* nostalgic) moment for me.

While I can’t remember with any specificity the first time I saw this film, it definitely stayed with me over the years. In previous posts, I’ve dated my fascination with Ancient Egypt to a 6th grade social studies course, but I would have been in 3rd or 4th grade when The Mummy was in theaters.

While the likes of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and The Matrix loomed large in my nine-year-old conscious, The Mummy appears to have lain quietly buried, taking on more prominence as it was unearthed again and again as I grew older.

Fast forward to now, and I can hardly think of a project or piece of writing that I’ve done which was left untouched by its influence. As Narmer sneaks through the house of Anubis in Narmer and the God-Beast, I can almost imagine an overlay of Rick O’Connell creeping through a tomb.

In my — yeesh, still not published — novel Aegyptosaur (working title), the great assassin (and main character) shares more than a little likeness to Ardeth Bay, medjay and protector of the secret of the mummy’s curse. On this very blog, Master of Secrets reveals some of the rites and procedures of the ancient Egyptian embalming process. Though the canopic jars mentioned were really used in the ancient rituals, you can guess which I had in mind while writing.

Finally, there’s the short story I wrote about a museum guard investigating the disappearance of an ancient artifact called #HashtagTheMummy. Hard to get any more on the nose than that.

But given that the film is back in theaters this week to celebrate the anniversary, I would venture to guess that I’m not the only person to have been affected by this movie. The aforementioned Phantom Menace does not appear to be returning to theaters any time soon (lol).

We can definitely see some of those effects as we look around us.

For instance, scarab beetles of the kind depicted on ancient Egyptian amulets and jewelry — symbolizing the sun god Khepri — are essentially dung beetles which eat mushrooms, decaying leaves, carrion and . . . well dung. Dermestid beetles (“skin” beetles) are more commonly associated with eating flesh, a process which takes days. Even for a large colony of a thousand beetles. According to Bones and Bugs:

“You could have a colony of these beetles crawl over your body and be tickled, but not bitten or injured in any way” – Everything You Want to Know About Flesh-Eating Dermestid Beetles

But who can forget the image of a swarm of these creepy crawlies covering some poor worker who tripped, and in seconds, reducing said worker to a pile of bones. It is not true to life but it is now “canon” in the popular culture and the propagations of this myth will continue wherever proper research is wanting, and an Ancient Egyptian themed bad guy is wanted more (Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is an example I discovered just this week!).

Where The Mummy “gets it right” regarding scarabs, is in the “skeletons” they find in Imhotep’s sarcophagus. Mummified scarabs have been found in tombs of pharaohs such as Userkaf from the Fifth Dynasty. I’m using “gets it right” quite loosely here hahah.

Another iconic — at least to me — moment from the film has Rick shooting an ancient mirror with a pistol, which manages to align it perfectly so that it reflects the sun towards other mirrors, and after enough reflections, lights up a massive room filled with the shiniest gold treasure you’ll ever lay eyes upon.

So cool.

However, I’ve yet to find any evidence that ancient Egyptians used mirrors in this fashion (if anyone does have evidence send it my way!), but only sometimes used them in preparing cosmetics as the reflections they made were cloudy or distorted.

Nonetheless, this too has propagated in Ancient Egyptian video game settings, primarily as a kind of puzzle. Two examples which immediately spring to mind are (again) the aforementioned Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, and one of my favorite little app games, My little Universe. I’m sure there are many other instances which I have yet to see or document.

Finally, there is of course the trope of the Curse of the Pharaohs itself, upon which the entire film (franchise?) is based. Admittedly, The Mummy (1932) is likely the original film treatment, inspired by an alleged curse which followed the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. But I would argue that this 1999 version is more prominent in the minds of today’s viewers (as of May 2024, I still haven’t seen the 1932 original).

Obviously it was good enough to encourage several direct sequels (The Mummy Returns (2001), and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)), as well as 5 Scorpion King spin offs. Taking on a more horror-centric tone — perhaps trying to move back towards the original version — it was likely top of mind in 2014’s The Pyramid, and a later 2017 adaptation starring Tom Cruise (who was originally offered Fraser’s part for the 1999 version).

More recently, and over in book world, Isabel Ibanez’s What the River Knows (2023) is being billed as: The Mummy meets Death on the Nile. I should probably go read that immediately . . .

In any case, it would seem that The Mummy still looms large in today’s popular culture, and it’s my genuine hope that it will continue to do so.

Give This One a Watch?

YES!! If the love letter above was not enough incentive, heed these final words: GO WATCH IT NOW!

Assuredly, the movie has some issues when it comes to historical accuracy (some of which I mentioned above), and it generally always leans towards whatever is “cool” often in opposition to whatever is realistic or even makes sense.

But these inconsistencies only add to the fun of what is already a pretty great action-adventure.

That’s all I have for today. Do you remember the first time you watched The Mummy? What is your favorite scene? Favorite line? Leave em in the comments!

Until next time!

Should ‘Better Living Through Algorithms’ Win the Hugo?

Looks like it’s time for my SECOND short story Hugo Award nominee review of 2024 (the first was How to Raise a Kraken In Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark).

This week, we have Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer.

A quick google search has revealed to me that Naomi Kritzer is no stranger to the Hugo circuit with nominations in 2016, 2019, 2020 (I’m counting Lodestars), two in 2021, and now 2024. They took wins in 2016, and 2020 (again counting Lodestars), and have been getting nominated for other awards as early as 2003.

I am . . . hugely impressed.

And a bit embarrassed that my only other coverage of this author on this blog was for Little Free Library back in 2021. Apparently I enjoyed that story but did not think it would take the award.

It would seem that if there was an algorithm for writing award worthy fiction, Kritzer has figured it out. And then gone beyond it.

Better Living Through Algorithms is both a story and not a story. It hardly feels like science fiction because its set so firmly in our modern day reality. We’re already living this premise although it isn’t one app, it’s twelve, or fifteen, or a hundred apps which should add up to something wonderful like Abelique, but — like the fabled “universal” remote — never do.

I say it’s both a story an not a story because while we have a pretty easily identifiable protagonist in Linnea, the story’s antagonist is somewhat harder to pin down. Linnea’s skepticism of Abelique kind of positions the app itself in an antagonistic role, although it never seems to do anything outright nefarious, and indeed the opposite seems to be true. It’s actually be helping people.

Of course when the app is shut down, it is because people are acting badly on the app, and again, not because of anything nefarious that the app is doing.

Of course there is the issue of privacy and the amount of data the app needs to have in order to work as magically as it does. I think there is a lot to consider here. If this data is given freely and with consent is it as big a problem?

There’s an example in which Linnea takes a picture of her closet in order for someone on the app to help her make outfit decisions. In theory she consents by snapping the photo, and could just NOT do that in order to retain privacy. But did the app do enough to allow her to make an informed decision? Abelique does not really disclose where that image is stored and what else it can be used for.

Where I feel this story does resemble a more classic mode of science fiction is the way it evaluates a technology and warns of dangers and misuse. Even more so in that there is a way we can read this in which the tech is neutral, and (inevitably) it is people using the tech which are the bad actors. Big mood right here.

There’s just so much here to consider. So many pertinent questions which we must answer not in ten years, or fifty years time, but today, as we live and breath. I won’t spoil the ending, but I think the author leaves us something of a solution but again something we must ponder and tease out for ourselves . . . as the best stories ask us to do.

Should This One Win The Award?

I’ve only read two stories so far, but this is where I would put my money if I was betting for this category.

Better Living Through Algorithms is in some ways not like any other science fiction stories I’ve read. It’s casual in it’s approach, almost simple, but as we read, we find ourselves questioning seemingly foundational story elements like the role of the antagonist. Can something BE an antagonist if all it does is help people?

Yet for all that it is “not a story” it still manages to do what many great science fiction stories have done, which is to posit potential futures of a technology. Kritzer seems to strike a neutral stance, showcasing both positive and negative side effects of the tech, but what I thought was interesting about the story, was how it was the human element which inevitably caused it to go wrong.

All of this seems extremely relevant to today’s moment, but also to the future, as the decisions we make regarding this type of tech will surely influence generations to come. Ultimately, it is this pertinence to today’s world that I think will set it above the other nominees.

That’s all I have for this week. How’d I do? Did I miss anything? Would you use an app like Abelique? Let me know in the comments!

See you next time?

Superhero Scadrial? ‘The Lost Metal’ Is Good But Hard to Pin Down.

Well we’ve made it. The end of an era. Specifically, the end of the 2nd era of Mistborn novels by Brandon Sanderson.

We’ve followed Waxillium Ladrian, Wayne (lolz Wayne doesn’t have a last name), and Marasi Colms through three previous adventures, each of which has tested our heroes not only against the worst criminals, conspirators, and evil gods in the Cosmere, but also against the conventions, tropes and themes of several different genres of Fantasy as well.

In Alloy of Law, we had the perfect alloy of a rough(s) and tumble(weed) Western mixed with Sanderson’s typical Fantasy stylings. Shadows of the Self focused on the city, and the inner depths of character, like noir but with fantasy elements. And The Bands of Mourning took on the deconstruction of Action-Adventure, with perhaps somewhat mixed results.

What is left then for The Lost Metal?

Honestly it’s pretty hard to pin down. The comparison which stands out to me the most is actually like a kind of “team up” style Superhero Film. Like the 2012 Avengers movie, in which a group of characters must work together to solve a really big problem.

This is most obvious in the Marasi chapters as she literally teams up with an Avengers-like organization, partnering with (primarily) two other heroes from other places within the Cosmere to keep an evil army from another planet from coming to Scadrial (Wow that is actually JUST like The Avengers lol).

But there is enough going on (perhaps too much going on) in The Last Metal that a one-to-one genre comparison is difficult, and perhaps not really useful anyway, because this book does not seem to be doing the same kind of deconstructive work that we’ve seen in previous Era 2 titles. It does not focus on trope subversion (it seems to play all the aforementioned super-hero stylings pretty straight) and seems to generally be trying to do its own thing.

While I felt this was somewhat a shame — part of my enjoyment of the previous books was exactly that kind of genre spoofing — ultimately I still enjoyed the book because of how it progressed the overarching Cosmere narrative, which (without spoilers) was basically to blow the whole thing wide open.

If you’re even a little bit of a Cosmere junkie, this book will be like crack cocaine for you. There are so many little details dropped so casually that my head was pretty much spinning the entire time trying to process it all. Did I know this bit of info before? Should I have seen this coming? Where does this fit in?

These were the questions going through my mind at almost every point within the novel, but especially during the aforementioned Marasi chapters. Like woah.

If these are not the parts of the story you enjoy, or if this is somehow your first Cosmere book (weird flex starting on the fourth book of a series but ok), then it’s hard to say what your experience will be. I’ll admit that even I had to eventually just let these details go by as there was too much to fully investigate or consider. And once I kinda stopped paying attention to the all the Cosmere connections, I still feel the story was serviceable if somewhat crowded.

Finally, I felt myself getting a bit sad, and almost grieving a little while reading this one, as it is presumably the last Wax and Wayne book we’ll read. And with that realization, came the realization that there was still so much I had hoped to see and explore before these stories were through.

For instance . . . the entire Malwish (southern?) territories. Perhaps they will get their own spin off in like a Dawnshard/Edgedancer type novel or novella, but so far as I know, this has yet to be announced. Sigh . . .

Give This One A Read?

Yep! If you’ve been trying to “keep up with the Cosmere” I think it’s virtually a must. If you’re just looking for a good send off of these beloved characters, I’d say The Lost Metal is a satisfying read on this front as well.

If you’re hoping for the same kind of nuanced commentary and genre deconstruction present in previous outings of the series, you may be somewhat disappointed as I didn’t feel this book continued that approach, but ultimately I did feel that it was an enjoyable read overall.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this one yet? What were your thoughts? Were there any lingering questions you wanted answered? Any places you wished you could have seen? Let me know in the comments. I’m looking forward to talking about this one!

Until next time!

Skip the Hype: Douglas Preston’s ‘Extinction’ Fails to Deliver

Generally, I hate posting about a book I didn’t like on this blog. Celebrate the things you love, and don’t bother with the things you don’t.

However, Extinction by Douglas Preston was sent to me through Netgalley with the assumption that I would post an honest review, and so I feel a bit compelled to go against the above advice. I read somewhere that they keep track of whether or not you’re actually reviewing the books you get, and not doing so may hurt your chances of getting something later. I’m not sure whether that is true or not, but I figure why risk it.

Anyway, a bit about this book and why it didn’t really do it for me.

Namely, this book felt SLOW. Generally, I’m a big fan of precision and attention detail. A well researched book is a well written book. However, there’s a balance here that is potentially difficult to achieve, and I think the crucial element to getting that balance ‘right’ actually has less to do with how much detail an author provides, and more to do with what the audience expects those details are about.

I’m going to just get this comparison out of the way early since it will doubtless come up, but in a book like Jurassic Park, we patiently read (and if you’re me enjoy) a veritable ton of information about DNA, how genes work, and how de-extinction could work, but we do so because we’ve been promised DINOSAURS WILL EXIST (!!) and wow what an amazing and awe inspiring thing that is.

If you’re hoping that Extinction will provide something of an update (after all JP is over 30 years old) to that science, you’ll be severely disappointed as very little time is devoted to it. Most of the exposition in Extinction seems to be focused more on police procedure and depicting a ‘realistic’ investigation.

As such, there are long stretches of this book which felt like they had little or nothing to do with de-extinction at all, and could have taken place anywhere, and been about any random crime. It seems to me, that the hook for this title was its connection to prehistoric life, and while this connection does take on more prominence with a twist towards the end of the book, Extinction expects its reader to work through about 75% of the story before getting to this point.

Something else which stood out to me, was the book’s orientation towards its characters. In general, I felt like the book spent more time setting up characters we don’t like to fail, rather than building up characters we do like to triumph. This is my first Douglas Preston book, and in general I’ve read very few thrillers, so I’m not yet certain whether this is a convention of the author or the genre, but it didn’t quite land for me. I like to see a ‘bad’ character get their ‘just desserts’ (lolz) as much as the next person, but here it felt a bit one-note.

In the afterword, Preston writes: “My novel Extinction is a way for me to say to readers: welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau.” In some ways this is a good comparison and one of the areas in which I felt the book succeeded was in presenting some argument surrounding the ethics of de-extinction.

One character in particular, chief scientist Marius Karman, actually suggests that we have a moral imperative to resurrect species which we had a hand in the extinction of. I’ve seen this argument around in other places, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it come up in a work of fiction.

On the surface, this argument seems reasonable, but I think the novel is able to show that this kind of thinking doesn’t work wholesale, and isn’t a good idea for every species.

So Should I Read This One or Not?

Ultimately, I’d say it’s ok to miss this one. The best comparison I have for the experience of reading this book would be like watching a show like NCIS. While the story is kind of sandwiched between a unique (ish) premise, and a action-packed finale, most of this book felt like boilerplate police procedural, unengaged with the very premise which hooked readers in the first place.

Where the book succeeds, is perhaps in updating some of the moral argument around genetic engineering, though there is only slight reference to the state of the science behind such issues.

That’s all I have for this week. What are your thoughts? Am I missing something big here? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

Should ‘How to Raise a Kraken In Your Bathtub’ Win a Hugo?

“Le Poulpe Colossal” by malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort, 1801

Well it’s Hugo Season again (and has been for a little while), which means I ought to start adding a few more reviews to the List of Hugo Nominees I’ve Reviewed. I’ll admit that after ANOTHER scandal with the Chengdu awards last year in 2023, my interest and enthusiasm for the awards have greatly diminished.

However, my love and adoration of all stories written by P. Djeli Clark has not, so I figured I’d at least check out his nomination. Starter Villain by John Scalzi, and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty are both excellent and I’d already reviewed them on this blog independent of any Hugo nominations, so please check out those reviews if you’d like.

I’ll likely post a few more ‘hugo’ related reviews before August (I apparently post about video games now, and just so happen to be most the way through Chants of Sennaar), but my approach will definitely be a lot more relaxed than in years past.

Pointless housekeeping aside, let’s dive into this little gem shall we?

In last week’s review of Fonda Lee’s Untethered Sky, I observed that it’s easy to allow a story’s page length to bias our interpretation of it (and our description later on when reviewing). We can’t help but try to make it sound fun, or playful, even when its tone is more serious and nuanced. We enjoyed it, but saying “This piece destroyed me, but in a good way.” seems somewhat incongruous.

We don’t have to worry about this at all with How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub. It is legit ‘a romp’.

Does it have serious commentary about ambition, colonialism, racism and (somewhat) classism? Yes. It is also about raising a baby Kraken.

You don’t need to read about it on the the author’s blog to sense a kind of giddiness about the story. It’s a goofy idea, and yet it’s also a significant one.

Some mechanics of the story were also interesting to me, whether it’s because I’m a writer, or for some other reason I’m not sure, but I couldn’t help but think that the choice of the main character was interesting.

Trevor Hemley is a pretty unlikable dude (the author also notes the risk of this on his blog). He’s self-centered, smug, and racist. Yet his eyes are the ones through which we see the story, and I would argue that it is essential to this story that this is true. On a practical level, we need his POV because Trevor’s ambitions and projects need to be kept secret in order to succeed and we could not be privy to them through another point of view, but more philosophically, this positioning means that all of the things we hate about him — which in many respects are the theme of the story — are reinforced by the story’s ending.

For (a somewhat random) example, consider A Christmas Story. As adults we know that those little puzzles on the back of cereal boxes (or hot chocolate) are BS, but the main character has yet to realize it. His reaction to this loss of innocence is hilarious, but also meaningful because it’s reaffirmed our own beliefs by the end of the scene.

Somewhat less analytical: this scene from A Christmas Story was in the back of my mind pretty much the whole time I was reading this. I was just waiting for some reveal to which Trevor would respond “Son of a B@ch!”. This was it’s own kind of fun.

Anyway, this post is starting to feel a bit long, so I’ll just mention one small criticism before wrapping up. The opening scene (in the bar) felt a bit needless to me, and I wondered if the story should have started with the delivery of the kraken egg to Trevor’s house. As it stands, the opening serves as this sort of weird overture which does express the themes of the story and introduces us to our characters, but I didn’t really feel engaged in the story until the kraken egg arrives. Perhaps this is just personal preference.

But Should it Win a Hugo?

Ultimately, hard to say. It is an excellent story, and a genuine joy to read but I haven’t yet read any of the other stories on the ballot yet. My feeling is that something with a slightly less comedic tone will take the award, but I also feel that post-pandemic, stories with this kind of absurdity are a bit more desirable.

I would certainly be happy if this story won, but only time will tell.

That’s all I have for this week. What are your thoughts? Would you try to raise a kraken in your bathtub? Which nominee do you think will win the Hugo? Let me know in the comments. I’m excited to talk more about this one!

See you next time.

A Short But Powerful Read: A Review of Fonda Lee’s Untethered Sky

It can be easy, I think, to get cute when reviewing novellas. Even having read some fairly heavy/profound stories in that form (looking at you The Deep), the shorter page count always pulls me towards trivialization instead of, perhaps, proper consideration.

Romp, lark, gambol (why have I never described a book as a gambol!). A tasty morsel. A delicious snack. These are the ways it feels appropriate to describe something small — that we are enthusiastic about — even when the only thing small about something is the form.

It would be a mistake to apply any of these terms to Untethered Sky. Lee’s Green Bone Saga may have a more sprawling scope, but this dive into the perils of obsession and their consequences for relationships, is no less affective on the reader.

Though it was perhaps more muted than some of her other works, I still finished reading this one with a feeling of: Ooof.

Don’t be mistaken, it’s not my intent to drive readers away by pointing out the shades of grimdark in Ester’s (the MC’s) journey. In fact it’s just the opposite. If you’re looking for a nuanced, highly evocative story, you could do much worse than Untethered Sky.

Tight prose, worldbuilding and family drama is the currency of the realm in most stories by Fonda Lee (see Jade City and Jade War specifically), and while Untethered Sky does trade in this currency, I was excited to see other elements of story telling taking prominence.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference between this work and previous stories lies with the actual prose used to tell Ester and Zahra’s tale. I stopped many times while reading to appreciate the poetry of a line, or the sense of wonder derived from a description. Considering much of the action takes place in open grassy fields or cramped but relatively featureless wooded environs, I was quite often impressed with the author’s ability to make these seemingly blank spaces interesting and even beautiful.

We’re meant to believe that Ester considers her Roc the most beautiful and terrifying creature that exists, and while we are sometimes told this straight out, more often we are left to derive it from the language and awe with which the creatures are described. To me, there was no doubt, and that assurance rests in the thoughtful and often lyrical prose through which the birds are described.

However, I would say that even with this lyrical — almost fairytale-like — use of language, Untethered Sky still feels very grounded in ‘the real’ as compared to stories like Shannon Chakraborty’s Daevabad Series with which it shares the use of monsters like Rocs and Manticores from Arabian and Persian folklore.

I attribute this mostly to (I believe) the complete lack of magic within the story. Gods and religion are referenced briefly but even the evil manticores are shown to be living, breathing, flesh and blood animals.

Another aspect of the story which I felt showed a kind of evolution from one work to the next was the way in which relationships are handled within Untethered Sky. In the Green Bone Saga, the thrust of the story was clearly centered around loyalty to family, responsibility for past history, and the bonds that are formed or broken through shared trauma.

In Untethered Sky relationships are again paramount to the meaning of the story, however they emphasize completely different aspects of the theme. Ester’s family are either (small spoiler) dead or estranged, and her only real family are the other Rukhers living within the same camp who all prioritize their dedication to their craft above friendship, love, or intimacy. Bonds are found more than forged, and they’re found somewhat accidentally it seems.

Of course there is the bond between Rukher and Roc, which caries the primary weight of argument throughout the story. I will not delve too deeply into the ways in which this bond is pressured as I do not want to spoil too much about the story, but I will say that its use felt different than the stories I’ve read from this author in the past, and while it caused me all sorts of feelings, ultimately I was here for it.

The last thing I’ll mention was not really something I caught on my own, but something I found interesting while reading other reviews of the book, and trying to gather my thoughts about this novella. Emily over at EmilyRandolphEpstein.com wrote in her Book Recommendation: Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee post that she felt many of the characters within this story had autistic traits which were able to “. . . thrive within the very regimented lifestyle required of the Royal Mews.” and that “. . . none of these potentially autistic-coded characters came across as a stereotype.”

Something similar was noted a little while ago in The Mimicking of Known Successes. Perhaps there are already heaps of stories which feature this kind of representation and I’m only now noticing, or perhaps its a trend we’re beginning to discover. Either way, it seemed a thing worth noting for any seeking out that kind of representation in the stories they’re reading and just generally another positive thing in an already fantastic novella.

Give This One A Read?

Absolutely! Though it’s not necessarily a easy read, there is a great deal to discover within its relatively few pages. As it fits into the cannon of Fonda Lee’s other works, I would say Untethered Sky was a welcome departure from previous modes, and an interesting evolution of the skills and craft we’ve come to expect from this author.

That’s all I have for this week! Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I’m excited to talk about this one!

With Arm of the Sphinx, the ‘Books of Babel’ Is Quickly Becoming a New Favorite Series

I think we’re reaching Green Bone or Deavabad levels of excitement with this Books of Babel series.

Back in February, I was pretty much gushing about Bancroft’s character work in Senlin Ascends. For Arm of the Sphinx, its the twists. Of course its hard to write about this without giving the game away (which I won’t do), but let’s just say that this book is easily living up to my favorite mantra in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere novels:

“There’s always another secret.”

It seems like even small things are not what they seem, and Bancroft really leverages dramatic irony — when the audience knows more than the character — to great effect. I’m also quite astounded by the thought and planning it must have taken to weave these threads together. Things in Arm of the Sphinx are often unexpected, but never outright contradictory to what we know from book 1 and so it seems he must have had many of these ideas at least in mind if not fully fleshed out when writing that first book.

It has me wondering, and somewhat nervous (in a good way), what groundwork has been laid (that I missed), which will take me by surprise in book 3.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that we finally meet the enigmatic Sphinx in this book (they’re right there in the title lol). What a bizarre, eccentric and weirdly sinister character. Despite Senlin and friends flying around in an airship for about the first half of the story (I was actually a little worried this book would just be pirating and we wouldn’t explore any more of the tower at all), I felt that it was the time we spent with the Sphinx in which the book fully embraced its potential as a piece of Steampunk fantasy.

What strange and evocative technological marvels we get to experience, many of which should feel like old news in our modern times, but Bancroft really manages to inject a new sense of awe into them.

During the first levels of our ascent through the ringdoms of the tower (meaning while I was reading Senlin Ascends) I felt the only major weakness of the story was the book’s depiction of women. Senlin’s wife Marya is basically a MacGuffin, and Iren and Edith read a bit like male heroes in dresses (although I guess Iren doesn’t actually ever wear a dress). I finished book one hoping for a Marya POV chapter somewhere in the future, which I felt would give the story some complexity if not some much needed diversity.

In Arm of the Sphinx I’m slightly disappointed we still never got to see the tower through Marya’s eyes, but I’m happy to report that our other leading women take on more nuance and complexity through the course of this second book. In fact, Senlin isn’t even around in one chunk of the book, which just gives Edith and Iren more time to shine.

We also have Voleta taking on a more prominent roll. In my humble opinion, results here are mixed. I think she’s supposed to be around eighteen but read much younger to me. On the surface, this may not have been a problem if there was some backstory reason for her stunted maturity, which given the general anything-can-and-does-happen vibe of The Tower could have probably been pretty easy to explain away.

However, the Voleta we see in book one was essentially a prisoner in a brothel. Though her brother Adam tries to shield her as much as possible, I felt a large part of the dynamic there is that he’s mostly absent and ineffectual. As such, I would have expected Voleta to be more mature/jaded, and less childlike. Her devil-may-care disposition towards authority and personal safety (she should really be more freaked out by spiders) would still fit, but perhaps fit just a little better.

Despite the complaints above, I still managed to love and enjoy so many, many parts of this book. I’ll begin winding this love letter down with a passage which stuck out to me towards the end of the book. It reads:

“The tradition among libraries of boasting about the number of volumes in their collection is well established, but surely, it is not aggregation that makes a library; it is dissemination. Perhaps libraries should bang on about how many volumes are on loan, are presently off crowding nightstands, and circulating through piles on the mantel, and weighing down purses. Yes, it is somewhat vexing to thread through the stacks of a library, only to discover an absence rather than the sought after volume, but once the ire subsides, doesn’t one feel a sense of community? The gaps in a library are like footprints in the sand: They show where others have gone before; they assure us we are not alone.“

I think we just need to hire Bancroft for the Library’s marketing team. Which library? All of them. Just in general.

Obviously given my background, this insight was much enjoyed and highly relevant to me personally, but I bring it up in this post to do more than just prattle on and feel seen. I included it as an example of the level of quality and care that Bancroft brings to every scene within Arm of the Sphinx. I’m sure there are a hundred other pieces of wisdom hidden within its pages which I do not have time to hunt down and record, but it feels like enough to know they are there.

Give This One A Read?

Please yes. The Books of Babbel is quickly joining the ranks of stories like the Greenbone Saga, Deavabad books, and Cosmere novels as all-time favorites. And Arm of the Sphinx only strengthens that positioning. With twist after twist (on things large and small), Bancroft continues to ratchet up my excitement about these novels.

Though we still never saw a point of view from Marya, I felt like we made great strides in fixing some of my issues with Senlin Ascends in regards to “writing women”, and while Voleta’s character seemed a bit off to me, it was not enough to detract from the things I enjoyed about the story, which were its sense of awe and (particularly Steampunk) brand of wonder, as well as Bancroft’s unique insight into a plethora of topics like art and libraries.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone been climbing this tower along side me? What are your thoughts so far? How stoked are you for The Hod King? And what has been your favorite part of this series to date?

Leave your answers in the comments. I’m excited to talk about this one!

The Art of Making Games, the Business of Breaking People: A Review of ‘Press Reset’

Wow, I can’t believe six months have already passed since I reviewed Blood Sweat and Pixels. I was fascinated to look behind the curtain of game development and hear some of the triumphs and horror stories behind famous games, some of which I had played, but many of which I knew only by reputation (or not at all).

Press Reset felt like a kind of sequel to Blood Sweat and Pixels, in which Schreier picks another problem with the gaming industry and then grinds away at it with unique insight and skill.

In BS&P, the issue at hand was “crunch”, or the systematic overwork (exploitation?) of employees so that development companies can meet rigid deadlines, and make large profits. In Press Reset, we’re focused more on the volatility of the sector and how its common for large companies to shutter studios — sometimes laying off hundreds of people at once — at the drop of a hat.

There were many unbelievable stories within this book, but the standout for me was about Curt Schilling, 38 Studios and the supposed “WoW Killer”, Project Copernicus. Press Reset is worth reading just for this story alone. I don’t want to go too in-depth here, the saga is detailed in much better fashion within the book, but essentially a baseball player (Curt Schilling) founded a video game company in order to build an MMORPG. Only Schilling had never run a video game company before. He bought all the best stuff to attract the best talent, took a $75 million loan from the state of Rhode Island to pay for it all, and then eventually had to file for bankruptcy when the company failed to produce the game.

There is a lot more drama surrounding this outlined in the book but I think the moment which hit hardest for me was when folks started realizing their paychecks weren’t getting deposited. Many had completely uprooted their life, moved to Rhode Island and bought new houses assuming they’d be able to pay for them, and were consequently left in the lurch. Many were screwed twice, as they weren’t able to sell their house in Boston (or wherever they were from), and were responsible for two mortgages and weren’t getting paid.

From experience, one mortgage is already too much. If I’d lost my job randomly (management pretended everything was fine until they couldn’t afford to keep the lights on) and had TWO mortgages . . . I’m having a stroke just thinking about it.

And even worse, the game actually looks pretty fun and probably would have done well!

There’s a lot in this story that is ultimately the fault of bad actors involved, but it also gives insight into larger problems within the video game industry. Foremost amongst those problems seems to be the disconnect between the people actually making the games, who consider their work a form of art, and the bosses running the show who see little more than numbers on a spreadsheet and are happy to throw away years of work on a whim to bump their stock price for a quarter, or in the case of 38 studios, a politician willing to burn an entire company so he looks slightly better against his opponent.

Eventually, Schreier examines some alternatives to the way things are now, with what I would call a mostly unbiased view. Obviously he has an agenda for the book (otherwise it’s just news), but I thought the author did a decent job presenting alternative arguments. Some organizations are attempting to unionize, and we see the reasoning why this might be good, but also are made to understand that it will not solve all the issues.

We’re introduced to some alternate workflows in which specialized companies provide specialized services, say combat mechanics, for many different games and how this might alleviate the need for ‘crunch’, as well as provide more stable income for employees.

In all, it seems the main thrust of the book is that the current model under which videogames are made cannot be sustained. Games may be expensive monetarily, but the true cost is on the people making them. The uncertainty in so many aspects of the job, even down to where an employee has to live (some folks in the book moved several times a year after getting hired on to a new studio which was closed sometimes only months after), wears on people, grinding them down. As more and more people realize this, it becomes a less and less attractive industry to work in, whether for people already there, or newbies coming in.

I don’t think Schreier wrote this book as a warning for people looking to try there hand in videogames however, I think the warning is more for people steering the ships. After finishing this second book (and seeing a third will come out this year), I don’t get the impression that Schreier hates games and the gaming industry, but rather the opposite, and that these books are an attempt to make people aware of the problems, not to shut gaming down, but to allow for course corrections, so that the sector may thrive in a better way for everyone.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. This book came out in 2021, and now in 2023 and 2024 we’re seeing massive layoff numbers with upwards almost 20,000 jobs lost (8,000 lost in January & February alone). Games are getting cancelled and more studios are closing (Sony Interactive Studios being perhaps the biggest surprise)

Perhaps Schreier was more prescient than he knew. Perhaps the gaming industry is ‘pressing reset’, just not in the way anyone hoped.

Give This Book A Read?

Absolutely. As is becoming habbit, Schreier finds interesting stories happening behind the games we know and love, and uses them to craft a poignant message about the state of this beloved art. The chapters about 38 studios are such a surprising and wild ride, that they are worth the price of admission on their own. That there are many other fascinating and well researched chapters just shows the quality and care with which this book was written.

It seems there are some pretty far reaching systemic problems within the gaming industry, and ones which do not seem to have changed much in the three years since this book was written. I’m hopeful, as I believe Schreier is, that things can turn for the better. That we can hit the reset button on such exploitative and unsustainable practices, and build a better industry, so that we might all have better games.

That’s all I have for you this week. Has anyone read this one yet? Or Blood, Sweat, & Pixels? What were your thoughts? (also what are your fav games?). Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Until next time.

The Unexpected Party Never Ends: #TolkienReadingDay & Why The Hobbit Is Still Special

Happy Monday everyone!

We’re mixing up our normal alternating Friday/Saturday schedule to bring a special “broadcast” (it’s a blog post) for a fledgling tradition here on A&A, #TolkienReadingDay.

Yes, it was decided in 2003 that March 25th, the day in which The One Ring was destroyed should be a day of celebration, in which we read and spread our love for all things J.R.R. Tolkien.

Last year, I reviewed the 1968 BBC Radio adaptation of The Hobbit, quite by accident as I ordered the wrong audio edition of the story from the library. It was an unexpected party and despite some cringe worthy dialogue and confusing sound design (for which the BBC won many awards), I did enjoy the presentation overall. It would seem that Tolkien’s worldbuilding and characters are enough regardless of the medium through which the story is told.

This year, I got my act together, and managed to get a physical copy of The Hobbit, again from the library. Apparently it was the 175th printing (published in 2020) of the story. I make note of this, because apparently there are many editions of the story floating around, with the biggest changes to the story occurring in editions of the story published after The Lord of The Rings came out. (which makes some sense)

The forward in the 2020 edition makes note of some small continuity changes like correcting inconsistencies in dwarf naming and lineage, but also notes that the “Riddle Game” (in this edition chaptered Riddles in the Dark) as set down in the ‘Red Book’ (I’m guessing the original edition?) by Bilbo has changed after the true events were “eventually revealed (under pressure)”. But ultimately the reader should not concern themselves with the changes if it is their first outing in Middle Earth.

My inner history nerd wanted to fall down a research (hobbit) hole, attempt to find this ‘Red Book’ so I could compare the differences and see what affect the changes had on my understanding of the story, but I decided to forego all that in order to accomplish what I originally set out to do . . . simply enjoy the book.

And enjoy it I did!

What first stood out to me as I was reading was just how humorous and whimsical Tolkien’s writing can be. Perhaps I’ve been over influenced by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (I’m actually wondering if I ever saw The Hobbit Trilogy in full), but any happenings in Middle-Earth have always seemed like a rather serious affair to me. Yes, there is some humor in those movies, but in general it is all very grim and severe.

There is a way in which The Hobbit (book) moves towards this more stoic attitude as the story goes onward, but in the beginning it is quite whimsical. The infamous unexpected party reads almost like the opening of Disney’s Snow White, and the following tidbit of in-world history feels more like a Terry Pratchett book than Tolkien:

“…and knocked their king Golfimbul’s head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards and went down a rabbit hole, and in this way the battle was won and game of golf invented at the same moment”

Lolz. I fully imagine something like this happening to Carrot Ironfoundersson of The Watch but not as much to some Middle-Earthian King. In any case I was delighted by its inclusion.

Something else which surprised me, was how relevant the story felt to a modern audience. There’s a way in which all speculative fiction, whether set in the past or in the future, is actually about the time in which it was written and reading old books can sometimes feel akin to digging up a time capsule from beneath an ancient oak or perhaps in some extreme cases, shining a light into a dusty old tomb.

I’m always a little nervous when reading a ‘classic’ work that what we’ll find is at best irrelevant to a modern audience (looking at you Dune Part 2) , or worse actively harmful. We’ve seen a few examples of the latter on this blog with works such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Death on the Nile so I feel relatively justified in my apprehension.

If The Hobbit embodies any embarrassing ideals, they are not obvious. It seems there is active debate on the use of race in its sequels, The Lord of the Rings, but within this volume, nothing really jumped out at me (although a more critical look at Goblins within the story might be warranted).

I can’t recall any women in the story (something I think The Hobbit films attempt to address), but it does not feel like a malicious omission.

For a story that is little more than a mere decade away from its 100th birthday (although I suppose it’s the one hundred and eleventieth birthday that matters), I’d say that this is actually pretty surprising and kind of refreshing. And as I mentioned earlier, there were actually a few parts which felt quite modern.

For instance, after Lake-town is attacked, we have the following call for a change in leadership:

“We have had enough of the old men and the money-counters!” And people further off took up the cry: “Up the Bowman, and down with Moneybags!” pg 252.

With the ages of presidential candidates in the U.S. being in their late 70s and early 80s, I think many might share this sentiment in regards to having had “enough of the old men”. With the top 1% of earners making more than the other 99% combined, “down with Moneybags!” also feels quite relevant (although perhaps this is a somewhat timeless maxim).

So is it Worth It All These Years Later

Yup! Middle-Earth is a vast and perhaps overwhelming prospect, but The Hobbit is the perfect toe in the water. Not too grim, not too silly, a story which in a lot of ways feels just right. I’ll admit that Tolkien’s humor and whimsy were somewhat surprising but ultimately much needed. And while many stories from ‘back in the day’ have not aged well, I felt this one stood the test of time with remarkable prescience.

Certainly a perfect read for #TolkienReadingDay

What do you all think? Is this still a beloved classic? Or was there something I missed? What’s your favorite part of the story? Leave your answers in the comments!

Until next time!