Book Review: The Hero and The Crown

My choice to read The Hero and The Crown was motivated in part by my need to have something to read, and also by nostalgia.  A young adult novel, I first read this book over twenty years ago.  I really liked it.  I remember I picked it out because of the big black dragon on the cover.  Yet another success story of picking up a book based on its cover (but not judging said book). I was treated to a much deeper story than I had expected.  .

Like many great stories, Hero and the Crown has a solid plot, with a compelling sequence of events with gathering tension and scope.  However, like any great story, spoiling the events of the plot will not completely spoil the story, as the reading of the events carries a pleasure all its own.  I can attest to this, having now read it for a second time.  Nonetheless, I will now issue a *spoiler alert* as I intend to discuss specific plot details.  

In brief, the story follows the development of a young woman named Aerin.  The daughter of the King of Damar, her aristocratic title is First Sol- a rank she shares with her cousin Tor. Despite her rank, she is not widely respected, as she is the product of the king's second marriage, and her mother (now passed) did not have good reputation.  On top of this, she does not take well to her position as royalty, and does not perform well in court. The story begins when Aerin is fifteen, and progresses through her twentieth year.  

More than a two-dimensional tom-boy, Aerin Sol demonstrates a scientific rigour and fastidiousness in her pursuit of the formula for Kenet, the fire-proof balm that opens the world of dragon hunting.  She also shows a certain bullheadedness in the way she pursues her new occupation, both in her initial dragon hunt, and then when she fights the great dragon Maur.  However, over the course of the story, that bullheadedness transforms into a sense of duty, dedication and bravery.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's quite rich in detail and character motivation.  The beginning is slow, but it allowed me to get really familiar with the protagonist. She spends time as a healer and as one needing healing. She grows and changes even before becoming a dragon hunter.  This makes the payoff even better when the action ramps up.  And I have to applaud McKinley on her handling of the great Dragon fight.  It is truly memorable.

The Hero and the Crown is rich and imaginative, escapist fantasy and a coming of age story.  It may seem cliche, but I would compare this book to the work of Tolkein, in that I get the impression that it was written with a lot of love and care.  


-D

Merry Monthly Update: December 2014

Falalalalalalalalala,

I think things of note in the past month are all the many fun links I discovered by using google + and joining all these indie game, game map and game design groups.   I will be assembling a collection of said links in a post coming soon to an internet near you.

Another thing is that I started playing Chrono Trigger again.  Been a long time for that one.  So far, so good, it's a nice way to get my 16bit jRPG fix.  I think I might actually like the game more this time around than I did when I first played it.  I think it's a lack of competition - back then I was always playing like three jRPGs.

A third thing is I read a Michael Moorecock book: The Sword of the Dawn.  Very interesting, vaguely familiar and completely pulpy fantasy novel from the 60s.  It’s a far-future dystopia situation, following a sword-fighting German hero named Hawkmoon.  It takes place on earth, but bears little resemblance to our world.  There’s magic, and technology, and the names of current countries are vaguely based on present-day countries.  It’s fun sometimes to figure out what they are.  Amerikh – America.  Granbreten – Great Britain.  Asiacommunista – china.  It was a fun book, light reading with plenty of swashbuckling and a dash of gruesomeness.

In December, if everything goes according to plan,  I’m going to stop by the comic shop and buy another book in the series.   I'm also going to play Chrono Trigger and Magic the Gathering - queue of unplayed Steam games be damned!  And I guess I’ll see my family or something.  

-D

P.S.  I also picked up the novel Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.  So far, it's very Kurt Vonnegut, which is a good thing.  

First Impressions: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a sordid history with me, which is why I didn't jump on the bandwagon back in 2006 when the game first came out.  Prior to 2006, I had heard nothing about The Elder Scrolls series on any platform, most likely due to the fact that I wasn't a big PC gamer until recently and I didn't own a 360 or PS3.  

The symbol for the school of Conjuration.

I recall seeing the boxes in Target and upon first inspection, I thought that I had stumbled across a video game series based around H.P. Lovecraft's Cthuhlu mythos.  The cues for me were the similarity between the "Elder Gods" and the "Elder Scrolls," as well as "Oblivion" being a frequent theme of sorts in Lovecraft's writings about the various.  Even the logo I thought was an artistic relic based around the image of Cthulhu.  Granted the symbol looks a bit more like fangs, but now that you have Lovecraft in your mind, seeing what I had thought might become a bit more clear.  So at this point, I figured I would get around to playing this Oblivion game.

The house I live in during 2006, we had a housemate whom we will simply call OnlineGamblerGuyWhoLivesInAMercedes, or Axe for short talked a bit about the game then showed myself and Chreekat what the game was like.  He described it as a kind of fun fantasy game played in first person and I immediatly thought of the Neo Geo game, Crossed Swords.  Axe said that by the end of the game it had gotten repetitious and that you can simply jump while moving and you raise in experience levels.  He said that it while it was a decent game, just that by the end, it got pretty boring.

This was my first impression of not only Oblivion, but of this apparent Elder Scrolls series.  It was not a favorable impression.

Ring in 2012.   Skyrim had been out a year by the time I bought the game and delved deep into it's depths (not nearly as much as Conklederp has mind you).  Thus my impression of The Elder Scrolls forever changed and for the better at that.  In March of 2013 I began playing Morrowind (Chapter III) and this January (just over a month ago), I began playing Oblivion.  

My feelings about this game continue to be conflicted.  I understand the immense leap from Morrowind to Obilivion, the changes in gameplay mechanics (the ones I know about anyway), the graphical improvements over the four years between the two games.  However, in the back of my mind are those first feelings of negativity because of the review of a housemate and finding out that the conjuration sigil had nothing to do with anything related to H.P. Lovecraft.

One other sad thing, for me at least, is that I'm not a fan of the intro song, which is just a fanfaric and slightly sped up version of "Nerevar Rising" from Morrowind.  Yes, I know it was used again in "Dragonborn" from Skyrim, but there it's done with a choir and all bombastic, which I tend to like.  Basically the song, "Reign of the Septims" using the "Nerevar Rising" theme, plays it too fast for what the song is doing.  I don't know if that really makes much sense, but that's how I feel.  The rest of the music in the world I do enjoy as it is very Jeremy Soule and fitting for Cyrodiil.

Presently, I am 14 hours into the game, which isn't far by Elder Scroll standards and for those of you who know, I just joined The Blades at Cloud Ruler Temple and that is where I have left the game since the middle of January.  Rather than be all rhetorical, I have not stopped playing, but felt that I could now diverge from the main storyline to do any half dozen of those side quests that always populate these open world games.

There are certain things that I do like so far in Obilivion such as the lushness of the land.  I mean, just look at all these lupins (??)

and I just escaped (was allowed to escape) from prison!  I like the facial feature-thing mechanic that I will/might get to in a later post.  I like building my character and having them focus their abilities along certain paths.  And as is the case with any game, there are certain aspects that I'm not too fond of such as the menu system, the pudginess of faces due to the facial feature-thing mechanic, the ability to fast travel to locations you have not yet gone to but know of their existence and how small Cyrodiil feels, but maybe this last part is normal having come from such a vast expanse in Vvardenfell.

I will come back to Obilivion very soon, I think I just needed some time to figure out my current feelings for the game and how they conflict with how I first felt about the game.  Well, that's about my quota for the month for talking about feelings.  


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Shall Return From Out Of The Fire
P.S.  Have a good (snowy?) weekend all.

Video Game Maps

I've been thinking about maps lately.  Fictional maps, specifically.  Great fantasy authors like  J RR Tolkein, L Frank Baum, George RR Martin and a newcomer named Ian Silva -- have grasped the power of maps to draw a viewer in and to lend a new dimension to a fictional world.   I'd like to draw special attention to Ian Silva's Maps as they are the only one of this small collection that are of a Modern design, but they also contain a history of a fictional society, and 100 years of baseball records.  

In the case of video games, maps come in different forms.  Overworld maps in RPG games are the most prevalent, where players will navigate the continental structures of the given video game world.   The navigation of an overworld is often aided by a sub-map which displays the entire planet, highlighting the players current position in a 'you are here' style.  

There are also Dungeon maps, made popular in the first Legend of Zelda.  And there is another style of map which you can find on a website I just found, called VGMaps.com - The Video Game Atlas.  This website uses screen captures to map out entire games, from the NES, SNES and even Nintendo 64, among others.  The database is extensive, and if you were a former Nintendo Power subscriber, you might lose some time wandering through their library.

VGMaps is an old site, it just celebrated its Tenth Anniversary.   It reminds me of the old internet, when commercial interests hadn't moved in, and everything you could find was put there by dedicated people, doing it out of love.  I miss that internet, but I don't think it's ever coming back.  Still, there are sites like VGMaps, more like outposts in deep space, or oases in the desert.  Or something.

Anyhow, go have a look, have fun.  They're doing a Map of the Month thing, and the one for December is from a Japanese Sequel to Paladin's Quest that I never heard of.  Enjoy

-D

Follow up: Sword and Sworcery EP

I recently completed this game, and decided to do a follow-up to my First Impressions.  I felt that the ending of this game was strongly affecting in a way that warranted further attention here.  

Sword and Sworcery EP is weird.  Weird and unique; truly this game is very much itself.  It doesn't really resemble anything else in my library or memory. Weird and beautiful: the sounds and graphics are finely crafted, original creations, custom to this game.  There's something so great about the impact of the sword swings during combat.  The sound has a real punch to it.

The themes are strange and perplexing.  The willingness to mix fantasy with random bits of modern imagery make it really hard to pin down.  However, playing through, from start to finish, this game has a sense of coherence.  This is actually aided somewhat by the habit of breaking of the fourth wall.  The characters speak directly to the player, and even the Scythian, the character controlled by the player, uses the royal 'we' whenever speaking.  It seemed clear to me that the Scythian did this to acknowledge the dual nature of the player and herself. The other characters will refer to the Scythian, but speak directly to you.  It feels as though they live in this game and acknowledge that there is a player outside the game.  

There is a theme of the inevitability of death, which is mentioned directly within the dialogue, and also through animated behavior.  This theme coupled with the breaking of the fourth wall, drew my attention to the fact that I was in no danger, however, I was taking part in putting the Scythian in danger.  And while the game never blamed me for it (as the player), I shared in a sense of dread and inevitability, as the Scythian carried out her 'woeful errand' with my assistance.  But more than that, I had an awareness that I was 'sharing' these feelings with the characters, who are merely pieces of fiction after all. 

As the game drew to a close, I felt my own connection to the characters drifting away.  I was left with a feeling of watching fish in a glass bowl.  The events of the story ultimately have a greater impact on the characters within, and I have  only second-hand involvement.  I will go on with my life, go to work, the grocery store, play another game.  But these events will have lasting effects on the characters within.  

I guess, in a sense, immersion is never really broken, but more put in its place.  The player is outside, and must remain there. We can only watch, and have a small influence on what happens within.  Which makes for a weird and beautiful experience.

So yeah, rad game.  I highly recommend it. Click the >Read More> link below for more info.

Drinking Quest 3: Nectar of the Gods

Copyright: Canada ~ Her Royal Majesty, The Queen of England

I don't know when it was that I first found out about Drinking Quest.  I think it might have actually been one of those "customized" adds on the right hand side of the screen while I was browsing facebook.  I don't even remember what made me click on the link, but I did and I'm pretty thankful that I did too.

Drinking Quest is the brainchild of Jason Anarchy, both of whom are based in Canada.  So, if you're looking to purchase said quest, you'll be converting your native currency to Canadian dollars, unless you already live in Canada.  Enough of the brass tacks though, Drinking Quest is a card game set in a fictional fantasy world where you have to. . . um, do stuff and drink while doing it.  It's all very non-complicated and it all sounds like fun as I have admittingly not played any of the games.  I have however played both Munchkin and Dungeons & Dragons (as well as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Drunk Dungeons & Dragons and Editions 2, 3, 3.5 and 4), so I feel somewhat qualified to plug these beautiful Canadians.

Now this is where the above mentioned link comes in, when I clicked the aforementioned advertisement, it took me to Indiegogo, which is kind of like Kickstarter, except that it isn't.  That's the only difference that I've noticed.  Maybe there are more differences, but I haven't found them yet, mainly because I haven't looked.  It turns out that Drinking Quest has had two previous iterations prior to Drinking Quest 3: Nectar of the Gods, which they are trying to crowdfund up to their initial goal of $11,500 Canadian (that's $11,280.04 US).  The video up on their Indiegogo page is below to give you an idea of how these people seem to have done a great job blending Dungeons & Dragons and Canada (the drinking game, not the country, although that too I guess, considering that is the game's origin):

Looking at their Indiegogo page, I really feel the best option, if you have the money, is the $65 ($85 with shipping) option, which earns/gives/buys you hard copies of all three games.  Volume 1 is currently sold out and not available on their website, so the only way to acquire Volume 1, is by helping them reach their goal of $11,500, of which they are 73.8% complete and there are still 24 days left in their campaign.

That's all I will say, which has been a bit.  I'll probably go help fund them sometime within the week but they definitely seem to be on their way towards reaching their goal and that's mainly what this is all about: people doing something they love and having like-minded people helping out.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Another Brick in Hadrian's Wall