The Synchronicity War Part 1

Kindle | Paperback

I finished The Synchronicity War Part 1 by Dietmar Arthur Wehr about a week ago, and have since been (in the back of my mind) wondering just what to write about it.

I can say that it mostly kept me interested, and that I did want to find out what was going on and what would happen; I can say that the writing a fairly high standard for a free, self-published book (and I really appreciated that after some of the other self-published works that I read this Summer).  I can also say that I'm leaning toward buying the next book in the series to find out what's going on and how it turns out (only my already-extensive "to read" list is slowing me down).

The story itself is about Victor Shiloh, a commander in the United Earth Space Force, whose exploration frigate has come across signs of alien life — very hostile alien life.  It follows his, and Space Force's, preparations to meet the enemy and a few of the subsequent encounters with them.

My criticisms come down to two, primarily.  First, the characters in the book do not have a lot of development.  After finishing the book, I still know very little about them and even though I spent nearly the entire thing in the mind of Victor Shiloh and "listening" to him talk, at length, about the alien foe, I still don't know a thing about his past or what made him who he is.  Second, a very large portion of the books is "tell" rather than "show" — that is, the characters themselves talk and explain things to one another, or even offer chapter-long speeches to describe their plans.  It's almost more like a transcript at points than a novel.

I ended up feeling that Part 1 here just really set the stage for the story and more is probably coming. Probably.  I would say that the narrative it isn't typical of modern Sci-Fi, but rather harks back to writings from three or four decades ago in terms of style and pacing — and that isn't a bad thing, though it's good to be in that mindset when picking the book up.  Overall, the book's flaws certainly do not outweigh its merits, and it could end up being a very good story by the end,

This book has lending enabled on the Kindle.  If you actually know me and you'd like a loan of it, get in touch (though, as of the writing of this, the book is currently free on Kindle).

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Hardcover | Kindle | Audiobook

Earlier this month I read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty.

I will start by saying that this book probably isn't for everyone — though it likely should be.

Doughty is the proprietor of  the Order of the Good Death website and the creator-host of the Ask a Mortician YouTube series. So, as you can probably guess, her work tends to focus on things most of us would rather not think about: dying, decay, cremation, and burial.

Nevertheless, it's a good read.  Doughty goes through the various steps of her life which led her to become not only a crematory operator and a licensed mortician, but also a proponent of "death positivity".

Her writing is witty and engaging, even when the subject matter might be otherwise disgusting, off putting, or taboo.  The book, overall, is conversational in tone and you can hear the author's voice (if you know it from her videos) as you read.

The only thing is, it may be uncomfortable for some readers: it deals very frankly with death, with Doughty's own struggles with OCD and depression, and, most importantly, with the death industry as most of us have never known it.  It goes into some detail about what it takes to make your average corpse as "presentable" as most of us think it should be, and it's not pretty.

But it's a very good read and I do recommend it highly; it will almost certainly teach you things you didn't know before.

Modern hieroglyphs

Something that often interests me is design, and especially non-verbal design intended to help us language-using monkeys figure out how to use, do, or build things.  I'm not sure if it's quite right to call this UX (user experience), but I'm not sure what else to name it.

So, that out of the way, the image here is an interesting piece of instruction I received this week from HP, inside an envelope that also contained a laptop power cable.

I don't know how long I stared at it before finally figuring out what they were trying to tell me to do.

There has to be a better way to give people this instruction.  Does it really cost that much to have simple instructions written up and translated?  Does it cost more than this set of pictograms cost?  I can't really say.

But this isn't the first time I've received baffling instructions from HP.

Back when I bought my laptop, it came packed in a bag with a series of pictures on it that, I'm pretty sure, meant "Autoerotic asphyxiation strictly not allowed".

Or maybe that was just my interpretation.  Someone else has said they thought that it meant "No playing spaceman!"

Goblin Quest

Hardback |  Paperback | Kindle

I picked up Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines because I'd happened by the author's blog (on a completely unrelated topic) and liked what he had to say and so decided to pick up one of his books.

Goblin Quest was really very enjoyable.  It follows Jig, who is a goblin.  And if goblins are the lowest of all the species, I'm afraid poor Jig is the lowest of the low — he's small, scrawny, terribly near-sighted, and cowardly (even for a goblin).  After being bullied into "scouting" for his cousin's guard patrol, Jig and his pet spider, Smudge, end up captured by four adventurers who are seeking the fabled Rod of Creation.  And since Jig lives in the dungeon where the rod is hidden, they reckon, he ought to be a good guide for them.

Here, the traditional heroic quest is turned on its head and viewed through eyes of a goblin.  Will they find the Rod of Creation before the party's mage goes (even more) insane?  Will the warrior of the group get sick of Jig and dispose of him just as adventurers of his ilk dispose of so many other goblins?  Why is there a miserable elven girl with the party?  And just why does the dwarven priest put up with any of them?

The book is actually a light and pleasant read, and while it's not written in a comic style it still has plenty of humor and wit.  It's a quick read, and would likely be good for both adult and young adult readers.  Those of us who have enjoyed our own D&D campaigns over the years (perhaps, even, with captured goblin scouts, ahem) will certainly enjoy the story and the perspective.

Animal Wise

Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook

This week, I read Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of our Fellow Creatures by Virginia Morell.

The book is a fairly short (about 300 pages in its print edition) non-fiction work covering some of the latest studies in animal cognition.  In a series of chapters, each generally dedicated to one animal or a pair of animals, it covers ants, fish, parrots, rats, elephants, dolphins (captive and wild), chimpanzees, dogs, and wolves.

In essence, the book is a very approachable look at the current state of animal cognition research.  It does not go into depth on any of the topics — you would likely need to read the scientists' own papers for that — but rather contains a series of discussions, interviews, and anecdotes mostly resulting from the author's work as a science writer for various magazines.

I've seen some criticism of the book from the perspective that it does not acknowledge humans as "specially created" and therefore is hostile to that view.  I wouldn't say it's hostile to to that view per se, but rather the author does not really accommodate that view, and rather relies on science.  The point is closer to being that we should not really be surprised by animals having emotions and being able to do certain things that we can do since we have, essentially many of the same physical structures and motivations that they do.

I actually found it a very interesting read and learned of some studies I had not known were taking place, particularly around the thinking abilities of birds, fish, and ants.  (Really, it's a good jumping off point for looking deeper into some of the studies.)  My only wish really was that it was longer and that it filled in more detail on some of its assertions (e.g., that butterflies remember being caterpillars).

Last Woman

I spent a couple nights last week reading Jaqueline Druga's Last Woman, which I'd picked up on (yet another) Amazon sale.

Paperback | Kindle

For what I paid, it was a good enough read and enough entertainment for two nights.  The story is about Faye.  The last thing Faye remembers is going out drinking with some friends, having a bit too much, and passing out — and then she wakes up in a mass grave some weeks later as, quite possibly, the last woman on earth.

As premises go for  post-apocalyptic fiction it's a pretty interesting start; and overall I was entertained enough by the book to keep reading.  The story is not heart-pounding (this is not a thriller!), and the characters are a little difficult to get a real grasp on or liking for, but the pace kept things developing and I was happy to go along for the ride and find out what happened.

My main criticism is that it is in desperate need of an editor.  A too-hefty portion of it is written in sentence fragments and lone subordinate clauses, and even when it's not comma splices are commonplace.  This is combined with several cases where a word has been used incorrectly (it's often hard to tell if these are malapropisms or the result of autocorrect gone horribly awry).  As a result,  the reader has to spend time actively deciphering just what the author may have actually intended, and that can seriously detract from both immersion and enjoyment.

Nevertheless, the story has promise.  Like a lot of self-published Kindle books, though, it seems like it just really gets started when it ends and (lo and behold) there's a second book to buy in order to continue. I haven't decided if I'll buy its sequel yet, but very likely not unless it, too, goes on sale.

This book has lending enabled on the Kindle.  If you know me and you'd like a loan of it, just get in touch.

State of Decay

PC Digital Key | XBox Digital Key

I've been playing Undead Labs's State of Decay for the past several weeks after nabbing it on a Steam sale. The game is a single-player third-person zombie apocalypse sandbox of sorts: while the main game has a storyline to follow, you certainly don't need to follow it and the story won't advance until you do, giving you a lot of time to just poke around.

I have enjoyed the game very much.  It's certainly interesting enough to play and while it starts out reasonably tame, it can get quite difficult.

The main game begins with your character and a buddy returning to the more civilization-adjacent parts of a national park after a two-week fishing trip only to find that, while you were gone, civilization kind of had a major meltdown.

From there, the game focuses on steath and survival by building up friendships with others and establishing a base from which to operate and outposts to reinforce that base and provide small "safe zones".

Ed and Marcus, returning from their fishing trip.

Criticisms

The criticisms I have are few.  To start, the story is very simple and somewhat shallow — it would be easy to play through it relatively quickly and then be just done with the game.  A lot more could have been done, but, as I understand it this was Undead Labs's first game, so we will perhaps see more story development in their next full release.

Second, there just isn't enough information in the tutorial; you feel bombarded with information (because a lot comes in through your Journal) that you can't make much sense of — and then lost because basic information (such as the benefits of establishing an Outpost, or whether it's wise to leave resources in Outposts or loot them thoroughly before setting one up in a location) can be a little difficult to find (so much so that I took notes as I played and figured them out and ended up writing a Quick Start Guide)

Third, there are too few voice actors, meaning that you end up with the same voice actors' lines being used for several different characters who end up sounding exactly the same while they say (verbatim) the same things; get two of them with the same voice together on a mission and it can get kind of confusing.

Finally: the driving physics and UI need some work.  The game was set up for XBox, so maybe this is where PC players like me start to have problems.  But while I can play Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto and drive just fine, I find the driving in State of Decay frustrating — especially because the smallest mistake can send a car sailing through the air as though it suddenly weighs nothing.  And cars that turn over always explode, so there's that.

Praise

Meanwhile, though, State of Decay is nice to look at: the colors are just muted enough to evoke the proper autumn at the end-of-the-world feeling, and there has been a lot of attention to detail in filling out the large area (Trumbull Valley) in which your character gets to roam.  There are three small towns to explore, as well as a lot of countryside, with a lot of interesting things to look at if you appreciate the details.

Ed, Marcus, and Maya, talking stuff through at the river.

The game also makes you take a step back and figure out how to survive.  Your character can go stealth or maniac, or pretty much anything in between.  But don't count on the zombies to cooperate since that's sure to get your favorite character eaten nearly every time.  And since death is final, that really makes a difference.

Strategy and sound are important, which I really enjoy, and on top of that there is also resource management to deal with: you've got a base full of survivors who need food, medicine, and ammunition to remain survivors, and construction materials to keep their base up.  Scavenging through the zombie-infested, burnt-out world is a constant necessity.

An homage to Plants vs. Zombies

In the end, the game is definitely worth a few bucks (especially if you can catch it on sale), and I look forward to other games from Undead Labs.

Breakdown DLC

I've played several hours of the Breakdown DLC (at level 5, currently), and it's been a lot of fun and a lot of frustration, but the frustration really seems to be the point of it.  It's primarily the sandbox version of the base game, with a couple simple tasks to do to "move to the next level".  Each level, the zombies get more numerous and more difficult to deal with and the scavenge-able resources get harder to find.

If you don't mind that sort of challenge — the one where you are pretty sure you'll ultimately fail — it can end up being a lot of fun.

Lifeline DLC

I haven't gotten to the Lifeline DLC yet.  I'll be writing more when I do!

Happy Birthday to Meeeeeee!

Received three new games for my birthday:  Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece from mom and dad, and a pre-purchase of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel from my dear love.

I'm looking forward to a lot of good gaming, and I'll keep you updated about how it goes.

The Dead

This past week I finished reading The Dead by Mark E Rogers.

Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook

The story centers on Gary Holland who returns home to the Jersey Shore for his father's funeral and ends up facing the end of the world (somewhat) zombie-apocalypse style.

Initially, I enjoyed the book quite a bit.  The author writes very well and the horror really is there for the first few chapters.  I did read all the way through to the end, and it wasn't terrible — I did stay interested in just exactly how it would end, though it's not long before anyone who has some familiarity with the Bible can predict at least the general ending.

And that's really where the author left me behind and left me feeling duped.  I was set for a good and proper horror novel — and there is some horror there — but the horror dissipated once I realized what the story was he was telling.

There is a lot of dialogue in this book — and while that's not a bad thing, this dialogue means that the reader has to sit through a lot of entry-level theological debate which always ends up as god-fearing folk good, everyone else (and especially atheists) petty, childish, violent, perverse, and insanely selfish.

By the end I felt preached to rather than entertained, and as though someone had stolen my good apocalypse novel and given me an anti-abortion Chick Tract instead.  The book still might be worth it if you can deal with that kind of proselytizing.  For me, though, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

This book has lending enabled on the Kindle.  If you know me and you'd like a loan of it, just get in touch.