Alex Livingston

Blog

  • Traveling in Style: Yoon Ha Lee’s ‘The Book of Locked Doors’

    If I were to perform some sort of masochistic analysis of my writing, I am sure I would find far too many scenes where the protagonist is traveling. Coming from something interesting, heading towards something interesting, but pictured sitting in some sort of craft waiting. I think the term ‘bleargh’ describes this well.

    Unless you’re Yoon Ha Lee. Go and check out The Book of Locked Doors, published recently by Beyond Ceaseless Skies.

    The main character goes through nearly the entire story without interacting with anyone. What’s she up to? Riding the subway.Grabbing lunch. Walking around.

    And it’s awesome.

    How? Lee uses description masterfully, showing us the details which pass through Vayag’s line of sight and telling us her reaction as a way of delineating her character, building stakes, attaching us emotionally. You know, all that writery stuff.

    Sure, there’s plenty of running, chasing, and being talked at by a creepy spirit book, but using travel time to build the world and the main character is a superior use of column space. Next time I want to write about someone taking a cloudskipper up to an orbital, I;ll be sure to go back to this kickin’ story first.

  • Retrogaming – Super Mario Bros. Crossover

    By all that is holy, go and play this game. It’s Super Mario Brothers, but featuring a cast of NES greats. Play as Samus, Simon Belmont, Mega Man, the dudes from Contra etc.

    Cool idea, right? Run around the Mushroom Kingdom as various characters. Maybe a ten minute thing, right? Once the nostalgia is over?

    Nope. I settled in and played this thing to death over several nights. Here’s what keeps you coming back:

    • Choose. Will the screw attack work better than the spread gun here? What if I just scale the wall and get above everything? The characters have their strengths, and picking the right hero for the task makes for some cool gameplay.
    • Gear Up. Forget the Fire Flower. In place of the existing powerups have been left the various weapons of each character for your discovery and use. Double boomerang? Yes please.
    • Cheat. Nevermind the whole ‘achievements to show off to your friends’ thing. How abotu achievements which unlock new ways to play? Cheats which can be used to make the game easier, and unlock more cheats?

    This game was definitely built by people who love games and know how to make them replayable. So go check it.

  • On Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

    I guess a lot of people didn’t dig this movie. I cannot be counted among them. That being stated, a few tweaks could have made this movie much clearer and more accessible.

    Oh, yeah. Spoiler warning.

    #1 – There’s a mole at the top level of the British Secret Service. Let’s all whisper about it.

    This is a big deal. Worlds at risk. If you want me to give a damn about this, made it more evident why this is a problem.

    #2 – Mark Strong as French teacher? Yeah, not a flashback.

    In a story rife with flashbacks, showing a dude who just got shot gadding about England in a camper seems like… you know… the past. Confusing.

    #3 – Smiley’s great triumph/tragedy is his devotion to and adoration of his wife. No, seriously. What, you didn’t get that from the loving look he gave her in that one flashback? Or in the half-sentence in the let’s-get-plowed-on-johnny-red-and-tell-stories scene?

    Come on now. Yes, I imagine writing a taciturn character is a challenge. Yes, a few hints were dropped. Yes, I was watching closely. Give me a bit more here. Why do I care about this Smiley guy?

    Stakes, clarity, and an engaging protagonist. These are some writing basics. Depart from them at your peril.

  • Comments on ‘Objects in Space’

    Daily Science Fiction’s Facebook page is the hot-spot for comments on their stories, so naturally I wandered over to see what folks were saying about mine. 

    • As a person with way too much clutter, i can appreciate this story. Nice.
    • Don’t you just love it, when someone can cut a clear message through the subjects of their stories? This is why I love spec fic!
    • Really enjoyed this novel idea – just wish it had been a little longer, explored a bit deeper. Loved the “inability to crumple a sheet of paper”. Very original!
    • Loved this idea, and loved the story. Very well done!
    • a five, edging to six… the ending took me by surprise and made me think a bit about personal view of the world as i know it (a humbling thing always since i end up concluding that i known damn little)… another observation… the opening paragraph is an example of why i enjoy sf because well-written works combine both the mundane and the wonderous in a well-woven tapestry.
    • Lots to think about!
    • I spend a bit of time in virtual worlds & this was an absolute gem. So unpretentious, dependent on its core of speculative technology but not driven by it. Dread to think what she’ll have to throw out for 7 dragons, though!
    • Really enjoyed it right up to the end. “He needed space” – Lot of stories ending with these trite/cliche twist things lately on DSF. Great story though with that tiny exception IMO.
    • Liked the concept and progression. Though, as a geek with never enough ‘space’, I saw that coming. Liked the video rendering references, too – polygons, textures.
    • “Objects in Cyberspace” would have been a more appropriate title. And, “Objects in Space” was the title of the last episode of Firefly…where it was appropriate. Solid 5, I agree with Gregg & Dennis.
    • A great telling; is it shades of things to come? When different needs infuence decisions; who knows. A great story.

    The same title as a Firefly episode? Dang it! Perhaps, as has been suggested to me, my subconscious wanted to drop a little Whedon love.

  • Revolution ’76 for the Apple IIGS

    And while we’re on the topic of interactive fiction set in the American Revolution, let’s not forget Revolution ’76.

    I would love to see the code for this old Apple IIGS game. The number of variables tracked must be of the mind-boggling variety. Patriotism level by region. Foreign support by country based on military successes, the skill of the diplomat, and general lovel of diplomacy. Combat success based on the general’s leadership, skill, and popularity mixed with supply level, morale, and who knows what else.

    Revolution ’76 needs the App treatment. It’s one-button gaming, and would do well with the coffee-break gamer.

    But we’ve got to do something about the difficulty. Sure, you want to get across that it was pretty hard to unshackle the US from the UK, but come on. 15K to 30K more troops sent across the pond every turn? How am I supposed to combat that? Like most IF, you’ve got to go back and try different approaches, but you’ve got to give me more to go on here. 

    For example. Britain atacks Boston with 5,000 troops.

    • Which general do I use to defend it? Lets’s go with the capable Benedict Arnold. 
    • How many Regulars can I get there? Well, that depends on how many you recruited in the last phase. And remember, if you set quotas, the people might riot.
    • How many militia will be there? See above.
    • How we doin’ on supplies? Guess that depends on your tax rate, and whether or not you sent the right diplomat to the right country to ask for support.

    And after all that, there appears to be an element of the random built in. WHY DO YOU HATE ME, BRITANNIA SOFTWARE?

    Play it here, if you’ve got the minerals.

  • News!

    Story update — ‘Objects in Space’ will be sent to the dailysciencefiction.com readers on Monday the 16th, and will appear on the web for all to see one week later. Very excited, as this is my first time having a short-story proper published.

    Game update — ‘Sons of the Cherry’ has been sent off to Apple. Hope to hear back within a week or two, and then Choice of Games will be doing a full roll-out.
     
    Personal update — I got a dog.
    Yes, he always looks that sad. Yes, I am aware his eyes make him look like a replicant in this photo.
     
     

  • Simon’s Quest – Retrogame Review

    I found myself in a debate recently about which of the NES Castlevania series is the best. Yes, it gets like that sometimes. One person insisted that 2 was superior to the others. The last time I had played that game was when it was first released, and I had finished it in less than a day. My memories of it were of the “meh” variety.

    Worth a replay, yes?

    Now, I’m guessing that I had the Nintendo Power mag (pictured right), because I just don’t see how I could have beaten this beast without some tips. What the hell are these crystals for? How do I know when to use the garlic to reveal hidden helpers? And just where am I, anyway?

    Simon’s Quest took the action RPG genre several steps forward. The linear whip-and-slash of the first was gone, replaced by an open world approach. Feel free to gad about talking to people as much as you like, searching for clues about how to break this curse you’ve gone and gotten all over yourself. If you’re up for a little retrogame action, aren’t ashamed to use gamefaqs,com, and have a few hours, load ‘er up.

  • The New Game, and Awkwardness

    I wrote and submitted a text-based game to IFComp 2010. The reviews were… well, they varied between “meh” and “I want to find this guy and slap him around for a few hours”. I used the medium to tell a specific story with the user choices varying the details — and the Choice of Games format just isn’t right for that sort of thing.  I mean, “choice” is right there in the title.

    Over the last month or so I dug the game out and revamped it, ending up with a much better product. I’ve sent it off for review, and hope to see it up and running soon.

    Here’s the thing. It’s set in the American Revolution.

    Ok, fine. No big deal. Except that I recently did some stuff with the Assassin’s Creed people, and they just announced their new game, also set in the American Revolution. Awk. Ward.

    Not my game

    So, I guess in October we’ll see how much similarity there is between our stories.

  • The Horror Ends!

    Runner-up once again. Alas!  This contest, in which an indy game dev challenged the world to write the best Lovecraftian review of their genuinely awesome game, did not go in my favor. From what I can see, the winner deserved it. “It” being an original March 1936 issue of ‘Astounding Stories’ which features part of Mountains of Madness.

    Yeah, I was really hoping for that one.At least I made the final cut. And it was fun!

    “We are all roamers of vast spaces and travelers in many ages.”
    – Beyond the Wall of Sleep

     

    We call them ‘games’, these simulated worlds in which we strain and suffer. Whereas most simply entertain, there exist games of curious and abnormal aspect which reveal to us the sinister, nameless worlds of terror.

    I sat by the gaping window of my study one cool evening, singularly unaware of the queer events which were to follow. Before long, I unwittingly found myself in a realm distant from mine in both place and time. The First Great War became the setting for a story in which a small band of soldiers and occultists discovered hideous, indescribable things. The enemy had formed an unholy pact with an Old Ones, and was forming a blasphemous army of Eldritch monstrosities.

    Soon, the unknowable mysteries of this place captured my feverish mind. I directed my intrepid squad through the loathsome, defiled trenches of the battlefield into decadent old crypts filled with strange ghouls and men of evil. I found my heartrate increasing as I recognized the black visions of the thin man from Providence.

    Would my tactical prowess suit the task at hand? On each turn I prayed for success, for a lucky pistol shot or a successful dodge. God, would I survive the next swipe of an unearthly tentacle? Would I lose what remained of my sanity?

    And now you find me as I am today, driven into frightful madness by a game which has shewed me a realm both wondrous and terrible. I present these unlikely statements to you as facts for your investigation and analysis, that you may construe them as suits your mind and temperament. I must encourage any who wish to descend into these hideous visions to take caution, lest you are drawn in by this game and cursed to see it in your mad dreams forever.

  • Research

    Source texts. Secondary sources. Out-of-print books. Essays and wikipedia posts.

    Not sure how many hours I’ve spent digging around for the odd details of Rome in the time of Caligula and Claudius for my latest story. Did they have pockets? Was there a fountain in the Forum? What was the source of that aquaduct? Did anyone try to assassinate Caligula? How did they lock their doors? If an auspex read the signs and an augur interpreted them, what did the ceremony look like?

    But it is never, ever enough. If I’m going to go rooting around in Graves’s sandbox, I had better have my S together. But the best I can manage at this point is to just not make any flagrant errors.