I’m working on a little project right now, and I hope the analysis above is correct.
Blog
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The Death Star’s Cost (in USD)
Can a string of Facebook comments be considered fan fiction? Remember this old post? After the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, no sane member of the Empire would believe the Death Star had been real.
An entire planet destroyed by a battle station? A man-made moon? This baseless nonsense has been sent around the galaxy in forwarded emails and treated as if it were fact. The explosion of Alderaan is the greatest tragedy in recent memory, and marginalized political groups trying to bend the facts to suit their ends is shameful.Fact: The only accounts of the “obliteration” of Alderaan via a mysterious “Death Star” come from terrorists.They allege that they destroyed this massive station and killed everyone on it. No witnesses — convenient.(read the rest here)Some clever folks have estimated the cost to build a Death Star based on the current price of steel. It’s a lot. Just more fuel for the fan fiction fire.
PS: If you’re going to build a Death Star, make sure your components are genuine.
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How to Become a Werewolf. In Skyrim, I mean.
Best executed part of the game. Here’s the run-down on how to get there fast.
- The game starts in Helgen. The main plot will send you to Riverwood, then to Whiterun.
- In Whiterun, go to Jorrvaskr, the mead hall of the Companions.
- Join the Companions, and participate in their quests up to and including The Silver Hand. Welcome to werewolfdom. But only once a day….
- At this point, go to the Whiterun Stables and hire a carriage to Falkreath.
- Three people are standing in a cemetery. Speak with them to receive the quest Ill Met By Moonlight.
- Do this quest, and choose to help Sinding. Now you can go wolfy whenever the F you want.
Now, I did not do this, but here’s what I’ve heard:
- Finish the Companions questline, through Glory of the Dead.
- Speak with Aela the Huntress in Jorvasskr. She will take you on three quests to find Totems of Hircine. These totems augment your wolfiness in various ways.
Happy hunting.
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Details on Upcoming Publication
I posted a while back that a story of mine had been selected for publication. Here’s the info I have so far:
My story “Objects in Space” will be published by Daily Science Fiction in April or May.
Per their site:
We publish “science fiction” in the broad sense of the word: This includes sci-fi, fantasy, slipstream—whatever you’d likely find in the science fiction section of your local bookstore. Our stories are mostly short short fiction each Monday through Thursday, hopefully the right length to read on a coffee break, over lunch, or as a bedtime tale. Friday’s weekend stories are longer.
If you aren’t following these stories, do yourself a favor and remedy that.
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The Sartor Classics – A Response from Ubisoft’s Darby McDevitt
The lead writer for Assassin’s Creed sent me an email about The Sartor Classics!
Alex,
Just had a look at your incredible anthology – amazing work! We’re all quite humbled by the dedication and intelligence of fans like you, but not in the least bit surprised. AC games, for their mature and serious treatment of history, have always attracted fans with scholarly temperaments. And I think your project represents the apotheosis of this trend. Well done!
The selection of books that ultimately made it into ACR came about through a joint effort by me and a number of other people on the team. I began with a smaller list of books that I felt was necessary, then crowd-sourced from our team to find the rest. And since we had people from six of the seven continents working on ACR, it wasn’t difficult to find rare classics that a Western educated wonk like me was sure to miss.
FYI, one of the books we included, “The Flute Girl,” is quite rare indeed. The only mention of it I could find was in a book called “Istanbul: The Imperial City” by John Freely. I included it because it contains one of the earliest descriptions of Byzantium in world literature. The excerpt is small, however, so it may not be worth tracking down…
All the best!
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The One About Skyrim
Be warned, fair traveler. I am about to do what is commonly described as “hating on”.
Skyrim (or, as I like to call it, Wrong Side of the Mountain) is Warcraft without the people. It successfully translates all of the hyperaddictive qualities of an MMO to the console. You craft. You explore. You play dress up. All that good stuff.
It’s massive. Multiple main plotlines, a seemingly limitless number of sidequests and errands. Just walking from one end of the worlds to the other would take a few hours, even if you ignored all the random stuff happening along the way. Cool secrets to be found only by wandering. And the occasional bitchin’ dragon fight. It really is quite fun.
But.
Get used to this. Gripe Primus: In Red Dead Redemption, you can six-shooter your way from snow-covered mountains to desert plains without a single load screen, even if you go inside. Huge. A typical mission in Skyrim consists of the following:
- Get a quest.
- Go outside.
- LOAD SCREEN
- Fast travel to a city across the world.
- LOAD SCREEN
- Go inside something.
- LOAD SCREEN again.
- Go deeper inside something.
- Another LOAD SCREEN
- Do something.
- Start to leave.
- What’s the deal with these LOAD SCREENs?
- Go outside.
- LOAD SCREEN? Really?
- Fast travel back.
- Play a quick round of Hero Academy during this LOAD SCREEN
- Go inside something.
- BY THE LIVING CHRIST! ANOTHER LOAD SCREEN!
- Turn in your quest.
Unconscionable.
Gripe Secundus: travel. This game is built for exploration, for coming upon beautiful and wonderful things as you walk through the varied environments. Walk up the northern coast and see the towering edifice of the Mage’s College come into view, aloof and imperious. Gorgeous.
But if that quest you’re on points you to some cave on top of a mountain, get ready to run around the craggy terrain for half an hour trying to find a way up and wishing there was a “just climb over that damn rock” button.
Gripe Thirdiary: Maybe I’ve been playing too much Assassin’s Creed, but the game is kinda… ugly. Crumbling tower in the distance? Pretty. Crumbling tower close-up, with repeating textures and colorless environments? Not as pretty.
Yes. Complexity and beauty = good
Dull gray = less good.
Gripe the IV. You need to go read Genevieve Valentine’s essay on dragons. Seriously. But here’s a bit:
The dragon, a legendary beast more chameleonic than most, embodies the world and the time of those who would honor it, or slay it. The modern dragon is aware of its parentage, but as humanity’s struggles have changed from merely surviving in the world to conquering it, so has the dragon become a steed (as are the dragons of Pern), a helpmeet (The Dragon and the George’s Smrgol), an irascible employer of brave young women (as Cimorene soon discovers).
Dragon as helpmeet, as wise counselor, as aloof eccentric. I refer you to the dragon in the Thames from The Magicians. The dragons of Skyrim are essentially a medieval fantasy rat problem.
Disclaimer: It is important to note that I have spent as much of my free time as possible playing this game. Too many hours, and still many yet to come until I get the Platinum trophy. It’s fun. It’s deep and wide and engaging. If you play it, you will enjoy it. But, again, be warned.
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The Sartor Classics a été reçu – a word from MTL
Part of a series of posts about the my Sartor Classics project. See all the posts here.
Hey, it looks like M. Durand of Ubisoft did indeed receive the book!
Good day Alex,
Wow, I just came back from vacations and received a very nice and strange gift! Had I ordered that? I could not remember of it, nor could I find any trace of it in my accounts. Livingston; who is this guy? Of course, searching for untold answers is my daily work and I was glad I could find an answer that easily.
Eh! Seriously, thank you so much; this is a crazy fan-made gift! I’ll definitely have a deaper look into it and let everyone on the team know about it! And congratulations on making it up to the credits. Hope you enjoyed the game.
Max
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Bits On ‘On The Acquisition of Phoenix Eggs (Variant)’
Let me tell you why I dig this story. Great idea, well-presented — sure, sure. But the hook for me was the relationship between the stuck-up protagonist and her even stucker-up compatriots. They’re very clever and not evil in any way, so they’re likeable enough, but just getting them in a room together is enough to get the crinkling of conflict going. People who get along just aren’t as much fun to watch.
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A Caution for the Capitol: The Risks of Fairy Dust
I get most of my news during the ten-minute haze after I first wake up. When I hear politicians using the term ‘fairy dust’, it only makes sense. I’m still half-asleep; this must be my dark dreamworld blending with the real.
But no. Those we have elected to govern use this phrase.From what I can tell, its use began during the season of mists as a punning turn of phrase. It has now come to represent what ‘lipstick on a pig‘ used to — an effort to make something essentially flawed appear better than it is. I detect a touch of the ethereal in its use as well, as with ‘vaporware‘.
I have sounded this trumpet before, and will likely do so again: do not mess with beings both old and powerful.
Fairy dust can grant people the ability to fly if they simply think happy thoughts. It is generated in some way (perhaps some sort of excretion) by the fey folk of Neverland, a wild and foreign country to which England’s missing children are sent. These fairies are a dangerous ally at best. Fickle, violent, jealous, and capable of holding only a single emotion at one time, to include them in your life is to add the unpredictable — and not always in a fun way.
There is one aspect of the fairies which it would serve us to not forget: they are immortal. If one dies, they can be brought back to life with the power of applause.
You have got to be careful with this stuff. Contact between Neverland and our world has been documented only rarely, but we have no way of knowing how many people have been abducted by shadowless foreigners. If children clapping can resurrect one of these beings, what unknown powers are wielded when America’s mighty speak of their dust?
