So another Humble Indie Bundle is out now.
You've probably heard of the concept, but if not, it's a bundle of four
or five games that you can purchase for multiple platforms (this one
will give you Android 2 and Windows/Mac/Linux versions), and you get to
choose the price you pay. It's a great way to get in touch with what's
coming out of the indie game studios, and one thing I'm particularly
interested in with this bundle is the Ultima-style RPG Avadon - The Black Fortress. I've been playing the demo and am just about to
purchase the bundle so I can get the whole thing. It's old school,
certainly, but on the other hand it appears to be working towards
dealing with the issues I have with modern RPGs. FFXIII was terrible - it wasn't so much a game as a journey with a decent scenic route.
Dragon Age 2 fell off a cliff, seemingly looking for a totally different audience from the first game (which was very good and possibly the last great computer RPG I've seen). And I just can't stomach Mass Effect at
all after the first one managed to be so incredibly dull in spite of having all the right tools and a setting that really appealed to me. Skyrim I enjoy but its story is sorely lacking, to the point that the big showdown at the end of the main quest felt less dramatic than any of the plethora of random encounters which occur when going for a walk. That's what I
miss most about the genre - the great stories that did not take a back
seat to polygons and cut scenes. I'm not deep enough into Avadon to
know yet whether or not the story is great, but from the reviews I've
read it seems to be a strong point of the game, and what's enjoyable so
far is that I'm in a Game of Thrones style world where I have to make
decisions that actually seem to matter and have genuine moral weight to
them. It's not so simple as choosing red or blue to know whether
murdering everything in the room is evil or not. It does involve a fair
bit of reading, though, and with the 90s-era graphics and no real
soundtrack to speak of, I can see where a modern gamer might not be
thrilled by it.
Still, I've complained long enough about RPGs not getting it right
anymore. I have serious reservations about the direction of the gaming
industry in general - too much flash, too much concentration on
multiplayer, and far too high expectations for graphic and sound
production that prevents anybody taking any risks and doing something
new. This is a game from a studio that's at least trying to do things
the way I'd like - forget spending millions of dollars and thousands of
work hours on the graphics, let's get the story and gameplay working.
So I'm putting my money where my mouth is and recommending it. And the
bundle benefits not only developers, but the Child's Play charity and
the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Brave New World
Once more into the breach, dear friends.
I have a few publishing credits under my belt because, shockingly enough, on occasion editors have taken a fancy to my work and agreed to include it in a collection they have sent to print. It is always a thrill and an honour, and nothing quite matches the thrill of scanning a reply and seeing the word "Accepted", just as nothing quite stings as strongly as the inevitable "not for us" or other polite euphemism that we writers are so used to when being told we're not wanted. I have been fortunate enough to receive the good news several times now, but each victory is a struggle, a battle won in a war that at times seems hopeless. It was like being at war not with the mighty empire of China, but its Great Wall. Unfeeling, unrelenting, the publishing industry does not care how many stories you sling at it; it will always sit there, resolute and steadfast, unmoved by your plight or the ferocity of your firepower. Rare is the writer who breaks a few stones; rarer still is the writer who breaches to the other side and can consider themselves an insider.
Until recently, scaling the wall was the only option for a budding author. Write a slew of stories, submit them as often as it takes, and hope to build some credits so that you might be taken seriously enough to be considered for publication or gain an agent for that novel you've always been working on. There was only one way to play the game and the rules were set to make entry near-impossible. Now, the publishing industry finds itself encircled by an enemy unfathomable in its power: the Internet.
Self-publishing has long had a certain stigma attached to it, and with good reason. Vanity presses would take the money of hopeful authors who had no hope of seeing returns, or even seeing their book on shelves. Pseudo-academics would use their own imprints to add an air of legitimacy to questionable research they could not bring anywhere near a mainstream journal. For a long time it did not bode well for one's career if self-publishing was deemed necessary. Now, however, thanks to the plethora of platforms and the digitising of the reading experience, publishing on your own is not only acceptable, it is becoming a norm.
Not the norm, of course, because there remains the prestige attached to having one's book published by a major house, not to mention the marketing advantages. But with the likes of Smashwords and CreateSpace, authors no longer have to stand sniveling before the court of publisher opinion. It is not up to anyone but themselves whether their material gets out there for public dissemination, and it is up to the public whether it yields any returns or gets read at all. Publishing is democratised and the playing field somewhat leveled. Of course, as with any open system plenty of drivel will seep out as an over-enthused writer pours a barely concealed fan-fic over the keyboard and throws it online in a rush to see their name in lights, long before considering character, pacing and plot, or even spell-checking. That is unfortunate, but with the ebook format gaining popularity and millions around the world having a device capable of reading anything at the touch of a button, being on a shelf in Borders no longer seems a requirement to be taken seriously as media to be consumed. Which is handy, since Borders no longer has shelves.
So it is with this in mind that I have made my first foray into self-publication with my story Diminished. It is not for the sake of vanity, though I must admit having my proof sitting on my desk does give me a warm glow somewhere inside. It is to see how viable this process is for a little-known but experienced writer. Can one really make it on their merit, if they put in some work and publicize their own work? And what of price? It's not free, but it's not expensive, certainly not compared to some publications out there, electronic or otherwise. It is not very long either, but by no means were corners cut in the quest for a quick upload. The story is one I am proud of, one I want to share, and one I hope will herald a new beginning as a self-published author in a world where 'self-published' does not have to be muttered in shame.
For the TL;DR crowd - I've published a novelette (all on my own this time) that I'd love you to give a try. It's available for Kindle as an ebook and in paperback. And it's cheap!
I have a few publishing credits under my belt because, shockingly enough, on occasion editors have taken a fancy to my work and agreed to include it in a collection they have sent to print. It is always a thrill and an honour, and nothing quite matches the thrill of scanning a reply and seeing the word "Accepted", just as nothing quite stings as strongly as the inevitable "not for us" or other polite euphemism that we writers are so used to when being told we're not wanted. I have been fortunate enough to receive the good news several times now, but each victory is a struggle, a battle won in a war that at times seems hopeless. It was like being at war not with the mighty empire of China, but its Great Wall. Unfeeling, unrelenting, the publishing industry does not care how many stories you sling at it; it will always sit there, resolute and steadfast, unmoved by your plight or the ferocity of your firepower. Rare is the writer who breaks a few stones; rarer still is the writer who breaches to the other side and can consider themselves an insider.
Until recently, scaling the wall was the only option for a budding author. Write a slew of stories, submit them as often as it takes, and hope to build some credits so that you might be taken seriously enough to be considered for publication or gain an agent for that novel you've always been working on. There was only one way to play the game and the rules were set to make entry near-impossible. Now, the publishing industry finds itself encircled by an enemy unfathomable in its power: the Internet.
Self-publishing has long had a certain stigma attached to it, and with good reason. Vanity presses would take the money of hopeful authors who had no hope of seeing returns, or even seeing their book on shelves. Pseudo-academics would use their own imprints to add an air of legitimacy to questionable research they could not bring anywhere near a mainstream journal. For a long time it did not bode well for one's career if self-publishing was deemed necessary. Now, however, thanks to the plethora of platforms and the digitising of the reading experience, publishing on your own is not only acceptable, it is becoming a norm.
Not the norm, of course, because there remains the prestige attached to having one's book published by a major house, not to mention the marketing advantages. But with the likes of Smashwords and CreateSpace, authors no longer have to stand sniveling before the court of publisher opinion. It is not up to anyone but themselves whether their material gets out there for public dissemination, and it is up to the public whether it yields any returns or gets read at all. Publishing is democratised and the playing field somewhat leveled. Of course, as with any open system plenty of drivel will seep out as an over-enthused writer pours a barely concealed fan-fic over the keyboard and throws it online in a rush to see their name in lights, long before considering character, pacing and plot, or even spell-checking. That is unfortunate, but with the ebook format gaining popularity and millions around the world having a device capable of reading anything at the touch of a button, being on a shelf in Borders no longer seems a requirement to be taken seriously as media to be consumed. Which is handy, since Borders no longer has shelves.
So it is with this in mind that I have made my first foray into self-publication with my story Diminished. It is not for the sake of vanity, though I must admit having my proof sitting on my desk does give me a warm glow somewhere inside. It is to see how viable this process is for a little-known but experienced writer. Can one really make it on their merit, if they put in some work and publicize their own work? And what of price? It's not free, but it's not expensive, certainly not compared to some publications out there, electronic or otherwise. It is not very long either, but by no means were corners cut in the quest for a quick upload. The story is one I am proud of, one I want to share, and one I hope will herald a new beginning as a self-published author in a world where 'self-published' does not have to be muttered in shame.
For the TL;DR crowd - I've published a novelette (all on my own this time) that I'd love you to give a try. It's available for Kindle as an ebook and in paperback. And it's cheap!
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Know Your Limits...
Sigh.
I don't even know where to begin. All across the United States, women are being used as pawns and proxies in a cultural war. You can probably gather by now which side I'd align myself with, but the fact that there is fighting at all, still, is troublesome and exhausting. In 2012, one would think that to get to political office you would have to be a little more adroit with your tongue than to say to women forced to undergo an unnecessary and unwanted medical procedure to just close your eyes. And in 2012, one would hope that the entire national conversation would not be about whether or not women deserve to have their medical needs covered. Sadly, even a bitter old cynic like me was stunned to discover Arizona's plan to drag up this issue again and defy the man in the White House: a law has been proposed in the state legislature that would make it legal for employers with religious objections to fire women for using birth control, whether or not the woman's company health insurance is paying for it, unless she can prove that she is not using it for 'sexual purposes'.
This won't stand up to any kind of judicial scrutiny for a whole host of reasons, but the problem is that it could well pass and women and their families will be hurt by it until it is torn a legal new one by (presumably) the ACLU. The greater problem, though, is that supposedly educated men and women (it was introduced by a woman, as it happens) think they somehow have the right to try to pass this kind of law. They think it's ok to kick female workers in the teeth, as long as it is done in the name of religion. They think it's ok to violate HIPAA, the Health Care Reform Act and the US Constitution, because they do not like women having access to contraception. They don't mind that the law will never stick, that it's a complete waste of time and resources that could be better spent on something important and constructive. They don't even mind that it makes them look rather evil and demented, because everything is apparently secondary to punishing women for being women. Even women who are using such contraception for 'non-sexual purposes' would be punished, having to pay out of pocket until their employer agrees that their pleading of "I'm not having sex" is to their satisfaction and being charged a fee for the company being kind enough to look at their claim.
I could write a diatribe on how awful this all is, but it is rather self evident. Just reading about the Arizona bill made me sick. I was fortunate enough to be born after segregation and after the Civil Rights era, at a time where racism was by no means gone but it at least was not open policy. Today, misogyny is startlingly palpable in the political world. It is chilling to find myself in a world where a large section of the population (the largest, actually) is seen as something lesser and it is not even kept quiet. It's clear that the political ruling class, largely but not exclusively in the Republican Party, are reaching very far to grab women around the neck. It's a war on women, and they feel entitled to the territory between each and every woman's legs. Hopefully public backlash will soon show that they are reaching well beyond their limits.
And here is today's moment of zen:
I don't even know where to begin. All across the United States, women are being used as pawns and proxies in a cultural war. You can probably gather by now which side I'd align myself with, but the fact that there is fighting at all, still, is troublesome and exhausting. In 2012, one would think that to get to political office you would have to be a little more adroit with your tongue than to say to women forced to undergo an unnecessary and unwanted medical procedure to just close your eyes. And in 2012, one would hope that the entire national conversation would not be about whether or not women deserve to have their medical needs covered. Sadly, even a bitter old cynic like me was stunned to discover Arizona's plan to drag up this issue again and defy the man in the White House: a law has been proposed in the state legislature that would make it legal for employers with religious objections to fire women for using birth control, whether or not the woman's company health insurance is paying for it, unless she can prove that she is not using it for 'sexual purposes'.
This won't stand up to any kind of judicial scrutiny for a whole host of reasons, but the problem is that it could well pass and women and their families will be hurt by it until it is torn a legal new one by (presumably) the ACLU. The greater problem, though, is that supposedly educated men and women (it was introduced by a woman, as it happens) think they somehow have the right to try to pass this kind of law. They think it's ok to kick female workers in the teeth, as long as it is done in the name of religion. They think it's ok to violate HIPAA, the Health Care Reform Act and the US Constitution, because they do not like women having access to contraception. They don't mind that the law will never stick, that it's a complete waste of time and resources that could be better spent on something important and constructive. They don't even mind that it makes them look rather evil and demented, because everything is apparently secondary to punishing women for being women. Even women who are using such contraception for 'non-sexual purposes' would be punished, having to pay out of pocket until their employer agrees that their pleading of "I'm not having sex" is to their satisfaction and being charged a fee for the company being kind enough to look at their claim.
I could write a diatribe on how awful this all is, but it is rather self evident. Just reading about the Arizona bill made me sick. I was fortunate enough to be born after segregation and after the Civil Rights era, at a time where racism was by no means gone but it at least was not open policy. Today, misogyny is startlingly palpable in the political world. It is chilling to find myself in a world where a large section of the population (the largest, actually) is seen as something lesser and it is not even kept quiet. It's clear that the political ruling class, largely but not exclusively in the Republican Party, are reaching very far to grab women around the neck. It's a war on women, and they feel entitled to the territory between each and every woman's legs. Hopefully public backlash will soon show that they are reaching well beyond their limits.
And here is today's moment of zen:
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