Tag Archives: Adventure

The Golden Princess, by S.M. Stirling

Posted on by Henry

It’s been a while since I read any S.M. Stirling, and I picked this one up more on a whim than anything else.  I’d gotten tired of the most recent spate of Change novels, probably because of a disconnect between my expectations and what Stirling was delivering.  I wanted Stirling to write an active story about a smaller group of characters, with palpable progress in the plot achieved in the course of each book.  Stirling did create that progress but it was far slower than I’d hoped for, and he spent more time focused on the milieu of the story rather than advancing the story that I wanted to see resolved.  In fact, after the first trilogy the pace of progress slowed precipitously, until it was almost a crawl.

The Golden Princess doesn’t change that pattern.  What did change was my expectations of what I’d find in reading the book.  And I have to say: reading these books as milieu fiction, as much about the world in which they take place as they are about any of the characters, is far more fun and rewarding than reading them with expectations of tight and fast plot.  Definitely worth starting up the series again.

Continue reading →

Story Snippet: The Sequel to Rum Luck, pt 1

Posted on by Henry

Today I have the beginning to a sequel for you, a continuation of the story I started in Rum Luck (rough draft of that story can be found here).  If you like Andre and Jerome, you’re in for a treat.  It does end rather abruptly, but there’ll probably be more soon.  Read on, and enjoy!

Continue reading →

My Not-Exactly-Tintin Project Might Really Happen?

Posted on by Henry

This update is totally last minute, born of a recognition that I forgot to make my usual post today.  In fact, by my clock, I’m already four minutes too late.  I did spend a goodly portion of my day traveling, but… yeah.

Fortunately, I have some awesome news to share.  Do you remember the time that I mentioned wanting to write a Tintin flowchart (way back in January)?  I just shared the underlying aim, of writing a new era’s Tintin comics, with one of my friends.  They responded by spending fifteen minutes drawing a picture of female Tintin with Snowy, striding along in her trench coat.  It looked really good.  They were really excited and want to talk with me about this project.  So now I’m really excited too.  Hell, I just busted out a big goofy smile for no particular reason.  No, not true, it’s for a very particular reason; this project is something that someone else wants to work on with me!

I’m not writing this to tell you that you should expect something soon.  I’m writing this to tell you that some day, maybe a few years from now, I’ll have another post to tell you about how awesome this thing I’m working on is, and how anxious I am about making it worth your time.  But I think that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be telling you that because I have some good old Tintin-esque glorious adventure for you to feast your eyes on.  I’m really excited about this.

What I Usually Write, or, Responsibilities to One’s Audience

Posted on by Henry

Annex - Rathbone, Basil (Adventures of Robin Hood, The)_02

More or less what I grew up with.

I love adventure fiction.  It’s makes up a large portion of what I write, probably because it’s what I grew up reading in books and creating in role-playing games.  When I don’t write adventures, I still generally use the climactic structure to resolve the primary tensions of the piece.  Unless I feel like experimenting, I don’t usually do the “unfinished story” thing and leave such tension unresolved.  But you probably already know this, so why the hell am I telling you?

Continue reading →

Won’t Break Your Heart: Sorcery & Cecelia, by Wrede and Stevermer

Posted on by Henry

sorcery and cecilia 650

I hadn’t quite expected this to be so good.  In fact, I futzed around and failed to really start it for about four weeks (or maybe longer).  But there was some point, maybe around page 80, when I seem to have flipped a switch; suddenly all I wanted to do was finish the book.  It’s lovely and wonderful, and I would certainly recommend it to pretty much anyone who has any interest in epistolary novels, or female protagonists in post-Napoleonic Wars England, or magic, or even just fun stories.  To be clear, given how readily I’ve bounced off of other similar characters before, I had no idea how much fun they could be.

Sorcery & Cecelia (which I have learned, much to my delight, is part of a series) was written back in the 80’s as a Letter Game.  Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer decided to write letters to each other in the voice of their two respective characters, relating gossip and intrigue, and telling each other about the fabulous and exciting things which they were each getting up to.  When they’d finished their game, they looked at their collection of letters and realized that they’d basically already written a novel.  With some editing for details, continuity, and pacing, they found that they had a perfectly acceptable manuscript, and then managed to get it published.  I am exceedingly glad that they did.

Look, I don’t want to ruin any of the book for you by mentioning things.  Suffice it to say that the two main characters’ adventures and intrigues make excellent reading, and Kate and Cecilia are absolutely brilliant as heroines who must vanquish their antagonists, while carefully acting within the constraints imposed on them by society.  Do yourself a favor and pick up this book.  It’s really quite good.

p.s. Thank you to the visitor who recommended this to me one morning in Mama Dorr’s kitchen.  I wish I could remember your name to thank you properly, especially after the excellent conversation we had about epistolary stories and your research into the subject. [Edit: The visitor was Naomi, but I appear to have misattributed the recommendation!  It was still an awesome conversation, but Thomas may have been the original source.  I might manage to get to the bottom of this.  Maybe.]

The Wizard’s Dilemma, by Diane Duane

Posted on by Henry

JacketWelp, this one took me a long time to finish.  I’m still not quite sure how that happened.  Part of it was that I started the book while I had far too many things on my plate and thus got distracted.  But part of it was that at a certain point in The Wizard’s Dilemma, I felt like I could see where all of the pieces were, where they needed to go, and had a pretty good idea of how they were going to get there… and I really wanted them to just be there already, instead of making me wait.  I suspect that this is the price I pay for reading so much.  Or perhaps for being impatient.

It turns out that I was right about most of those various story beats, but seeing what Diane Duane did with them was far more satisfying than what I’d imagined.  I probably should have seen that coming, given that I’ve read the earlier books in the series and know how good Duane is at her work.  Once I finally got over my block and moved into the last parts of the book, I didn’t want to put it down.  And then, of course, the climax made me cry.  Whatever the real reasons for my reading delays, I feel quite certain in saying that this was an excellent book, one worth reading, worth recommending, and one that leaves me wanting to read the next one in the series.  Just like the previous books in the series.  I probably could have seen that coming too.

So, why the heck did this book make me cry?
Continue reading →

Unsounded: Way Better Than It Sounds

Posted on by Henry

Unsounded_chapter_covers_by_ShardGlass

Ben, my housemate who hooks me up with many fine comics (along with the many other things they do), has pointed me towards Unsounded, a most excellent webcomic.  In addition to offering beautiful eye-candy (check out the designs for the covers of Chapters 2 [left] and 1 [right] above), this is a comic that already feels like a window onto a deeply thought out and well crafted world.  Maybe it’s only skin deep, but I doubt it.

Admittedly, I recommend this webcomic to you on the strengths of the printed collection of the first three chapters.  It’s remotely possible that there is some difference between the book and the webcomic version, perhaps simply in the act of holding the physical book in my hands, that changes how I feel about the comic.  Actually, if anything it would have to be the collected early sketches and two short stories added to the end of the book that would change my opinion.  But those only make me feel more certain that this is something deep and complex that I don’t yet know enough about to be able to appreciate fully… and I say that knowing that I already plan to read the rest of Unsounded’s archives.

So if you’re at all interested in reading about the stories of a young thief on a quest to prove herself to her crime lord father, and her magic-using zombie escort who’s been blackmailed into protecting her, then I suggest that you get reading.  Still not sold?  Let me put it this way: I have examined nearly every page I’ve read so far, looking at the little details, searching for another little hint, because I cannot kick the lurking feeling that I’m missing something that signals far more yet to come.  Ashley Cope has done a marvelous job so far of building a story world that all feels like it holds together, revealing new treats around every corner and hinting at far more yet to come, all without ever falling into the classic expository trap of telling instead of showing.  It’s worth reading just to see the quality of her craft.  Check it out.

p.s. I was planning to write up another flash fiction piece from the excess prompts that I generated before, but I haven’t gotten around to watching True Grit yet, and I really wanted to try combining The Matrix and True Grit.  Some other time.

Concept: A Tintin Adventure Flowchart

Posted on by Henry

tintinI think I’ve mentioned my love of Tintin previously.  But I’ve just had a fabulous idea, so you’re going to hear about it again.

Some necessary background: Charles Stross wrote an excellent book, The Jennifer Morgue (part of the Atrocity Archives series, very much worth reading).  He based the story (careful, spoilers) on a combination of real world events and James Bond clichés, and did it excellently.  He did this in part by analyzing the Bond oeuvre (I suppose I should say the Fleming oeuvre, but Fleming really didn’t have that much to do with most of the movies) and creating flowcharts of Bond film opening scenes and general plots.

Yes, you read that correctly.  He watched all the Bond films with a friend and wrote up flowcharts to describe what they saw going on.  Here’s the flowchart of a Bond movie opening scene, and here’s the flowchart of a Bond film writ large.

Now, I love Tintin very much, but there are some problems with the old comics.  Consider:

20140112153933!Tintin-mainCastI’m amazed that Castafiore is even included in the cast of characters.

Angry_King_in_Tintin

Yeah, that’s objectionable.

So I’ve been thinking that I should try writing new Tintin stories.  Well, not Tintin per se, but adventure stories like Tintin’s, without the same racist depictions and with better representation all around.  And Stross’ flowcharts have inspired me.  I plan to go through and re-read a number of old Tintin stories, and try to make a Tintin adventure flowchart that I can follow when the time comes.  It might turn out that this is impossible, and Hergé simply had too many different stories, but I suspect that I could pull something useful out of all this.  What do you think?  Are you interested?

Tombs=Raided, Hearts=Won; Tomb Raider Rocks

Posted on by Henry

tomb-raider-5

I don’t usually wish that I paid more for a game.  But I liked Tomb Raider so much that I almost wish I hadn’t bought it on sale.  I want the people who made it to know how much I liked it, and I want them to put as much high-quality work into making the next one as they put into making this one.  Because there’s a next one.  I mean, even if I didn’t know that Rise of the Tomb Raider is coming, I wouldn’t have any real doubts (except, I suppose, if the studios involved fell apart or lost the rights, which would be terrible).  The end of Tomb Raider left it clear that Lara is nowhere near finished with being the awesome badass which she’s become, and that makes me very happy.  Watching the announcement trailer for the new game has reduced me to a quivering pile of enthusiasm.

Why am I so happy about all this?  Tomb Raider is a brilliant game, and does things with story-telling that remind me why games are such a fascinating medium in the first place.  It’s an adventure novel with audience participation, a new entry in a genre that I love, and it evades the problematic trappings that spoil so many other adventure stories for me.

Ok, spoil is a strong word.  I love adventure stories enough to enjoy them despite their frequent problems, but being able to enjoy one that isn’t so inherently problematic is a breath of fresh air.  It doesn’t hurt that this particular story is extremely well written, with characters who feel like real people, and who share history with each other that seems fitting and unforced.  It’s a little bit like someone crossed Tintin with Indiana Jones, turned the tone dial to ‘gritty and a bit bloodthirsty,’ and then put you through the Bildungsroman of Lara Croft as she goes from untested and unconfident archaeologist to self-assured and competent survivor and adventurer, hellbent on keeping herself and her friends alive.  Wait, no, that’s almost exactly what it’s like.  It’s glorious.

Look, you don’t have to take my word for it.  You can play the game yourself.  But if you want to read more of my thoughts on the topic, including the few reservations I have, please be my guest:  Continue reading →

Behind the scenes of the new campaign…

Posted on by Henry

Monday’s post gave a taste of the game that I’m preparing, but didn’t go into any details about what would follow.  That was intentional.  If there’s any chance that I’ll run this game for you, I strongly suggest that you don’t read what comes after the break.  If you want to see some of what I’ve come up with, and maybe a bit of how I came up with it, read on.

Continue reading →