The Sword of Damocles.

While I've been using my Cover to Cover segment to spur myself back into reading, my goals run a little deeper than that. Short term, I want it to shock my reading habit back to life, which I have to say it's done beautifully. But long term? I want to use it to maintain that habit with a plethora of new and interesting titles coming at me each month. But while I enjoy the opportunity to pick up and check out titles I never would have touched otherwise, and have already discovered some fantastic authors and stories because of it, I don't want to rely on those twelve books a year alone. I want to expand, I want to get back into reading stuff that I personally would have picked up as well. Admittedly so far most of this has been other titles in the same series as, or from the author who wrote the last suggested book I covered, assuming it was good of course, but after I purchased Shift Amazon sent me an interesting email. Because I'd purchased from the sci-fi section of their store, they were offering me a selection of four titles for 99p each. Two of them looked mediocre, but I decided to pick up The Woodcutter and Damocles because their synopsis looked interesting, and at that price... How can you not?

I don't really have much to say about The Woodcutter. It sells itself as a noir re-imagining of fairy tales, but ultimately doesn't bring much atmosphere, character or original ideas to the table. It leans heavily on its fairy tale references, and doesn't really attempt to revel in film noir convention to mix it up a little. To be honest, if you want a pulp style murder mystery with fairy tales, go out and buy book one of Fables. It's far superior to The Woodcutter and you'll be introducing yourself to an utterly fantastic series of comics to boot.

Damocles on the other hand, is much more interesting. It tells the story of Meg, a linguist on a one way mission from Earth following the trail of an ancient message that extra-terrestrials seeded human DNA throughout the universe, and Loul, a weather analyst who finds his life turned upside down by the arrival of honest to goodness aliens on his home planet Didet. At it's heart, Damocles is a first contact novel, as the crew of the Damocles is forced to abandon ship and land on the planet surface without being anywhere near ready too. And the spine that holds it all upright is the interactions between Meg and Loul and how they bond and come to understand each other over the course of the story.

To tip my hat to the book, it does a really good job of dodging some clichés and shows a very different first contact from the typical Hollywood one. Rather than the military blazing in and locking the aliens so deep in an underground bunker they'll never see light again, and if they do it'll be the cold, unblinking LEDs above the dissection table, the sides managed to broker an uneasy truce and begin the long hard process of trying to communicate with each other. This is where the book shines, with a lot of thought put into how easy it is for misunderstandings to happen, but also for common ground to be shared. Language is displayed as a complex and necessary tool that we seriously take for granted, but at the same time even though two cultures could be entire solar systems apart, to the point they don't even sleep the same way, there are some ideas and gestures that transcend language.

I also must commend S.G. Redling for not linking Meg and Loul romantically by the end. They're incompatible aliens, both with love interests already (although I have to admit, most of the book I clean forgot Loul even had one she'd been shown and mentioned so little) but the bond between them was becoming so strong that I was seeing the 'And as her team departed, Meg stayed behind with Loul and had little hybrid babies and they all lived happily ever after' ending becoming more and more of a reality in my head. Thankfully that was dodged, and I can't help feel the two main characters bond is stronger for it.

But the problem is, beyond this interesting, more sedate and scientific first contact approach and the relationship of the main characters, there's not much else. This is really a book I wish I could have done a full Cover to Cover on, because while I like the detailed, meticulous look at two cultures colliding and trying to paper over the cracks with limited resources, and while I admire the author for choosing a different route than the humans trapped on a strange world, surrounded by hostile aliens and they have to escape or DIE! There really is nothing else of note.

The characters aren't very memorable. You have angry engineer, reasonable geologist, chisel chinned captain awesome, the pilot (who is gone most of the book, because, you know, the captain always goes down with their ship) and Loul's gaggle of mates that like I said above, completely slipped my mind the moment they slipped off the page and only came back into it the moment they returned. In fact, I have this horrible feeling I'm forgetting one of the crew in this sum up right now. I think Meg's love interest is a reasonable scientist and there was a geologist too. Bloody hell, I only read this book a week ago and the fact I'm floundering so much should tell you everything you need to know. And to be clear, we're talking about the main crew here, Meg's deep space family who are there the entire book, not a bunch of side characters you only see once or twice.

But I could forgive that very easily, just like I could forgive the repetitive nature of the chapters as the same events are repeated scene for scene from the point of view of both Meg and Loul. What I can't forgive is the complete lack of drama or momentum. The initial spark that led to the humans being on the planet and collecting information, this ancient message about aliens having created humans and other humanoids across the universe, is nothing but fluff and scene setting.It's a means to an end, it gets Meg into position and continues to give her a grander reason to break the language barrier with Loul. Otherwise it's largely irrelevant and never becomes expanded on beyond 'Oh! We found humanoids, I guess it's true!' This is reflected best in the ending of the novel that just seems rather flat. Life goes on for Loul, except he gets a new job, and Meg just carries on rumbling through space with no sense of adventure or real excitement for what's to come.

Even if that concept was just window dressing, even the small chance something dramatic and exciting happening on the planet's surface is usually introduced suddenly and then short lived. Every time something threatened to upset the dynamic and take Loul away from Meg, or Meg away from Loul, and endanger everything they were working towards one of two things would happen. If the humans were being antsy or could solve the problem? Meg would talk to her crew and smooth things over. If the Didet were being antsy or could solve a problem? Loul would talk to the Generals in charge of the mission and smooth things over. Once I got wise to this pattern, even the sudden jolt of panic towards the end as it looked like the humans would be stuck on Didet forever was really inconsequential because it had become clear this was just a novel where things worked out, and even if they didn't work out at least on some level Meg and Loul would be happy. Considering I had no reason to care much about anyone else, their feelings didn't matter so much.

Of course, the fact that the greater context to their mission was kind of sketchy didn't help in this matter. It's clear the Damocles is on a one way trip, and if I'm reading the text correctly, there's no guarantee that even the information they're collecting will ever reach Earth. So stuck on Didet, carrying on their mission to get to the root of the ancient message, it didn't really matter. It seemed they were so far out that contact back with Earth was a shot in the deepest, blackest dark imaginable so you had to wonder what it was really all for.

Geez. I didn't really want to write this much on this book. I wasn't aiming to give a review or an impression, just to state a dilemma and ask a question. I enjoyed every little bit of watching Loul and Meg build up a rapport and I loved how infectiously it spread to the rest of the crew and the Didet workforce around them. It was fascinating and spot on, and I can't praise the way she took such a tight focus and showed the frustrations and pure joy of both characters as they tried to crack one another's habits, eating patterns, sleeping patterns, language barriers. I also love the fact that at one point, the characters need a boat. But the simple matter of asking for a boat comes completely undone when they realise the Didet have never been out to sea, so they have no concept of what a boat is let alone a word for it. All that stuff is wonderful, and I will praise S. G. Redling profusely for it.

However... Is that enough? Can you sacrifice everything else in the novel to produce one interesting and engaging take on a single aspect, that still manages to get it's legs snared in the repetition from chapter to chapter? I'm not entirely sure it is. I'm not sure if Damocles is part of a longer series, but looking back there are elements of it feeling like a piece of a novel rather than a coherent story. As much as enjoyed the parts that I did, for me they couldn't make up for what was missing, and considering how wonderful those parts were I can't help but wonder if I'm being unfair to it.

Looking at reviews for the novel just enforces the idea that I'm in some strange minority. This book is pulling a heck of a lot of five stars on Good Reads and rarely dips below a four in the individual reviews. Somebody even noted in a review that ' Someone complained about the lack of anything happening in the story. If your expecting big space battles, best you look elsewhere' and to be honest, I think that's a bit disparaging. Personally speaking, I never wanted a big space battle, I never wanted a space opera, and I never wanted that overly cliché 'escape from the alien bunker and get off this rock!' plot I described above. I just wanted something that upped the ante in a meaningful way, raised the stakes and kept them raised, maybe something that tore Loul and Meg apart, seriously disrupted their work, and see them work through it as characters and grow as a result. I'm not sure that's too much to ask, but as I noted I'm in a minority, and who knows? Perhaps just exceptionally nailing one thing is all you have to do. 

From Cover to Cover: Wool & A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ever since the dawn of man, since the world was something mankind could comprehend, we've had fiction about how and why it will eventually end. Post-apocalyptica is powerful because it can allow us not only a peek into a possible world of those left behind, but also warn us about how the actions of the present could lead us to this dark and desolate place. This month on From Cover to Cover, we're delving right in with a bit of a format change! Two tales set after the day civilisation as we know it ended, both several decades apart, each offering their own unique view on the day society dies and what arises after. Let's get right into it, shall we?

Wool started life in 2011 as a self published short story by Hugh Howey about a Sheriff named Holston and the terrible secrets he uncovers in the post-apocalyptic world of the Silo, a self contained civilisation where being sent outside the walls is a death sentence. This story was so well received that it spawned eight other parts, with them being collected into three books that make up the Silo Trilogy. Wool is the first of these, focusing on the impact of Holston's terrible discoveries and decisions, as well as the core mystery of why everyone sent to their death outside voluntarily cleans the sensors that allow those inside to see out. The actions and upheavals that follow on from this will change life in the Silo forever...

Wool was a suggestion from my friend Ashley over on Facebook, and there were a few things going against this book for me. The first was that I'd recently read another of Hugh Howey's novels, Half Way Home, which was not a shining example of genre literature to say the least. The second is that the opening is clumsy. The first part with Holston, and then going forward into part two with Jahns and Marne, is full of sledgehammer exposition and ham-fisted attempts to set up the rest of the book. The first part makes very little attempt to disguise that much of the prose only exists to drop information about the world on our heads, and much of the second part is building up to the introduction of the main character - Where again, whole segments just exist to tell us about her in a level of detail that's unnecessary because we're going to meet her and see all these things for ourselves soon. Honestly, I feel like these first two parts could have been cut in half, with Holston in particular existing as a GRRM style, single chapter prologue and I don't feel like anything would have been lost. 

Thank God, then, for Juliette! First of all for actually having a name, because if I had to do one more of these with a nameless, faceless protagonist in a row I was going to scream, but also because once she hits the pages this book becomes an entirely different animal. Juliette seems to bring a focus to the novel, it stops trying to purposely build up it's world and mysteries and just lets them happen organically, with Juliette at the centre investigating and experiencing all of it. She herself is a strong, capable character who has a skillset and attitude that sets her apart from most of the other characters we've met up to that point, but some very clear and human flaws soon become apparent. She nestles into this beautiful little nook between being a capable and independent woman, but not allowing that to be all she is. She's allowed to cry, allowed to feel, allowed to make mistakes and allowed to be human. Once we have her as our guide, the book becomes an real adventure, full of twists and turns and surprisingly varied locations considering the setting. The only downside is that the initial mystery Jules investigates would have been much more powerful if it hadn't already been unravelled by Holston, but then again whole new intrigues arise to replace them that are much more interesting. 

Putting aside Juliette, if I were to pick out one main strength of Wool it would be the characters. Every single one feels very human, with their own quirks and agendas and stories going on inside their head. Marnes was the first one I was truly drawn too, the grizzled old deputy who has been older than every Sheriff the silo has had for years because he's happy in his place. The secret love between him and mayor Jahns, something that dominates so much of their lives but is never really spoken until they're too old to do anything about it, is touching and very real. They make each other feel young and alive, and it's very touching to see them interact with each other. Solo is another interesting figure in the book, a perpetual child in the body of a fifty year old man. When we meet him, he is older and in many ways far more experienced in the world than Juliette, but he's coping with a massive tragedy by not really acknowledging that he's grown at all since then, so he's also excitable and prone to being distracted.

We also have Lukas, the star-gazing IT tech who is so much like Juliette yet so different. His obsession with the stars, and hers with the deepest depths of the Silo collecting pretty rocks is an interesting contrast. Then there's the agoraphobic old man Walker, a skilled electrician in a world where electronics are clearly not understood and even Bernard, the main antagonist of the book, has flashes of not being a totally bad guy. You get the impression that he's just been swept along by something greater than himself, and if you squint and tilt your head you can see his point of view. It doesn't stop him being a complete, irrepressible bastard, but it does give him a layer of sympathy that a lesser work would have skimped. It's these quirks and little humanities that really make the book, and on the occasions they interact and spark against each other is when the book really comes to life. I can't overstate how much I love Howey's dialogue in Wool, I just really wish there was more of it. Although one thing to note is that as much as you're going to fall in love with these characters, Howey does not shy away from killing them, no matter how much development he's poured into them. This is going to be one novel where you're constantly cursing his name, for sure.

That's not to say there isn't strength in the narrative as well. The world Howey builds is an interesting one, with it's relatively small scale being an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I love the idea that the perspective on the world is so small, that even a stairway can be regarded as a foreign territory even though Porters can zip up and down those stairways in a matter of days. It gives a very medieval village aspect to the whole thing, nobody leaves their designated areas unless they have too. Thoughts of exploring are impractical, and very much discouraged by those in charge. It's also an ever changing landscape with bits constantly being repaired and remodelled as necessary. The idea of the cleanings is also an incredibly powerful one that underlines everything in this society. It's the cornerstone of their entire justice system, that if you step out of line? You're sent out to clean. It also forms an important part of their social, economic and spiritual make up as well. With vacations planned around a view through freshly cleaned, unspoiled sensor arrays, market stalls booming as people come up from all of the various layers of the Silo to view the outside from the top and as their entire spirituality revolves around the idea that the Silo is the only thing to exist (literally placed on Earth by God himself), anything that relieves the pressure in the Silo is a good thing by the Priests.  The world is well put together, well thought out and when Juliet explores some other areas of it really looms in and tightly  constricts both her, and the reader.

My only complaint in this regard is the idea of death. At one point Juliette contemplates how cheap life and death are, people summed up entirely in the manilla case folders that she has as sheriff. Yet everything else in the book points to life being sacred and tightly controlled, one person goes out and another is allowed to be born. While it's clear the resources are stressed and nerves are easily frayed, the sanctity of life is something that falls through the cracks a little when it also seems like it could just as easily be regarded as a throwaway commodity from another perspective. Although I do love the deeply entrenched pacifist ideals the Silo seem to have, and the results of what happens when they break down is truly brutal.

One thing that did surprise me is that Wool actually has an ending! A good, solid, end point at that. I was worried that as it was originally a collection of novellas that built up to a bigger story, and even the first book collecting them was nominally part one of a trilogy, that the format wouldn't allow for a solid end point. There was also Half Way Home looming in my mind, with it's relative shambles of a rushed, tacked on ending still sour in my mouth. I was mistaken. Wool's ending is satisfying, and if you wanted to end there without reading the rest of the trilogy you could. If anything I'm worried it wraps up it's plot a little too well, and there will be little left for the sequels to pick over. But a new, impossible challenge does loom - So I suppose we'll see Juliette and friends tackle that. Plus, contrary to what everyone thought, there's a whole world out there...And Wool certainly makes me feel compelled to explore.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a sci-fi classic that was first published in 1960. Originally written by Walter M. Miller Jr. as a series of three novellas, he recognised certain connecting elements and themes in them and decided to edit them together into one cohesive work. The book focuses on the history of North America after the Flame Deluge, a nuclear war that wiped out civilisation as we know it and mutated a good portion of what was left. In particular it focuses on the Albertian Order of Leibowitz a sect of the Catholic church dedicated to Beatus Leibowitz, a Cold War weapons engineer who after the fallout dedicated his life to preserving the knowledge and history of his former civilisation before it is lost forever. It shows us, over the course of millennia, the lengths they go to preserve this lost knowledge in a world that simply does not care for it, or their ideas on it.

This book fell into my sphere of influence after I was discussing Wool with Richard (yes, he who suggested Ocean at the End of the Lane last month. I told you that you'd be seeing his name again, I just never realised I would be so soon!) and he suggested holding Canticle up against it for comparison. As I read through it, I came to realise that it was a more interesting comparison than I initially realised, but I'll get to that. I'd rather like to judge this book on it's own merits first but admittedly, it's hard to know where to start.

Canticle is a novel that's driven forward by ideas, and squarely focused on the world that it's building. Miller takes great care to examine the impact of nuclear war, and the ideas that would spring up in the minds of those left behind hundreds of years later. The first part is particularly interesting, as it deals directly with the first protagonist, Brother Francis, stumbling into a fallout shelter and finding a tool box and schematics. Both his own, and the reaction of the Abbey, to this find is intriguing. Miller not only paints a very realistic picture of a group of people bickering and examining a past they can never hope to understand, in scenes that I can easily imagine will be repeated hundreds of years after our own civilisations demise and have seen played out by those trying to untangle ancient histories in the past, but also shines these events through the lens of mythology. We see the dreaded Fallout become characterised by demons in the Catholic canon, and Lucifier himself has become synonymous with the bombs that bring them. Meanwhile the Ancients of the previous civilisation (known to us as engineers and scientists of the Cold War era) have become revered as Saints and Beatus', and their technology is highly revered and regarded as dangerous. It gives the impression, in the early stages, of a fantasy novel brushing up against a sci-fi one - Only the science fiction elements are modern day technology that we're familiar with, making the world seem both more realistic and yet, more otherworldly, all at once.

The progressive Catholic church itself is an interesting, and wholly sympathetic, organisation. Strangely so, considering the bad rap the Catholic church usually gets (and arguably, deserves) in many works of fiction. Although they adhere to many practices and rituals that we're familiar with, in the case of the Order of Leibowitz at least, the dogma has also got mixed up with the principles of science and history. Biblical fables have been reworked to become warning parables against the repetition of the tragedy that reduced the world to it's current state and the main goal of the Order of Leibowitz is to preserve what knowledge is left, so that it can be used to spark a new renaissance when the dark times are over. Their clashes with secular scholars in the second part is especially telling, as while we see that the secular scholars are more brilliant and advanced in their theory, they've forgot so much of the world that's past that most of their theory is pure conjecture. There is an especially ironic scene where Thon Taddeo regards a monk for proposing the theory of Evolution, now a religious theory in this new world, much like a child who is grasping at things he can't understand. More often than not these secular men regard the monks as backwards and rigid, but time and time again we see that they are far more flexible and understanding than their counterparts.

The main point of contention, however, lies in the moral contrast of these two groups. I don't think Miller is trying to paint a wholly pro-Catholic narrative, especially as he shows them to be prone to exaggeration, with much of their canonical history obviously being a half remembered and half invented idea of the truth. I think he more wishes to portray the dangers of science, progress and expansion without the morality to ground it. The state and secular scientists we see are brilliant, compassionate and reasonable - They're good people, and he never tries to portray them as anything else. But they're also willing to turn a blind eye, or willingly support, the practices of their rulers that show all the signs of leading back towards the road of mankind's destruction. Personally I don't think this moral guidance needs to be born of a church, but the theological backdrop does lend it more weight, especially when it's proven to be impotent in the face of the figures of the state.

All of this, and the fact that the last part is essentially a world that parallels that of the 1950s-early 1960s in many direct ways, shows the novel to be warning against using the wonderful technologies science has developed for short term gains and questionable ends, as well as a warning not to allow history to repeat itself. Civilisations have rose, fallen, and cannibalised themselves throughout history but if we allow out fall to come about through nuclear arms, our fall and cannibalisation will be greater than ever. It all comes together to create a novel that's bursting with ideas, and themes, and things that I don't think I was able to wholly grasp or come to terms with in just one reading. What I've covered here feels like only the tip of the ice berg, and certainly only a small portion the notes I've made, and doesn't get into the invocation of existing religious figures and how, hundreds if not thousands of years on, characters from the first part of the book have become legends in their own way later down the line. It doesn't touch on the duel vanity and obsession of most of the characters within, and the actions that both of those qualities lead them to take. It's a novel that I'm certain will reward re-reading with new insights into the text you noticed, and whole new layers that perhaps you glossed over before.

That's not to say it doesn't have it's problems. The prose can, by turns, be dense to read and some of the narration can be disjointed at times. The perspective slips and slides into the heads of several different characters at a whim, and sometimes simply breaks away from perspective entirely to recite a biblical fable or piece of history that thematically ties to the current situation of the character. The jump between different parts is also rather jarring, we're suddenly dropped head first into a whole new era, with whole new characters and Miller does nothing to ease us in. Taken as three novellas this isn't really an issue, but as a whole, cohesive story it can slow the pace of the book to a standstill while you try to get to grips with what happened to the world while you were busy turning the page. There is also a great amount of religious jargon that went over my head. I'd say it may as well have been written in another language, but the truth of the matter is that most of it was. It adds to the atmosphere, and when you're dealing so intently with an order of monks is unavoidable, but I still felt my eyes glazing over when trying to content with the larger portions of it.

Considering they're so disparate, it's not as difficult to draw comparison between the two as one might thing. Even though they both deal with a world after the Apocalypse, and from what I can glean from Wool the apocalypse is very similar in nature, the way the novels handle their themes and their presentation is almost at the other end of the scale from each other. Wool is driven by it's characters, whereas Canticle is driven by the world it presents. Wool focuses on the Silo, a claustrophobic metal tower that barely protrudes the surface of the ground it's buried in, whereas Canticle deals with the history of an entire continent over the course of a millennia. Wool is skittish about revealing the true origin of the apocalypse, but if there is one thing the people in Canticle are sure of it's that, having built a religion and legal system around attempting to assure it never happens again. Wool is about the control and regulation of knowledge, supposedly for the protection of the many by the few, in a world that desires it while Canticle is about the preservation of knowledge and ancient culture in a world that has no interest in it.

Without a doubt Canticle is the more cerebral and well crafted of the pair. Two headed mutants aside (which is possible, but still pulls me out a little) it builds a very realistic world with very realistic consequences unfurling as a result of the actions of everyone from the 'Ancients' to the characters we follow throughout the various parts of the book, and as mentioned above is practically dripping in subtext. Wool has it's share of things to say, of course. It's a rumination on class imbalance (one could even argue that Juliette is like a Victorian crusader, an upper-middle class woman fighting for the workers rights), how much we can trust those directly above us and what kind of sacrifices we are prepared to make for our species to survive, and if those sacrifices are justified or beyond the pale. But it's strength lies more in it's exciting narrative and personable characterisation. It may not reward re-reading on an intellectual level like Canticle might, but it's thoroughly exciting and worthwhile in it's own way.

So, to scoring then. For Wool this is an easy call - Despite a very weak start, there's enough to love in the later chapters to make this a very easy four out of five monkeys!

For A Canticle for Leibowitz however, this is more problematic. The flaws that I mentioned above did get in the way of my enjoyment, but by the time I finished the book and let it all sink in - They didn't seem quite so problematic. Each part has it's own draw, and the ending is a thing of absolute wonder. The sudden dramatic urgency of it, coupled with what may have been the delusions of a senseless man or an honest to God miracle had me rapt, and really gave the book a great punch to end on. I also wonder if, in a different mood, on a different day, I could read different things into some of the sections that seemed to drag and take more enjoyment away from them. But ultimately, that would be a different day, a different reading and not the experience I actually had. So taking into account all the times it made my eyes glaze over, and the flagrant overuse of Latin, I think this is another four Monkeyer.

I hope you enjoyed this little deviation from the norm, and please, do let me know how the two book format worked out and if you'd want it to return! Any suggestions for improvements would, of course, also be welcome! As always you can suggest a book for next month by commenting below, or posting the title anywhere I can see it. Next month going to be delving into Howl's Moving Castle, the book that spawned a movie that I've yet to see, but may also give a watch. See you then! 

Enter Diablo!

Over a decade ago now, having shed my Acorn computer for a legitimate PC that could play actual PC games a couple of years prior, I was still experimenting with games that I might like. Usually I was drawn to curiosities, like the Oddworld series. A hugely frustrating set of games, that just seemed to reel you in for more with their off the wall humour and glorious and inventive world design. I think Oddworld lay some of the groundwork for what I like in games, as I'll admit that I'll happily put up with tedious mechanics and gameplay that I may not particularly enjoy all the time for an engaging world, a good story and interesting characters. Going back to Oddworld, the timed bomb sections, where you had a row of bombs that could only be deactivated by hitting them when the lights on top of them flashed green and if just one blew you to tiny little meaty pieces, you had to go back and not only do them all again, but a ton of platforming sections as well, almost drove me off that game completely. 

I often find myself in much the same kind of scenario in modern games too - Bosses with unfair mechanics built into them to make them artificially harder, timed missions that can only be completed with a scant few seconds to spare so you have to play them near perfectly to progress, obligatory vehicle sections that barely work, repetitive side missions, all hallmarks of bad game design. But all things I'll put up with if the game world is interesting enough. 

During this time I was also prodding at the world of RTS. I was already deep into Red Alert 2, and once the gleam started coming off that and I realised I couldn't make good custom maps for it to save my life, I started looking for something else. I'd played the game based on War of the Worlds, which was a rock solid RTS that let you play as both martian and human alike accompanied by extracts from Jeff Wayne's glorious rock opera as a soundtrack. I owe that game for introducing me to that musical triumph, but I also owe it for feeding my imagination with beautiful cut scenes like this. 

Sadly rather poorly recorded there, but you get the idea. I soon found that I wasn't particularly interested in modern warfare, in Red Alert I loved the weird science elements and exaggerated Cold War vehicles that gave the series it's character and in War of the Worlds I loved the Victorian sensibilities of the humans, with their steam powered tanks and primitive submarines, and the elegant, alien war machines of the martians. It wasn't until a tiny company that you might have heard of called Blizzard released their latest game that I found another RTS that I could really sink my teeth into and get hooked on, and that game was Warcraft III. 

At the time, Warcraft was unlike anything else I'd played. I'd never experienced a Warcraft game before, and found the slightly cartoony graphics and colourful, expressive art style to be a delight. Getting deeper into the game, the mechanics were fun, the initial units all seemed to have their own quirks and then I got into the story I found myself getting attached to members of all factions. The story of Warcraft III wasn't just a matter of all four factions fighting against each other, there were splinters in the factions themselves and each character was not only struggling against their external enemies, but often internal squabbles and betrayals. I found myself attached to Illidan and Kel'Thuzard, despite the fact there's a case to be made that they're both terrible people, and I found myself a tiny bit heartbroken by the eventual fate of Sylvanas and Grom. And of course I hated Arthas with a firey passion.But who didn't? Not to be inflammatory, but idiots, that's who. The fact I could get so involved in the world and story of an RTS was mind blowing, and I absolutely loved the fact you had a hero on the battlefield you could level up throughout the mission, giving it an RPG element to it as well. 

Once I'd finished the expansion The Frozen Throne, I was more than ready for Warcraft IV to come along. It was one of the first games I could imagine myself being truly hyped over, and I'm sure you all know how that turned out by now. Since then I've had very little to do with Blizzard as a company. I was never really able to get into Starcraft, even though it was dripping with fantastic humour and both Jim Rayner and Kerrigan were fantastic characters, I just didn't find the gameplay or overall story as engaging as that of Warcraft's. I also have no interest in MMOs, a game genre that seems to take the worst parts of RPGs and put them front and centre, so World of Warcraft was never going to be for me. I kept tabs on the lore for awhile though, but with each new expansion bringing about the death of a character I once loved, I soon just gave up on that too. I was curious about Starcraft: Ghost, and have played a little Hearthstone recently, but with WoW being their one big product and Starcraft II not drawing me in as I'm afraid I might be a little lost having not finished the original, Blizzard and I haven't really crossed paths much in the intervening years. 

Until a few days ago. 

About a year ago, Blizzard released the third game in their other big tent pole franchise, Diablo III and from what I gleamed at the time it was a disaster. Always online DRM and in game loot that seemed to be programmed to bolster the online auction house instead of enhance player enjoyment made the game sound like a terrible deal on launch. I'd also never been into dungeon crawlers, but Torchlight II had opened my eyes to just how fun they could be and when I started to hear that the latest patch ahead of their expansion for the game was making Diablo sound a lot more fun and a lot more playable, well I had to give it a try. 

Upon it's arrival, I couldn't help but notice how pretty the box art was. Certain PC games seem to have taken an unusual approach to packaging their games. They have a box that opens out at the front, revealing very pretty art and... Nothing else. To get to the game itself you have to open up the top, as per usual, and more often than not are met with a standard issue plastic DVD case. That being said, Diablo's cardboard inlay is a rather beautiful affair that opens out into even more beautiful art and some gameplay screenshots from here. 

Inside I hoped to crack open the DVD case proper to find a big, meaty manual - Mainly because that's the kind of thing I like with my RPGs, even if I never read most of it. It's nice to have something I can just quickly reference without having to load up Google, but alas nothing here. What I did find though, was these. 

Oh Blizzard, you savvy corporate whores, you! 

Getting into the game proper, after a standard issue install, registration, log-in, etc. All the joys of PC gaming that have been around as long as I've been PC gaming, basically! I was treated to a rather impressive opening cinematic. I feel like I can't give Blizzard too much credit for this, as they've practically honed it down to an art over the years. They are the company that gave us gems like these. 

Character creation is nothing to really shout about. You have a choice between Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard. You can also choose Crusader, but only if you buy the brand new expansion Reaper of Souls. Which was prominently advertised to me before I started the game, and I feel like having the Crusader sitting there on the selection screen is just taunting me in and of itself. The character creation amounts to each character class having two character models, a male and a female, with no option to customise them beyond that. I'm a touch disappointed in this, as even Torchlight II had limited character customisation on it's various classes, and for a company as big as Blizzard with their extensive experience in the MMO field to come out with such a basic system is a touch baffling. I was also rather disappointed you couldn't put spaces in your name. What if I wanted to be a barbarian called Conman The Boobarian? Or just wanted to give myself a surname? That's a basic thing that can add just a touch more depth to your character, but unless you want to be known GeraldHarrison throughout the game it's impossible. 

With thanks to vicogaming.com for the image.

Eventually I chose the female Witch Doctor, based on the fact that she had a pretty kick arse mask. Of course, my first mistake was assuming that the gear I was looking at in the character creation was my starter gear. Oh no, friends, as soon as I was dropped into the game they stripped all that away. Literally. 

With thanks to the Something More Than Sides blog for the image.

I was in my underwear. *sigh*

Once I was over that madness, I began to get into the actual game play and I have to admit - It's really fun. I think the Witch Doctor was a good choice for me, as I really enjoyed her initial blow dart attack and her first passive, which grants you three protective demon hounds, has been pretty helpful in not getting me killed. She also kind of reminds me of the stoner trolls in Warcraft III, which is possibly problematic when we're talking about the only black human character in a game and not a bad Jamaican stereotype hiding behind a bunch of skinny blue trolls, but I have to admit it makes me smile anyway. 

One thing that did baffle me, and that game manual I talked about earlier would have come in very handy to explain, was that once I gained my second power it wiped my standard melee attack from my hotkeys and I couldn't find a way to get it back anywhere. I've read that if you're playing a caster weapons become largely obsolete as things you hit people with, and instead their stats bolster your spells and other abilities. My mind can see how this logic makes sense, but on the other hand, sometimes I just like having the ability to bash something over the head with my sword. I think I might have to play as a Barbarian at some point, if only because I'd like to see how the weapon animations work at some point. 

That being said, Diablo's dungeons are fantastic - Both the quest dungeons, and the optional dungeons you can walk right past if you like. I was charged with finding a crown in a crypt, and there were three choices of door to go down to find it. The first door I went down turned out to be on the one the crown was in, but for a lark I explored the other doors and I'm glad I did. They had the best loot in them that I'd found in the game, a variety of interesting enemy types and some of the other optional dungeons I've been in were rather sprawling and bore exploration in their own right. Considering this is the meat and bones of the game, I'm glad they nailed this. If I have one complaint so far, it's that the game is too easy. I'm not sure if that's just because I have decent gear and it's early game, or if I need to up the difficulty a bit, but we'll see how things go and I'll adjust accordingly. 

There are a few other nitpicks and praises I could level at that game, but I think having spent a couple of hours on it the highest compliment I can give is that I'll definitely be playing more. Character customisation seems to come more from loot and gear than anything else, and while I'd prefer the colour palate to be a touch brighter, at least the darker, moodier tone they've gone with fits the world and story. Overall, I like it, and if I could send but one message to Blizzard it'd be 'Something as fun as this again, please! Maybe Warcraft IV afterall?' 

A man can hope, a man can hope...

In Defence of Iron Man 3.

Now I've returned home and the release dates are no longer conspiring against me (released in the UK while I was in the US, not released in the US until I returned to the UK) I've finally seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. My thoughts? It's a very strong entry into Marvel's line of superhero movies, only really let down by the poor writing of Black Widow and the even poorer acting ability of Scarlett Johansson. I already had a bias here, as I think I'm one of the few men on the planet who isn't dazzled by how attractive her body is, and I never really bought her initial performance as a former KGB agent all the way back in Iron Man 2. Seeing and reading how much effort Mickey Rouke put in for the same movie, learning Russian, visiting gulags, really throwing himself into the role - I always found how little work Johansson put in by comparison, for a much bigger role, to be insulting. As the movies have rolled on, it's become more and more apparent that she can't really emote for toffee and has very limited chemistry with anyone she's on screen with so despite liking the character of Black Widow in the comics, the idea of her appearing in the movies is an instant black mark for me. Although to be fair to her, I tried to imagine a better actress pulling off the dialogue and characterisation she was given in the new Cap movie, and really couldn't picture them doing much better. So given what she was working with, it's at least not all her fault this time? 

That being said, Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie were superb as the Winter Soldier and Falcon respectively, and it was fantastic to finally see Nick Fury step out of his role as enigmatic director a little and actually get some solid action scenes. The amount of villains they snuck under the radar and how they handled them were a nice surprise too, and overall I give the film a pretty big thumb up. I didn't enjoy it as much as Cap'n America the first, but then I thought that World War II aesthetic was a breath of fresh air for a superhero movie, and I'll always secretly long for more of that kind of thing and resent The Avengers a teeny, tiny bit for not allowing them to explore it. 

One thing I genuinely dislike about Winter Soldier though, is the reaction to it. Not that it's been at all negative, but one thing I've seen time and time again, especially from my friends across the pond, is statements along the lines of 'THAT is how you do a sequel Iron Man 3!'. Honestly? I don't get it. I really don't get it. 

Okay, that's a lie, I kind of get it, but only when it comes to the trigger sensitive issue of the Mandarin, and we'll get to him later, but I've always thought that Iron Man 3 was one of Marvel studio's triumphs, on par with or perhaps just nudging past the original Iron Man in quality. 

Iron Man 3 showed us a Tony Stark who had to overcome more than a man in a suit like his or some Russian dude with whips on his arms and an over-glorified cockatoo. In that movie, he has to finally come to terms with the myriad of personal problems that have manifested in past movies (especially in Iron Man 2) as well as face up to an enemy that has exploited those issues and left Stark with zero resources to fight back with. If there was one movie that really developed Stark's character and personality, and really forced him to grow as a character, it was this one. All that pomp and arrogance that led to the climatic 'I'm Iron Man!' scene in the first movie comes back to haunt him, and while that aspect of his personality is never truly going to go away, three did humble him just a little. 

Beyond that though, three allowed us to see a Tony Stark that was truly a genius in practical terms. We all know that he can create massive arc reactors that can power entire towers, program robot butlers to attend to his every need - Christ, without Richards or Hank Pym on the scene and Banner being more a geneticist, Stark is the lead 'Weird Scientist' of the Marvel cinematic universe. But in three we really got to see him put that mind to work and turn nothing into something. We got to see that the actual hero was more than just money and a suit, but the brains and courage behind it. Which led to some fantastic, Bondequse scenes of Stark working with smaller, McGuyvered together gadgets to get things done when his suit wasn't an option. 

But let's say you don't care about character development or story? Well, first of all, screw you sir/madam! You're the kind of person that keeps Michael Bay in business and that I cannot abide! I cannot abide!! But if you happen to like your action, Iron Man 3 has the kind of action set pieces that the first could only dream about. The rescue from the plane was exciting and intense, and say what you like about Aldritch Killian as a villain, the final battle with the dozens of automated Iron Man suits zipping around was rather wonderful. I know I cheered when I spotted the Hulkbuster like piece of armour, and I'm sure if I had a very patient and precise thumb on the pause button and a book of Iron Man armour types I could find quite a few from the comics and past movies tucked away in there. 

So, great characterisation of the main protagonist and great action, let's get down to the story, shall we? And this is where I can kind of understand where some have problems with this film. As a comic book fan, I tend to get very... Terse when film producers mess with characters I love. I feel that while change is a necessity when it comes to adaptation, if you don't keep the core spirit of the characters and world alive you may as well not bother doing the adaptation at all and work on an original project. There's an argument to be made that the core spirit of the Mandarin wasn't kept intact, however I'd counter that with the fact that it was never supposed to be the Mandarin in the first place. If you're upset about the bait and switch, that's fair enough, but to paraphrase the man himself - I never saw it coming, and was surprised to actually be caught off guard by a twist in a film. There's also the fact that most fans of the Iron Man comics I've spoke too tend to shrug this off and say that between them, Killian and Trevor make decent representations of the classic and ultimate universe Mandarin's. 

I don't know, I may be biased on this point because I thought Ben Kingsley's role as failing luvvie actor Trevor Slattery provided some of the most entertaining moments of the movie, and far surpassed his turn as the more serious, terrorist leader. I also saw it as an intriguing twist rather than a bait and switch. I found the plot they presented far more interesting than a potential 'Uh oh, the Ten Rings sound like trouble! Better spend the movie hunting them down and then triumphing over them!' if only because that's the plot of most every other superhero film ever. If the Mandarin is still a sticking point for you, though, well perhaps you should get around to picking up a copy of Thor 2: The Dark World as it has this little gem on it...

A one-shot that effectively answers the Mandarin question once and for all, and gives us the final fate of poor old Trevor Slattery. Some may call it a cop-out, or Marvel caving to pressure, and maybe it is, but hey! At least they did it in style.

Putting this aside, the one thing I loved about Iron Man 3 above all else was that it felt like an end to the trilogy. I was worried that with a new director coming on board, it would feel fundamentally different to the other films. But I need not have worried, as instead it felt like a fabulous capstone to the trilogy that tied the films together into one cohesive story but still left room for Stark to appear as part of the Avengers movies. I came out of the cinema thinking I'd be happy not to see another Iron Man film ever again, not because it was bad, more because it just felt like the character's story had come to a natural end and anything that came along afterwards would just feel tacked on. I can't remember having that feeling before, even in films designed to be trilogies, it just felt like the perfect way to tie off the whole thing. 

For me, the tone of Iron Man 3 felt perfect for an Iron Man movie, the characterisation was excellent (not just of Stark himself, but of Pepper, Rhodey, Trevor, Killian, even the kid they paired him up with managed to come off feeling like a regular kid, not a creep-under-your-skin-annoying movie savant kid), the acting was of the high quality I'd come to expect from these movies, the action scenes were fantastic and the story really brought the whole thing to a close in a grand style. It's for these reasons, and I'm sure a few others if I really scratched around in my brain, that I just can't understand why Iron Man 3 is the Marvel sequel that everyone seems to run down in comparison to the others. Personally, I take the opinion that it's one of the best sequels that Marvel has released so far and exactly what I was looking for in an Iron Man film. 

Does it have the same tone and focus as films featuring other characters in the same universe? No. But then again, none of them do when compared to each other. That's the whole point of The Avengers and why it seemed so impossible to accomplish on film for so many years. Disparate heroes, from different times and dimensions, who come from very different origins and lend themselves, individually, to very different kinds of stories coming together onto one team to fight for freedom and justice. And even though they're very different movies, Iron Man 3 was exactly what I was looking for when it came to Iron Man, in the same way The Winter Soldier was exactly what you'd expect from a modern Captain America story. Stark is a sarcastic smartarse with his flaws as front and centre as his shining attributes, while Cap struggles with a sense of moral justice that many in the modern world think is outmoded and impractical. It makes for very different movies, but in my opinion? Two fantastic sequels, and all this 'THAT is how you do a sequel, in your FACE Iron Man 3!!!!' nonsense every time Marvel releases a follow up to anything needs to stop. Because if anything, when it comes to Marvel sequels - Iron Man led the way! 

Trans-Atlantica - Emerald City Comic Con.

It turns out Washington was a kind of chilled out experience for me. As I mentioned last blog, we all came down sick, and nobody really felt up to much of anything, so we mostly just hung out and only left the house when we had too. Which usually involved going to Fred Meyer, a supermarket chain I'd never heard of until I got to Washington but now feel like I'm all too intimate with. Come to think of it, Fred Meyer himself must be a rampant egotist to brand the entire chain with his full name. It's not just Meyers, it's FRED Meyers. He may as well have just gone ahead and thrown the mister in front of it and called it a day. But either way, I digress. While it was mostly very relaxed, we did have one thing that was set in our calender. It's the reason I was convinced to linger on in the US for as long as I did. We were headed to Seattle!

For the Emerald City Comic Con! 

Now, I've been to a couple of Comic Cons in the United Kingdom before. Mainly smaller, more intimate affairs like the Birmingham International Comics Show. A fantastic event that usually took place in the Think Tank, although the last show I went too was in a hotel exhibition centre rather fittingly over Nostalgia and Comics. It always had a number of very chatty, very inspired small pressers and some surprisingly top end panels including a Walking Dead preview event (where I caught a t-shirt and will never let anyone forget it!) and a panel with Jonathan Ross about his then new comic Turf, as well as other projects that don't seem to have manifested. Although Jonathan Ross seems to be a taboo name in the more stuck up, po-faced parts of the nerd community right now so maybe he wouldn't be considered a big draw for some. But say what you like, he knows how to work a panel. 

Sadly BICS seems all but dead in the water these days, and an event of similar quality never rose up to replace it, but I've also been to a couple of larger shows like Collectormania and the first Super convention in London, so I thought I'd be relatively braced for what was to come. I was very, very wrong. You see, while the Super convention was impressive, it only really took up three quarters, if not half, of an exhibition room. Admittedly a rather large exhibition room, but for some perspective the Emerald City Comic Con took up three full floors of Seattle's convention centre. 

Needless to say, it was very overwhelming at first. 

The main floor was characterised by a teeming mass of people that just seemed to come from everywhere and take up every single bit of space there was to be taken. It took a lot of getting used too, and also meant you had to treat very carefully not to be swept away from your friends or be barged all over by some knuckle dragging dickmonger who felt like his own sense of self importance is enough to let him be carried across the Con floor on the backs of all these other peasants around him. You know what, it's not fair to characterise that person as a male, because the women were just as bad. There's no gender divide when it comes to manners, and sadly when you get a lot of people together in one place, bad manners and poor spacial awareness seem to shine on through. 

I'm not going to wheel out the 'Smelly nerds who can't bathe!' stereotype though,as  in my experience ninety percent of people at all the conventions I've been too have smelt just fine - Although, I will say there was one part of what seemed to be the main floor, a walkway that connected one lot of booths to another, that consistently smelt of fart. I'm not sure how something can smell of fart the first time you walk through it, and still smell of fart about two hours later the next time you walk through it, but it was a strange phenomena that I encountered that I can only explain by there being one extremely gassy stall vendor in the vicinity or everyone having a pact that if they needed to fart? That's the designated farting zone and everyone else can hold their breath and deal with it. 

Just as it was all getting on top of me and I was feeling very overwhelmed though, I found my calling! 

I may have a slight problem when it comes to t-shirts. I'm generally not good when it comes to clothes, and pretty much had to buy most of a whole new wardrobe to go to America with because... Well, most of my clothes are in a sad state. But t-shirts? I will buy those by the hanger load. So the t-shirt tower was to me what a flame is to a moth, and could have been just as dangerous. But as impressive as it was (as you can see, the t-shirts are piled up all around the stall right up to the roof of it) and as many great designs as there were, including a take on the Scarface poster which featured Two-Face, I only walked away with a rather fetching Adam Hughes Zatanna shirt. But you know what? I felt a whole lot better about the Con in general after that.

There were plenty more interesting stalls to prowl around, although not many of them selling things I wanted for prices I found entirely reasonable. The steampunk and Victoriana stall's seemed to be pricing their items in a fashion that certainly didn't represent their quality, although the stall that was selling wooden larping weapons was rather impressive. The variety and craftsmanship on display was staggering, especially the flaming hammer which I think was branded a 'Hell Hammer'. I was also surprised to see a booth from the woman who has been drawing all the Disney/Doctor Who crossovers. She didn't have much left by the time I got to her, but I did buy a badge with Jack Skellington looking at a TARDIS shaped door in a tree so I was rather happy with that.

And then there were the cosplayers. 

As well as a woman doing balloon flowers and swords dressed as Cinderella. Technically not a cosplayer, as she was there as part of an entertainment business, but I've never seen anyone doing balloon manipulation in costume before so it was still new to me!

Of course there were various jokey cosplayers too. I saw a man in full Gears of War style body armour that had been given a Hello Kitty paintjob, and there was a rather impressive Judge Dredd who... Was hanging around with a man dressed as a pony and only seemed to do photos where he was hugging said pony man. Needless to say, that put me off snapping a picture of him. However, if you want the absolute King of cosplayers, look no further than this guy!

Truly the best costume of the show, hands down! I mean, we never saw what kind of socks Snow White actually wore, but I can't help but imagine he's spot on!

There were some other cool things on display, including a Song of Ice and Fire art gallery that I pretty much stumbled into by mistake. It included promotional art from various merchandise, as well as original pieces like this charming ceramic plaque and a mock up of a weirwood  tree.

My absolute favourite thing about it though (aside from the people who had only watched the TV show uttering 'Urgh! Spoilers!' all the way around. That's what you get for not picking up a book!) was the mocked up action figures depicting characters in their death throes or at a time when they were doing very less than fantastically.

As you can see, they're gloriously graphic! But I think my favourite is Robb Stark. If only because of how surprised he looks. It's almost cute.

Oh, yeah, uh, spoilers... Or something.

The absolute star of the show was the Brick Nation exhibition though. It was a few tables dedicated to the Lego creations of, what I assume, was a local Lego builders club. There was an absolutely breathtaking display of Rivendell, which was a full recreation of the Elvish city with various set pieces from both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies playing out within it.

Other highlights included a full Batcave and Joker's fairground, and a fairly insane Lego city that seemed to be the creators excuse to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. There were also some rather impressive flat pieces and some rather interesting 3D models. 

And let's not forget the full size, remote controlled R2D2!

So, overall despite a rocky start I'd give my jaunt to ECCC two thumbs up. It wasn't too unwieldy once you got used to the size of it, and there was enough to see that we were there a good few hours and still missed one or two things that might've been of interest. I'd definitely go back, although perhaps next time I'd do some research and find out more about what's going on in advance. I've no desire to stand in really long lines for anything, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check what panels and events are going on around the area on the day. 

After all the excitement we were all far too exhausted to do much else, so I never really took in any of Seattle's other sights. But I did see one thing I never expected too...

That, my friends, is the Fremont Troll, a giant sculpture under a bridge in Fremont - A rather sketchy seeming area of Seattle that I can't say I was sorry to leave, even given my desire to see a statue of a troll that was bigger than the average bus. Traditionally people climb over it, sit on it, make scared faces under it, but during our visit there was a crazy drunken man in pyjama pants trying to strike up conversation with anyone who made eye contact. So needless to say, it soon turned into operation take a few pictures and get the hell out of there! 

A couple of days after that and it was time to go home. My experience travelling back wasn't really as eventful as my experience travelling there. I managed to travel by car, train, plane and bus all in one day - All I needed was for somebody to find an excuse for a boat ride at some point in my trip and I'd have been set! I also had the very disconcerting feeling of experiencing 10am three times in one day, thanks to Amsterdam. But I got home in one piece, although that sickness I mentioned above seems to have carried over back to the home country and I'm very much looking forward to being clear of it and a real human being again. 

It's hard to look back on it all in retrospect, partly because it's such a long time and also because I always feel an innate sadness when I have to come home from a long trip, and no other trip been as long or felt so much like an adventure as this one. I always find myself mulling on the mundanities and negatives of what I'm going back too and the good times and fantastic people I'm having to leave behind. It's as if from this moment on, every day from here on out locks what I've experienced further and further away in the past, until it's just so many memories and anecdotes. Perhaps that's the wrong way to look at things. Perhaps instead I should see today as the start of a countdown to an all new adventure, I don't know what it is yet, I don't know when it will be, but isn't that the fun of the future? You never know what it might hold. Or if it'll hold those very same people you thought you'd left behind.

 Yeah. I like that a whole lot better.

 So! Until the next adventure, whatever it may be, this is Aies very much out!