I continue my review of the immense and intricate shonen anime One Piece, following the sometimes "Idiot Hero" Monkey D. Luffy and his peculiar crew – swordsman Rorona Zoro, navigator Nami, combat cook Sanji, medic Chopper, sharpshooter Usopp, archaeologist Nico Robin, and musician Brook – in their united yet individual quests across the hazardous sea called the Grand Line. To recap important points about our heroes and the world of One Piece: Some years back, the so-called Pirate King, Gol D. Roger (usually called Gold Roger) was [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves (well, Phone): Pokémon Go
September 6, 2016 By Leave a Comment
I was never a big Pokémon fan. I never played any of the games, and I'd seen just enough episodes of the anime (plus the first movie) to be familiar with the basic concept and main characters. So when Pokémon Go was rolled out, at first I didn't have much interest… … except there were so many people on my list playing it. I figured I might as well give it a try, the way I had MMORPGs like WoW, just so that I'd know what it was. To my astonishment, I rather like the game. Collecting various strange (virtual) animals, trying to level them [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: No Man’s Sky, First Impressions
September 1, 2016 By 2 Comments
No Man's Sky is a highly ambitious and unique game, whose particular claim to fame is a titanically huge universe – quintillions of planets to explore, generated procedurally in a manner that ensures that every planet will be different and that individual players will be discovering things unique to their own personal interaction with the game. I have something of an advantage in approaching the game for review: I heard very little other than this about the game, and so I had relatively little preconception about it. My expectations were [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: James Bond
August 30, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Bond. James Bond. Agent of MI6, British spy, with the number of 007 – the 00 prefix meaning that he has a literal License to Kill. The secret agent who set the standard against which all others – even those written better, even those more accurately researched – will be compared. Described in the books as handsome but with a cruel edge, something like Hoagy Carmichael (a well-known songwriter and actor of the 1930s-40s), Bond has of course been played in film by multiple actors ranging from the inimitable Sean Connery to Roger Moore, Timothy [ Continue reading... ]
The Author and Criticism
August 25, 2016 By 1 Comment
One consequence of putting your writing up for sale and public view is that, naturally, people will express opinions about that writing. For most authors, their stories are pretty near and dear to their hearts, and so they always hope that people will say nice things about their writing. This is, of course, not always the case. More generally, this is always not the case for stories in general. There isn't a novel published that doesn't have someone expressing negative opinions about it. Even a book received with great enthusiasm will still [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: A Fire Upon the Deep
August 23, 2016 By 1 Comment
On the edge of the Galaxy, an archaeological expedition finds a cache of ancient wonders. But in delving into the secrets of a civilization so advanced they can barely comprehend it, they unleash… something. A Something that bides its time, hidden until it is prepared, and then acts to consume them all, flower into malevolent power. Only a desperate sacrifice by two researchers – themselves also nigh to reaching a superhuman state – allows any of them to escape at all. At the same time, far towards the center of the Galaxy, a race of strange [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Fallout 4
August 18, 2016 By Leave a Comment
As I had rated both of its predecessors – Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas quite highly, one can imagine that Fallout 4 had a high bar to clear in order to rate as well as the preceding installments of the series. Fortunately, it clears the bar with room to spare. Like the rest of the series, Fallout 4 is set in a world where the Retro-Future of the 1940s came true: nuclear-powered cars for everyone, household robots, shining-steel and glowing-tube SUPER SCIENCE inventions brought a true golden age. And it then crosses that with [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher
August 16, 2016 By Leave a Comment
When I first published Digital Knight in 2003, there were some people who commented on its being similar in some ways to another relatively recent (2000) entry into the Urban Fantasy genre: Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, beginning with Storm Front and continuing up through what is now fifteen books (slightly less than one a year), the most recent being Skin Game. There is something of a surface similarity between the early Dresden novels and Digital Knight/Paradigms Lost, although I think a great deal of the impression of similarity [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Odyssey: Chapter 23
July 13, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Well, the Sergeant was back to consciousness if not to action... Chapter 23. "Whoa!" Tavana lunged out reflexively, catching Maddox as he was almost dragged headlong into the water. The carbonan fishing pole was bent in a sharp curve, vibrating furiously even while Tavana managed to get the smaller Bird brother back on his feet. "Got something, Tav, we got something!" "Vraiment, that we do! Can you hold it?" Maddox' face was set in lines of determination. "If… you can… keep me from falling on my [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Odyssey: Chapter 22
July 11, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Xander said the Sergeant was waking up, so why not see things from his point of view? Chapter 22. Campbell blinked his eyes blearily, forced them to focus. What… Oh. I'm inside my suit. For a moment he was confused. Was I on EVA? Fixing something? What happened? When he tried to sit up, he felt the tremendous lethargy and pain of having been still for many hours, even days, and his leg gave a dull throb despite what his nanos reported as "significant pain reduction". That cleared his head, and [ Continue reading... ]
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