What I Did On My Holidays

Just spent three-and-a-bit days in New York, and forthwith what I experienced while there:

• New York subways are a mix of old and new trains. The old ones are harsh and uncomfortable, while the new ones are just as uncomfortable but much shinier. One thing that's cool, though: the new trains have an up-to-date electronic display showing every stop along the line and where you are on it. Very useful to the newcomer.
  
  
• Manhattan, especially the area near Central Park, smells very much like horses.
  
  
• Streets in Queens are numbered but nevertheless are more confusing than the named streets here in Toronto. This is because there is a 72nd Cresc. followed by 72nd Rd and 72nd Street. And some of them are at right-angles to each other. *facepalm*
  
  
• I saw most of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on my flight home. My enjoyment of it was hampered for three reasons. First, the headphone volume defaults to "ear-shattering". Second, one must sit through no less than seven commercials before starting the movie - during which time one can't change the volume nor even exit out back to the main menu. Third, the movie wasn't all that great anyway.
  
  
• Starbucks is not a good dating place in Manhattan. You have about one-third the space of most similar establishments in Toronto, and twice the number of people.
  
  
• I also saw Get Smart whilst in the Big Apple. Great movie, the humor is both physical and dialoguical (yay neologisms!) and Steve Carrell has a killer delivery. How he can keep a straight face is beyond me. There's also a lot of action, which is neat. Also, Masi Oka, who is awesome.
  
  
• Finally, I saw the new Star Trek, which was really, really great. It always rankled me that I felt that TNG had a better cast but got saddled with all the worst movies. There were a lot of fun shout-outs and the new cast did a great job. Simon Pegg as Scotty was criminally underused, so I'm looking forward to the sequel when he'll be there from the start.
  
  
• I read the first four and last chapters from Michael Bywaters' book Big Babies, and simply couldn't continue. Bywaters decides that the best way to demonstrate the infantilization of society is to make fun of them and insert baby talk and "wahh wahh"s into his text. Considering that his reader is a member of said society, this amounts to Bywaters continually insulting both himself and the reader. He seems to be confused as to what he wants (autonomy is adult behavior - but wanting things is childish), uses his own arbitrary definition of a "grown-up" and generally every half a page I kept thinking "No it's not! There's an excellent reason for that! Are you even paying attention to what you're writing?" Bleh.
  

Soul Music

A new cultural phenomenon is sweeping the Discworld. People are caught up in it and its popularity builds to a feverish pitch. It turns out to have a sort of mind of its own, and becomes dangerous. Along the way, a constant stream of jokes and parodies are made to its real-world counterpart, as a small cast strives to understand and fight against its influence.

Am I describing Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, or Moving Pictures?

The truth is that while on the surface the two books seem similar, Soul Music is by far the more effective and enjoyable of the two.

The first major difference is, of course, the subject matter. MP parodied early Hollywood films, while Soul Music mines the far deeper strata of rock 'n' roll music. There's simply far more to work with; while Hollywood films changed the face of entertainment, rock music changed the face of culture as a whole. Rock music is more recent and hence better-remembered than early film, and there's also more of it being covered here; while the main characters shadow Elvis and Buddy Holly from the '50s and '60s, there are references to '70s and '80s phenomena like rap music and U2 as well.

The second change is in the characters. MP's main protagonists were pretty much ciphers; they were wooden and not particularly likeable. Here, the three members of The Band With Rocks In are fun to watch and listen, and keep up a great camaraderie. Glod the dwarf is a down-to-earth, rather sarcastic specimen; Cliff the troll is slow and reasonable, while the previously naive and good-natured Buddy is changed entirely by the music he plays.

Third, rather than focusing almost entirely on the events in Holy Wood as happens in MP, Soul Music contains three or four separate threads, which weave in and out of each other, connected by the music. In addition to The Band, we have the delightful narrative of Susan, the daughter of Mort from Mort. She's a joy to read, with her journey being both an example of, and a deconstruction of, the sort of adventure novels like Narnia and Edith Nesbit novels. She's no-nonsense, a clear thinker, and very Genre Savvy, and when she finds out she's Death's granddaughter, she's certainly not content with simply saying "oh deary me!" and getting swept along with the story. There are also the Monty Pythonesque travails of the Unseen University wizards in this whole mess, and periodically we are treated to scenes of Death himself on his own sort of self-discovery journey.

Fourth, we have the jokes, which form a big part of any parody. In MP, Terry was content to basically just have Discworldian versions of the early Hollywood events and myths, and that in itself was the joke - which often fell flat. Here, that's not enough: the jokes are multi-faceted and based in equal part on parody, wordplay, farce, situation, character, and absurdity. Even though I know all the punchlines, this book still makes me laugh surprisingly often.

The final, and most important, difference, is that of plot. Soul Music's plot flows easily and strongly; although yes, I'm re-reading it and hence know what will happen, I am struck by how obvious and inexorable the story goes. Some of Terry's books have a tendency to seem disjointed and almost random; here, every event follows logically and nicely from the previous event, and is easy to follow and get swept up in. The only exception is the part near the end, but this is allowed (especially in a rock music book) because it's just that damn awesome.

Although you don't need to know everything about early rock music, you may find it instructive to read the lyrics to Don McLean's American Pie and Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell to understand parts of the story, especially the end. The parody is a big part of this book, but even without it, you'll find lots of things to enjoy.

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus is a game unlike almost anything else out there. It is haunting, melancholy, thought-provoking, sometimes frustrating, always beautiful. However, you need to know very clearly what you're playing before you just sit down and pop the game in your PS2.

SotC's plot can be summed up in one sentence: A nameless adventurer is tasked by a disembodied voice named Dormin to kill sixteen Colossi, after which Dormin will bring his beloved back from the dead. You can forget about the plot after this; there are no other people or even creatures to interact with and, other than Dormin's instructions and hints, no further text to read.

In SotC, there are no powerups (at least none the game tells you about; apparently eating fruit and certain lizards' tails can increase your health and stamina). There are no items; health and stamina restores itself over time. You have two weapons, a bow and a sword, and there are no upgrades. You learn no skills. In fact, you end the game in exactly the same state you started it in.


The game follows a three-part process. In the first, you ride your horse, Agro, towards the current Colossus. Holding up your sword will emanate a beam of light which can guide you towards your goal - assuming you don't have to make too many detours, which increasingly is the case as the game goes on, meaning you need to use triangulation. Other than the Colossi, there are no enemies; the only reason you have to find the Colossus is really to experience the incredibly beautiful landscape and its intense feeling of loneliness. There is no music while you wander around, adding to the isolation.


Once you find the Colossus, the battle begins. You need to use your weapons, your horse, the Colossus's own behavior, and the area around you to your advantage to find a way to get on top of the Colossus, or be able to hang onto the fur on its body. Finally, once you are actually on the body, you need to hang on for dear life while finding its weak spots (indicated by glowing sigils) and stabbing them vertically with your sword. When the Colossus's health is gone, he falls to the ground, and you find yourself back at the central shrine, ready to start the cycle all over again.


Do not expect normal play control from this game. You are not an action hero and you are not particularly good at what you do. Because there are no normal enemies, swinging your sword normally is almost always totally useless. Your bow is generally only good to distract the Colossi. You will be using the "hang on/climb" button (R1) much more than the jump or attack button. You can only jump a realistic height, and vertical mobility is most of the challenge in the game. Your horse does not always listen to you and needs constant reminder of where to go and how fast. You can be hurt not only by actual attacks, but even by being anywhere near the Colossi's feet when they come down.


Because I went in without knowing all this, I found myself intensely frustrated by the first little while, almost to the point where I quit the game. There is a very steep learning curve and you need to be prepared for a lot of getting used to stuff. Read the manual very carefully and practice. Some of the controls are very poor choices; while hanging, the same button will jump or pull yourself up depending on whether a direction is being pressed. The camera and controls will sometimes conspire against you, so be prepared for it and don't let it get you down.

Then there's the fights themselves. These are really puzzles disguised as boss battles, with the unusual twist that most puzzles are not hundreds of feet high and actively trying to step on you or smash you to pieces. You can go about this two ways:

1. Have a lot of patience. Explore your immediate surrounding thoroughly. Pay attention to what the Colossus does in different circumstances. Do all of this while trying not to be smushed. Often a leap of intuition is needed to figure out what to do.
2. Use an FAQ.

I have to say I went with number 2. Some of the tricks to beating the Colossi are so difficult to figure out that you will very likely throw the controller in the air in frustration and hopelessness. Even once you do know what to do, it often isn't easy to pull off. I didn't feel that knowing the trick really took anything away from the experience, so if you do feel annoyed, go ahead and use a crutch.


Amazingly enough, it isn't the gameplay that really makes SotC stand out. It's the storytelling. Which is remarkable because there practically is no story. SotC is a deconstruction of what it means to play video games. You do nothing but fight sixteen creatures, some of whom are huge, brutish, and angry, but others of whom are graceful creatures with sad or peaceful eyes.

The graphics are breathtaking - though not in HD or as detailed as newer consoles, the emotions evoked by your journey are astounding, aided by a haunting soundtrack which sometimes is deliberately at odds with your actions. When you first see some Colossi, rather than a pounding, scary track, you are treated to a mournful violin piece. Oh, and pay close attention to your hero's appearance - as you defeat Colossi, his looks slowly begin changing.

Some of the fights themselves are truly momentous. You are literally only a tiny fraction of the size of these creatures. Some of them fly and some are water-based. One battle requires you to gallop at full speed on your horse to keep up with a sandcrawling snake, and jump straight onto a trailing wing to get up on its back.


You will often find yourself hundreds of feet up in the air, hanging on by one hand from a bunch of fur while an angry, glowy-eyed monster tries with all its might to shake you off, and you try to get your balance for long enough to powerfully drive a sword into it. The force feedback adds to the sheer experience, which I truly have never seen matched yet.


Shadow of the Colossus is a groundbreaking game, a real work of art, and a must-play. Just go into it with your eyes wide open, and don't be afraid to get help if you get stuck.

The Enchantment Emporium

Tanya Huff is generally a good author. She knows how to write snappy dialogue, believable characters, a decent plot, and infuses her writing with modern humor. My favorite books by her are The Keeper's Chronicles, a set of three books which are almost entirely straight comedy. With her latest book, The Enchantment Emporium, I get the feeling like she was trying to recapture the feeling of Keeper but with a bit more seriousness, and overall I think she failed.

The story involves a family of witches (well, magical women anyway) called the Gales who live in a small town near Toronto. The protagonist is Alysha Gale, whose life is changed when she receives word that her grandmother has died and left her a shop in Calgary. Said grandmother has apparently gone "wild" (a term that's never really explained) and it's up to Alysha to take over the shop and deal with whatever caused her grandmother's death - or possibly caused her to fake it. If you read Summon the Keeper, you'll be getting some deja vu at this point. The story goes off in a very different direction, but the overall structure does seem to have a similar feel.

Huff has created an entire mythology revolving around the Gales; they're surprisingly incestuous, given that cousins generally marry each other, and there's a whole power struggle sort of thing that goes on. However, we're never given the full picture. While most of it is explained, the corners of the painting are never filled in. Sometimes this sort of thing is good at keeping up an aura of mystery, but in this case I felt it didn't work, and here's why.

Alysha as a character is almost a cipher. We know she's fairly strong-willed, a bit rebellious (though not as much as her hair-dyed musician cousin Charlie), seems to think about sex too much (like most of her family), and is quite possessive. But most of who she is can be defined in terms of her family members. I felt the characterization was unusually weak and it was hard to figure out how she thought, let alone identify with her. In this case, the mythology is a big part of the characters, and leaving it a mystery means that many of the characters themselves are a mystery - which weakens the story.

In general I felt there was little chemistry between the characters, ignoring the romance aspect, which seemed so obvious they could have just imprinted it on a hammer and banged the reader on the head with it. The story begins back in the Gale homestead, where Huff introduces over a dozen characters who get maybe two lines, and then don't appear for the rest of the book. This is fairly overwhelming, and doesn't do a good job of letting us get used to the main character(s). When the main cast is finally more or less resolved, I couldn't feel any real identity in any of them. Alysha lacks a strong foil to bounce off of (like Austin in Keeper).

Finally, Huff seems to be a little confused about where to direct her humor. In Keeper, the humor was obviously parodic and not meant to fit into the story. Here, Huff can't resist adding in a little parody, but it's out of place in the overall more serious story structure. As an example, a character introduced late in the book is meant to be a teenager who'd grown up essentially in Fairyland and thus has no idea what the human world entails. And yet he can be seen spouting lines that seem straight out of Zits, as if "teenagehood" is somehow universal. Things like this devalue the narrative.

Nitpicking aside, the book isn't bad. It's entertaining and a good time-waster. But Huff needs to decide on her direction and stick to it. I'd much prefer a fourth Keeper book than this sort of waffling in-betweener.

And Another Thing...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the true sci-fi classics, and remains as hilarious to read as it ever was. Douglas Adams' work is full of brilliantly warped ideas and a plot that fizzes and ping-pongs off the cranium like a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

After the original "trilogy" reached four books, Adams penned a fifth, Mostly Harmless. This one was much darker and more cynical than the others, and really made most of the characters miserable in one way or another. Worse yet, it ended with a nigh-on guarantee that everyone would really die.

Adams mentioned in interviews that he wanted to work on a sixth book to end on a more upbeat note, but unfortunately he passed away before he could.

Fast-forward to 2009, and his estate (or whoever owns the H2G2 rights) has hired another author, Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) to write the sixth novel in the series. This kind of thing is always hit-and-miss, though it seems to be happening a lot - a new James Bond novel came out last year, and a new Winnie the Pooh this year. It seems to be the time of revival.

Here's the bad news: Eoin Colfer is not Douglas Adams. Here's the good news: he doesn't try to be, and better yet, he doesn't need to be. Colfer has managed to hit all the high notes of H2G2 - the madcap hijinks, the bizarre nomenclature, the conversational tone, the incisive satire - and infused it with his own style. The result is a slightly softer, faster H2G2 but every bit as enjoyable as the original.

Colfer's writing style is not quite as meandering as Adams's was. This is the most evident in his use of the in-book Guide as commentary on the events that are occurring. Adams used the Guide perhaps a few times a chapter, usually with at least several paragraphs detailing a long, frequently ridiculous entry. Colfer's Guide pops up almost every page, and often only lasts a sentence or two. This is a little jarring at first (it seems the Guide has an entry on the actual characters and events of the book) but it's easy to get used to, sort of like Terry Pratchett's footnotes. These entries are rarely boring and often have a surprise ending that elicits guffaws.

One downside of the constant use of the Guide is the sheer amount of names and entities he has to throw at us. It's almost impossible to think up new ones all the time, so many of the entries reference old favorites like the mattresses of Squornshellous Zeta or the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax. Sometimes it feels a little too much like a tribute to the earlier books, and this is true of the first few chapters in general, but eventually he achieves a balance between old and new which works very well.

Colfer has also managed to nail the characters pretty well. Ford and Arthur are the most instantly recognizable. Zaphod is a bit stupider than he was, but this is explained by the fact that his left brain, or LB, has been removed to pilot the Heart of Gold, and that was the smart one. Trillian and Random are back as well, and oddly enough, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, a recurring gag in the earlier books, is now a major character. Ironically, Arthur himself is no longer the viewpoint character (though he is the source of most of the more poignant parts); the narrative is split up pretty much equally amongst six or seven people, which keeps the pace quick and breezy.

One thing that's interesting to note is that Adams's Hitchhiker was written way back in the seventies, and some of the satiric notes are no longer sharp. Colfer tries to keep some of the culture (like "froody" and "cats") but moves the satire in a more modern direction, with nods to the YouTube society and more of a "website" feel to the Guide itself, which is ironic because the original Guide was probably the inspiration for Wikipedia, bringing everything full circle.

Would Douglas Adams have written the plotline for And Another Thing...? No one can really tell. But he can rest easy knowing that Colfer's work is hilarious, sometimes tender, brilliantly satirical, and a plain old enjoyable read.

The Guild

Watching stuff online has never really caught on with me. I like having it on a big screen downstairs away from the madding crowd. However, I've gotten insanely hooked on The Guild. (Pay no attention to the crudely-drawn logo above, it's a live-action series.)

This award-winning web series, consisting of episodes about 5-9 minutes long, chronicles the travails of the Knights of Good, a guild of players in an MMORPG reminiscent of World of Warcraft. An extremely dysfunctional bunch, the series takes great joy out of presenting every stereotype available for gamers and inflating it by about three hundred percent.

The guild members are:

• Vork, the guild leader, a well-educated, balding, middle-aged man with absolutely no sense of humor and a severe cash-flow problem (he eats "Found Object Stew");
• Clara, an overweight, selfish housewife who neglects and practically abuses her three children and husband;
• Tinkerballa, a cynical, extremely rude Asian girl who seems welded to her Nintendo DS and treats men as wallets with legs;
• Bladezz, a teenager with too-pretty hair who thinks he's much, much cooler than he is;
• Zaboo, a naive, lovestruck Indian kid who makes incredibly inappropriate comments and exhibits major stalkerish tendencies;
  
• Finally, there's Codex, the main character, a bundle of nerves with all the self-esteem of a mouldy bean sprout.

Codex is played by Felicia Day, who also came up with the idea of the show and writes every episode. Day is probably better known as Penny from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, a sweet, graceful role which couldn't be further from that of Codex.


Each episode begins with a monologue by Codex spoken into her webcam; these are probably the most screamingly funny parts of the series. She's just so self-effacing and cute, you just want to hug her and let her cry on you.

There are three seasons so far, each consisting of 10-12 episodes. Most of the humor is that of the cringe variety, where you just can't believe that someone could possibly act or talk that way. I often steer far away from this sort of comedy, but it's just so over-the-top and well-done that I can't stay away.

Most importantly, the subject matter (other than the exaggerated stereotypes) is extremely true-to-life. Day herself was addicted to World of Warcraft for several years, so she knows every little thing she's talking about. The dialogue is full of terms like DPS, raid, loot, spawn, and a host of other words even I don't recognize. Obviously she has a great love for gaming, but she doesn't try to whitewash the sorts of characters you're likely to see online.

The three seasons each have their own major conflict; in the first, Zaboo won't leave Codex alone, in a very one-sided and creepy relationship. (The tenth episode, which treats an argument with Zaboo's scary Hindu mom like a boss fight in a video game, is absolutely brilliant.) The second introduces two jocks to the all-nerd cast, and the third piles on even more characters with the Axis of Anarchy, a rival guild led by none other than Wil Wheaton (better known as Wesley fricking Crusher), who's deliciously evil and steals every scene.

(As an aside, if you think Felicia Day can only play somewhat mousy, nerdy characters, try the jaw-dropping Guild music video Do You Want To Date My Avatar?)


You can find all the episodes of The Guild only on MSN due to an exclusive deal, but worry not - they're still all free. Grab the DVD if you want some extras though!

Men At Arms

Men At Arms is the fifteenth Discworld book, but only the second in the City Watch books, which would eventually become the longest thread in the series.

In contrast with the first Watch book, Guards! Guards!, which borrowed heavily from film noir, Men At Arms is much more of a standard police procedural story. Obviously most police cases don't involve talking dogs, werewolves, trolls and dwarfs, but believe it or not, those only marginally affect the overall thread, and you could excise or replace many of them and still keep the core.

The actual plot begins with Captain Samuel Vimes' trouble with the thought that, with his upcoming marriage, he would soon stop being a watchman. In the meantime, Corporal Carrot, Sergeant Colon, and Corporal Nobbs are dealing with three new recruits to the Watch who were hired under an affirmitive-action policy: Detritus, a troll, Cuddy, a dwarf, and Angua, a rather pretty young woman - most of the time. Rather than business as usual, though, the murder of a dwarf artisan begins to tie them up in a sordid affair involving assassins, clowns, and a mysterious artifact known only as "the gonne".

In general, I think of Men At Arms as a transitional novel. It doesn't have the power of some of the later Watch books, nor is it still feeling its way like the first one. I have this idea of Terry wanting the Watch to end up as it did in (say) Jingo, but before it could, it needed to pass through this phase. In the book, the Watch is not the laughingstock it used to be, but nor is it the well-oiled machine it later becomes.

Oddly enough, Captain Vimes is not the main character here. In fact, there really isn't one; the narrative focuses almost equally on Vimes, Carrot, Angua, and Cuddy and Detritus's slow and very violent friendship. This is really the first book that begins to treat the whole dwarfs/trolls dynamic as a shorthand for real-life ethnic and minority woes, something which is explored several times throughout the series and explodes in Thud!

The book also introduces two brilliant characters. The first, Leonard of Quirm, is an absent-minded inventor whom Lord Vetinari keeps around almost out of sheer interest, but refuses to let out into the wild. This version of Leonard is actually quite a bit more down-to-earth than what we see in later books. The second, Bloody Stupid Johnson, is a minefield of comedy and, though we never meet him, he makes many marks on later books (some of them probably made out of something explosive). Oh, and Gaspode the Wonder Dog (from Moving Pictures) also makes a welcome reappearance.

There is also a classic, chilling line near the end that muses on how bad people want to make you squirm, while good people would kill you without hesitation - because they know it needs to be done. It's a counterintuitive but intriguing insight that sheds much light into certain characters' convictions and actions, and probably the most memorable part of the book.

Saying that Men At Arms is not Pratchett at his absolute finest smacks of denigration. This is certainly not the case, because even Terry's worst books are leagues ahead of almost anything else you'll find; there are plenty of moments that are sheer brilliance. Still, I find that Men At Arms as a story is a little less coherent than some books in the series; there are many threads that weave around each other rather than connecting directly. It's a good book and a definite recommendation, but Terry has done and will do better.