Nathan Fillion reads "Heat Wave"

Thank you, Nathan Fillion. I don't think I'll be able to read a passionate scene in a book without laughing ever again.

Once a Hero

Okay, settle in, this one might take a while.

Those of you who frequent my blog might remember that a few months ago, I reviewed a big sci-fi anthology. Most of the stories were hit and miss for me, more misses than hits, but one of my favorites was by someone named Elizabeth Moon.

So then, a few weeks ago, my wife went to a big used book sale. Before she left, she asked me if I had any books I wanted or any authors she should look for. I figured, hey, nothing ventured, so I told her to keep an eye out for anything by Elizabeth Moon. She returned with close to a dozen books by Moon. Great!

Small problem, though: some of them seemed to be parts of different series. Some of them had spaceships and horses on the cover. A few featured the young lady pictured above with the unfortunate haircut. I had no idea which ones were series and which ones weren't. And to be honest, the little list of books Moon had written inside the books weren't much help either. So finally, doing my level best to decipher things, I decided that Once a Hero must be the first book in a series and I settled in to read it.

The book itself centers around a young woman named Esmay Suiza. Esmay is a lieutenant j.g. in a big galactic fleet and she's just come out of a traumatic experience with her last posting. The repercussions of said traumatic experience take up the first third of the book, so much so that when I was reading it, I kept thinking, "I'd rather read that book instead." I couldn't figure it out; was this really the first book in a series or had I guessed wrong?

Anyway, after the dust settles, Esmay is sent off on a new posting to a big mobile repair ship. She does her best to settle in, even finds a new friend, but there are forces at work both on the ship and outside to make her life difficult.

After reading most of the book, I finally managed to track down the information I needed. This is actually the fourth book in a seven book series. And, truth be told, I'm not sure if I want to go back and read the first three or keep going from this point and read the rest.

I'm not sure what it is that's throwing me off. In some ways, it's because I feel like Esmay really doesn't do much of anything for most of the book. There's a lot of introspection. There's a lot of dealing with stuff that must have happened in the previous book (I'm guessing; since I haven't read it, I can't say for sure). But in the end, the plot, such as it is, felt anticlimactic in many ways.

At the same time, though, there were moments when my mind would gain some traction on the story and that would keep me going. All in all, I'd say it's an average book. Maybe if I had started at the beginning, I would be more inclined to keep going. As it is, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the other Elizabeth Moon books in my "to-be-read" pile. For now, they'll just gather some more dust as I move on to other authors. Who knows? Maybe I'll be back someday.

The Writer Who Couldn't Read

Saw this interesting video the other day and thought that I would share it. I now have a new medical condition to worry about. I don't know what I'd do if I came down with this.

Is It Time for Christian Fiction to Die?

Author Eric Wilson wrote a thought-provoking article at his website recently, one that I found rather thought provoking. Why not go over to his site and check it out? Don't worry, I'll wait.

In many ways, I agree with what Wilson has to say. Far too often, Christian writers seem unwilling or unable to engage with the sinfulness of the world in a realistic way. Those that try are chastised and forced out of the market. Now I'm not suggesting that we need to start letting the f-bombs fly or have graphic sexual descriptions in books. But at the least, can't we acknowledge that the world is a screwed up place and that we Christians help make the mess at times?

CSFF Blog Tour: Starlighter Day Three

So to close out this month's in absentia blog tour, I thought I would relate the following story. I'm not sure what it has to do with anything, but it made me chuckle when it happened.

Late last month, I began reading Starlighter. I did so while my almost four year old son was taking a bath (I do that; he gets to play in the tub, I get to read a book). But that particular evening, he wasn't interested in playing. He seemed more interested in what I was reading. Just as a reminder, this is what he saw in my hands:



After studying it for a few moments, he asked, "What's that tree-branch thing that looks like it has eyes?"

"You mean this?" I asked, pointing to the dragon at the top of the book.

"Yes."

"That's a dragon. See? These are its eyes."

"But why does it have branches on its head?"

"Those aren't branches. Those are horns."

"Why does it have horns?"

"I don't know. Why do you think it has horns?"

Dead silence. Then, "What is that thing with the black eyes?"

I pointed to the girl. "You mean this? That's a girl peeking over a black egg."

He thought about this for a while and then asked, "Why is the dragon coming, Daddy?"

Well, I was only on page 12 at that point and hadn't actually seen any dragons yet, so I had no idea. So I decided to employ the Socratic method and ask him why the dragon was coming. He had no idea, so he suggested I look at the book's pictures and find out why.

I showed him the pages of the book, flipping through them to reveal that there were no pictures in this book. "It's a big-boy book. Maybe someday you can read a book like this."

He seemed very concerned that there were no pictures in it and asked me why there was a dragon on the book. I tried to explain that the pictures were put on this book to make people interested in reading the book. He then asked me what the book was about.

Again, page twelve, so I decided to once again reverse the question on him and asked him what the book was about.

"Communion."

"Why communion?" I asked.

"Because we went to church today." (And indeed, we did celebrate communion that morning)

I further questioned him about the book's plot based on his impressions from the cover art. And this is what he said:

"The dragon ripped a tree branch off a tree and put it in his pocket. Then he took the tree branch out of his pocket and put it back on the tree. And the girl looked in the branch and found a Mater whose wheels spin--because my Mater's wheels don't spin--to give to Abbie (a friend of his) at church."

And so it went. But I share this story for one other reason. At one point in our discussion, my son wanted to know if Bryan Davis could write a book about dragons with pictures and words that he can read. So there you go, Bryan. Your next book series?

Go see what the rest of the tourists have to say:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Valerie Comer
R. L. Copple
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Leighton
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour: Starlighter Day Two

Greetings from the future! Er . . . the past. Well, shoot, I'm not sure where I am, temporally speaking, in relation to you, the reader of this blog post. Like yesterday's post, this one also was written a week in advance since I'll be in New Orleans when this post goes live. Confused? Yeah, I am too. Technology has a way of doing that to me.

I bring that up because I think that might be part of the reason why I was put off by Starlighter by Bryan Davis. I just couldn't quite wrap my head around its technology.

When the book started, we see Jason Masters, one of our intrepid heroes, in a sort of gladiatorial game. Swords and shields, that sort of thing. At first, his world feels slightly medieval. That level of technology and societal sophistication. The same can sort of be said for Koren's world as well. There's still a sort of medieval feeling to the story.

But then there are these odd spritzings of sci-fi tropes. Jason's brother is an amateur astronomer (no big deal; they were still studying the sky during the medieval period). Jason finds a "video tube" that needs a genetic sample to unlock it and allow people to watch its contents. The soldiers on Jason's worlds have "photo guns" (a name which really threw me since, instead of taking . . . well, photos, they instead are some sort of hybrid cross between a laser blaster and a flamethrower). And so on, and so forth. And yet in spite of these futuristic embellishments, Jason's society as a whole seems very backward still.

In some ways, the book is an odd blend of fantasy and sci-fi that doesn't quite mesh well enough and I think that's why I ultimately had problems really getting into the book. The setting kept me slightly off-balance and I could never really settle in.

Again, that's probably just me. You can let me know in the comments (keeping in mind that I won't be able to reply for a few more days). In the meantime, go check out what the other tourists have to say:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Valerie Comer
R. L. Copple
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Leighton
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour: Starlighter Day One

Ain't technology grand? As of right now, I'm actually in New Orleans for the LCMS National Youth Gathering. But there's no way I'd miss a Blog Tour, even if I am physically separated from my computer by about half a continent. So I'm actually writing these posts about a week early and leaving it up to the little gnomes that maintain my blog while I'm away to see to it that they get posted at the proper time.

Wait, your blog doesn't have little gnomes? I'd better call in an exterminator.

Ahem. Well, that's really neither here nor there. This month, we're taking a look at Bryan Davis's latest offering, Starlighter, the first in the Dragons of Starlight series (which, in the interests of full disclosure, I received for free for review purposes from the publisher).


Two young people aren't sure if they should believe the legends. Jason Masters, a young warrior-in-training, has heard stories of dragons that kidnap people to slave away on their distant planet. Koren is a young slave girl on said dragon planet who has heard the rumors of where human beings originally came from. But both find themselves on an adventure. Jason learns the truth when he becomes the bodyguard for the local governor. Koren stumbles on her true history thanks to an incredible gift she's been given. They will soon find themselves working toward the same goal: saving the humans of Starlight from their dragon overlords.

Truth be told, I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. I enjoyed it while I was reading it for the most part. But it wasn't like the book sunk its hooks into me. And really, it didn't leave much of an impression once I was done. With some books (especially books in a series), finishing one book leaves me hungry for the next one. In this case, once I was done, I set the book aside and thought, "Huh. Okay read, but I'm fine." So to me, the story was a bit . . . well, forgettable. That's unfortunate, because I know that Davis can produce gripping stories that keep the reader on edge.

Davis's characters were fun, that's for sure. I liked Koren's dramatic streak and Jason's nobility. Tibber the Fibber made me chuckle on more than one occasion. And I especially liked Elyssa.

Maybe the problem is that I'm not the target audience. I mean, it's been a long since anyone considered me a teenager. I don't know. I probably won't be seeking out the future installments of this series but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't check it out. If you like a twisted adventure.

Go and see what the other tourists are saying (and just as a note, since I wrote this entry before I got the "official list" of participants, this is actually the list from last month's tour. I make no guarantees about the contents; some people may have joined. Others may have opted out):

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Valerie Comer
R. L. Copple
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Leighton
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

Star Wars on a Subway Car

It's things like this that makes me wish I lived in New York. Not that I have that wish often, but there are days when I wish I could do stuff like this:

A Little Bit Wicked

A few years ago, my wife started watching this new show on TV and said that she thought that I might like it. At the time, I had a full viewing schedule and was hesitant to add another hour to it. But here's the thing I've learned over the past eight years of married life: when my wife thinks I'll like a TV show, she's probably right. Sad to say, the opposite isn't exactly true.

So I sat down to watch this quirky, funny TV show about a pie maker who has the unusual power of being able to bring a person back to life with a touch, a power that he naturally uses first to save the love of his life, and then to help a private investigator solve murders. Naturally. I wasn't too sure about this show. Yes, it was funny and witty and yes, I found myself smiling a lot at its quirks and oddities. But I wasn't hooked.

At least, I wasn't until Olive Snook started singing.

What a voice! Who was this powerhouse singer? I went to the internet and started poking around, trying to see if I could learn more about Kristin Chenoweth. YouTube was extremely helpful, providing gems like this one:



While Pushing Daisies has sadly been sent off to pasture, I was delighted when I spotted an autobiography by Chenoweth, entitled A Little Bit Wicked (Life, Love, and Faith in Stages). I knew my wife would want to read this one too. So in some ways, when I bought this for her for mother's day, it was a sort of a "bowling ball named Homer" type of gift. Yesterday I started reading said book. Late last night I finished said book. And now I can honestly say I appreciate Chenoweth a whole lot more!

The prose positively sparkles with her personality. There's a distinctive voice to the whole thing, filled with tidbits about her life and her views. And the things I learned! That Chenoweth was adopted and doesn't consider it a big deal. That she is a staunch Christian. That her college vocal coach encouraged her to sing from a certain part of her anatomy that I'm not comfortable identifying here which, thanks to an on-stage accident, also has the uncanny ability of predicting the weather (seriously). That she starred in an NBC sitcom that floundered upon arrival, one that I wish I could have watched, either then or now.

I'm glad that I got the opportunity to spend a while learning more about her. And I know I'll be looking forward to seeing what else she's up to. She's got a fan here, that's for sure.

Extra Lives

If you haven't noticed by now, I have a thing for videogames. So when I heard that a man named Tom Bissell had written a sort of philosophical treatise regarding videogames, namely Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, I knew I had to check it out.

Bissell spends most of the book talking about different games he's played and the emotional and intellectual impact they had on him. As it turns out, Bissell is a console gamer whereas I'm primarily a PC gamer, so really, our list of games can't really intersect. But at the same time, there were a few points of contact and even though I haven't played many of the games Bissell discusses, I still found his description of those games fascinating.

To be completely honest, there were a few times when I felt as if Bissell was talking over the top of my head. It's been a long time since I read pure philosophy. And while this book doesn't qualify, it's pretty clear that Bissell intends his discussion of videogames to at least keep one foot within that realm.

What really kept my attention was Bissell's discussion of how videogames intersect with storytelling. I've mentioned this before, but I think there's some common ground between what videogames and authors do, lessons that can be passed from one camp to another. In some ways, Bissell's thesis seems to be that videogames should try to shrink that common ground as much as possible, that when videogame designers script their games too much, it lessens the potential impact a game can have on the player.

If I understood his ultimate point (and I may have missed it), it would seem that Bissell's belief is that videogames will finally reach that point of being "true art" when they can be made completely unscripted, when a player is dumped into a world with no script and no guidance and allowed to find his or her own story within the game's world. As near as I can tell, we're a long way off from that point, but it would be interesting to see what that kind of game would look like.

Mass Effect 2 DLC

One of the new trends in videogames is the release of downloadable content (or DLC) after the game has been released. I haven't had a whole lot of experience with this phenomenon. At least, I didn't until Mass Effect 2 came along. As you may recall, I really enjoyed the original game. Since they released the game, BioWare has released close to half a dozen DLC packs to expand on the game. Like one of Pavlov's dogs, I've salivated over them and downloaded them and played through them.

Some of them have been relatively inconsequential. The Equalizer pack added some extra armor options that really didn't change the way I played too much. I wore one of the visors for a while but then switched it out with a standard helmet for the health bonus. Truth be told, a lot of the new armor options (mostly helmets or visors) look just plain goofy, especially given the fact that they cover the character's face, which means you can't see Shepherd's expression in the many dialogue sections.

Another seemingly inconsequential addition was the Alternate Appearance Pack, which basically gave you three new outfits for some of your allies to wear. It's all superficial stuff; the new clothing doesn't bestow any tactical benefit. And it's a toss-up. Jack's new clothing seems completely out of character for her. Thane looks really cool. I mean, just look at him. The Drell assassin was cool to begin with, but dressed like that? Wow. But what I really like is the alternate outfit for Garrus. It just never made sense to me why he would want to lounge around in severely damaged battle armor after you recruited him. The alternate appearance corrects this. I wouldn't say that this is a "must get," but it's nice window dressing.

On to the more substantial additions. The first is Kasumi - Stolen Memory. It adds another ally for your character, Kasumi the Master Thief. She's an infiltrator, good at ninja-like attacks using a portable stealth field. I'm not sure how to integrate her into a normal mission. I've played through with her twice, once as a Vanguard and the second time as an Infiltrator. Naturally, two infiltrators on a mission seemed redundant and with the Vanguard's penchant for "storming" an enemy for up-close fighting, Kasumi's stealth attack didn't seem to fit. Maybe if I played as a Soldier? We'll have to see.

Like the other allies, Kasumi comes with her own loyalty mission. She needs Shepherd's help to retrieve something from an underworld kingpin. That "something" is her former partner/lover's gray box, a device that contains his memories. Apparently this gray box has Something Bad on it. I'm not being purposefully evasive here. Instead, I'm just being honest. Kasumi tells us that her partner unearthed something bad that the kingpin shouldn't have. The game never gets more specific than that.

In spite of the vagueness, the mission itself was a blast to complete. Shepherd and Kasumi have to infiltrate the kingpin's mansion in the middle of a party and have to find a way into his triply-locked vault to retrieve the gray box. And then fight their way out, naturally. Kasumi has some snappy dialogue and a great wit. I really wish there was more to Kasumi. Since she's part of a DLC, you can't have extended conversations with her the way you can with your other allies. All she offers are pithy one-liners and that gets boring after a while.

Overall, this is a great expansion pack and worth the points you have to spend to get it.

To me, the next DLC pack, the Firewalker pack, is something of a dud. Apparently some Mass Effect 2 fans were upset that they couldn't drive around on a planet's surface the way they could with the Mako in the first game. So BioWare put together a series of four missions that use a flying tank.

Here's the problem: I wasn't one of those fans. I hated driving around in the Mako. I still do. I mean, I'll go for a drive when I have to, but the minute I can end things, I'm back on board the Normandy heading on to the next planet. So driving this hovering tank thing through semi-hostile environments doesn't really appeal to me. The fact that the Firewalker levels are all fairly linear, straight-shots from Point A to Point B with a few rest stops on the way, doesn't help.

The pack's storyline, if it can be called as such, centers around some missing researchers who apparently disappeared. It's entirely forgettable, that's for sure.

The only real upshot to this pack is that it's part of the Cerberus Network, which means it's free. So I guess for a free expansion, it's not that bad.

The last bit of DLC fun came out just recently, and that's the Overlord pack. This one is fun. There aren't any new allies, but there's a fun story that centers around an attempt to fuse a human mind with a computer program to bring down the Geth, the Mass Effect world's robotic boogeymen. Naturally the project has gone awry and Shepherd and company has to go in and clean house. You have to explore a number of locations before confronting the Overlord VI and learning its deepest, darkest secret.

This one really shone. Lots of different levels and, unlike the other two story-driven DLC packs, this one made a bit more sense. There wasn't any sense of vagueness to the stakes. You knew you had to act and, more importantly, why. The design was fantastic, especially the final level (I won't go into details, but it was really cool). The atmosphere was pretty awesome too. The first time the VI made its presence known, I nearly jumped out of my chair.

There was only one real drawback: to get to different parts of the story, you have to ride the Firewalker. Grrrrrrr. Not cool. There was a bonus mission to search the area in that ludicrous flying deathbox for shiny MacGuffins. I chose not to do so the first time through.

That minor hiccup aside, Overlord is definitely the best of the bunch and well worth the scant points you have to spend to get it.

All of the DLCs can be found at the Mass Effect 2 website, as is a game demo for those of you who haven't experienced this fantastic game. As for me, as I was snaring pictures for this post, I noticed that there's a new DLC pack available. New weapon and armor. I just finished a playthrough and, I'll be honest, I think I need a break. But now I have some incentive to play again. And as far as I'm concerned, that's not a bad thing.

Nightshade

I've been looking forward to this one for a while. And boy howdy, Nightshade by Ronie Kendig did not disappoint.

Max Jacobs, a former Navy SEAL, has returned home from another deployment, only to find his life in shambles. He's suffering from PTSD and his temper is out of control. Worse, his wife Sydney serves him with divorce papers after an unfortunate incident.

Then a mysterious man approaches Max with a unique offer. He's putting together a special team, one tasked with carrying out the blackest of ops, a team called Nightshade. Things go well in their initial missions

But then they are called on to rescue a missionary family in the Philippines. Worse, a reporter is doing her best to pierce the veil of secrecy around Nightshade. Can Max lead his team through to success, keep their cover intact, and put the pieces of his life back together?

Like I said, I've been looking forward to this one for a while. I first heard a glimmer of it while listening to a recording from the ACFW Conference. Author John Olson used this book, yet to be published, as an example of writing plot burbs. And every now and then I heard more bits and pieces about the book and my anticipation would grow. So when this became available for pre-order, I put in mine right away.

Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much is because Kendig doesn't get too bogged down in the action of the Nightshade missions. As a matter of fact, I was surprised at how those missions were largely absent. Yes, we caught glimmers of what they were doing (mostly at the end of the story as everything comes to a head). Instead, we were more focused on the Jacobs family, Max and Sydney, and how their lives were crumbling and how those lives could be rebuilt.

In some ways, this book reminds me a little of Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy in that both had a sort of elite commando unit. The key difference is that Clancy focused on the operational end where Kendig focused on the "backstage" stuff. The emotional impact of war, the grim realities of what our soldiers face. It's all excellent.

What has me smiling the most, though, is that on the back cover we have the promise of more books from Ronie Kendig in this series. Next up is Digitalis. I haven't put in my pre-order yet. But I may just have to.

The Button

My wife, who saw the movie this is parodying, assures me this is much better. Enjoy!

Alex Freaking Wong

I'm a huge fan of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance. And it's routines like this one, from this past Wednesday, that explains why. I can't embed it, but it's worth taking a look. The patient is Alex Freaking Wong, one of the contestants for this season and a ballet dancer. The doctor is tWitch, one of the All Stars. I'm thinking Alex is going to go pretty far unless he does something stupid, like set a kitten on fire during a solo or something.