Greg Sanders

Review: Code of the Woosters, P.G. Wodehouse

This was my first Wodehouse book and it was a reasonable starting point to the Jeeves and Wooster stories. It was a fairly quick read and in my view really got going around page 100 as the action came to a head, specifically as a painting was used for some fairly ineffective head-cracking. The zaniness continued largely unabated from that point onward, which did heighten my enjoyment as the relentlessness of the plotting meant that the underlying absurdity of the problems was overwhelmed by the urgency of dealing with them.  I enjoyed the whole thing, although I fear my comparatively weak background in the western canon meant that I was missing how some of the classical quotes were being tweaked. My only real takeaway about the culture being described was a curiosity about whether the characters' willingness to prank the police was primarily an upper-class thing or whether it reflects differences between British and American culture. Cops are often buffoons in American comedies, but characters don't go around stealing their hats or the like unless avenging a particular slight. Come to think of it, more than anything else the attitude reminds me of that of the Phoenix Wright games.

I'll run down the rest of my book backlog  before returning to the series, but I do have definite hopes that the humor of the series will be cumulative as I get to know the characters better. I often end up turned off by series that revolve around the suffering of a foolish main character, but Wooster is shown to have a healthy dose of humanity and wit if not wisdom.

Source: Recommended by Andrew and Monica, loaned to me by my father-in-law; thanks all.

Quickie review: Indie RPG buying

Both Indie Press Revolution (IPR) and Evil Hat are good places to get a variety of Indie RPGs and unlike many other sources will often include a PDF at the same cost as a print purchase. In both cases I went with the low end shipping option.

With Indie Press Revolution I placed the order on 12/16, got the PDFs nigh instantly, shipping notification email received 12/20, and it arrived via media mail on 1/4. 

With Evil Hat I placed the order on 12/16 as well, got the PDFs nigh instantly, I got the shipping notification email on 12/20, but the package arrived on 12/21.

When I checked in with the Indie Press Revolution guys, they were fairly responsive and apparently it had accidentally been sent media mail by USPS rather than UPS (or priority mail with USPS). So apparently the length of the delay was a fluke, although in any event they didn't send tracking info which has been sadly reminiscent of the bad old days of having no idea when a package would arrive.

I'm up for using IPR again, but for now I'm definitely going to err towards Evil Hat on future orders if time is at all sensitive. Particularly since the interface is a bit less glitchy in the later case.

Amazon and sales tax

I had occasion to order something today from Amazon.ca and I noticed that they charged sales tax. This isn't that much of a surprise, Amazon.com has long claimed they'd be happy to charge tax, they just want a consistent national standard first. Unfortunately, developing such a standard would require legislation and at present our  system seems to barely be capable of delivering a handful of complex bills a year so no national solution is likely to happen.

That's all old news, but that leaves consumers with a predicament. The argument that internet commerce needs protection is as outdated as our Borders Reward cards. I think my solution will be that when I'm doing price comparison I'll look at pre-tax prices. That's probably not enough, perhaps I should preferentially buy things from brook and mortar chains or indies. I don't think I'm willing to go full boycott, Amazon's still my go to source for electronic music and stuff not easily available in stores and some of those are good ways to support smaller scale creators.

Maybe rather than making the odd impulse buy of books or more common CDs, I should just keep a shortlist version of my wishlist and try to pick something up at those times when I'm hanging out in bookstores. Given my commute, that isn't as often as it once one, but may still be a way to do my part. Bibliophiles will ultimately need to pay to keep our social spaces, although I'd also gladly by snacks from a library store and am happy that my tax dollars go to that cause.

Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Feed is a story about what happens after a zombie apocalypse, but it isn't post-apocalyptic as such. Instead humanity has retrenched behind sealed doors, protected by blood tests and automated systems. It's a world where many of our current issues have lost their salience but security threats and perhaps security theater are everywhere. It's a tale told to us by the bloggers that venture out into this world and thus has an innate appeal to those of that send our thoughts out into the net.

The story focuses on siblings Georgia and Shaun Mason, respectively a reporter ("newsie") and a daredevil ("irwin"). Together with their tech genius story writer, a "fictional" nicknamed Buffy, they get the story of their lives when they imbed with a Republican candidate seeking his party's nomination for the 2034 election. On the whole it's a good premise and a neat world. The writing was reasonable, the characters could be fun, the plotting a bit predictable at times, and the politics perhaps a trifle naïve. If the premise appeals, I think you'll be satisfied if not necessarily blown away.

Starting with the parts I found a bit less satisfying, I'm not quite sure I see media evolving into collections of "newsies", "irwins" and "fictionals". Print and television journalism now has any number of people willing to risk extreme danger to bring home stories and who too often die in the pursuit. The lack of risk aversion of the bloggers and the licensing process were all interesting but didn't quite work for me as media critique. The overall media environment had elements that rang true - an obsession with ratings, the management of support staff, the jump from an existing website to independent operation - all of which gave the characters' jobs more solidity although I'm not quite remembering how the business model was detailed.

Slightly less plausible was Sen. Ryman's campaign. He had some good speeches and a strong staff support but I don't quite buy his rocketing to political prominence. The bloggers were accurate enough in seeing through much of the artifice of the campaign, but with one notable exception I didn't really see the horse trading or rhetorical tradeoffs that seem as relevant to the world of 2034 as the world of 2014.  Amusingly, though, one of Ryman's opponents appears to be a version of Texas Gov. Perry, which has made his official announcement for President all the more frightening.

I think the strongest of the political elements was the focus on security measures. The bloggers were a bit more necessary for investigations than seemed plausible to me, but the range of security measures, often redundant and obnoxious, all rang true. To a fair extent the zombie-terrorized world does work as our present day fears taken to a logical extreme. The best political issues of the book, like the question of how to handle animals that were large enough to zombie, stemmed from these issues. I don't think the first novel of the series full explores that theme, but it's a good start and at some point I think I'll pick up the sequel.

Origin: Gift from Kate, a particularly well-targeted one.

Image from Mira Grant's website.

Epic[-length novel] farewell

[Update: Epics actually are a term of art, and not in the way I was using it here. Instead, most classically, think the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid. While I try to avoid jargon, I think that proper use of terms of art facilitates conversation, so I corrected the post below.]

Just in time for a Dance with Dragons, I've been reconsidering my relationship with epic[-length books]. Over the span of three months I got through the one of Steven Erickson's 1,000+ page tomes, Toll the Hounds. If you do the math, my pace wasn't that impressive which is more a consequence of the time I set aside than my speed. I enjoyed the book; one of the main villains was slowly humanized and much of the book was based in Darujistan which in the past has been one of Erickson's least depressing locales. However, I took a break or two while reading and breezed through His Majesty's Dragon and Halting State. Those breaks made clear the opportunity cost of [weight tomes]: so long as one has a reading backlog an epic must be as good as three other books and not merely enjoyable in its own right. By that standard, I'd say the first three Erickson books probably qualify, particularly The Gardens of the Moon and Memories of Ice (Deadhouse Gates is marred by a subplot that's too conventional adventure fantasy for my tastes).

Of course, books are not fungible. The stories one can tell in three quality novels tend to be different than the stories one can tell in an [grimoire-sized tale]. Bigger books can sustain more complexity and a larger cast. Neither point is necessarily a virtue in its own right. Instead, stories with grand scope or that incorporate a multitude of sometimes opposing viewpoints both can benefit from having space to develop. However, while I still disagree with some of the things Alan Jacobs says in this post I think there is a real risk that epics are becoming surprisingly limited. Certain stories, such as clashes between gods, continent sprawling wars, and tales of intrigue can all fit well within the epic[-length] genre but can crowd out everything else. This crowding out is worst when it leads to the undoing the outcomes of previous books or plotlines that feel like they're just filling space between more interesting viewpoints. There seems to be a rule that sequels to epics must also be enormous even when the best parts of the story would be better served by carrying their own 300 page novel.

Perhaps ironically, serials are another means that can support large-cast complex stories. I think by ensuring that each segment has a small self-contained story they buy time to tell longer arcs that couldn't be contained in an average novel. The Full Metal Alchemist manga is perhaps my favorite instance of this, although I've enjoyed some Dumas before and should try Dickens at some point. Of course serials, as with [giant novels], are notorious for not knowing when to end.

I suspect I will finish the last two Malazan books some day, if only because I do still on the balance enjoy them and know that they are the last two. But despite the risk of spoilers I don't think I'm going to rush to the new Song of Ice and Fire book. I actually have a bit of space on my nightstand for once and I intend to exploit that opportunity.

Quick review: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

The novel tells the tale of a British naval officer in the Napoleonic wars who through skill and circumstance ends up as an aviator in the royal dragon corps. The book successfully executes its premise. Despite some oddities, like language skills out of the shell, the dragons seem plausible enough and are well integrated into the larger world. I don't know my WWI history that well, but I'd say the dragoneers have the feel of pilots of that era, albeit with larger crews.

The book is the first of a larger series, although I'll probably stop here on recommendation of friends. I enjoyed the story, but I'm not so attached to the characters that I feel the need to stay with them as the story moves away from its ingenious twist on the naval tale.

Still, it was a good read and I'm glad my wife lent it too me. Thanks Kate!

Abortive review: Chasm City

I feel quite the slacker. Not only was I running behind in Alyssa Rosenberg's book club, I'm bailing out before finishing.  [I feel particularly bad, as I voted for it in the tiebreaker. I should have listened to my wife.] Chasm City is a reasonable noir/science fiction tale about a hard-bitten security expert out for revenge and a megalomaniac that had colonized the protagonist's world ages before. I think it manages to be fairly solid on the science; foe example, there's no faster than light drives. The novel has some interesting ideas, such as a cultist virus that can implant flashbacks and stigmata, and a city whose upper reaches have gone mad due to the combination of programmable growing buildings and a form of computer virus. The pacing, at least outside of the flashbacks, is fairly quick which kept me turning pages even when the content did not grab me.

However, while I could sense [Alastair Reynold's] creative, hard-working mind behind the book, I've chosen to put it down. As I mentioned in my review of Blacksad, I don't tend to enjoy straight noir and in this case science fiction wasn't enough of a twist. I didn't really care about the main character's underwhelming revenge motive and while I got attached to ancillary characters, they didn't stick around for long. Moreover, the wars and apocalypses of this universe distance us from the speculative future that undergirds it. Chasm City before the crash sounds like it would be something to see, although from what I've read of Rosenberg's posts on the book the life-extended aristocracy is consistently hateful so even then we'd be at a loss for interesting characters.

I like noir adaptations like Brick, Veronica Mars, Blacksad, and Cowboy Bebop because it is fun to see styles breed. There's nothing wrong with a hard-bitten hero, but that alone can't carry the story for me. Moreover, noir's love of pushing away or killing secondary characters and penchant for misogyny are both weak points of the genre that weren't overcome in the first sixteen chapters. On the upside, I was reminded of my love of Cowboy Bebop by comparison: the supporting cast that noir-émigré Spike can't get rid of, the vibrant world that stays grounded without being constantly run down, and of course the vibrant soundtrack that requires exceptional writing to match. Bebop's ending is pure noir and that's okay; in film-sized doses, as with L.A. Confidential, noir works for me. However, I don't think I'll be picking up another long form noir unless I'm confident that it transcends the genre.

Metaphor duel: Zombies versus Robots/Cyborgs

In a clash of professors Charli Carpenter has been making a humorous but genuine critique of Dan Drezner's International Politics and Zombies. She gave a video presentation at the International Studies Association that's well worth watching if you have any interest at all in international relations and or the pop culture topics. If your interest runs deeper, check out their bloggingheads.

Quick review: Blacksad

Blacksad is a graphic novel that takes familiar film noir story and character tropes and but presents them using a skillfully depicted mix of humanoid animals. Think Disney's Talespin but grittier, more nudity, less wackiness, and more death. I've seen the plot knocked for lack of ambition and that may be fair, but the real pleasure of the book is the rich visuals. Thus, if you're considering getting it, glance through a few pages and you should quickly have an idea of whether you like the art style enough for it to be worth it.

In some ways it reminded for being a genre piece with a critical twist in setting. I think that's a trick that's easiest to pull off with well developed and somewhat formulaic stories. I'm not sure to what extent such crossovers are on the rise, I suspect they've met with some commercial success and it's an easy concept to pitch if not to implement.

I think I will check out whether the artist has done anything else of note.

Origin: Moti. Thanks once again Moti.

Armed Humanitarians by Nathan Hodge (Book event)

Hodge takes a skeptical look at the armed humanitarian work of the last decade. I've picked up a copy of his book, but for this write-up I'm just going off the event. He found that much of what we were doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan was similar to the nation building we did in the 1990s. However the money spigot got turned on in a big way which went well beyond the absorption rate of local communities. As an example, we're spending many times building up the Afghan military and police than the Afghan government is taking in as revenue. The military is a can do organization and it stepped in but with the exception of civil affairs and special forces it's not really that skilled at it. The sheer funding is also a problem in its own right, if 5% of convoy spending is misdirected that's enough to fund an insurgency.

On the whole, he thought that we should get leaner and go with a more 1990s approach and lower budgets. He did think we'd have to put in diplomatic and development people in hostile situations, but only at a small scale. A key success story was getting 2-3 people to setup operations in Darfur with the help of satellite technology. Ultimately, he argued that Armed Humanitarianism is an oxymoron which implies to me that we're going to need to substantially curtail our ambitions.

The question I didn't get a chance to ask was, if we need to work at a small scale, what missions are we going to have to give up? From what he said, I'd say Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hostile occupations in general, obviously aren't on the table. The question I didn't get to ask is where should the line get drawn now? We'll see if the book can answer that one.

Theories of International Politics and Zombies: The Q&A

I greatly recommend buying the book or seeing an event with Dan Drezner in person. Here's a bloggingheads he did with Adam Weinstein that gives a good idea of the in person experience [note the chance to win a book as a prize via zombie trivia]. He had a terrific power point (a contradiction in terms I know) and in general is quite the dynamic speaker. As I said after the event he's easily the funniest of the foreign policy bloggers and while he notes that it's a faint compliment I'd say he's the funnier than my domestic policy bloggers as well. Since the Q&A will vary from event to event, I thought that would be the best way to blog the undead and to ensure a steady mix of new questions. [This is a paraphrase, any lack of humor should be be imputed to my transcription.]

My question: How does the EU fare, rally around the flag or would they fear an infected Polish plumber? EU does not cope well, first response is inevtitably wrong, they only get it right by the fourth and the fith iteration. French would call for an international zombie council [that everyone else would ignore], Germans would keep interest rates high, rest of the Union would ban British beef. He thinks the EU would  adapt, but only at the periphery once Berlusconi was eaten.

Effect of twitter, social networking? Some would argue that it would let humans defeat zombies quickly while others think zombies would just adapt them to their own end. Think that the internet wouldn't solve things but would help.

Zombie outbreak in Abkhazia, what happens? Depends on the theory. Also, World War Z is outstanding for addressing this and has a credible idea of the expansionist Holy Russian empire. Realists would be anti-interventionist.

Does the location of a breakout matter? You can't anticipate all causes, they're heterogeneous. With fast zombies, location matters more but they can walk under water. It would matter most for what great powers if any would be felled.

If zombies can be socialized, couldn't they be weaponized? Would there be a global anti-zombie profileration regime? Secret government lab, private government contractor lab are the most common proposals. Could a rogue state use one as a weapon. Unlikely, the most powerful corporations can't control them, it would probably cause more internal harm rather than external harm.

Could America respond with a zero percent real growth defense budget? The intelligence budget matters more than the defense budget. The question is how quickly can you respond. Also, nuking the zombies would be a catastrophic mistake. Think about it.

What about aliens? Independence day is your classic realist scenario with counter hegemon coalitions forming. Read Alex Whendt and Raymond Duval on sovereignty and the UFO states wouldn't acknowledge them due to existential dread. That doesn't apply to technologically inferior zombies. His next book may be 'After Aliens.'

Drezner suggested that New Zealand was the best place to hide out, someone from the embassy asked what about refugee flows. New Zealand would be better off since they aren't the closest great power, until everyone recognizes from Facebook and twitter. Continually insist that you have serious problems with zombie sheep, bar nuclear ships from coming.

NATO: zombie attack on one, zombie attack on all? Yes, their integrated command structure is part of why they've persisted despite realist prediction. They'd argue they'd be well prepared.

Shouldn't zombies be treated as a disease and not a rational actor? The liberal model does treat zombies as a pathogen. Thinks that zombies canon does show that they can be rational.

What about nuking people to cut off the supply? You're sick. Resolutely oppose that.

How does it change our defense posture? Nukes are no longer the trump card? Well zombies are not the only threat, other nations can still be deterred. America does pretty well when it comes to small arms. Again, World War Z does an excellent job. Navy and Air Force gets screwed.

From a fellow CSISer, have we consider allying with other animals? They traditionally also are strongly anti-zombie. Should we reintroduce wolves? Excellent question! Good idea if only humans are infected but terrible idea under a Resident Evil scenario.

What about the global economy? Collapse of trade wouldn't that cause lots of problems? Yes, trade wouldn't stop, it would slow and be more regulated. Capital can still move as can certain categories of goods. You'd presumably see the development of new regulations to prevent the trade of the undead. Customs form would get a lot more complicated.

Effects of frozen Nazi zombies on German society? There's a great college humor video on whether Nazi zombies are still Nazis. Same answer on how zombie jews would deal with zombie nazis. Regardless, German shame spiral but then aggressive action.

Effects on Mid-East peace? If it happened in the  Middle East, no as the Israelis would take heavy handed preventative measures. If else where, maybe yes as the Israeli military would be a valuable ally.

Zombies seem to be a moving metaphor, are they just our present fear? Yes, zombies provide a way to address the issues that are on

What does it take to get people cooperating? People did cooperate on intel after 9/11. But a bigger crisis does not necessarily increase cooperation. You'd see a rise in religious movement, particularly the really crazy religious movement. Look at the Boxer rebellion in China, through strong meditation you could stop bullets. That sort of thing. Cooperation possible but not guaranteed.

What about Reavers in Firefly? They don't quite make the definition, despite that one turning episode. But doesn't think that going interplanetary versus nations really changes things.

As young professionals, what should we do to best prepare? Book does deal with bureaucratic politics, domestic politics, individual psychology. You're main strength is that you can think outside of standard operating procedures which are not meant to deal with zombies. Watch as many movies as possible, know all the theories, watch what emerges. The more scripts you know, the better you can predict what will happen. Also learn how to shoot.

[Update: Small grammar fixes.]

Theories of International Politics and Zombies: The event

I saw Professor Dan Drezner speaking tonight on his new book: Theories of International Politics and Zombies.

[Update: I initially posted an event summary, but I worry on stepping too much on his material. So instead here's a blogging heads TV to watch. I did get explicit permission to post the Q&A, so that will be up shortly.]

Quickie review: Demon’s Lexicon

Modern urban fantasy book with an interesting variant on an old staple that I won’t reveal in this review.  There will be an upcoming blog post describing how we got the book signed, but I’ll save that for my wife.

Basic universe setup: there’s a parallel demon universe and people with magical aptitude need to make deals with them if they want real power.  The deals involve sacrificing people to let the demons experience our world, which means the mages are pretty uniformly evil. 

Points of note: it’s a fairly dark book, not so much because of the fair number of evil magicians, but because the protagonists were willing to take fairly extreme measures.  Some of them I wasn’t comfortable with, but I don’t think we’re necessarily supposed to be. 

The magical sub-world was fairly well defined and made a good amount of sense, although the integration with the larger world wasn’t particularly covered.  That said, the failure to work out real world implications of magic tends to be a given in urban fantasy, so I’ll accept that. One oddity though, possession was fairly big in the book and caused rapid deterioration in the subject; however, the fairly logical albeit evil solution of chain possession to save the original victim was never discussed.  Maybe in the sequel.

Doctrine and the Zombie Wars

Pallab Ghosh of the BBC reports that researchers in Canada have done a mathematical model of a widespread zombie outbreak and evaluated possible counter-strategies.  Dan Drezner has done excellent work in postulating what various systemic international relations theories would predict about the outcome of such an undead crisis [Update: link fixed].  Inspired by his analysis, below is my attempt at providing an in character explanation of how advocates of different U.S. military doctrines would suggest we face the zombie peril.  This analysis is in good part a response to the work of premier writer on this topic, Max Brooks, with particularly attention paid to the excellent fictional social history World War Z. 

Conventional warfare: Some elements of conventional warfare have been widely derided even before facing a threat that can neither shocked nor awed.  Similarly, against zombies decapitation strikes are no longer in any sense a game-changing euphemism but are instead a constant operation requirement.  However, while weapons and munitions must be modified, the solution to a zombie outbreak falls is still a matter of properly applying force on a massive scale.  Proper use of the Weinberger-Powell doctrine would ensure that the zombie menace is met with overwhelming force rather than the sort of half measures that could get U.S. soldiers killed or worse zombified, 

It is the job of the military to secure borders and when going abroad clear territory of zombies and then implementing an exit strategy rather than getting sucked into a quagmire of nation building.  As a side note, while the A-10 and AC-130s may be the most useful platform against the zombie, it is vital that we restore funding to the F-22 to deter hostile nations from exploiting the outbreak and U.S. distraction to expand their territory.

Counter-Insurgency: Critics of COIN doctrine argue that zombies lack hearts and minds, they only possess brains that must be splattered.  However, this facile argument overlooks the fact that counter-insurgency has always understood that zombies; the ultimate irreconcilables, cannot be won over.  What conventional warfare advocates fail to understand is that zombies, much like violent extremism, cannot simply be cleared via overwhelming force. 

Vectors for reemergence will always be prevalent, the undead are nothing if not patient, and long-term defeat of ghouls requires the cooperation of local populations abroad or heaven-forbid at home.  If a local has seen the military apply indiscriminate force they will be unwilling to report if their neighbors, let alone friends or family, have shown signs of infection.  We may have to occupy failed states that have become persistent sources of zombies, but we will largely act in a supportive role by training and equipping local anti-zombie forces.   Ultimately, resources must be put towards putting skull-crushing boots on the ground although there is a also a role for national guard troops and civilian agencies rebuilding communities ravaged by the zombie plague.

Net-Centric Warfare: World War Z was pointedly skeptical about the use of technology deeming the Landwarrior system as good for little more than watching the death of comrades from their point of view.  The book’s faith in simple rifles, lines of soldiers, and even melee weapons overly romanticizes earlier periods of warfare.  Cutting edge technology is expensive, but in the event of a mass-casualty zombie outbreak, the lives of survivors are all the more precious. 

Ingenuity and invention can substitute for manpower by using sensors to detect precursors of outbreaks in populated areas or to keep an unblinking eye on wilderness, abandoned settlements, and even the oceans.  Anti-zombie squads can use unmanned ground vehicles to scout out urban areas and perhaps even to target ghouls remotely.  Unlike humans, robots cannot be added to the ranks of the enemy.  This technology can also save lives, infrared scopes can be used to differentiate between the heat signatures of living creatures and the undead.  Best of all, the against zombies net-centric systems of systems do not have to worry about enemy eavesdropping, cyber-terrorism, or anti-satellite strikes. 

Intervention-Skeptic: The flaw of all the above perspectives is that they view the military as the solution to a zombie outbreak.  The ultimate solution to a zombie outbreak is a cure or at a bare minimum a vaccine.  As we work to develop such a solution, our first priority must be securing the United States, although many suspect that the actual risk to developed nations is overstated in the first place.

Yes, some violence may be necessary, but there is a reason most military anti-zombie sorties result in disaster.  Taking the fight to the zombie ultimately only depletes our resources while adding to their ranks.  Even the less violent counter insurgency approach is delusional.  Do we honestly expect citizens of other countries to accept a U.S. soldier killing their mother, even if said ghoulish mother was craving brains a few moments earlier?  We are not capable of effectively developing other nations under peacetime conditions, how can we expect to do so during a zombie outbreak?

 

I wouldn’t spoil the actual doctrine used in WWZ, but it makes more sense than the above while and still is quite horrifying.  If you enjoyed this, or if you thought you might have enjoyed this were I a better writer, I’d strongly recommend the book.

Apology for slow weekend

Been busy with move and wedding stuff (and a Fallout 3 addiction).  I've got a memorial day post planned, but don't think I'll get to it until this evening at the earliest.

Among other things, I've put almost my entire collection of books up at Librarything.  I've been rather pleased with it so far.  I even bought a CueCat barcode reader to speed up insertion.  That helped and was more fun then typing them in, but I think it only managed about half to two-thirds of the books. 

Aside from enjoying cataloging, I put up the data in an effort to organize and trim some of the fat from my ~500 book library.  I figure it will be easier to check out reviews and such on some of the old textbooks whose quality I have forgotten if I ever measured them.  If anyone recommends any other methods for weeding out the less helpful non-fiction books, please let me know.  Lots of books are fun, but ultimately there are transaction costs in mixing good and mediocre material.  The marginal return of an okay book might be outweighed by distracting me from looking something up in a better one.  Space limitations are also an issue, but the time factor is a bit more of an interesting problem.

Blog roll addition: Hathor Legacy

Hathor legacy is a cultural criticism site with the tagline “in search of good female characters.”  They recently revamped things by consolidating their multiple feeds into a single one (they also have a LJ feed), so this seemed like a good time to link.  The design of the core site doesn’t excite me, the text is a little big and you need to read more to get the details on any post.  However, that’s not an issue with the feeds, so I don’t really care.

My favorite discussion has been one by guest author Audra on Laura Roslin, the female President in Battlestar Gallactica.  The write-up does a good job of both addressing her strengths and acknowledging that she does make a fair number of iffy decisions.  The discussion went off topic some, but added more analysis and kept the things interesting well after the initial post.

A second post I enjoyed was one I disagreed with put up by Kris Ligman.  She thought Portal did more to advance female protagonists than Mirror’s Edge because the latter’s marketing was really driven by its main character.  Loving both games, I disagreed, as did other commenters, but while the discussion was a bit harsh on Kris I think she handled herself well and updated her views as new info came to light.  Potential for good discussion really is key in my view to a good criticism site.  Another fun series by the same author is a salutary set of pieces on the women of Metal Gear Solid.

The site was started by Jennifer Kesler who both gets a nice mix of writers and wades into comments as a moderator when appropriate, which is key to getting the commenting community that I enjoy.

Can a creator be too willing to kill their fictional characters?

As television has moved from more episodic stories to dramatic arcs, there’s been an increase in willingness to kill characters that have been around for more than one episode.  This is less of a new thing in books, although the death tolls of some recent series, such as a Song of Ice and Fire, are legendarily high.

The cost of using death is obvious, if the death is real, you can’t tell any more non-flashback stories using the character. I’m not really talking about killing off lame characters here, as the downsides are much more minor. The advantages are also important.  First off death is part of life and having plot advancement and character growth in more dangerous settings will involve facing that.  Second, death increases the drama of putting characters at risk.  The occasional death keeps viewers or readers on notice that bad outcomes are possible.  This secondary effect can also be achieved by character failure or non-trivial wounding, but with failure there’s a risk that that plot advancement will also suffer.  Similarly, if the wounds are psychological, characters can just become broken ground out shells.

I think having a few deaths in a series is normally a safe bet.  The risks come in when it becomes a more regular phenomenon.  I’d argue the structure of the show or book, as well as the practical realities of the medium, have an important impact on whether regular death is a mistake.  For this purpose, I’d argue that there’s three main types of structures.

• Static team:  By and large from one arc to the next the cast is stable.  If someone is replaced it will often be in close succession with the arrival of the replacement.
• Rotating team: Common in team stories, particularly in comics.  Characters may leave and return, assuming they don’t permanently die.  The cast may vary greatly over time, although there’s often a few central stalwarts.
• Farm system: These stories have a wide range of characters and are often told from multiple viewpoints.  New characters are fairly regularly introduced, are less likely to be killed within the short-arc they arrived in, and those that resonate often stick around.

Hybrid systems are fairly common.  The main cast, supporting characters, and antagonists may each have a separate structure.  The use of a rotating team or a farm system often means that the boundaries between main cast, supporting cast, and antagonists are permeable.

Books and shorter firm mediums like films and miniseries have the most freedom to kill characters.  There’s no actors involved so the real-world consequences are minimal.  In Japanese anime, the series often follow plots from written manga and thus death is more commonly expected.  Comics in the short and medium term tend to be more like books but for major franchise works their habitual resurrections show a real fear of losing characters.

Despite the increasing lethality of some modern American television series, I don’t think the underlying model has changed that much.  A variety of shows with arcs: Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, post-TNG Star Trek, and to a lesser extent shows like Buffy and Angel have stable main casts and are most likely to change if there’s a problem with an actor or actress.  As a result, if the show is more lethal, it will tend to express this lethality by running faster through supporting characters.  Under the old episodic system, supporting characters that weren’t star cameos would probably have never lasted beyond the end of the episode, so this is still an improvement.  However, and I’m thinking most clearly of Battlestar Galactica here, the lethality denies us some of the benefits of a strong supporting cast.  As the relative safety of the main cast becomes widely noticed, the dramatic boost that the lethality provides will be undercut.

Thus, I think unless a show or story employs a rotating cast or a farm system for the main cast, it should avoid being too lethal or risk undercutting the supporting cast enabled by arc-based storylines.  Similarly, if a show wants to go more than three seasons, I think it should also be careful with psychologically wounding a static cast.  Shows like Buffy and Angel tend to run into this a lot as the main characters are all ground down by a war of attrition with comparatively few reinforcements.  I think this also was beginning to take it’s toll on Battlestar Galactica, but since the show only ran four seasons it was easier to stick through the pain because an end was coming.

Book Review: Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

Unlike your average travelogue author, Guy Delisle is a cartoonist.  His drawings are fairly spare and stylized, but I think it's an approach that works rather well.  He'd spent a year in Burma with his wife, who works with MSF (Doctors without Borders).  He touches on many parts of the ex-pat lifestyle: raising his young son who is adored by locals, his wife's work and the barriers in her way, stand tourist trips plus visits to more remote locals, and a cartooning class he runs for locals plus his own work of course.  The timing was fairly recent, but before the latest series of uprisings.

I found it quite enjoyable and I think I hve a better feel for the country.  I was on occassion reminded of reading Burmese Days, by George Orwell, which depicted a fictional colonial officer but was based on Orwell's own experience.  Both were primarily stories of outsiders that give insight into the local culture but shouldn't be mistaken for the lives lived by those with the ill-fortune to be born under British imperial rule or the iron-fist of the present generals.  Of the two, Burmese Chronicles was the much more interesting read, I think Orwell's essays are the better source for learning about his experiences colonial service.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone that was primarily interested in the history of Burma or just depictions of its tourist sites.  That said, he makes excellent use of dialogue free drawings giving the rundown of some of his visits.  I definitely want to check out Lake Inlay if I ever go to the country myself.  Similarly he gives enough background on the current situation that even if you haven't followed the news you can catch up rather quickly.  Really, the book tells what it's like to spend a year in Burma and as a result teaches a reasonable amount about what life's like for the locals.  If that interests you, as it certainly does me, this is a good purchase.

As a side note, the book was written in French and is translated by Helge Dascher.  The translation was excellent as far as I could tell.  I didn't even realize the book was translated until I glanced at the cover page.

Origin: Christmas 2008 gift from Fiancee

Unexpectedly pleased with the revised WP Outlook section

While I still certainly mourn the loss of Bookworld, I’m happy to say that Outlook seems to have stepped up its game as a result of the merger. There’s been a few good long form reviews, the short reviews are shorter than I’d like but still useful, and the articles have been an often interesting mixed bag.

I’m particularly impressed with the 5 Myths about X pieces.  I often hate those as they tend to beat down a strawman or overstate the contrarian case.  The last few have been pretty solid, and I find that very reassuring.

So kudos.  I hope it keeps up.