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Book Thoughts: A Psalm for the Wild-Built

My favorite type of science fiction novels focus on people and societies instead of the tech. "Speculative anthropology [with robots n' future stuff]".

One subgenre of this that I've been excited to see explored is "Solarpunk". This genre veers away from the typically dystopian future outlook to offer a hopeful vision of the future where humans can live in harmony with the ecosystem.

Yesterday I finished the audiobook version of A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers -- a Hugo-winning solarpunk novella about a tea monk and a robot. I've got mixed feelings about it, but overall it was a pleasant and relaxing read.

Note: I recommend reading this one instead of listening, as I wasn't fond of the narrator's choice of voice and emphasis for a lot of the reading.

(Spoilers after the jump)

Book Thoughts: The Shadow of the Wind

I finished listening to The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón the other day. I had originally thought it was some kind of magical fantasy book, but it was absolutely not that. It was, however, and excellent read/listen outside of my usual genres and writing style.

The story takes place in Barcelona in the 1940's and 50's as a young boy seeks to solve the mysteries surrounding the author of his favorite book. As the story unfolds it becomes a wonderfully captivating tale of murder and mystery and intrigue, all while we watch the narrator grow up and stumble through his own life making mistakes along the way.

There is so much emotion in this novel. Barcelona feels alive, the characters are all messy and passionate and expressive, the events and storylines that take place are often so illogical but so human in ways that you don't frequently see in SciFi/Fantasy, and it was a very refreshing read for that - I had a similar experience when reading East of Eden in that strange capturing of human messiness that is so often distilled out of my normal reading.

The author has a line that "Books are a Mirror", that you only see in them that which you already have inside you. This really struck me, as while I most definitely learn new things from books all the time, a book like this truly feels like a mirror. I kept seeing in the story reflections of my own mistakes and experiences in life, bittersweet reminders of failed romances and lost friends that elevated the story.

Given the messy nature of the story and the lives the author spins into this tale, they managed to finish completely cleanly -- they tied up every loose end and left no questions about any of the characters' fates. I thank them for that, as I really felt attached to many of the colorful cast.

I really enjoyed this story and how perfectly self-contained it was. I understand there's some prequels out there, but for now I think I'll let this one stand on it's own.

Game Thoughts: Chrono Trigger

Long ago as a youth I got a copy of Chrono Trigger included in my "Final Fantasy Chronicles" PS1 Collection. At the time I knew nothing about the game, and ended up getting stuck on the Mountain of Woe boss and moving on to other things. Though I would pick the game up again on various emulators over the years, I'd never get past the first trip to 600AD due to short attention span. Eventually the number of times I'd started the game became it's own barrier to entry, as I dreaded replaying the beginning again.

It's one of those weird things -- one of the most beloved pixel art JRPGs of all time, yet I couldn't bring myself to even start it anymore, let alone finish it. However, recently Chrono Cross got a re-release, and a new indie game, "Sea of Stars" came out flaunting Chrono Trigger inspirations. I felt like I owed it to myself to beat the original game to prepare my pallette for these other titles and finally took down my trophy DS copy of the game down from its pedestal, booted up my much-loved 3DS, and beat one of the best JRPGs of all time.

Comic Thoughts: Junji Ito (3 titles)

It's been a while since I've read any Junji Ito stuff, despite having loved Uzumaki and the Amigara Fault (the later turned me into a permanent fan). On a trip today I picked up 3 of his novels: Remina, Sensor, and Black Paradox.

Remina didn't do much for me. It lacked any real depth and didn't give me that twinge of dread I want when reading cosmic horror. It did have a couple of memorable horrific scenes that were truly deranged (in the good Junji Ito way), but was overall a disappointment.

I enjoyed Sensor much more. The story beats were more substantial and it had some really great chapters. There was a bit with bugs that was really good stuff, and the story had good overall weird vibes to it. Still, it wasn't great -- I started questioning whether I was just viewing his stuff through rose-tinted glasses.

However, Black Paradox was fantastic. Really good stuff, twisted in the right ways, strange as hell and dark. It's the shortest of the three, but the best by strides. The setup was great, the development was great, and the characters were interesting.

Black Paradox is a real gem, and definitely belongs on the shelf next to Uzumaki and Tomie; the other two just get to go there because of alphabetical ordering.

Book Thoughts: This is How You Lose the Time War

I just finished listening to This is How You Lose the Time War.

It was a very different kind of sci-fi novel. Very abstract, poetic. Loose on detail and high on feelings, which is a stark contrast to many stories in the space which are so fixated on hard maths and time paradoxes.

It was honestly a beautiful short story. It plays off modern common knowledge of sci-fi, hand-waving the nanomachines and time-jumping into the background so we can focus on the two focal characters as they write letters to one another and develop a relationship.

As they move from rivals to friends to more, their letters become increasingly abstract -- the wingbeats of a bee, the shapes of the year-lines in a felled tree, the protein shapes of a core of apple. Admittedly, while these feats of steganography managed to imply technical and artistic feats of nature and technology that were wildly romantic, they occasionally broke immersion with how absurdly out-of-the-box they got.

I regret having listened to this one rather than reading it, I feel like the tactility of holding and reading their letters on paper, and treading and re-treading passages, would have elevated this beyond what the narrators could do.

All in all I found it a very pleasant and creative piece of sci-fi. I really enjoyed the intertwining of sci-fi and poetic writing, which is a combination I don't freqently see in my usual reading.

Book Thoughts: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

After finishing Frugal Wizard, I launched directly into Sanderson's next audiobook: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. In my last post I whined a bit about how Sanderson should use these books to explore a bit and deviate from his norm. He didn't do that here, but hot damn if this one isn't peak Brandon Sanderson.

I was honestly surprised with how good this one turned out. It went in a couple directions I genuinely didn't expect, he nailed the young romance (maybe even went a little too manga with that bit), and I just thoroughly enjoyed myself all the way through.

If it didn't have so many little Cosmere / Hoid references I would go as far as saying this would be the best "Introduction to Sanderson" book. It's an excellent standalone(mostly) novel that shows off Sanderson's unique twist on fantasy / magic at his current writing capacity (vs something earlier like Elantris). Yes, it's very young-adult, but I was a young adult when I got captivated by this kind of fantasy storytelling with the Wheel of Time at 13.

Sanderson used a lot of Japanese / Korean influence when designing this world, and managed to do it in a way that leaned on the imagery and language semantics of the cultures without stepping into stereotypes. Honestly it was quite clever - by evoking the Neo-Tokyo and ancient korea that we so commonly see in media, then deviating just enough, he managed to build a novel fantasy setting in way less words than would otherwise be needed.

If the last book was vanilla soft serve, this one was a hearty home-cooked meal with a touch of asian fusion. Comfy, just a tiny bit adventurous, very satisfying.

I want to add an extra note about how much I've been appreciating Sanderson's post-scripts in these books. Having the author openly talk about how different media he's enjoyed influenced how he builds his worlds and stories is very validating. It's something I do a lot when building stories and games in my head, and I've always felt slightly ashamed that my ideas are always just iterations, combinations, or extensions of ideas from other sources. It's one thing to hear an author talk about inspirations in interviews, and quite something else for them to be willing to openly stamp those sources of inspiration directly into their work, and even have the narrator read them out loud in the audiobook version.

Book Thoughts: Frugal Wizard's Handbook

Today I finished my audiobook copy of The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, by Brandon Sanderson.

(Big spoilers warning)

Game Thoughts: The Case of the Golden Idol

I beat The Case of the Golden Idol the other day, and you should absolutely purchase and play it. It's fantastic.

The gnarly pixel visuals, the absurd scenarios, and the wonderful environmental storytelling are all top-notch. The puzzles and related mechanics are perfectly executed, and the way each story tied into the next was thoroughly satisfying.

I must have audibly said "OHHH" out loud half a dozen times over the course of the ~100 minutes it took to finish from start to epilogue, as the puzzles and point-and-click environments are designed with many revelations and "everything makes sense now" moments.

If you liked Obra Dinn, this is a mandatory purchase. (You haven't played Obra Dinn that's also a mandatory purchase FYI).

The only complaint I have is it's too short. That's not a complaint that takes away from the game, I just wanted more. There's a DLC out but it's not cheap, and while I'm confident it will be worth the money I'm going to wait and see if they release more DLC first so I can get (and play) them all at once. (I want another meal, not snacks!)

Also, the game was built with Godot, so that's a bonus cool fact!

Game Thoughts: Tunic

About a half hour ago I beat the "bad" ending of Tunic, a cute snes-zelda-esque game with a cute fox that gets way too hard. (mild spoilers)

I'm not sure I liked this game very much as a whole. There was about a 2 hour window window between the "oh this is just a snes zelda clone" and "ok I remember why that's not a bad thing", and then a nice handful of hours where I really enjoyed the game and what it was offering in terms of lore and gameplay... then the game decided it was time to get serious and cranked the difficulty to 200.

I have a very real skill ceiling when it comes to action-y parts of games, and I have neither the time nor the patience to "git gud". "Souls" games are essentially a watch-only thing for me, and Tunic delved just a little too far into that realm after a point. If you like dodge-rolling and dying a lot and re-treading then great; if you don't it can get extremely tiresome extremely quickly.

Thankfully, the game comes with some accessibility settings that make it easier. These range from disabling stamina depletion (allowing for infinite shield and dodge), to completely disabling death. I am fully willing to admit that I got to a point where I just flipped on invincibility so I could cruise through the rest of game -- and even then there was an enemy I had trouble beating.

A lot of wording online says to go into Tunic blind, comparing it to things like The Outer Wild. While the game has some mysterious puzzles and interesting revelations as you peel back the layers, it wasn't that for me. Outer wilds left me breathless, while Tunic just left me irritated.

After getting the bad ending I did a bit of research into getting the good one, and I was honestly annoyed even reading the solutions, so there was no way I was going to actively dothem. I just watched the other ending online; I think the kind of late-game and meta- puzzles that Tunic offers is for a different breed of puzzle-enjoyer than I.

I will say, the whole manual-page-collecting mechanic was very endearing and cleverly implemented, and the game looked and played wonderfully, the dark elements were unexpected and great. There was a lot that I liked in Tunic, but I don't think the good outweighed the frustrating for me.

Game Thoughts: The Machine

I need to tell you about The Machine, an unlicensed Gameboy/Color game released in 2022 that's absolutely one of the best games that's ever released for the console (IMO). this post will contain medium-rare spoilers.

When I booted up the demo for this game, I was thinking it'd be the usual gameboystudio fare; a quick retro romp that I'd quickly put down after a little fun. It opens with a shot of "The Machine" itself, and we zoom into a classroom where you promptly fail the "Test that will determine the rest of your life", and are subsequently invited to join the police force by your uncle, because he also failed the test in his day due to cheating.

The Machine is filled to the brim with tongue-in-cheek humor that had me glowing the entire way through. Its the kinda simple stuff that you really didn't see in most gameboy games from the era they were relevant. Gameboy games were for kids -- they might be scary or serious or gory or funny, but they certainly didn't have tongue-in-cheek social commentary. The Machine is a gameboy game for adults.

By the time I'd started my job at a factory, rode the subway car, and got a quick look at the inner workings of the machine I was completely hooked on the game. I purchased a ROM to play the whole thing on my phone, and would later go on to purchase a physical copy to display on my shelf. This easily one of the best things I've played this year -- I was playing the new Zelda game at around the same time, and would continuously put that down in order to do play a run through of The Machine.

Each playthrough is short -- my first run had me in a factory, subsequently joining a union, and dealing with the fallout in about 2 hours. I'm normally one to not replay games when I can avoid it, but I dove right back in to try my hand at being a police officer. Then again, to see what would happen if I ditched my job, or took up some shady offers, or chose NOT to join the union.

Every little choice you make in this game has delightful consequences, and I was shocked at how much variety they managed to pack into the relatively little memory gameboy cartridges provide. I murdered people, covered up crimes, sold drugs, ran for chancellor, did remarkable good and unspeakable evil just to see what kind of outcomes they thought of for this combination. I kept coming back, and each time I couldn't put it down until I saw the credits message: "The Machine Grinds On!"

That simple message of inevitability -- that all your actions had no effect on the marching on of the machine -- is such a poignant punctuation at the end of each playthrough. Your attempts to change things are so frequently futile, but it's always worth trying again.

I had more fun than I possibly imagined I would. For such a small, unassuming game it is packed to the brim with content and humour. It's a testament to gameboystudio as a tool for development, and I think more people should give it a try. Writing about it now, a month or so after being done with the game, I feel again the itch to pick it up to try to do things just a little bit differently and revisit the levels of the machine that I now know so well.

The Machine Grinds On~