Into the Black: Odyssey One Review

And we're back. Things have been slow, but we forge ahead with another review (and one in the pipeline). For now, let's talk about Into the Black: Odyssey One by Evan C. Currie, shall we?

The book takes place roughly a hundred years in the future (or so, it's never precisely stated). We follow our hero, Captain Eric Weston of the NAC Odyssey on its maiden voyage, a mission that sends humanity outside of our own solar system for the first time. Exploration is the goal, but because of the recent end to the war, they go armed with some of the latest weapons and defenses, and crewed by hardened warriors who had no place in the uneasy peace on Earth.

I must say, I really wasn't expecting much from this. It starts off slow, and almost too cheesily for my tastes. Don't get me wrong, I love cheese. Love it. But if it's not entertaining cheese, then I won't give it the time to grow into something more entertaining.

Fortunately for me, Into the Black became extremely entertaining cheese. I don't want to spoil too much, but I will say that the story continues with the Odyssey discovering an alien race under attack by something that just about every military SF book encounters: bugs. There is a lot of homage going on here, so much that there are a few characters that even point out how it seems like they're in an old SF novel.

Currie completely won me over when the phrase for marines on the move is "on the bounce!", something that none of them know where it orginates, only that it has something to do with the fact that they're wearing powered armor, and supposedly there was a book about powered armor way back when where the soldiers would say that. The Heinlein-homages are plentiful, and welcome.

The book also revels in the "humans are born killers" trope common in military-SF, most notable in the Man-Kzinn Wars books. In Into the Black, humans are less advanced technologically in most aspects. Our laser weapons barely rate above a comm-system compared to the aliens, but in the crucible of several World Wars, we've learned how to use what we have, and use that ability to great effect.

Honestly, I liked this book way, way more than I thought I would. Will it make any top 10 lists for me? Probably not, but I will highly recommend it for some light, fun reading that you can sit back and just soak in.

Rating: 8/10

Audible Edition Rating: 8/10

Thirteen: Review

Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan Audible Edition Narrated by Simon Vance

Cover of Thirteen

One hundred years from now, the world has changed. The United States is no more, Mars has been colonized, and China is the preeminent super power. Genetic enhancement is the cutting edge tech of the day, and the Variant Thirteen is the ultimate in enhanced soldier. But they're nothing new, no, they're the complete opposite. They're men with genes that have been reverse engineered to be more like humans were twenty-thousand years ago. Back when they ruled by sheer, individual power. They're the men who refused to settle and become farmers; they're the men who roamed the world and slew and savaged their way to glory and gold.

But then the rest of humanity decided there was more profit in an agrarian lifestyle, that cities and civilization were more important. So these men of power were bred out of the population. Then Genetic Variant Thirteen is created, bred and raised to be the best soldier there could be, the last cry of patriarchal society before it is ground to dust by the wave of "feminization" that is sweeping the world.

The story follows Carl Marsalis, by and large, a British black Thirteen(as the UK edition is named) who somehow made it back from Mars and became a bounty hunter, making money off of hunting his fellow thirteens, who have been exiled to prison camps after being deemed too dangerous to live freely in human society.

If you've never read Richard K. Morgan, then you may not be prepared for some of the savagery that is on display in Thirteen. His style is a hardboiled neo-noir, through and through, and he does not shy away from the rough stuff. Explicit sex scenes, gruesome gun battles, men who don't give a damn about the moral implications of an action and women who can't give it away fast enough are all par for the course for Morgan. Generally, it's pretty entertaining.

I really like noir, and I really, really like science fiction. So when the two overlap, I'm more than eager to read it. Thirteen wasn't the first book of Morgan's that I've read. Before that was the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, beginning with Altered Carbon (which is fantastic). So when I started this, I knew that it would be slow going at first, and I was absolutely right on that count. The first dozen chapters (give or take) are a bit of a slog to get through, but once you're done and the mystery actually gets going you're in for a treat.

Morgan is absolutely not for everyone, and Thirteen isn't his best work, though that is a matter of opinion (as one longtime friend vehemently disagrees with me on). It's absolutely worth reading if you like the style, or if you were a fan of his Kovacs books, which it could be argued this is a precursor to. If you're at all squeamish, by violence, rough language, or sexual depictions (which are the most graphic, I think), then Morgan and Thirteen are not for you.

Rating: 7/10

Audio Edition Rating: 5/10

Note on Edition: I listened to this after purchasing it on Audible.com, as I'm a pretty avid listener to audio books. This was a huge mistake, as this book is a little more complex than I generally like my audio books, and the narrator (Simon Vance), while excellent at his role, was too similar to other audio books of the same genre that kept making them blend together in my head as I listened. If you hadn't listened to other Simon Vance narrations, then this might be better for you. Personally, this seems like a book that is better read than listened to.

Mockingjay: Review

We arrive here, at the end of all things. Mockingjay, book 3 of the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, concludes the saga of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale as the districts begin a revolution against the Capital, a culmination of all that Katniss and Peeta accomplished (accidentally) as they survived the horrors of the Hunger Games. I've already spoken to my distaste for Collins' writing style in my reviews of books 1 and 2, so I'll just say that it doesn't get any better here. We still follow Katniss as she struggles with the events that transpired at the end of the last book: she's been rescued by the revolution and taken to District 13 (gasp!), where they have apparently been biding their time to begin the revolution anew in secret. District 12 has been firebombed to oblivion, and few survived the destruction (naturally Gale and her family are just fine), and Peeta has been captured by the Capitol.

This book suffers by far the most from Collins' sometimes ponderous and repetitive writing style. In what should be the big action piece, very little happens at all. Far little than either of the preceding books, actually. I was really looking forward to the war between the Districts and the Capitol, but guess what? We really don't see it. Instead we're treated to Katniss having a complete breakdown for the majority of the book, spending her time wandering from one closet to the next, where she can hide and cry over her loss of Peeta and her very confused feelings for him and Gale.

This book had a lot of potential. Katniss, who had been such a strong female character for the series, who had used her anger to jumpstart a rebellion, who would do anything to survive and protect those she loves just kind of stops doing all of that. Her big role in the revolution is that of a propaganda figure, dressing up in fancy armor and looking good for the camera. They keep almost taking her into actual combat, but aside from the first foray that never really happens. It's absolutely frustrating.

There are also a great deal of characters that are introduced, and never really used. Or used briefly, then thrown by the wayside. It seems like there may have been a larger plan that just never happened. Frustrating.

Then there's the end. Yes, we get everything nice and wrapped up, but it all seems incredibly rushed and lazy, actually. The love triangle between Gale, Peeta, and Katniss is resolved, but in a completely unsatisfying cop out that does nothing but wrap it up. Katniss' revolution is also rushed towards the end, and ultimately lacks any kind of real conclusion (in my mind). Katniss never actually decides anything for herself. Things just fall in a certain fashion that she decides to go with. Even the love triangle, when it seems that the decision has been made for her, seems undecided. There's a line (I won't quote because I don't want to go digging around for it) where she says that she's "relieved" that she can't go with one of them. THAT is your resolution, her decision. She's just "relieved" that she doesn't have to make any decision.

This book is by far my least favorite of the series, and seems to actually tarnish the first two books with inconsistent character development and plain old annoying decisions. The Hunger Games seemed to have not been edited very well for grammar, but Mockingjay seems to have been poorly edited for plot. I wonder if, due to the popularity of the series, they rushed the conclusion out the door before it could have fully developed, before it had properly matured. If that's the case, then it's a damn shame to conclude what could have otherwise been a very good series with such a lackluster entry. Who knows, maybe translating it to the big screen will allow them to fix what was so very broken with this conclusion.

I don't like this book. Real, or not real?

Real.

Rating: 4/10

Now, I'm off to read something a bit lighter. I think the Black Dahlia should do the trick.

What Keeps Eating My Time

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

I'm a pretty big Star Wars fan. Not the biggest. Hell, not even the biggest out of my close circle of friends. But by most people's standards, I'm a pretty big fan.

Know what else I'm a fan of? Bioware games. Roleplaying games. Star Wars Bioware Roleplaying Games. My kryptonite. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was a pretty singular experience for me, combining all of these disparate elements into one of the best games I had ever played.

Now, the count of excellent RPG's from Bioware is increased by one with Star Wars: the Old Republic, a bizarre fusion of singleplayer roleplaying and massively multiplayer online roleplaying. This weird little amalgamation of genres shouldn't work, but in some bizarre fashion it does.

I've tried MMO's before. Several. Ultimate Online? Cool, but meh. Evercraft? It was fun getting drunk and falling into the ocean halfway between continents, and to wash up on some strange new shore, but that was about it. Meh. I gave World of Warcraft a shot, but just kind of wandered the woods outside Stormwind while my friends raided dungeons and fought demigods. They got the bug, and they got it bad. Me? Apparently I had some sort of immunity. City of Heroes was close, and that was because of the milieu more than anything. Like I've said before, I love comics. So of course I loved crafting my own superhero story and playing it out day in and day out.

And then we have Star Wars Galaxies. Now, there was an MMO with potential. A game of paradoxes, SWG was simultaneously one of the best MMO's ever made, and one of the worst. It had so much going for it: level-free class system, player controlled economy, multiple enormous worlds that you could do anything you wanted to on, and a sense of wonder. I don't even know how many nights my friends and I were up until sunrise wandering from one horizon to the next, exploring every nook and cranny, floating from one vista to the next. Sure, we did the quests, did the grind whenever we were in the mood for it. But mostly we just wandered, and explored.

It's cheesy, I know, but that game had a bit of magic in it that I have yet to see since. The Morrowind games come close, maybe as close as a single

player game can come, but SWG... No other game have I ever enjoyed making a campfire and literally just sitting at it, watching the stars cartwheel overhead and wild beasts just skirt the halo of light before disappearing back into the night, just for the sake of enjoying it. We'd do this on most nights; set up camp in some undiscovered spit of land on Tattooine or Corellia, let our droids out to do tricks for us, and just talk (in character!) about what we'd seen that day, or what we had planned. What grand adventures we no doubt would be going on the next day, what our ultimate goals and dreams were. The level of immersion of that game was almost magical.

Then of course there was the lack of starships, the interesting but ultimately broken language system, then all of the bizarre things they'd ultimately do with the Jedi. It was fun while it lasted though.

The Old Republic, on the other hand, is a completely different experience. A little more sterile, a little more walled in and already set up for you. There's not quite so much magic that you bring to the game yourself. You don't have to wander around with friends, roleplaying on your own. That's already in the game. Every quest you take, every person/droid you kill. These things all have meaning and weight in the game. There's little grinding, because most everything is paced well enough that you don't need to. You go to an area, talk to a myriad of NPC's that all need your help with something or another, and complete these quests at roughly the same time, earning a certain amount of XP that is calculated to level you up in line with your own personal storyline that will take you to another area at the appropriate time.

This sounds rather bland and run of the mill, and if you look past some aspects of the game it absolutely is. But that’s only if you actually go and completely ignore the more obvious aspects of the game. The typical Bioware skill for telling a story is ever present, in every single fetch quest, every grind mission, every conversation with an NPC.

Much has been made of TOR’s fully voice acted quests, and for good reason. It takes what should be somewhat repetitive grinding and elevates it to something that you actually want to do. You need me find out what’s killing settlers? Sure, no problem! Somebody is stalking your wife? Hey, I’ll take care of it.

Then there is the Storyline that each character class has. The Storyline is a series of quests spanning the entirety of the game that apply only to your character class, and involve your character pursuing some far-reaching goal that is “unique” to you. I say “unique” because every character in that class is experiencing the same story for themselves, though their decisions and the way they go about it may change. This is fantastic, and because of this it’s the first MMO that I’ve actually made three characters in the first month of playing, and played each for at least a few days each. I want to know what each class is doing, what their own story is. And I want to make an original character that actually has a personality, has something that actually is unique to them.

I want to create a story,  and thanks to the online component, I can involve others in that story.

I don’t know what this article is. Is it a review? An exercise in compare and contrast? Or just simple, good old-fashioned rambling? A little of each, I think (though probably a little more of the latter than anything else), but mostly it’s just my thoughts and experiences with MMO’s, RPG’s, and Star Wars in general. I have a love/hate relationship with the brand, but despite all the grief I give Lucas and his lackeys, I can’t stop going back to that time that is so long, long ago, and that place so far, far away.

Damn you George Lucas.