torsdag 24 januari 2013

Simply a book review!

Today, the subject which I would like to address is that of a literary work which I have spent some time reading through during these last few weeks.

The title of said book is A Prisoner of Birth, and I shall do my utmost to avoid any spoilers in this here 'review', if you allow me to use a language such as English for a fucking moment!

Oh, sorry, where was it?

Right, the book!

The author of this magnificent work of art is the Right Honourable Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare. And no, I'm not making that up, that's his actual title; he's a former british MP and Baron of Weston-super-Mare.

On the cover of the book, though, it just says Jeffrey Archer.

The topic of the very book itself is one of a young man who ends up convicted of murder due to a conspiracy by four people whom he, his girlfriend and her brother meet at a local pub. From there on, the book explores his quest for redemption and retribution.

Now, what struck me about the whole story after having read the whole thing is the relevance and importance of the characters. I find that in most works of fiction, the characters exist very much to drive the plot, and instead, no matter how homosexual this will sound to you, in 'Birth...' the characters and their interactions ARE the plot.

Allow me to explain; you know how, in, for instance, The Return of the King, Aragorn and his party sweep in to save the day at Minas Tirith at the end of the battle? That is an event. Characters drive the events, but they are not the events. If you'd ask me to describe the plot of the book, I'd be describing events and happenings, but not the character arcs themselves.

In 'Birth...', you have very few such events. So few, in fact, that I could count them on my one hand. That is to say, one of my hands. I would not use this as a forum to announce the loss of one of my hands, that would be silly. The story is told very much, if not entirely, from the perspective of the characters, and most of the 'action' takes the form of inter'action' (see what I did there) between either allies or enemies.

As for the main characters, there is little that can be said off the bat without spoiling the plot. The main protagonist is very much a blank slate from the start; a kind, honest and generous man, if not very learned at the start of the story. Who he is evolves from the events of the story.

The main antagonist, however, is established a tad more. He is shown as a major player and a major threat, and it is obvious that he is the one whom the protagonist needs to outsmart.

Supporting the protagonist is a throng of various allies. Not only do these display uncompromising loyalty, they also show signs of considerable competence. There are no bumbling fools to be found here, and they do end up outsmarting the allies of the enemies at several turns.

Moving rapidly towards the end of this comparably short review, I would like to take a moment to point to a particular quirk of writing that the Right Honourable Lord Archer seems to use to intentionally endear himself to me, namely not dumping tonnes of exposition in our laps. He uses the characters' points of view to show what is going on, and rarely, if ever, do we find out more than the characters. The best way to illustrate this is by pointing to a scene in the final act where two allies to the main protagonist are discussing their strategy, and one points out that they must not let [relevant character] realize the importance of [plot point] before it is too late. In this instance, there is no exposition at all, and we're actually left knowing LESS than the characters.

That warms my heart to no end; a writer skilled enough to leave us in suspense rather than tell us everything that happens and has happened and hope that we feel suspense in spite of understanding absolutely everything that is going on.

To sum up, the book is an excellent story, and one of my big favourites in the world of realistic fiction. It contains a great deal of humour, though not traditional joking but rather seriously told moments that make you laugh anyway. If I was in the habit of giving scores, I would give it one, but I'm not, so I won't.

I suggest you pick up and read it, because this book is truly two of a kind.

tisdag 22 januari 2013

The Walking Dead, AKA Here Be Spoilers!

What the fuck is going on in the post-apocalyptic world?

Allow me to explain.

Have you allowed me? Thank you.

Now, I've reached the point in the series where Dale ends up dying. Fucking great, now there's not a single sympathetic character left in the whole damn thing. Glenn turned out to be a self-absorbed twat, Daryl treats the rest of the group like shit and tortures and innocent outsiders, Shane is...well, a murderous fuckhead. Hell, even the fucking child is acting like a complete twat!

The only character left who was even slightly sympathetic and tried to help everyone both to survive AND keep a sliver of their humanity and compassion was Dale, so naturally he had to die.

Are the makers of the series trying to make us hate the characters, are you they seriously trying to make the characters appear to be good guys but fail spectacularly?

I feel it really fucking hard to enjoy watching a zombie series where I'm actively hoping that the lot of those bastards die horribly!

torsdag 17 januari 2013

Blogging...

Hmmm...I'm supposed to find something fascinating to write...shit...

I just got hit by the feeling my life isn't particularly interesting.

Meh, whatever!

Today I'd like to talk about unhealthy stuff. I really couldn't care less about it. Take smoking or drinking or eating too much, I really don't give a damn. I know that drinking too much at parties now and then will probably not do wonders for my lifespan, but I can't muster the energy to give a crap about whether I live to be 75 or 74.

Now, don't mistake me for one of those tossers who go "Live each day like it's your last", because they are not only stupid, they are also hypocrites. Because, let's face it, they don't live each day like it's their last, they plan ahead and prepare for tomorrow and worry about the past just like the rest of us. It's just a meaningless platitude that some people spout because it sounds deep and philosophical.

How about simply enjoying the good stuff when they happen, and fondly remembering them afterwards, while also preparing for more good stuff further on down the road? There's nothing wrong with thinking about the future or the past, we all need to do that, but that doesn't exactly preclude us from thinking about the present as well, does it?

Look to the future. Always do that. It's not a bad thing. What matters, however, is that when good shit happens to you, you enjoy it and don't exclusively bother yourself with how it'll affect your future prospects.

Because, in all honesty, future you is a cunt, so fuck him!

söndag 13 januari 2013

Well, that was fun!

Holy smokes, I'm tired as all bollocks!

...but pleased as well. Been to my first LAN-party.

Well...more of a LAN-trio, to be honest. We slept extremely little, scoffed down high-caffeine beverages and subsisted on snacks and junk food. In other words, we were teenagers.

Frankly, I didn't think playing Left 4 Dead 2 would be quite this much fun. Unrelenting, somewhat silly and great for griefing your friends, in other words considerably similar to your mom.

All in all, I haven't got much to say about this weekend, except it was fucking awesome. Also, sacre fromage du mide fappé.

Hmmm...I need to pad this thing out...let's try this:

I can't help but constantly be amazed by the Total War-series, especially what with the Darthmod modification pack for Empire Total War. How could anyone ever hope to find better representations of moving regiments of troops around to outflank the enemy and break their morale? It really drives home the point that there's not a whole lot of tactics involved in most RTS games. Basically, in those, you build the biggest boots you can and try to stomp the other guy, and the biggest boots win.

Yeah yeah, I'm sure you'd like to talk at length about the intricate sweet details of making a zerg rush in Starcraft, but...okay, I don't think I know anyone who thinks that way, but that's beside the point!

My point is that, in the Total War-series, you've got to balance positions, numbers, angles of attack and morale in a constant flowing dance of death. You could, theoretically, if you've completely and utterly missed the fucking point of the preceding two paragraphs, line up all your men and have them shoot stuff at the enemy lines until one line breaks, but why on earth would you do that? Surely, the pleasure isn't in having the biggest army and trampling any other armies you encounter, it's in using superior cunning and tactical thinking to pull off a win when the odds are NOT in your favour.

When you're royally screwed and you've got five regiments of danish line infantry pounding your two regiments into the dirt, then pulling a fast one and throwing your men into a melee on their left flank and hitting the right flank with a cavalry charge to break the morale of the danish tossers, THEN you're looking at a sweet fucking victory.

If life gives you lemons and you proceed to shove them up life's arse with a bayonet, THAT is what's called winning. Just making some kind of sticky liquid spurt out isn't winning, it's just fapping.

What I mean to say is that people who play Starcraft competitively are wankers.

lördag 12 januari 2013

Absurd!

Have you ever considered how insane it is that we drive fucking cars?

Hey, I have an idea; let's just sit ourselves down in big tin cans and travel at speeds at which you couldn't possibly survive a crash!

What do you mean "Fuck off, you're insane!"?

Also, have you actually considered the fact that we are seated in front of extremely powerful computers capable of making millions of calculations a second and project the results in graphical form on a screen using liquid crystals, and we're using it to watch people having sex or cats falling off chairs?

Come to think of it, the use of it to view adult entertainment seems to be quite fitting. I mean, the internet is, after all, in existence for the sole purpose of displaying pornographic material. In other words; the internet is for porn!

Additionally, aren't energy drinks the best invention in the world?!

What, addicted, me? No way!

tisdag 8 januari 2013

Killing Zombies!

No, wait, zombies are silly, I don't want to make a post about zombies. Therefore, I won't! Ha, take that, Renée Descartes!

Also, I've redesigned my blog. Largely because the old one looked like arse, as it happens. I'm also intending to keep up a more reliable daily updating schedule again, so stay tuned!

Here's what I really want to talk about; classes! Specifically, classes in gaming.

See, whenever you have a game with different classes, that is something that the developers and/or publishers like to tout as some kind of really innovative measure, having forgotten that it's only been used in gaming for roughly as long as the concept of pressing buttons on a control pad to make shit happen onscreen, that also brings a whole lot of variation and versatility to the game. After all, if you have five classes, that's a whopping five games in one!

Bollocks.

What we're always stuck with whenever a game features different classes is a different set of skills for each and every one, but the game itself is the same fuckmothering game every single time you pick it up. Diablo II with a paladin is the exact same game as Diablo II with a barbarian, only you look kinda different when you click things to death.

Now, this is what impressed me greatly about Star Wars The Old Republic. There were different classes, like in every MMO and their dog, but each class had a different main quest that tied into the type of character it represented. For instance, the smuggler gets a main quest that is centered around finding some kind of hoity toity treasure left behind by some twat or another, and the sith sorcerer gets a main quest centered around getting into the fucking ruling council of the empire.

These don't just lend a little colouring to the regular monotonous grind of MMO questing, it is a substantial enough part of the questing experience that you get a considerably different experience depending on which class you play. Heck, you even get a different set of sidekicks with actual personalities and storylines of their own with each and every class. Okay, Bioware, you can stop showing off now; we already know storytelling and characterization are your little EA prison bitches.

I happen to have discovered that the polar opposite to Bioware's erect macho grande is the flaccid and whimpy Dead Island. Now, I might've said at some point that it's a good game, and I still think that, but by fuck have the developers phoned it in when it comes to the four different characters with supposedly different skillsets.

They all get the same story, conversations, if you can call them that since you don't have any choices to make whatsoever, and weapons. The only thing that differentiates them is their skill trees, which are still not particularly different except they seem to have been randomized for each class. So yes, they all get roughly the same skills, except they're switched around the trees randomly. What the fuck, Dead Island? I thought I could trust you! I know one game that isn't going to be joining my group of plucky survivors after the zombie apocalypse has kicked off!

That was about zombies, wasn't it?

Fuck.