Minireview: Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King
I generally like Stephen King, though I haven’t read all that much of his later work. When he’s good he’s very good, and when he’s mediocre he’s usually at least readable (if a bit meandering). His strength is his characters – he has the ability to create characters who you care about… and then he has horrible things happen to said characters. This, incidentally, is the reason most films based on King’s books totally fail to work; it’s hard to do good character development in the few hours you’re given in a movie, and the actual plot in King’s stories isn’t usually anything all that special.
Hearts in Atlantis is somewhat unusual for a King book. It’s mostly devoid of the supernatural, and deals with the 1960s in the U.S. and the legacy of those times. The book is actually formed from five interlinked stories – two longer novellas and three shorter stories. They share some characters, but otherwise are very different from each other. The first one, “Low Men in Yellow Coats”, is the most “typical” King story, and is also a tie-in with the Dark Tower series. I read Dark Tower before I read this so I missed some links there, but having read Dark Tower it’s quite easy to figure out the backstory here. It’s a good tale, concerning an old man who moves into the neighborhood and a young boy who befriends him. The old man is apparently on the run from something, but what that something is… well, that’s part of the story. This is the only story in the bunch to directly feature supernatural elements, by the way.
The second long story is the title story “Hearts in Atlantis”, and it’s also good. It’s the tale of a bunch of students (among them a character from the first story) who more or less demolish their studies by playing cards with fanatic devotion, while the Vietnam War (and accompanying threat of the draft) lurks in the background. It’s a somewhat unusual look at the effects of the war on the home front, while not actually dealing directly with the war.
The last three stories are more of a mixed bag, but they are all ok. The last story ties some of the loose story threads together and is nicely bittersweet.
While not King’s best work, all in all it’s a pretty good book, and recommended especially to people who think that King deals only with “horror” and “supernatural” themes. There is little of that here, replaced by an air of melancholy and a sense of innocence lost.
Minireview: Caprice Book Two: Liberati Sourcebook - Freedom for All (Heavy Gear)
The Liberati Sourcebook describes the “other half” of Caprice, the “Liberati” freedom fighters. The Liberati (as a resistance group) came into being (or were formed) when the CEF invaded the Caprice system. The Caprice govenment realized they had no chance of real immediate resistance, so they surrendered at once – much to the surprise of the invading force, which had come in expecting a fight. At the same time, long-term plans for reistance were set in motion, all quite deniable by the government. In the long run this has proved to be a wise course of action. Only a limited number of lives were lost during the invasion, and the Liberati guerillas have been a constant thorn in CEF’s side. While “officially” the Liberati were killed off in a staged “last stand battle”, they are very much alive and active – something that only some in the CEF suspect, most attributing the sabotage to random dissident elements. In addition to all this, the arrival of the Black Talon teams from Terra Nova has kicked things into gear. The Liberati give the Terra Novans some much-needed local support, and the Terra Novans bring with them both hope and firepower.
An additional factor adding to the confusion is that the word “Liberati” is also used to denote the freelancer miners who roam the surface, so even if the CEF gets word of “Liberati operations”, they have no hard and fast way of figuring out what that actually means. This sourcebook describes both the freedom fighter “Liberati” and the miner “Liberati” groups (which have some overlap).
The book is a typical Heavy Gear book (in a good way). We’re given the relevant pieces of history, and then a description of the current situation. The Liberati culture (both the freeroaming miners and the resistance folks) is described, along with a bunch of NPCs. There’s a list of equipment and vehicles, some campaign seeds, all the usual stuff.
Caprice is a quite an interesting setting and this book adds some welcome detail (begun with the two previous Caprice books). The whole “planet under military occupation” thing is rife with story possibilities, as I’ve noted before.
Minireview: Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
Straight up front: I’m a big Heinlein fan. I grew up reading his books, and his protagonists have definitely had an effect on my mental and moral-ethical landscape. Oh, I can and will ignore some of his politics, and yes, his later books were at times barely readable, and yes, his view of women is hopelessly outdated (though I would argue he was actually quite broad-minded for his time). Nevertheless, the concept of a “Heinleinian hero” has stuck with me, and more importantly: he was just a damn good writer and told excellent tales.
So why am I talking about Heinlein here? Well, John Scalzi’s brilliant book Old Man’s War owes more than a bit to Heinlein. This is no secret, the writer says so quite directly in the afterword. In a way, the book could be described as ”Starship Troopers without the preaching and with better sex”… but that does a disservice to the book. It is far from being just a Heinlein pastiche.
The story is set in a future where manking has spread out to the stars – and found them to be contested ground. Every planet is claimed by some race or the other, and warfare is a constant. Also, and most importantly, every enemy is different. Tactics that work against one race fail miserably against another. “Classical” military training only gets you so far, what Earth really needs is soldiers with tactical flexibility and experience… but how do you train for that? Enter rejuvenation technology, and you have the point in time where the story kicks off: the military (“Colonial Defense Force”) has become an independent force of its own, and separate from Earth itself. It offers a deal to anyone at least 75 years old: join us and we’ll make you young again. In return, you must serve us for a tour of duty, and you can never return to Earth. Ever. There is a high probability of your death before your tour is over, but hey, you’re dying soon anyway. Want to sign on the dotted line?
It’s a fascinating setup. The army wants old people, since it can make them young again and old people generally have the life experience needed to make flexible tactical choices. In effect, the army is drafting people for brains, not bodies, since bodies can be fixed now. Do people go for it? Hell yes. Think about it: you’re old, your body is slowly starting to fail you, your husband/wife may already be dead, your children don’t keep in touch… and now you have a chance to be young again. Sure, you have to join the army, prepare to wage bloody war against aliens, and possibly die horribly. And sure, you have to leave everything behind forever and never come “home” again. But you’ll be young again, and if you survive, you can live a second life somewhere out in the colonies. Or so you’re told, at least.
I don’t want to spoil the story more than that basic setup, since there are twists aplenty here. The writing is crisp, and action moves along, and in this age of brick-sized books it’s refreshing to read something this compact. The book tells the story it wants to tell, and doesn’t try to pad things out with endless side attractions. And it’s one hell of a ride.
Heinlein would have approved.
Minireview: The Impossible Eye (Pathfinder #23)
After the quite wonderful End of Eternity, the fifth installment of the Legacy of Fire adventure path (The Impossible Eye by Greg A. Vaughan) is both not quite as good and also a bit more pedestrian. Now, seeing as it’s set in the legendary City of Brass, that’s maybe a bit weird. You would expect a planehopping adventure to present weird and wonderful scenes galore. Here the problem is the main setup: the PCs end up in a huge temple building located in the City of Brass – but said temple is the locus of a dimensional trap and is totally cut off from the rest of the city. So the fact that it’s located in a huge, legendary location doesn’t really matter in any way, and the PCs are essentially stuck inside a big dungeon with no access to the city.
In the end the PCs are assumed to escape and to interact with the city, and the book does give some small bits of help for that: there’s a “set piece” adventure detailing one way to return to their home plane, and then there’s an article detailing the City of Brass in general. Still… I sort of feel this was a missed chance, a lot more could have been done with this setting. In addition, there are some head-scratchers: fire-based traps in a place where most of the population is immune to fire, for example.
All that said, it’s not bad by any means. As a dungeon crawl it provides a nice variety of encounters, and not all are of the “see monster, kill monster” variety. There are multiple ways for the PCs to approach the scenario, and a social-based approach may well work (depending on who they talk to and ally with).
Minireview: Witch Finders (Hunter: the Vigil)
Witch Finders is the first expansion to the new “Hunter” game (Hunter: the Vigil)… and it’s pretty damn good. I’m honestly a bit surprised they started with a sourcebook on “witches” (mages), since the relationship between “hunters” and “witches” is the one most drenched in ambiguity – or maybe that’s precisely the reason they did it.
In any case, as noted this expansion deals with “witches”: otherwise normal people who do “magic”, one way or the other. Now, dealing with these is problematic for Hunters at the best of times. Unlike that ravenous bloodsucking monster, most “witches” aren’t easily labeled as monsters. While some may dabble in the Dark Arts (for some definition or the other), many others seem to actually do good, help people around them… or at least do generally harmless things. So why hunt them? Good question, and one that this book uses a lot of pages to examine. In sum: the answer depends very much on who you ask. Some “hunters” see no reason to go after witches and mages unless they do something blatantly evil, while others see all of them as monsters in human guise, as things wielding powers too dangerous to be allowed – like children with tac nukes. Many others fall between these two viewpoints. Some may even ally (at times) with witches against a common enemy – though doing so is always extremely risky.
So, lots of good discussion about the vast grey areas involved here. In addition, the book gives us three new Compacts and one new Conspiracy, all of them fun and interesting in my view. Special mention goes to both “Division 6” (the backstory is just dripping in story potential) and the Order of St. George, which is just wonderfully strange and twisted. We’re also given a bunch of rules crunch for witches and mages, so you can run them as antagonists or NPCs without needing access to the actual Mage game. In fact, there is no hard and fast connection between the “witches” discussed here and the Mage core line; they may be the same people and organizations as described in Mage: the Awakening, or they may be something totally different. Up to the GM. The old Hunter game had a similiar setup, in only having a loose connection between the Hunter antagonists and the other core game lines. I think it’s a smart move, and gives the GM a lot of easy leeway in running the sort of game world he/she wants. People familiar with Mage may be in for a rude surprise if they assume things are the same here.
All in all, I can’t find much anything to criticize here. The writing is really good, the ideas excellent, and the crunch seems reasonable (on quick read-through). Solid expansion book for an already very solid game line.
...and back
Back in drizzly Finland. Actually, back almost a week ago.
Trip went well, and even though it was a very “active vacation” it left me feeling relaxed and I feel I’ve been away for a long time (even though it’s only been a month). We visited Iceland, then flew over to California & Burning Man. Janka provides some trip recap in her blog, so I won’t repeat (much) of that here. I took a ton of photos – nearly 2000 – but then again more than half of those were 3-picture HDR composites, and then after the obvious failures are weeded out… well, the number of “reasonable” shots left is a lot smaller. Still, took lots of pics. The batch from Iceland is now available (slideshow), I’ll add the rest later once I get them processed.
Since I don’t have pics available yet I also won’t talk about the U.S. or Burning Man here, leaving that for later.
So, Iceland. I found the country quite amazing. Sure, it was expensive, and sure, it’s small and insular – but somehow, that insularity wasn’t as annoying as it can sometimes be in Finland. Maybe it’s just the fact that I was only on a short visit and didn’t see the reality of things, or maybe it’s also other things: I found the Icelandic elitist megalomania quite refreshing (compared to the Finnish traditional cultural inferiority complex), and the fiercely independent ethos of the people was also very appealing. Sure, Finland is supposed to also have some degree of that, but I think that died out at some point in history and was replaced by a general “it’s not my fault, I’m a victim of society!” outlook. Having said that, there do seem to be a lot of common points between Finland and Iceland: tiny, insular societies that speak an incomprehensible language, endless long dark winter months, a love of (lots of) alcohol, lots of beautiful unpolluted nature.
…but as always, it’s the differences that charm you. I’m a sucker for harsh landscapes, and the Icelandic volcanic wasteland was just too cool for words at times; especially so during our hike of the Laugavegur 55km mountain trail. Some of the scenery up there was just breathtaking. Culturally, I mentioned the elitism… I guess it’s because according to the Icelanders, the Vikings did pretty much everything first, better and with more style than anyone else – and naturally enough, Icelanders are direct descendants of said Vikings. Somehow, all the rape and pillage involved gets a lot less press over there… In any case, while the place felt very insular, it didn’t feel annoyingly so; in fact, it felt quite charming to me. Oh, I’m sure the “everyone knows everyone else” thing gets old fast if you live there, but that’s just how it goes.
The music scene in Iceland is amazing, and the same applies to the arts scene in general… for some reason, it seems that arts are very much respected there culturally and pretty much half the population dabbles into some artistic pursuit. You could explain it away with “well, they have to do something during those long winter months”… but then again, why do Finns use those same months to plan suicide (or axe murder) and drown their depression with Koskenkorva?
Yes, I kid. Finns get artistic too, and I’m sure Iceland has its share of suicides, alcohol and depression. But still, you have to admire the amazing artistic scene in Iceland, especially when you compare to the population count (about the size of your average larger metropolis). To me, the music was (and is) especially impressive.
About that music… I have to mention the record store 12 Tónar. At the time we visited I wasn’t aware that it’s also a record label, and “home” of many known Icelandic musicians. We just saw an advertisement about “lots of Icelandic music!” while strolling around and decided to drop in. Glad we did. Since I didn’t know much about current local bands, I walked up to the guy behind the counter and asked for some recommendations, saying I was familiar with Björk & Sigur Rós and had a fairly eclectic taste in music. Now, that sort of approach generally tends to work in many non-chain stores, but here I got especially nice treatment. The guy gathered a pile of 8-9 CDs and said “start with those”, then sat me down at one of the many eclectic CD-players scattered around. He also brought me a cup of (free) espresso. That’s what I call service. In general, the place was what a good record store should be like (but all too seldom is): knowledgeable & friendly staff, comfy surroundings, and freedom to listen to a lot of stuf in peace. I ended up buying two records: “Það kólnar í kvöld…” by Rökkurró (excellent alt-folk-pop sung in Icelandic) and “Clangour” by Sin Fang Bous (weird but fun music, sung in English). Janka picked up an album of Viking poetry set to an ambient music soundtrack.
So… yes, I liked Iceland a lot. The food was great (though expensive), the atmosphere was nice, and the scenery awesome. I also really liked the language, it’s actually the first Scandinavian language I have any larger interest in learning – which is inconvenient, since it’s also arguably the most generally useless of said languages. Whatever, it’s quite pretty (in a weird fashion), and while it reads a small bit like Swedish etc, the pronounciation is almost totally alien.
I probably want to visit again, sometime down the road. Armed with a large travel budget, since the place was very expensive – and I say this as someone from Helsinki, one of the more expensive cities in the world.
After 1.5 weeks in Iceland, we hopped aboard a plane again and headed off towards the land of the free(ish) and home of the paranoid. More about that later.
