Random Thoughts, May 2015 edition: Futurama, dissertations, informed consent in fantasy, and match 3 games

This is going to be a combination of updates, and things that have occurred to me.

* "Not sure if _____ or ______"
"You're _____ is bad, and you should feel bad!"
"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
"__________ do not work that way!
"I'll make my own ___________! With blackjack, and hookers!

Not an original observation, but Futurama's clearly going to be more remembered as a meme generator than a TV show. There's a Buzzfeed article in there, somewhere."
Just posted this on Facebook. I don't really feel like fleshing it out too much further at the moment, but it's an interesting issue.Arguably, Futurama has had more cultural value as a source of memes than as a TV show. That probably still holds if you talk financial value too--but only if you factor in the ad revenue generated by the hundreds and thousands of sites that have deployed variations of these memes to get clicks. It's not money that's going to the show creators. Then again--who creates a meme? Its original coiners, or its major circulators? If I ever have a spare couple of days, it's a new media area I'd like to delve into more fully.

*The dissertation's reaching a boiling point. My defense is projected for September--though I've only got permission for one more term of grad school, so that's a fun future hurdle--and I'm still coping with the notion of what comes next. I should be applying for things and submitting other things like crazy but... I'm not there yet. It might be the same sort of procrastination that led to the degree delays to begin with, but I feel like something still needs to click. Soon, hopefully.

*Speaking of clicking, I've been reading Rachel Aaron's The Legend of Eli Monpress. I'll probably have a full review somewhere at some point, but an idea in regards to the series popped into my head today, and I want to preserve it. The magic system in the novel is essentially the animus version, with a genie twist. That is, every object in the fantasy world--manmade or natural--if it's of sufficient size, is inhabited by a lifeforce, a sentient spirit. Wizards can communicate with the spirit, and bind it to them and make it serve them, ala the genie/master relationship. So far, so good. But what Aaron adds to the concept that really makes it interesting is the idea that the current dominant group of wizards, the spiritualists, believe that it's unethical to bind a spirit against its will. The only spirits you can call on as servant, then, are the ones that you enter into a willing relationship with, where both parties supply the other with what they need, and both may break it off, if they wish. In short, it's a fantasy universe where magic is based on the idea of informed consent.  That's kind of amazing, and makes the series really relevant in terms of greater cultural issues. Yes, there's a huge difference between consent as relates to sexuality and as it relates to magical spirits, but framing the relationship in terms of ethics and moral responsibility over personal desire creates some really interesting parallels.

*I gave a talk this week based on the third chapter of my dissertation. I got some good feedback on it, but in a lot of ways, it's the wrong point in the dissertation process to be soliciting feedback from outside of my committee. I'm really glad I did it, and I understand my own argument and how it's perceived a lot better now, but it would have been better to have pursued this sort of thing earlier. At that point of writing, I was too caught up in the idea that I couldn't put anything out there until I had my committee's seal of approval; more experimentation could have been helpful. That's something to remember.

*Conversation overheard on the bus today: "When I was a kid, I used to read while I walked around, with my nose in a book." "Me too! It really bugged my mom. She thought I'd walk into a tree, or something."
Me, in my head: "I AM ONE OF YOU."

*This weekend is all about prepping for the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and writing the paper for the Canadian Game Studies Association. I've got some draft notes, but it's time to flesh them out. If I was a better planner, it'd be a presentation on dissertation-related material, or even a revised version of this week's talk. Instead, it'll be a look at the cultural, economic, and design-related issues involving Match-3 type games. Basically, it's a chance to take some of things I've said  about Match-3 games and put them before a larger audience. I'm thinking five minutes on the social and economic aspects of Match-3 games in general, five minutes on how some of them incorporate narrative skins, and five minutes on how Marvel Puzzle Quest in particular approaches these issues.  If anyone's interested, I might put the piece up here when it's done.

Later Days. 

Book Triad: Women in Fantasy

I'm not planning on turning the blog into nothing but book reviews, or even reviews, but as I said before, I've got a backlog of book review content. In fact, one of the advantages of having a backlog is that I can do a bit of picking and choosing in terms of grouping similar books together so that I actually have something significant to say that applies to all three.In this particular case, that means pairing two recent reads with an older one, by way of contrast. After the break, we have reviews of Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife, and Patricia C. Wrede's Thirteenth Child.

I'll warn you in advance--these are all books that got me thinking a fair bit, so the reviews are lengthier than usual AND I have a lot to say afterwards. All worth saying, of course.

Book Triad: Could Be Worse Ever After

Ah, the blog. Or, as it is at the moment, that thing I do when I'm between videogames, just finished a book, and there's no new shows on because it's Super Bowl Sunday. There's been an alarming build up of book triad reviews building up over the course of the last year or so. I haven't done one of these since 2013. My goodness. That means there will also be a lot of me going "wait, wasn't this the book with the guy who did that thing? To that unicorn? Or was it a pegasus?".

Let's get right into my equine questioning, with reviews of Karen Miller's Empress, Jonathan Stroud's Heroes of the Valley, and Peter David's Fable Blood Ties, after the break.

Judging Judging Books By Their Cover

Question: is there a correlation between a fantasy book's perceived quality and the quality of its cover?

The answer which may surprise you below. Warning: surprise not guaranteed.

Bibliophile: Wait, We're Still Doing These?

"Books are for mooks." --Timon the Meerkat

This is Bibliophile.

It's been a long time since I've done Bibliophile, a look at the new books available at a randomly chosen Canadian university library. In part, that's because the blogging bug in general no longer creates the itch in me it once did (note to self: come up with better metaphor), but also because, even in the compromised, 12 books per post version, it was still regularly taking over 3 hours to compose. So we'll play around with the format a bit, and see if we can't come up with something still useful, but less time-consuming. After the break, then, six new books from the University of Calgary. As always, a bolded H marks a book also held by the University of Waterloo.

(In other news, my computer reset on me, meaning I lost all unsaved work. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I actually was working at the time for once, and lost five pages of the dissertation. Yes, I should have saved more frequently. I am aware of this fact. Believe me, I am aware of this fact. The level of my awareness could not currently be overstated. If the sounds of my curses could have been harnessed, the winter heating bill would be a thing of the past.)

Bibliophile: Murder, violence, and other white leisure activities at McMaster University

 “Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”
― Stephen King


Well, that was an unanticipated week of blog silence. Let me catch you up:
--I've got a piece coming out at First Person Scholar next Wednesday. Preview: DOOOOOOOOOM.
--The dissertation proceeds at a nonzero pace. Hurrah.
--I will complete Tales of Maj'Eyal. I will. And die trying, if current progress is any indication.
--Scandal is a strangely compelling show. Mostly, though, I just want to give Joshua Malina's character a hug.

And that's that.

This is Bibliophile.

This week, we'll be looking at the new books acquired by the McMaster University Library, after the break.

Bibliophile: Force of Habit and Death by Chocolate at Lakehead University

“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

 This is Bibliophile.

All right, the blogging's fallen off a bit this week. I blame the economy. Don't worry, the Bibliophile will put things back on track. This week, we're going to look at what new books are available at Lakehead University, after the break.

Bibliophile: It Only Hurts When You Laugh at Carleton University

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
― Sir Francis Bacon 

This is Bibliophile.

Ever hit undo one time too many and erase an entire blog post? Well, I sure did. I had all my books selected, and then, with a few errant key strokes, lost it all. Ah, hubris. It's funny--I've officially turned 30 today, and I keep interpreting everything as this omen for how the next decade will be. Oh, the restaurant I wanted to go to is closed for renovations? Omen. The weather's nice today? Omen. Lost a Bibliophile post? Omen. It's going to be a long next thirty years if things keep appearing to be symbolic constructions referring to other entities the entire time.  Anyway, this week, Bibliophile takes a trip to Carleton University. We'll be looking at some of the new books it's accumulated in the next month, after the break.

Bibliophile: Yesterday is Here Again

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” --William Styron
Note: I went to make this week's Bibliophile, when I realized I never got around to posting *last* week's Bibliophile. Which, in turn, was a Bibliophile that I had never finished for the week before that. Punctuality is hard. But it makes the title I originally intended even more apropos, so it all comes out in the wash.

This week, Bibliophile is on the road once more, with a short discussion of some new books at Brock University. Brock U has a lovely new book list, conveniently sorted by call number. And we will plunge its depths. After the break.
(I'll level with you--this is actually last week's Bibliophile. I started it, but there just weren't enough hours in the day, or at least that particular day, to bring it to the end. But today, I'm stuck at home. I forgot to refill my inhaler prescription, so any activity as strenuous as leaving the house is probably beyond my ability. So we've got plenty of time to wrap things up here.)

Book Triad: Brandon Mull's Beyonder Trilogy

The usual preamble and excuses for a book triad apply: I've fallen rather thoroughly off my nonfiction wagon, which is nothing new, but this time around, I also fell behind on my Goodreads reviews. It gets more complicated to find the reviews at that point, because the date added and the date finished reading get buried in the overall pile. But it so happens that I now have a stack of reviews ready for posting, and a promise to post more fresh off the digital presses, and so... ladies, gentlemen, other parties interested in the fine art of reading, I give you The Book Triad.
This one's a little different; I read an entire trilogy one after the other, and did a single review, so I'll just post that, with a bit of post-credit commentary at the end.  It'll be a fond trip down memory lane to the ramble-ridden book reviews of yore. So:
A review of

Brandon Mull's Beyonder Trilogy: A World Without Heroes, Seeds of Rebellion, and Chasing the Prophecy

After the break.

Bibliophilia: Gothic Animals at University of King's College

 “There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
― Bertrand Russell

The University of Waterloo seems to have retreated back into hiatus, so the Canadian Grand Tour continues, with the University of King's College in Halifax. The library is part of a group of Nova Scotia libraries, but as far as I can tell, that collection is distinct from Acadia's, Cape Breton's, and Dalhousie's, so I guess we haven't looked at it before. There's no new books page, so I'll limit the location to King's College, set it to books published in 2013, and see what comes up, after the break. As always, a bold H indicates that the book is in the UW holdings.

Book Triad: Series of Fantasy

So it's been a while since I've done a Book Triad entry. As usual, it's not because I stopped reading. No, I think I could give up the television and the gaming before I gave up the reading. Rather, it's because I've fallen rather thoroughly off my 2 nonfiction / 1 fiction rule.  Eventually, though, you have to just go with the fall, and move on. So without further ado, here is an all fantasy book version of Book Triad. Reviews of

The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks
Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

all after the break.

Toronto Trip 1: R&R meets D&D on Day 3

I finished Neal Stephenson's Reamde recently, and while there's a lot I could say about it--"interesting use of MMOs in narrative" and "Dickensian level plot coincidences" for starters--what really resonated with me in terms of what's going on in my life right now is a passage on vacations:
"He had never understood vacations, never really taken them. But sometimes he had talked to people who did understand and take them, and the story they seemed to tell had something to do with getting away from one's normal day-to-day concerns, putting all that stuff out of one's mind for a while, and going somewhere new and having experiences. Experiences that were somehow more pure and raw and true--the way small children experienced things--precisely because they were non sequiturs, complete departures from the flow of ordinary life."
(Sidenote: one of the advantages of an e-book is that you can search for passages like that by looking for keywords--I would have had a real problem looking for that passage in the physical version. But on the flip side, I can't tell you what page number that passage is on if you wanted to look it up yourself.)
Now, my trip to Toronto last weekend wasn't a vacation; I was there on business. But it did provide that non sequitor from my ordinary life, and it was enlightening in that regard. In fact, it usually is when I leave for a different place; that's why most of my vacation post series tend to end when I run out of time to do the posts rather than run out of things to say on the subject. Still, we'll try to divvy up the experiences again, and see what happens.  First up, then: Dungeons and Dragons.

Bibliophile: Looking for Love in all the Wrong Genres at University College of the North

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye 

I'm having my wisdom teeth removed Wednesday morning. Which, given my body's typical state of recovery, means the rest of that week is shot. And Tuesday's shot thanks to a tour I'm going on for out-of-academia job opportunities (because post-graduates must take what they can get), the end of the class I'm sitting in on (always fun to watch projects I don't have to do), a meeting with my supervisor (in which I explain that I won't be working on that dissertation thing until the teeth are better), and shopping (for some non-chew-heavy food). I'm pretty thankful for Monday, which is obviously against the natural order of things.

But you're not here for that. You're here for the books. Let the books be our guide. 

This week, we're touring the new books at Manitoba's University College of the North. The tour begins after the break.

Bibliophile: He Shoots, He Glowers! : The classic NHL gothic romance that never was, and some books that actually exist from University of BC

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

This is Bibliophile.

We're returning to University of British Columbia this week, the largest university in BC (apparently, population-wise; I would have assumed the biggest was Simon Fraser, so there you go). 

Too Long for a Tweet, Too Niche for a Facebook Post

I just started reading Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch.  The premise is, so far, that the various supernatural creatures of good and evil are managed by the Night Watch, which tries to push things towards Good, and the Day Watch, who push toward Evil.  Rather than open warfare, though, there's just the general acknowledgment that they're too different agencies working toward preserving a general balance.  There's something fundamentally Russian about taking the battle between good and evil and turning it into an ill-running bureaucracy.

Later Days.

Bibliophile: Doing Something About the Weather at Trinity Western

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

After a brief hiatus, Bibliophile is back.  After the break, we have discussion of some new books available at Trinity Western University.

Friday Quotation: There was a bright light, and someone slapped me.

"I remember being born. In fact, I remember a time before that. There was no light, but there was music; joints creaking, blood rushing, the heart's staccato lullaby, a rich symphony of indigestion. Sound enfolded me, and I was safe. Then my world split open, and I was thrust into a cold and silent brightness. I tried to fill the emptiness with my screams, but the space was too vast. I raged, but there was no going back. I remember nothing morel I was a baby, however peculiar. Blood and panic meant little to me. I do not recall the horrified midwife, my father's weeping, or the priest's benediction for my mother's soul." --Serfina, by Rachel Hartman. I could have posted a lot of things today. There's a Work in Progress I could've done. And I've been thinking of a new regular segment called Links I Got From Twitter Today. The week's been very interesting--meetings and gatherings, ridiculous amounts of procrastinating, then one incredibly productive two hour span for dissertation writing. I've started listening to comedy podcasts, with mixed results. But I will be doing none of those today, for today is quotation day. This is from a book I haven't actually started reading yet, but received for X-Mas all the same. It's off to a good start, I think. Not an incredibly original beginning, but a well-told one, which is more important. Later Days.

Movie Buff: Big Hair

After a brief sojourn for the holiday proper, Movie Buff is back, with the 2010 Disney Princess Flick, Tangled.

Thoughts, numbered, but in no particular order:
1) I thought the male lead was voiced by Owen Wilson, for a little bit, and thought he was smug and annoying.  Then I realized it was Zach Levi of Chuck, and thought he was charming and flamboyant.  I am fickle.
2) By taking a story that features a heroine raised by a magically knowledge woman posing as her mother, Disney has combined the evil stepmother with the evil witch.  Slow clap.
3) In case you're unfamiliar, the film is essentially the Rapunzel story, with added overtones of defying overprotective parents.  Disney takes a bold stance against satellite parenting.  Also a stance against literally sucking the youth out of your children.
4) It also added animal sidekicks, because... Disney.   If there aren't animals slavishly dedicating themselves to largely oblivious humans, then how we will be able to sell toys based on them?
5) On a related note, I kind of want to see a version of Les Miserables where the part of Javert is played by a horse now.
6) Early in the film, they show Rapunzel's growing dissatisfaction with her tower home via a montage of her doing all her daily activities: cleaning, swinging, ballet, reading, murals, etc.  While it's an effective scene, a part of me was actually thinking, "sounds pretty sweet to me."
7) A note to would-be tower prison wardens: if you don't want your captive daughters to yearn for the outdoors, you should probably not include open windows in your tower design.
8) It's surprising how aware I was of gender roles in the film.  I've watched a few animated kid flicks recently: How To Train Your Dragon, (obviously, since I did a review on it) Paranorman, and Brave.  But even Brave, which was explicitly about a girl's relationship with her mother, didn't quite scream "pay attention to gender roles" like this film did.  I think it's because the film isn't just a kid's film that happens to feature a princess as the lead; it's because it is a Disney Princess Film, and as such, it seems to funnel itself into such an interpretation above all else.  It's not bad on that score, really--the princess and thief pairing brings to mind Aladdin, but Rapunzel is much more the lead here than Jasmine ever was, and she isn't anyone's prize.  At the same time, I think I'd really like to see a Disney movie that featured a girl with other female friends.
9) On the note of gender awareness, it plays kind of weird in retrospect that the male lead, Eugene, voices the narration in the intro and outro.   Narratively, I can see the point, in that he won't show up for a while, and it's important that the audience realize he's coming.  And he explicitly says this is Rapunzel's story, not his, which is also important.  But at the same time, making him the narrator makes him, in a strange way, the author of her story, and that doesn't seem right.  And in another film, I may not have noticed it, but here... Disney Princess Film.  Gender spotlight.
10) There have been no good songs in a Disney film since they switched from 2-D animation.  This is probably not a coincidence.

Conclusion: I liked it better than Brave.  Not better than the dragon one.  Probably equal to Paranorman, but only because Paranorman had such a great climax.

EDIT: It's been pointed out to me that the movie is actually called "Tangled," not "Twisted." The mix-up is clearly Gregory McGuire's fault, not mine.
Later Days.

Movie Buff: Everywhere There Be Dragons

I just got finished watching How To Train Your Dragon, a mere two years beyond the movie's original debut.  It's the touching story of a boy who convinces his fellow Vikings to stop murdering dragons, and to enslave them as beasts of burden instead.  Awwww.

Dragons are interesting in genre fantasy, because there's so many varying portrayals, usually in terms of their intelligence.  Sometimes, they're basically human smart, as in, say, Timothy Zahn's Dragonback adventures.  Sometimes they're more cockerspaniel level, as in this movie, or the Discworld series (at least, most are).  And sometimes, they're much smarter than humans, as in Ursala Le Guinn's Earthsea.  Eragon, The Hobbit, the Pern series, Game of Thrones, Dragon and the George, the Farseer Trilogy, Havemercy (Cyberpunk dragon), Chronicles of Narnia, Name of the Wind, Myth, Cretien de Troyes, and Beowulf--lotta dragons.  TV Tropes even has a trope for it, "Our Dragons are Different," looking at how every fantasy series needs its own dragon.  Even more than the unicorn, the dragon comes up.

Dwarves, Elves, even monster races like the goblins and orcs and such are basically there to provide human species proxies, allowing us to displace the human Other onto something that don't exit.  Dragons are (probably) the most common example of the next step, as they're part human, and part animal. 

Not sure where I'm going with this.  Dragons are cool, I guess?  Also, I loved the collection of British (and Scottish) voice actors from the film:Gerald Butler, Robin Atkin Downes, Craig Ferguson, Ashley Jensen, David Tennant.  It's probably culturally insensitive to have so many UK folk play Vikings, but what else can you expect for a show glamorizing dragon enslavement?

Later Days.