Return to Nitpickery: King's Man and Thief

Hey y'all.  So this blog sees the return of Christie Golden, author of the Dark Templar trilogy.  In my new series Return to Nitpickery, we'll be going over the original fiction of authors to compare it to the work they did when creating their entry/ies in the Starcraft official novel franchise.  It feels unfair to judge a writer based on work they did for a franchise they don't have the right to properly control. It's not their characters, not their plot, and their creativity is instantly limited, particularly if Blizzard had specific things they wanted to accomplish with the book.

So the first book up will be Christie Golden's King's Man & Thief.

I had to use this picture because it's the only one bigger than a stamp.

Me and Aldaris (p31): Human After All

There were some days when Lee Cheonha just didn't like to work.  This was one of those days.  Sure, working in a shop wasn't so bad, and the pay was enough for Cheonha's few expenses, but for the moment Cheonha was happy to be walking home.  She walked quietly down the crowded streets of Seoul, dodging all the young teens and twenty-somethings going out to have fun.  Cheonha briefly considered calling Eunha to go somewhere.

No, I do not think so. Cheonha hurried past a toekkbokki stand.  I am far too tired for the karaoke bar or the PC bang.  Eunha always wants to go to those places.

To Cheonha, nothing sounded better than simply going home and lying on the couch.  Maybe break open her english workbooks and study again, if she felt like it, though she wasn't convinced she could make a decision until she had the chance to kick off her shoes.  The rest of the walk home passed by in a daze, and Cheonha soon found herself unlocking her door.  

With a yawn, Cheonha stretched and plopped down on the couch, without even bothering to remove her purse (and forgetting entirely about her shoes).  She sat down on beside it, closing her eyes for just a moment.

Wait....that smell...

End of March Update

Hey y'all.   So it's almost two in the morning right now, and I'm still working on some outlines for school.  I can't go to sleep yet, because they're due tomorrow and I need to make sure that they're ready by two o'clock.  Yeah, weird 'net class due time.

In any case, that's why I haven't been posting as much lately.  I've been working on a lot of school stuff, and this particular class has got me nervous, as I'm struggling through it right now, and my graduation depends on how well I can do on the next three tests.  I can't afford much distraction right now.

On the other hand, I haven't let this blog slip.  For one thing, I am working on my next Me and Aldaris post, so expect that soon.  Also, I'm planning on doing a series where I read and review non-Starcraft works of the authors of official Starcraft fiction, so that we can see how well their original work compares to a book on another entity's franchise.  I've already gotten a William C. Dietz book from work ready to go.

So please be patient with me, good content coming soon!  Also, I get my associate's degree this May (this particular class notwithstanding), so in the summer I'll have more time to get some stuff going here.  Maybe one of these days I'll stick to a set schedule, but we'll see what happens.

Nitpickery: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Hey y'all.  It's party time.

Five Arguments Against Good Graphics in Video Games

Hey y'all.  So as a kid, I dreaded the future of video games.  Why?  Because graphics were getting better.  Sure, the sample display of Star Fox 64 at the video store (yeah, this was the mid-nineties) looked pretty fun, but I didn't like the idea of game consoles having really great, developed graphics. Star Fox 64 was a great game, but it was a sign of the future -- games were going to get more complicated and realistic, and there was nothing ten year old me could do about it.  The future was coming, and I didn't like it!

Granted, I'm not really sure why I dreaded it so much as a kid.  Guess I always was an old fogey at heart.  But now that the age of modern, high resolution gaming has come to pass, I agree completely with my old opinion.  Modern gaming has become a beast, with more darkness, less charm, and just a conglomerate of spend, spend, spend.  My younger friends rant and rave about modern games, but I'd rather not bother anymore.

Keep in mind that I'm not being entirely serious with this post.  While I don't particularly like modern games, that's for varying reasons.  Not the least of which is that I'm now a grown up, so I don't have time to waste playing them.  This is just my reaction to people whining about older games, as well as an expression of my old fogey-ness and love of the aesthetic style of nineties games.

Onward!

1. Good graphics force games to be more about story.

Write Club: the Three Stages of Artistic Development

Hey y'all.  So I was watching an old season of Project Runway, and I realized that in all artistic endeavors, there are three general stages that happen to any given artist.  Granted, this is more hypothesis than certainty, but it's a general observation that people who want to do anything artistic have three general stages they go through, each adjusted in length and intensity by the individual's personality.

Stage 1: the discovery of talent/interest, rebellious stage.

This is the time when the person in question finds out about a particular art form, and that he's talented at it.  Or at least so interested in it, he thinks he's talented.  Which is perfectly fine, because thinking you're talented in an area is a great step up in actually becoming good at it.  Sure, you might realize how awful you were several years down the line, but if your false belief in your own quality got you ahead, then hey, it did its job.

A Philosophical Note on the Nature of Fate

Hey y'all.  So I was thinking about fate.  People tend to be rather "yes or no" concerning it.  That is, it exists, or it doesn't.  Doesn't it occur to anyone that this is strange?  Why should fate apply equally to all?