Archive for December, 2012

dod_front_paperbackI put my first book up on Smashwords, which is an online publishing site that lets you upload your electronic files and convert them into every conceivable ebook format for downloading.

You can go get yourself an ebook copy of Diamond of Darkness there now for free.

All told I moved about 17 copies of the Kindle version and 15 of the print version. Not bad considering I’m nobody, and hey I made some beer money—about 2 bucks per Kindle version and 5 bucks per print copy in royalties. Fun!

Though I figured with as many friends and family as I had I would have sold closer to 100. I didn’t aim low enough!

I did an official giveaway of 2 print copies, and I gave away another 12 print copies in the hopes of reviews.

Despite positive reactions only 1 family member and 2 friends wrote reviews. I was hoping for more feedback, even if it was poor—how else can I improve or have evidence there’s no hope? Still, all valuable data just the same.

So the hek with it, I lowered the print version from $20.00 to $14.99 which looks nicer than the $14.05 that would be cost. I tried making the Kindle version free (Seth Godin recommends it!), but you have to do a minimum of $0.99 for pricing. So that’s where it is now.

However! Smashwords allows you to do the freebie dance, so there I go. Actually, the interface was smooth and the instructions were pretty thorough and clear. Much better than the crummy Amazon no-help guide I used last year. I hope the Amazon hosers have improved since then because that bit the big one.

I’m busy working on Book 2 of the series, so I think as it comes into being this first book will slowly be moved aside for the fresh meat. There’s not much more I can do besides an audio file.

In the meantime, enjoy your free meal.

126_jessicaFor a long time I’ve had a roster of crewmembers who populate the internal main bridge of my psyche. You might say that the Star Trek organizational scheme provides a ready archetype for my thoughts and feelings to constellate around.

Handling the communications console is a personality named Jessica. I’m pretty sure she was meant to be the female companion who accompanies Logan in the 1976 film Logan’s Run. I had a childhood crush on the actress Jenny Aguetter who played Jessica in the movie.

At that age I thought Jessica the character was the real person and Jenny was just her name in our reality. So creating a character based on her in my own mind to accompany me on my journey of imagination, or just general life influenced by a personal inner world, seemed like a good idea.

The crew of the Starship Snipe still carries the internal psychic organizations I’ve given them to this day. However, I’ve never explored them in detail—they all embody personal connections with characters from books, movies and TV that I enjoyed growing up with.

With the UFO becoming the central organizing principle in my psychic voyage, it may be time to reexamine my crew and the starship model. Ultimately, Star Trek and the characters I’ve borrowed are someone else’s experience that has become collectivized.

Such communal models are easy to access and use. They have value to our survival. However, they can only be launch pads for our personal explorations. The human dimension of wholeness requires that we make a personal journey to inner space to align ourselves with the actual organic connectivity of people.

I need to strike out on my own and identify the processes and elements behind my image. What if I’m oppressing or harming some aspect of myself by relating to it through a simplified model of consciousness?

So here we go. Using my power of imagination to inquire about Jessica as an internal personality and psychological adaptation.

The name Jessica comes up in my dictionary as having a Hebrew origin—Yiskah and Iscah which means “shut up” or “confined”. There’s a Greek and a Latin version, Ieskha and Jesca respectively. Unfortunately there’s no cultural context to go on, I’ll have to beam in the Internet connection.

Which, as it so happens, is Jessica’s job on the starship. She’s helping me along with this, naturally. Maybe this is a search for identity episode, a character building moment where I finally gain enough understanding to grasp a concept of her personality.

I think of the Teen Titans comic issue #38—”Who Is Donna Troy?”—where a detective investigation leads to the truth of Wonder Girl’s parents.

A strange smell of sanctity runs past my nose. That Holy Ghost effect that I know Lucerna would find compelling evidence I am on the correct trail.

The first recorded use of Jessica comes from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, and refers to the daughter of Shylock, who is of Hebrew origin in the story. I also dig up numerous baby name sites that give variations of the meaning as having to do with either God seeing, watching and beholding, or referring to gifts and wealth.

I let this trail of synchro-mysticism go off into the woods for now. Next up is the position itself.

The communications officer in Star Trek has often been criticized as being little more than a switchboard operator, with Lieutenant Uhura’s role minimized many times to the point of uselessness. I agree with this assessment, mainly because the position is actually critical to the operation of the ship. It requires someone who operates at a high degree of ability to perform properly.

Think about it. The communications officer has to direct the flow of information all over the ship. Repair crews, medical teams, and security details all rely on this officer’s leadership to act efficiently. If a crewmember notices something amiss the communications officer will likely be the first to hear of it and be able to warn the captain or relevant department head.

Depending on how you interpret the technology and schematics of a starship, the communications officer also needs a high degree of technical knowledge to operate the subspace radio and long range sensors that go along with that. I could see skills in computer programming and electronics as being necessary.

Maintaining a selection of diplomatic strategies and tactics is a huge order. Languages, linguistics and translation all need a lot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge. The person in the position has to be adaptive, flexible, and open-minded as well as intelligent and highly trained.

There’s an element of espionage implied in this function too—ciphers, jamming enemy transmissions and releasing ship wide alerts. I can see why the Next Generation Star Trek world merged communications with security.

Needless to say, you see some hints of these roles with Uhura in the TV show, but it almost entirely disappears by the time of the movies. Space battles don’t require anything other than making sure the shields and weapons work. If they don’t speak English then shoot to kill. It’s profoundly anti-specialist, anti-technology, and anti-science.

Need to transmit or receive data or messages? Maintain channels of information in-ship? Jessica has done all this and more. I only vaguely comprehended it—mainly I fell into the trap of casting the girl on my ship into the role of social interaction mediator. See how powerfully influential role models can be?

The point of communication is to share, divide out, impart, inform, join, unite, and participate in. In other words, “to make common.” Such an important task! And yet, Star Trek has subsumed this role into something else after decades of making it a minor position.

No! Boo!

Well I’m bringing chat back, yo. Or at least recognizing what has always been there all along: Communications leader Jessica doing an incredibly difficult, complex, important job without recognition or respect from me. The collective reckoning needs to evolve; it’s way behind the times and has been fifty years ago.

At this point I have to start questioning my own assumptions. Is Jessica even her name? Is it a nickname based on a projection? Is Jessica really female, as a kid would grok it, or a human being from earth? I might be overreacting; it might just be the dialogue has been so limited as to include only basic details.

I’m usually not so good with practical questions. The time has come to face the difficulty and start asking, to open up a hailing frequency with my own communications officer.

Jessica, I’m listening!

In many fairy tales, childhood is the worst time of your life. This is worth pondering.

A brave and plucky life simulation computer game known as Long Live The Queen dares to take on the challenge of allowing you to explore this possibility, as experienced by a princess faced with adapting to a brutal adult world at court. It’s an extraordinary stance to play with in a market where franchises, sequels and reboots are all that matter.

Your mother (the queen) has died and your father has his hands full keeping the kingdom from falling apart outright. You have been sheltered by your parents so much you know literally nothing at all about the life skills needed to survive in high society.

Your father (the king) has arranged for you to be in complete command of your education with the finest tutors. You have but to select what two courses you take each week to steadily increase your abilities, knowledge, and experience. On the weekends you are free to pursue your own interests. In a little less than a year you will be old enough to officially assume the throne as queen and restore stability to the country.

As in many fairy tales, there are three daunting obstacles you must overcome.

First, every adult you meet is out to kill or manipulate you. That includes your father. You literally cannot trust anyone. People will try to use your influence to strengthen their own plots, attempt to assassinate you for reasons you have no idea exist, or just prevent you from reaching certain goals that conflict with theirs.

Second, you are still a child with very little control of your emotions. You must master your intense reactions to events and carefully think about the cost to your mood when you take action. Otherwise, your education will suffer and you’ll be pulled along by events instead of steering them toward your survival.

Third, you don’t have time to learn how to do everything that is required of you. There are not enough lulls in the action to allow you to close all the gaps in your vulnerabilities. Many of your opportunities will be lost, often without you knowing they were even there. You’ll need to make hard choices about what to focus on to be effective.

Good luck, kid.

The game is very unforgiving on the cruelty scale. Every choice you make has a cost. Decisions come back to haunt you later. Often you don’t know you’re in a dead end until you’re way past the point of no return. Maybe you should have spent that earlier time to learn Accounting after all. Save often and keep several waypoints looking backwards.

It’s harsh, but it makes a very strong point—you are in trouble and scarce equal to the demands thrust upon you. The alternative to victim is equally harsh though: What are you becoming as you get closer to your goal of reaching your own coronation?

I like it. Too often games don’t have the guts to face you with yourself through the choices you make ‘as if’ you were in a situation. Escapism is a noble and necessary form of play, but sometimes we need to be thrust into the haunted house. There are some forms of hypersensitive play with deep value that we may be losing out on. Long Live The Queen doesn’t let this path go unexplored.

Hanako Games have long been masters of the resource currency system. In games such as Cute Knight or Magical Diary decisions about where to take action and allocate points make for incredible gameplay. You need to be strategic and aware of how your choices affect the state of your character.

In Long Live The Queen this becomes manifest in the management of your mood characteristics. You control your mood both by taking actions during the story and by weekend activities such as attending court or visiting the dungeons.

Different moods give you bonuses and penalties to your education during the game. For example, if you are cheerful it is easier to learn many social skills. If you are willful instead of yielding, you will find it more difficult to learn critical court skills. But negative emotions can also be useful! Depression helps you learn artistic expression and being afraid helps you learn reflexes.

Mastering the balance of your mood swings is critical to a successful game.  It determines the speed at which you learn and at times what skills you can study at all. Every week of study counts; a streak of feeling pressured can be disastrous at the wrong time.

The choices you make in your education are the other part of your character’s agency.  What you choose to study will influence how you solve problems. You can’t fight off the bandits without some archery skill, but maybe it’s better to have enough skill in internal affairs to find out who sent them against you in the first place.

The level of a skill determines your options during the story—a high enough skill level in an applicable situation can give you more choices and provide you with information about what is happening. For example, knowing enough about what accepting a noble’s gift means will allow you to choose whether or not to accept it. Otherwise, you’ll blindly accept it (ooh shiny…) and commit to a course of action that may not suit you.

If you gain enough overall ability in a group of skills, you unlock an appropriate outfit. When you wear this outfit, say the Tea Dress, your conversation skills will get a bonus. Also, once you reach a certain level many skills give you additional options during the weekend. These activities may be used to make small adjustments to your mood.

It can be a huge help to have the option to play tennis at a competent level and blow off steam, increasing your confidence.

The game world itself is detailed and intricate, with a web of personal agendas that takes a lot of play to parse out. It has magical powers, mysterious creatures, and divinatory portents. There are secrets buried all throughout the realm. You’ll have to gain skill in the right areas to learn about the details. Or find out the hard way when you encounter things first hand right before you’re killed!

The descriptions of the skill levels as you earn them are elegant and to the point. I often felt I was learning a first class primer on music, history and cryptography as my young queen-to-be advanced. The interface is solid and the music is appropriate and subtle. You really start to feel as if you’re moving through a court of high pedigree and opportunity.

It’s an outstanding game. The premise is well developed and the gameplay is excellent. However, it has greater value than just being worth your time and money. There’s a powerful statement here implicit in how the game portrays a girl finding the strength to overcome the crushing expectations of the society in which she lives.

What kind of adult do you want to be? This is gobsmackingly important and relevant stuff in a world where girls flock to Bluebeard tales such as Twilight—where being a valued, infantilized object is the best you can hope for. This game pulls no punches in what you as a girl must face if you are to develop into the whole woman you are capable of.

It’s a twisted and warped labyrinth that requires you to continually reexamine what is most important to you. How will you pass through the landmarks of your journey without becoming someone else’s doll? Growing into a mature, whole adult capable of taking one’s place in the world is often a profoundly personal secret. This game reproduces that process in a way that is inviting, meaningful, and fun.

You don’t need to identify as female to find value in this game either. There are lessons here that males can take hold of and make hay on if they choose to introspect. Some of the experiences are universal—in the beginning you are full of possibilities, but should you reach the next stage of life (your coronation) you have undergone a highly individual ordeal of liminal transformation.

This is the fulfilled promise of computer games taking their place among the highest art forms possible by human beings. The contemporary era is a bleak wasteland devoid of meaningful rites of passage, save for diamonds in the rough such as this.

5 out of 5 Stars of the Magi.

I heard tell that without gospel there would be no rock and roll. I believe it’s true.

At some point, all great bands do an album of covers and jamming experiments. It’s inevitable; you need to return to your influences and work out their place in your musical development.

The acoustic elf-metal band CRIME and the Forces of Evil released an album of their turn at this kind of exploration and I’m warmly surprised. Usually this sort of thing is just not interesting to me at all, yet here I am energized by the exposure.

Total respect to them for having a lighthearted romp through their roots because this is important work. It’s an affirmation and a blessing to work through what has gone before and make it your own. The expressions of music belong to all of us, but if they aren’t renewed they fade from our spirit.

I loved their previous album, so I was expecting this to be a waypoint—a kind of rest stop to catch their breath and power up for the next round of discovery. Covers of standard issue favorites ho-hum, whatever. Boy was I completely wrong!

First off, these musicians have clearly improved since last time. How is that even possible when the last album was so good? There’s confidence in this collection, and that means this time they just sit back and have a riot of fun. Humor, camaraderie, loving life—the songs are well established but CRIME makes these songs pay.

They’ve been playing live long enough now that they are getting some serious chops. Some of the songs are live and sound fantastic. They bring in guest stars, another sign of leveling up, and while “Red is the Rose” is my least favorite song I still must say Leannan Sidhe sounds every bit as good as a mainstream act like Loreena McKinnitt.

When I hear “Old Black Rum” I find myself drawn in by the sheer fun of it all. It might be the best song about drinking I’ve heard yet. The elf spirit kindles a human passion for hanging out with your friends and singing along, or if you drink alone the recursive pleasure of roaming the hallways of your inner self in warm joy.

The first song, “Song for a Blockade Runner/High Barbaree” is the highlight and easily the strongest song—such great lines and pirate attitude—but don’t overlook “Hove in Long Beach”. A great beat and good fun music to feed the soul. Howl it!

“Paddy Murphy” rules. Best rhymes ever, with such a playfulness I can’t imagine a better funeral romp. Then there’s “I’m A Rover,” which is so singable it gets stuck in your head for days. “Columbia” is objectively the weakest song, but it is still wistful, beautiful and real.

The last official track, “Dalek Boy” is an outtake of sorts, with the musicians all speaking in mechanical voices as they try to cooperate long enough to do a rendition of “Danny Boy.” The absurdity of the track distinctly establishes this album as belonging to the irreverent humor that the group is developing a persona around.

There’s an element of public disobedience inherent in the songs, of being a lowdown outsider who is unapproved of by the rulers. In a way this is just what a gathering of super-villains actually is: ordinary people with extraordinary viewpoints hearing the call to gather into an assembly and defy authority that serves only a few superheroes and their estates. Hanging out in the pub singing songs might be the most dangerous place on earth for the League of Justice for the Fortunate Few.

This is how a band builds a catalog of items worth owning. Holy cow, can that be true? Keep your eyes on these folks.

5 out of 5 Stars of the Magi.