“Without Remorse” Impressions
I just finished Without Remorse, by Tom Clancy. It's about one of Clancy's more regular characters, John Clark, and is essentially an origin story.
I enjoyed the book overall, though I wouldn't say it was his strongest. It focussed more on low-level events and characters, rather than overarching plots and events, which was kind of neat, and somewhat similar to Patriot Games.
Some of the stuff that happens in the book doesn't quite make sense, and seem a bit convenient, rather than character-driven. This is especially true in the first couple chapters and the last couple chapters. But it's worth overlooking those things to get at the themes and morality questions that are involved.
One thing that did really strike me about Without Remorse is that it could be adapted into a really great movie, in my opinion. So just now I did a search for it, and lookie here. Could be interesting, if it happens!
I'd recommend reading the book, but you should read the books that were written earlier first, probably.
StarCraft 2
StarCraft 2!
It took me three days to beat the campaign on Hard, and I just finished my placement matches for 1v1 online, going 4-1 and ending up in a Gold league. I expect to get bumped down to a Silver league before too long.
The campaign was excellent. It helps to know that they're planning to release two more campaigns--one for Protoss and one for Zerg--so that I didn't expect any kind of major resolution at the end of this game. The story was pretty good; the characters were strong, though they definitely play up the whole "space cowboy" atmosphere a lot and riff on tough guy stereotypes. It's obvious they were going for a B-movie sci-fi feel, and they pull it off well, even if it's fairly over the top at some points.
The pre-rendered cutscenes are up to Blizzard's usual level of quality, and I love how much work they put into all the little conversations you can have with the various people on your ship between missions, as well as all the upgrade and research trees for army customization. It really fleshes the campaign out and makes it feel more full and immersive. The missions themselves are really varied; I can't remember a single mission that involved just building a base and killing all the enemies, not without a significant twist, at least.
I highly recommend you go out and get yourself a copy and play through it. I played on Hard and found the last few missions somewhat challenging, but if you don't have that much RTS experience there are Normal and Casual settings, too, so you should be able to make your way through it.
Leave a comment if you want to play online sometime.
Old Books
As you may know, I enjoy a wide variety of reading material. Though I generally buy fiction, when I branch into non-fiction I tend towards the academic world. That mainly means sociology, since that's my personal area of study, but I occasionally sample related fields, as well.
When you combine "related fields" with "collectible", you get something like the two old books I picked up at my favourite used-book store:
The Positive School of Criminology, by Enrico Ferri, was published in 1906, and the version I have was printed in 1913. It's based on some lectures the author gave at an Italian university in 1901. Criminology is an offshoot of sociology which deals with crime and law, and I'm really excited to see how an early criminologist thought.
The Collapse of Capitalism, by Herman Cahn, was printed in 1918 and deals with capitalism and American socialism, from what I can tell so far. Old-timey social theory is always interesting. It'll be fun to see how many of the author's references to Marx and Engels I recognize; I've read a decent amount of Marx in my own studies.
Along with these two academic/theory collectibles, I grabbed a couple of spy action novels (a Clancy book I didn't have yet, along with The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum), so we'll see if and when I get to those.
Which of these two old books should I read first?
Which book should I read first?
- The Positive School of Criminology (57%, 8 Votes)
- The Collapse of Capitalism (43%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 14
Loading ...What Do You Read?
I personally read a wide variety of books, but I'm curious what other people read. I have a few hunches about which categories in this poll are going to get the most answers, based on the demographics of who follows me on Twitter and, therefore, is likely to see this poll in the first place, but I figured it might be a fun exercise anyways.
Loading ...“Inception” Impressions
I watched Inception last night, and I really liked it. It has a lot in common with The Matrix in it's underlying concepts and some of its themes, but it's more subtle and worries less about establishing its internal logic in direct ways. Basically it doesn't want to be sci-fi in the way that The Matrix is.
The last shot is really good, and it does something I really love thematically, which is open up interpretation to the viewers and let them decide something important for themselves.
As I think about the movie more, a few things start to come up that don't entirely make sense, or that seem a bit contrived. The movie isn't perfect, but it's still very good.
I can't say too much more without spoiling things, and this is a movie that doesn't deserve to be spoiled, so I'll just leave it at that.
I highly recommend seeing it!
Special People
Special People is serialized superhero fiction with a fistful of twists.
Special people have special problems.
Losing Freight
Losing Freight is a serialized sci-fi novel where you get to vote on what happens next at the end of every page.
DISCOVERY
Prefer the feel of paper to the look of a screen? DISCOVERY is the first quarterly Year of Stories print book. You get nearly 200 pages of exciting fiction for only $11.99! Grab your copy now.
Flare Fiction: Volume 2
Galloway’s Hunt
Galloway's Hunt is a novelette set in the world of Galloway's Voyage, my work-in-progress novel based on the same title character. Buy it now for only 99¢!