A sea of endless bullet points
- "Invasives", my short bit of SFnal horror about caterpillars - which was inspired by a childhood camping trip that really freaked me out - will be featured in the upcoming issue of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. Full TOC here.
- Lately I've been writing a lot about stories and storytelling over at Cyborgology. Current essay: No One Tells Stories Alone. TR and Darrow get a mention, though not specifically by name.
Storytelling is shaped, limited, and facilitated by the medium through which it is told, and digital media allow for - and force - particular kinds of stories to be constructed and told in particular ways. This is also not necessarily new; we can see it in older broadcast media, print media, and even board games. What's important to attend to is how newer forms of technology affect how this happens. In Christopher Franklin's review of Spec Ops: The Line, he notes that the actual structure of FPS gameplay encourages the narratives driving those games to adopt a black and white Manichean morality, where any action that allows the player to progress through the game is understood as unequivocally good, and anything that stands in the player's way is unequivocally bad. - Along the lines of the above, know what's interesting? Seriously, Spec Ops: The Line. Haven't played it yet but I want to. I don't really expect to enjoy it, nor am I sure I'm wholly in favor of what it's actually doing, but I'm certainly in favor of what it claims to do. See also: the "No Russian" level in CoD: Modern Warfare 2. Also see also: The Stanley Parable.
- I finally have a meds combination that I think is actually working pretty well for me. I'm also doing yoga almost every day, which is sure as hell not hurting. Also have started running again.
- First editing pass for Harbinger has started and is actually close to done. I'd still love to get a beta reader or two for it but fast turnaround would pretty much be a must; I want to get the draft off to my editor at Samhain ASAP. Basic premise: 100 years in the future, America is a dystopian wasteland (of course), dude who has abandoned the privileged class for an honest existence among the common riffraff helps another dude being attacked on the street and ends up getting sucked into a mysterious theft, a violent resistance group, the potential end of everything, and growing attraction to the dude he helped while being very unsure of whether or not said dude is even human. Please get in touch with me if interested.
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