Book 5 of 2023 - Solaris

 

Solaris

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: ~210

Date Started: ?????
Date Ended: September 16, 2023

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.5/10

Poor Kris Kelvin. Guy studies the planet Solaris all his adult life, spends 18 months in space travelling to the station that hovers over Solaris, and when he gets there the surviving scientists are acting all weird and shit. And then he gets haunted by the phantom of an ex that committed suicide after he treated her like shit. No wonder this guy spends the entire book in an awful mood.

I love going back to classic science fiction. Great ideas, great characters, a great setting; Solaris has them. While Solaris' story is about humanity's continued attempts to communicate with what might be an extraterrestrial intelligence, its also about how even the most rational among us are capable of behaving irrational, and that maybe this penchant for irrationality is human. We find it so difficult to communicate with one another and there's so much about ourselves we don't understand; how the heck do we talk to a plasma ocean thingy?

great book recommend!

Book 4 of 2023: Red Team Blues

Red Team Blues 

Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: ~210

Date Started: ?????
Date Ended: August 12, 2023

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 7/10

Red Team Blues is an entertaining enough tech thriller. I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

Martin Hench is an accountant. But he's no ordinary accountant, you see. He's hip to what all the cool kids are up to nowadays. He's almost seventy, but still does all the cool drugs, knows all the dope lingo, pulls all kinds of babes, and is super tech-savvy.

There you go. That's my review. Breezy beach read.

Game 13 of 2023 - Immortality (2022)

Immortality

Developer: Sam Barlow
Publisher: Half Mermaid
Platform: PC
Genre: Interactive Film

Difficulty: Easy
Date Started: May 2 2023
Date Ended: May 4 2023
Hours: ~8

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9/10

Immortality is awesome. I almost gave up about 10 minutes in because I was just confused, I guess, but holy crap am I glad I stuck with it. 

Immortality is a sort of supernatural mystery thriller told in a non-linear manner. It involves three films starring Marissa Marcel, a promising young actress that made three movies that were never released and then disappeared.

Here, have some screenshots:

That's what they called me in college... ladies.

Carl: Kind of a dick.

I'm not sure what else to say about it. The gameplay is pretty basic, you just click on stuff in the scenes that you watch that take you to related scenes. You can watch clips in reverse, which you have to do in some cases to see hidden clips and advance the story.

The actors do a great job, particularly Manon Gage (Marissa) and Charlotta Mohlin (The One).

Heads up, a good bit of nudity, foul language, and drug use. Immortality is nice enough to give you a content warning in the beginning.

Go play Immortality.

Game 12 of 2023 - Death's Door (2021)

Death's Door

Developer: Acid Nerve
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platform: PC
Genre: Action RPG

Difficulty: Difficult
Date Started: Apr 15 2023
Date Ended: May 1 2023
Hours: ~16

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9/10

I almost quit this game about 10 minutes in. Let me tell you, I'm glad I saw it through, difficulty and all.

When looking into Death's Door, I kept seeing reviews that compared it to various Soulslike games. This put me off at first, since I am terrible at those games. I think I gave Elden Ring an hour, tops, and clicked the refund button after drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Assyrtiko.

What put me off at first was the lack of a map. I have absolutely no sense of direction. Here's the thing, though: once you learn how to play the game, it's actually quite accessible. I gave it some time and explored the world a bit, and eventually I kind of appreciated the lack of a map. You have to kind of wander and read the signposts, taking in the small details and encountering some of the enemies you'll face (and learning how to beat them).

This giant house is one of the first enemies in the game.

Don't get me wrong, Death's Door is pretty hard, but it has a much gentler difficulty curve than the standard Soulslike games. It's fairly forgiving in that when you die, you keep all the souls you collect and just get sent back to the nearest door you walked through. You fight two giant bosses in the first 10 minutes or so; trust me, Death's Door is not fucking around.

You're... going to see this a lot.

Yeah, the enemies can be tough, but as I learned their patterns (and died a lot) I slowly learned how to counter and anticipate the enemies moves to become an absolute killing machine.

Yeah, that's what you get! Plenty to go around!

The nameless crow protagonist, the Reaper, encounters a wide variety of interesting characters, both friend and foe. There's Pothead, an unfortunate soul whose aunt tried to make him immortal by turning his head into a pot. He, of course, asks you to waste her.

"Look, I just met you, but you need to kill my aunt. Kill her good."

Mercy is for the weak. Put her in a body bag!

Death's Door has a charming, humorous, tone that helps the difficulty go down easier, like sugar with the pill. The bosses you face are fearsome to be sure, but you can't help but love them.

Honestly felt kinda bad killing this guy, but I'm a Reaper and a Reaper's gotta reap.

Death's Door is rendered in a simple, cartoony style, but is aesthetically arresting. This, combined with the clever level design and puzzles, provided a great incentive to wander the world and discover its secrets.

A nice room in which to take a breather before reaping the fuck out of little gremlins or whatever.

Gorgeous.

tl;dr: Death's Door is great and you should play it.

Book 3 of 2023: The Halfling and Other Stories

The Halfing and Other Stories

Author: Leigh Brackett
Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 351

Date Started: March 25th, 2023
Date Ended: April 26, 2023

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 6.5/10

Well, now I know it takes me about a month to finish a standard size novel. Pathetic!

I found out about this book by following the great Pulp Librarian on Twitter:

The purple #Arctic fox! The Halfling and Other Stories, by Leigh Brackett. Ace, 1973. Cover by Karel Thole. #SciFi pic.twitter.com/lFXuPTqwm7

— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) February 28, 2016

The Halfling and Other Stories is a collection of short stories and novellas by celebrated sci-fi author Leigh Brackett. Interesting fact about Brackett: per Wikipedia, she worked on an early draft of Empire Strikes Back and apparently some of her ideas were left in the film. She unfortunately died in 1978, before the 1980 release of the movie. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett#The_Empire_Strikes_Back

This collection was published in 1973, but the stories here were all written and individually published in the late 40s and early 50s, and as a result, they exhibit some early sci-fi tropes, e.g. Mars has little green men, Venus is covered in jungle and has reptilian or creepy white humans, etc. If you can get past that, (and you should), you've got a collection of some pretty solid, classic sci-fi adventures to get through. 

Here's a brief breakdown of each story:

The Halfling - A decent start. This is almost a hardboiled detective story (which Brackett also wrote) set in an interplanetary carnival. The term 'halfling' refers to aliens in the story for some reason, I guess because they are sort of human? Anyway, the main character falls head over heels for his new, mysterious carnival dancer. A series of murders ensues, and his new dancer turns out to be a religious zealot assassin. Short and a good bit of fun.

The Dancing Girl of Ganymede - Another dancer story? Huh. Anyway, this one is pretty good. The main character falls in love with a mysterious dancer while he's just chilling out on Ganymede. He's captured by her 'brothers,' and it turns out they are all androids on the run from the law. This one ends on a downer with everyone dying, but not before the villain explains to the protagonist that he hasn't won, that humanity will continue to create androids to do the jobs they do not want or cannot do, and eventually they will inherit their rightful place as masters of the universe.

The Citadel of Lost Ages - More novella than short story, The Citadel of Lost Ages takes place in the distant future after the Earth has become tidally locked because of 'the dark star.' Humanity has been enslaved by the Numi, a race of human/feline hybrids from the dark side of the world. Fenway, the hero, escapes his masters and must lead a ragtag group of tribesmen to the Citadel, a storehouse of ancient knowledge in the dark hemisphere that will help humanity overthrow their oppressors.

All the Colors of the Rainbow - This might be my favorite story in the bunch. Flin and Ruvi, a married couple and representatives of the Galactic Federation end up in Great Falls, Montana, during their mission to share knowledge with humanity in order to help them integrate into galactic society. Great Falls turns out to be a sundown town, and Flin and Ruvi, being green-skinned, are subject to a horrific hate crime. Flin gets revenge by using his weather manipulating technology to flood the city.

The Shadows - This one was ok. A grizzled spacer leads a group of young, eager explorers to a planet that is suspiciously devoid of sentient life. Shadows stalk the explorers and an ancient hunger is awakened. It's ok.

Enchantress of Venus - I liked this one a fair bit. Enchantress of Venus features Eric John Stark, a character that shows up in several Brackett stories. Stark is a Terran that was raised by Mercurian aboriginals and later adopted by a human. He's a bad motherfucker with a good heart. Stark ends up in a Venusian shithole lorded over by an inbred family of nobles. Spoiler, he fucks them up and frees the slaves.

The Lake of the Gone Forever - Okay, we're getting into the dregs here. In this story, our main character Rand Conway accompanies a wealthy industrialist, his daughter, and an exo-anthropologist (is that a word?) to Iskar, a planet his father once visited. His father's dying regret was that he could never come back to the Lake of the Gone Forever. While the general message of the story is quite good and progressive (colonialism is bad, exploiting people is bad, etc), I felt the actual story was just sort of weak and might be my least favorite of the lot.

The Truants - This last entry is not listed in the table of contents; a bonus track, if you will. This story is extremely silly, involving a bunch of alien joyriders that stole their parents' spaceship looking for other children to play with. They invite the local kids, including the daughter of our protagonist, Sherwin, to come aboard their spaceship and visit their homeworld. The local parents start up a posse to give these aliens what for, but when Sherwin discovers that they are just children as well, he just speaks up in a paternal tone and they split. I guess parental authority transcends interplanetary barriers.

All in all, this is a decent collection of stories by an excellent author. It's by no means her best, but worth checking out for classic sci-fi fans. If you need your science fiction to be hard, maybe look elsewhere. If you can get past the dated tropes (and you should try), there's fun to be had and timeless themes in these stories.

Game 11 of 2023: Chicken Police: Paint it RED (2020)

Chicken Police: Paint it RED

Developer: The Wild Gentlemen
Publisher: Sega
Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure, Visual Novel

Difficulty: Easy
Date Started: Apr 14 2023
Date Ended: Apr 15 2023
Hours: ~6

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.5/10

Chicken Police! Police that are chickens! It's the famous Chicken Police!

In Chicken Police: Paint it RED, you play as Sonny Featherland, an aging cop (that's also a rooster) only a few months from retirement. In the tradition of hardboiled detective stories, Sonny is doing his best Phillip Marlowe/Humphrey Bogart impression, speaking in the patois unique to the prohibition era underworld.

Chicken Police: Paint it RED feels straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel, which is obviously the intent. Full of the tropes and bon mots of old pulp novels, Chicken Police mostly plays it straight. Sure, there's plenty of humor and clever (and not so clever) references and eye-winks, but this is more homage than satire. And you know what?

It works. It really does, and I liked it a lot.

You though I was kidding when I said he was a chicken but I wasn't, though. I wasn't.

The setting is, quite frankly, fantastic. The story takes place in Clawville, a city inhabited by a diverse spread of anthropomorphic animals. Clawville is something of a grand social experiment where predators and prey live in (relative) piece. Humans apparently existed in the distant past, but are now relegated to myths and legends. Andromorphic insects live in the Hive, a ghetto where even cops dare not enter. Insects are subject to extreme racism and poverty, and are depicted as having to take desperate measures in order to survive including and not limited to selling their larva to food manufacturers for cash. Jesus, that's dark. Everything is rendered in shadowy black and white, except for a splash of color here and there.

Multi-species harmony doesn't come without a price, though. Clawville has a figurehead king, but is actually ruled by the Council of Twelve, most of whom are in the pockets of murine mega-gangster Hobart "Ibn" Wessler.

Sorry, he's just too cute to be afraid of.

Sonny and his partner Marty are up against a corrupt system, attempting to figure out who is threatening Natasha Catzenko, nightclub owner and the girlfriend of Ibn Wessler. The gameplay is mostly point and click adventure, with some minigames and visual novel elements. Most of the time, you're traveling around the city questioning people, adding clues to your cluebook. Occasionally you get to interrogate a suspect, and your questions determine how much of the story you actually learn. Sonny gives you clues as to the suspects personality, and you have to choose your questions carefully. This is mostly straightforward, but I found a few instances where Sonny would be like "Yeah, now's the time to go in HARD!" followed by a bunch of softball questions.

I found the minigames to pretty weak to be honest, and the game would be better without them. You get into a shootout/car chase twice during the game, and I kept failing until I finally realized I wasn't supposed to shoot the bad guys, just their car. There's a minigame where you zip up an escort's dress, and it's just sort of... pointless. It's not hard, it doesn't accomplish anything, and you don't have to do it.

Like, why would I do that? Why would I NOT shoot the bad guys, with machine guns, that are trying to shoot me? Wouldn't that be easier?

Natasha Catzenko also gets a musical number that I found embarrassing. Like, the song was so bad I cringed(but well produced, the whole game is well produced actually).

tl;dr: Great game for adventure fans. Really liked it and hope there's more Chicken Police adventures to come.

Game 10 of 2023 - Like a Dragon: Inshin (2014/2023)

Like A Dragon: Inshin

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Platform: PC
Genre: Action Adventure

Difficulty: Moderate
Date Started: Apr 3 2023
Date Ended: Apr 14 2023
Hours: 10

Finished: Not Yet/No
Final Rating: 6.5/10

I have yet to finish a Yakuza game, even Yakuza: Like a Dragon which I loved. I guess I just get kind of overwhelmed by all the stuff you're supposed to do. I love the setting and the characters and the story, I just never finish them for some reason.

Unfortunately, I didn't break the streak with Like A Dragon: Inshin. I liked this game at first, particularly the setting. I think I ended up getting frustrated with the combat, where sometimes Ryoma would seem to take my button input as polite suggestions, and the camera which I felt was a little... touchy. I don't know, I'm probably just bad at the game.

It's not like I thought combat was bad. You get different styles: fists, sword, revolver, and a revolver/sword hybrid where you just flip out and wreck dudes but can't parry. The revolver is particularly hilarious, because it fires so rapidly and you never have to reload. Whenever I was feeling lazy I would just run away from the enemies and spam the fire button. It usually worked out pretty well. 

You can unlock a bunch of different moves as you gain experience in each combat style, and many have some pretty visceral and bloody animations, which makes this game all the more hilarious because Ryoma doesn't really kill anyone.

Hot damn that's a lot of blood! Don't worry; he'll be fine.

Ryoma tears through combat like a demon; slicing, shooting, and stomping his opponents without mercy, only for them to just get up and apologize or issue empty threats.

See? He's fine.

If this kind of combat sounds fun to you, don't worry, there's plenty of it. Ryoma can't walk around the corner to the damn green grocer without getting jumped seventeen fucking times by identical groups composed of 3-5 randos. D-Don't the outlaws in Kyo ever speak to each other, like 'hey fellow outlaw, see that guy in the grey robes, with the hair? He's wrecked like 100 of our fellows, maybe steer clear of him, eh?" Well, I guess not. Kyo's lowlifes are more than happy to keep running face first into your bullets.

Speaking of Kyo, it's gorgeous and infused with personality. Like A Dragon: Inshin has a virtue system, where the more you interact with the community (shopping, helping people, etc) you earn virtue points where you can buy upgrades, like additional inventory slots. You can form relationships with shopkeepers and bartenders the more you patronize their establishments, and you're rewarded with virtue points and finding out a little more about the people that inhabit Kyo. I always loved these little human touches in the Yakuza games, and it always made me feel like I was playing a caring human that also happened to be a bad guy stomping badass.

The characters in the game are colorful and interesting, as usual.

Whenever an eyepatch dude shows up, you know he's bad news.

It seems like everyone, even the villains, has an interesting story to tell and that was what kept me playing this game.

 

When two naked dudes go at it, I wanna see hogs flappin'. Cowards!

I found myself enjoying the minigames a bit more than the main game. Fishing was pretty chill, if a little simplistic, and the karaoke minigames are one of my favorite bits of the Yakuza games.

All fishing minigames should be like this.

Karaoke, my favorite Yakuza pastime.

Aaaaaaanyway, Like A Dragon is decent. It's fine. I doubt I'll come back to it, but the ten hours or so I played were worth my time.