I’ve been fighting exhaustion all winter. You might get some idea of how tired I’ve been, and why, when I say that where I live we’ve had forty inches of snow since December.
While I’m trying to come up with a real post, here are a couple more links:
1. How would you feel if you were a new SF writer, and on the back of your brand-spanking-new first novel you found this?
(Via.)
2. Jeff VanderMeer is soliciting his readers’ weird stories on his blog.
(This is the first half of a half-finished review. I’m hoping going ahead and posting it will prod me into writing the rest.)
The word for Deceit is “functional.” It does not tell an exciting story. It does not explore characters in great detail. It doesn’t say much about the human condition. Deceit was conceived and written solely to advance the editorial goals of Peter Darvill-Evans, New Adventures mastermind.
He’s testing his own editorial guidelines. He’s reintroducing Ace. He’s filling in the New Adventures’ future history. He’s cleaning up and retconning the last few books’ worth of characterization oddities. And he’s explaining his theory of time travel. As Darvill-Evans says in his afterward/apologia, “That’s a lot of functions for one medium-length novel to perform. I hope you didn’t notice it creaking under the weight of so many burdens.”
Deceit creaks. Understandably. Any writer juggling five such unwieldy objects hasn’t got a lot of spare attention for the things that make a book, y’know, good. The surprise is that Deceit is adequate. Continue reading New Adventures Reviews: Deceit (Part One)
Another IFComp review. Only a couple more to go at this point. Spoilers past the link.
IFComp review. Spoilers. Link. You know the drill.
Continue reading IFComp Reviews: A Matter of Importance, Beneath
Another IFComp review. (I’ll try to have some other stuff soon, for anyone uninterested in interactive fiction who might happen upon this blog.) Spoilers past the link.
A very brief review. Spoilers past the link.
Another IFComp review. Spoilers past the link.
More IFComp 2007 reviews. Spoilers behind the link.
Continue reading IFComp Reviews: Fox, Fowl and Feed, Orevore Courier, and Slap That Fish
Another IFComp 2007 review. There are lots of spoilers behind the link.
A review of two mystery games from this year’s IFComp. Spoilers behind the link.
Continue reading IFComp Reviews: Lord Bellwater’s Secret, An Act of Murder