I'm still feeling flush with excitement at completing my first book. It's been a wonderful, long, unexpected, enjoyable process. I'm still kind of processing everything that has happened and what it all means. Without further ado, let's commence the rambling.
The way it all started was a bit like a fairy tale, with Ray Rischpater playing the part of the fairy godmother. I had thoroughly enjoyed my previous technical editing gigs for Ray and Chris Haseman, which allowed me to go outside my normal technical circles, pick up some good new skills, and, even better, exercise the critical and analytical parts of my brain. The two books were very different - Chris's was written quickly, relatively casually, and was extremely dense. Ray's lasted for many months, was more structured, and regularly stepped away from the code to take a higher view of the mobile space. I like Ray and Chris, and it was an honor to work with them in this new venue.
I really enjoyed the process, and daydreamed a bit about writing my own book, but never really did much about it. Then, due to a fortuitous turn of circumstances, Ray connected me with some of the people at Apress to write about BlackBerry. It just so happened that I'd been focusing on BlackBerry almost exclusively at work, a change from my previous BREW-heavy experience, and felt like I had a lot that I could contribute to a book. We discussed it, and the book proposal went through several iterations. When it all finished, I had a five-page proposal I'd written, complete with a table of contents, and a title: Advanced BlackBerry Development.
Having completed the earlier technical reviewing gig definitely helped prepare me somewhat for the process of writing a book, but it was still fascinating and occasionally surprising. I don't think I've ever really appreciated just how many people are involved in this undertaking, and how they come in and out of the picture as the book comes along. The editor who had initially recruited me seems to be more business development oriented... we keep in touch, but he wasn't hands-on for much of the writing process. Instead, I worked primarily with another editor who showed me the ropes, got me used to the Microsoft Word templates that Apress uses, offered useful feedback, and generally helped give me confidence that I was moving in the right direction. Later on I'd work closely with a coordinating editor/project manager; we'd check in frequently, often multiple times a day, to make sure that materials were being received and edited on schedule. Towards the end of the process I got to work with a technical reviewer, a copy editor, and the fine folks at production and layout.
Possibly the biggest surprise for me is how fast the whole thing was. On the one hand, yeah, it has taken me about four months from start to finish. On the other hand, though, the actual chapters just flowed out. Apress maintains a wiki that, among other things, contains useful advice for new authors, and they promulgate a phenomenal strategy for writing a book. Basically, you should subdivide, then subdivide, then subdivide again. When you have a manageable chunk, do everything you need to do with it: do your research, write sample code, draw diagrams, come up with examples and tables. Then you write it - as they observe, by this point, it practically writes itself. Once it's done, you move on to the next chunk. There's no worry about losing your place, about forgetting to cover something, about repeating yourself. You create a plan, then execute the plan - what could be simpler?
The original schedule had been for me to finish the first 3 chapters by September, and the rest of the book by November. I realized that this schedule would allow me more than 2 weeks per chapter for the first 3 chapters, but about a chapter a week for the rest. Since I would also be doing edits and such at the end, I was concerned about creating a bottleneck, so I asked my editor if I could write ahead of schedule. He said, "Go for it!" And I did. For week after week I wrote and wrote. Not a single day went by that I didn't write something. I tapped away on the Caltrain commute in the morning, and tapped again in the afternoon, and switched to my desktop computer for further tapping once I got home. Some weekends I would hole up in my living room and just pound out more and more of the book. It was exhausting, but also totally exhilarating. I felt a constant sense of accomplishment: "Yes! I drew another diagram!" "Yes! I finished another section!" "Yes! This chapter is DONE!"
Oooh, before I forget: this book also taught me to love diagramming. I do really enjoy sketching out design and architectural diagrams on a whiteboard or notepaper, but my handwriting is horrible. I'm used to fighting with Microsoft Visio or Rational Rose for drawing diagrams on the computer, and just hate them. I can easily spend five or ten minutes just trying to make all the lines straight, and the programs still won't let me get them just right. I think that I've improved myself a lot while writing this book, and the most dramatic instance may be becoming a far better illustrator. And, 100% of the credit goes to OmniGraffle. (With an assist to Ray, for introducing me to the program, which he used in his own book.) OmniGraffle is... well, it's like sorcery. It's a Mac program, you drop shapes onto a sheet, drag them to where you want them to go, and then draw in the lines connecting them. Poof! The process takes less than a minute, with a result that looks far cleaner than something I could have spent twenty minutes on in Visio. It uses helpful guides that help ease shapes into place, automatically display rulers when you're trying to line something up, lets you grab and move multiple pieces together... oh, and the magnets just work like magic, keeping the lines where you want them to be. On the really complicated diagrams, it let me take control and manually position things where I wanted them to do; for the bulk of my diagrams, no extra effort was required on my part. Hats off for a job well done!
Back to the book proper - I kept dropping off chapters to my editor. He had some great, detailed feedback on the first couple of chapters. I had initially designed the book by looking at the table of contents for Beginning BlackBerry Development and picking up where that book left off. As a result, the book assumed the reader was up-to-date on all the basics of BlackBerry programming, and plunged right into new material. We eventually decided that it would be helpful to include an introductory chapter that would review the basics and cover the most important points. This would be helpful for people who were going directly to this book without reading the "prequel," or for people who had waiting a while between the two and wanted a quick refresher course. Because we realized this so early, I could build it into my schedule, and more importantly, tailor later chapters' contents slightly differently by controlling when and how certain concepts were introduced.
The feedback became more minor as the chapters continued. I asked the editor if I should keep writing after I passed the third chapter. To be honest, I would have kept writing regardless, but I was really curious whether I should keep handing them in or just sit on them until the September deadline. He encouraged me to keep writing and keep submitting, so I did. It was so much fun, I just couldn't stop! A lot of the book, especially the first several chapters, covers material that I deal with quite a bit at work and that I could code in my sleep, like media capture and playback. As I got further in, I started to tackle chapters where I had less hands-on experience. That was even better, because I got to learn some new stuff, process it, play around with code, find out what worked, figure out the best way to do certain things, check out the collective wisdom on the forums and technical articles, then distill it all down to a compact and (hopefully!) helpful segment.
Funny story: Of course, I kept my day job during this whole process. We were (and are) working on a high-profile project that can lead to a lot of pressure. We had been going back and forth for almost a week on a particular problem with authenticating our client against a third-party server. The people who write the server are way overseas, so we could never work anything out in real-time; we'd ask questions, and get an answer when we came in to work the next day. Anyways, on this particular day we had a 9AM conference call (beginning of our day, end of theirs) to try and hash out this problem once and for all. I arrived in the office a bit before 8 to prepare for the call. I found that the server team had finally fixed the issue that we had been reporting. I fired up the RIM emulator and hit the server. Success! We were getting data back. But, wait - as I looked at the bytes for the first time, I realized that they were returning the data in Base64 encoding instead of raw binary. "Oh, no!" I thought to myself. "Converting from Base64 to raw bytes is a pain. I remember because it was annoying to write that part for my book. Wait! That's right, I already wrote that code!" I hopped onto Google Docs, found the relevant chapter, copy-and-pasted the decoder into our source, and then ran it again. Success! When the 9AM call came along, I could calmly and confidently lean into the speakerphone and say, "Yes, thank you for solving that problem on the server. We are now able to log into the system." Ain't nothing like a side gig that directly increases your value on the main gig!
Because I kept flying, I was almost done with the book by the time the first 3 chapters officially came due. I handed the last few off to my coordinating editor, and then started the review process. Reviewing proved to be a serious case of "Hurry up and wait." I went for almost a month at one point with absolutely nothing back to review, then would get 8 chapters all at once. It was fine, though. Reviewing was a much quicker and easier process than the writing itself; even on chapters that I hadn't looked at in months, it was always really simple to figure out what needed to happen.
I found that moving from full-on writing mode to editing mode was surprisingly difficult. I had gotten so used to months of constant writing... it used to be that, any time I had any free time at all, I would think, "Oooh, I should try to fit in another section!" Once that was done, I would realize that I had some free time, then just sort of sit down and say, "Soooooo.... what should I do with myself?" This is when I picked up HalfLife 2 and started playing games again after an incredibly long wait.
I particularly enjoyed the copy-editing process. I'm an English Lit major, and have a sick enjoyment for copy editing myself... I need to be careful when other people ask me to edit their stuff, because some people can be irritated at the things I'll comment on. ("Don't use passive voice here... don't end a sentence with a preposition...") Anyways, almost all of the copy-edits were clear and good and made things feel tighter and sound better. One of the most rewarding aspects of this process was identifying some gaps in my own skillset. I've been writing and editing for my entire life, but I've never taken a real, former grammar class. In a way, I've mainly been skating along by reading a TON and then editing so things sound right. But in some cases, things that sound right to me aren't actually right. The biggest example I saw here was something that I apparently do a lot: place adverbs after verbs. For example, I would say, "I went to the store quickly," or "They kissed passionately." My editors, though, would change it to read "I quickly went to the store" or "They passionately kissed." (NOTE: Sentences are for illustrative purposes only. No kissing occurs within this book.) Now, when I read those sentences, they sounds just as good to me, but now that I know the latter is preferred, I can try to be on my guard and catch myself when I make that mistake clumsily... or rather, when I clumsily make that mistake. :-)
The last few weeks have, honestly, just been all fun. I've reviewed the galley proofs, written the acknowledgments and introduction, signed up for my Amazon author page, and started talking with Apress about marketing the book. I decided to splurge and hire an actual photographer (a friend of a friend) for an author photo. I can't wait for the moment when I first see the book on an actual bookshelf.
The whole journey has been incredibly fun. That said, now that I've been through it once, there are definitely some things that I'll do differently the next time (assuming that there is a next time).
First and foremost, I want to take more time on it. Like I said above, the speed was one of the most exhilarating parts of the whole process. However, because I was so eager to get the words down and send them off, I did only a cursory editing pass between writing and submission. My reasoning was sound: I wasn't sure how much the structure of the book would change during the course of initial editing, and I didn't want to take a lot of extra time on fine-tuning passages that might be drastically restructured or rewritten anyways. Since I knew that there would be multiple editing stages, both over technical and over grammar contents, I'd have plenty of time to tinker with them.
Now that I've been through the full process, I know that that isn't necessarily the case. Yes, there are multiple editing passes, but not as many as I'd thought - with Ray's book, I had tech-reviewed each chapter twice, with the second pass basically just double-checking Ray's corrections. For this project, there was just a single technical reviewing phase. (The second would have been the perfect time for me to revisit the flow of the chapters, once the technical content was locked but before copyediting started.) Additionally, even though I might go for weeks without getting any chapters, when things did come in for review I needed to turn them around very quickly. I had enough time to respond to all the specific edits I got, but not enough to strongly rework things as I would have liked. With copyediting, again, I had expected to get another editing pass to make final adjustments, but it turned out that we just had the one.
The end result of all this was that, once I got the final galley proofs, I was still finding stuff that I wasn't happy with. Unfortunately, that's the worst time in the whole process to make any changes; here, the design of the book is pretty much locked into formatted PDF files, and any changes are difficult and expensive to make. As a result, I'm limited to 10 corrections per chapter. Most of these ended up going to genuine production corrections (mis-set type, altered diagrams, formatting issues). I did get to fix all the genuine typos I found that had made it through, but if it wasn't for the limit of 10, there would be fewer things in the final book that make me wince. (Nothing TOO bad, but some things I just don't like to do, like repeat a word twice in consecutive sentences, or use passive voice, or over-use semicolons.) None of this is Apress's fault, of course, just my own. Now that I've been through this and seen how it works, I'll probably slow down on the initial writing portion of the book and build in time for a more thorough edit. It turned out that the technical and copyediting reviews didn't make any sweeping changes to the book, just adjustments, so I shouldn't need to worry too much about sinking time in there unnecessarily.
That said, doing this quickly definitely had its advantages. We were originally planning for a final first draft in mid-November, with a publication date sometime in February 2010. Because the drafts were done so early, Apress was able to move up the date and publish in November. That's pretty huge, for everyone involved. On my end, that means that I can finish the writing process earlier, relax a little, and start working on future projects. For Apress, they get to go to market at around the same time as the Beginning BlackBerry book, which should help sales for both titles, and may get a bit of a boost over the winter holidays. And, of course, their in-house editors can focus on future books as well.
It was also interesting to see exactly how the monetary aspect of this all works. I'm definitely not going to be able to do this full-time, and if you divide my total funds received by the number of hours that I've spent on the book, it has been a very unlucrative endeavor. But, again, it's fun, it's something that fits nicely into my commute time and weekends, and it's hard to argue against a pursuit that strengthens my technical skills while providing a little extra cash. Anyways, the way it works is, you get both an advance and royalties. The term "Advance" is a bit of a misnomer. Unlike, say, the advance for a new novel, which might allow an author to spend months writing without needing to find work, this advance is paid in arrears. As such, it's more like a standard work-for-hire agreement than a forward-looking or speculative investment. You are paid one-third after Apress approves the first three chapters; this lets them check out your bona fides, see that you actually can produce on a schedule, and make sure that you're producing quality work. The next third is paid once the book is about two-thirds done, which I guess is more of a check-in. The remainder of the advance is paid after the book is entirely complete, including all the edits, corrections, source code submission, and so forth. That helps ensure that authors stay engaged through the process and don't drop out once the draft is done.
In my case, it went somewhat differently. I actually did want to use the advance as an advance, at least in part: I used the money I was expecting from my first payment to buy a personal BlackBerry and sign up for a BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) account with T-Mobile (they have awesome month-to-month prepay contracts available, provided you call them directly). I also created a personal account for the BlackBerry developer program and ordered a personal set of code signing keys. (There are tons of BlackBerry devices and keys at my office, but I was careful throughout the process to keep the two separate.) This wasn't a huge investment, but altogether it came to many hundred dollars during the project. Anyways, I finished the first three chapters ahead of schedule, and my editor approved the first advance payment in August. However, due to an increasingly bewildering series of setbacks, I didn't actually receive any funds from Apress until November, when the book was virtually done. Apparently they have switched their back-office to New York - you can find some chatter from other authors online if you look around - and... actually, I don't even want to speculate what the issue is, because I just don't know. Anyways, they finally sorted it out, and I'm hoping that I'll receive the remainder of my advance before too much longer.
Even though the advance is paid out differently, it still works similarly to a traditional book contract in other respects. I'll receive a fraction of the price for every book that is sold. Obviously, I don't have a lot of exposure to the industry, but I think their contract is extremely fair. The share that you get is based on the number of copies that sell within each accounting period, so the better the book does, the more you are rewarded. The amount that the share is calculated from is derived from the Apress profit, not the list price or the sale price, so books that were sold at a wholesale discount won't generate as much revenue for you. There are also provisions for electronic book sales, subscriptions, and other new-media-type purchases. All of these get counted up each quarter, and they calculate your share. The share is used to pay back the advance, so I'm not expecting to see any royalty money soon. Once the advance is paid off, future royalties accrue to you.
I'm curious to see how the book does financially. Mobile software development is a niche category in the software industry (albeit a dramatically growing niche, thanks to the success of the iPhone), and BlackBerry development is a particular region within the niche, so I'm sure that the book won't do gangbusters. Still, since I'll get to see the sales figures for the books, it'll be really interesting to figure out just how many people are getting their hands on my words.
Now we're heading into the marketing phase for the book. I don't have anything particular planned; if we'd published a month or so earlier, I might have explored doing something for the BlackBerry Developer conference, and depending on how things work out, I might try to attend it next year. (There are several other conferences that are peripherally related, like Java ONE, Mobile Developer Days, and so on... I'm not planning on doing anything with those, but we'll see what happens.) Oh, and I'm also starting to write some more articles on mobile development; I enjoy doing that, and it's been a while since I have. Other than that, it will largely be in Apress's corner.
So, yeah. It's been incredibly fun! I've loved the journey. I've learned a lot, and know that I'll do some things differently the next time around, but mainly I'm just very excited to have had this opportunity. Excelsior!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Unseen Academicals
Now that I've read, y'know, every Discworld book ever written, I'm now limited by reality and Terry Pratchett's writing schedule to feed my urge. Fortunately, Pratchett has always been a fairly prolific writer, so the process is nowhere near as painful as, say, waiting for the next entry in A Song of Ice and Fire.
That said, I almost didn't pick up Unseen Academicals. I have no idea why, but for some reason I hadn't realized that it was a Discworld book. Maybe I had confused it with A Hatful of Sky or another of his juvenile books. I eventually realized my error, and felt pretty silly when I did - after all, Unseen University appears in virtually every Discworld book in one way or another, and Unseen Academicals was a pretty obvious reference to UU.
MINI SPOILERS
So, where does the book fit on the famous Reading Chart? Personally, I'd place it under the Industrial Revolution thread. It doesn't continue the latest adventures of Moist, but it completely fits in with the overall thrust of these books, which are all about taking modern concepts and incongruously transplanting them to a fantasy setting. In this case, that concept is organized sporting leagues. Psychology also makes a brief appearance, as do glamour fashion magazines and play-by-play commentary.
I must say, I was a little surprised by the presence of soccer (er, football) in the book. It works, but c'mon, sports and fantasy have to be about as far as you can get from each other. Somehow, I have the feeling that few of the readers of this book have great sporting experiences from their childhoods; they're far more likely to sympathize with Ponder Stibbons' memories of the kid who was picked last for a team. As always, though, Pratchett makes it work. You get to see the history of the sport in this alternate universe, see how it affects the day-to-day life within A-M, how it affects the passions of peoples' lives, why Vetinari cares about it, how he changes it, how sports can be good or bad... the most compelling part is the idea of The Shove, the sort of mass mind that takes over the throng of passionate spectators. It's something I recognize from my own experiences any time I join thousands of other strangers to watch a competition.
The plot is pretty sprawling (more on that later) and fun. There's a fairly small cast of main characters, all of whom would be nameless servants in other Discworld books. One is a cook who is the head of the Night Kitchen at UU; another, her assistant, is a beautiful but vapid assistant cook; the final two are candle dribblers, who are responsible for dribbling wax so wizards can use arcane candles which appear appropriately aged. The characters are well-sketched and likeable. The most compelling is Nutt, one of the dribblers, a "goblin" from Uberwald who has arrived in Ankh-Morpork under mysterious circumstances. Nutt is, to put it bluntly, much better than everyone around him. He is more thoughtful, more talented, stronger, patient, and determined. Due to his race, he needs to constantly try harder than everyone else and constantly prove his "worth." It's touching, and also a little sad, to realize how much effort he must expend just to achieve what others take for granted.
Besides the main characters, many of the old favorites return. Lord Vetinari has a surprisingly large role in the book, and we get to see far more unguarded moments of him than usual, including a great sequence where he purposely and coldly gets drunk. Of course, Drumknott is present as well. All the wizards are present. I was surprised and delighted when, about halfway through the book, Rincewind puts in an appearance - running away, of course. But he sticks around, and it's fun to see him staying put in the University for once. CMOT Dibbler and Sam Vimes put in nice little cameos. All in all, it's a great return to A-M.
Now, about that plot - like I said, it's quite sprawling. The book as a whole feels really loose. There are lots of scenes that start out being about one thing, then one of the characters will sort of drift into another conversation and pick up another plot thread, then drift back to the first plot again. The pacing as a whole is weirdly languid. At one point Nutt runs away from A-M, and the others go to chase after him; they have plenty of time for comic goings-on while they pursue him, and when they catch up, he doesn't resist at all about going back again. The whole incident... well, I guess it works, but it just doesn't feel nearly as dramatic as it could have been. Other side plots, like micromail (it doesn't chafe!) seem really interesting at first, but sort of peter out without a satisfying conclusion.
END SPOILERS
I have a confession to make: I found myself thinking a lot about Pratchett's Alzheimer's while reading this. It's pretty inevitable; obviously something like that would affect a person's writing. The good news is that the book is still really good. The complicated news is that it definitely feels different from his earlier books. Not totally different - in particular, the old characters do feel like the same people (or orangutans), and the sense of humor is very much intact. But the book as a whole reads much more loosely and casually than I'm used to. Some people might prefer it to the old style, others will be turned off.
In any case. It's fully enjoyable and well worth pulling out. It isn't quite as good (for me, at least) as a Vimes novel, but it's an A-M novel, and that's the next best thing. It's funny, thought-provoking, interesting satire. Just my cup of tea.
That said, I almost didn't pick up Unseen Academicals. I have no idea why, but for some reason I hadn't realized that it was a Discworld book. Maybe I had confused it with A Hatful of Sky or another of his juvenile books. I eventually realized my error, and felt pretty silly when I did - after all, Unseen University appears in virtually every Discworld book in one way or another, and Unseen Academicals was a pretty obvious reference to UU.
MINI SPOILERS
So, where does the book fit on the famous Reading Chart? Personally, I'd place it under the Industrial Revolution thread. It doesn't continue the latest adventures of Moist, but it completely fits in with the overall thrust of these books, which are all about taking modern concepts and incongruously transplanting them to a fantasy setting. In this case, that concept is organized sporting leagues. Psychology also makes a brief appearance, as do glamour fashion magazines and play-by-play commentary.
I must say, I was a little surprised by the presence of soccer (er, football) in the book. It works, but c'mon, sports and fantasy have to be about as far as you can get from each other. Somehow, I have the feeling that few of the readers of this book have great sporting experiences from their childhoods; they're far more likely to sympathize with Ponder Stibbons' memories of the kid who was picked last for a team. As always, though, Pratchett makes it work. You get to see the history of the sport in this alternate universe, see how it affects the day-to-day life within A-M, how it affects the passions of peoples' lives, why Vetinari cares about it, how he changes it, how sports can be good or bad... the most compelling part is the idea of The Shove, the sort of mass mind that takes over the throng of passionate spectators. It's something I recognize from my own experiences any time I join thousands of other strangers to watch a competition.
The plot is pretty sprawling (more on that later) and fun. There's a fairly small cast of main characters, all of whom would be nameless servants in other Discworld books. One is a cook who is the head of the Night Kitchen at UU; another, her assistant, is a beautiful but vapid assistant cook; the final two are candle dribblers, who are responsible for dribbling wax so wizards can use arcane candles which appear appropriately aged. The characters are well-sketched and likeable. The most compelling is Nutt, one of the dribblers, a "goblin" from Uberwald who has arrived in Ankh-Morpork under mysterious circumstances. Nutt is, to put it bluntly, much better than everyone around him. He is more thoughtful, more talented, stronger, patient, and determined. Due to his race, he needs to constantly try harder than everyone else and constantly prove his "worth." It's touching, and also a little sad, to realize how much effort he must expend just to achieve what others take for granted.
Besides the main characters, many of the old favorites return. Lord Vetinari has a surprisingly large role in the book, and we get to see far more unguarded moments of him than usual, including a great sequence where he purposely and coldly gets drunk. Of course, Drumknott is present as well. All the wizards are present. I was surprised and delighted when, about halfway through the book, Rincewind puts in an appearance - running away, of course. But he sticks around, and it's fun to see him staying put in the University for once. CMOT Dibbler and Sam Vimes put in nice little cameos. All in all, it's a great return to A-M.
Now, about that plot - like I said, it's quite sprawling. The book as a whole feels really loose. There are lots of scenes that start out being about one thing, then one of the characters will sort of drift into another conversation and pick up another plot thread, then drift back to the first plot again. The pacing as a whole is weirdly languid. At one point Nutt runs away from A-M, and the others go to chase after him; they have plenty of time for comic goings-on while they pursue him, and when they catch up, he doesn't resist at all about going back again. The whole incident... well, I guess it works, but it just doesn't feel nearly as dramatic as it could have been. Other side plots, like micromail (it doesn't chafe!) seem really interesting at first, but sort of peter out without a satisfying conclusion.
END SPOILERS
I have a confession to make: I found myself thinking a lot about Pratchett's Alzheimer's while reading this. It's pretty inevitable; obviously something like that would affect a person's writing. The good news is that the book is still really good. The complicated news is that it definitely feels different from his earlier books. Not totally different - in particular, the old characters do feel like the same people (or orangutans), and the sense of humor is very much intact. But the book as a whole reads much more loosely and casually than I'm used to. Some people might prefer it to the old style, others will be turned off.
In any case. It's fully enjoyable and well worth pulling out. It isn't quite as good (for me, at least) as a Vimes novel, but it's an A-M novel, and that's the next best thing. It's funny, thought-provoking, interesting satire. Just my cup of tea.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Dragon Age: Initial Thoughts
I haven't been this excited about a new game since Civ IV. Even Oblivion had to wait for well over a year before I deigned to pick it up. But Dragon Age has been shouting "Buy me! Play me!" for quite a long time.
My list of favorite games changes regularly, depending on my mood and memory, but Baldur's Gate 2 holds a really secure spot on there. I've played many good games since then, but none has captured the magical combination of awesomeness that defined BG2... phenomenal writing, a plot that was gripping yet sprawling, really interesting and detailed play mechanics that rewarded you for planning out tactical combat, and a living, breathing world that you felt fully a part of. I still can hardly believe that we had a game - a high fantasy RPG - which allowed you to purchase an equity stake in a theater, hire actors, guide them through weeks of rehearsal, then put on a killer opening night and milk the box office receipts for months. And I'm probably only one of a handful of people who actually bothered with that particular side quest.
The Baldur's Gate games and their successors, Neverwinter Nights, were set in the Sword Coast region of Dungeons & Dragons, and followed the D&D ruleset. (The original BG games were version 2, Throne of Bhaal was 2.5, and NWN was version 3.) So the online RPG community leapt for joy when Bioware announced that they were working on a new series, called Dragon Age, which would mark a return to the realm of high fantasy (more recently, Bioware has dabbled in Eastern settings with Jade Empire, the Star Wars universe with KOTOR, and the alternate space setting of Mass Effect), but this time use their own intellectual property. No more borrowing setting, content, or rules from Wizards of the Coast; Bioware would build everything up from scratch for an incredible game experience. The universe cheered.
That was... oh, about six years ago.
Bioware has been running a VERY tight ship. Even after they started announcing the release date, they did not follow the normal process of dropping tons of videos and screenshots on everyone. The game didn't even have a web site or forum until very recently.
And, you know what? I've been totally fine with that. I decided long ago to not let myself get too excited over the game. I've had my heart broken before, and have had near escapes from things I thought would be sure-fire wonderful games (I'm looking at you, Spore). Wasting $50 on a game that isn't fun isn't nearly as much of a tragedy now as it was a decade ago, but on general principle I still don't like to waste money or time. And, honestly, I didn't want a bad Bioware experience to leave a bad taste in my mouth that would cover up my delicious memories of the BG series. So, I resolved to hold off getting the game until I could read some reviews, and to avoid all advance info about it. (I should point out that this isn't very unusual for me. Once I find an author or director or whatever who I like, I always stay away from any information about the work until after I've had a chance to experience it directly. Hence my overuse of the SPOILERS tags on this blog.)
I was pretty good on avoiding info, not great. I lasted pretty long until my youngest brother started geeking out on it, at which point I couldn't help out-geeking him. I started reading through their codex, getting a feel for the world and its system, avoiding anything that seemed plot- or gameplay-related. What I found looked rather interesting.
MINI SPOILERS
On the surface, DA seems indistinguishable from any other major high-fantasy work. You have three good races, the humans, elves, and dwarves. Dwarves have long beards and live underground; elves have finer features and come from the forest; humans are numerous and live in cities. There are many monsters running around who want to kill the good guys. There are fighters, wizards, and rogues who, respectively, use might, magic, and larceny as they quest together.
However, Bioware hasn't just lazily copy-and-pasted The Silmarilion here. They are re-using existing entities, but coming up with really fresh and interesting stories about them. For example, unlike in Middle-earth, where the elves are a superior race, in the world of DA, elves have been essentially enslaved by humans. They live in squalid slums, and are treated as an underclass. Only a few wild elves survive, and their existence is hardly better, trying to scrape together a living away from human encroachment.
Dragon Age is also billed as a Dark Fantasy. I suppose that this is mainly to distinguish it from children's fantasy. I recently read a chat transcript with some Bioware guys, and one of them mentioned that George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" was one of the inspirations for the game's tone. I think that's a great analogy... both are fantasies set in vaguely medieval worlds that have extremely ruthless plots. (Martin's focuses more on the political fractiousness of the middle ages, while, at least so far, DA seems to focus a bit more on the spiritual aspects of a dominant Church.)
Anyways. All that to say that, by the time the game rolled around, I was only somewhat pure. I had watched a video trailer that featured an extended (choreographed, not in-game) battle, and had a basic understanding of the game world. Oh! And I had also played Journeys. Dragon Age Journeys is a fascinating marketing idea - a group made a complete, stand-alone Flash game that's set in the Dragon Age world and features many of the same gameplay characteristics (leveling up, talents, skills, leveled weapons and armor, etc.), but is, y'know, inside a browser. It was fun, though maddening technical glitches seemed to keep me from getting my premium content.
Ohhhh, right, I should mention that as well. Other than the game itself, the huge thing about Dragon Age is its vast set of downloadable content. This is a game-driven yet purely technical achievement, roughly analogous to Valve rolling out Steam simultaneously with HalfLife 2. Downloadable content is hands-down the hot topic in gaming these days. Games like Rock Band have shown that after consumers have given you $50 for a game (and maybe another $70 or more for instruments!) you can make them return to the well time and time again for little $5 impulse purchases. Those purchases add up, and can easily eclipse the cost of the game itself. (Personally, I've probably spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 on Rock Band songs, and I'm an extremely casual player.)
Dragon Age incorporates that whole thing into the game itself. Well, even more than that, outside the game. Because I had been logged in to my Bioware account while I was playing Journeys, when I started playing Origins for the very first time, my rewards from Journeys were waiting for me. Now, most content that's out there now is basic stuff, just things like magic rings, enchanted boots, and so forth. However, there are also downloadable characters, locations, and entire quests as well. Bioware has been very open about this: they want to spend years and years releasing extended content for the game, probably in the form of little add-on chapters... maybe you'll pay $10 and get a new quest of about 10-15 hours.
Which is cool and all in the abstract. I'd rather have it for free, but I recognize the economics of the situation. It takes a lot of talent from a lot of people to put together a fun, polished product, and those people deserve to be fed. The big problem, though, was that Bioware just wasn't prepared for it. They wrote a long, heartfelt, apologetic post describing the meltdown that occurred: they had gathered the best evidence they could about what sort of traffic a single-player game with downloadable content could possibly create, drawing data from recent major launches like Spore. They expanded that by the size of the content that was available, and then doubled that figure. In addition, they created a "Plan B" in case that didn't prove to be enough and they needed to bring on more capacity. Well, launch week was a mess. Eager consumers blew past their initial setup, annihilated Plan B, and hungrily slavered as desperate Bioware IT guys frantically tried to pull together more computers. Bioware limped through the European launch, and seem to be doing well now, but man, how the Internet HOWLED! People were outraged that they had paid extra for expanded, premium content, and were not allowed access to it.
I'd been curious exactly how the content would work. Would you need to go on a quest in order to get your items? Would they be restricted to certain levels? No, and not exactly. Items just show up in your inventory when you first start the game, before you've gotten anything else, and can provide a significant boost to your early efforts. Other things show up as optional quests; I haven't had a chance to try those out yet. (In case you're curious, I just opted for the basic version. I have no use for a tin case. I do like the idea of a cloth map, but sadly these have gotten way worse since their Ultima glory days. Gamers now have a new name for these: "Mapkins.")
Some of the special items came as incentives for pre-ordering the game. This was actually a kind of bizarre situation, as Bioware offered different incentives to different realtors. Anyone who pre-ordered would get the Memory Band, but only Amazon customers would get the Lions Paw Boots, and Gamestop consumers would get another reward, and so on. I'm fascinated by the concept that someone might choose to buy one place instead of another because they can some different loot that better fits their intended character.
I chose Amazon, not so much for the Lion's Paw Boots (though they do fit decently well with my rogue), but rather because they were offering a $10 credit. (Retailers seem to be pretty creative in finding ways to get around the fixed prices on major new releases.) I finally pulled the trigger on the preorder after catching a couple of online reviews. Pre-release buzz has been very positive, but it's hard to judge from that; it seems like every game gets great feedback until it's actually released. The major sites actually hadn't reviewed it yet by launch day, but a couple had, enough to give me confidence that I wasn't making a horrible mistake.
I was planning on just doing the standard free shipping for the game; it came out on a Tuesday, and I wouldn't be able to play it much before the weekend. But then I noticed that they offered "Release Day Shipping," which would guarantee delivery on Tuesday, and cost just a buck more than standard shipping. I mentally shrugged and bought it. On Monday night, I received notice that it had shipped... from Indiana. I laughed... it seemed like it COULD get to me on Tuesday, but not terribly likely. On Tuesday, it was in my hands around 10AM. I was astonished. Go Amazon!
Of course, since I HAD the game on Tuesday, I had to at least install it. On my ride back from work I devoured the manual (NERD!) and daydreamed about the game. Then, I realized I had made a horrible mistake. As part of their really excellent marketing campaign, Bioware had released their Character Creator for Origins several weeks earlier. You could use it to, well, create your character. As Penny Arcade has noted, some of us can take a VERY LONG TIME to make the character look just the way we want.
In my case, I had been toying with the idea of playing another Bard, in homage to my BG2 character. It seemed like elves would make great bards, so I made a character named Cirion who was a City Elf Rogue. (Bard is a specialization that you can take once you reach Level... Eight, I think?) I had spent... well, yeah, probably a bit under an hour tweaking the face, playing with the hair, trying out different voices, and making it just right.
Well, anyways, on my ride home as I was actually reading about the races and classes, I realized that to play the kind of character I wanted, I'd be way better off as a dwarf. An elf's bonuses wouldn't do anything for me, while I would get some benefit from a dwarf's. And, furthermore, since bard is a specialization, I would need to be a full-on rogue for my party. This ain't like the days of BG, when you had a six-character party and could get away with both a rogue AND a useless bard. No, one rogue was all I could take. Which was fine - I love playing as a thief, and actually would have taken the thief class in BG if it hadn't been for Imoen - but it meant that I'd need to scrap Cirion and start from scratch.
I let DA install while I was making supper, then took a far more hurried run through the character creator. Dwarf Commoner gave me a MUCH better set of starting skills than a City Elf, and I quickly allocated the attributes to give me a high Cunning and Dexterity. (I'm deliberately not putting anything into Strength - a later talent [or is it skill? I still have trouble remembering which is which] will allow me to substitute my Cunning for Strength in most applications.) I started from a preset that I generally liked, then played around with the hair and tattooes, leaving most of the options (ears, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, brow) largely untouched. I spent a bit more time on the voice, knowing that I'd be hearing a lot of it. I was pleased to note that they had an entirely different set of Dwarf voices from their Elf offerings, and finally chose one that appealed to me. Finally, for the name I chose Seberin, as an appropriate alter ego to Cirion.
I almost always play as a rogue when I get the chance to do so. For American-style RPGs that let you define your own character, I generally model my character after a mixture of Shadowspawn/Hanse from the Thieves' World books and Silk from the David Eddings novel. My archetypal thief is completely and shamelessly larcenous, happily stealing anything that isn't locked down; he will steal from anyone, he prefers to steal from the rich, but primarily because they have better stuff. That said, apart from this rather large gap he is still a rather moral person: faithful to his friends, helping people when he has the opportunity, supporting causes that he believes in. Silk was charismatic, a real charmer; Shadowspawn personified silence and quiet menace. My characters typically land somewhere between one of those extremities, partly depending on my current mood but even more depending on how fun the games' creators have made each approach.
My BG2 Bard was very much in the Silk vein, and so far Seberin is following suit. There's no Charisma stat in this game, but I'm taking all the Persuasion skills that I can take, and my Cunning has already allowed me to talk myself into some new places. I've been almost entirely bypassing the combat skills, which I'm sure will bite me sooner or later - I've already learned that DA:O uses leveled enemies, and the thing I hated most about Oblivion was how I would spend time increasing my lockpicking and sneaking skills only to level up and be punished by far more difficult enemies. ANYWAYS. Jumping ahead of myself.
Back to the game: The "Origins" part of "Dragon Age: Origins" both reflects that (1) this is the introductory chapter in a new game world, and (2) the game features a variety of "origin stories" that define your character's destiny and motivation. As a Dwarf Commoner, I was a member of the Casteless. We learn that the Dwarves follow a strictly striated caste system, far more severe than that followed by humans: every person is born into a caste and knows exactly what their relationship is relative to everyone else. Nobles on top, then craftsmen and merchants and so on. Even servants are members of the servant caste, and take pride in it. Seberin, though, was born to parents who had no caste. Long ago, folk wisdom says, the dwarfish Gods were angered by the great evil among some of their people, and punished them by marking those dwarves and casting them out. Therefore, it is a sacred duty for every dwarf to shun the casteless. Every dwarf bears tattoos marking their social position, so everywhere you go, you are ostracized.
Seberin works for a crime lord, someone who mainly smuggles objects from the mines to lucrative markets on the surface. The most lucrative trade is in lyrium. Lyrium is the stuff of magic, the source of mages' powers. Because dwarves have lived for generations surrounded by the stuff, they are largely immune to its powers; this is why dwarves cannot become mages, and why they are naturally resistant to spells. Lyrium is more or less useless to the folks in the mines, but it is essential for mages, and so anyone who can get lyrium to the surface will be rewarded.
Early in the origin story, the boss asks you to track down a smuggler who has made off with some lyrium, and take care of him. This is among the first of the many fascinating moral choices you must make. Bioware is pretty famous for their moral dilemmas; some are presented better than others, but all of their RPGs constantly give you the opportunity to make interesting decisions based on your world view. Both your actions and your motivations can be expressed; the most typical example in the Baldur's Gate series is when a noble person asks you to go on a virtuous quest and offers a reward. A good person will go on the quest. A very good person will go on the quest and refuse the reward. A neutral or bad person will go on the quest, but loudly proclaim that they are only doing it because of the money. A very evil person will kill the noble and take their money.
Anyways, you have some opportunities earlier in the game to establish your personality. You first speak with your sister, and then with your mother, and in those conversations you are receiving information (learning about who you are, what you do, who your family is), but also providing information to the game (whether you are kind or cruel, whether you have a sense of humor, whether you are motivated mainly by fear or greed or virtue, whether you are curious or traditional). On this job, though, you meet the renegade smuggler, and have a host of options in dealing with him. I only played through it once, but it would be fascinating to try again and see how else it could go. You can kill him right away, or talk with him. If you talk you can wheedle, or threaten, or cajole. You have to decide whether to accept a bribe to let him get away. If you accept it (as I did) you have to decide whether to hold up your end of the deal or just kill him. And those choices have consequences: I let him go, only to learn later that the boss had witnesses in the tavern who could testify that he had walked away alive. Only some quick silver-tongued persuasion on my part convinced him that I had killed him later on. What if I had failed to persuade him? Good question. I'm sure that the game would have still proceeded with the next segment, where you infiltrate a fight of champions put on for the Grey Wardens, but the script would have followed a different path to get you there. More than the actual gameplay impact, what I love about stuff like this is how INTERESTING it is. There isn't a clear "right" answer, you need to struggle with the choices you're given, and your choices lead to believable yet unpredictable consequences.
That said, I'm very curious just how my gameplay style will map onto their morality system. They aren't using a D&D-style alignment attribute, where I would probably wind up on the Chaotic Neutral pole. Anyways, there's a lot of ambiguity in a kleptomaniac who genuinely likes people and wants to save the world, and I'm curious what the game ends up deciding I am.
I've just recently finished the introductory portion of the game. After the origin story, you meet with the Grey Wardens, do some stuff in the woods, then watch some awesome cinematics and fight in a big battle. I'm just now to the point where the world starts to open up a little: I can see an overworld map with lots of locations on it, and soon I should be able to start moving around at will. I'm quite looking forward to it! The game's been good up until now, but I'm a huge fan of the free-roaming, side-questing, exploration, steal-everything-you-can phase of these games.
That's it for now - I'm sure I'll have an exhaustive summary once I finally beat the game. Depending on what's happening in the rest of my life, that may not be until a year from now, so don't hold your breath.
Oh! One more thing - user-created content. As if BG2 wasn't already one of the best games out there, it also had some of the best user-built mods that I've ever seen. It's really pretty amazing; people are STILL updating mods for it now, almost a decade after it came out. People created entirely new "romance patches" that allow you to, for example, have a baby with Aerie. I never got too deep into NWN, but it also had a rich modding community that released a lot of stuff. Anyways, Bioware has taken the tools that they used to build the game, and are releasing them to us, The People. This is an unmitigated wonderful thing. It'll be a while until we start seeing real mods, but I can't wait to see what people come up with. I'm extremely tempted to get into it myself - I haven't even downloaded the tools yet, but I'm already fantasizing a bit about potential add-ons. One of the best aspects of the new Bioware Social site is adding the ability for potential modders to find one another. We're long past the time when a single dedicated person could put together a decent mod; these days, you need someone with the time and talent to create custom character models, and another person to handle programming, and maybe other people for sound, writing dialog, play-testing, and so on. The increasingly complex games we have demand more specialization, so kudos to Bioware for trying to help make that happen.
My list of favorite games changes regularly, depending on my mood and memory, but Baldur's Gate 2 holds a really secure spot on there. I've played many good games since then, but none has captured the magical combination of awesomeness that defined BG2... phenomenal writing, a plot that was gripping yet sprawling, really interesting and detailed play mechanics that rewarded you for planning out tactical combat, and a living, breathing world that you felt fully a part of. I still can hardly believe that we had a game - a high fantasy RPG - which allowed you to purchase an equity stake in a theater, hire actors, guide them through weeks of rehearsal, then put on a killer opening night and milk the box office receipts for months. And I'm probably only one of a handful of people who actually bothered with that particular side quest.
The Baldur's Gate games and their successors, Neverwinter Nights, were set in the Sword Coast region of Dungeons & Dragons, and followed the D&D ruleset. (The original BG games were version 2, Throne of Bhaal was 2.5, and NWN was version 3.) So the online RPG community leapt for joy when Bioware announced that they were working on a new series, called Dragon Age, which would mark a return to the realm of high fantasy (more recently, Bioware has dabbled in Eastern settings with Jade Empire, the Star Wars universe with KOTOR, and the alternate space setting of Mass Effect), but this time use their own intellectual property. No more borrowing setting, content, or rules from Wizards of the Coast; Bioware would build everything up from scratch for an incredible game experience. The universe cheered.
That was... oh, about six years ago.
Bioware has been running a VERY tight ship. Even after they started announcing the release date, they did not follow the normal process of dropping tons of videos and screenshots on everyone. The game didn't even have a web site or forum until very recently.
And, you know what? I've been totally fine with that. I decided long ago to not let myself get too excited over the game. I've had my heart broken before, and have had near escapes from things I thought would be sure-fire wonderful games (I'm looking at you, Spore). Wasting $50 on a game that isn't fun isn't nearly as much of a tragedy now as it was a decade ago, but on general principle I still don't like to waste money or time. And, honestly, I didn't want a bad Bioware experience to leave a bad taste in my mouth that would cover up my delicious memories of the BG series. So, I resolved to hold off getting the game until I could read some reviews, and to avoid all advance info about it. (I should point out that this isn't very unusual for me. Once I find an author or director or whatever who I like, I always stay away from any information about the work until after I've had a chance to experience it directly. Hence my overuse of the SPOILERS tags on this blog.)
I was pretty good on avoiding info, not great. I lasted pretty long until my youngest brother started geeking out on it, at which point I couldn't help out-geeking him. I started reading through their codex, getting a feel for the world and its system, avoiding anything that seemed plot- or gameplay-related. What I found looked rather interesting.
MINI SPOILERS
On the surface, DA seems indistinguishable from any other major high-fantasy work. You have three good races, the humans, elves, and dwarves. Dwarves have long beards and live underground; elves have finer features and come from the forest; humans are numerous and live in cities. There are many monsters running around who want to kill the good guys. There are fighters, wizards, and rogues who, respectively, use might, magic, and larceny as they quest together.
However, Bioware hasn't just lazily copy-and-pasted The Silmarilion here. They are re-using existing entities, but coming up with really fresh and interesting stories about them. For example, unlike in Middle-earth, where the elves are a superior race, in the world of DA, elves have been essentially enslaved by humans. They live in squalid slums, and are treated as an underclass. Only a few wild elves survive, and their existence is hardly better, trying to scrape together a living away from human encroachment.
Dragon Age is also billed as a Dark Fantasy. I suppose that this is mainly to distinguish it from children's fantasy. I recently read a chat transcript with some Bioware guys, and one of them mentioned that George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" was one of the inspirations for the game's tone. I think that's a great analogy... both are fantasies set in vaguely medieval worlds that have extremely ruthless plots. (Martin's focuses more on the political fractiousness of the middle ages, while, at least so far, DA seems to focus a bit more on the spiritual aspects of a dominant Church.)
Anyways. All that to say that, by the time the game rolled around, I was only somewhat pure. I had watched a video trailer that featured an extended (choreographed, not in-game) battle, and had a basic understanding of the game world. Oh! And I had also played Journeys. Dragon Age Journeys is a fascinating marketing idea - a group made a complete, stand-alone Flash game that's set in the Dragon Age world and features many of the same gameplay characteristics (leveling up, talents, skills, leveled weapons and armor, etc.), but is, y'know, inside a browser. It was fun, though maddening technical glitches seemed to keep me from getting my premium content.
Ohhhh, right, I should mention that as well. Other than the game itself, the huge thing about Dragon Age is its vast set of downloadable content. This is a game-driven yet purely technical achievement, roughly analogous to Valve rolling out Steam simultaneously with HalfLife 2. Downloadable content is hands-down the hot topic in gaming these days. Games like Rock Band have shown that after consumers have given you $50 for a game (and maybe another $70 or more for instruments!) you can make them return to the well time and time again for little $5 impulse purchases. Those purchases add up, and can easily eclipse the cost of the game itself. (Personally, I've probably spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 on Rock Band songs, and I'm an extremely casual player.)
Dragon Age incorporates that whole thing into the game itself. Well, even more than that, outside the game. Because I had been logged in to my Bioware account while I was playing Journeys, when I started playing Origins for the very first time, my rewards from Journeys were waiting for me. Now, most content that's out there now is basic stuff, just things like magic rings, enchanted boots, and so forth. However, there are also downloadable characters, locations, and entire quests as well. Bioware has been very open about this: they want to spend years and years releasing extended content for the game, probably in the form of little add-on chapters... maybe you'll pay $10 and get a new quest of about 10-15 hours.
Which is cool and all in the abstract. I'd rather have it for free, but I recognize the economics of the situation. It takes a lot of talent from a lot of people to put together a fun, polished product, and those people deserve to be fed. The big problem, though, was that Bioware just wasn't prepared for it. They wrote a long, heartfelt, apologetic post describing the meltdown that occurred: they had gathered the best evidence they could about what sort of traffic a single-player game with downloadable content could possibly create, drawing data from recent major launches like Spore. They expanded that by the size of the content that was available, and then doubled that figure. In addition, they created a "Plan B" in case that didn't prove to be enough and they needed to bring on more capacity. Well, launch week was a mess. Eager consumers blew past their initial setup, annihilated Plan B, and hungrily slavered as desperate Bioware IT guys frantically tried to pull together more computers. Bioware limped through the European launch, and seem to be doing well now, but man, how the Internet HOWLED! People were outraged that they had paid extra for expanded, premium content, and were not allowed access to it.
I'd been curious exactly how the content would work. Would you need to go on a quest in order to get your items? Would they be restricted to certain levels? No, and not exactly. Items just show up in your inventory when you first start the game, before you've gotten anything else, and can provide a significant boost to your early efforts. Other things show up as optional quests; I haven't had a chance to try those out yet. (In case you're curious, I just opted for the basic version. I have no use for a tin case. I do like the idea of a cloth map, but sadly these have gotten way worse since their Ultima glory days. Gamers now have a new name for these: "Mapkins.")
Some of the special items came as incentives for pre-ordering the game. This was actually a kind of bizarre situation, as Bioware offered different incentives to different realtors. Anyone who pre-ordered would get the Memory Band, but only Amazon customers would get the Lions Paw Boots, and Gamestop consumers would get another reward, and so on. I'm fascinated by the concept that someone might choose to buy one place instead of another because they can some different loot that better fits their intended character.
I chose Amazon, not so much for the Lion's Paw Boots (though they do fit decently well with my rogue), but rather because they were offering a $10 credit. (Retailers seem to be pretty creative in finding ways to get around the fixed prices on major new releases.) I finally pulled the trigger on the preorder after catching a couple of online reviews. Pre-release buzz has been very positive, but it's hard to judge from that; it seems like every game gets great feedback until it's actually released. The major sites actually hadn't reviewed it yet by launch day, but a couple had, enough to give me confidence that I wasn't making a horrible mistake.
I was planning on just doing the standard free shipping for the game; it came out on a Tuesday, and I wouldn't be able to play it much before the weekend. But then I noticed that they offered "Release Day Shipping," which would guarantee delivery on Tuesday, and cost just a buck more than standard shipping. I mentally shrugged and bought it. On Monday night, I received notice that it had shipped... from Indiana. I laughed... it seemed like it COULD get to me on Tuesday, but not terribly likely. On Tuesday, it was in my hands around 10AM. I was astonished. Go Amazon!
Of course, since I HAD the game on Tuesday, I had to at least install it. On my ride back from work I devoured the manual (NERD!) and daydreamed about the game. Then, I realized I had made a horrible mistake. As part of their really excellent marketing campaign, Bioware had released their Character Creator for Origins several weeks earlier. You could use it to, well, create your character. As Penny Arcade has noted, some of us can take a VERY LONG TIME to make the character look just the way we want.
In my case, I had been toying with the idea of playing another Bard, in homage to my BG2 character. It seemed like elves would make great bards, so I made a character named Cirion who was a City Elf Rogue. (Bard is a specialization that you can take once you reach Level... Eight, I think?) I had spent... well, yeah, probably a bit under an hour tweaking the face, playing with the hair, trying out different voices, and making it just right.
Well, anyways, on my ride home as I was actually reading about the races and classes, I realized that to play the kind of character I wanted, I'd be way better off as a dwarf. An elf's bonuses wouldn't do anything for me, while I would get some benefit from a dwarf's. And, furthermore, since bard is a specialization, I would need to be a full-on rogue for my party. This ain't like the days of BG, when you had a six-character party and could get away with both a rogue AND a useless bard. No, one rogue was all I could take. Which was fine - I love playing as a thief, and actually would have taken the thief class in BG if it hadn't been for Imoen - but it meant that I'd need to scrap Cirion and start from scratch.
I let DA install while I was making supper, then took a far more hurried run through the character creator. Dwarf Commoner gave me a MUCH better set of starting skills than a City Elf, and I quickly allocated the attributes to give me a high Cunning and Dexterity. (I'm deliberately not putting anything into Strength - a later talent [or is it skill? I still have trouble remembering which is which] will allow me to substitute my Cunning for Strength in most applications.) I started from a preset that I generally liked, then played around with the hair and tattooes, leaving most of the options (ears, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, brow) largely untouched. I spent a bit more time on the voice, knowing that I'd be hearing a lot of it. I was pleased to note that they had an entirely different set of Dwarf voices from their Elf offerings, and finally chose one that appealed to me. Finally, for the name I chose Seberin, as an appropriate alter ego to Cirion.
I almost always play as a rogue when I get the chance to do so. For American-style RPGs that let you define your own character, I generally model my character after a mixture of Shadowspawn/Hanse from the Thieves' World books and Silk from the David Eddings novel. My archetypal thief is completely and shamelessly larcenous, happily stealing anything that isn't locked down; he will steal from anyone, he prefers to steal from the rich, but primarily because they have better stuff. That said, apart from this rather large gap he is still a rather moral person: faithful to his friends, helping people when he has the opportunity, supporting causes that he believes in. Silk was charismatic, a real charmer; Shadowspawn personified silence and quiet menace. My characters typically land somewhere between one of those extremities, partly depending on my current mood but even more depending on how fun the games' creators have made each approach.
My BG2 Bard was very much in the Silk vein, and so far Seberin is following suit. There's no Charisma stat in this game, but I'm taking all the Persuasion skills that I can take, and my Cunning has already allowed me to talk myself into some new places. I've been almost entirely bypassing the combat skills, which I'm sure will bite me sooner or later - I've already learned that DA:O uses leveled enemies, and the thing I hated most about Oblivion was how I would spend time increasing my lockpicking and sneaking skills only to level up and be punished by far more difficult enemies. ANYWAYS. Jumping ahead of myself.
Back to the game: The "Origins" part of "Dragon Age: Origins" both reflects that (1) this is the introductory chapter in a new game world, and (2) the game features a variety of "origin stories" that define your character's destiny and motivation. As a Dwarf Commoner, I was a member of the Casteless. We learn that the Dwarves follow a strictly striated caste system, far more severe than that followed by humans: every person is born into a caste and knows exactly what their relationship is relative to everyone else. Nobles on top, then craftsmen and merchants and so on. Even servants are members of the servant caste, and take pride in it. Seberin, though, was born to parents who had no caste. Long ago, folk wisdom says, the dwarfish Gods were angered by the great evil among some of their people, and punished them by marking those dwarves and casting them out. Therefore, it is a sacred duty for every dwarf to shun the casteless. Every dwarf bears tattoos marking their social position, so everywhere you go, you are ostracized.
Seberin works for a crime lord, someone who mainly smuggles objects from the mines to lucrative markets on the surface. The most lucrative trade is in lyrium. Lyrium is the stuff of magic, the source of mages' powers. Because dwarves have lived for generations surrounded by the stuff, they are largely immune to its powers; this is why dwarves cannot become mages, and why they are naturally resistant to spells. Lyrium is more or less useless to the folks in the mines, but it is essential for mages, and so anyone who can get lyrium to the surface will be rewarded.
Early in the origin story, the boss asks you to track down a smuggler who has made off with some lyrium, and take care of him. This is among the first of the many fascinating moral choices you must make. Bioware is pretty famous for their moral dilemmas; some are presented better than others, but all of their RPGs constantly give you the opportunity to make interesting decisions based on your world view. Both your actions and your motivations can be expressed; the most typical example in the Baldur's Gate series is when a noble person asks you to go on a virtuous quest and offers a reward. A good person will go on the quest. A very good person will go on the quest and refuse the reward. A neutral or bad person will go on the quest, but loudly proclaim that they are only doing it because of the money. A very evil person will kill the noble and take their money.
Anyways, you have some opportunities earlier in the game to establish your personality. You first speak with your sister, and then with your mother, and in those conversations you are receiving information (learning about who you are, what you do, who your family is), but also providing information to the game (whether you are kind or cruel, whether you have a sense of humor, whether you are motivated mainly by fear or greed or virtue, whether you are curious or traditional). On this job, though, you meet the renegade smuggler, and have a host of options in dealing with him. I only played through it once, but it would be fascinating to try again and see how else it could go. You can kill him right away, or talk with him. If you talk you can wheedle, or threaten, or cajole. You have to decide whether to accept a bribe to let him get away. If you accept it (as I did) you have to decide whether to hold up your end of the deal or just kill him. And those choices have consequences: I let him go, only to learn later that the boss had witnesses in the tavern who could testify that he had walked away alive. Only some quick silver-tongued persuasion on my part convinced him that I had killed him later on. What if I had failed to persuade him? Good question. I'm sure that the game would have still proceeded with the next segment, where you infiltrate a fight of champions put on for the Grey Wardens, but the script would have followed a different path to get you there. More than the actual gameplay impact, what I love about stuff like this is how INTERESTING it is. There isn't a clear "right" answer, you need to struggle with the choices you're given, and your choices lead to believable yet unpredictable consequences.
That said, I'm very curious just how my gameplay style will map onto their morality system. They aren't using a D&D-style alignment attribute, where I would probably wind up on the Chaotic Neutral pole. Anyways, there's a lot of ambiguity in a kleptomaniac who genuinely likes people and wants to save the world, and I'm curious what the game ends up deciding I am.
I've just recently finished the introductory portion of the game. After the origin story, you meet with the Grey Wardens, do some stuff in the woods, then watch some awesome cinematics and fight in a big battle. I'm just now to the point where the world starts to open up a little: I can see an overworld map with lots of locations on it, and soon I should be able to start moving around at will. I'm quite looking forward to it! The game's been good up until now, but I'm a huge fan of the free-roaming, side-questing, exploration, steal-everything-you-can phase of these games.
That's it for now - I'm sure I'll have an exhaustive summary once I finally beat the game. Depending on what's happening in the rest of my life, that may not be until a year from now, so don't hold your breath.
Oh! One more thing - user-created content. As if BG2 wasn't already one of the best games out there, it also had some of the best user-built mods that I've ever seen. It's really pretty amazing; people are STILL updating mods for it now, almost a decade after it came out. People created entirely new "romance patches" that allow you to, for example, have a baby with Aerie. I never got too deep into NWN, but it also had a rich modding community that released a lot of stuff. Anyways, Bioware has taken the tools that they used to build the game, and are releasing them to us, The People. This is an unmitigated wonderful thing. It'll be a while until we start seeing real mods, but I can't wait to see what people come up with. I'm extremely tempted to get into it myself - I haven't even downloaded the tools yet, but I'm already fantasizing a bit about potential add-ons. One of the best aspects of the new Bioware Social site is adding the ability for potential modders to find one another. We're long past the time when a single dedicated person could put together a decent mod; these days, you need someone with the time and talent to create custom character models, and another person to handle programming, and maybe other people for sound, writing dialog, play-testing, and so on. The increasingly complex games we have demand more specialization, so kudos to Bioware for trying to help make that happen.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Now you see it...
Now that I've read, y'know, every Discworld book ever written, I'm now limited by reality and Terry Pratchett's writing schedule to feed my urge. Fortunately, Pratchett has always been a fairly prolific writer, so the process is nowhere near as painful as, say, waiting for the next entry in A Song of Ice and Fire.
That said, I almost didn't pick up Unseen Academicals. I have no idea why, but for some reason I hadn't realized that it was a Discworld book. Maybe I had confused it with A Hatful of Sky or another of his juvenile books. I eventually realized my error, and felt pretty silly when I did - after all, Unseen University appears in virtually every Discworld book in one way or another, and Unseen Academicals was a pretty obvious reference to UU.
MINI SPOILERS
So, where does the book fit on the famous Reading Chart? Personally, I'd place it under the Industrial Revolution thread. It doesn't continue the latest adventures of Moist, but it completely fits in with the overall thrust of these books, which are all about taking modern concepts and incongruously transplanting them to a fantasy setting. In this case, that concept is organized sporting leagues. Psychology also makes a brief appearance, as do glamour fashion magazines and play-by-play commentary.
I must say, I was a little surprised by the presence of soccer (er, football) in the book. It works, but c'mon, sports and fantasy have to be about as far as you can get from each other. Somehow, I have the feeling that few of the readers of this book have great sporting experiences from their childhoods; they're far more likely to sympathize with Ponder Stibbons' memories of the kid who was picked last for a team. As always, though, Pratchett makes it work. You get to see the history of the sport in this alternate universe, see how it affects the day-to-day life within A-M, how it affects the passions of peoples' lives, why Vetinari cares about it, how he changes it, how sports can be good or bad... the most compelling part is the idea of The Shove, the sort of mass mind that takes over the throng of passionate spectators. It's something I recognize from my own experiences any time I join thousands of other strangers to watch a competition.
The plot is pretty sprawling (more on that later) and fun. There's a fairly small cast of main characters, all of whom would be nameless servants in other Discworld books. One is a cook who is the head of the Night Kitchen at UU; another, her assistant, is a beautiful but vapid assistant cook; the final two are candle dribblers, who are responsible for dribbling wax so wizards can use arcane candles which appear appropriately aged. The characters are well-sketched and likable. The most compelling is Nutt, one of the dribblers, a "goblin" from Uberwald who has arrived in Ankh-Morpork under mysterious circumstances. Nutt is, to put it bluntly, much better than everyone around him. He is more thoughtful, more talented, stronger, patient, and determined. Due to his race, he needs to constantly try harder than everyone else and constantly prove his "worth." It's touching, and also a little sad, to realize how much effort he must expend just to achieve what others take for granted.
Besides the main characters, many of the old favorites return. Lord Vetinari has a surprisingly large role in the book, and we get to see far more unguarded moments of him than usual, including a great sequence where he purposely and coldly gets drunk. Of course, Drumknott is present as well. All the wizards are present. I was surprised and delighted when, about halfway through the book, Rincewind puts in an appearance - running away, of course. But he sticks around, and it's fun to see him staying put in the University for once. CMOT Dibbler and Sam Vimes put in nice little cameos. All in all, it's a great return to A-M.
Now, about that plot - like I said, it's quite sprawling. The book as a whole feels really loose. There are lots of scenes that start out being about one thing, then one of the characters will sort of drift into another conversation and pick up another plot thread, then drift back to the first plot again. The pacing as a whole is weirdly languid. At one point Nutt runs away from A-M, and the others go to chase after him; they have plenty of time for comic goings-on while they pursue him, and when they catch up, he doesn't resist at all about going back again. The whole incident... well, I guess it works, but it just doesn't feel nearly as dramatic as it could have been. Other side plots, like micromail (it doesn't chafe!) seem really interesting at first, but sort of peter out without a satisfying conclusion.
END SPOILERS
I have a confession to make: I found myself thinking a lot about Pratchett's Alzheimer's while reading this. It's pretty inevitable; obviously something like that would affect a person's writing. The good news is that the book is still really good. The complicated news is that it definitely feels different from his earlier books. Not totally different - in particular, the old characters do feel like the same people (or orangutans), and the sense of humor is very much intact. But the book as a whole reads much more loosely and casually than I'm used to. Some people might prefer it to the old style, others will be turned off.
In any case. It's fully enjoyable and well worth pulling out. It isn't quite as good (for me, at least) as a Vimes novel, but it's an A-M novel, and that's the next best thing. It's funny, thought-provoking, interesting satire. Just my cup of tea.
That said, I almost didn't pick up Unseen Academicals. I have no idea why, but for some reason I hadn't realized that it was a Discworld book. Maybe I had confused it with A Hatful of Sky or another of his juvenile books. I eventually realized my error, and felt pretty silly when I did - after all, Unseen University appears in virtually every Discworld book in one way or another, and Unseen Academicals was a pretty obvious reference to UU.
MINI SPOILERS
So, where does the book fit on the famous Reading Chart? Personally, I'd place it under the Industrial Revolution thread. It doesn't continue the latest adventures of Moist, but it completely fits in with the overall thrust of these books, which are all about taking modern concepts and incongruously transplanting them to a fantasy setting. In this case, that concept is organized sporting leagues. Psychology also makes a brief appearance, as do glamour fashion magazines and play-by-play commentary.
I must say, I was a little surprised by the presence of soccer (er, football) in the book. It works, but c'mon, sports and fantasy have to be about as far as you can get from each other. Somehow, I have the feeling that few of the readers of this book have great sporting experiences from their childhoods; they're far more likely to sympathize with Ponder Stibbons' memories of the kid who was picked last for a team. As always, though, Pratchett makes it work. You get to see the history of the sport in this alternate universe, see how it affects the day-to-day life within A-M, how it affects the passions of peoples' lives, why Vetinari cares about it, how he changes it, how sports can be good or bad... the most compelling part is the idea of The Shove, the sort of mass mind that takes over the throng of passionate spectators. It's something I recognize from my own experiences any time I join thousands of other strangers to watch a competition.
The plot is pretty sprawling (more on that later) and fun. There's a fairly small cast of main characters, all of whom would be nameless servants in other Discworld books. One is a cook who is the head of the Night Kitchen at UU; another, her assistant, is a beautiful but vapid assistant cook; the final two are candle dribblers, who are responsible for dribbling wax so wizards can use arcane candles which appear appropriately aged. The characters are well-sketched and likable. The most compelling is Nutt, one of the dribblers, a "goblin" from Uberwald who has arrived in Ankh-Morpork under mysterious circumstances. Nutt is, to put it bluntly, much better than everyone around him. He is more thoughtful, more talented, stronger, patient, and determined. Due to his race, he needs to constantly try harder than everyone else and constantly prove his "worth." It's touching, and also a little sad, to realize how much effort he must expend just to achieve what others take for granted.
Besides the main characters, many of the old favorites return. Lord Vetinari has a surprisingly large role in the book, and we get to see far more unguarded moments of him than usual, including a great sequence where he purposely and coldly gets drunk. Of course, Drumknott is present as well. All the wizards are present. I was surprised and delighted when, about halfway through the book, Rincewind puts in an appearance - running away, of course. But he sticks around, and it's fun to see him staying put in the University for once. CMOT Dibbler and Sam Vimes put in nice little cameos. All in all, it's a great return to A-M.
Now, about that plot - like I said, it's quite sprawling. The book as a whole feels really loose. There are lots of scenes that start out being about one thing, then one of the characters will sort of drift into another conversation and pick up another plot thread, then drift back to the first plot again. The pacing as a whole is weirdly languid. At one point Nutt runs away from A-M, and the others go to chase after him; they have plenty of time for comic goings-on while they pursue him, and when they catch up, he doesn't resist at all about going back again. The whole incident... well, I guess it works, but it just doesn't feel nearly as dramatic as it could have been. Other side plots, like micromail (it doesn't chafe!) seem really interesting at first, but sort of peter out without a satisfying conclusion.
END SPOILERS
I have a confession to make: I found myself thinking a lot about Pratchett's Alzheimer's while reading this. It's pretty inevitable; obviously something like that would affect a person's writing. The good news is that the book is still really good. The complicated news is that it definitely feels different from his earlier books. Not totally different - in particular, the old characters do feel like the same people (or orangutans), and the sense of humor is very much intact. But the book as a whole reads much more loosely and casually than I'm used to. Some people might prefer it to the old style, others will be turned off.
In any case. It's fully enjoyable and well worth pulling out. It isn't quite as good (for me, at least) as a Vimes novel, but it's an A-M novel, and that's the next best thing. It's funny, thought-provoking, interesting satire. Just my cup of tea.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Magnificent! Impeccable! Sublime!
"The Remarkable Millard Fillmore" has been sitting on my bookshelf for a LONG time. It's one of those books that I got during a period of heavy library reading that didn't subside until after I'd forgotten that I had received a new book. It wasn't until a rare dry spell when I was looking around for something new to read that I realized I had never gotten around to opening it, and couldn't even remember when I had received it.
Anyways. It's a strange, funny little book. It isn't really like anything else out there, though I suppose you could arrive there by triangulating from Mo Rocca's "All the President's Pets," Dave Barry's "Dave Barry Slept Here," and Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire." It's a surprisingly layered humor book... not really a satire, not really a put-on, a bit of both but not essentially either.
The main framing device is this: the "author" is a frustrated, scorned historian. Excluded from the clubby surroundings of the Presidential Biographers association, he doggedly pursues a solitary devotion for Millard Fillmore while assaulted by the traditionalist supporters of Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, and other giants. Eventually, a Nigerian on the Internet sells him the just-discovered lost journals of President Fillmore, which contain shocking information that reveal that Fillmore really was the best president ever. This book, then, is the author's definitive biography, based heavily upon those supposed primary sources.
Okay, got that? We are reading:
* A book
* With a fictional author
* Who is an unreliable narrator
* Who is working from invented sources
* Which in turn were written by a Nigerian scammer
Even that doesn't fully capture it, though. In addition to being unreliable, the narrator isn't too bright. The inner-inner-inner joke is that the journals actually reinforce the notion that Fillmore was an idiot, but the author is too starry-eyed and devoted to recognize this. Instead, every (fictional) scene is interpreted by the author to place Fillmore in an absurdly positive light.
After setting that up, the author has free license to do WHATEVER HE WANTS, and he does so freely. The result is a meandering, entertaining story that dips in and out of 19th century American politics and culture, but largely focuses on stuff like Masonic conspiracies, Presidential assassinations, bullying in the Senate, dirt-farming, sumo wrestling, rubber bands... you get the idea. Any topic is fair game, the more half-baked the better.
Like most good historical humor books, the best stuff is often found in the footnotes. The author can go on fun tangents about random topics, either inventing from whole cloth or twisting established facts. Also like most books in this vein, it's funnier the more you know about the source material. I particularly enjoyed the incidents that I'm familiar with, like Commodore Perry's voyage and Andrew Jackson's campaigning. I'm not as well versed on the Indian wars, so I didn't get as much out of those sections.
In an interesting touch, the book also contains a set of endnotes, seemingly written tongue-in-cheek by the actual author rather than by the invented author. (Ahh, I love modernism! It has truly infected even our most farcial endeavors.) The end notes briefly discuss the "real" historic facts that underly the various scenes in this book, pointing out which particular outrageous things were based in fact, and which "cannot be independently verified."
Most of the humor is cerebral, but there's an appealing strain of slapstick as well. One of my favorite running jokes was that all of the American financial crises are blamed on Fillmore. This is yet another case where the authorial voice gets tricky and interesting. Typically, the narrator will describe some scrape that Fillmore gets into in New York City, which typically ends with Fillmore being chased by a crowd or an assassin. Then the narrator will start a new paragraph with a line like, "It's unfortunate that Fillmore was so harassed at this time, because he missed out on one of the great financial crises. At the precise time that Fillmore's journals describe him being chased through Manhattan, an overweight and disheveled man was observed bursting onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Panting for breath, he shouted, 'The French are attacking! All is lost! Sell, sell!' and then ran out. After he exited, a brief moment of silence hung over the floor. Then, hundreds of sheets of paper flew into the air as a general panic fell over the room. This incident resulted in the Panic of 18XX, which led to a depression of five years. If only Fillmore had been present, his calmness and brilliance could have saved the nation from those difficult times." Again, the joke is that the "author" has received information implying that Fillmore is an even WORSE president than we already thought, and he draws the opposite conclusion.
I can't say that this is an awesome book, but it is a good one. I thought that it got better as it went along; I'm not sure if this is because it actually gets funnier, or if it's more that I started to put myself in the right mental position to appreciate it. In either case, by the time Fillmore enters public life and meets Edgar Allen Poe, I started really digging the book.
Incidentally, if you read the book, don't skip the index. In fact, if you only read one part of the book, you should read the index. It includes, for example, an entry for Ron Chernow, with nested entries including "Who the hell was Alexander Hamilton, anyways" and "We both know that awards don't mean anything."
This is definitely a niche book, and thoroughly odd, but worth checking out if it's your thing. I'll keep my eyes peeled for a sequel; I think something like "Richard Nixon: Least Criminal President Ever" would be a fun read.
Anyways. It's a strange, funny little book. It isn't really like anything else out there, though I suppose you could arrive there by triangulating from Mo Rocca's "All the President's Pets," Dave Barry's "Dave Barry Slept Here," and Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire." It's a surprisingly layered humor book... not really a satire, not really a put-on, a bit of both but not essentially either.
The main framing device is this: the "author" is a frustrated, scorned historian. Excluded from the clubby surroundings of the Presidential Biographers association, he doggedly pursues a solitary devotion for Millard Fillmore while assaulted by the traditionalist supporters of Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, and other giants. Eventually, a Nigerian on the Internet sells him the just-discovered lost journals of President Fillmore, which contain shocking information that reveal that Fillmore really was the best president ever. This book, then, is the author's definitive biography, based heavily upon those supposed primary sources.
Okay, got that? We are reading:
* A book
* With a fictional author
* Who is an unreliable narrator
* Who is working from invented sources
* Which in turn were written by a Nigerian scammer
Even that doesn't fully capture it, though. In addition to being unreliable, the narrator isn't too bright. The inner-inner-inner joke is that the journals actually reinforce the notion that Fillmore was an idiot, but the author is too starry-eyed and devoted to recognize this. Instead, every (fictional) scene is interpreted by the author to place Fillmore in an absurdly positive light.
After setting that up, the author has free license to do WHATEVER HE WANTS, and he does so freely. The result is a meandering, entertaining story that dips in and out of 19th century American politics and culture, but largely focuses on stuff like Masonic conspiracies, Presidential assassinations, bullying in the Senate, dirt-farming, sumo wrestling, rubber bands... you get the idea. Any topic is fair game, the more half-baked the better.
Like most good historical humor books, the best stuff is often found in the footnotes. The author can go on fun tangents about random topics, either inventing from whole cloth or twisting established facts. Also like most books in this vein, it's funnier the more you know about the source material. I particularly enjoyed the incidents that I'm familiar with, like Commodore Perry's voyage and Andrew Jackson's campaigning. I'm not as well versed on the Indian wars, so I didn't get as much out of those sections.
In an interesting touch, the book also contains a set of endnotes, seemingly written tongue-in-cheek by the actual author rather than by the invented author. (Ahh, I love modernism! It has truly infected even our most farcial endeavors.) The end notes briefly discuss the "real" historic facts that underly the various scenes in this book, pointing out which particular outrageous things were based in fact, and which "cannot be independently verified."
Most of the humor is cerebral, but there's an appealing strain of slapstick as well. One of my favorite running jokes was that all of the American financial crises are blamed on Fillmore. This is yet another case where the authorial voice gets tricky and interesting. Typically, the narrator will describe some scrape that Fillmore gets into in New York City, which typically ends with Fillmore being chased by a crowd or an assassin. Then the narrator will start a new paragraph with a line like, "It's unfortunate that Fillmore was so harassed at this time, because he missed out on one of the great financial crises. At the precise time that Fillmore's journals describe him being chased through Manhattan, an overweight and disheveled man was observed bursting onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Panting for breath, he shouted, 'The French are attacking! All is lost! Sell, sell!' and then ran out. After he exited, a brief moment of silence hung over the floor. Then, hundreds of sheets of paper flew into the air as a general panic fell over the room. This incident resulted in the Panic of 18XX, which led to a depression of five years. If only Fillmore had been present, his calmness and brilliance could have saved the nation from those difficult times." Again, the joke is that the "author" has received information implying that Fillmore is an even WORSE president than we already thought, and he draws the opposite conclusion.
I can't say that this is an awesome book, but it is a good one. I thought that it got better as it went along; I'm not sure if this is because it actually gets funnier, or if it's more that I started to put myself in the right mental position to appreciate it. In either case, by the time Fillmore enters public life and meets Edgar Allen Poe, I started really digging the book.
Incidentally, if you read the book, don't skip the index. In fact, if you only read one part of the book, you should read the index. It includes, for example, an entry for Ron Chernow, with nested entries including "Who the hell was Alexander Hamilton, anyways" and "We both know that awards don't mean anything."
This is definitely a niche book, and thoroughly odd, but worth checking out if it's your thing. I'll keep my eyes peeled for a sequel; I think something like "Richard Nixon: Least Criminal President Ever" would be a fun read.
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