Tag Archives: Review

Save Against Fear

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I spent the weekend at a local game convention with my daughter. It was time well spent. The folks at the Bodhana Group really put together an excellent weekend. This year was the second time in their location at the Harrisburg Mall. It was also the second time I got to attend the convention.

Great stuff – it’s local to me, affordable and filled with activity. Added bonus, I was only an attendee. I wasn’t part of the team putting the show on, I wasn’t working or speaking or any of the other things that I’ve come to associate with conventions. I was simply attending and enjoying the time with my daughter.

More Great Stuff – we had the chance to put in for door prizes each day, could pick up tasty tasty treats from the bake sale and got the chance to participate in the “play to win” promotion. Play to win is a super cool idea. Game companies donated a number of games to the convention. You could check out a game and play it. When you did, put your name on the list and you’re entered for a chance to win. Call them out on social media and get an additional chance to win. We came home with two FREE games this weekend just because we took the time to sign them out and test drive them. Combined with the door prize I won I think the winning balanced out what we paid to attend this year.

Even more great stuff – it really was a fantastic little convention. The people attending were nice and friendly. We got to play games with new folks and both learn and teach new games. We got to meet and talk to game designers. Test drove 3 different games that are still in development. Couldn’t pick them up as they’re still in development, but signed up to be notified when the games come out so we can get them then. All kinds of fun.

Really, the only down side to the whole thing involves the location. Being at the mall is excellent. It’s a ton of free parking, easy access and short walk to the food court when we chose to break for something to eat. Close to the house and easy to get to any time. The space itself is one of the large stores that hasn’t been rented out yet. It’s not pretty. It is as unfinished and worn out as you might think. The temperature was all sorts of out of control. It got hot enough in there to make a number of folks not feel well on Saturday afternoon – and I don’t know if the HVAC system was something the con could control or not, but it was a real issue. Also – just on a personal level – I HATED the chairs that were provided. To be fair, they DID provide chairs and tables for around 400 people. NOt easy. I still hated them.

If you’re in the area I highly recommend looking this convention up next year. They’ve already announced it – and as soon as registration goes up I’m signing up to go again!

Wrinkle

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A Wrinkle in Time (Time, #1)A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s difficult to offer up a ‘review’ of a book deemed by many to be a classic of genre fiction.

I did not read this book when I was a teenager. I read it recently, partly for a book group and partly so I would have the book version in my mind before I watched the movie adaptation.

I suspect that IF I had read the book when I was a teenager the impact would have been vastly different than reading it as an adult. I understand why so many people relate to it. I understand why it’s considered a classic. It’s a good book. I wasn’t overwhelmed – but I think I missed the ‘sweet spot’ as far as the age to read this book.

What I am going to do is give it to my daughter and let her know that it’s worth HER reading it. It is a classic. If you haven’t read it, it’s a quick read and worth the effort.

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Seeking

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Truthseeker (Worldwalker Duology #1)Truthseeker by C.E. Murphy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually finished reading this book some time ago, but have just now gotten around to the review.

It’s marked as a duology – so it shouldn’t be a shock that this book doesn’t have a complete ending. It reaches a good finishing point, but you have to read them both to get the whole thing.

I didn’t get to the second one. I can’t put a finger on exactly what didn’t catch me on this one. I will say it did something that I haven’t seen in other books.

– spoilers if you haven’t read it yet –

There’s a part where the main character travels by magic to fairy land. She’s supposed to be able to get right back to the time when she left. She doesn’t. I’ve read a number of alternate world stories and it’s unheard of to actually then deal with somebody not getting back to their place during the time when they should have been there. Sure, there are the ones where people are placed out of time by a hundred years or more – but this one was more like 6 months and then the main character shows up again. And has to deal with court cases and missing persons cases that are being handled by the police *about them*. It was very refreshing to see that. It was one of the things I really enjoyed about this book.

I think there’s a lot of good stuff here for fans of urban fantasy.

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Limit Your Greed

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Limit Your Greed: Put principles above money to build better businesses and a better world (and still make a profit)Limit Your Greed: Put principles above money to build better businesses and a better world by Bill Catchings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stay away from 5 star ratings generally, but I do genuinely think this book qualifies.

I will add the disclaimer here that I know one of the co-authors BUT I went and purchased my own Kindle version of this book.

Then I went and bought a hard copy so I could hand it to a co-worker. When she’s done with it I’m going to start noting things up and seeing what sorts of practices I can pull from the book and apply to the office I work in.

In case you’ve missed it – I like this book. I don’t read a lot of business books, but if other business books were like this one I’d likely read a lot more of them. Concise, clear and well written. There’s no nonsense here. This is real world, in practice stuff.

The downside, if you can call it that, is the aim or focus of the book toward people running or starting businesses. I am not the owner of the place where I work. IF I were the owner I’d be in a much better position to push for changes like these. As it is, I am going to need to figure a way to get these ideas across to the owners of my current office.

I recommend anyone with an interest in running a business differently go and get a copy of this book. Absolutely worth it.

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Harsh Mistress

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The Moon Is a Harsh MistressThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a selection for a local book group. I’m glad it was picked.

I’ve read other works by the author but never this one. I had no idea what to expect, no preconceived notions with regard to the story. My “notions” were all related to the author himself.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Yes, there are a number of anachronistic things in the book. It was published more than 50 years ago – of course some of the devices and gear won’t look “new”.

The thing that struck me most was the number of ideas at play in there. Little things that amounted to “throw away” bits in the book. The main character is dealing with a computer that has become self aware. The main character then considers his interactions with the machine not just as a person to a tool, but takes into account the “feelings” of the machine, at one point mentioning that he doesn’t want it to become suicidal. This in an age that still thought the computer needed to be a room sized thing with tubes. Like I said – ideas.

There are lots of good things to chat about in here. It’s a classic that is worth picking up and checking out.

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Ready Player One – A Review

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Ready Player One

I went back and looked. I didn’t realize that it had been almost 5 years since I read the book. You can read my old review of the book here.

IF you’re interested in a synopsis of the book from a slightly different point of view (with spoilers), feel free to check this guy out (he’s really clever and I like his work) THUG NOTES.

The movie itself.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet – yes, there will be spoiler stuff in here. There has to be in order to cover my specific thoughts on the film. Before I get to that part, here’s the short, non-spoiler version:

It was a well done movie. There’s a lot of visual stuff that’s worth your dollars to see it on the big screen. I didn’t see it in 3D, but I bet that would actually help this movie. Go see it and support it, we want stuff that isn’t a sequel or a remake of TV shows from the 70s or 80s.

After this is the spoilery bits – you are warned.

I really did like the movie, but I went into the theater completely prepared to be disappointed. That might have helped my outlook by the end because it was better than I was afraid it was going to be when we got to the end. A number of my fears DID happen to come true and that made me more than a little sad.

There are a number of things that were different from the book. Yes, we know this and it happens to every film. The book ranged over worlds and games and took a really long time to cover certain ground. It wasn’t descriptive so much as pointed out pop culture from the past. There were going to have to be changes in order to make the movie work. The problem is changing or tweaking just the right thing and not losing the tone or message that made the book the success it is. There were three parts to that in my mind – the pop culture, the challenges and the characters. One at a time, in reverse order –

The characters. I know the story centers around Wade. The book has had some criticism about how his character plays out. The movie actually doesn’t do badly with him, and helps to get away from the stalker aspects of his character as he is shown in the book. The rest of the characters however have been ‘adjusted’ by Hollywierd. Wade gets taken to work for the sixers, not Art3mis. The movie takes her instead. Aech’s story is mostly background, but the part in the book where she’s playing as a white guy because she gets more respect didn’t need to be chopped out. Her avatar for the game should have still been a white guy. That bothers me. The movie hints at danger for the characters, but this is the movies – none of the main team actually dies. That’s not the case in the book. I don’t know if it was a ratings thing or if it was deemed to be bad for the story – I’m not sure. Whatever it was I think it weakened the movie when it didn’t need to. I loved that Simon Pegg was in there. I could have done without the changes to Og’s character, but it was less noticeable. His part was small but very good. The portrayal of Halliday was exceptionally well done. Much more than I had hoped for. That part of the characters was fantastic.

The challenges. I know there was some effort made to engage with people who don’t remember the 80s and don’t particularly care about any of the nostalgia related things in this story. I get it. You need to make the money back that you put into the product. WHY would the Dungeons and Dragons portion of the challenges have to be dumped? They only call outs – despite appearing to have the go ahead from WoTC (and I watched for that in the credits) – were a t-shirt, a couple of posters on a bedroom wall and the face on the back of the van. Yes, that face is from the original art in the module that is the challenge in the book. WHY? I fail to understand that. It can’t be some leftover garbage from the days of the satanic panic can it? Has the film maker in this case fallen back onto news from the 80s in the decision making process too? The Shining wasn’t even in the book! IF there was going to be a movie that would be referenced it should have been Ladyhawk. Cannon! IF the argument for removing the dungeons and dragons references is some attempt to connect with a modern (non-80s) audience The Shining sure isn’t the way. In fact, since Stranger Things hit there’s been a resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons. It would in fact make MORE sense to include it than not! That leads me into the last of the three portions.

The Pop culture. Fine, I’ll give you Iron Giant over Leopardon for a giant robot. Fine. We got Rush music in one trailer and then it wasn’t in the movie. Sure, there are scads of background things that you could pick out – but get them right. Atari 2600 plays a central role to all this AND THEY GOT THE DETAILS WRONG. The controllers on the one game console they show are for the Colecovision! IF you’re going to send people looking for Easter Eggs expect to be called out on that sort of thing. People are going to be pulling this apart for a long time. Again – a little bit of effort and it’s soooo much better. There were a lot of things that just dragged at my willingness to go on this ride and tried to pull me out of the story.

In the end, yes this is a good movie. It should be supported on the big screen so that we all continue to see many and varied offerings like it on the big screen. If you go in with low hopes, no nostalgia hooked into your brain nor any desire to see a particular portion of the book displayed ‘just so’ then you won’t be disappointed. I did like it, and I will own it at some point but maybe not until it falls into the discount bin or the clearance shelf with all the other nostalgic things that got put back in the closet.

Not For Me

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The family and I went to see Black Panther tonight.

A movie that is part of the Marvel cinematic universe gives one high expectations. It brought a lot to the table in an attempt to meet those expectations.

My wife loved it. She wants to see it again and has told me that we will own the film.

BUT you might be asking, what did you think of it? You’ve said what it is, but not what you thought of it. True.

This movie met all those expectations. It was a gorgeous film. The costumes, the backgrounds, the action and the colors were all a treat for the eyes. It was a good story. All of the characters were believable people (with some leeway for the fact that this IS a comic book film of course). The emotions, the love, the ferocity shone through. No pandering, no excuses, just an excellent cinematic work.

I believe all of what I just wrote there, but I also believe something that might not sound like an endorsement when it truly is. This film was not for me. I thought it was great. I’m crazy happy that it’s killing the box office. The women in the film were stunning. There was so much to see that I’ll watch it again and again without doubt – but this film was not for me.

And that’s great. It’s fantastic. That’s exactly the point. There is so much stuff out there in movie land that IS for me and fits with all the things I’ve always seen in the movies that this film was long over due. There needs to be amazing movies out there for everyone. As they say in this movie, the world is getting smaller. Seeing and learning about something that isn’t you is going to be a vital tool moving forward. It matters that the characters never apologized for the times they didn’t just speak English so everyone could understand. Not having hair that works the way yours might – or not having hair at all is not a detriment to beauty.

It also matters that my daughter went to see this. She’s not viewing this with a jaded eye. This is the sweet spot for story telling for her. She’s at the exact age where films and big event things like that will stick with her into her adulthood. I remember to this day all the amazing films that came out when I was her age. All the characters that blasted onto the screen for me. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Superman… seeing the connection with them? Yeah, they’re all “for me” being powerful white guys. I asked my daughter who her favorite characters from the film were. Who was the hero of the film? She said the general, or the king’s sister. She liked the warrior and the scientist. Not some person just waiting about to be rescued or randomly fall into love at first sight and get married, but people of action and determination. Strong, caring and intelligent people that do what they need to for their home and their family.

This movie was not for me – and that is what matters the most. Go see it. Support the diversity and the connection that something like this can represent.

Illumination Required

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Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1)Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. I liked the story, the world building and the characters. There was some very thoughtful stuff in there. There’s action and tension and the real sense of danger you don’t get from a lot of books without being over the top.

This book also brought up some questions that are worthy of discussion from a publishing point of view. It was an interesting choice to put the story forward as a series of found documents and compiled messages or reports. That certainly helped the speed of the book, a very quick read. What didn’t work for me was the tiny font that actually carried story information across waves or swirls or ship patterns.

To be fair about this – I was reading on an electronic device. That might make a difference. IF I had been reading a hard copy of the book, perhaps the swirls and such would have had a better feel. As it was, even when I attempted to use the e-reader’s ability to make fonts larger or zoom on pictures it was a fail. There were parts of the story I missed just because I couldn’t read it. That was very frustrating.

IF you’re going to get a copy of this book I recommend it for the story, but not so much for the layout.

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Fool Moon

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Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, #2)Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Went back and listened to this one. Much like the first (Storm Front) I was surprised at how much I didn’t remember of the details. I’d read my copy long enough ago that there was still tension when I listened despite knowing “the future” of the characters. STILL really well done.

I am really enjoying listening to the audio production. Having the book read to me is a neat way to experience the story. I did actually pick up on one teeny tiny flub in the reading – but it was so slight that I suspect most people wouldn’t catch it.

Absolutely worth going to get this version and digging back into the series!

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Carlisle Vs. Army

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Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest BattleCarlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football’s Greatest Battle by Lars Anderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There’s no half star available on the rating scale here – I’d really put this book around 3.5 stars.

I liked this book and the slice of history it represents. One of my favorite parts of this book is the way it ties together the other things that were happening at the time when the game in question was set to go off. Historic context is very important. It’s also fascinating to draw parallels to things that still happen today, around 100 years later.

I did struggle with the way the story flow of the book was chopped up. The author went backward and forward across the time line even in the same chapter and more than once it pushed me out of my momentum so it took longer to read than it might have otherwise.

I find this book more interesting based on the simple fact that I, and my parents and my sisters family, live very near where these things took place. When I mentioned this book or folks in this area saw the cover they generally had some knowledge already about the famous Jim Thorpe. There is a lingering sense of pride even after those same 100 years and all the related issues.

IF you happen to be near the central Pennsylvania area you will find this book of interest. Some of the places mentioned are still around. If you’re a fan of football as it is played today, it is worth digging into this story to get a sense of why the game is what it is and how we’ve landed where we are. I’ve heard other versions of Pop Warner’s story, not in connection with Jim Thorpe and it interests me to see the contrasts. A different view point is always good to have. I Recommend this book based on those particulars.

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