This is why I write fanfiction

Because when you write original stories, people don't send you messages that say this-


Dear Mister Buch, I do belive that you should consider professionally writing material. Your denying yourself a chance to spread this level of writing to everyone else. Simple, virtually flawless, belivable and charmingly addictive. Its a rare thing, even amoung the top quality gems to be found on FFN, to see concise writing like this, I think the best word for it is succinct. In all honesty, this is superlative work, so much so that I actually feel a little guilty because I did not pay for it. I will look forward to reading your other works, and would like you to know you have my respect.

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I had to post here specifically to boast childishly about that. It's probably the best review I've ever had, from a stranger anyway. Even if he did mis-spell 'you're', it's an incredibly nice thing for him to have said, and a massive ego boost for me.

Prologue or Anti...logue?

I recently started up a conversation at Absolute Write out of mild curiosity. I've been thinking a lot about that dreaded process of getting a book published known as the "Query Stage." I've never seen anyone actually refer to it as the Query Stage, but it makes too much sense not to use it.

To boil it down, my story has a prologue in it, and in regards to my experience with sending out queries for my last novel, many agents ask for different things: the first 10,000 words, the first chapter, the first three chapters, etc. But I never knew whether or not I should send the prologue along.

Many people use the prologue for many different things, and different people feel different ways about it. I remember one of my teachers telling me that reading the prologue in a book isn't necessary all of the time. My brother has been skipping the prologues because of this line of thinking, as well. So I was sure that if there are some people who think the prologue is meaningless, then there are probably agents who do as well.

So I asked the forum: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165475

I couldn't get a straight answer from any of them, to my amusement. I had would-be authors and published authors trying to figure it out. It was funny, and supported my initial worries. There were a few very helpful posts by people who had been worried about the same thing, and they told me to think of the prologue as CHAPTER ONE if it's of importance to the story.

And the prologue is important to my story in this regard. Without the prologue, chapter one doesn't carry the same weight, and without chapter one, the prologue carries no meaning at all since it's detached from the main story. There are others who use the prologue as an info-dump. The kind of "In a world where darkness reigns supreme" prologues that are more of a refresher course than anything else.

So, I will be sending it along to agents, unless they state otherwise. Just thinking about the time when I can get another shot at the process gets me all excited. The last time around, I was fairly arrogant about everything and did so many things wrong. I plan on not making the same mistakes this time.

Stranger Than Fiction

I thought I'd update my current writing progress here, since I haven't done much of anything in terms of updating on this blog of late. I suck.

A few things happened that sort of put a halt to my fanfiction writing:

1) School started up. Nothing puts the kibosh on writing faster than learning about frescoes and the Vitruvian Man.

2) Whatever spare time I've had between school, schoolwork, work, and traveling, I've given over to the writing of my second novel. I'm really excited about it for a few reasons. For the first time, I'm writing something that 100% belongs to me. When I was writing fantasy, I had to borrow concepts from other authors to progress the story along, but now I'm borrowing from my own life. My love of religion, exploration, and dissection of identity. It's all gonna be in there.

Hoping it doesn't suck, but I don't think that's the case so far. It might be boring, but it probably doesn't suck. And here's my progress so far, BAM:



3) Finally, I'm sort of burned out on most of the things I've been writing for. Mass Effect and Star Wars have been kind to me, but it's been hard to even think about either of them lately. This will probably put a hold on All Along The Watchtower, at least until I'm able to get a quick edit in.

So, that's all why people probably won't be seeing anything from me, beside the occasional quick chapter of Darth Bane or The GNR Transcripts, which I can usually write within an hour if I'm motivated.

Until then, I'll probably post my thoughts on writing here, but it probably won't relate to fanfiction a super lot. We shall seeeeee.

F Zero X Character roster

Lately, I've been playing a lot of F Zero X for Nintendo 64.

It's a grand old racing game, with a massive cast of thirty wierd-looking comic-book-style chaacters. In most cases I don't know their real names, and I don't believe any kind of biographies are given in the game.

All I do know is - a lot of them look silly. And when I'm trying to race I find it impossible not to stare at the little portraits in the top 5 and come up with nicknames for them.

So, without further ado...

Buch's guide to the characters of F Zero X!

1 ) Dr Zoidberg
Dr Zoidberg, formally a local MD based in interplanetary deliveries, has fallen on hard times recently. He now races the F Zero circuit in an attempt to afford an operation to remove the cucumber from his nose.


2) Those Guys From The Star Wars Cantina Scene
One of them doesn't like you, and the other one doesn't like you either. They're wanted men! They have the death sentence on twelve systems! And so on.



3) Angry Father Christmas
This year nobody left him a glass of sherry on the mantelpiece. A life long alcoholic, Santa is now forced to go cold turkey, and he takes out his frustrations on his fellow F Zero racers.


4) Captain Falcon
A former crowd favourite, the Captain is doing poorly of late. His driving is fine, but every single race, without fail, one of the other racers will knock him off the side of the track, crying "Falcon Kick!" and laughing as they speed away. Every single time.


5) Captain Palette-Swap
Push the button, Max!



6) Temuera Morrison
After so many years stuck in the role, New Zealand-born actor Temuera is now convinced he IS Jango Fett. With this in mind, he races around F Zero in a replica Slave 1. Nobody minds him.

7) Jodie Summer AKA Brunette Samus
My favourite character. I have nothing mean to say about her. Curiously, she normally has brown hair.



8) The Most Boring Character
I dunno. He smiles, he wears a red helmet. Be honest - you haven't got anything either.



9) The Cruel Wizard Wrath-Amon
That's more like it! Wrath-Amon is the leader of the Evil Serpent Men, who are from another dimension and will reveal their true form if you attack them with Star Metal.



10) Mister Hyde
Mister Hyde likes to tell people that he is the famous literary character of the same name and alter-ego to Doctor Jekyll. In fact he's just a very ugly man with the surname Hyde.


11) Badly-Disguised Cylon
This unfortunate double agent still thinks nobody has noticed his infiltration into the F Zero ranks.


12) E Honda
Us Japanese fighters gotta stick together. CUZ WE'RE BROTHERS! HA HA HA HA!


13) Utahraptor
Most famous for his appearances in Dinosaur Comics - Utahraptor is seen here in panel 5.



14) I Have No Idea
I originally had a dirty joke here, but I decided it was too crude. Make up your own story for this fella.


15) The Cat
It's Danny John Jules from Tv's Red Dwarf, now racing in a desperate effort to regain the credibility he lost in the recent three part special.



16) Female, Black Character
That ought to mollify that demographic. Next!



17) The Noid
Avoid him. Or better yet, knock his car over the edge of the track, just killing him once and for all. Should the opportunity present itself, please finish what Adam West started.


18) Super Arrow
After Jodie Summer (#7), easily my favourite character. I just love the completely serious expression on his face despite the hat, and the even more serious expression on the bird. God, I wish the bird was also wearing a hat with huge wings, and maybe a letter B. In the game, his suit is bright red, which makes him even funnier looking.
I love this guy.


19) Doctor Smugman
The good doctor is a leading light in the field of centre-partings, and tirelessly seeks to perfect a cure for hereditary smugness.


20) Foetoid
Remember Foetoid? From the game Forsaken?
Sure you do. Foetoid, ladies and gentlemen.



21) Mister Creosote
Hercule Poirot, the great Belgian detective, stretches all his little grey cells as part of his continuing investigation at the F Zero tracks. Finally after sifting all the evidence, he gathers all the other racers together in the drawing room to... oh shit, it's Mister Creosote.


22) The Troll
The Troll lives underneath the Rainbow Road track and, when not racing, demands tolls from other racers trying to practice. He is sick of people calling him 'Krang' and he does not know what they are giggling about.

23) Mrs Arrow
This attractive young lady has the extraordinary misfortune of being married to Super Arrow (#18). She is never seen without her signature sunglasses, onto the backs of which she has glued a photograph of a less ridiculous-looking man.


24) Fake Cosplay Fox McCloud
FCFMcC likes to pretend he is Fox McCloud from the Starfox games. To this end he has modelled his car to look like an Arwing and dresses like his hero at all times. At the end of each race he calls, "All aircraft report!" while the others either ignore him or loudly insist that he do a barrel roll.


25) Lobotomised Starwolf
After being trounced by arch nemeses Starfox too many times, Starwolf needed serious brain surgery to recover his injuries. Unfortunately he came out rather less intelligent, but he continues to spend his life behind the wheel, albeit the wheel of an F Zero car. Fake Cosplay Fox McCloud (#24) likes to hang around and provoke him between races.

26) The Cryptkeeper
Hello boys and ghouls! Tonight's terrifying tale concerns F Zero racing! He he he he he! I call this nauseating number... Driven... to DEATH!!
In recent years the Cryptkeeper has lost his hair.


27) Handsome Jack AKA Not Tom Paris
This handsome young chap spends so much time preening himself in the rear-view mirror that he has yet to actually start an F Zero race. He seems happy enough.



28) Michael Chain
Michael Chain is only a part time racer. During the week he teaches Art History at Stanford University, and campaigns tirelessly against racial stereotyping. Also - Michael's car looks like a big orange toast rack.


29) Captain Picard
Nobody knows what this gentleman's real name is because everyone is so used to calling him 'Captain Picard'. He hates it, and even got a tattoo on his head, just to make him look less like the famous TV character. The irony is that if he didn't get so annoyed every time, they'd stop calling him that. After hours, he likes to hang around with Handsome Jack (#27) so they can discuss how they are totally NOT Captain Picard and Tom Paris, respectively.



30) Doc Brown
F Zero tracks? Where we're going we don't need... F Zero tracks...

15 Fun Fanfic Facts

This evening I have set myself the task of educating you with a select fifteen titbits of my fanfiction-related knowledge!

Sit back, dear reader, and prepare to be educated.

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1) Fanfic is short for 'Fan Fiction' - often inaccurately written as 'Fanfiction', for instance in the title of this blog, and on Fanfiction.net.

2) The term 'fan fiction' itself derives from the Greek fanaticum fictatas, which translates literally to 'Writing yourself into Wrath of Khan'.

3) In the famous fic 'Doom: Repercussions of Evil', many people miss the famous, deceptive and subtle twist. It's that John is the demons.

4) There are currently 78 fanfics in the world. Over 50 are about Twilight.

5) To qualify as 'fanfic', a story must contain at least three spelling errors.

6) Successful, published fanfic authors include Dan Brown, who for several years has been writing excellent Dan Brown fics.

7) 99% of fanfiction stories are written on Microsoft Word.

8) Fanfic writers are unnaturally attached to reviews. In some cases, they have been known to slip into comas after prolonged periods without any reviews. It is possible to revive these cases by repeatedly saying "I LOL'd" in a reassuring voice.

9) The earliest known fanfiction was a drawing of two antelope found on a cave wall in Argentina. It bears a striking similarity to another, more famous image on a nearby cave, but in this one the antelope are having sex.

10) Famous, secret fanfic writers include Mike Tyson, Germaine Greer and Abraham Lincoln, who wrote a short Silk Spectre II/Rorschach piece on the back of the Gettysburg Address.

11) A recent study found that crossover fics are all rubbish.

12) The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'Fanfiction' as, "Absolutely not. No. Tell Charles there is no way in Hell I'm allowing a contraction of a made-up phrase beginning with a seperate contraction - and used to describe something that my own nerdy cousin, who still lives with his parents at 42, finds uncool and beneath him - into the Oxford English Fucking Dictionary. - Ed."

13) Fanfic was often written on long sea voyages to pass time. During the Napoleonic Wars, there was a slew of Nelson/Hardy slash, inspired by the rumours.

14) The popular fanfic term 'Mary Sue', meaning an unrealistically wonderful protagonist, is named after Mary Sue Jonsson, a nurse who travelled across the United States rewarding skilled and underappreciated fanfic authors with cookies and thank-you cards during the 1950's. To this day she is revered almost as a patron saint.

15) Writing and reading fanfiction is really good fun, and not nearly as nerdy as people think. It's creative and it helps writers improve. There are hundreds of wonderful stories online for free. Have a look at FF.net.

Depressingly good books

I justy got done reading Ender's Game, which Knightfall Eleven Thirty-Eight sent me as a present in July.

Maybe it's because I've just come off from reading Twilight and the Star Wars: Darth Bane books - but I'm just overwhelmed by how good the book is. Espescially after the fantastic last two chapters - loaded with so much fantastic payoff it's like a great mystery novel.

This past year and a half (or so) I've been reading a lot of classic novels in with my usual whatever-takes-my-occasional-fancy and fanfiction. This is one of two sci-fi classics I checked out, and I'm really glad I did.

I was indifferent at the first - even put off by the extraordinarily grim tone of what I assumed to be a book for teens - but grew more and more fascinated as the story became more and more complex and wound around itself. I love the realism and complete lack of a grand quest or a clear antagonist. The scope and detail and characterisation grow at the same rate as the protagonist and the chapter lengths. The way events from earlier chapters are repeatedly cast in a new light by developments and revelations makes me want to start reading again right away. With my ever-growing 'reading list' it won't be right away, but it will be read many more times.

But the point of this blog - besides gushing with praise - is to highlight that feeling that I imagine all writers (and all artists and film-makers and... I dunno... chefs) get - the frustrated ambivalence when you read a fantastic book and enjoy it completely - but then realise that it's miles better than anything you've ever written. (Or cooked.)

It's like someone has pushed the goalposts a little closer together. I learned some great tricks and got some real inspiration, but now I'm aiming for a higher quality. Now even science fiction is not safe for the lazy or contented writer, because I just read an outstanding book that has aliens and space-stations.

It genuinely does limit my enjoyment of the book. It makes me yearn for the simple, easy life of the mediocre amateur writer reading Stephanie Meyer and making sarcastic comments throughout the whole, slightly-below-mediocre experience.

However, according to 1138- a long term fan of the book - only the first two novels in the Ender saga are worth reading.

Good.

New Story: The Poetic Fanfic Blog

Behold, our many readers! I've started writing a new story. It should be updating fairly sporadically, but the first chapter is up now and I have some of the second down.

Here is the link - The Poetic Fanfic Blog, by Quarter-Bl00d Prince

In the last year or so I've become immersed in the world of fanfic, and it's involved some interesting adventures. Now, I'm trying to move out of fanfic and write more original stories.

Don't get me wrong - I love the FF and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up always writing it. But I'm trying to get into original stories now. I like the freedom, and I want to get published so I've got to practice.

To ease the transition, and because I wanted to honour all the stuff I've learned and experienced in my fanfiction year, I thought I'd write an original fic about fanfic. So I had an idea today for a fake blog by a fanfic writer, about his daily life, and entirely in poetry.

It's basically going to be a series of poems about fanfic and mundane details of life, but there is an overall story arc than I got worked out.
Basically, he's a sad and puffed-up young man who's writing a blog in the form of a series of poems, in order to best his fanfic-writing rival and impress a girl author he likes.

Yes, parts of this are based on real life. After all, I do write a blog about fanfiction and a few people will recognise the origins of the rivalry story.

And of course, as the picture on this post suggests, there is another very heavy inspiration. In the first chapter I put in a couple of references to that other fake blog about a proud guy with a rival and a love interest, just to ackowledge that I realise the premise is very similar. I mean to distance it as much as possible though. Don't worry - I'll make it my own as it progresses.

Anyway I think I've garbled about my own story long enough now. I might start putting some fanfic reviews on this site - or a 'Buch Recommends' for fanfic I like. Or something.

--

In fact let me balance out this big plug with some links to other and better stories that are actually fanfic, and that you should read instead of mine.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5028195/1/Harvest

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4006051/1/Staying_Behind

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5307018/1/One_stop_gone

--

Now I'm signing off. Captain Hammer... threw a car... at my head.

Join in with our mass-collaborative fanfic!

Over at the Mass Effect Fanfic Forums AKA 'Rascarin's Shack' (I will be pushing to make that the official name) we play a game - please come join in!



It's called the One Sentence Story.
We're writing a jokey Mass Effect fanfic, between all of us - each of us writing one sentence at a time. Someone writes a sentence, then it's up to someone else to volunteer to write the next one. Then someone else, and so on.

As a result of so many writers, it constantly veers on the ridiculous with people making wierd gags and trying to outdo each other with impossible-to-follow sentences.

We did this before earlier this year, and it was a big success. We got new members and became a more social and chatty group as a result.

We recently started again - and it occurred to me to advertise a little here! The new Mass Mass Effect Story is called 'Attack of the Scones' and you can see it HERE.

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The first story was so good we unleashed it upon Fanfiction.net - where it bewildered and amused the Mass Effect crowd.
HERE IT IS, reviews and all.
--

So if you fancy contributing a sentence or two, click the link at the top of this article, sign up to the forum and post away.

Game Review: Braid (Third version)

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Pretentious? Moi? Then perhaps I shall reverse the flow of time and undo these pretentions? Mwa ha ha I'm so clever.
--

This is not the first lengthy blog / review on the subject 'Is Braid Art?' and it will not be the last.

It is, however, the first game review here at Fanfiction Shenanigans AKA Buch and Knight's Old-Fashioned Fan-fiction Pub.

EDIT: This is the updated, less angry version, after I had calmed down and finally 'got' how the game works.

EDIT EDIT: I also added a bit at the end, after I finished the game.

"Braid" is a downloadable, short, 2D platform/puzzle game on the Xbox 360 and I believe now you can get it for PC.

This started as a thread where I was venting in the ME fanfic forums. It became so long that I thought I'd put it up here on the blog, and just leave a clipped version at the forum.
The version I posted was very angry at the pretention the game has - and it really does, but I had barely played the game itself, so annoyed was I by its narcissistic style.

I just bought it, and at first I was very impressed... but a couple of hours in, I think I hate it as much as any game I've ever hated, albeit for completely new and original reasons. It's not just that I sucked at it - I really sucked at it for that first hour or so (and the game makes no attempt to ease you in) - it's also that it seems to present itself so proudly and arrogantly that I'd like to punch the creator in the face.

On the official site, there is an 'official walkthorugh', written by said creator, which starts off by painstakingly walking you through every step of the easy intro stage - and then tells you not to use a walkthrough, and ends.

This did not help with my frustrarion.

http://braid-game.com/walkthrough/walkthrough.html

It says you will spoil the game if you use a walkthrough, and promises that if you just try to solve the 'not unreasonable' puzzles, then you will feel clever and great. I just wanted to punch this website in the face.
The front page of this site has a list of grand boasts, like "Every puzzle in Braid is unique. There is no filler" and "Braid is a platform game in a painterly style..." (wow, you know a long word. I bow before you. Please accept 1200 microsoft points as tribute oh mighty Creator) and "Braid does everything it can to give you a mind-expanding experience." So far it had given me a wallet-shrinking and curse-word-vocabulary-expanding experience.

This game has a 9.5 out of ten at Gamespot, very positive reviews all round. I've read up on it and discovered that there is a very, very good ending to the poetic, dreamlike story (wish I hadn't spoiled it by reading ahead) and even a rather nice political subtext.

But all of this is presented with such arrogance and such contempt for the player, that I can't stand it. The levels are preceeded by blocks of text which set up a vague but good story about a relationship breakup in deeper and deeper layers. But the little passages read like an angsty poem by a school kid who just got dumped yesterday. Big, sweeping mixed metaphors and words that have been found in a thesaurus and shoved awkwardly in the middle of sentences that don't quite make sense because they're so poetic and whimsical. At first I thought the game must just be so damn good that it was above me. I was awed and intimidated, which I suspect is the point of the game. Then I concentrated, re-read the lines and realised that no, sometimes they just don't make sense.

It's little things like this. I got this quote from the wikipedia page-

He [the author, Johnathon Blow] has also said that he "would not be capable" of explaining the whole story of the game, and stated that the central idea is "something big and subtle and resists being looked at directly.

Oh fuck off and give me a real walkthrough.

Several hours later I felt the need to amend this review with a list of things that are undeniably excellent about the game -
- The music is lovely and haunting.
- The art is impressive, even if it does know it.
- The attempt to take the classic platform game hero (esentially this is based on Super Mario - there are lots of unsubtle homages) and show him as a human being, albeit an angsty, poetic one - what would his motivations be in rescuing this Princess? How did he come here? What is he becoming? etc.

Then I got to playing, determinded to give it a second chance, and I actually won a couple of levels.

Now I kinda like this game. And I am dreadfully embarrassed by my earlier tirade.

--

Real men, and real game reviewers, are not ashamed to admit their mistakes.

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However. Let me say this. Braid and its writer are so unbelievably full of themselves that you will find it a challenge not to hate them at times. If I meet this guy at some convention or whatever, I'm punching him.

It's a unique and story-driven platform puzzler. That is all. It's not art. And its writing leaves a lot to be desired.
It is, however, testament to the game that whenever I pressed 'backspace' during the writing of this amended article, I got a little trippy and felt that I was reversing time with the button.

(That could also because I haven't slept since yesterday.)

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FINAL UPDATE:

I finished the game. It was fun, although the last few stages were ridiculously hard and I had to use a walkthrough. Shockingly, this walkthrough did not ruin the game as warned. Indeed all the statements on the website turned out to be bullshit - there was quite a bit of filler, for instance.)

The last level was very, very good in terms of the story and how it presents it. There's a little gimic relating to reversing time which made me want to applaud. Then you have to read a lot more bad poetry while the themes are made more vague for no reason, and the story of the game is compared needlessly to the creation of the nuclear bomb. That bizarre comparison really jarred with the rest of the game, making it seem a bit awkward.

The ending was going beautifully - better than anything you see in games and genuinely expanding the medium..... until it got too far up its own bum and became deliberately inpenetrable.
The rest of the game was just the same.
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Three pretentious faux-watercolour backdrops out of five.

Fanfiction is for losers

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This is going to be another rant. I've been thinking about the incredibly uncool stigma fanfiction has.

I'll say this right away - I know it's never going to be cool. In my spare time, rather than going out and meeting people or playing sports, I stay in a single room and type stories based on computer games and space movies, and hope that the strangers who read them will leave a review. It's extremely nerdy.

But!

Did you see the movie Terminator: Salvation recently? How about Star Trek? Did you ever see Jaws 3 or 4? Alien Ressurection?

Those scripts are one step away from what we do - and that's a big budget. They were no better than the good fanfics (Jaws 3 and 4 were far worse), they were made as tributes by gushing fans who use too many references (I'll Be Back, CGI Arnold, The photo and tapes of Sarah Connor etc etc etc.) The Director of Terminator 4, one McG, even uses a catchy net-like pseudonym instead of his real name. He also did 'Charlie's Angels'.

That's a fanfiction writer, right there. Not even a very good one. He just gets paid millions for it.

These are movies made as expansions to classic nerd favourites that the directors and writers loved. They were not written by the same writer as the original, directed by the same director, or had the original cast (except for Spock's brief role in the new Trek and Sigourney Weaver embarassing herself in Alien 4.)

These are good mov..... Star Trek was a good movie and we all loved it. But please remember that it's just a fanfiction script that happenned to be written by rich, succesful writers and got picked up by JJ Abrams.

There are hundreds of better Star Trek sequels, spin-offs and reboots which nobody noticed when they were online and which weren't comissioned by a studio. Certainly, there are billions of piss-poor fics in which two random characters meet, have terrible out-of-character dialogue and then have sex.
But then, Star Trek had a random, out of character coupling too - remember? I loved that scene, but if I were reading a fan script in which Spock and Uhura kiss in a lift after Vulcan exploded, I would have instantly discarded it and handed over a critical review.

I don't know what my point is here. I must sound very angry and impotent, like a yapping, chained-up dog barking at cats across the street.

I'm just saying. 20% of fanfiction I read is really good. And 60% is better than Joss Whedon's script for Alien 4.

So stop making fun of us, internet. You're hurting our feelings.

(And I LOVE Joss Whedon. He's like a god to me. If I live to be a hundred I will never equal 'Firefly', 'Hush', 'Once More With Feeling' or 'Dr Horrible'. He is a god.)

More Twilight bashing

I promise this will by the last time I use this blog to whine about Twilight, and I will try to shut up about it in general.




I'm still reading it, and I'm about half way through. I'm enjoying the humour and the lovely, romantic fantasy. The sheer charmingness of Edward is nice, even if it is ludecrous, badly-described and startlingly misogynistic.

He's handsome, he's smart, he loves classical music, he's a loner with lots of secrets, he's graceful, strong and gifted, funny and in a slightly mean way. Best of all, his relationship with Bella (AKA the reader inserted into the plot) consists entirely of instances of her getting into trouble and him rescuing her. She is utterly helpless, and literally feels faint when he speaks. Yes, literally.

See what I mean? I am enjoying the book (though I still resent Meyer's ridiculous success) but I just can't talk about it without entering into these prolonged rants.

Anyway, I was reading yesterday and Edward finally came clean about being a vampire. And I started wondering if that proves Christianity. You know, he's a vampire. So what does that mean? Doesn't that imply the existence of God, or at the very least, some kind of magic? Why doesn't this occur to Bella? This is Earth-shattering.

And I wrote a short parody about it, which also takes potshots about all the other issues I was whining about.

That's right, this whole post was just a way to get you to read my new fanfic.

Click here if you please.

New Story: The Marvelous Misadventures of Darth Bane

Master Buch and I have just finished collaborating on a new parody for Fanfiction.net. Tis called "The Marvelous Misadventures of Darth Bane" and it chronicles the "Rule of Two" creator through all the highlights of his life.

You may find his by clicking here.

Again, I just have to state that we're not making fun of this series of stories by Drew Karpyshyn because we hate them. Far from it. If we hated them, we wouldn't have read them.

So, there ya go. We love Karpyshyn: plotholed stories and all. But, you know what they say about what you do to the things you love. You...make a parody of them on Fanfiction.net. I'm pretty sure Washington said that...

A Character With Your Voice

I believe I've mentioned one of several "enigmas of writing" in this blog, but just in case...there are many enigmas of writing in my eyes. Lemme 'splain what this means to me.

Writing is a delicate process. It's the fine tuning of what you want to say, and what the reader wants to hear. Entire books have been made as allegories for some greater message, because it's not as simple as explaining it verbatim; sometimes you have to sell it.

It's something that I don't mind, as long as I'm not being jerked around by the author. An author like Matthew "fucking" Stover would never go so far as to dropkick you with the message he's trying to get across; he puts it in there, and you only see it if you want to. There are others where that's all they do is take you aside and tell you: "Here's how the world works, in my humble opinion." Nothing's wrong with either approach, to me. That's how literature works. But there are some that just baffle me. Their approach is caught in the middle. They are the enigmas.

Orson Scott Card is one of these enigmas. To me, at least.

My first experience with OSC was near the end of high school. My friend let me borrow a copy of Ender's Game and it was one of the few books that I've read in just a couple days. I loved that book. It inspired me so damn much. That book became one of the "Holy Trinity" for me: the works that inspired me to be a writer. It takes its place up there along side R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Of course, I did the only logical thing a person in my position would do: I went out and bought the sequel! Speaker for the Dead, it was called, and I read it front to back during our annual trip to Yosemite. It wasn't that it was a bad book or that it was terribly written. Actually, it was far from it. The thing that confused me was that the book didn't feel like a sequel. It didn't seem like this book had any place in Ender's story. It didn't seem like it was Ender that I was even reading about!

It was an odd thing. A very odd experience. Speaker for the Dead is still a really good book, in my opinion, but still.

Then, I did the only logical thing from there, and I went and bought the third book, called Xenocide. Then, something terrible happened:

After reading Ender's Game and placing it among the most influential works to ever come into my life; after reading Speaker for the Dead front to back in a couple days during a goddamn Yosemite trip...I was twenty pages into Xenocide when I said, "Done."

There wasn't just something off about this third book in the series, there was something fucking degenerate about it. The entire first part of the book is a dialogue between two random characters about the finer points of Buddhism. Now, I had just taken an Intro to Philosophy class, and while I can't say I'm well versed in that life-style, it seemed like OSC had done the same thing I had: taken an intro course and got to work writing.

I was dumbfounded. How could this happen? How could a series that had been so inspirational to me so suddenly take a turn for the worse?

After...years of research (not consecutively, of course. I don't have a lab set up for stuff like this), I've discovered what so many others have discovered about OSC: he sets up a good universe--a popular universe--then hijacks his own characters and has them do the talking for his beliefs.

Is this a good thing, though? Ender was nothing more than an innocent boy in the first book. Sure, there were probably some Mormon undertones there, but I didn't catch them. Looking back at Speaker for the Dead, they're as plain as the sun in the daytime...and that's plain. Ender travels to a Portuguese colony in space and changes their lives with a new way of thinking, much like the Mormons attempt to do. The message being, the only way to change a culture is to completely understand it. No one knew why the Piggies acted the way they did, then Ender shows up, does a little digging and everyone gets along.

Again, is this right? If you establish a character a certain way and a certain tone, are you allowed, as the author, to completely change the story arc's meaning? Is this an integrity thing, or is this an "I wrote it, so I have a right to direct the story in this way" thing?

OSC has fans--some very dedicated ones--but could his works have been more respected had they not been hijacked in such a way. For those who are only aware of OSC, Ender's Game is always the book they know him for. Not the Shadow Saga, not the Alvin Maker Series, or the Homecoming Saga...Ender's Game.

Was it an opportunity missed, or just the way the chips fell? Should he be praised for getting his views out through his stories, or crucified for such a blatant hijacking? I don't know. Maybe nothing's wrong with it. Maybe everything's wrong with it.

I might never know, but I'll keep researching in the meantime. Back to the lab!

For Forks' Sake

See that image to the left? That's a massively sucessful author.

I'm reading Twilight at the moment and I have to share this with everyone who will listen.

I can't tell you how angry I am about this.

In chapter one - CHAPTER ONE - the author Stephanie Meyer - the published author - who is paid for her work.... paid money...

wrote this...

( just after the narrator/protagonist Bella whines about having to do P.E. in her new school )

wrote this.....


"Forks was literally my own personal Hell on Earth."

What? No, Stephanie, no it wasn't. It wasn't literally Hell, was it? Was it?!?! Do you mean 'figuritively', Stephanie? Metaphorically?
Did you know that 'literally' means the exact opposite of what you were trying to communicate? You unbelievble moron?

I just can't believe that someone who doesn't know what 'literally' means is selling 53 million copies.

I'm not pretending to be angry here to be funny. I'm THAT pissed off. The most popular author in the world now does not know what the word 'literally' means.

I found some small solace here...

http://www.twilightsucks.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3331

New Chapter: Revan's Shadow

Yeah, yeah, I know it's only been a week or so (if that) since the last update, but here's the next chapter for the story: right hmeah.

The reason it came so quickly is because this was one of the few scenes that I had actually written all those years ago...in a way. It was already in my mind, I should say. 80% of the dialogue that I used for HK-47 was stuff I ripped from my old mini-novel that I had started to write after I played both KotOR games.

It also came rather quickly because it was the one day I wasn't stressing over how I was going to write the Battle of Malachor V. I realize that I shouldn't be stressing so much over fanfiction, but it's important to me that I have something that I'm proud of on my account. I would never publish every idea I've had for the story; I still want a large chunk of the novel to remain in my head for possible official use in the future. Again, I realize I shouldn't be stressing over that either, but the story is very important to me...very important to me.

But! I'm still gonna go all-out with what I'm willing to put online. The Battle of Malachor V will be a while in the making, but I have an idea of how I'm going to handle it. After that, I only have maybe five chapters left to go...maybe. Then the ending that I've already written. And after that: I think I shall rest.

Aside from the projects that I've already started, by myself and with Buch, I'll probably take some time off from fanfiction for a while. I really want to get serious about my second novel, get it done, and send it off to some agents before the end of the year. The reason I want it done by year's end is because both Mass Effect 2 and Fallout: New Vegas will be coming out in 2010, and I don't think I'll be able to resist the urge to write stories about them. Just can't help it! xD

Collaboration, Crumpets, and English Muffins

Three months ago, Buch and I finished publishing our respective Mass Effect fanfics: New Friends and Broken Angels. It was a fun process and we were both pretty happy with the results. Then, we decided to push our luck.

One day, maybe a few weeks afterward, we decided that we would make a collaborative fanfiction story. Sounded like a fantastic idea: to put our awesome mastery over all that is prose to the ultimate test and see if we could crank out a satisfying story without either of us clawing each other's throats out...from across the ocean....I don't know.

We tossed around ideas and we rather quickly decided to write another Mass Effect story while we were still riding the hype and had all the information about the universe in mind. That way, we wouldn't have to do much refreshing. We got started rather quickly with the ideas and discussed what we wanted this story to open with. We decided it would be a Joker and Kaidan story, but not in the way everyone on FF.net wanted it to be. >=O

It was then that we realized that our takes on various scenes were likely to differ, due to our geographical placement in the world:

Me: "Despite their misfortune, the two o' them decided right thar on that stoop that they'd be hoopin' and hollarin' about it later. They'd bring the terr'ists' war to their homeplanet."

Buch: 'Despite all their bally rotten luck, he was certain that the pair of jolly gadabouts would both laugh about it later, over a nice cup of tea and the coverage of the Test match on BBC 2.'

Startling! No?

But we got through it fairly easily and cranked out two prequel stories before we got into the thick of the project. Our approach to it differed in a way, though. Because there was only a small window of time we could discuss the story, and we were both usually busy during that window, we resorted to dividing the chapters of the story equally, writing our respective chapters, and then trading them to edit, add, and put our personal mark on it. This worked very well, despite us constantly rethinking where the story could go.

Not too far into the project, it was becoming clear that the American way of writing and the British way were not as similar as we once thought. There were a great many differences, in fact! And this went beyond simple grammar differences like their underutilization of the letter "Z" (they would spell it, 'underutilisation.' Weird!).

We took some time to discuss a few of these differences, when I was fed up with not knowing what a crumpet was. Buch was kind enough to explain, and though I had a hard time placing it, we discovered that crumpets in America are called by a different name: Thomas' English Muffins. Weird!

The consensus between us was: The fuck?

Then he tells me that's not what a muffin looks like. I respond with a, "Oh, do tell, what's a muffin over there, then?" (Although, not as snarky). And he links me a picture of this, what looks like some sort of puffy bread thing. I tell him that's not a damn muffin, that's a damn biscuit! He refutes the very idea, and I link him a picture of the most scrumptious-looking American muffins, doused in a thick layer of country gravy: biscuits and gravy like so.

Blasphemy! he says. And besides, those aren't even goddamn biscuits.

Like hell, they aren't, I reply. And he shows me a picture of what biscuits are in England! I'm like, those are damn cookies!

Cookies?!

Yeah, cookies!

And we just sat there, both of us pissed off royal at each other's cultures (him more justifyably so, since his country did come first xD). Then we started discussing the finer points of the asari gender debate, and suddenly all of that massive anger went away.

(Just kidding about all the language! Spiced it up for the sake of storytelling, but I'll be damned if that conversation didn't happen.)

And that was just the first time! =O

Edit: Wrote this when I was a bit tired, and I was juggling a lot of links at once. Apologies, Buch, if I pulled the wrong pictures. Was going from memory, which was...deflated...at the time. xD

Sparkly Vampires: Communists?

So, I've been following this debate around, and it concerns vampires of the sparkly sort. These days, I can't swing my walking cane around without striking someone who has some emotional connection to Twilight, good or bad. I've known some people who absolutely love it and some who absolutely hate it. So, I couldn't help but wonder: Why's that?

I've read the book myself, you see. When it started rising in popularity, noticeably that is, about a few months before the forth book came out, everyone I knew was reading it. I felt like the odd man out for not even knowing what it was. So, my friend's parents, who had both read the books, took me aside and explained it to me very honestly.

"It's an interesting book," they claimed. "Very mushy and overwritten, but it's enjoyable."

"What's this interesting book about?" says I.

"Sparkly vampires."

Okay...

They didn't have the first book themselves, as they had gotten it from the library, so I used my vast amounts of wealth to buy it myself. At that point, the only reason I was going out of my way to read it is because it sounded like good conversation could come of it. There's nothing better than discussing, positively or negatively, a movie or book that you and your friends have read.

So, I read it. Reading Twilight in its entirety took all but a couple casual afternoons. I finish it. I set it aside. Think about it for awhile and come to the decision: It wasn't half-bad.

Go over to my friend's house and we talk about it for a while. At the time, I got my ex to read it as well, and she finished all four books in a few days. Then I pushed it on my cousin, who got more of our family to read it.

Everyone read it! No one seemed particularly angry that they had done so, and most of them even went to go see the movie when it came out (me included). Even then, nothing negative.

Lately, though, there's been a disturbance in the sparkly Force. With the sudden and epic popularity of the Twilight movies/books (which is probably more focused on the movie's lead actor more than anything else) has come this division. A wise young man named Romper Stomper once said that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who like Animaniacs, and those who don't like Animaniacs. Nowadays, I think that division has blurred some.

It's an enigma to me. The book is not good enough to be loved so ravenously the way it is, yet, it's not bad enough to deserve the hate centered toward it. Twilight just IS. It's that book that you find crammed into the same section that holds Harry Potter books, that's there simply as a means to an alternative. But this year, one of every seven books sold in the United States was a book by Stephenie Meyer. Did it deserve it? I'm tempted to say no, purely because Watchmen should never be topped by sparkly vampires. But...

It's one of those books that just got everyone and their mother reading again. Kids were falling head over heels for it, and parents were reading it to see what caused such a clumsy reaction. Emo kids finally found characters to relate to (I've seen this first hand. Boyfriends fell into two categories: Edward-like or Jacob-like). Teenage girls finally found a new idol, and the Jonas Brothers lost their fanbase...heh.

I'm typically always against blaming the work itself for a reaction in popular culture. It's like blaming the radioactive spider for the atrocities that occurred in Spiderman 3. That spider was just being a spider. That book was just being a book. If it bothers you so much, do your part to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again. Spread the word about books that actually have substance, and start reading more yourself to find those particular selections.

Go forth and conquer, Blog Reader.

Sequels, Remakes, Reimaginings and Adaptations

And reboots



The other day when I saw the latest "Harry Potter" flick there was an advert for a new film and it blew my mind - I simultaneously loved and hated it. It's just called Sherlock Holmes. The movie looks like a LOT of fun... but.... watch it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQbmFAE5WI

Now I don't know very much about Sherlock Holmes. I've seen and enjoyed a couple of films with Peter Cushing (You may fire when ready) or Christopher Lee (Qui-Gon was once my apprentice or something) but I've never gotten around to reading any of the stories. They're on my list.

But I think I know enough about Holmes to find this trailer terrifying. In it, Robert Downey Jr plays Holmes as a wisecracking, irresponsible, musclular playboy manchil..... Iron Man. He plays him as frickin' Iron Man. Now I love Iron Man, but I don't want every fictional character to just become Iron Man!

I know Holmes knew how to fight and I know he was eccentric. But come on!

Also I love the part where the genuinely English, relatively unknown actor says to Downey, "This may be a hobby to you but I do this for a living."

--

I'm looking at the top five movies at the box office on Rotten Tomatoes. I was hoping there would be a majority of remakes and sequels so I could look clever on the blog here.

1) Harry Potter and the Oh My God Ron is Totally In Love With Hermoine Oh My God
(fifth sequel and adaptation)
2) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
(second sequel)
(The 'dawn' of the dnosaurs? During the Ice Age? What?)
3) Bruno
(You know it counts as a sequel)
4) The Hangover
(Completely original)
5) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(Sequel to a remake)

Right now Tim Burton is finishing up Alice In Wonderland. (Second adaptation.) The biggest and most successful franchise now is Batman (reboot of a remake of a remake of an adaptation). They've now run out of Marvel Superheroes to make movie reboots of, but DC are yet to get around to Wonder Woman (I guess because no-one in Hollywood looks like her) and the Flash (because the Flash sucks).

--

I just wrote 'why?' and deleted it - I guess they do this because they make more money than when they make films that tell an independent, singular story with characters unique to it and created for it. Or maybe it's too much work. Maybe in Hollywood they just sit around with twenty or thirty people in suits and trainers around a huge, solid gold desk and they drink coca-cola and say, "You know what I like? Sherlock Holmes. Dude was badass. Let's make a movie about that."

Meanwhile, around the globe, millions of talented writers with things to say and facinating new concepts and characters just waiting for someone to read about them continue to eat cans of sweetcorn for lunch to save money (meeeeeeeeee).

Bane of the Sith: A Most-Kindly Retort

Thought I'd throw in my thoughts on the this Karpyshyn talk we've had, because this author is one of two really noticeable enigmas that I've kept my eyes on; the other being Orson Scott Card.

Karpyshyn's impact on my life, and I can only assume on Buch's as well, is indisputable and, possibly, unmatchable. As the lead writer for two of Bioware's most renowned products, Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, I assume he was responsible for the genesis of both Darth Revan and Commander Shepard. Both of these characters, as ambiguous as they might be, are most certainly two rather big inspirations to my writing. Therefore, it's so damn hard for me to reconcile those senses of wonder, horror, amazement, fear, anxiety that I felt through playing these games with what I read in books like Star Wars colon Darth Bane colon Path of Destruction.

He's obviously a talented writer, and deserved every inch of success his games have received, but I have no idea how he could go from writing KOTOR to The Marvelous Misadventures of Darth Bane. I realize this is the title of our fanfic, but come on, that's what I was thinking the entire time I read it.

I hated the fact that the majority of the story takes place in a SUPER SITH ACADEMY, yet, we learn almost nothing about the Sith, besides the fact that they're real pricks of Malfoy-like proportions.

I mean, come on (again!), Darth Bane was supposed to be a major influence on the likes of awesome Sith Lords like Darth Sideous and Darth Vader, because I haven't read an EU book in that time period where Bane isn't mentioned. But Bane is the worst goddamn Sith I've ever read about. Not to say the book completely sucked or anything, but Bane himself is just a shitty kind of Sith. I've yet to see him win a lightsaber duel. The last one I saw, he was fighting with his old weaponsmaster, and Bane very nearly lost, but managed to use the Force to collapse a temple on the poor man's head.

Sure, this can be justified: the Sith are just a bunch of cheaters, anyway. They must win by any means possible. But that doesn't mean you have to be a bitch about it. If you can't win a lightsaber duel with an old master, then what right do you think you have becoming the Sith Master?

Much sense, this does not make.

To wrap this up here before I make my way down to a rant about airline food, Karpyshyn needs to start taking his novel career seriously, or not do it at all. I'm tired of reading his introductions in which he pretty much apologizes for any mistakes therein, since he's burdened with so many deadlines. I have no doubt this is seriously the case, but there's gotta be a time when he can take a step back and seriously crank out an original novel of his own.

It's only because I worry.

Bane of the Sith

I'd like to announce the newest fanfiction Knight and I will be working on together. It's going to be a parody of Drew Karpyshyn's 'Darth Bane' book/s. The title is 'The Marvellous Misadventures of Darth Bane'.

This post will likely double as a little review for the books and a discussion of Karpyshyn in general. He's the head writer at Bioware, the games studio who made our beloved Mass Effect and our even more beloved Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. As such he is a genius. Both of those games utterly sucked us in and turned me into a videogame fan and a Star Wars fan all over again after I had successfully given both up. Really, the quality of the writing in those games is superb. It's a popular saying among fans that the Star Wars game is better-written than the newer movies, and I agree.

On the sucess of these, the giant machine that makes the decisions at Lucas Arts commissioned Karpyshyn to write a Star Wars novel set in the distant past, like his game. And so we at last have a fully fleshed-out biography of Darth Bane, the Sith Lord who introduced the idea that there should only ever be two Sith at any one time. Personally I find this 'Rule of Two' idiotic - what if one of them dies? What if both of them die? And how much of a massive drain on the master's time must this apprentice be?

Anyway, if you suspend your disbelief about that, then Bane is kind of a legend in the SW lore. He has a silly name, too. You have to suspend your disbelief a lot when it comes to Star Wars novels.

The first book was good, but perhaps took too long to get going. The second book was also good, but was clearly rushed. The structure is all over the place - it's more like a series of short stories than a novel - and certain characters (including Bane, who is almost relegated to a supporting role in his own book) are a little two-dimensional. Both were great fun, though - epic and exciting and full of unique and imaginitive new lore. Better than a lot of Star Wars titles.

But! The problem we both had with the first book is that the legendary Darth Bane comes across as a bit of a stooge. The first book starts with his unhappy childhood then goes onto his sucky life in a mining colony, his prowess in cheating at cards, his accidental manslaughter of some guy and subsequent freakout... he is a lot less driven and dominating than one would think. When the other characters almost force him into the Sith, he spends the next 100 pages at school - he's the new student at the evil wizards academy, and as such gets picked on by everyone and keeps getting beaten up and losing his nerve. After this a new girl starts - and she makes a fool of him too. In the third act he finally gets his act together by studying really hard and kissing the girl - then he kills aaaaall the other Sith so that he can rebuild them with this whole 'two people' thing. Again, this sounds a like a very silly plan to me, espescially since he's still brand new and has barely learned anything... but you know.

The second book - I won't spoil it but suffice to say, he comes across as an utter idiot. During many of the chapters about him, I was laughing out loud at his neverending incompetence. In one chapter he crashes his own spaceship because he was too busy yelling at hallucinations to drive. In another he spends five years building a holocron then smashes it by mistake (I was howling with laughter when Drew described his reaction).

(I should point out that most of the ridiculous episodes are not really Drew's fault. The book is apparently based on the aptly named short story 'Bane of the Sith' by Kevin J Anderson - and the majority of Bane's greatest failures can be attributed to this. Similarly, I think the stupid name 'Bane' is the fault of Terry Brooks, who wrote the dodgy Episode 1 novelisation.)

The guy achieves literally nothing in this book, except training a more useful apprentice during the 'Ten Years Later' period. All we see him do is bugger things up over and over again while she picks up the pieces and furthers the plot.

So - yeah. Darth Bane was apparently a bumbling fool who only rebuilt the Sith order by pure luck and with great help from more sensible people, like a bartender and his own apprentice.

Hence the parody. Although we love Drew Karpyshyn deeply, we're going to make fun of these books. Should be a laugh for anyone who has read the books. This is one that Knight is already working on and I've just joined in with some ideas. I've read what he has so far and it's very funny.

Coming soon!

Heroes Die

So, I just got through talking with my friend, whom I had lent all three of my Matthew Stover books to. I had my hands full with my Star Wars books and The Lies of Locke Lamora, so I sent them all his way.

Basically, he returned Shatterpoint and Revenge of the Sith and said: while they were well-written, they just weren't his thing--Star Wars hasn't been his thing for a while, apparently (although I did get him all hyped up for The Old Republic mmo, so that's a point for me).

But I got in the car with him tonight for a quick cruise and a smoke, and he told me, before anything else, Heroes Die is now on his top ten list.

This is of some significance, because my friend is very particular about the fantasy stories he likes, and he's practically read them all to find those handful. From Robert Jordan to George R. R. Martin, from Brandon Sanderson to R.A. Salvatore, this guy has read thousands of books.

And Heroes Die made it into his top ten, even though he still has a hundred pages left in it.

Not that it surprised me: Matthew "Fucking" Stover is a brilliant author. I brought up this list that mentioned Heroes Die in the same breath as The Song of Ice and Fire by GRRM. My friend whirls on me, smoke fuming from his nose and hate spewing from his mouth in regards to Martin's work, and lays out a long ass case proving how much better Stover's work was in his opinion (though, he would claim that anyone who didn't share his opinion was someone less-than-human).

Jubilations! Can't wait for him to finish it now. Although, I am almost hesitant to get excited. If I like Heroes Die, I know I'll have to buy the second book, Blade of Tyshalle; which, if you look at the Amazon page, costs about thirty wing-wangs used (and $100 new!). So that might be difficult to do. It might be cheaper to step up my harassment game and get Stover to send me one.

Makes me wish his publisher would re-release those damn books. He's mentioned an omnibus of some kind before. Here's hoping that happens. xD

New Chapter: Revan's Shadow

Got a new chapter for my Knights of the Old Republic fanfic up now. You can find the story here!

It's by far the longest chapter of the story at four thousand, two hundred words. Was up till 3 AM writing the bastard. What took the longest was thinking up the most dramatic way for Revan to succumb to the dark side...which had to be dramatic. Dunno if I succeeded, but...you know, whatever.

We're sorta nearing the end of it. I'm estimating that it might be near 80,000 words by the time its completed: just 10k words short of novel-length. Which is good, I guess. If someone wants the whole novel, they know were to find me!

*waits patiently*

Anyway, yeah, I'm really excited for the story to be over; mostly because I just can't wait to write the ending. I have all sorts of elements lined up that I was excited just to get done. That's why I've kicked the writing habits into overdrive. Plus, I got a nice sense of fulfillment going on. It's been four years since this story started taking shape. To see it come together in some form has been exciting.

Gotta get the next chapter going. Later!

Star Wars: The Rekindling

My first memory of Star Wars was plugging in my old, dirt-encrusted copy of A New Hope into my VCR and wondering, "Why the heck do they call it Episode Four, when there's no One, Two, or Three?" I want to say this was just before the Special Editions were released in theaters, so I must have been seven or eight years old at the time.

From there, my love for it casually heightened. I remember renting Empire Strikes Back and watching it happily, even though the famous twist had been ruined for me long before then. I remember playing with my Han Solo action figure, complete with carbonite prison. And, I remember experiencing Star Wars' glorious return in 1999 and its effect on pretty much everything.

But, even through all of this, I was still just a casual fan. Someone who watched the movies because they were good, but who couldn't tell you who Salacious B. Crumb was or his monumental contribution to the galaxy.

That all changed, as well as many things in my life, when I played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on my Xbox for the first time. Maybe it was because I had been devoid from good storytelling for so long, thanks for my then-aversion to books of any kind, or maybe it was because I had never experienced a story that I genuinely felt a part of. Either way, I had made up my mind about two things that day: I wanted to be writer, and I really, really liked Star Wars.

Thanks to my obsession with KoTOR, I was able to get a lot done. Since then, I've written tons of short stories, many fanfiction stories, and even completed my first novel. But, after the games became near-antiquities by console standards, and after the hype of the last Star Wars movie had effectively worn off, I found that I didn't have a love for the universe anymore. My love for Darth Revan's story was still there, but on the whole, Star Wars fell to the backseat, so to speak.

As per the title of this post, this "rekindling" of my love for Star Wars happened the second Buch suggested an Expanded Universe book called Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover.

I picked up the book on my following trip to Borders and sat down to read it when I got home. I was...wary, at first. I had tried to read many Star Wars books in the past, and I had never been able to get into them at all. Nothing took me out of the illusion quicker than a misplaced line by Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, a couple of dudes that even the most casual of fans usually knows front to back.

So here comes Mace Windu following in Marlow's footprints. I was intrigued by this: that the book was essentially a mix between Heart of Darkness and Star Wars. HoD was a book that I cherished, but not because of its writing. On the contrary, I remember having to force myself to get through that book, but when all was said and done, I genuinely liked the story it had put in my head and the theme of social/moral decay that it communicated.

When I finished Shatterpoint, I was monumentally pleased for a few reasons. One, I found it fantastic that someone actually had the balls to incorporate some philosophical thought into a Star Wars story: something I hadn't seen since KotOR, and before that, the Original Trilogy. Two, it expanded the role of Mace Windu to an extent that he's one of my favorite characters now. I hardly see Sam "Bad Mother Fucker" Jackson in the role anymore. And three, there was violence! Yay! Why do I care? Because sometimes violence can bring a concept that's so up in the air, crashing back down to reality. So, for the first time since KotOR all those years ago, Star Wars felt alive again: it was a living, breathing world that I wanted to throw myself back into for the second time.

To make a long story semi-short, my love of Star Wars was saved by Matthew Stover. His musings on the Force and how to tell a story that, at some times, dives into the spiritual has inspired my writing as well as two fanfics here and here. I'll talk more about the latter story at a different time but, just to put it simply:

Thank you, Matthew "Fucking" Stover for the inspiration. I'll make sure I pick up Shadows of Mindor ASAP. Please, please, please come back to Star Wars soon and/or tell me your new pen name so's I can buy your book when it's released!

*taps foot impatiently while waiting for friend to return Heroes Die*