“If all I have left is Anger and Grief, then I will use them to bear witness.”
It feels wrong to start a blog post here at the end of January without addressing the violence that ICE brought to Minneapolis this month. Right now Renee Good and Alex Pretti should be alive. They should be with their families. And they’re not. Right now the fascists believe that they will prevail in making this their country. They will not succeed, because fascism is a snake that eats its own tail. That doesn’t mean they won’t do a serious amount of damage before the end. And the end is not close enough.
From my chair here in Portland, Oregon there feels like nothing that I can do. So this post by Stephanie Warren really resonated with me. If you can do nothing else, keep your eyes and hearts open. Do not let fear and lies cower you from speaking the truth.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
Thirsty Vampire vs Luckless Loser Round 2
Despite, or maybe because of, the horrible state of the world I’ve made good progress on the second entry in my Vampire Detective Agency series. I’m a little over halfway through the rough draft. I’d planned to announce a release date at the end of this month, but with everything going on it just doesn’t feel like the moment. I’ll have much more to say about Veronica and Larry’s reunion next month. Here’s a tease of the back-of-the-book blurb here:
Even for vampires, December is a time of many celebrations. Especially for those looking to spend their first holiday together. But, what does happily ever after look like when she’s a blood-thirsty vampire and he’s a plucky go luckless human whose EVERY bodily fluid burns like acid?
That’s a question Veronica and Larry hoped to navigate together while Europe’s most feared vampire enforcers, The Twins, chased down the remaining vampire hunters…
Steady, Aim, and Click Twice
The weather in Portland was unseasonably dry and sunny this month, so my wife and I were able to get out and snap some photos. That’s right, I’ve dragged her into the hobby clicking and composing. I took these at Leach Botanical Gardens, and they’re okay. It was mostly a chance to dust off the camera and practice using my wide angle lens.
It was my wife who took the photo of the day when she snapped this one of me.
A Dish Best Served Cold
Finished Ghost of Yōtei this month. First off, it was a fun game. The characters were voiced & mocapped wonderfully, the visuals were beautiful, and the story was solid. However, it felt like the narrative team, the actors, and the gameplay designers were all working on a different project. It just didn’t gel together.
At every opportunity the story hammered home “vengeance is bad”, but the gameplay kept piling on “look at all the ways you can kill people!” Add in some rough pacing (the last act blinks by, but the first act drags on forever) and a last second death of a major character that felt unnecessary and… yeah could have been better. I liked it, but I hope the developers take some time to consider the feedback before they make another one of these.
A final note: I wish these AAA open world games were more comfortable with shipping “less.” The game’s wolf sidekick has a series of side missions that are basically just copied and pasted. If you want to upgrade their abilities, which includes seeing them appear more often, you have to do all the missions. I feel like half as many, with more variation, would have been my preference.
Pages on Kindle on Pads
One of my goals for this year is to read more books. At least 12 (ie one a month) if not more. So this month I read, Grave Witch by Kalayna Price. It’s one of those supernatural detective yarns. Who’d write one of those? It keeps a snappy pace right to the end, with a fun mix of mystery, drama and sexual tension. Sometimes the descriptions when action happened felt a bit confusing, but I that might have just been me. I’d give it a solid 4/5 stars and recommend it to anyone who likes this genre.
Next up I’m reading Victories Greater than Death by Charlie Jane Anders, which a couple chapters in feels very Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Curious to see where it goes.
What About the Rest
Looking ahead, this spring my wife and I are taking a photography class together. Over the summer we’re hoping to visit the Oregon coast. Oh, plus there’s a bit more construction around the house planned, and my only request is that they finish before Grand Theft Auto drops this fall. Of course, I can’t even think of opening up that game if I haven’t finished my work on Vampire Detective Agency: Double Date.
Fingers on the keyboard until then.
RossWeisfish.com 