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thecandywrites · 3 years ago

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Blood For Gold Chapter 23

Wooo! The wedding. And yes I am lowkey obsessed with Indian weddings because they are just gorgeous and to me, mouras in general have a more Middle East/Indian aestetic choices in clothes and food. Oh and the song that Audra walks down the aisle to that I was listening to repeat while writing it is this. Elila Farh

@punkhorse96 Thank you so much for your feedback and reviews. I hope you’ll enjoy this.

Blood For Gold

Chapter 23

You slept in, to a gloriously extravagant hour on your wedding day. Your wedding wouldn’t be until the evening and you had all day to prepare. Sure there were traditions to uphold, things to do. But you woke up to a house full of women as they feasted like the queens they were as all the women in your family, but Myra’s, Yalin’s and the Voyambis as they all cheered when you appeared in the dining room in nothing but a silk robe as you were shown the head of the table and immediately given a tray of figs along with generous helpings of other foods that your mother and grandmother had urged your cooks to make and had been sent from Masai Temple as you gasped at the thoughtfulness and oohed at the delicious flavors blooming in your mouth from all the dishes that the temple sent for your breakfast. When Demsey had said for everyone at Masai Temple to make this extra special for you, this was it, you felt special alright.

You missed a lot of these dishes from the different quarters of Dorierra.

After what was essentially brunch, your mother and your grandmother both explained and performed the different traditions throughout the day before everyone met up at the Temple and got ready for the procession.

The temple provided the canopy’s frame but you already had your own Lari - a sheer fabric that had been heavily embroidered and had many aplicays and special components sewn into it so that it dazzled in any light and put over the frame so that you and both of your parents were “boxed in” by the Lari on the frame.

“You still sure about this?” You father asked.

“As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” You answered happily and confidently as everyone got into position.

Demsey stood in the main auditorium and felt like this place should be bursting at the seams with people, all of England should be here to see this, to hopefully see you in all your Dorierran glory but at the same time, he was grateful that there was only his family and yours and Myra and her family and of course the Raymonds, all of them sitting on the “bride’s side” as they traded compliments on their beautiful clothes as they waited for the auspicious time to approach. He was relived because this was a precious moment and you had spent almost all your life being judged. This one day, you shouldn’t have to feel that way. If anything, you should feel free from anyone’s judgement or criticisms. You had wanted only friends and family here, and thats who was here. Close friends and family.

Everything was just so beautiful. There were so many flowers, so many bright colors in all the inlay in the walls, in the ceiling, in everything, even the benches for the pews had gorgeous inlay in them covered in soft cushions. His family sat on what they were told was the groom’s side as Javyn stood next to him and then his brothers forming a row after him because that’s what the director told them to do as the priest, dressed in wonderful splendor themselves simply held his extraordinary copy of the tomb of all the holy books sewn together on gilded pages.

Then the moment came and your grandmother started things off with a really high pitched yell like call that was soon echoed by all the women in your party including yourself, your voices harmonizing and echoing the large dome and filling the whole place with song as Yalin beamed excitedly and nearly was bouncing out of her seat as she started making the same sound and clapping excitedly to the beat of the music that the band that was off the side instantly started to play as Demsey couldn’t help it, he laughed as his family took Yalin’s cue as did her own family all clapped with her along with Myra and her family started clapping in the same rhythm that Yalin was clapping in as Demsey’s family did the same as the procession came down the aisle all dancing to the beat in the same synchronized dance to the song as all the guys in your family were chanting away in answer to all the girls doing the same high pitched yell that even Yalin couldn’t help but call out which your bridal party all beamed happily at her and did the same as Demsey and the rest of them just clapped along too and watched on happily as Demsey tried looking around the bridal party to see this large golden canopy being held by the attendants from the temple that was being was being bounced with the music, so that the whole thing shimmered and danced with the beat too as he could almost make out three figures inside of it.

You stood in between your parents, all three of you dancing inside of it as all three of you seemed to move as one.

Even though you were wearing the whole bridal dress set and what felt like 30 pounds of gold and jewels, your spirit felt weightless and your whole body practically glowed with happiness as your moura marks on your skin went off like fireworks constantly as your parents watched them and smiled to each other because only when a moura was truly in love and purely happy, did their marks light up like yours were doing in this moment which made their own marks light up happily.

The closer Demsey tried to look, the harder it was to see inside the canopy, all he could make out was outlines but he still recognized the lights from the moura marks and recalled that only when you were really happy and in a state of euphoria had he seen them “go off” like this which made him happy that you were so happy.

He was practically overwhelmed already, the music was like an explosion of excitement and happiness and everyone’s bright smiles as even the other moura’s marks were lighting up, like it was almost contagious as he realized- it was like a wave, a pulse, like heartbeats that were the frequency of the way they were lighting up before the whole procession came and he was put face to face with the canopy before the song ended and then your father untied one of the corners and exited the canopy dressed in his own splendor and pulled out a sword and simply let the blade rest on Demsey’s shoulder but the edge of the blade still gently touched Demsey’s neck as your father proceeded to carry on “the questioning” in marinai which was the traditional way as the priest acted as a translator and translated the words your father was saying as it was basically a request to make an oath, to love, honor, dignify, protect and provide as a husband to you- his wife, his most beloved in all of the universe. It sounded gorgeous in marinai and it even rhymed.

In English however it didn’t rhyme so much as some of the words the priest had to translate and explain some of the terms so that Demsey could completely understand them and that at any point, he had the choice to either back out of the wedding and leave with his head on his shoulders, or if there any doubt that he could not hold up these terms, to move his body into the blade or else a curse worse than death would befall him and all his relation as his parents looked at each other meaningfully, because when Jodhaa and the others had told them about this part, they made it sound like it was no big deal but in reality, this was life or death, either spend your life loving the other person as wholly and completely as you could, or die.

Demsey however wasn’t intimidated or put off or affronted by any of this, in fact he was all too happy to swear and pledge his life and agreed to the vows and live up to it every day for the rest of his life as your father simply smiled happily and nodded but kept his sword there before it was your mother’s turn to leave the canopy and have her own oath to make Demsey swear by as your mother actually pulled out a list and unfolded which made everyone else in your family snicker a laugh because she was very, very thorough as she took a dagger and quickly put it under Demsey’s chin and all she would have to do is move her other hand in an upward motion to actually decapitate him as your father’s sword was on the other side of his neck.

Your mother’s vows were not only just a repeat of what your father had said but actually included much, much more, and not just Demsey, but his whole family and household so that you almost asked for a stool so you could sit down for the duration as your mother went through every conceivable scenario where a man might become upset with his wife or inlaws might be upset with a daughter in law as Demsey could only smile appreciatively at your mother, who he could tell was doing her best to make sure that your past, would never, ever repeat itself and was more than happy and ready and willing to agree to every tiny stipulation she was giving him before she finally reached the end of her list as everyone seemed to finally breathe a sigh of relief when your mother removed the dagger from his neck and your father, his sword and put them away before they both came back over to the canopy and lifted the front to reveal you before Demsey came forward and lifted your golden veil up to reveal your face as Demsey audibly gasped which got everyone to softly laugh at his reaction.

“You have never been more beautiful, than you are right now.” Demsey readily professed which nearly got you to cry but you were just so happy that he felt that way, almost fearing that he would look at all of this and not recognize you in it or think this was too extravagant or unnecessary.

“And you have never looked more handsome.” You professed as you readily took the veil and put it into position over the borla of the tikka to keep the veil in place as the band then played the more traditional hymns for the ceremony.

But just the look in his eyes told you that all he saw, was you, the whole, real you- in this moment before he offered his hand out to you as you reached out and held it as the priest invited you up onto the platform as Demsey helped you sit down first before he sat next to you in the center set of seats as your parents sat on one side while his parents were invited up to sit in the other as the priest then went through the very lavish ceremony as flower garlands were put over your neck and his that were united together as you just could not let go of Demsey’s hand. You wanted to pinch yourself. This was all you had ever dreamed of as a little girl. Granted it wasn’t in the temple in the Hanging Garden Quarter but Masai Temple was the next best thing and you were still getting married with Calla, Lody and Jenni as your bridesmaids. And your parents blessing and of course Demsey’s parent’s blessing too as you could see Sierge and Javyn being torn between looking at you and Demsey and looking at Lody and Jenni respectively as Jenni and Lody were all bright, eager and happy smiles.

After the ceremony and after everyone signed the marriage certificate, you and Demsey were then walked back to the canopy as the attendants lifted the veil and you both stood in it as the band started up again as you both were escorted to the banquet hall to the head table before the canopy was put over the large sitting booth and the front was lifted and pulled over the back so that it was now open to everyone before everyone got their seats a massive feast was brought out as you walked Demsey through how to eat it and how to feed each other as you went through each dish and excitedly told him about each component of each dish as your family did the same for everyone else in Demsey’s family since the feast, didn’t need to be separated by sides but everyone could mingle together along the long lines around the center that was reserved for the dancing later on where the band followed and set up on a little platform for them to continue to play the lighthearted and happy music.

“Thank you,” you thanked Demsey after you chewed and swallowed the bite he had so delicately and affectionately put into your mouth.

“You’re welcome. This is really awesome, I had no idea Dorierran weddings were so beautiful. It makes English weddings feel like funerals.” Demsey confessed as you couldn’t help but laugh at the comparison and nodded your agreement.

“Oh just wait, when the sun goes down and the cloud lights come on, then the real fun begins.” You hinted with an excited giggle.

And sure enough, the moment it was dark, the cloud lights were shown in before the black light cloud was turned on and soon everyone glowed which caused a chorus of cheers and laughter as the music changed too as Demsey and yourself danced the night away. Javyn and Jenni were dancing awfully close and wouldn’t dance with anyone else other than each other as Sierge was acting the same way with Lody.

“I want to court you.” Sierge confessed to Lody as they swayed to the music as Sierge used Lody’s own rhythm to set his own as his body felt glued to hers as most of the guests by this point and started to remove the veils leaving the women in their little tops that showed off their upper chests, arms and bellies while the men were free to take their shirts off to showcase the designs painted on them as now under the black light the true beauty of all the designs could be appreciated.

“Then you must do something for me.” Lody began as she turned and pressed her front to his so she could reach his ear as she pulled him towards her as he happily let his arms loop around her and hold her close as he was dying to kiss her.

“I want you to realize that right now, you’re under the influence of the henna and you’re probably feeling like you’re half in love with me and really deep into a love drunk haze, right?” Lody questioned as she looked up into his eyes firmly but she wasn’t smiling. If anything she looked upset which made him frown to see her react that way.

“Right?” She repeated as she held his face in her hands as he nodded and all she could do was give him an apologetic smile.

“Sierge, I need you to know that what you’re feeling, it’s not real and tomorrow, you’re going to wake up and feel different. You’ve only known me for a few days, not even a whole week and we are barely aquaintances, I’m just a friend of your now sister in law and barely friends with you. And while there is an attraction between us, right now, that’s all it is. Give yourself a month maybe even two months, after all of this henna fades, and all the hair I removed from you grows back full force. If your attraction to me is still with you at that point, then reach out to the stables and we’ll see where that leads. But if your attraction and affection for me fades with the henna, do not begrudge yourself or me. Jenni enhanced the henna you’re wearing, she added extra aphrodisiac to the mix so that her own attraction to Javyn and his attraction to her would be enhanced as well. And she has her own reasons for doing so and she will get to deal with the consequences of that, good or bad. I tried refilling the henna tubes from the mix on the outside of the bowl, the bits that weren’t so enhanced so that you wouldn’t fall prey to it but you still are. You need to be done being the victim, either intentionally or unintentionally. The quick fix doesn’t always solve your problems but usually causes two new ones. Don’t do anything too quickly unless you’ve thought it through and weighed and measured all the variables, including your own true feelings without anyone or anything manipulating you. We are at a wedding and we’re both wearing wedding henna, so of course we feel this way about each other right now. But tonight, after the wedding. I’m not going home with you. I’m not sleeping with you and I’m definetely not going to have any kind of sex with you either. If you really want me, you’re going to have to work for me and earn me the old fashioned way. And I need you to know, that I’m similar to Benny in a lot of ways, but nothing like her in a lot of others. And the last thing I want is for my mate- whoever he is, to look at me and think of her. It’s not fair to either of us. So after this dance, dance with anyone else, other than me. Please. For your own good.” Lody pleaded with Sierge who both had to respect but secretly resent her choice becuase it was the opposite of his wants.

“Please Sierge, if you like me at all, respect me and my stance on this and don’t turn a deaf ear to this.” Lody pressed and while her words broke his heart all over again, he could find nothing to argue with and instead took her hands off his face and instead kissed her knuckles.

“OK, I submit.” Sierge professed.

“Your future self, thanks you, as does mine.” Lody offered before she kissed his cheek sweetly before she left and put as much space and distance between them as she could because she was this close to saying ‘to hell with it’ and throwing propriety and her own self control out and fucking him against the closest private wall. She had never felt that drawn to anyone that strongly before and she felt like she was fighting for her life.

“Lody, it’s just the henna, it’s just the henna.” She insisted to herself as she drank down a full glass of wine and got a second as Siege had gone to the other end of the place and was doing the same as he was inwardly cursing himself and Benny for fucking up a perfectly good romance with a wonderful young woman who had so much wisdom beyond her years and he was already seeing her face every time he closed his eyes but his soul was still stining and aching from the damage Benny had done as Sierge simply sat down and didn’t sulk persay, but he definitely sat down in a spot that gave him a clear view of Lody who was also seated and eating more of the sultan cake that made up the wedding cake. It was completely different than anything any of the Voyambis or the Bellafonts had ever had. Yalin hadn’t even gotten a chance to have it since her youth as even she and Gregori had chipped in for the wedding, wanting to add something even more special to the celebration of your wedding.

Javyn and Jenni were practically in their own little world on the dance floor, dancing chest to chest and literally nose to nose when they weren’t cheek to cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he had his arms wrapped around her back as they swayed in place as all the other couples were in a similar state, including yourself, except for your grandmothers who were now seated on either side of Lody, keeping her company.

“You did the best thing you could have done.” Your grandmother Anavia encouraged Lody.

“Then why does it feel like a kick in the chest?” Lody asked as she ate what was left on her plate before getting thirds of her favorites.

“Because your pride is wounded too. Every other victim that has come to Dorierra angry, hurt and upset, you were removed from them and strangers to them. This time it feels personal because of your own attraction to him which he is obviously returning because even now he is refusing to dance with anyone but you, which is a good sign actually. Sierge strikes me as someone who has always had things handed to him and now, he must actually put forth effort and work. If he succeeds, a good, stable match can be made.” Loreiris predicted as she stared Sierge down from across the room, studying him.

“How long did you say you gave him?” Anavia asked.

“A month after the henna fades and his hair grows back.” Lody answered.

“So three months, that should be more than enough time for him to heal and learn his lessons.” Anavia grinned.

“Well, that’s if he doesn’t scrub his skin raw trying to scrape it off this week.” Lody murmured as her eyes moved back to Jenni and Javyn.

“How long do you give them?” Lody asked Anavia.

“Before intimacy? Tonight. For marriage? Weeks. She’ll fly back and start preparations the moment she lands. It will be rushed, but happy but because they are not taking time now, they will have their fair share of misunderstandings and differences. But if Sierge follows your advice and you follow your own, you’ll have far less, which will be good. The Voyambis won’t know what to do with themselves, because they’ll practically have all moura inlaws and all sweethearts.” Anavia reassured her.

“But what if Benny’s own damage is too far for any of us to understand and he goes English?” Lody murmured worriedly.

“Once anyone gets a taste of what a good moura woman is, no other can compare. English ladies, from what I’ve seen are white blanks of paper, you and all other moura women are masterpieces. It is true that the reason English ladies are bred to be that way is so that their male counterparts may draw on them and arrange them to how they want them to be and what they want to see. But moura women already come fully colored and fully realized pieces of art and therefore don’t need anything else from a mate, plus most men are shit artists.” Loreiris appraised which got Lody to snort a laugh.

“That’s true.” Lody had to agree.

“But Sierge has realized he’s made a mess of a work of art that was already fraying at the edges. The next work of art, he will be much more careful with.” Anavia ventured.

“Let’s hope so.” Lody sighed.

“Time for the finale! We have arranged a firework show for you!” Yalin announced as people started to stop dancing and wear themselves out before you all happily left the room and made your way to the roof where a series of beds were laid out as you and Demsey reclined on the most lavish one since they were the bride and groom as others took on the others as Sierge requested for Lody to join him on one in particular and Lody could not refuse him as they laid down, the soft cushy pillows and mattresses a great comfort as the blankets set out were unfolded and put over them to keep them from the chill in the air before they were given the signal to light them as everyone happily laid back comfortably and watched the show that practically all of London got to see.

You cuddled into Demsey’s side, the blanket covering up to your chin as he happily laid with you into his side as you both watched in amazement as the most beautiful fireworks started to light up the sky as you felt your love for Demsey do the same in your heart. Exploding in size and color as Demsey put his other hand protectively over your belly.

“Protecting them from the booms of the fireworks are you?” You murmured to Demsey between all the explosions.

“Perhaps.” Demsey smiled.

“Moura’s have been bred to have extra strong wombs, if the baby has survived mourkatili. Surely it’s strong enough to survive the booms from fireworks. But you’re free to try to protect them anyway.” You gently reassured him.

“I swear on my life, to do everything in my power to protect them and you, for you are all that I hold dear.” Demsey swore before he kissed you sweetly before the next explosion lit up the sky and pulled your attention back.

“Are you happy with your wedding?” Demsey asked.

“Very, but I’m most happy with my groom.” You reassured him.

“And I, with my bride.” Demsey mirrored.

Meanwhile Javyn and Jenni were in a similar state while Sierge laid down and gradually scooted closer and closer to Lody before their arms were touching before he oh so carefully reached down and over to her, letting his forefinger gently graze the outside of her hand before she turned her head to look over at him and gave him a peculiar look before she gave in and intertwined her fingers with his, holding his hand over the blanket as they watched the fireworks.

“When will you go?” Sierge asked Lody.

“Probably the day after tomorrow. My mother informed me that my price got settled on but won’t tell me what it is. But don’t worry, it’s not like grooms are lining up for me, waiting on me to come home. The process to even get to see potential grooms is exhausting for both parties. It could be a year or two before I ever got to be introduced to any potential grooms. So you have plenty of time to think it over and weigh and measure to see if it’s really worth the trouble and the hassle. Audra’s grandmother made the point that English ladies are a bit like blank canvases. Built to be durable and blameless, but blank. So that their male counterparts may paint them up and build onto them whatever they want and whatever they need. Moura ladies are all together different. We are no blank canvas or a sculpture made of pure white marble. We are masterpieces of our own. Some of us like to use color to impress and intrigue the eye and with some, the paint is not yet dry and the final coat of lacquer isn’t applied yet and are ever changing to suit the eye of the beholder. Others are so strict about technique that they don’t bother to notice that the artwork is rather boring, even if the techniques are flawless. Others like big bold messy and sloppy strokes but so much color it’s almost overwhelming. Some are big and grand and take up a whole room. Others barely take up a pocket in coat. I want you to heal, and then think long and hard about what you really want and what you really need before you try to appraise any more art.” Lody insisted.

“Even when a priceless masterpiece such as yourself is before me?” Sierge returned.

“Yes. Clean the paint off of you from the last artwork you appraised before you look at any other, some paints stain harder than others and paint from one painting may stain another if you go from one to another too quickly and I would hate to see you feel you had a hand in ruining any other artwork or to feel that an artwork has ruined you either.” Lody advised.

“Make sure you’re clean, hands, body, clothes and all. And do your research and homework to make sure that what you’re looking at and dealing with is an actual masterpiece, not just smears of paint on a canvas by a toddler fingerpainting, or even the work of a con, trying to sell a fake and sketching that looks more like scribbles as if it were a masterpiece and trying to pass off the work of a degenerate as the work of a true artisan and genius.” Lody continued as they stayed side by side, staring up the fireworks lighting up the sky.

“Not all the works in a gallery are priceless treasures. And not all masterpieces are big or have fancy frames with loud bright colors. A proper masterpiece has balance between light and shadow, shape, form and composition. And sometimes the more subdued coloring helps you focus on the focal point, instead of overwhelming you with chaos. The eye grows tired and fatigued quickly when faced with such works. But the truly pleasant artwork, with subtle intricacies. The kind that you can spend hours looking at and still feel like you could spend hours more and still have another new detail to appreciate, and the kind of painting you’re happy to own that brings you peace in not just your mind, but in your heart and your soul too? That is truly priceless.” Lody insisted.

“Because no matter how pretty the picture, or how well the execution of techniques may be or how bright the colors are, no work of art is worth your dignity, integrity or honor and do not put a price on things that should never have had a price to begin with. The truth is what matters, as does faithfulness. Because colors fade, paint cracks with age and time, and dim lighting can’t help you see it or remember it as it once was and poor care can deteriorate it to the point that you no longer want it in your house and so it loses value over time. When you put a price on the priceless all you do is cheapen yourself, and your house. And while it doesn’t make sense that a priceless work of art would be found in a dilapidated shed by the sea. That isn’t to say the painter who lives in the shed can’t paint it either. Just as a painter will let their work speak for them and itself, don’t think that because one work of art by an artist is one way, that all the works by them will be that way too. Everyone starts somewhere. No one is born a master, it takes time and patience and perseverance and practice. And I’m still young, I’m still learning to master even the basics, my masterpiece is not yet done and who knows, in a month or two, three or even six, or even a year or two or five, who knows what I’ll be then and you may not like what you see then.” Lody advised.

“How old are you again?” Sierge asked.

“Twenty,” Lody answered.

“You speak as if you’re five times that age.” Sierge praised.

“Well, my grandmother tells me that there is a fine line to be walked. There is a balance between wanting to be the smartest person in the room and needing to see others as they are and deciphering their intentions and thinking and to correctly predict their moves so that you can counter successfully instead of just reacting to others reactions, like playing chess. And there is always a need to surround yourself with people wiser than yourself, because if you’re the smartest person in the room, you need to get into another room. And if you surround yourself with people more stupid than yourself for the purpose of feeling like the smartest in the room, then you’ve made a mistake because stupid has a tendancy to rub off on others and even a wiseman arguing with an idiot, to the passerby’s, you can’t easily distinguish between the two.” Lody paraphrased from all the wise principles she had been taught by her elders.

“And a truly wise person will have the humility to know that they don’t have all the answers. Nor do they have all the knowledge or the wisdom but they will be hungry for it just like food or water.” Lody recounted, grateful she had been listening and paying attention to such wisdom from her grandmother just as the finale of the fireworks show lit up the sky as Lody gave Sierge’s hand a good squeeze before she let go of his hand only to roll over to her side to kiss him on the cheek sweetly only to be surprised when Sierge did the same and met her lips with his own and kissed her earnestly and was delighted when she kissed back and just as the kiss deepened and it was very evident that both of them wanted this to progress, Lody put on the breaks and pulled away and gave him an apologetic smile as she pulled herself away from him, leaving him scrambling to get up with her as she quickly picked up the blanket and put it between them as she folded it.

“Good night Sierge Voyambi, it was a pleasure to spend the evening with you. Please remember my advice.” Lody requested before she curtsied respectfully and put the now folded blanket back down on the bed and quickly left, leaving Sierge rather bewildered and aching from her loss as he tried to give chase but she was swifter and almost vanished as attendants came and escorted you and Demsey to the honeymoon suite that was in the inn just next door while the others said their goodbyes and began to depart while Jenni and Javyn discretely got a room at the inn themselves.

Once your family returned to your home they found Lody packing up and already wearing her riding leathers.

“Why are you leaving so soon? Is everything ok?” Loreiris asked.

“Did you ever meet someone that made you question everything and make you want to throw out all the principles and everything you stand for and you knew if you stayed, you were going to lose all your self control and make the same mistake others did and turn into the biggest hypocrite?” Lody asked as she carried her now packed bag out to the stables and started to saddle her own griffin who was excited to get out of the stable and stretch their wings out.

“Yes, I see it scares you as much as it did me the first time I felt it.” Loreiris noted as Lody laughed mirthlessly, almost mockingly at herself.

“All he did was kiss me and somehow it was as if it was my first real kiss all over again and it was like he set me on fire and even now my heart and soul are still ablaze and it’s as torturous as it is pleasurable. Now I can no longer find fault with Benny taking advantage of him because right now I want the same thing, and that makes me no better than her and my own pride and dignity is incensed by that and there is war going on within me and if I stay I’m going to make the same mistakes she did and I can’t do that to Sierge, he just had his heart and soul ripped from his body and mauled and ripped apart and as much as I can sympothize with that and want to fix it, I know it’s not my job to clean up my cousin’s messes, and it’s not my place to do so either and as much as I want to blame my feelings and my instincts on this stupid henna, I know it has nothing to do with it and it’s a sad, cheap scape goat. I spent all night practically quoting every principle from every holy book I’ve read and as much as I wanted to tell myself that I did it for Sierge’s benefit, I also did it for my own, to remind myself that I’m just as raw as he is and it’s not Sierge’s place to fix me either and not his job to fix Finn’s messes in me. My mother told me this morning that my price got settled just this morning and I know she is already hard at work trying to orchestrate potentials for me and I know Sierge won’t pass her tests just based on Benny’s past with him. I tried to tell him that he had plenty of time to work on himself and to heal but...I don’t know if that will be true when I get home.” Lody confessed as she tried to keep her composure and not cry but she was failing as tears escaped her eyes and ran her eye makeup.

“So now you think flying a thousand miles will put out the flames?” Loreiris posed.

“No, but it will hopefully die them down to embers because if I stay I’ll be consumed as will he and I can’t imagine the damage this blaze will inflict, and then he really will swear off mouras forever and make things difficult for Audra and Calla and I can’t do that to them, I love them too much to even chance that their soon to be home life will be endangered, especially on my account.” Lody confessed.

“So tomorrow, when Sierge comes looking for you, what do you want me to tell him?” Loreiris asked as she handed Lody her bridal.

“Tell him the truth. He has been lied to enough. The truth is all I can offer him and if he can’t be satisfied with that, then there is nothing that can be done.” Lody answered.

“Good. Do yourself the favor by writing down all that you told him and live by your own advice.” Loreiris advised.

“Will do.” Lody nodded as she wiped her eyes before she hugged Loreiris tightly.

“I’ll see you soon, fly safe Lody.” Loreiris offered.

“Thank you.” Lody whispered.

“And of course give my apologies to Audra for leaving without saying goodbye.” Lody requested.

“Of course.” Loreiris readily agreed as Lody pulled away and then hoisted herself up into the saddle and took off into the night, using the stars to orientate her as she flew home.

Meanwhile Demsey had finally taken off all the jewelry and clothes from your body and had taken several long moments appreciate every inch of skin and it’s decoration, with his mouth and his hands before me made love you slowly and sensually. Almost overwhelming you with pleasure as he practically worshiped your body with his own as he murmured the sweetest most wonderful things to you as you did the same.

Meanwhile only a few rooms down Jenniverre and Javyn were giving into the effects of the extra strong and potent henna and throwing all caution to the wind as Javyn was having the single greatest sexual encounter of his life because Jenni was practically a fantasy brought to life.

She was sexy and sultry without being vulgar. She was innocent without being too prudish, she was clever without being cold, warm and affectionate without being too forward, she was the perfect balance of everything. She was so much more than he had ever dreamed of wanting. She was a vision, a complete and flawless work of art and all his. He had no idea that such an exquisite woman existed, much less would be interested in him, much less would return his attentions and affections and suddenly it was like she was the only woman in the world and the only other being in the universe that mattered.

And Javyn swore that he would make her his wife come hell or high water. He would be traveling to Dorrierra as soon as he could liquidate as many assets as he had because her current price was more than he had but by the gods, he would take out a loan or do payments with the stables if he had to. She needed to be his. Because he needed her like air in his lungs. She was his missing puzzle piece. She was his world. When at first he had thought that Demsey had been rather reckless to move so quickly but now, with his very own moura, he understood. Time was a factor that didn’t necessarily matter in such a case as this. Only two weeks ago he would laughed such a thing off as ridiculous but now, it made so much sense. Just like knowing when was a good moment to buy something valuable before it would be lost forever or go to another buyer. Like getting a preview of the goods before an auction. But he would aghast to have any other having Jenni. He knew an excellent thing when he saw it and he was going to claim it before it could be claimed by another.

Meanwhile Sierge sat at his desk at his London home and tried to write down every little thing that happened, every word Lody spoke to him as his memory was only too happy to replay it all for him. He had never been more determined in his life. He was going to prove himself worthy of such a wonder. Kissing Lody was like feeling fireworks in his soul and not just seeing them with his eyes. She had tasted addictively good and while he wished he could be proving the validity and earnestness of his affections, he was so impressed that she had so much self control to withdraw before things progressed any farther.

It only spoke to her exquisite character. And he was adamant that he was going to earn every inch of respect and admiration from her. He was going to take her words to heart and live by them from now on and his instincts were screaming at him that he would only benefit by living by them. His heart and soul were on fire but instead of the disastrous forrest fire that Benny seemed to ignite, this was altogether different. It was like she set off a firework inside of him and he was going to light up her life with delight. He was going to do everything she asked him to, he was going to make her proud of him. He needed to prove that he was more than what Benny made him out to be as he even wrote down what her last words to him were because if that was the benchmark, he could surpass it. He had to, if it was the last thing he ever did.

#Blood For Gold #Blood for Gold Chapter 23 #regency era orc period drama #regency orcs #moura #And now we shift the focus.

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missyjanne85 · 4 years ago

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WARNING: LONG POST! NO TRIGGERS - FEEL GOOD VIBES GUARANTEED! (Unless your heart is, like, literally made of stone!...)

ANYWAY!

So I'm going to tell you a bit about my Dad! 😍

The whole reason why I express myself creatively is because of my dad. My love of reading and writing comes from him. He is (along with my mum of course – if you want a lesson in equality and the example of “sensitive, new age man” my dad’s pic is under the definition) and always has been my biggest supporter – the person who is guaranteed to be in the front row cheering me on. I didn’t have a soccer mum growing up, I had a soccer DAD. Dad was the one who took me and my brother everywhere on the weekends! I was very lucky and privileged growing up – dad would take me to singing lessons, piano lessons, tennis lessons (I tried other activities too but I won’t mention them…basically cause I sucked lol). Dad was the one who listened and encouraged me when I wrote my first song – music was my absolute passion (and still is)and he would spend hours with me workshopping every performance I would prepare for, every recital...He was my Alpha before I knew what that term meant.

WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL THIS???

I'm glad you asked - I'll tell you 😉

As most of you know - I have recently created my author page on Facebook. This year I have made a conscious effort to connect to those with like-minded interests. HP FANFIC! I’ve found my people!!! Specifically on the platforms Facebook and Tumblr (I still suck at it…but I’m trying!)…I’m also a lurker on Instagram.

MISSY GET BACK TO THE POINT!

Here it is: My dad is an Indi Author! I know! How BAMF is that?! He’s retired now, but back in the day he was an English and History teacher. He also taught English as a Second Language for a while and eventually moved into Higher Education in which he taught young adults with learning disabilities – his program was designed to teach them essential life skills (like budgeting, shopping, skills that would lead to getting a job) He would come home and tell me stories about his students and one of their favourite activities: Reading the newspaper together as a class and discuss the current events – dad was an amazing teacher and he is an amazing man.

When dad was an English teacher at High School, one of the activities he would run when teaching creative writing was an activity he had dubbed: “speed writing”. Now that I’ve become a part of fandom author community - I have literally only just put two and two together and realised my dad was running “sprints” in his classroom 😱😱😱

Again! What an absolute BAMF!

MISSY! YOU’RE RAMBLING AGAIN - GET BACK TO THE ACTUAL POINT!

Okay, Sorry! I'll try again...

Dad isn’t on social media (though mum is), he doesn’t use a mobile phone (but mum does – you see where I’m going with this?). As an independently published Indi-Author on Amazon (I’m gonna share the link – don’t worry), I’ve told him about the benefits of social networking. He’s been reluctant…I decided at the time not to push. Recently though, I shared with him the fact that I’ve been writing during Covid 19 – not songs and music, but stories. I told him I’ve found a safe haven in fanfiction – I’ve found people I wish I knew years ago! I’ve found friends who I’m now collaborating with (back in the day I was never in a band or anything like that). I’ve told Dad about my experience publishing my little ficlettes and stories on AO3 - how I was receiving reviews and feedback. I told him about ‘Kudos”.

His ears suddenly perked up and bless him – he said “Do you think your friends would look at my story too and do you think they would leave a comment?”

Well friends, now you *know* - I’m a daughter on a mission!

My dad’s alias is Raymond Jeffrey. His birthday is the 12th of December and I’ve been thinking...What can I possibly give the man who has literally fuelled my love of writing? Who has constantly encouraged my creativity. What does he truly want?

The answer is Kudos people!!!!!

My dad isn’t interested in the amount of sales or rankings his book gets – It’d be nice, but it won't stop him from writing his trilogy. He's already a thrid of the way through book 2!!! (BAMF!)

So friends, if I may be so bold - can I ask you to reach out and leave him a review on Amazon? Even if it is as simple as a phrase of encouragement to keep writing, to continue? The way we do in Fandom?

That would be simply magic!!!

I’m not asking you to buy his book, but if you have Kindle I’d love for you to give his original work a go and leave him a review.

You can download a free sample here:

https://www.amazon.com.au/God-Wills-Lucifers-Raymond-Jeffrey-ebook/dp/B07NTQ2C5T

Dad literally painted the artwork himself (and then had mum scan it as a PDF in order to upload it and then use it as a cover). My mum has been simply amazing – she’s his Alpha and has encouraged him on this life long goal to write a book.

Dad currently had 10 sales in total (some are purchases made by family from overseas) and recently he cheekily introduced himself to his new neighbour (my folks recently moved during Covid 19) as an ‘internationally selling author’(Omg Dad! 😆🤣😂 ). He's also hired a woman to professionally format and edit his book for SPAG – so his book has actually been professionally Beta’d (when I told him I had met people who loved Betaing for funsies he was shocked and also secretly I think he was a little jelly 🤭🤭🤭).

So yes, can you help me friends????? Be a part of this movement I’m trying to start?!

I would literally love for him to suddenly get a flood of reviews and have no idea why!

I plan to share this post with him for his birthday.

Thanks and gratitude friends!

Love from Missy xxxxx

#kudosformissysdad

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 4 years ago

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Belgium brings their ex-vocalist back to Rotterdam 2021

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Here we chop chop boys like we chop chop wood

This review space would’ve been reserved for Belarus. Unfortunately, their broadcaster was not ready to make nice, and ultimately refused to serve EBU with anything but not-even-so-thinly-veiled propaganda, so much so that EBU, after all they’ve given the time for them for to snap out of it, finally had to be like “bye bitch” (- Lizzo) with enough push from the fandom, and informed everyone that Belarus will miss this year’s contest <3

Which means that I don’t have to deal with 41, but with 39 writeups to do overall, if my timing permits! The Roop could’ve always used a little less competition, anyway /j

Speaking of The Roop’s competition, time to aim at another one of their semifinal folk with a review. Come forth, Belgium!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Hooverphonic, eventhough they’re not as big of a name as Flo Rida, is the biggest act to compete in this year’s Eurovision, and even had lasted longer as a thing than Flo Rida. He barely even got his proper famous kickstart around in the 2000s. Hoover have been around at least for 5 years more than him, if “Years active” section on Wikipedia is anything to go by. And back then they were just known as Hoover, correct. Their lineup of singers has changed for quite some time, but otherwise the band since its inception is rooted in basically two men: Alex Callier and Raymond Geerts. They used to have a keyboardist too but was he a part of their glory years in 2000? No? Thought so, he’s irrelevant then. In fact, their first vocalist wasn’t even present on their first album, so they went to have another one, who did just one album with them before 2000 and left. Now I’m only constantly and consistently bringing up 2000 because that’s when they had their break out moment in relevancy - after they changed their singer once more before they found someone called Geike Arnaert - the woman you’re seeing on the MV’s thumbnail right now, and not someone certain for whom there was a public outcry for she is the only Hooverphonic component that’s not coming back from 2020 to 2021. But more on that later. I’m here to present you the break-out hit, for those who just don’t know:

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I used to like to think of Hoovers as trip-hop sensations, well not in the style of Massive Attack because they have their trip-hop sound with actual hip hop thrown in, Hooverphonic’s style is that but with a tinge of symphonic.

Well, “Mad About You” wasn’t really the only hit they had, before that they got a bunch of minor and domestic hits, and their music was used for soundtracks. So it’s a little bit cheating still to think of “Mad About You” as their breakout hit, but that’s still the biggest song of the band. If I were to recommend you stuff from them that aren’t necessarily the biggest hits but still, “The Night Before” with yet another one of their vocalists is pretty good.

So when I tell you that Hooverphonic is a band of a very long career. Well some bands do survive a lot without having their lineup change for 10+ years, but Hooverphonic vocalistes come and go sometimes, and for 2020 forray, when they were first announced, they came in to that talk show studio where they were guests in with a promising little starlet Alex Callier found at The Voice Belgium (for the Flanders region) and was her mentor there, Luka Cruysberghs, as their current vocalist.

Is it just me or her and Stefania Liberakakis look like they could be cousins?

All went smooth and dandy, until Alex started spouting stuff about Eurovision the fans found not amusing, such as calling Eurovision a circus or something, later begging and pleading to medias that his statement was “lost in translation” - now I would say it happens to the best of us, like for Tornike, but deep inside I think I know Alex meant what he meant, inside or outside context. Because everything just went even more sour when everyone found out Hooverphonic were missing from the common song “Love Shine a Light�� for the 2020 consolation programme in place of Eurovision, and when they were forced to explain, Alex just straight up said he didn’t like the song, so he decided to not do it. Fuck, I myself don’t adore the 1997 winning song, but I like it, and would’ve still done a piece of that song out of respect. Take it or leave it, god damn. Also they were noted to be the only people plugging in their other material in the time when Eurovision 2020 artists on the consolation programme were either saying inspirational stuff or “hope to see you soon!” or a combo of both, once again, courtesy of mostly Alex. Now I’m not saying his ego is bigger than Kirkorov’s... of fucking course not, no one has an ego bigger than Kirkorov’s. The only thing that can beat him in that regard is if someone booked Kanye West for Eurovision last minute.

Following 2021, they were very excited to jump on the “leave 2020 songs behind” train, while a few artists like VICTORIA and The Roop rallied for to keep their entries in tact if they were allowed to. And with that, in late 2020, they went ahead and celebrated the 20 years of “Mad About You” by getting rid of Luka as a vocalist and bringing back the aforementioned Geike to reprise her part. Seems pretty reasonable, but for the Eurofandom it was simply seen as a dick move, and mostly for the reason that all 2020 artists deserve a 2021 chance, even if they’re band members. What felt more dickish is that Luka was straight up told “byeeee u’re no longer our bandmate xo” on a Zoom call between band members. Like, it’s fine to be told you’re fired in person, even if still humiliating, because what’s the other better way? What’s equally worse is to be told this via email, but the email you were sent was sent like a few months ago and you only read it NOW. At least I guess that proves we know what the “sad and losing game” was that Luka asked to be released from now, heh.

Not to worry Luka-stans, as Alex will still have her, just as not the part of the band anymore. But instead give her a solo career. Yeah well we’ll see how long that lasts.

With the 2000 glory heydays lineup of Hooverphonic we have their entry be “The Wrong Place”, as the completely quite different song they promised (or didn’t) when saying that they will certainly and absolutely get rid of their old one for the 2021 if they had a choice. What they didn’t get rid of is the theme of the worse part of relationships - “Release Me” is about probably wanting to be let go of and released rather than kept by the side when it’s probably not working out. “The Wrong Place” is one of those episodes that probably happened during then - they had a house conflict, she chose to have a smoke to forget about it, the man’s after her Johnny Cash T-Shirt. Not much else to say about the song’s technicality fortunately than I’ve already said so much about the band, so how does it fare in the Hoover-lore, for me?

REVIEW

See, I would like to root for Luka ever having her chance to get to experience Eurovision if she wishes, but maybe it’s lowkey for her own benefit she wasn’t the chosen vocalist for the song, as Geike could do “Release Me”, but Luka wouldn’t be able to do “The Wrong Place”.

“The Wrong Place” is well-suited to the first vocaliste’s melancholic blend-in timbre, and a singer like Luka would sound a little too light on this with her soft-spoken sound of her voice. Besides, I don’t think she could be old enough to relate to the lyrical subject’s domestic struggle issue. Not to say 20 year olds don’t smoke and drink, it’s just that “The Wrong Place” feels a little bit too much mature enough.

Although I think that both of them could absolutely rock the music video visuals.

The song itself is very Hooverphonic. They used to do this kind of standout triphoppy sound back in the days, but as of lately they kind of grew out of the label to do more of the music that kinda sounds like movie soundtrack music. Idek the exact label I could give it to their music so move soundtrack music it is I guess. It has a decently paced structure (could’ve done without the overly repetitive ending where they repeat “you’re in the wrong place” over and over, like ffs I know where I am!!), and interesting lyrical choices. Such as “organic cup of... tea”, as in, WOW! HOOVERPHONIC HAS ENOUGH WITH THE TEABAGS FULL OF GROUND AND GRINDED TEA! THEY WILL ONLY MAKE TEA FROM PURE HERBS AND FLOWERS, AS IT WAS USED TO BE DONE! and acting like her Johnny Cash T-Shirt is the kind of prized possession her man is not allowed to wear to rub it in her face. Imagine if it was something more mundane. “Don’t you ever dare to wear my... pink polka-dot T-shirt”? Damn right it doesn’t seem to suit the mood lol.

It’s not what I exactly wanted from Hooverphonic, but probably what I subconsciously needed from them anyway, ever since they were announced for 2020. I only got into “Release Me” sometime AFTER the contest, “The Wrong Place” is a bit more instant to stand behind. So well done to them to commit to their craft.

Approval factor: I guess I do have to stamp this with my stamp of approval. It’s nice and all. Follow-up factor: “The Wrong Place” follows up as a more of a Hooverphonic discography track after the fairly average and overlookable “Release Me” (eventhough the latter has the tinge of theirs as well because it’s a more symphonic ballad, and they do have symphonic stuff on their discog afterall). As a Eurovision entry, it comes across as even better somewhat, and even slightly more standout, but that might not necessarily work in their favour. Qualification factor: And that’s because they’re absolutely stranded in the semi with too many qualification choices to name. Belgium gets to be a bit quasi-obvious, but they’ve failed with a Hooverphonic-penned song before, plus, the pop girlies of this semi are more likely to eat out a band like this alive, but I wouldn’t exactly say Belgium is doomed to fail either, because I am positive Hooverphonic will think of something. I’m just saying that shocking things can happen every now and then.

INTERNAL CORNER

Well, considering Alex Callier is not running his mouth this time as much as he did so last year’s season, I think it’s safe to say that Hooverphonic have had nothing to write home about.

No, wait...

Well I did mention that Luka got replaced as one of the events that happened to Hooverphonic’s lifetime, but thank God that Alex promised her a solo career, right? Right?

Well, apparently, we’re getting towards it.

And the first lyrics of her first solo forray post-Hooverphonic-vocalist-duties features the lyrics about possibly her making someone “regret it”. Lol now watch this song to be a karma kick into Hooverphonic’s ass if Belgium happens to not qualify this year. Luka forewarned y’all with sharp precision.

Annnnnd that’s pretty much it, besides the band jumping on the trend of turning their entries into a Festivali i Këngës 59 acoustic night European version by presenting their own acoustic version of this track. I did not have the kind of courage to link to the Azerbaijan’s “slow version” on their review in fear of overruning my post even longer than they would usually be for these reviews, but at least it moves people to a certain degree

Well, my question of the days is, does “The Wrong Place” in acoustic make you sad twerk?

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ANY LAST WORDS?

Belgium’s big weakness is when it comes to stage their entries, notably for the last two years where the Eurovision actually happened. Sennek was awkwardly put in the middle and succumbed to the curse of Lucie Jones of grimmacing too much and therefore ruining her score in the process, possibly. Eliot was just simply upstaged by the decision to include big drums on stage. Alex Callier acknowledges all that sort of thing, so if anything goes absolutely right and Hooverphonic manage to make it to Rotterdam (which I think they can do because Belgium and Netherlands are neighbours lol? unless their lockdown rules get super strict in May), he should get on to mending all the flaws that Belgium had in the past for staging, and have a spectacular vision. Because it’d be sadly hilariously ironic if Hoovers miss out on the final due to the staging again. Can’t just constantly blame the vocalist - Geike would be flawless live, if Hooverphonic trusted in her for so many years. Can’t blame the song - it’s not too bad. So staging, I guess.

Good luck Hooverphonic, you’ll certainly need it. Also can RTBF consider that they could send anything else from the Wallonian music scene other than The Voice Belgique acts~

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam 2021 reviews #belgium #hooverphonic #the wrong place

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hyperbanal · 3 years ago

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INTERVIEWER: How do you hope your stories will affect people? Do you think your writing will change anybody?

CARVER: I really don't know. I doubt it. Not change in any profound sense. Maybe not any change at all. After all, art is a form of entertainment, yes? For both the maker and the consumer. I mean in a way it's like shooting billiards or playing cards, or bowling—it's just a different, and I would say higher, form of amusement. [...]

I remember in my twenties reading plays by Strindberg, a novel by Max Frisch, Rilke's poetry, listening all night to music by Bartok, watching a TV special on the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo and feeling in each case that my life had to change after these experiences, it couldn't help but be affected by these experiences and changed. There was simply no way I would not become a different person. But then I found out soon enough my life was not going to change after all. Not in any way that I could see, perceptible or otherwise. I understood then that art was something I could pursue when I had the time for it, when I could afford to do so, and that's all.

Art was a luxury and it wasn't going to change me or my life. I guess I came to the hard realization that art doesn't make anything happen. No. I don't believe for a minute in that absurd Shelleyan nonsense having to do with poets as the "unacknowledged legislators" of this world. What an idea! Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that. The days are gone, if they were ever with us, when a novel or a play or a book of poems could change people's ideas about the world they live in or even about themselves. Maybe writing fiction about particular kinds of people living particular kinds of lives will allow certain areas of life to be understood a little better than they were understood before. But I'm afraid that's it, at least as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps it's different in poetry. [...]

Good fiction is partly a bringing of the news from one world to another. That end is good in and of itself, I think. But changing things through fiction, changing somebody's political affiliation or the political system itself, or saving the whales or the redwood trees, no. Not if these are the kinds of changes you mean. And I don't think it should have to do any of these things, either. It doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that's taken in reading something that's durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself. Something that throws off these sparks—a persistent and steady glow, however dim.

—Raymond Carver, Writers at Work, The Paris Review Interviews, Seventh Series (1984)

#Raymond Carver #The Paris Review Interviews

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alywats · 4 years ago

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January 2021 Reading Wrap-Up

Here are all the books I read in January, a month of getting back into my routine after the holiday break and trying to make time for reading. Reading is my favorite hobby, but it is really hard to make time and space for it when I use all my focus and strain my eyes at the computer during the working hours of the day. So audiobooks have really been my saving grace this month. I only read a few of these books with my eyes, and the rest of them were listened to while I was cooking or driving or doing my laundry or taking a walk around the lake, and that is something that has been really valuable to me. Even though I only had “time” to sit down and read three or four books this month, I was able to read 12 with the help of audiobooks! Woohoo! Now on to my reviews for these books!

1. The Big Sleep -Raymond Chandler (231 pgs) 3

A classic "hard-boiled detective" novel which I enjoyed because of its significance in the genre. What I did not enjoy was the homophobia which, it being a product of its time, was extreme and hard to read through. First book of 2021 and we are not off to a great start!

2. Get A Life, Chloe Brown -Talia Hibbert (373pgs) 3.5

Mostly cute. There were like two or three things that made me suuuuuuper annoyed but I think they are more my issues than the book's, so I'll let it slide. Probably won't continue this series!

3. The Year of Less -Cait Flanders (189 pgs) 1.5

Okay this is the whiniest book ever, and I don't say that lightly. Ugh, I just wanted to read more about simple living and this book was 200 pages of complaining, Flanders not really consuming less, and no actual info about simple living or being a sustainable consumer.

4. The Invention of Sound -Chuck Palahniuk (240 pgs) 3

The first half was so good... and then I got kinda lost. At this point the real question is how many Palahniuk books will I read and think are mediocre before I finally read Fight Club...

5. Writers & Lovers -Lily King (320 pgs) 4

This book is really good for a lot of writer-y things and a lot of lover-y things. But my fav part? When there is a math band in the cafeteria called "The Cosines".

6. Wild -Cheryl Strayed (315 pgs) 4

I loved A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, so it's no surprise that I was into this book too. It is a bit cliche to be inspired by this book, but it's cliche for a reason, this journey is inspiring, the personal growth and discovery is inspiring. I also just loved the descriptions of Ashland, Crater Lake, Mt. Hood, and the Columbia from Strayed's perspective. These are places and landmarks that I have grown up with, and to be reminded of how special Oregon is was definitely something I enjoyed.

7. Brave New World -Aldous Huxley (288 pgs) 3

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this. There were some things that worked and some things that were not great, but mostly I was indifferent. I could not find any investment in this story or the characters, but I also didn’t ~hate~ what I was reading, so it was really a neutral reading experience for me.

8. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers -Paul Hoffman (303 pgs) 3.5

This was a biography of Erdős, notorious Hungarian mathematician, as well as a general history of some of his contemporaries and their mathematical highlights. Overall I found this book to be engaging, well-researched, and at the right level of detail, but what made this one hard for me was my immediate and intense dislike of Erdős. As a baby mathematician, I have been told that Erdős was an amazing and prolific mathematician who changed the course of mathematics, and we (mathematicians) should be aspiring to be like him. And he *was* amazing and prolific as a mathematician, but outside of mathematics, Erdős was annoying and demanding and full of entitlement, something that surprised me. The reason this bothered me, if I’m being honest, is that I feel this attitude of superiority in the mathematics community way too much. You are not of superior intelligence if you do math, you should not forget to be a well-adjusted human because you are too focused on math, and this should not be what mathematicians are striving for (I think many mathematicians would disagree with me, and that is my point). Erdős’s attitude and ethos were unhealthy at best, as they are for many ‘great’ mathematicians, and it’s hard for me to get behind the romanticized nature of “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers”, as if abandoning all other parts of life is the best/truest way to be a mathematician. It’s hard for me to care about Erdős numbers (think 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but for math) when the idea of mathematical name-dropping is just another way to feel superior, and I leave this book feeling disconnected by the communal obsession with Erdős among mathematicians.

9. The Shining -Stephen King (659 pgs) 5

I don't think it's revolutionary to say that this is King's best work, but in case you need me to tell you, The Shining is probably Stephen King's best work. Jack Torrance freaks me out like no other, the Overlook hotel is written in such a unique and ~creepy~ way, and the supernatural elements are woven in with character study and plot development in a way that makes them feel entirely real but not the central motivation for the story.

I think a problem with a lot of sci-fi/fantasy tropes like mind-reading is that 1. it is the *only* plot device the author uses to continue the narrative so it completely overshadows characterization and the plot arc, or 2. it isn't fleshed out enough so the reader doesn't get to feel totally immersed in or believe in the supernatural world that the story is taking place in.

The Shining is the balance of these two issues, King writes the characters and the plot in a way that is simply enhanced by the supernatural elements, and he writes the supernatural elements in a way that is enhanced by Danny's character and his circumstances.

This was my second time reading The Shining, since the first time I read it I was in 7th grade. There were definitely things I picked up on the second time around, and I am really glad I read it again.

10. Ancillary Justice -Ann Leckie (416 pgs) 3

One thing I really appreciate about this book is that it is a woman's voice and commentary on gender in the sci-fi world, which is rare and valuable. Sci-fi space opera has been a genre ruled by the white man for a long time, and that means that the stories are often very reflective of that. So yeah, I am happy to have read a book in this space written by a woman.

My criticism is simply that I was bored through parts of it, and I think that's because it's not a plot or characters that resonated with me. And that's just my personal taste coming through.

11. The Bass Rock -Evie Wyld (368 pgs) 4

The Bass Rock is the interweaving tale through different periods of time in Scotland, and the way society controlled and abused these women. They accused smart women of being witches, then they lobotomized women with opinions, and on and on. This book is a commentary on violence, and oppression as violence against women, which makes it somewhat difficult to read, but the way the stories of the women overlap both in plot and in theme is so beautifully done.

12. Hamnet -Maggie O'Farrell (372 pgs) 5

Shakespeare, that mysterious bard, had a son named Hamnet who died. Is it a coincidence then, that his most emo play is of the same name? (Hamnet = Hamlet in 1590s England I guess). This novel mostly shoves William off-stage, focusing more on his wife Agnes and her experience being a daughter, a mother, a wife, and a mourner. It is a glimpse into life in the 1590s, where plague was ravaging the cities, and although 1590s life often feels very different to our 2021 life, there are a few striking similarities to be found here: grief, lockdown, the closing of theaters. This was beautifully written, and in the spirit of being dramatic, I'll say the ending took my breath away.

And I'll end with this thought: Shakespeare wrote during a time where the Black Death could not be ignored, he (probably) lost his son to it, but the plague is at most an undertone in his body of work. Instead he wrote about corruption, the failure of rulers, deception, grief, and the lust for power. Take a look into 2020s USA, and I think you'll find that Shakespeare just got a little bit more relatable.

#January reads #january wrap up #reads #booklr #books

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doof-doofblog · 4 years ago

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"It's At An Insurance Company In Shoreditch!"

Monday 16th November 2020

Good afternoon / evening everyone! Hope you all had a brilliant weekend. This is quite an exciting post for me this one as this will be my 100th written blog post reviewing an episode of EastEnders, and I have a feeling it's going to be such a good episode to write about! I'm excited to get stuck in so let's jump right into it!

The episode begins with Kat sat on the sofa in her living room, checking the amount of her wages that Ian has paid her, as she checks them she notices that Ian has cut her short of the correct amount she's owed. As she's chatting to Stacey, the conversation turns the event which will be happening that night. It sounds as if this robbery she has planned with Phil will be going ahead that night. Kat informs Stacey to look after the kids and tells her that if they ask where she is, to make up some kind of logical excuse for her absence. Stacey once again tells her cousin that she still doesn't have to go through with this robbery and that they'll be able to find another way to find the money they owe Suki. But Kat is convinced that there is no other way and that this is the best shot she has of getting quick cash. As Stacey leaves the room, she suggests to take Kush with her to be on the safe side, suddenly Kush enters the room and informs Kat that he's planning on attending a Gambling Addiction meeting in an attempt to put things right between the couple. Kat informs her boyfriend that Phil has already organised for another driver, but Kush is quick to fight his corner and persuade her that whoever this other driver will be will not have her back as much as he will.

At the Vic, Ian is having what appears to be trouble with a supplier. As his brother and his family look across at him, its looks pretty clear that they have been made aware about what Ian has done to Kathy. Lexi tells his Uncle that the family aren't speaking to him anymore, as she sits with her Dad and Callum. As Ian takes himself behind the bar, Lexi asks her Dad what plans they have for that evening but Ben apologises to his daughter and explains he's having to work, to which Callum looks at him and pleads for him to be careful. Is Callum letting on that he knows what his boyfriend has planned? Or is he simply just showing support? Suddenly, Kat comes flying into the pub demanding Ian to pay her wages correctly, as she does so she sees Ben sat across the other end of the pub. As Ben and his family get ready to leave, Kat approaches him and asks who the new driver is that Phil's pulled in for the robbery, but before Ben can respond Ian is quick to insult Kat about cleaning for the Mitchell's and she storms off. Ian then enquires as to how much the Mitchell's are paying her but Ben really doesn't seem interested in making small-talk with his brother, he informs him that he's having to hold back really hard to not hurt him after what he did to their Mum, but he warns him that he ever pulls a stunt like that again, he'll come for him. I hate to say it, but I'm feeling glad that Ian has been making a lot of enemies lately, he seems to just be annoying everyone and he's digging his heels in deeper and deeper. There seems to be a lot of people he's upset right now - Max, Kathy, Sharon, Ben, Kat, Peter, Bobby, Dotty - I think someone needs to teach him a lesson!

After leaving the pub and witnessing Ian be the big "I am!", Max makes his way into the Café and finds Linda sitting on her own. They both greet each other as Max informs her about what has been happening in the Vic. It's then she mentions that her husband has gone to stay with their son, Lee, for a few days after the events that happened with him at the Vic. She informs Max that Ian had also sent them a bill for the bottle of alcohol that Mick accidentally smashed. Oh and what a coincidence! Max then happens to mention to Linda that he's actually thought of a way of getting back at Ian, to which she is instantly interesting in hearing his plan.

At the Masood/Ahmed household, (to which now Iqra, Ash and Tina are living in) Tina is confiding in Iqra about putting her foot in it with Mick and that he's not answering her calls, Iqra can kind of relate to Tina as she mentions that her sister, Habiba, has blocked her on all forms of social media. It seems as if they both have something in common when it comes to their families. Ash can be seen just listening in on their conversation as Iqra admits she doesn't know what to say to her sister if she'd try calling her. What is she supposed to say regarding Jags? In Iqra's mind, Jags is the one who's in the wrong - but of course Ash knows differently, she knows the truth. She grabs her coat and makes an excuse to leave, informing her girlfriend that she's going to work.

The next scene shows Jack visiting Denise once again, Denise informs him that she's been to the church with Raymond again and that the pastor gave her a book for Raymond. She informs Jack that she's been told more about Raymond's adoptive mother and how the little boy is constantly drawing pictures of his parents. Something is telling me that Denise feels like she might not be able compare to Raymond's adoptive Mother. Jack once again suggests she tells the young boy the truth about her identity in a case to make him feel more settled, he shuts the door behind him to make sure they don't have any interruptions whilst Denise tells her son who she is. Denise is looking a little bit nervous, but can only hope that the little boy will understand and accept the truth.

Returning to the Vic, Sharon is quick rush Ian into sorting the fact that they're running out of booze, Ian tries to reassure her that he'll get onto the supplier and sort it. Suddenly, Max and Linda sneak into the pub and they both make their way behind the bar announcing to the locals that all drinks will be free on behalf of Ian. Ian is absolutely stunned and can't believe what is happening. As Stacey and Jean enter also enter the pub, Stacey notices Linda behind the bar and comments how long it's been since she's seen Linda serving drinks. Linda appears incredibly happy to be where she once stood and she's looking even more happy to be helping Max wind Ian up. Ian is eager to stop what's happening before it the situation carries on or gets carried away but Max stops him from walking any further behind the bar and informs him he still owes him thousands of pounds! Ian questions him on how he's able to get that money so quick, but Max sarcastically suggests to him to rob a bank!

(Why do I have a horrible feeling that something is going to wrong with the robbery job that Kat and Phil are going to pull? Why do I feel that Ian might somehow get his hands on the money they get/nick, just so he can pay Max off? Will that then mean that the Slaters will be kicked out of their house? I admit I've got a very bad feeling that this robbery isn't going to end well!)

At the Mitchell household, Kat and Shirley are sat discussing the robbery job, Kat shows Shirley that she's made her a pass for her to get inside the building, she informs her that they may come in handy, unfortunately Shirley point out that she's made the blunder of putting their real names on the passes. As Phil and Ben make an appearance, Kat once again asks them who the new driver is that they've got for the job and inform her that it is in fact Shirley. Kat is left stunned as she informs them she needs her on the inside with her, but Phil reassures her that Shirley will be the best driver to get away. Kat is left reeling as she tells them to forget about the job and leaves, to which Ben runs after her. As he catches up to her outside, Ian can be seen in the background as Kat informs Ben that she'll get another driver, suddenly Ian speaks up - has he been listening to everything that they've been talking about? Is he aware that there's going to be a robbery? He asks his brother whether he could be a driver for them. Ben is clearly shocked, but as Ian continues to plead to his brother, it becomes clear that he is also desperate for money. Ben tells his brother to actually beg - it's clear that Ian is looking a little uncomfortable as he begins to kneel to the floor, to which Ben bursts out laughing and informs his brother that he wouldn't involve him if he was basically the last man on Earth. Things are looking really sour between to the two brothers, Ben is clearly angry with Ian because of what he did to their Mum. As Ben begins to walk away Ian shouts to him to stop acting like his Dad, which stops Ben in tracks, the next line really surprised me - Ian actually told his own brother that his Dad hates him - well clearly he doesn't know Phil and Ben as much as he thought, considering what Ben has gone through in the last few months regarding his hearing loss, Phil has tried his absolute best to support his son, even acknowledges his boyfriend which speaks volumes. Ben informs Ian that the relationship between him and his Dad is solid and the only person who is hated at the moment is him! As Ben makes his way inside the house, unfortunately, Ian notices that the pass made for Shirley has been accidentally left on the floor. What the hell is he going to do with that?!

Returning to Denise and Jack, as little Raymond is doing more drawings, Denise is trying to talk the young boy. I have to be honest, I found this scene very touching. Raymond is drawing a little picture on the floor as Denise is very softly talking to him about how his adoptive parents told him about "Another Mummy" who grew him in her tummy. Raymond nods his head in acknowledgement, showing that he knows what she's talking about, at such a young age he appears to understand. Denise asks whether he thought about her to which he gently nodded his head again, Denise then tells the young boy "That was me!" and she continues to mention how she gave him to special parents because he was a special boy. Suddenly Raymond turns around and gives Denise the picture he has drew, to which Denise instantly thinks is of his adoptive Mother, but when Jack notices that he's drawn a dress the same colour that Denise is wearing, Denise asks little Raymond whether the picture was of her, to which he smiles and nods. This was just an incredibly cute scene, I absolutely loved it! Beautifully done!

Returning to Ash, who has actually just gone to the Panesar household, she appears to be on the phone to Iqra, trying to reassure her that everything is fine. On the other end of the line, Iqra seems erratic, questioning her girlfriend why she left in such a rush and whether she is actually okay. Ash makes the quick excuse that she has to go and hangs up the phone. Behind her, we can see that Suki has been listening in on her daughter's conversation, trying to be the supporting Mother, she asks whether everything okay. But Ash admits that she's hating having to lie to her girlfriend, lying about Jags and everything else. Suki then tries to comfort her and explains that having to lie is probably best then telling a devastating truth. But then, Ash turns the conversation completely onto what her Mum is doing to the Slater's - are the Slater family even aware that she's planning on changing their house into studio apartments?! It looks as if Suki was planning on posting some fake letters to them, but then admits that perhaps she might think of another way of telling them. I really don't like Suki and I really hope that she'll get what's coming to her - eventually!

Back at the Slater household, Kush can be seen playing on his laptop again - is he really playing another game of poker?! Kat calls him from the hallway and he quickly shuts the laptop down before she can see. As she enters the kitchen she asks her boyfriend whether he was serious about seeking help for his gambling addiction, he confirms to her that he is. Kat then informs Kush that she's willing to let him join her on this robbery job if he's still interested, to which he seems incredibly eager to help out. He asks what's changed her mind, to which she explains that she needs someone to support her and be on her side - as it's fair to say that none of the Mitchell clan will be - she tells him that she does trust him as she leaves the room. As she enters the hallway we can hear her arranging with Phil to meet in the Arches, meanwhile Kush goes back onto his laptop, revealing that he has been playing Poker, yet again, but interestingly he actually pressed "Fold" and quits the game! I think the knowledge that Kat actually does trust him to help her with this job must've proved to him that he doesn't need to be playing Poker any more. Hopefully this will be the big turn around for Kush.

Meanwhile at the Vic, Max and Linda are once again sharing a drink. Sharon approaches them and questions Max's actions and how it would help Ian paying him back, but Linda is quick to defend Max, informing her friend that she hasn't laughed so hard for a long time. As Sharon leaves them to it, Linda confesses to Max how much she misses being behind the bar, Max understands and tries to comfort her, he tries to lift her spirits saying that that was her past, she bound to miss it, but she now needs to focus on the future. It's then that Linda reveals that she's had a new business idea, thanks to her son, Ollie. She reveals her new business idea would be superhero costumes for children with autism, to which Max agrees would be a brilliant idea. This is very interesting - does this mean that Linda might go down another road and start her own business? It could be a big success! Will Max convince her to go for it?!

At the Arches, Phil, Ben and Shirley are waiting for Kat to turn up, both Ben and Phil are looking a little bit tense. Shirley informs her boss that there will be other jobs, but Phil think that this opportunity it too easy to pass up, £100,000 for a few motors! It should be an easy job! Eventually Kat turns up and passes Shirley another leopard print piny, much to everyone's confusion. Phil makes the valid point that Shirley is going to be one of the driver's but then Kat reveals she's got someone else - as they all walk outside the Arches, Kush is seen standing very stern and he looks Phil dead in the eye. Will Phil agree to this arrangement?! Or does he perhaps feel that he could land them in trouble?! I mean, I don't think something should go wrong with the group they've got, but I fear something might go wrong for maybe one of two of them. What do you guys think? Is their robbery going to be a success? Or is something going to go horrendously wrong?!

Back with Jack and Denise, Jack praises Denise for the way she approached Raymond and revealing she was in fact his real Mum. Denise shows him the picture Raymond drew and he thought Jack was his new Daddy! Am I the only one who found this incredibly cute?! Jack at first looked in shock, but Denise reassured him that she's going to tell the young boy that they're just good friends - however from the look of both their faces, something tells me that they wish they could in fact go back to the way things were between them. I've got a feeling that they will rekindle their romance, they clearly still have feelings for one another, and perhaps Jack might come to love little Raymond as his own and they could be a family. Suddenly a voice from the hallway breaks the silence, Denise and Jack look in surprise as Kim walks through the door and announces her return! I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE KIM BACK!!! However, she's got a lot to find out - first she'll have to find out about Chantelle passing away, and then the bombshell of having Raymond back in her sister's life! How is she going to react to the recent news?!

Back at the Arches, Shirley and Phil voice their concerns about Kush being involved, they make the very valid point that there isn't any room for mistakes. Ben questions whether he even knows the plan, to which Kush then gives a note by note to what the plan entails. Phil questions whether Kush will make a mistake or not, but Kush makes his feelings perfectly clear to him. His family is on the line, their plan has to work! Phil acknowledges that Kush means business and that he's serious about being a driver for them. Phil instructs them to meet later in the evening with a car as they walk away, as they do, Kat is looking more nervous as the plan comes closer and closer together. Kush tells her not to worry, he has her back and everything will be fine. (Famous last words, right?!)

Returning home to Iqra, Ash starts making up an a story as to how her day was, Iqra is visibly not having any of it. She questions her girlfriend straight out as to whether she is seeing someone else, which takes Ash completely by surprise. Ash tells her girlfriend that that is not the case, however when Iqra reveals that she went to the hospital to drop off her lunch for her, she sees that her story isn't going to work. She then tells Iqra the truth that she was in face at her Mum's house, but however, she still doesn't tell her full truth and instead tells her that the reason she left was because of Tina. She explains that Tina is getting in the way of their relationship and that they're not being able to spend time alone together. Iqra appears relieved and states she'll tell Tina to move out, to which Tina then appears from the hallway with a devastated look on her face.

The final scene of this episode was a very good one I have to say! Callum is at work and we can see that he's sent Ben a message asking him to be careful, however DI Thompson walks in on Callum and informs him that he's got recorded footage from the recorder that he planted at the Arches! Ooooohhhh gosh, I had forgotten all about that! So everything that Kush, Kat, Shirley, Phil and Ben had discussed has all been recorded! Callum at first reveals that that is the first he has heard about it, but once again DI Thompson blackmails him, saying if he doesn't tell him what he knows, he'll make sure that Ben goes down for his part in this crime! As all this is taking place, Phil, Ben, Kush, Kat and Shirley are all seen wearing dark clothes, of course except for Kat and Shirley in their leopard print pinnies, and approaching their cars ready to set off for the robbery. However what they don't see as they drive off is Ian, stood in a phone box! He's only gone and phoned the police and reported them! Is this to get his own back on Ben and Phil?! I fail to see why Ian has done this, what is in it for him?! PRIDE!!!!!

Will the police already be there as they approach the building? Will they get away with the robbery? Will Callum be backed into a corner and reveal what he knows?! Or is something going to go terribly wrong and someone end up getting caught? I for one, pray it's not Phil or Ben, however something tells me it will be! What do you guys think? I know the following episode will probably be nail biting, but I'm really looking forward to watching it and catching up on it tomorrow and reviewing it!

Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you've all enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing this blog post! I'll be back tomorrow following tonight's exciting episode! Enjoy the rest of your evening folks! xXx

#eastenders #katslater #kushkazemi #philmitchell #benmitchell #shirleycarter #ianbeale #callumhighway #maxbranning #lindacarter #sharonwatts #tinacarter #iqraahmed #ashpanesar #suki panesar #denisefox #jackbranning #kimfox #staceyslater

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Betrayal at Krondor

During the 1960s and 1970s, a new type of game began to appear in increasing numbers on American tabletops: the experiential game. These differed from the purely abstract board and card games of yore in that they purported to simulate a virtual world of sorts which lived behind their surface systems. The paradigm shift this entailed was such that for many players these games ceased to be games at all in the zero-sum sense. When a group came together to play Squad Leader or Dungeons & Dragons, there hung over the plebeian kitchen or basement in which they played a shared vision of the beaches of Normandy or the dungeons of Greyhawk. The games became vehicles for exploring the vagaries of history or the limits of the imagination — vehicles, in other words, for living out shared stories.

In retrospect, it was perhaps inevitable that some of the stories generated in this way would make their way out of the gaming sessions which had spawned them and find a home in more traditional, linear forms of media. And, indeed, just such things were happening by the 1980s, as the first novels born from games arrived.

Needless to say, basing your book on a game you’ve played isn’t much of a path to literary respectability. But for a certain kind of plot-focused genre novel — the kind focusing strictly on what people do rather than why they do it — prototyping the whole thing as a game makes a degree of sense. It can keep you honest by forcing your story to conform to a simulated reality that transcends the mere expediency of what might be cool and exciting to write into the next scene. By pushing against authorial fiat and the deus ex machina, it can give the whole work an internal coherency — an honesty, one might even say — that’s too often missing from novels of this stripe.

The most widely publicized early example of the phenomenon was undoubtedly the one which involved a humble insurance salesman named Tom Clancy, who came out of nowhere with a techno-thriller novel called The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The perfect book for a time of resurgent patriotism and military pride in the United States, it found a fan in no less elevated a personage than President Ronald Reagan, who declared it “my kind of yarn.” As the book topped the bestseller charts and the press rushed to draft their human-interest stories on the man who had written it, they learned that Clancy had gamed out its entire scenario, involving a rogue Soviet submarine captain who wishes to defect along with his vessel to the United States, with a friend of his named Larry Bond, using Harpoon, a tabletop wargame of modern naval combat designed by the latter. Clancy’s follow-up novel, a story of open warfare between East and West called Red Storm Rising, was a product of the same gestation process. To the literary establishment, it all seemed extremely strange and vaguely unsettling; to many a wargamer, it seemed perfectly natural.

Another line of ludic adaptations from the same period didn’t attract as much attention from the New York Times Book Review, much less the president, but nevertheless became almost as successful on its own terms. In 1983, TSR, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, decided to make a new series of adventure modules for the game, each of which would feature a different kind of dragon — because, as some of their customers were writing in their letters, the existing Dungeons & Dragons modules “had plenty of dungeons, but not many dragons.” The marketing exercise soon grew into Dragonlance, an elaborately plotted Tolkienesque epic set in a brand new fantasy world — one which, yes, featured plenty of dragons. TSR asked employees Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to write a trilogy of novels based on the fourteen Dragonlance adventure modules and source books they planned to publish. Thus Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first volume of The Dragonlance Chronicles, was published in the same year as The Hunt for Red October. It promptly became a nerdy sensation, the biggest fantasy novel of the year, spawning a whole new business for TSR as a publisher of paperback novels. In time, said novels would become as big a part of their business as the games whose names the books bore on their spines.

A third, only slightly less heralded example of the games-into-books trend actually predates the two I’ve just mentioned by a couple of years. In the last 1970s, a group of students at the University of California San Diego took up the recently published Dungeons & Dragons. Growing dissatisfied with TSR’s rules, they scrapped them one by one, replacing them with their own home-grown versions. Meanwhile they evolved a world in which to play called Midkemia, complete with its own detailed history, bestiary, sociology, and geography. Forming a little company of their own, as so many Dungeons & Dragons fanatics were doing at the time, they published some of their innovations to modest sales.

Raymond E. Feist

But one of their number named Raymond E. Feist had bigger ambitions. He wrote a novel based on some of the group’s exploits in Midkemia. Calling it simply Magician, he got it published through Doubleday in 1982 as the first volume of The Riftwar Saga. It sold very well, and he’s been writing Midkemia novels ever since.

Unlike the later cases of Tom Clancy and Dragonlance, Magician wasn’t widely publicized or advertised as being the product of a game. It was seen instead as merely the latest entry in an exploding branch of genre fiction: lengthy high-fantasy series inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien, often to the point of one-to-one correspondences between characters and plot events, but written in a manner more immediately accessible to the average Middle American reader, with more action, more narrative thrust, less elevated diction, and markedly less digressive songs and poetry. Dragonlance, of course, is an example of the same breed.

I must admit that I’ve personally read only the first book of Feist’s series, and not even to completion at that. This sort of derivative high fantasy doesn’t do much for me as a rule, so I’m not the best person to judge Feist’s output under any circumstances. Anything positive I do say about it runs the risk of damning with faint praise.

To wit: my wife and I used the book as our light bedtime reading, and we made it about two-thirds of the way through before terminal ennui set in and we decided we’d had enough. If that seems like less than a ringing endorsement, know that it’s farther than I generally get with most fantasy novels, including ones with considerably more literary credibility. I thus feel comfortable in saying that at least the early Raymond E. Feist novels are well-crafted examples of their breed, if you happen to like that sort of thing. (I do understand from others that the quality of his work, and particularly of his plotting, began to decline after his first handful of Midkemia novels. Perhaps because he was no longer basing them on his gaming experiences?)

The world of Midkemia is most interesting for our purposes, however, for the computer game it spawned. Yes, a series of novels based on a game got turned back into a very different sort of game. And then, just for good measure, that game got turned into another novel. It’s a crazy old transmedia world.

The more direct origin of Betrayal at Krondor, the game in question, can be traced back to June of 1991 and a chance meeting between John Cutter and Jeff Tunnell at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show. Both names may be familiar to regular readers of these histories.

John Cutter

Cutter had spent several years with Cinemaware, helping to craft many of their most innovative creations, which blended strong narrative elements with play styles that were unorthodox in story-heavy computer games at the time. In late 1990, with Cinemaware in the process of collapsing, he and several colleagues had jumped ship to New World Computing, best known for their Might & Magic series of CRPGs. But he was trapped in a purely administrative role there, without the freedom to create which he had enjoyed at Cinemaware, and was already feeling dissatisfied by the time he met Tunnell at that Summer CES.

Jeff Tunnell

Tunnell, for his part, was the founder of the studio known as Dynamix, now a subsidiary of Sierra Online. They were best known for their 3D graphics technology and the line of vehicular simulators it enabled, but they had fingers in several other pies as well, from adventure games to a burgeoning interest in casual puzzle games.

Recognizing talent when he saw it, Tunnell asked Cutter to leave Southern California, the home of the erstwhile Cinemaware and the current New World, and come to Eugene, Oregon, the home of Dynamix. Not only would he be able to have a creative role there once again, Tunnell promised, but he would be allowed to make whatever game he wanted to. Cutter jumped at the chance.

Once in Eugene, however, he struggled to identify just the right project. His first instinct was to make a point-and-click adventure game in the Sierra mold, but Tunnell, having made three of them in the last couple of years to less than satisfying effect, was feeling burned out on the genre and its limitations, and gently steered him away from it. (Absolute creative freedom, Cutter was learning, is seldom really absolute.)

At last, Tunnell came to Cutter with an idea of his own. He’d been reading a very popular series of fantasy novels by this fellow named Raymond E. Feist, and he thought they’d make a fine CRPG. Dynamix had never dabbled in the genre before, but when had that ever stopped them from trying something new? He suggested that Cutter give the first few of the books a read. If it turned out that he liked them as well and agreed that they’d make a good game, well, perhaps he should ring Feist up and have a chat about just that possibility.

Glad to finally have a clear sense of direction, Cutter did the one thing and then did the other. Feist was very busy, but was himself a long-time computer gamer, having sat down in front of his first Apple II some twelve or thirteen years before. He liked the idea of seeing Midkemia come to life on a computer screen. Although he didn’t have much time for working personally on such a project, he told his agent to make the deal happen if at all possible. So, a contract was signed that gave Dynamix the right to make Midkemia games until January 1, 1995, with Feist given the right of final approval or rejection of each title prior to its release. By one account at least, it was the most expensive literary license yet granted to a game developer, a sign of Feist’s ongoing popularity among readers of fantasy literature.

Another, slightly less welcome sign of same followed immediately after: upon being asked whether he was interested in authoring the game himself, Feist said that his time was money, so he’d need to be paid something beyond the terms of the licensing agreement itself — and, he noted flatly, “you couldn’t afford me.” This posed a dilemma. Cutter believed himself to be a better designer of game systems than a writer, and thus certainly wasn’t going to take on the job personally. Casting about for a likely candidate, his thoughts turned to one Neal Hallford, an enthusiastic young fellow with a way with words whom he’d befriended back at New World Computing.

Neal Hallford

A fresh-out-of-university Hallford had joined New World in the role of writer some months before Cutter himself had arrived. His first assignment there had been to make sense of the poorly translated English text of Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan, a project New World had chosen to outsource to a Japanese developer, with underwhelming results all the way around. After that truly thankless task, he’d worked for a while on Might and Magic III before playing a pivotal role on Planet’s Edge, an ambitious science-fiction CRPG that had tried to do just a little bit too much for its own good. He was just finishing that project when his old friend John Cutter called.

Like Cutter before him, Hallford found Dynamix’s offer difficult to refuse. Eugene struck him as idyllic by contrast with the crowded, smoggy streets of Los Angeles; meanwhile Dynamix’s offices enjoyed the well-deserved reputation of being just about the most stylish and comfortable in the entire industry, vastly outdistancing even the parent company of Sierra in that respect. Certainly they compared favorably with the chaotic jumble of tightly packed cubicles that was the domain of New World. Thus on Halloween Day, 1991, Hallford shook hands with his old colleges there for the last time and hopped into his Geo Metro for the drive north.

Upon Hallford’s arrival in Eugene, Cutter pulled him into his office and kept him there for a week, while the two hashed out exactly what game they wanted to make and wrote the outline of a script. Hallford still remembers that week of frenzied creativity as “one of the best weeks of my life.” These two friends, different in talents and personality but unified in their vision for the game, would do the vast majority of the creative heavy lifting that would go into it. Broadly stated, Cutter would be the systems guy while Hallford would be the story guy, yet their visions would prove so simpatico that they’d seldom disagree on much of anything at all.

Jeff Tunnel had initially fallen in love with a Midkemia novel called Silverthorn, and the original plan he’d pitched to Cutter had been to make the game a fairly straightforward adaptation of that book’s plot. But such a thing is inherently problematic, for reasons I’ve had ample cause to discuss in earlier articles. Players who buy the game because they read and liked the novel — who are, after all, the whole reason for making a licensed game at all from a business perspective — won’t be excited about stepping through a plot they already know. At the same time, it’s all too easy from the design side to make a game where victory hinges on taking all of the same idiosyncratic, possibly irrational actions as the protagonists of the novel. And so you end up with a game that bores one group of players to tears, even as it frustrates another group who don’t happen to know what Character A needs to do in Situation B in order to replicate the novel’s story.

The biggest appeal of the Midkemia novels, Hallford believed, was indeed the world itself, with its detailed culture and geography and its cast of dozens of well-established characters. It would be better, he thought, to set a brand new story there, one that would let Feist’s many fans meet up with old friends in familiar locales, but that wouldn’t force them to step by rote through a plot they already knew. During the crash course on Midkemia which he’d given himself in the few weeks before starting at Dynamix — like Cutter, he’d come to Feist fandom cold — Hallford had identified a twenty-year “hole” in the chronology where he and Cutter could set a new story: just after A Darkness at Sethanon, the concluding volume in the original Riftwar Cycle that had started the ball rolling. Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Feist was willing to entrust this young, unproven writer with creating something really new in his world. Betrayal at Krondor was off and running.

Hallford may have come to Midkemia late, but his dogged determination to capture the world exactly as it existed in the novels would come to a large degree to define the project. He calls himself a “born fanboy” by nature. Thus, even though he wasn’t quite of Feist’s hardcore fandom, he had enormous empathy for them. He points back to an experience from his youth: when, as a dedicated Star Trek fan, he started to read the paperback novels based on the television series which Pocket Books published in the 1980s. I read them as well, and can remember that some of them were surprisingly good as novels, at least according to my adolescent sensibilities, while also managing to capture the spirit of the series I saw on television. Others, however… not so much. Hallford points to one disillusioning book in particular, which constantly referred to phasers as “ray guns.” It inculcated in him a sense that any writer who works in a beloved universe owes it to the fans of said universe — even if he’s not really one of them — to be as true to it as is humanly possible.

So, Hallford wrote Betrayal at Krondor with Feist’s fans constantly in mind. He immersed himself in Feist’s works to the point of that he was almost able to become the novelist. The prose he crafted, vivid and effective within its domain, really is virtually indistinguishable from that of its inspiration, whose own involvement was limited to an early in-person meeting and regular phone conversations thereafter. Yet the latter became more rather than less frequent as the project wore on; Feist found his enthusiasm for the game increasing in tandem with his surprise at how earnestly Hallford tried to capture his novels and the extent to which he was managing to succeed with only the most limited coaching. The fan verdict would prove even more telling. To this day, many of them believe that it was Feist himself who scripted Betrayal at Krondor.

But Betrayal of Krondor is notable for more than Neal Hallford’s dedicated fan service. It’s filled to bursting with genuinely original ideas, many of which flew in the face of contemporary fashions in games. Not all of the ideas work — some of them rather pull against one another — but the game’s boldness makes it a bracing study in design.

Following the lead of GUI advocates working with other sorts of software, game designers in the early 1990s were increasingly embracing the gospel of the “mode-less” interface: a single master screen on which everything takes place, as opposed to different displays and interfaces for different play states. (For an excellent example of how a mode-less interface could be implemented in the context of a CRPG, see Origin Systems’s Ultima VII.) Cutter and Hallford, however, pitched this gospel straight into the trash can without a second thought. Betrayal at Krondor has a separate mode for everything.

The closest thing it has to a “home” screen must be the first-person exploration view, which uses 3D graphics technology poached from Dynamix’s flight simulators. But then, you can and probably often will move around from an overhead map view as well. When interesting encounters happen, the screen is given over to text with clickable menus, or to storybook-style illustrated dialog scenes. When you get in a fight, that’s also displayed on a screen of its own; combat is a turn-based affair played on a grid that ends up vaguely resembling the Battle Chess games by Interplay. (Thankfully, it’s also tactically interesting and satisfying.) And then when you come upon a locked chest, you’re dumped into yet another new mode, where you have to work out a word puzzle in order to open it, because why not? All of these modes are accompanied by different styles of graphics: 3D graphics on the main exploration screen, a no-frills Rogue-like display for the overhead movement view, pixel art with the story scenes, digitized real-world actors with the dialog scenes, the sprite-based isometric view that accompanies combat, etc.

The first-person exploration view.

The overhead view.

A bit of exposition. Could this be a side quest before us?

The combat view.

A puzzle chest. The answer to this one, for the record, is “die.” Later riddles get much more complicated, but the mechanics of the puzzles ingenuously prevent them from ever becoming completely insoluble. Many a male player has had a significant other who couldn’t care less about the rest of the game, but loves these puzzle chests…

This mishmash of approaches can make the game feel like a throwback to the 1980s, when genres and their established sets of best practices were not yet set in stone, and when many games that may strike us as rather odd mashups today were being produced. We can certainly see John Cutter’s roots in Cinemaware here; that company made a career out of ignoring the rules of ludic genre in favor of whatever systems best conveyed the fictional genre they were attempting to capture. By all rights, Betrayal at Krondor ought not to work, as so many of Cinemaware’s games tended not quite to work. All of these different modes and play styles — the puzzle chests in particular seem beamed in from a different game entirely — ought to add up to a hopelessly confusing muddle. Somehow, though, it does work; Betrayal at Krondor actually isn’t terribly hard to come to grips with initially, and navigating its many modes soon becomes second nature.

One reason for this is doubtless also the reason for much else that’s good about the game: its unusually extended testing period. When development was reaching what everyone thought to be its final stages, Dynamix sent the game to outside testers for what was expected to be a three-month evaluation period. Even this much usability testing would have been more than most studios were doing at this time. But the project, as so many game-development projects tend to do, ran way longer than expected, and three months turned into nine months of constant player feedback. While our universe isn’t entirely bereft of games that seem to have sprung into being fully-formed, by far the most good games attain that status only gradually, through repeated iterations of testing and feedback. Betrayal at Krondor came by its goodness in exactly this hard, honest way. Unlike a dismaying number of games from its time, this game feels like one that’s actually been played — played extensively — before it got released. The niggling problems that dog even many good games from the early 1990s (such as the infuriating inventory management and rudderless combat of Ultima VII) are almost completely absent here. Instead the game is full of thoughtful little touches to head off annoyance, the sort of touches that can only come from real player feedback.

The final verdict on its mishmash of graphical approaches, on the other hand, must be less positive. Betrayal at Krondor wasn’t a notably attractive game even by the standards of its day, and time has done it no favors; the project desperately needed a strong art director able to impose a unified aesthetic vision. The parts of it that have aged the worst by far are those employing digitized actors, who look almost unbelievably ludicrous, cutting violently against any sense of Tolkienesque grandeur Hallford’s prose might be straining to evoke. Most store-bought Halloween costumes look higher rent than this bunch of survivors of an explosion at the Loony Tunes prop department. John Cutter acknowledges the problems:

We digitized a lot of the actors, and we assumed they were going to be so pixelated that the makeup and costumes didn’t have to look that great. They just kind of had to be… close. But by the time we launched the game the technology had improved… yeah. You could see the elastic bands on the fake beards. It was pretty bad. I wasn’t crazy about a lot of the graphics in the game.

Tellingly, the use of digitized actors was the one place where Betrayal at Krondor didn’t blaze its own trail, bowing instead to contemporary trends.

For all of Betrayal at Krondor‘s welcome willingness just to try lots of stuff, its approach to story remains its most memorable and interesting quality of all. This aspect of the game was so front and center in the mind of John Cutter that, when he wrote a brief few paragraphs of “Designer Notes” for the manual, it came to occupy more than half the space:

We decided the game should be an interactive story. Characters would be multidimensional and capable of stirring the player’s emotions. The story would be carefully plotted with lots of surprises, a good mix of humor and pathos, and abundant amounts of mystery and foreshadowing to keep the player intrigued.

Balancing play against plot is the most confounding job any game designer can face on a fantasy role-playing game. In Betrayal at Krondor, we have integrated our plot so that it provides ample gaming opportunities, while also giving the player a sense of time, place, and purpose. This is achieved by making an onscreen map available to the player at all times, and by creating short-term goals — the nine chapters in the game — which give us a unique opportunity to tell a progressive story that still gives the player plenty of freedom to explore and adventure without being confined to a scripted plot.

In thus “balancing play against plot,” Cutter and Hallford were attempting to square a circle that had been bedeviling game designers for a long time. All of the things that mark a rich story — characters with agendas of their own; big reveals and shocking turns; the classic narrative structure of rising action, climax, and denouement; dramatic confrontations with expressive dialog — cut against the player’s freedom to go wherever and do whatever she wants. As a designer, says the conventional wisdom, you can’t have it all: you must rather stake out your spot on a continuum where at one end the player does little more than click her way through a railroaded plot line, and at the other she does absolutely anything she wants, but does it in a world bereft of any larger meaning or purpose. Adventure games tend to lean toward the set-piece-storytelling end of the continuum, CRPGs toward open-ended interactivity.

Even CRPGs from around the time of Betrayal at Krondor which are written expansively and well, such as Ultima VII, generally send you wandering through other people’s stories rather than your own. Each city you explore in that game is full of little story stubs revolving around the inhabitants thereof rather than yourself; your role is merely to nudge these dramas of others along to some sort of resolution before you disappear again. Your larger agenda, meanwhile, boils down to the usual real or metaphorical collecting of pieces to assemble the big whatsit at the end — a series of actions which can be done in any order precisely because they’re so simplistic in terms of plot. You’re in the world, but never really feel yourself to be of it.

Cutter and Hallford, however, refused to accept the conventional wisdom embodied by even so markedly innovative a CRPG as Ultima VII. They were determined to deliver the best of both worlds — an adventure-game-like plot and CRPG-like freedom — in the same game. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t quite work as a whole. Nevertheless, the attempt is well worth discussing.

Betrayal at Krondor positively trumpets its intentions via the metaphors which its user interface employs. Once again ignoring all of the fashions of its time, which emphasized the definitively non-textual aesthetic of the interactive movie, this game presents itself as an interactive book with an enthusiasm worthy of the 1980s heyday of bookware. The overriding look of the game, to the extent it has one amidst all its clashing graphical styles, is of an illuminated manuscript, ink on yellowing parchment. The story is told in a literary past tense, save points become “bookmarks,” and, as Cutter himself noted in the extract above, the whole experience is divided into nine neat “chapters.”

The game is relentless about describing every single event using full sentences worthy of one of Feist’s novels. Sometimes the end result can verge on the ridiculous. For example, every single time you search the body of an opponent you’ve just killed — something you’ll be doing an awful lot of, what with this being a CRPG and all — you’re greeted with a verbose missive:

Owyn looked for supplies. Feeling like a vulture, he turned the body this way and that as he searched for anything that might be of value to them on their journey. All in all, he supposed that if he were the dead man, it wouldn’t matter to him any longer what happened to his belongings.

Every character has the exact same feeling when searching a dead body, despite very different personalities. This is one of many places where Betrayal at Krondor‘s verbosity winds up undercutting rather than strengthening its sense of mimesis.

Of course, you can and quickly will learn to click right through this message and its one or two random variations each time you search a corpse. But it remains an amusing sign of just how committed Cutter and Halford were to their “interactive storybook” concept in even the most repetitive, mechanical areas of their creation. (Imagine what Pac-Man would be like if the title character stopped to muse about his actions every time he swallowed a power pill and killed another ghost…)

All of this past-tense verbosity has an oddly distancing effect. You don’t feel like you’re having an adventure so much as reading one — or possibly writing one. You’re held at a remove even from the characters in your party, normally the primary locus of player identification in a game like this one. You don’t get to make your own characters; instead you’re assigned three of them who fulfill the needs of the plot. And, while you can guide their development by earning experience points, improving their skills, and buying them new spells and equipment, you don’t even get to hang onto the same bunch through the whole game. Characters are moved in and out of your party from chapter to chapter — again, as the needs of each chapter’s plot requires. The final effect almost smacks of a literary hypertext, as you explore the possibility space of a story rather than actually feeling yourself to be embodying a role or roles in that story. This is certainly unique, and not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just… a little strange in relation to what we tend to think of CRPGs as being. These are, after all, role-playing games.

As I’ve described it so far, Betrayal at Krondor sounds more akin to the typical Japanese than the Western CRPG. The former tend to lie much closer to the set-piece-story end of our continuum of design; they provide a set, fairly linear plot to walk through, generally complete with predefined characters, rather than the degree of world simulation and open-ended exploration that marks the Western tradition. (A Japanese CRPG is, many a critic has scoffed, just a linear story in which you have to fight a battle to see each successive scene.) Yet Betrayal at Krondor actually doesn’t fit comfortably with that bunch either. For, as Cutter also notes above, he and his design partner were determined to “give the player plenty of freedom to explore and adventure without being bound to a scripted plot.”

Their means of accomplishing that relies once again on the chapter system. Each chapter begins and ends with a big helping of set-piece plot and exposition. In between, though, you’re free to go your own way and take your time in satisfying the conditions that will lead to the end of the chapter. In the first chapter, for example, your assignment is to escort a prisoner across much of the map to the capital city of Krondor. How and when you do so is up to you. The map is filled with encounters and quests, most of which have nothing to do with your central mission. And when you eventually do finish the chapter and continue on with the next, the same map gets repopulated with new things to do. This is the origin of a claim from Dynamix’s marketing department that Betrayal at Krondor is really nine CRPGs in one. In truth, it doesn’t quite live up to that billing. Only a subsection of the map is actually available to you in most chapters, much of it being walled off by impenetrable obstacles or monsters you can’t possibly kill. Even the repopulation that happens between chapters is far from comprehensive. Still, it’s an impressively earnest attempt to combine the pleasures of set-piece plotting with those of an emergent, persistent virtual world.

And yet the combination between set-piece storytelling and emergent exploration always feels like just that: a combination rather than a seamless whole. Cutter and Hallford didn’t, in other words, truly square this particular circle. There’s one massive block of cognitive dissonance standing at the center of it all.

Consider: you’re told at the beginning of the first chapter that your mission of escorting your prisoner to the capital is urgent. Political crisis is in the air, war clouds on the horizon. The situation demands that you hurry to Krondor by the shortest, most direct path. And yet what do you do, if you want to get the most out of the game? You head off in the opposite direction at a relaxed doddle, poking your nose into every cranny you come across. There’s a tacit agreement between game and player that the “urgent” sense of crisis in the air won’t actually evolve into anything until you decide to make it do so by hitting the next plot trigger. Thus the fundamental artificiality of the story is recognized at some level by both game and player, in a way that cuts against everything Betrayal at Krondor claims to want to be. This isn’t really an interactive storybook; it’s still at bottom a collection of gameplay elements wired together with chunks of story that don’t really need to be taken all that seriously at the end of the day.

The same sense of separation shows itself in those lengthy chapter-beginning and -ending expository scenes. A lot of stuff happens in these, including fights involving the characters ostensibly under your control, that you have no control over whatsoever — that are external to the world simulation. And then the demands of plot are satisfied for a while, and the simulation engine kicks back in. This is no better or worse than the vast majority of games with stories, but it certainly isn’t the revolution some of the designers’ claims might seem to imply.

Of course, one might say that all of these observations are rather more philosophical than practical, of more interest to game designers and scholars than the average player; you can suspend your disbelief easily enough and enjoy the game just as it is. There are places in Betrayal at Krondor, however, where some of the knock-on effects of the designers’ priorities really do impact your enjoyment in more tangible ways. For this is a game which can leave you marooned halfway through, unable to move forward and unable to go back.

Dead ends where the only option is to restore are normally less associated with CRPGs than adventure games; they played a big role in all but killing that genre as a commercial proposition by the end of the 1990s. CRPGs are usually more forgiving thanks to their more simulation-oriented nature — but, sadly, Betrayal at Krondor is an exception, due to a confluence of design decisions that all seem perfectly reasonable and were all made with the best of intentions. It thus provides a lesson in unexpected, unintended consequences — a lesson which any game designer would be wise to study.

The blogger Chet Bolingbroke, better known as The CRPG Addict, made these comments recently in the context of another game:

One of the notable features of CRPGs in contrast to some other genres is that they almost always support a Plan B. When one way of playing doesn’t work out, you can almost always resort to a more boring, more banal, grindier method of getting something done. I tend to mentally preface these fallback plans with “I can always…” Having a tough time with the final battle? “I can always reload again and again until the initiative rolls go my way.” Can’t overcome the evil wizard at your current level? “I can always grind.” Running out of resources? “I can always retreat from the dungeon, head back to town and buy a ton of healing potions.”

The most frustrating moments in CRPGs are when you suddenly find yourself with no way to finish “I can always” — when there is no Plan B, when luck alone will never save you, when there isn’t even a long way around.

This is precisely the problem which the player of Betrayal at Krondor can all too easily run into. Not only does the game allow you to ignore the urgent call of its plot, but it actually forces you to do so in order to be successful. If you take the impetus of the story seriously and rush to fulfill your tasks in the early chapters, you won’t build up your characters sufficiently to survive the later ones. Even if you do take your time and explore, trying to accrue experience, focusing on the wrong skills and spells can leave you in the same boat. By the time you realize your predicament, your “Plan B” is nonexistent. You can’t get back to those encounters you skipped in the earlier, easier chapters, and thus can’t grind your characters out of their difficulties. There actually are no random encounters whatsoever in the game, only the fixed ones placed on the map at the beginning of each chapter. I’m no fan of grinding, so I’d normally be all in favor of such a choice, which Cutter and Hallford doubtless made in order to make the game less tedious and increase its sense of narrative verisimilitude. In practice, though, it means that the pool of available money and experience is finite, meaning you need not only to forget the plot and explore everywhere in the earlier chapters but make the right choices in terms of character development there if you hope to succeed in the later ones.

On the whole, then, Betrayal at Krondor acquits itself better in its earlier chapters than in its later ones. It can be a very immersive experience indeed when you first start out with a huge map to roam, full of monsters to battle and quests to discover. By the time said map has been repopulated three or four times, however, roaming across its familiar landmarks yet again, looking for whatever might be new, has begun to lose some of its appeal.

And then, as Neal Hallford would be the first to admit, Betrayal at Krondor is written above all for Raymond E. Feist fans, which can be a bit problematic if you don’t happen to be among them. This was my experience, at any rate. As an outsider to Feist’s universe, watching characters I didn’t know talk about things I’d never heard of eventually got old. When an “iconic” character like Jimmy the Hand shows up, I’m supposed to be all aflutter with excitement, but instead I’m just wondering who this latest jerk in a terrible costume is and why I should care. In my view, the game peaks in Chapter 3, which takes the form of a surprisingly complex self-contained murder mystery; this is a place where the game does succeed in integrating its set-piece and emergent sides to a greater extent than elsewhere. If you elect to stop playing after that chapter, you really won’t miss that much.

As I noted already, Betrayal at Krondor ran dramatically over time and over budget. To their credit, Dynamix’s management didn’t push it out the door in an unfinished state, as was happening with so many other games during this period of transition to larger and more complex productions. Yet everyone, especially poor Neal Hallford, felt the pressure of getting it done. Not only did he write almost every word of the considerable amount of text in the game, but he also wrote much of the manual, and somehow even wound up on the hook for the puff pieces about it in Sierra’s customer newsletter. After weeks of virtually living at the office, he collapsed there one day, clutching at his chest. His colleagues rushed him to the hospital, believing he must be having a heart attack even though he was still in his twenties. It turned out that he wasn’t, but the doctor’s orders were clear: “You’re not going back to work for a week. Get some rest and eat something proper. No pizza. No soft drinks. It’s either this or next time you leave work it’ll be in a hearse.” Such are the perils of commercial game development.

Betrayal at Krondor finally shipped on June 15, 1993, an inauspicious time in the history of CRPGs. Origin Systems was about to take the Ultima series in a radically different direction after a less than overwhelming response to Ultima VII; Sir-Tech was about to put their equally long-running Wizardry series on ice for similar reasons; SSI was facing dwindling sales of their Dungeons & Dragons games and was on the verge of losing the once-coveted license; other publishers were quietly dropping less prominent franchises and would-be franchises. The several years to come would be remembered by CRPG fans as the Dark Age of their favored genre; relatively few of games of this stripe would be released at all, and those that were would be greeted by the marketplace with little enthusiasm.

Initially, Dynamix’s first CRPG performed about as well as you might expect in this environment. Despite some strong reviews, and despite whatever commercial advantages the Feist license brought with it, sales were slow. Cutter and Hallford had gone into Betrayal at Krondor imagining it to be only the first entry in a new series, but it soon appeared unlikely that a sequel would come to pass. Sierra, Dynamix’s parent company, was having an ugly year financially and wasn’t in the mood to make another expensive game in a passé genre, while Jeff Tunnell, the man who had had the original idea for Betrayal at Krondor, had stepped down from day-to-day management at Dynamix in favor of running a smaller subsidiary studio. Cutter and Hallford begged their new bosses to give the game time before making any final decisions, noting that good reviews and positive word of mouth among fans of the novels could yet pay dividends. The leadership team responded by laying Cutter off.

But over time, Betrayal at Krondor continued to sell steadily if not spectacularly. Then a genuine surge in sales came in early 1994, when a CD-ROM-based version featuring a lovely soundtrack and enhanced if still less than lovely graphics was released, just as the influential magazine Computer Gaming World was crowning the game the best CRPG of the previous year. Dynamix now made a belated attempt to start work on a sequel, asking Neal Hallford to helm it. But he considered the budget they were proposing to be inadequate, the time frame for development far too compressed. He turned it down, and left the company shortly thereafter. Dynamix would never make a second CRPG, whether set in Midkemia or anywhere else.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t quite the end of the story. Feist had been profoundly impressed by Betrayal at Krondor, and now took the ludic possibilities of his series of novels much more seriously than he had before seeing it. As soon as the Dynamix license expired at the beginning of 1995, he began to shop the property around once again. Initially, however, he found no one willing to pay his price,what with the current state of the CRPG market. While interactive Midkemia was thus in limbo, Sierra came up with another, cheaper idea for capitalizing on the first game’s belated success. Lacking the Midkemia license, they decided to leverage the first half of the Betrayal at Krondor name instead, releasing the in-house-developed Betrayal in Antara in 1997. It copied some of the interface elements and gameplay approaches of its predecessor, but moved the action to a generic fantasy world, to less satisfying effect.

And yet the story still wasn’t over: as the CRPG market began to improve in the wake of Interplay’s Fallout, the first real hit in the genre in several years, Feist licensed the Midkemia rights back to Sierra of all publishers. Sierra turned this latest project over to an outside developer called PyroTechnix. Feist played a much more active role on Return to Krondor, the game which resulted, than he had on Betrayal at Krondor, yet the result once again pales in comparison to the first Midkemia game, perhaps because Cutter and Hallford once again played no role. Its mixed reception in 1998 marks the last implementation of Midkemia on a computer to date.

Two of Feist’s later books, 1998’s Krondor: The Betrayal and 2000’s Krondor: Tear of the Gods, were based upon the first and second Midkemia computer game respectively. Thus Midkemia completed its long, strange transmedia journey from game to book to game to book again. Feist continues to churn out books apace today, but they don’t sell in the same quantities anymore, bearing as they do the stale odor of a series long past its sell-by date.

For many of us, Betrayal at Krondor will always remain the most memorable entry in the exercise in competent derivation that is Midkemia as a whole; the game is ironically much more innovative in its medium than the novels which spawned it are in theirs. Indeed, it’s thoroughly unique, a welcome breath of bold originality in a genre usually content to rely on the tried and true, a game which doesn’t work perfectly but perhaps works better than it has any right to. As a writer, I can only applaud a game which takes it writing this seriously. If it’s not quite the revolutionary amalgamation of narrative and interactivity that its creators wanted it to be, it’s still a heck of a lot more interesting than your average dungeon crawl.

(Sources: the book Designers and Dragons by Shannon Appelcline; Sierra’s newsletter InterAction of Winter 1992 and June 1993; Compute! of December 1993; Computer Gaming World of February 1993, April 1994, June 1994, and August 1996; Electronic Games of October 1992 and June 1993; Questbusters of November 1991, August 1992, April 1993, and August 1993; Retro Gamer 84; Dragon of January 2004; the CD-ROM Today bundled CD-ROM of August/September 1994. Online sources include Matt Barton’s interviews with Neal Hallford, Jeff Tunnell, and John Cutter in Matt Chat episodes 191, 192, 201, 291, 292, and 293; Neal Hallford’s blog series Krondor Confidential; the “History of Midkemia Press” on the same publisher’s website.

Betrayal at Krondor and Betrayal in Antara are available as a package purchase at GOG.com.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/betrayal-at-krondor/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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study-with-nina · 6 years ago

Text

[taken from my blog]

I'm an avid reader. There's nothing I love more than diving into a new novel, whether it be nonfiction about a recent scientific discovery or a centuries-old classic. In 2018 alone, I read 46 books, and started three more that I will finish in the new year. Since making a commitment for my New Year's resolution to read 40 books in 2018, I have read some astonishingly good novels. Here are ten of my favorites, in no particular order.

[in the interest of transparency, I will note that any books purchased through the links provided will provide you with a discount as well as give me a small commission (:]

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book was actually the first book I read this year, and it still has a special place in my heart. The Book Thief is a story about a young German girl growing up during the Holocaust, and her love of reading that pits her against Hitler's regime. It was refreshingly somber to see the Holocaust era from a new view -- not that of a Jewish person, nor a soldier, but a civilian child growing up surrounded by hate speech and propaganda. Liesel's actions and her love for her little family tugged at my heartstrings many times, and this book is one of the few that makes it onto my "reread someday" list. (P.S., the movie is incredible as well, and is one of the few that seems to follow the book as accurately as possible.)

2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I actually finished this book in record time -- I just could not put it down. The Hate U Give is a gritty, realistic view into what it's like to grow up black in America, and the unique set of challenges that black people face in regards to police brutality and everyday racism -- from friends as well as foes. After 17-year-old Starr witnesses her friend's death at the hands of a cop, she must decide whether to keep her mouth shut or risk bringing attention -- mostly negative -- to herself. Who will believe her, anyway? This book was so profoundly impactful while being written in the voice of a teenage girl, conflicted and alone. Definitely one of my top books of all time.

3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Honestly, I didn't have high expectations coming into this book. I had seen posters for the movie, and assumed it was just another 3-star read with a profitable idea to make into a movie. I am glad to say that I was wrong. This book, set in the year 2045, follows the adventures of teenager Wade Watts as he navigates the world of the OASIS, an online utopia in which citizens live out their lives, in search of a formidable prize hidden someone in the OASIS's thousands of worlds. Wade is a lower-income resident, and the OASIS is all he has -- so he's willing to risk it all for the chance to win the prize and discover the secret of the online universe's creator. This novel is fast-paced and well-written, and is a must-read for anyone who loves anything 80s, as the challenge is focused around 80s culture. (Call Ferris Bueller -- we're going on one heck of an adventure.)

4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Despite the books listed previously, I typically tend to read nonfiction or classic literature, and don't often branch out into contemporary fiction. But I had heard rave reviews of Little Fires Everywhere, so I decided to check it out, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. The narrative reminds me of that of East of Eden by John Steinbeck, my favorite novel of all time, in the way that it follows the struggles and interconnectedness of a family, somehow without having an explicitly describable plot ("I don't know, they just...exist") but still managing to pull you in just as deep. Like East of Eden, Little Fires Everywhere follows the story of two very different families: the Richardsons, a large, wealthy family with multiple strong, conflicting personalities; and the Warrens, a small, close-knit mother and daughter duo who never lay roots in any one place. The story has a sort of coming-of-age feel to it, as the lives of the Richardson and Warren teens and their age-appropriate struggles are discussed, but also a hint of mystery as Mrs. Richardson attempts to track down the origins of the mysterious Mia Warren. This book made me laugh, cry, and everything in between, and I was so obsessed that I finished the 11-and-a-half-hour-long audiobook in the span of five days (despite the fact that I worked double shifts most of those days). Again, this book is definitely one of my favorites of all time, and one of the rare stories whose characters you still wonder about long after the book is over.

5. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

I have never taken an economics course (though I have dabbled in Crash Course videos here and there) and economics is not an important component of either of my majors (Biological Sciences and Political Science). However, this book was so intriguing that I promptly forgot both of those points. Misbehaving is an excellent introduction to behavioral economics, written simply enough that someone with little to no background knowledge in economics (such as myself) can comprehend, but still intricate enough that the material couldn't fit in a ten-minute Youtube video. Thaler, one of the earliest behavioral economists, describes how the subject came into importance among other economic and business-related topics, as well as how its marriage of economic and financial principles and behavioral psychology lend important insights to businesses as well as individuals. The difficulty of the content is offset with plenty of easy-to-understand examples, and the book reads like a history driven by discovery, with reviews of behavioral economics principles along the way. Though the subject of economics is not one that interests me as much as, say, politics or medicine, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would recommend it as an interesting read that serves as a light workout for your brain.

6. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore

I'd be lying if I said this book didn't make me cry multiple times. The Radium Girls is a true story of America's dial painters, the hundreds of young women who painted radium onto watches during the First World War, and the consequences of their position on their health and livelihood. In the days of World War I, jobs for women were few and far between, and becoming a dial painter was the most coveted position among women in their late teens and early twenties, unmarried and looking for some pocket money to buy the latest trends. This narrative follows the story of these dial-painters and how their distinct, omnipresent glow of radium dust went from being wondrous to becoming deadly. As the poisonous radium attacked these young women's bodies, causing them to rapidly and irreparably decay, the radium girls fought for the right to be heard, and to stop the radium industry from pulling any more girls into its vehement trap. This book was deeply heart-wrenching, following the lives of a few bright-eyed young dial painters to their young graves, and a valuable insight into the suppression of women's voices in the early 20th century.

7. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This novel was another popular book that I didn't expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a biography of the life of fictitious movie star Evelyn Hugo, as told to the young and relatively unknown reporter Monique Grant. Evelyn unfurls her story, from escaping poverty to begin her acting career in her late teens, and the myriad of men that came into and left her life across the span of her career and its aftermath. I won't spoil the big twist (or two) that the novel provides, but it most certainly wasn't the "straight bullsh*t" I was expecting based on its title. It is an intense, poignant life of a woman who dared to obtain what she wanted by any means possible, only to discover that her heart lied elsewhere.

8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

This book was a humorous yet momentous glance into the life of a woman named Eleanor Oliphant, who is perfectly fine, thank you very much. Eleanor doesn't really fit in at the office; her harsh realism and her inability to understand social cues make that quite difficult. But that's fine, because Eleanor has it all planned out. Every week, she follows the same plan, never deviating from her schedule of Wednesday night calls with Mummy, Friday night frozen pizzas, and sleeping off a vodka hangover every Saturday morning. However, when Eleanor and her coworker Raymond save the life of an elderly gentleman who fell near them on their way to work one day, Eleanor's life begins to change in profound ways, and she realizes that maybe "fine" isn't the best way to be, after all. Eleanor's story was touching yet hilarious, and was yet another novel that I could not put down. For anyone looking for a novel starring an out-of-the-ordinary heroine and lacking a predictable romance component, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the novel for you.

9. The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

This fast-paced, gritty novel breaks the wall between the life of a president and the nation, and introduces us to the world of Washington politics and the counterterrorism approach. The President is Missing follows President Duncan, a tenacious war veteran, as he attempts to circumvent impeachment trials brought forth by members of the opposite party while maintaining the secret of a massive, nation-decimating cyber threat from the citizens of the U.S. This narrative is fast-paced, with twists and turns at every stop, and kept me guessing until the end what the outcome would be. The novel reads like a classic James Patterson thriller with the added expertise of a former president to reveal the intricacies of American politics and the battles of the elites.

10. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

My final novel is one that I finished a mere four days prior to writing this post, but one that already has a special place in my heart. Quiet explores the world of introverts, from their underrepresentation in U.S. culture and their hidden talents unique from extroverts. Though I identify as an ambivert (both extroverted and introverted), I felt this was an incredible analysis into the powers of introverts, and why American society should stop trying to force the extrovert ideal on those that are not born to be extroverted. I particularly enjoyed how Cain drew in principles of biology, psychology, and business, and described not only how introverts are wired differently from birth, but their benefits to jobs that are even as high-stakes and fast-paced as the stock market. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with introversion (if you dread speaking in front of a class, this is probably you) or anyone interested in the biological basis of personality and behavior.

Out of the 46 books I read in 2018, those are the ones that have stood out to me the most, and I would certainly recommend each and every one of them. If you would like more book recommendations, feel free to ask -- I'm always reading something new! Happy new year!

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