A diverse panorama of a medium that is about to grow more influential than books and films, in terms of narratives and morals alike.
Here're the stories that pressed me to think/feel the most. (I'm boldfacing my special favorites.)
~ I really enjoyed the narrator's (i.e. my ;) voice in Charles Yu's "NPC". Like here:
All of which is to sort of make it a little more understandable that when Oona Bantu comes to your quarters wearing just her under-skin armor, you don’t turn her away. She comes to sit on your bunk, and things get a little kissy for a hot and sweaty five minutes, and you feel really terrible the whole time and confused but also you are kissing Oona Bantu, so you don’t stop right away but then Carla’s sad little smile face keeps inserting itself into your head and you break off the kissing and Oona can’t believe it.
"Wearing just her under-skin armor," hehe.
~ Oh, Japan ....
Beside the sliding glass doors of the entrance, a multicolored strip of tape was marked 160 cm, 170 cm, 180 cm, and 190 cm. The sticker had been put there so that the entryway’s security camera could measure the height of anyone who passed through. These cameras took particularly crisp images; brazen robbers drawn in by desire for a little bit of scratch would eventually leave a clear capture of their likenesses, and their careers would end with an arrest. Japanese police were good enough at that sort of thing.
In that case, I considered, we should put a button beside the door for robbers, so that when they pushed it, a machine would dispense a few ten-thousand-yen bills, take a picture of their face, then automatically report it to the police. Maybe then the criminals would form an orderly queue and await their turn in solemn silence.
Will the existentialist satire of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's "Respawn" stick in my head like that stick at the end?
~ Charlie Jane Anders's "Rat Catcher's Yellows" touched me like a cat's paw: soft and subdued and with just a hint about the claws inside.
~ Holly Black's
"1UP" examines online/offline friendship and what it means to really know someone through a surprisingly tense plot and sweetly authentic characters. Listen to them:
(...) maybe my mother is right about friendship, because I do feel differently about Decker and Toad now that we’ve been together in real life. Now that we’ve heard the timbre of one another’s laughter. Now that we’ve learned one another’s Starbucks order and how we like our burritos at Chipotle and who can burp the loudest. Now that I learned how far they were willing to go for someone they never met.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s Cat. We played the game, but now it’s your turn. Time to wake up.”
He doesn’t move.
“We’re risking our asses for you,” I say.
“Nice,” Decker calls down. “How about saying we love him?”
“How about saying you love him, Cat? How about ‘If you wake up, I will give you a big, fat, sloppy kiss,’ ” Toad says.
“Shut up,” I tell him.
“Soren,” Decker says. “Listen, if you wake up, one of us will give you a big, fat, sloppy kiss. I can’t guarantee it will be Cat, but one of us will definitely do it. I am ready.”
“Soren,” Toad says. “Listen, how about this—if you don’t wake up, one of us will give you a big, fat, sloppy kiss and I can guarantee it won’t be Cat.”
~ Django Wexler's "Real" contains a pithy summary of the status quo of Good vs. Evil. (
Beware: it's also a heavy spoiler.)
“It’s about belief, Aka-sensei. My kind has always fed on belief. When people play your game, they believe, even if it’s only for a while, and that opens the door.”
“So I created you. I designed you. I wrote the script.”
“In a way. I am ancient, and I am newborn.”
“But that’s bullshit.” His hand slams down on the tabletop. One of the beer bottles topples over, rolls to the floor, and shatters. “You’re not playing by the rules.”
“Oh?”
“The good guys win.” There are tears in his eyes. “Everyone knows the good guys win, they always win. Mariko sends the Dark Queen back to hell. I wrote the goddamn ending! So if I created you—” He cuts off, his voice thick, and swallows. “If it’s all my fault, then why didn’t she win?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Why did Mari die?”
“No one really believes in heroes these days, Aka-sensei.” I smile. “But everyone believes in monsters.”
~ Nicole Feldringer's
"Outliers" is that rare gem combining a non-trivial idea with a non-cardboard protagonist. It also reminded me that among my CDs, I still have a climate change edutainment sim developed by an EU research institute ... but I never got it to run on my Linux. :(
~ Extra points to Chris Avellone for making "<end game>" feel real:
Code: Select all
:<get up>
You crawl out of the bed. You feel
nauseous. Your bare feet crunch
against what feels like layers of
papers, books, and cardboard.
The room is freezing, even colder
than the bed. You are shuddering.
It is dark in the room.
The alarm is beeping loudly.
:<tiurn off alarm>
I don’t understand the word “tiurn.”
:<turn off alarm>
It is too dark to see.
Code: Select all
:<examine door>
Which door do you mean, the
bathroom door or the hall door?
:<hall door>
There was no verb in that sentence!
Now I'm off to check
The Lurking Horror ....
~ I liked David Barr Kirtley's parable "Save Me Plz"--that is, it startled and scared me. I find an uncomfortable degree of truth in observations like these:
Meg, on the rare occasions that she permitted herself solitary recreation, preferred Jane Austen novels or independent films. She’d once told Devon, “I’m more interested in things that are real.”
He’d been playing the game. Monitor glow made his head a silhouette. He said, “What’s real is just an accident. No one designed reality to be compelling.” He gestured to the screen. “But a fantasy world is so designed. It takes the most interesting things that ever existed—like knights in armor and pirates on the high seas—and combines them with the most interesting things that anyone ever dreamed up—fire-breathing dragons and blood-drinking vampires. It’s the world as it should be, full of wonder and adventure. To privilege reality simply because it is reality just represents a kind of mental parochialism.”
And Devon and I seem to have an uncomfortable amount of things in common. Oh my poor own 'Meg.' *shudder*
~ The sorrow of T.C. Boyle's "The Relive Box," the irony of Marc Laidlaw's "Roguelike" and the vast loneliness (
reaching all the way to Oregon) of Robin Wasserman's "All of the People in Your Party Have Died" meet in their sense of loss. Painful.
"All of the People..." in particular all but wrenched me apart.
~ Cory Doctorow's
"Anda's Game" hits so many sweet spots; you'll find something for (and of) yourselves, whether you're hardcore MMO gamers, social activists campaigning against virtual sweatshops (or real sweetshops), parents worried that your children aren't doing enough
genuine playing, or children annoyed that your parents aren't leading
by example. In fact, the novelette may be too short a format for fleshing out all these issues; but it's long enough to set you thinking.
~ Kudos to Yoon Ha Lee for the streak of
pacifism common sense in "Gamer's End." As a character in the story says, "no war, however terrible, lasts forever"; and if we are to look beyond it, what kind of thinking do we need?
~ Ken Liu's
"The Clockwork Soldier" works on so many levels--from the "(interactive) story within a story" format, to the justifiable way Alex trivializes Ryder's agenda at first, to her honorable, humane reaction when she discovers her misconception--that I cannot praise it coherently enough. Instead, I'll share with you the following excerpt (which isn't a spoiler, since it appears right at the start):
“Don’t you want to ask to see me as I really am?”
She considered this. “No. I’ve already decided to believe you. Trying to make sure can only make things worse. If I find out that you’re telling the truth, then I will have ruined this moment, when I can still believe I’m capable of being decent, of trust. If I find out you’re lying, then I’ll have to consider myself a fool.”
“So, again you choose faith before knowledge.”
This time, she didn’t stop climbing. When she was at the air-lock door, she turned around. “Faith is just another name for self-knowledge. You’ve succeeded, Scheherazade. When you tell your own story, you seize life. Now it’s my turn to tell myself a good story, about myself. I know enough. Good-bye.”
~ Catherynne M. Valente's "Killswitch" and Andy Weir's "Twarrior" were both extreme enough to make me cringe sympathetically and laugh, respectively. Hence, a lesson for writing flash fiction: pull no punches.
~ Hugh Howey's
"Select Character"--a gentler, less grim riff on the same issues as "Gamer's End"--is a fitting conclusion to the anthology. We need less grimness and more gardeners, even in first-person shooters.
Especially in first-person shooters.
Yes? :)
)... обаче гледайте двата клипа, които започват 
