There Is A Slight Flaw In My Character...

My apologies for not posting more often on this blog, but I've been kept fairly busy with my job and my NaNoWriMo writing. I definitely plan on writing my thoughts about Captain Vorpatril's Alliance as soon as I get the chance to sit down and read it, but I'm still working my way through two non-fiction books I picked up at the library. On a side note, The Thank You Economy, by Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk, was fairly good about social media marketing and customer engagement, if you're interested in that kind of thing.  The dude knows his wine too.

I would post more, but as the title says, there is a slight flaw in my character.

Which brings me to the actual, short subject of this blog post, a book that is criminally under-appreciated and an amazing read. That book is Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart. It's a fantastic novel of an Ancient China that never was, starring a kind-hearted and over-muscled villager who becomes the sidekick of a venerable, roguish detective in a quest to find a cure for the village's poisoned children. It's fantastic.

I first encountered the book due to John Rateliff's Classics of Fantasy series, which I'm going to admit had some real stinkers in the list. Bridge of Birds is a winner though. I even tracked down one of the sequels to the work, Eight Skilled Gentlemen, which was sadly not as good.

Read Bridge of Birds.

Writing a 50K

This post is about NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month. You've probably heard of it. I love Nanowrimo. It's fun and exciting to commit yourself to writing the first draft of a book in just one month. Nanowrimo is in fact one of the reasons that November is my favorite month of the year (others: my birthday, first snowfall). And this month my friend Tabor is writing his own novel for November, so I have someone to compete against. The best part of any competition, though, is winning it. :)

Another reason I like Nano is because I think it shows that people are creative. Inherently creative. Maybe people suck at the craft of it, about writing down their ideas and transforming them into cohesive plots, but they have ideas. And that's fun. I don't think you'll find many uncreative children, but somewhere people learn to suppress their creative spark. To hell with that.

There is one thing I don't quite get about NaNoWriMo. The community. I go to the NaNoWriMo website to put in my word count, of course, and I like getting free goodies at the end of the month...but I don't get the community that surrounds it. Especially since they're always asking for donations. What exactly are your costs here, other than running a high traffic website (a problem that would seem to have an obvious solution)?

Now I'm sure that the people are great, nice people. People who like books and stories. People who aren't afraid to say "Fuck it, I'm writing a book," and then proceed to do just that. But between the forum posts, community meet ups, and write-a-thons, I'm not all that surprised that most people fail to finish their book. I think people are more interested in talking about their book and writing than actually sitting down and slamming your face against the keyboard until something comes out.

Sadly, I'm a little behind right now, for various reasons. The book I've chosen to write is called City of the Damned, a kind-of sequel to my fantasy novel No More Kings. Well, it has some of the same characters, anyway, although both the main characters are new. Competing against me is Tabor's The King's Fool, which I would describe as a Game of Thrones-esque power struggle from the perspective of the cunning court jester.

Time to get back to work. 

Order of the Skull, Parting Thoughts

This will be final post about my friend J.E. Tabor's second novel (draft), the Order of the Skull. This is the first time I've really gone through a book, picking it apart and deciding what I like and what I don't. Normally I read books to be entertained, to enjoy the story, not to exercise my incredible powers of negativity to drain all enjoyment out of the printed word. Fortunately, Tabor doesn't really mind it all that much: our friendship began in the fires of adversity (Freshman Theology), and can weather my blog posts. :)

First of all, I enjoyed it. I think it was better than his first book, One Man's Freedom Fighters. In truth, it's probably not as marketable, since the genre he picked is fairly unusual. Not that Tabor stays particularly close to his chosen genre though; I think Tabor's familiarity with pulp is generally limited to Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, and Spirit of the Century. I'm fairly certain that he could rewrite it to take place in present day without too many difficulties, other than losing his enjoyable historical references and the nods to the social attitudes (i.e. racism) of the day.

His characters need fleshing out. There's some nods to depth and backstory, but there doesn't seem to be a lot direct or indirect importance to them, other than the knowledge that Hawkins can shoot like a million people a second with a revolver. Carson and Calloway have potential to have their backstories more fully explored, and perhaps tied to the events of the novel in some way. Emily Carson also starts off as a capable, self-assured young woman before fading into a hostage and love interest. Sister Cecilia doesn't do much of anything, really, other than provide convenient info, and dump acid on someone (always a fun party trick).

Speaking of characters, they lack motivation. They end up getting involved because of some vision quest and vague feeling about the end of the world, driving them to pursue a dangerous secret society across the country. They seem to act almost solely because THE PLOT DEMANDS IT. And they still feel inherently reactive, almost more like the protagonist of a video game than a novel. They might want to stop the bad guy, but they pick up the quest from the Native American shaman with an exclamation point over his head.

The bad guys feel kind of weak, a little generic and poorly-formed. Eigenstulf, while having a great name, has only the motivation of wanting to end the world because the Great War was hell. Yet there's no passion there when he speaks, nothing to make me believe that he's anything other than an antagonist to be killed. And as I mentioned, the Seven Deadly Sins of the Order are kind of weak for a bunch of guys who sold their souls and practice black magic. And the fight scene between Hawkins and the Sins is so sad it should be ashamed of itself (I'd expect six ordinary guys to put up more of a fight against Clint Eastwood in a Western).

One idea I had is that maybe the protagonists should be the ones with the skull, and the bad guys are trying to recover it. And give them each one goal they want to accomplish. Maybe Carson is investigating the deaths of her parents or something. Perhaps Calloway already knows something about the Order and wants to stop them. Hell, maybe he was a member before it all got too dark and crazy. Something like that.

Also: make things more awesome. Turn the dial up to eleven. Don't just have the good guys and bad guys pass through town. Have them change the whole fucking city. Make the disease in Saint Louis directly the work of the Order. Don't have a fight in between train cars, where ordinary people might fight...bring the action on top of the cars, or under, or clinging from side to side. Defenestrate the bad guys with well-placed kicks. If Hawkins is some kind of magician with a gun, maybe Carson is good enough to race her automobile professionally. Maybe Calloway isn't just a bad cheat and worse liar, but a true Magnificent Bastard sidekick. This wouldn't work if Tabor had picked a different genre, of course, but if you've decided to write a pulp adventure story, why not make it over-the-top?

Order of the Skull: Eleven and Epilogue

Tabor brushes over the task of Calloway finding Eigenstulf, and manages to track down his exact location within a sentence of the start of the chapter. I kind of thought it'd be harder. Dirk manages to bring up his backstory again, but it's never really touched on in the future. In fact, none of the characters really draw upon any of the stuff from their past. For example,we never see Carson's aunt and uncle in this entire story. As a reader, I get the feeling that more might be going on, but Tabor was in a rush to finish this draft and never bothered to fill out some of the details.

Calloway decides to take out Eigenstulf alone, with all the logic of a character deciding to stay behind and "hold them off" for all the time it takes twenty armed men to kill one (i.e., three seconds). There's a reason that Sister Cecilia supports his plan, though. And the problem with this scene, Calloway going off to face Eigenstulf, is that as a reader I know it isn't going to work. Especially since the fact they have one gun between them seems to be a problem easily remedied...in a few years, you could purchase Thompsons from Sears for twenty bucks. (They don't sell submachine guns these days...I asked).

Then we get the cool reveal that Sister Cecilia is actually possessed, when a gift from Emily Carson burns her flesh. Neat! Hawk and Emily head off to go kill Eigenstulf, and find themselves in another hostage situation, with Hawkins threatening the skull, while one of his friends is menaced. This feels a little tired. Especially since I don't know any reason why Eigenstulf (or any of the Order) would keep their little McGuffin bones in such easy to reach locations. Voldemort didn't exactly keep his Hocruxes in the trunk of his car, you know? Why not drop it off in a safe deposit box, or bury it underground in a safe, or hide in a hidden oasis guarded by a giant invisible spider (anyone know which story I just referenced?)?

Hawkins proves immune to some of Eigenstulf's magic, however, due to ignorance about his true name. I've read a very similar scene in Lies of Locke Lamora, although I know for a fact that Tabor hasn't read that particular book. An interesting bit of congruence, but for the reveal I think it needs a little more build-up. Their duel after this little reveal seems kind of forced, though, almost as if Mal and the Operative fought for another few minutes after the nerve strike fails. I think it would have been better pacing if Hawkins finished Eigenstulf then and there.

Here's a nice bit of dialogue near the end of the book, as the characters discuss the fate of the once-feared Order of the Skull:

“What, the secret society? Well, they have no leadership, and their base of operations has
been destroyed. I think that if anything will stamp them out, that would be it. I think from now
on the Order of the Skull will be relegated to a rich boy fraternity playing at occult and
superstition. Even so, I wouldn’t rule out another apocalyptic cult waiting in the wings, ready to
take advantage of void. I don’t think anything will ever change that.”

So true, so true. And the story quickly brings us the epilogue, with Hawk returning to get his money from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Oh, yeah, that motivation, that I as a reader had completely forgotten about (well, not really, but most people would have, I think). I think it would have made Hawk and Dirk more likeable if they ended up not taking the money, but instead finding some other purpose in life than drifting. Hawk and Dirk end up talking about going into business together; then they get into another brawl. One thing is that I'm not entirely certain if Hawkins and Calloway ever really liked each other that much. They had a very caustic relationship. And the hero doesn't end up with the girl, with Hawkins and Carson going their separate ways off-screen. That's kind of disappointing. Still, the ending does make me smile, which is always nice.

xxSkullxx

Order of the Skull, Chapter X. We start this chapter with the view from Calloway, since Hawkins went unconscious. They end up trapped underground, flooded by one of Eigenstulf's villainous traps. Carson ends up drugged, so her dialogue actually ends up being pretty funny, a lighter note when teh characters are surrounded by certain doom.

The writing in this chapter seems to be quite good, at least from a technical standpoint. Hawkins manages to do something incredibly stupid, the kind of thing you might expect from Willie of Temple of Doom instead of a generally competent sharpshooter. I think the underwater, underground escape scene could use a little more work, since I can only imagine it would be a terrifying ordeal. As a writer, I'd enjoy writing it properly, since typically in movies there's way too much light (like 13th Warrior). Make it a frantic experience of navigating by touch and current alone, against the clock of the dwindling oxygen in your lungs. Really, the kind of scene that only a book could do properly.

The characters then try to deal with Hawk's evident possession. Tabor does something clever as hell here. I'm not quite certain how well it would work in real life, but it's a cool enough trick that I'd let it slide as a reader.  The characters decide that to cure Hawkins, they need to kill Eigenstulf. I do notice that the police have yet to be involved during their time in Boston, which seems a little interesting since they did beat up that cop on the way there.

Order of the Skull: Eating Nine

I'm going to discuss the next two chapters of Order of the Skull. The chapter opens with a poker game between our hero Hawkins and the villain Eigenstulf. Tabor, at least, shows some experience with poker, by not having the winning hand be a straight or full house; instead, it's a king-high bluff against less than a king high bluff. He even discusses the poker strategy that the characters are using.

One thing I find interesting is that when Hawkins does get his hand on the skull (as a result of beating Eigenstulf), he mentions that it's a culmination of months of effort. I never really got the impression that these characters had spent months chasing this thing. I mean, they took a drive and a train ride. It's not like they hiked all the way across America.

And then, because the men of the story had turned their backs on them for one freaking second, the women of the story end up as hostages. This is one pulp trope that I'd rather Tabor not use.

The scene cuts to Sister Cecelia, the waffling nun. This might be the first time the action has shifted away from Hawk, but it's necessary to establish the situation the women are in. Unfortunately, the situation isn't all that interesting, since all Eigenstulf does is give the "We are not so different, you and I..." Evil Villain Recruitment Speech. Seriously, what's this guy's hiring policy? Will he take anyone? Should I send him my resume? The bad guy's long term goals are also revealed, the typical apocalyptic BS about causing the end of the world...doesn't make a lot of sense for a bunch of rich guys who own everything, but whatever.

Tabor does a good job writing this section, I think, at least physically, but with this viewpoint change we don't get a good sense of just who is Sister Cecilia. So far, the entire character doesn't seem to have much point, other than giving Dirk a date to the masquerade (albeit one with an inconvenient vow of celibacy). I suspect that Tabor had some authorial plan for the character that just never materialized.

The characters have trouble finding the island on a map, and I'm reminded of a line from MST3K. "Being good with maps is like being good at eating cereal." There's kind of a low skillcap, you know? This seems like a pointless obstacle to throw in front of the characters at this point...as if Indiana Jones couldn't get to the Ark of the Covenant in time because his car gets a flat tire, and he doesn't know how to fix it.

After they overcome that terrible obstacle, the two men make their way into the headquarters of the Order, which they do with surprising ease. Suddenly, after the characters finally learn enough to be dangerous and manage to almost disrupt the villain's plans, they're no longer followed and harassed at every opportunity. In a move of even greater stupidity, the evil cult leaves the skulls, secret to their dark demonic power, unguarded.

A confrontation ensues. There's another hostage scenario, with the hostage sitting by helplessly waiting for Hawk to save them, since he seems to be the only one in this story allowed to ever really succeed at anything. And succeed he does. He ends up facing off against all six of the demonic cultists with scary supernatural powers...and kills five of them at once. With bullets. It's not like he even shoots them in the back while they're doing some chanting either. What. A. Letdown.

The reader in me is thinking that obviously this is a trick, that they're just some poor mooks dressed in fancy robes, so then the real bad guys come out behind the corner and enjoy a good laugh at their minion's expense. Nope. It's not even a plan from Eigenstulf where he renders all of his buddies impotent, so he can gain full control over the cult. Speaking of mooks, they're all gone by this point. I guess they're not allowed on Elk Island.

The chapter ends with another hostage trade, and a sudden but inevitable betrayal by the bad guy. This wasn't the actual climax, I think, but it makes you wonder why anyone would bother selling their soul to the devil if they end up getting taken out like such chumps. The Order of the Denarius from the Dresden Files could teach these losers a thing or two, I think.

Order of the Skull: Why is Six Afraid of Seven?

Chapter Six was fairly short, so I kept reading ahead and finished Chapter Seven as well. I enjoyed both of these chapters quite a bit. There's an assassination attempt on the train that has some good writing in it, doing a good job describing the noise and wind of a speeding train. Then there comes a situation where the protagonists are forced to think fast...and don't. Deception and violence solve the issue eventually, though.

And so ends the very short chapter six, leading to seven, where things begin to get a little more interesting. Early on, there's a mention of werewolves...I'm not sure if this was some kind of typo and it's meant to say "warlock" (a term later used), or if this is a world with werewolves as well as demons. What is this, the Dresden Files? :)

Tabor uses the old chestnut, so common to James Bond, of infiltrating the bad guy's party. And this party turns out to be a masquerade. I think that the number of masked balls in fiction vastly outnumber the ones that have taken place in real life...ever (not counting Halloween, of course). A quick little side note is that the characters have a short discussion about the politics of the moment (what a fine phrase), reminding the reader about what's going on in the country at this point in time. Tabor in general has a decent eye for history, although I'm not sure how accurate he depicts the racism of the times.

Annoying, Tabor does include the classic (and bad, in my opinion) bluff of "Do you want to go get your boss, ask him, and get in trouble?" I'm not saying this might not work on occasion, but it seems ever time any book, movie, or TV character wants to try that one, it works. Villains really need to outline these kinds of situations in their employee handbooks: make a note for the Evil Overlord list.

Now, here's where I'm puzzled. They head into the lair of the villain, then pull off their masks. After it becomes known that Lucas Eigenstulf, in addition to seeming to know the whereabouts of these guys at all times, also knows Dirk; they were in the same school, and army unit. And it's not like there's a vast multitude of Native Americans in Boston.

So when it's revealed that Eigenstulf knows exactly who they are, it's not exactly a surprise. It would be far more of a surprise if he didn't recognize his war buddy, and couldn't put two and two together and figure out who Hawkins was. Then we reach the end of the chapter, with the following passage.

Pencil and Curtains leaned back from the table, glancing back and forth nervously. “I
apologize, but this charade was too much for my nerves,” Eigenstolf said. “Skullsman, please
get my bag.” He nodded at pencil, who promptly stood and scurried across the room. He
emerged from behind the bar with an old brown sack. He tossed it to Eigenstolf, who caught it
in one hand.
“I was thinking we should put some real skin in this game,” He said, as he reached into
the small cloth sack. “Or, bone, rather,” he added, as he pulled the yellowish-brown object,
sowing thousands of dust particles in the wake. He set the decades old human skull carelessly on
the pile of cash in the center of the bright crimson poker table.

Finally, the skull makes an appearance. Well, it's a skull, at least; they tend to look the same to the untrained eye. Playing poker for the McGuffin; classic. Not sure what stakes Calloway and Hawkins will bring to the table, though. I do hope that Tabor finally makes a fictional poker game fairly realistic. In every fictional game of poker, everyone draws these straights, flushes, four of a kinds, full houses...you name it. The important hands always feature each player with improbably good cards. No one ever gets taken out by a pair of nines, unlike real poker.

Order of the Skull V

Moving on to Chapter Five, we have another coincidence with the religious folk: in addition to a Sister who's an expert on the occult, we have a Father who's a conspiracy buff. If this were a novel that takes place in a world that even pretends to be realistic, I'd suspect a trap of some kind, but I'm guessing this is just a nod to the incredible coincidneces of the genre.

Then the Sister joins the protagonists in such a way that I half expected the novel to take a break and "SISTER CECILIA has joined the party" to flash across my computer screen. I could actually see this as a video game, actually...I've heard of worse settings and plots.

Awkward, semi-forced emotional outbursts and quite literal explosions later, the scene advances. Calloway manages to dodge some inconvenient police questions, and delivers a cynical line worthy of myself: "What did I tell you? You cannot go wrong by assuming people are either apathetic or stupid.” True wisdom right there. :)

The chapter goes on to confront the two dark issues of fashion AND racism, and more of the character's histories are revealed. It becomes increasingly obvious that Hawkins and Carter are going to end up together, assuming they both survive. Sister Cecilia doesn't manage to do much to justify her inclusion so far, although amusingly she has more luggage than the other characters who HAVEN'T taken a vow of poverty.

I like this chapter a little more than the others, perhaps because it doesn't barrel along at such a frantic pace. It's about taking a train to Boston. Characters stop, interact, think, and talk. The 'why' questions of the conflict remain elusive, of course, particularly for the antagonists. Why the hell are they going to so much trouble to stop a bunch of random nobodies? You'd think there'd have to be something special about them, or some hidden personal relationship, to merit the lengths the Order goes to take them out.

Skulls and Stuff, Part Four

And now I return to my friend's second novel, the long-awaited (by me, at least) Order of the Skull. Again, there's a strange split in the chapter that I myself wouldn't have used, preferring a little more closure in between chapters. One character ends up getting hit in the head with a hammer, hard, then manages to carry on a quite normal, if strained, conversation with the characters. And my impression that it was a pretty solid blow too.

That surprises me. I expected this guy to have been incapacitated by the blow. Granted, I'm not any kind of expert in trauma (in fact, the only time I've ever had to go to the hospital is when I was born), although not for lack of trying. Sadly, whenever I ask injury-related questions to the nurses, doctors, and paramedics I know, they just look at me like I'm deranged. Alas. So I was surprised that the poor victim manages to spit out his lines without hindrance.

Then we have an interesting little exorcism scene...sadly, my first thought was "Shouldn't they be speaking Latin?" Pre-Vatican II? During an exorcism? Also, I'm not sure that a nun would have attempted an exorcism herself, although we later find that she was always interested in the occult (how convenient).It seems as though one of the characters is, in fact, possessed; between that and the undead, this is pretty clearly more like Indiana Jones than Man of Bronze (just for the record: Indiana Jones is way better).

And for a woman of faith, Sister Cecilia comes off looking pretty weak; when the demon starts mocking the Bible, she replies that "It's all we have." If I was dedicated my life to God, I'd like to think I could muster up a better reply than that. She gets a cool moment later lobbing some holy water, then after striking that decisive blow she decides to freeze and panic. ?

During the exorcism, the demon dumps some plot, then another action scene pops up. It starts off kind of poor, but gunfights in a church are always fun. I'm a little disappointed in how easily one guy went down, though; if this were a video game, I'd predict he'd be back with a vengeance in a few hours.

Also, disappointingly, Tabor references Roman magic. Roman. When I think of ancient civilizations with magical traditions, the Romans aren't exactly the people who come to mind. In fact, they're probably the last. Aleister Crowley and the Order of the Golden Dawn didn't exactly draw on the mystical traditions of Rome, did they? No one worries about Roman curses either. To be fair, we've had this argument before, and Tabor is still obsessed with all things Roman. He's still wrong though. :)

Some interesting things happen in this chapter, but this part of the book feels like it needs a little more work. Here's where things become overtly supernatural, full of demons and magic. And we learn that the bad guy wants Geronimo's skull as part of a hazing ritual, which made me laugh out loud (that's not actually true, but one of the characters does suggest it).

We learn a little bit more about the characters; evidently Emily Carson has cracked open a few tombs in her day. But there's even more questions. It seemed that the antagonist, Reinfeld, chasing them has fully merged with a demon, whereas Eigenstulf the master villain only seeks to accomplish that. So then why is Reinfeld chasing down some loser small-fry while Eingestulf does whatever with the skull? Shouldn't he be telling Eigenstulf to handle his own goddamn problems?

I'm not saying there's not answers to these, but they are certainly questions I'm thinking about as I'm reading.

Death Before...Whatever

I had high expectations for the new video game Dishonored. Everything I read about it made it seem as cool as hell. Having beaten the game now, I come away a little disappointed. I read on Steam that Dishonored was revitalizing the stealth genre, which is ridiculous...there have been plenty of stealth games lately. And the best comparison to Dishonored is Deux Ex:HR: both stealth games where the protagonist has cool powers and jumps around on rooftops.

Dishonored is better, of course, with more real choices and more open-ended gameplay. Also, swords.

But enough about the gameplay, let's talk about what interests me about the game. I know that some people weren't a fan of the setting, and the various elements it tries to combine. I like it, personally; it could have done with more fleshing out in the game, but I appreciate the effort to make something a little more unique and memorable. I did find it difficult to describe to my friends when I talked about Dishonored, finally settling on phrases like "dark steampunk" or "facist steampunk." Dishonored does a good job of creating an overall feeling of despair as a city dies, but it could have done with more random people trying their best to survive.

But while the setting of Dishonored is, to a certain extent, unique, the rest of the game is not. This is not, you understand, necessarily a bad thing. In marketing and product design, there's an idea called the twenty percent rule. Well, there are a lot of "twenty percent rules" in just about everything, but this particular one concerns change. People, as a general rule, aren't comfortable with big, sweeping changes. So when you design things, it's probably a bad idea to create huge changes, instead settling on changing one thing.

But the plot is what you expect from a game where your Empress (and, presumably, lover) dies in the introduction: a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It's fairly paint-by-the-numbers, as you eliminate the support network of the bad guy before tracking him down for retribution. There's a plot twist in there, that I'm pretty sure that anyone who has ever played a video game before, ever, would have seen  coming. In just one game, just one, I wish the protagonist would spot the obvious and think of a way to turn it to his advantage, instead of just blundering into it like a moron.

Character-wise, the protagonist is basically a blank killing machine who doesn't even have a real voice...doesn't anyone remember that was one of the real draws of the ME franchise? An RPG protagonist with solid voice-acting? There is one nice touch, though; he always takes off his scary mask before talking to a certain character that he cares about. I would like to add, however, that this scary clockwork mask does essentially NOTHING, and probably weighs way too much...ever heard of a ski mask?

So yeah, Dishonored is pretty fun, although it does amuse me that in stealth games I prefer to play like a bloodthirsty maniac. Even in Thief (the first one). I'll be posting some more of my friend's draft and my thoughts later.

Order of the Skull, Third Time's the Charm

Today I'm going to be writing about my friend's book once again, part three. I'm also in a bit of a hurry, since tonight I'm heading over to Columbia to catch the amazing Lindsey Stirling in concert. This doesn't have anything to do with writing, I'm basically just bragging.

The Chapter opens with the heroes escaping from the crashed airship. The scene is confusing as hell, although I'm not sure if it's supposed to be confusing, or if it's confusing by accident. But evidently the protagonists crashed all of ten feet from their getaway car. Another I'm noticing from this scene is Tabor often describes things his characters seem to have little way to actually perceive.

A chase scene ensues, this time with cars. There's a cute moment when Carson just doesn't seem to realize how good Hawkins is with a gun. More shit goes wrong during the chase, including Calloway leaping up screaming about something. Evidently he's gone crazy. After they're done with that, we get a short scene in a town in Missouri that reveals some more of Hawkin's past, but serves little other purpose. And then the characters go through Saint Louis, which interests me if only because I happen to live there. :)

They somehow manage to find the guy they're looking for in Saint Louis, which seems...difficult. I suspect that Tabor skipped past the information gathering scene because he wasn't quite sure how the protagonists would succeed. Hey, I'm guilty of that as well, but it does amuse me. :)

The interrogation scene reveals the bad guy's name, Eigenstolf. That name is fantastic. Then the scene takes a turn that surprises the hell out of me, which is a good thing. Well done Tabor.

One thing I've noted is that Tabor likes to end his chapters with big splashes, explosions, or what-have-you. At least, this is what he does when he's writing his pulp novel, his conventional style might read differently. But when it comes to reading habits, I rarely stop at chapters, so any kind of cliffhanger is going to ineffective. Instead, I prefer to end my chapters with the close of a scene, to provide some kind of closure, then use the white space and bold text of the next chapter to provide some kind of transition to a different scene. 

Order of the Skull, Part Two

Now I'm going to be writing about the second part of my friend's new book, while I try to get the awful taste of the movie Lost Continent out of my brain.

So Chapter Two begins with the characters in the car, and Emily Carson is quickly established as being friendly, and far more 'manly' than Dirk Calloway. Carson also manages to quickly develop a rapport with the other characters, rather unrealistically in my mind. Hawk and Calloway have the excuse of having been in a dangerous situation together, which tends to advance relationships faster than more mundane activities. The most dangerous situation the three of them were in was pushing a car out of mud, which seemed kind of pointless in my mind.

In their quest for the vast hordes of cash that Native Americans undoubtedly possess pre-casinos, Hawk and the rest meet the medicine man. I'm sorry, I want to write nice things about this book, but I winced reading this scene. Granted, I'm not sure how much Tabor wants to intentionally use tired pulp cliches, but during this scene we're treated to annoyingly obscure mysticism and some noble savage stereotypes. Then, after some peyote induced hallucinations, the characters are shaken to their core, and compelled to stop the bad guys seen in their little vision. It's not even a real vision quest.

I'm sorry, but this feels weak as hell to me. I can only hope that the three protagonists were somehow hypnotized into it, since it seems that most video games manage to give their characters better motivations than this. :(

Fortunately, after the embarrassing moment where all the characters jump full speed onto the plot train, it gets better. There are a few more moments of characterization, hints that people might be deeper than they appear, and a few nice moments of wit. They indulge in a bit of grave-robbing, always a fun activity, then another furious fight breaks out, this one with more purpose than gratuitous word violence.

Finally, the chapter ends in a daring escape on a hot air balloon, against assailants that are probably the undead. Interesting. And we begin to see more of the signs between the Ivy League soldiers that dug up Geronimo and the Ivy League veteran that's hanging around with the other two protagonists. The book is starting to get a little crazy, and I'm liking it more and more, but the whole "Indian meeting/vision quest/important mission to stop evil guy in mask" felt weak as hell. 

I do question whether or not a shovel to the head would be fatal in genre, though. :) Although the author also has a hydrogen-filled hot air balloon explode for no other reason than it's cool.

And here's an excerpt from the action scene at the end of the chapter.

Hawkins suddenly saw three men converge on their position with uncanny speed. They
were being taken by the wind fairly quickly, and well on their way to clearing the perimeter
fence, but the three men were able to get to the rope with no trouble at all. One of them grabbed
on, and the balloon sank a little. He quickly began to climb up the rope at a rate that Calloway
could in no way compete with. Calloway struggled up the rope, the man quickly gaining on him.
Rung by rung he climbed until Hawkins could almost reach out his hand and touch his
outstretched arm. Before he could make the final step for Hawkins to grab him and pull him into
the basket, however, the bearded man who Calloway had minutes before smashed in the face
with the iron spade of a shovel grabbed at his ankle. Calloway somehow held on with his arms,
freeing his leg to kick the bearded man in the face multiple times.
The man ignored this, and continued to hang on. Emily turned to Hawkins, “hold me
over the edge,” she said urgently. She picked up the shovel they had stuffed in the basket earlier.
“What?” Hawkins asked.
“You’re too heavy for me to hold you. Just do it!” Hawkins complied, grabbing her by
the waist and holding her over the edge of the basket. She held out the shovel, swinging it
awkwardly but forcefully at the bearded soldier hanging onto Calloway below. Hawkins heard
the repeated thud of metal on bone, and the man grunted while suffering the blows. The balloon
basket tilted and teetered in the wind, and both the rope and the people attached oscillated along
with it, causing Hawkins to almost lose hold of Emily. She screamed, grabbing hold of the
basket while dropping the shovel to the ground. Calloway was finally able to break free and grab
a hold of the basket while the man below secured his handle on the rope.
Hawkins yanked Emily back inside the basket and reached out to grab Calloway.
Unfortunately for him, the bearded soldier took hold of his ankle again at the second time,
causing a tug o’ war between the man and Hawkins for Calloway’s torso. Holding onto
Hawkin’s grasp, he flailed his legs about in an attempt to throw the man off. Suddenly the man
bellowed, “Dirk Calloway, Charak-teres, Eko Eko Azerak, Charak-teres.” His skin began to
glow slightly, turning reddish as if a light had been ignited inside his skin. This glow gradually
left his body and seeped into Calloway’s through his exposed ankle. Dirk then went limp,
making it that much more difficult for Hawkins to hold on, but he was able to manage. The
bearded man then dropped his grip and fell to the ground, rolling as he hit.

Bonus Post: The Game is Afoot

I love Sherlock Holmes; he's the greatest detective of fiction. Poirot is also good, of course, but Holmes is more universal; Poirot's firmly ensconced in the Whodunnit subgenre. Plus, you know, Holmes always gets actual evidence; Poirot guesses where the police can find the evidence. Death on the Nile, though, is my favorite mystery novel in general, since it was the one Agatha Christie book where I didn't figure out who the killer was.

I've read all the stories, of course; I once listened to a story about an old, married Sherlock Holmes by some other author. It was awful, but that's what happens when you rent audio books from Cracker Barrel. And I've seen a few TV shows. Both Sherlock and the Jeremy Brett series. And now I've watched the pilot episode of the modern Holmes story set in America, Elementary.

Comparisons to BBC's series Sherlock are inevitable, and unfortunate. Sherlock, when it was firing on all cylinders (Season 1, Ep 1 and Ep 3) was fantastic. Other times, it was kind of suck, especially Season 1, Ep 2. Season 2 was uneven in the episodes as well...I mean, Irene Adler as a sex worker? Sherlock threatening to beat up a guy, when his enemy is packing a gun and Sherlock isn't? Good luck with that, Sherlock.

To put it simply, Elementary does not compare with Sherlock when it's really good. Even when Sherlock wasn't good, Elementary doesn't compare that well since it's so...safe. Paint by the numbers. Almost stale, in the first episode. The mystery doesn't require that much unraveling; it's almost a police procedural. Ugh. That was (one of) the problems with Castle; too much procedure, not enough mystery. Why not watch a Law and Order, then? There's ALWAYS an episode of that on some network.

I've heard that there was some criticism of Lucy Liu as Watson. Nonsense. She's fine. Her backstory is a little different, a failed surgeon forced out of the profession to become an addict's babysitter. From what we've seen, no military background, which is kind of disappointing. And it makes her character more of a 'loser,' which has its ups and downs. You'd think that a doctor, especially a young one, would be way too busy doing doctor stuff to tag along with Holmes (the old ones certainly could, if they were willing to give up their golf games).

Watson in this show certainly calls Holmes on more of his crap...which might be the real problem with the show, I think. The versions of Watson and Holmes in Elementary don't have a lot of chemistry. They aren't buddies, they aren't friends. There's some respect there, but it's just not a fun or interesting dynamic between the two. I hate to do this, but when I compare it to Sherlock I immediately enjoyed the two's relationship. And Sherlock NEEDS Watson, to create a real connection with the other human beings in the world.

I also wonder if Elementary is going to try to create some kind of romantic attraction between the two, which would be terrible.

I don't know where the popular conception of Watson as the buffoon comes from, but it's certainly good that all modern versions of Sherlock Holmes avoid it. Not only is that not a very interesting character, it's not true to the books at all. Sure, Watson is an idiot compared to Holmes, but who the hell isn't? Maybe it comes from the old Rathbone version, I'm not sure.

But I'm going to keep watching the show, for now. At least until Community comes back on. The execution failed somewhat, sure, but I do love Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it will take a few episodes for the show to hit its stride. Or maybe they'll continue making boring mystery procedurals, a will-they-won't-they romantic tension between the two investigators, and run for five seasons like so many other average shows.

Whoops

My friend told me this was a finished first draft, not a final one. I had thought it was nearing completion, but evidently this was not the case.

Order of the Skull, Part One

I've now received a copy of my friend's latest (second) novel, Order of the Skull, by J.E. Tabor. It's test name was Skull and Bones, but he changed it after secret societies started sending him threatening letters. :) He started work in January, and this represents a near final draft of the novel, I think, although he has mentioned that there are a few things he wants to change, particularly the ending.

The book was described to me as a pulp novel, although I know my friend and he's cynical as hell, like me. So I figure it's going to be more Indiana Jones and less Man of Bronze. I'm going to be reading through it chapter by chapter, giving my thoughts. Hopefully talking about something a friend wrote will make me less relentlessly negative. We'll see. :) If you want a copy of the book, drop a comment with your address and I'll send you the PDF.

The opening starts in a poker game in Texas. I'll cut and paste the first few paragraphs, so you can see my friend's writing style.

"Success was in the cards for Hawkins; he felt it. As an Indian, it was easy for him to
hustle white men by ordering a few drinks, slurring his speech, and acting a little boisterous.
They all had read accounts of how Indians could not handle their firewater, and never questioned
it when their preconceptions were confirmed. That would mean another month of rent and food
for Hawkins tonight. He had considered dressing up in his old costume from his showbiz days a
few times just to complete the façade, but he retained some sense of pride yet. He had settled for
his button-down shirt, denim slacks, and boots, and used his chestnut Stetson hat to hide his eyes
as he pulled his cards.
It was just as well, as the joker across the table from him, Calloway, bought his ruse
hook, line, and sinker, even without the whole savage get-up. The baby faced, clean cut red
headed man smiled at him and ordered another round for the two of them. “Whiskey?” He
asked.
Hawkins Nodded. “Thanks… Friend…” he slurred. Calloway put up two fingers, and
the waiter quickly emerged from the far end of the smoky saloon and brought two small glasses
filled with some of the most awful moonshine whiskey known to man, setting them gingerly on
the round poker table. Hawkins picked up the glass, eyeing it momentarily for effect before
downing the awful stuff. He was met with a vigorous protest from his burning esophagus. He
supposed the abuse of the rock bottom quality liquor was worth paying his many expenses. He
was careful to hide any sign of satisfaction from watching Calloway tear up matching him drink
for drink."

As it turns out, a bar fight erupts rather quickly, Calloway and Hawkins find themselves defending each other, sort of, and then end up getting thrown out of the bar. A nice touch occurs when Hawkins demonstrates his prowess by shooting the knives out of three people's hands. Obviously incredibly unrealistic, but it's a very good demonstration as to what kind of story Order of the Skull is going to be.

 A very expository scene unfolds where each of them explains their life story, then a scheme is concocted that sends them up to Oklahoma to get some money. Then another fight ensues, and both Calloway and Hawkins get 'rescued' by a woman acquaintance of Calloway's.

“It was nice meeting you boys,” the woman said. “Maybe we will see you around
sometime.” She gunned the engine of the car, speeding off after spraying a good amount of mud
onto the two bat-wielding thugs. As their attackers receded into the distance, the woman pulled
out a cigarette and matches. “It looked like you were in a bit of a bind back there.” She put the
8
cigarette in her mouth and gave the matches to Calloway. He lit the match and ignited her
cigarette.
“We would have been fine. We have been in fights before. You think maybe you should
watch the road?” He asked.
She laughed. “Oh please. You were going to get your heads knocked off, and there is no
one driving around here for miles, which makes it all the luckier for you that I happened to pass
by.”
“Do you know each other?” Hawkins asked. He was still fidgeting from being pressed
between Calloway and the car door.
“Met this one on the train down to pick up my baby in Dallas,” she said, patting the dash
of the automobile. “He tried to make a pass at me and ended up with a fat lip. It seems like he
gets the same reaction from men. He was lucky I didn’t have a baseball bat.” Hawkins
snickered at that.
“Ha, very funny. I can’t help it that no one around here seems to have a sense of humor
about anything.” The woman stuck the cigarette in her mouth and reached over to offer Hawkins
her hand. “Emily Carson,” she introduced herself. He took her hand, amused. “Hawkins.”
“Well Hawkins,” she asked. “Where are you headed?”

And that's where Chapter One ends. Personally, I think that the ending to that chapter is rather bad, actually, finishing with a conversational question. Overall, there might a little too much gratuitous action for a book, and not enough description of the environment. To be honest, I don't really know what a small Texan town would look like in 1919; I keep imagining something from the Wild West. :)

Still, I'm curious as to what the duo (now probably trio) will find in Oklahoma, so that's a good sign. Hawkins is likeable enough, and clearly has some kind of interesting past that he didn't want to talk about. As far as Calloway goes, I hate anyone who cheats in poker, and I'm fairly certain that he's not as rich as everyone thinks. I also asked my friend if he was named after the golf clubs, but he insisted it was a Third Man reference.

Classism in Fantasy

Let me preface this blog post  by saying that I'm not a socialist. Unlike one of my friends, I should add, who claims that watching Downton Abbey turned him into one. I don't lay awake at night worrying that some people have more than others. But I have come to realize that genre stories, especially fantasy ones, are incredibly classist, dominated by the economic and social elite. To a ridiculous degree. Quite frankly, I don't think readers would put up with it in any other genre.

In general, novels are a little classist; there are a lot more novels about lawyers than construction workers. And more novels about doctors than nurses or EMTs. I think this has something to do with the popular impression that higher paying jobs are more interesting, and have more potential to create better stories. Also, more money does not mean more problems (seriously, if you think that, I'd be happy to take over some of these potential problems for you), but it does mean more leisure time. And more leisure time means more opportunity for ...whatever.

But fantasy takes it to an extreme. Characters are almost always part of the hereditary aristocracy. Take a look at one of the classics, Lord of the Rings. Even among the humble, simple hobbits, three out of four of them are members of the aristocracy; only one of them actually seems to, you know, work for a living. And Samwise's place is as the servant, the lackey, the loyal follower who never abandons his master. At one point, IIRC, he's described as dog-like, and it's intended as a compliment. Seriously?

Granted, the Jackson movies do a much better job of recognizing Sam; by the time of RotK, it's clear to the audience that Sam is the Big Damn Hero. And the fact that Sam happens to work for Frodo is just glossed over; their relationship is defined by their friendship, not master/servant. And still, the name of the movie is called Return of the King; Aragorn is still the one who merits mention in the title. Why not Samwise Versus Mordor? :)

Now, it's true that Lord of the Rings was written years and years ago. I would point out, however, that when it was written the British aristocracy had already passed into uselessness. What about more modern stories? Bujold, Brust, Jordan, Martin, Sanderson, Keyes, Feist, and Butcher, just to name a few: all dominated by the aristocracy. Even when a character seems to come from humble origins, chances are pretty good they have some hereditary link to the powers that be (like Rothfuss). Even if not, the nobility of the world will probably find some way co-opt these people into joining their ranks.* And even then, their defining characteristic will be their humble origins.

The few, the elite, the rich, the powerful. Why are these guys so vastly overrepresented in fantasy?  I say guys, but if anything, women characters in fantasy are much more likely to be nobility or royalty than anything else (except a victim). Part of it, I think might be that the knights, kings, and queens are exotic; it's not like we have any of that stuff in modern society. Part of it is baggage from history. I can't figure out the rest.

Books, written today, are typically judged with modern morality, even if they take place far in the past, far in the future, or in some alternate fantasy world. I'm not decrying this practice, of course; we need to like the protagonists. But fantasy characters are judged by our standards Except when it comes to the nobility. The hereditary aristocracy controls the lives of countless people, gets rich off their sweat because they inherited the land, and will typically send soldiers and conscripts off to die in wars for the most pointless of reasons.

I probably don't need to make this argument, but think of the various minor wars in Wheel of Time, or the big war in Song of Ice and Fire. I don't think any of the common people's lives are going to be  different if Duke X wins, instead of Prince Y. It's all about concepts like 'honor.' And for whatever reason, readers are basically fine with the conceits of main characters who think that because of who their fathers were, they're better and more important than everyone else. Crazy.

To me, the default assumption would be that any kind of hereditary aristocracy that enjoys special treatment, rights, etc.would be the bad guys, people the protagonists would struggle against. In my fantasy novel, No More Kings, the argument is made that it's not there are tyrant kings, but that kings are, by definition, tyrants. That the behavior and assumptions necessary to enforce your will and stay in power are evil. Hell, look at the behavior of historical monarchs: Henry VIII wasn't willing to live by the rules of his own religion, so he created his own church, put himself at the top, and made whatever rules he wanted. Oh, and killed a friend of his who tried to stop him. That's not just villainous, it edges into over-the-top super-villainy. (I hope that by criticizing the behavior of political figures hundreds of years ago, I can avoid the annoyance and division of contemporary politics).

 And it's not that you need to have the characters be nobility, either. Even in historical societies, the hereditary aristocracy weren't the only ones calling the shots or doing interesting things. Yet the fantasy genre continues to have its characters pigeonholed by this trope. That was actually my principal motivation (other than just wanting to finally write a fantasy novel) for creating No More Kings: to have a fantasy novel where none of the main characters were nobility; they didn't act like it, and they didn't want to be nobility. And then, they led a revolution against the monarchy, since the magic of the world acted as a sort of gunpowder that could equalize armed forces.

Damn, I think I've written books shorter than this. Well, I'm done. Maybe next time, I'll be breaking down my friend's book, which he's promised to email me by the end of today.

*At first, in Way of Kings, I had to give Kaladin heaps of credit for not joining with the nobility when he had the chance. It was kind of dumb, but true to his character.  Then he agrees to work for one of them...is that really any better? Especially since good noble was more than willing to use the bad noble's tactics for his guys, as long as his hands weren't dirty? But hey, some of my ideological/philosophical problems with Sanderson should be another post. :)

Don't Preach To Me

What do the story of the Tortoise and the Hare and Atlas Shrugged* have in common? They're both stories with messages. And neither is very entertaining. It's relatively common for writers to put in some kind of underlying message in their works, generally to their work's detriment (at least as a story. No one really likes 1984's plot or characterization, but everyone has at least heard of it). I get that writers like to do that in an attempt to create some larger meaning, but I've always found it annoying, especially when things get preachier than one of those old Saturday morning cartoons.

Granted, I'm not one of those people who like talking about philosophy, and it's pretty hard to convince me of anything. I don't go out of my way to find 'political' statements in things, unlike my dad, who was convinced that the Lord of the Rings movies had some kind of liberal agenda. :) But in my experience, people tend to like works that they agree with, and dislike ones that conflict with their existing beliefs.

But the real problem in my mind is that whatever the hell message the author is trying to communicate doesn't really work, especially when the message is on an individual level. I hate to get all after-school special here, but everyone is different. The things that make me happy, the things I want out of life, are going to be different than what other people want out of life, except for a few universal constants. It's pointless to try to tell people what to do when everyone operates under different priorities. 

The absolute worst way for author preaching to enter a story is the voice character. The character who exists for the primary reason to be the author's mouthpiece, to force his opinions on the reader. And because the author controls the world, the world and the plot bends around this character to make sure that he's correct. And, of course, any opposition to this character is strawmanned into idiocy.

To avoid this, I like to make so that I don't agree with my character's viewpoints. To be sure, I try to put a little bit of myself into every major character I write, and I try to make my characters likeable, but that doesn't mean I agree with them, or would do the same actions in their place. In fact, some of my characters are so crazy that I'd be amazed if anyone agreed with them all the time.

However, I break my rule. I created a book with a message, or a theme, or commentary, instead of a focus on just making a great story. It's not an important message, thank goodness, and probably not a very controversial one, but my fantasy novel No More Kings does have such a message. And it's the subject of my next blog post: Classism in Fantasy.



*Lots of people, including some very successful people, like Atlas Shrugged. Maybe you like Objectivism, but come on, it's horrible when it tries to stand on its merits as a novel. It has a fifty page written manifesto in it! Ugh.

We Are Legion

Legion is Sanderson's novella that I put on my e-reader; he has another one coming out soon that takes place in the Elantris universe (I'm hella stoked about that one). My first, strongest impression: it's short. Very, very short. Disappointingly short.

But it's good. The basic story is about a guy who invents various hallucinatory personas that advise him on how to do things. So, essentially, the main protagonist is a well-rounded genius who can know anything, but who's not really sane. And the plot revolves around a 'magic' camera that can take pictures of the past, and a guy who wants to use it to confirm the truth of his religion. I have to say, as far as uses for this camera, go, it's fairly innocuous.

The story was enjoyable and interesting; Sanderson is just too damn talented. It doesn't really come alive the way some of his fantasy novels do, though, and his protagonist was fairly generic (again, it was short). But the most interesting thing I have to say about Legion is this: it shouldn't have been a book.

Some people might see this as a criticism, but it isn't. I might like books more than movies, for example, but no medium is really better than another. But the mediums are different, and they have different strengths. While the novella Legion has a lot of action occurring mentally, it takes place through conversations with imagined people inside his head. Tell me that doesn't sound perfect for a televion show.

The character even lives the life of typical A-Team/MacGyver/USA Channel protagonist, where random people come to him requiring his unique portfolio of skills and abilities. Episodic as hell. I think it could work. The Pretender was years ago, after all, and the mental 'illness' angle of it gives it a potential for more serious drama and meaningful interaction with other people in the world.

Seriously, Sanderson, if you know someone who in television, get on the phone and make your pitch. Actually, don't. I'd rather read one of your books; Alloy of Law was way too much fun.

Where Have All the Starships Gone?

I might be mistaken, but I've noticed a trend in science fiction recently. There's not that many spaceships. I think science fiction has trended away from spaceships, even though a starship is basically the iconic image of science fiction. They aren't conspicuously absent, but there does seem to be conspicuously less. It shouldn't be the alpha and the omega of the, of course, but the spaceship is scifi most beloved icons.  The apocalypse is big now, of course, so that has something to do with it, but I think there's more to it than that.

It might also be the growing realization of just how impractical space travel is, that humanity won't be going to other star systems or colonizing worlds anytime soon. The best we can do is watch billionaires go into space, and cheer on Curisosity and Mohawk Guy (does anyone else follow the Mars Rover on Twitter? Pew pew! Hilarious).

I blame Star Trek. It's not it's fault, of course. The original series only lasted a few seasons, but it spawned four other shows, tons of movies, books, video games, and who knows what else. It was successful as hell. If anything, it should have spawned more spaceships, as people flocked to imitate it.

But that's passed by now. Now, Star Trek is a bloated, decayed corpse of an elephant in the middle of the room, that everyone else has to step around to avoid. Any kind of high technology starship story is going to invite, fairly or not, comparisons to Star Trek.

Deal with it. Obviously differentiation is required, but that seems easy to do in a hundred different ways. Science fiction needs to get over Star Trek, and reclaim the stars for all of the other fun science fiction stories that should be told.

And while we're talking about getting over things, Firefly is not coming back. Yes, it was great. Yes, it's criminal that it got half a season when Dollhouse somehow got two. Yes, Syfy should scrap every other show and awful monster movie they're working on to bring it back on the air. But it's not happening, so let's hear about some other cool scifi show on television...there has to be one, right?

Next time: I finished Legion (it was really, really short), and my thoughts on Sanderson's novella.

Redshirts and My Thoughts

I wanted to come up with some semi-clever title about Redshirts to prove how clever I am, but I couldn't. And so blood loss makes dullards of us all. Oh well. I don't think that it's much of a spoiler to say that at it's heart, Redshirts is about Star Trek though, so let me get that out of the way right off. If you don't know what a redshirt is, follow the link and hang your head in shame, because even I know and I have seen ONE episode of Star Trek.

Star Trek isn't a big deal to me, so I might fall out of the target market of this book a little bit; I liked Wrath of Khan (and I love randomly opening this window to annoy my roommate whenever I'm slightly vexed - major sound warning. Seriously. It's really annoying.), and I liked the remake but thought it was too careful not to upset the diehard fans who care about the reboot continuity. It's not like Batman Begins tried to tell us that this happened in a different timeline as the first Batman movie, Adam West TV series, and original comic books because Superman traveled around the Earth quickly; it's just a different story, deal with it.

So with that out of the way, I can say that I thought Redshirts was enjoyable and entertaining. It was less enjoyable and entertaining than any of Scalzi's other books, and I'm not even a Scalzi fan. The premise starts off entertainingly enough, more or less 'ordinary' science fiction heroes stuck on a starship that has the same stupid shit that happened to the poor crew of the old Enterprise. Away missions are invariably fatal to the poor redshirt stuck accompanying the senior officer, the laws of drama have more power than the laws of physics, and technobabble explanations are the order of the day.

The first half of the book was definitely the more entertaining half though. Once the true explanation is revealed, however, the quality plummets. The book devolves into overly meta nonsense. I don't want to drop any major spoiler bombs that an intelligent reader couldn't figure out two pages in, so I'll avoid specifics, but by the end the characters are practically breaking the fourth wall, which has always seemed to me incredibly amateurish. But if you like meta stuff, maybe you'll like the second half, I don't know.

To me, though, it's always amounted to intellectual masturbation, ultimately pointless. It essentially involves lampshading the lack of any real story or characterization. Speaking of characterization, it's weaker than Scalzi's usual fare, which I think even he would agree is not his greatest strength. And that might be why the book just didn't click for me; the characters are weak. In terms of how they're characterized, regardless of whatever rank they might hold in Starfleet (or whatever the organization is called in the book), they're extras. To put it simply, they're not main character material. I don't end up caring more about them by the end than I do at the beginning.

And despite Howard Taylor's description of the book as a call to arms to creators, well, I've always been against what I could describe as dumb, stupid character deaths for the point of drama. In fact, that's where the title of my blog comes from, my critique of character's behavior not stemming from any real motivation, but because THE PLOT DEMANDS IT. And maybe the characters don't die pointlessly, but the narrative still has an iron grip upon the flow of the plot of Redshirts.


So, I realize I sound incredibly negative, but I'm always more negative than positive. I enjoyed Redshirts....but not that much. Maybe I'm just not a Star Trek fan. My next blog post will be about science fiction, space opera, and Star Trek.

Things To Come

I'm going to put up a short post of what's might be happening on this blog in the near future. I've loaded copies of Redshirts by Scalzi and Legion by Sanderson into my e-reader, so once I finish them I'll post my thoughts on each of the novels.

My friend should also be finishing his second novel, Skull and Bones, and I'm going to be doing a couple of posts reading through it, analyzing it, and soliciting feedback about it. I haven't read any of it yet, but I've heard it described as a Pulp novel, so that should be fairly interesting. I also ended up giving him the name of his villain, Eigenstolf. If that name isn't a selling point, I don't know what is. :)

In Praise of Awful

Much like everyone else in the entire world, I enjoy movies that are good. In fact, that's probably my working definition for a good story (i.e. enjoyable). But I also love bad movies. No, that's not exactly true: bad movies are fairly common. I enjoy the terrible, the awful, the godawful, the movies that are cinematic train wrecks.

Now to be fair, these movies aren't much fun to watch by yourself, but if you can get a bunch of your equally witty friends together to mock the thing, they're hilarious. And if you're stuck on a space station, you can always cobble together some robots from scrap metal to fill the void (you might need to do the voices yourself, though, and prepare for a complete mental breakdown). This is the basic formula of Mystery Science Theater, although the commentary can vary in quality (and they're always stealing my lines :( ).

I recently watched what is commonly considered to be the worst movie ever made: Manos, the Hands of Fate. Behold!

More impressively, I've seen it twice, since one of my friends wasn't present for the initial viewing, and he would have missed out on all the new in-jokes we have about the film. I worry that a third viewing might actually kill me. I could write a week's worth of posts about why it's bad, but either take my (and everyone else's) word for it, or watch it yourself (with friends).

Interestingly, I think the time is ripe for a Manos sequel. After all, in August they showed Manos throughout theaters across the country; it's legendary badness has promoted it to cult status. And the ending certainly leaves room for a sequel. I'm trying to talk my friend's little brother Chris into directing the film. After all, he was the film genius behind all of the film projects we turned in for easy As in high school.

I've seen two other films that aren't quite as godawful as Manos, but still so terrible to be entertaining. And while neither has made it to DVD, you can find them on Netflix streaming service. The names of the movies are Unmasking the Idol and Order of the Black Eagle. Both star the same balding (yet sexy by script) secret agent, Duncan Jax: the first is a weird combination of Bond, Indiana Jones, and Enter the Ninja, the other is a slightly less weird combination of Bond and Commando. Oh, and his sidekick is a baboon, and clearly the brains of the operation.

Can I sell these movies, or what? After watching them, we gave them a 4 and 5 star review on Netflix...ratings that they still hold, at least from a few days ago. I think we were the only ones who reviewed these. The movies are also surprisingly racist for something made in the 80s.

What I love about these kinds of movies is how bad they are. Their creator didn't let fear hold him back. If he worried that he was making something awful, these films wouldn't have ever seen the light of day. There's a kind of exuberance to these works that I respect (perhaps the only thing I respect about them, from a creator's standpoint).

More, I think we've all seen stuff that we hated. Films that were uninteresting, or boring. Films where you couldn't really recount what happened walking out of the theater, or films where you just couldn't find yourself caring about what happened to the characters. These are films that were merely bad. But the truly awful films are ones that take huge swings and miss, hard. They're the ones you remember.

Books, are a little different, but I'd much rather create something truly terrible than something that was merely bad, or even mediocre. Something people could laugh about; something I could even laugh about (years down the line, probably, but still).

Zombie Attack!

I love zombies. They're unfeeling killing machines made all the more horrific by their former identity of living beings, but without all the gothic whining of the vampire. Best of all, zombies are inherently proactive: they want flesh/brains/whatever, and they spread their infection to everyone in the world sooner or later. They're great bad guys, more of a force than a character though.

But these days, they're everywhere. Dead Island, Left 4 Dead, DayZ. Resident Evil. Zombieland. Dawn of the Dead. Some French movie on Netflix called the Horde. The Walking Dead. Hell, even the CDC released a zombie survival guide in some vain attempt to be cool. It wasn't a very good guide, of course - no weapons, nor anything unique to the challenges facing those living in a  world populated with the walking dead. Zombies have gotten so 'mainstream' that my dad actually linked me to the CDC guide, and I'm pretty sure he still has trouble figuring out Youtube.

The point is that the only way I could see more zombies is if there was an actual zombie apocalypse. Which would actually suck, by the way, that Facebook group non-withstanding. They've become such a, well, inoffensive, generic bad guy, that for some stories they're more secondary bad guys/ background than anything else - after seeing an episode of the Walking Dead, I made the argument that it wasn't really ABOUT zombies. It just happened to have them in it.

I hate to say it, but zombies might be played out. If not, they're certainly getting there. A decent zombie story these days requires differentiation, a unique take on the zombie apocalypse. I've never put a lot of thought into my own permutation, but I'd go after one of the common rules of zombies: water is safety. Living in the Midwest, escaping the apocalypse by taking a sailboat to some isolated island is much more of a long term goal for me in case of sudden zombies, so I don't put a whole lot of trust in it. In truth, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since I don't see why zombies couldn't swim to the supposedly safe island in their endless quest to devour all human flesh.

So I'd do the reverse. Zombies come from the sea. They swim quite well. The tides are changing, they sweep in, bringing thick fog, and the zombie hordes of the drowned climb up the beaches of coastal towns, killing people and throwing them back into the ocean to rise as more sea zombies. As the apocalypse spreads, the sea level could be rising; if I wanted to be a preachy environmentalist I could connect it to global warming or something.

And on a side note, if anyone reading this gets bitten by a zombie during the apocalypse, do us all a favor and admit it. You're not special, not immune, and you'll save your buddies a lot of trouble. :)

Apocalypse Then

The post-apocalyptic genre. In case for whatever reason, you're not familiar with it, post-apoc is a setting for stories set after the fall of humanity, where life as we know it has been destroyed by some awful calamity, yet people live in this terrible new world as best they can. The Wikipedia article listing post-apocalyptic fiction is pretty damn useless, since it includes stuff like Signs, which isn't post apocalyptic at all.

Probably the most iconic post-apocalyptic fiction to my mind is the Road Warrior, a film I watched as part of a high school film class. Ah, good times. A bleak desert wastelands, gangs of raiders, and a combination of the technological and the primitive. And a bunch of weird outfits you'd only ever see from an eighties movie. Mad Max was just bad, in my opinion, and Thunderdome 's best feature is "Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves." And the knife in the flyswatter, of course.

But there's more than Mad Max. There's the Fallout series of PC games. And who could forget Waterworld (never have the amnesiacs been so blessed)? The Road? The Book of Eli (was anyone else hoping it WASN'T the Bible, just for a change of pace)? And then we have the whole gamut of works that combine the post-apocalyptic with terrible dystopia. Even the Matrix could be argued to be post-apocalyptic, even though it's way more about cool guys with slowmo gun fights than the downfall of society.

The genre is about far more than just having the excuse for savage violence, however. In fact, interestingly, it seems that whenever more critically respected writers, i.e. those outside "genre fiction" venture into the far more interesting branches of writer-created reality, they almost invariably gravitate towards the post-apocalyptic (Handmaid's Tale, anyone?). I'm not entirely certain as to why, but I can take a few guesses.

More traditional science fiction is about the future, and mankind's hopes and dreams (it's also about gratuitous space battles). The post-apocalyptic and dystopian subgenres are more about the fears and nightmares of mankind. It's kind of hard to write a happy post-apocalyptic story, since even if your characters end up happy, that happiness is built on the bodies of millions. And preying on the negative is certainly the easier, more common choice in the world; it's certainly seen as a more mature topic.

And the dystopian genre already has what most would consider to be definitive works of the genre. Post-apocalypse? Not so much. World-building is also much easier in post-apocalyptic, since you don't need to create any kind of functioning society. Instead, all you need to do is mess society up until it stops working.

The creator of the post apoc story, unless it's a particularly important plot point, will generally pick the most likely method of apocalypse. In other words, whatever we fear at the given point in time. Nuclear war doesn't seem a very likely way to go out these days, so instead we use pollution, mass resource shortages, whatever.

Speaking of fear, the popularity of the post apoc genre seems to see surges in times of uncertainty, in the wake of crises of all kinds. I don't know if it's because the times make the idea of the apocalypse seem more plausible and likely, or because maybe because we want the reassurance that someone's going to survive it.

Next time: Zombie attack!

Not Revolutionary

To say a new TV show is going to be bad isn't exactly going out on a limb, I know. And it's not even fair. There's a lot of shows that didn't become really good until they hit their second season. And sometimes the first seasons and the pilots were just outright bad (if it wasn't for the assurance that it gets better, I doubt I would have stuck through the first one of Babylon Five); Seinfeld, probably the greatest sitcom of our time, had a terrible, terrible pilot. The butler episode of the fake Jerry was probably better. :)

So when I say I don't have high hopes about NBC's Revolution after seeing the pilot on Hulu, I realize this isn't exactly a revolutionary statement either. But honestly, I'm the kind of person who should like it, probably. I liked Lost. I liked Heroes (Season One). I like post-apoc stuff too; I actually own the DVDs to Mad Max and the Road Warrior, I've played all the Fallout RPGs. Ideally, I should like it.

And yet I don't. Post apocalyptic fiction always reflects the fears of the society (or perhaps more accurately, the writer) that created it. In a sense, Revolution is smarter than, say, Mad Max, which is about an energy crisis. The failure in Revolution is more systemic in that it turns off electricity (and advanced technology in general, it seems), assuming that human society can survive and adapt through one resource shortage, like gasoline. It also has a nice green environment, an aesthetic I prefer after the wastelands of most apocalyptic worlds.

But the little details of Revolution bug the hell out of me. I don't normally get hung up on the little stuff, but a world with half a dozen little errors in the first episode shows a lack of thoroughness in the world-building, I think. For example, the scene of power failure shows jet planes DROPPING out of the sky. Just straight dropping. If a plane experiences power failure, it doesn't just fall vertically downward like a stone; it still has wings, and velocity. Planes would crash, sure, but not immediately; why not film it correctly?

Then there's the issue of the weaponry. Don't get me wrong, I'm down with swords instead of guns, and on seeing the previews I had assumed that whatever Space Magic had turned off electricity and the internal combustion engine had also affected gunpowder. But no, people use guns. Clumsy black powder weaponry. Even though America has about as many guns as it does people. I don't think we'd need to resort to muzzle loaders that fast.

And the characters are pretty. Despite the lack of running water, characters are all clean, and have hair that has clearly seen conditioner recently. And the characters wear clothing that was obviously manufactured, yet also in very good condition. This complaint is fairly half-hearted, of course. :) And people on television are supposed to be good-looking, even in terrible situations (like Lost).

Finally, there's the issue with the environment. Everything is way too overgrown. And sometimes, nonsensically, things are underwater as well. For whatever reason, no one uses our nation's highways as a pedestrian road, even though that would make logical sense; it's as if pavement itself has disappeared. But maybe the 'nature gone wild' thing is some kind of plot point. But when you throw out stuff that doesn't make sense, you need to have audience buy-in that the stuff you do will eventually be explained, instead of these plot points just being dumb.

But this is all little stuff, stuff that's fun to critique, but something I could easily ignore if the show was good. The pacing was bad (but pacing is more a matter of opinion than anything else). And the characterization ranges from flat to non-existent. With some of the main characters, I could perhaps assign them a single character trait to describe them, after watching them run around for forty minutes. One. With others, I'm not sure I could describe their personalities at all. Granted, the show does need to waste time on setting development, but you would expect more than that.

I might watch the next episode to see if it improves; if not, it will take some serious opinions on the internet about how good the show is to change my mind. I gave Jericho more time to get better, but that was back in college, I think. (My friend told me that eventually that show became good, but it was too little, too late). But this season's new genre shows do not look especially promising.

Next post on Wednesday: My Thoughts on the post-apocalyptic genre in general, I think.

The Problem With Marriage

No, this isn't about any problem I have with the institution of marriage in real life, of course. Now, to quote the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, I am amazed that it happens so often, but I like the idea of it. And the Best Man speech I gave was pretty amazing, I have to say. There are also a few reasons I dislike marriage, such as the belief that being married makes you some kind of relationship expert (I think we've all known a few people under that delusion). And there's the related matter of kids, since having children makes otherwise interesting, engaging people into the most boring dullards imaginable (they end up thinking their own kids are the most interesting topic of conversation for all time).

But no, I'm referring to the institution of marriage within a larger fictional work. Whenever characters get married in a work of fiction, it will typically kill the story. Sitcoms are the biggest example of this concept, if you can call them actual stories (not good ones, certainly). To most writers, the 'will they, won't they' romantic tension  between any two characters who could conceivably end up together drives most romantic plots or subplots.  Then, when characters get married, that tension goes away. They will. In fact, they did. The relationship is over

But the problem is that relationships don't end with marriage. If anything, the day to day stresses amongst married people are higher. Married people can afford to really fight without holding much back, since there's that contractual obligation to stay with each other. So if you're looking for conflict (and let's face it, what writer isn't?), it doesn't need to stop because they exchanged some vows. 

Worse, other stories, the ones that don't depend on what-if romantic tension, also end whenever someone gets married. Because the marriage allows the characters to live happily ever after or something. In fiction, marriage carries the stink of respectability and responsibility. And often, responsible fictional characters are boring fictional characters.  But real life tells us that a wife (or husband) and kids don't stop people from doing all the stupid and interesting things that make a good story.

Marriage in fiction needs a good marketing campaign to improve its image. Sometimes characters start married and their stories are fine (divorced is also a good compromise for older protagonists, usually women - I don't know why, maybe it's a demographic thing), but characters whenever characters end up getting married it typically indicates that the stories are going downhill (even Vorkosigan, mentioned in an earlier post, suffers from this).

My own work tries to avoid some of this. In my fantasy series, I used the event of one of the characters getting married to show how up he's changed, and also to reveal just how much he didn't. He continues to be selfish and violent, but it is tempered somewhat; to be fair, it could also just be the fact that he's five years older from his last encounter with the viewpoint character as well. But being married hasn't really stopped the character from being interesting; it even motivates him, and not in the stupid "loved ones in danger" trope either. He now has more of a stake in the future of the world, so he ends up being a little more proactive in changing it.

And as a side benefit, his wife ended up as a far more interesting character than I initially thought, enough that I wrote a short story starring her after she sold her soul to the devil (and her attempt to reclaim it). She also isn't one of those people who claims to love someone, but then hates everything about what they do, or separates them from every other person in the world. She knows that she's probably going to outlive her husband, but she'd much rather have him die young than live as a shadow of himself.

Now, one of the other problems I have with fictional marriage is that everyone in fiction seems to marry either their high school sweetheart (or the girl they wished was their high school sweetheart). It's a fact: teenagers are idiots.  I don't know the exact stats, but I can guess that most people move beyond the boy or girl they dated in high school.

I'm Alive!

Although in truth, as long long as I can remember, I've always been alive. Therefore, there's some precedent to assume that I'll live forever.

In truth, I was a little busy with job stuff, instead of writing fun posts on the internet stuff. Then I discovered just how much time I could really waste, when I started playing Minecraft. It reminds me of the days of my youth spent playing with Legos, minus the towering stacks of severed Lego heads .(I think there were people who were surprised when I didn't grow up to be some kind of serial killer.)

In any case, going for so long without any real updates is inexcusable, and I mean to make certain it doesn't happen again, unless something important comes up. These don't take that long, after all, especially when I post them in the hazy state I'm in right before I fall asleep.

It was some advertising guy whose name eludes me that said that discipline was necessary for creativity. I know I've always done my best work under a deadline, even if it was a strictly self-imposed one. So I'm going to a (fairly) strict Mon-Wed-Fri schedule for my posts, starting today. If I miss a post, I'll put it up the next day I get the chance.

Bujold

Today I'm writing about one of my favorite authors, Lois McMaster Bujold. She's written a great many books, most of which are incredible. Any year that she releases a book or novella and it doesn't win a Hugo or a Nebula, it's something of an upset. While none of her books make my top five, or even my top ten (probably), a LOT of them make my top thirty; her writing is consistently good. Even better, she's (finally) writing the novel we've wanted since Civil Campaign starring Ivan; if nothing else, it's going to be great since her last two novels had antagonists who weren't really in Vorkosigan's weight class; Ivan doesn't quite have the same skills and position.

Her writing has some interesting characteristics. She writes her male characters better than her female characters, a reversal from what you would typically expect. In her science fiction universe, she smartly avoids the FTL technology pitfalls of the Warp Drive or similar engines in favor of a stationary wormhole network, making certain that geography still has meaning in the far future :). And if you happen to care about this kind of thing, she had GLBT characters decades before Rowling retroactively decided that Dumbledore was gay.

Her science fiction isn't really about the technology, though, except for her fascination with the reproductive technologies offered by the "uterine replicator." It's a nice change, though, from a focus on the starships and guns of the future to a relatively ordinary medical advancement (compared to immortality meds or cyberware). In some of her earlier books, she was actually developing a larger plot about telepaths, but it seemed to have been dropped by now.

Instead, her fiction is about creating some very fascinating character and using the unusual setting to create great stories for them. The primary character of her science fiction novels, Miles Vorkosigan, grows throughout the series, from the somewhat awkward scifi "coming of age" story to the more mature stories as he grows through life. And, amazing, the novels don't end when he finally settles down, marries, and has kids.

Maturity is a word that's often misused, I think. Too often, we end up using it to describe the dark and the violent. The scenes of "R" rated movies might not be appropriate for children, but I wouldn't ever call what happens therein to be particularly "adult." :) (I think there was a Calvin and Hobbes about that). Actual maturity, I think involves juxtaposing the light and the dark, the good and the bad of life. 100% Grimdark is about as mature as a teenager painting his room all black.

Now, Bujold often seems to enjoy using setups and ideas from romance novels into her works, which I'm not exactly a fan of. Shards of Honor is basically a straight scifi romance novel; that and Warrior's Apprentice are her worst books, at least in the Vorkosigan series. She has a certain optimism and faith in overall humanity that some might find annoying. And some of her characters can be, at times, almost unbearably whiny.

But she's still one of the best 'genre' writers today. If you're interested in starting the Vorkosigan series, I'd probably recommend starting with The Vor Game instead of Warrior's Apprentice though, then double back to read WA if you liked TVG.

Bonus Post: Calling It

I generally think I'm pretty good at predicting the plot twists and turns of fiction, especially since I started writing my own stuff. One day I'm going to post a guideline about how to predict that stuff, in case you want to be the guy telling your friend that you knew he was dead the entire time (like I did, the first time I saw Ghost*!).

But instead, I'm writing a short post about Wheel of Time. This is essentially a longshot, and is only actually relevant to fans of the series, but I'm doing it anyways. The Dark One is, or is somehow closely related to, Balefire.

Seriously, think about it. He's the Dark One. An evil force. What is he supposed to be? A man? A horrible fanged monster? That Rand** is supposed to kill in some kind of sword-fight? As much as I love sword-fighting (not WoT swordfights though, which are far, far worse than literary shakycam), after all this build up a simple fight with the source of all evil would be kind of lame. That's what midbosses are for.

No, the Dark One wants to destroy Creation, to undo. Isn't that what Balefire essentially is? Destruction? Maybe that's the point of the chaos, the Forsaken, everything: to drive the world into a point where balefire use becomes necessary to survive. No, this theory doesn't take into account everything, but I do like it a lot more than the Dark One just being some really powerful guy.

*I'm kidding. I have never seen Ghost. I never want to see Ghost. Please don't force me to see Ghost at gunpoint.

**Why is he called the Dragon Reborn? Or, rather, why was Lews Therin called the Dragon, other than 'Fantasy Must Have Dragons'? Does anyone in WoT even know what a Dragon is?

Creating and Editing

My dad and I had an interesting discussion the other night. We weren't talking about writing in particular, but he told me that editing was easy, but creating was hard.

But I have to disagree. I think maybe he was confusing editing with criticism or negative feedback; just about everyone would agree that destruction is far easier than creation. But editing isn't criticism or negative feedback. It's about using feedback to make something greater than what it was, while still retaining its core competencies and strengths (or, if you prefer, its soul).

Creation is easy. It's fun and exciting to create new things, to build where nothing existed before. And when working creatively, quality isn't the first priority either; it's about experimentation. You can't ever be afraid of bad ideas when you're creating. In the words of Nanowrimo, it's about turning off your inner editor during that month in November.

Editing is hard. And worse, it's not fun; it requires discipline. It's especially agonizing to painstakingly drag your own work through the coals, to figure out where all the errors are and how to fix them without destroying the book altogether.

As a side note, it seems to me that a good editor can make or break a book almost as surely as a good writer; I think most fans of the series would agree that Wheel of Time really suffers from poor editing in its later books. And many times, in fact almost all times, writers thank their editors in some notes page, or even the dedication page.

But I mean, they helped build the damn book in the first place. Some special note of thanks doesn't quite seem like enough for the second most important determinant of quality. Why don't editors get their names on the front page of the novel? Maybe it's because we think that readers don't base their purchasing decisions on the editor of books, but I'm not sure there's much data to support either argument. If I was publishing a book, I'd probably push for my editor's name to appear on the front cover of the book.

Antiheroes

I hear the word 'antihero' tossed around discussing characters now and then. It seems to mean different things to different people. While I'd like to think that the term originated during the Nineties (with all the baggage that comes from that decade), according to this it originates from a few centuries back.

Some people seem to use the term to describe a bad guy who happens to fill the role of hero in the story. Other people use the term to describe a hero who isn't bright, shiny, and morally perfect; to them, the only real heroes are the perfect ones. I can't think of too many 'perfect' people in fiction, myself; basically, only Raoden from Elantris comes to mind. Maybe Superman, at least when they don't screw the character up?


The quintessential, even definitive, antihero in my mind is Elric of Melnibon, Moorcock's anti-Conan. And I like my definition for an antihero. An antihero is a protagonist that an author hasn't bothered to make likeable or engaging.

That sounds like a condemnation of the concept, and it's true. I hate the idea of antiheroes. Because I hate reading stories where I neither like nor respect the protagonist. And to me, at least, likeability isn't really a measure of ethics or morality, but just personality. The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd are arguably terrible people, just like Elric, but I find them far more likeable (what's really amazing is that I can spell Fafhrd without having to look it up).

Having such a low opinion of antiheroes, or just plain unlikeable protagonists, I tried to make one of the main characters of my fantasy novel No More Kings as engaging and charismatic as possible. Because, well, he's a murderous thug with no value on human life, at least as a general concept. So he's funny, confident, and otherwise likeable. I hope the methods I used work.

There's also talk about the idea of flawed heroes or characters, a concept I don't quite understand. The idea of character flaws only really makes sense if you believe there's some ideal mold from which all people are cast, that we're all striving towards some concept of perfection and falling far short. What would an unflawed character look like, exactly? People have characteristics, some we might like and consider 'good,' others we might dislike and consider 'bad', but I can't imagine what a 'zero defects' individual would look like.

What is this model that people are using, whenever they measure a character against it and determine them to be 'flawed?' Is it their religious figure of choice? Some other fictional character? Themselves*? Seriously, someone help me out here.

I might occasionally use the term 'character flaw' myself, just as a matter of habit after seeing it used by everyone else in the world, but I hate it whenever I catch myself using it.

*Not true. Most people don't really like themselves. Try giving someone a compliment and seeing how quickly they refute it. It's amazing.