jordangreywolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jordangreywolf) wrote2017-10-31 12:28 pm
jordangreywolf) wrote2017-10-31 12:28 pm
Entry tags:
[MISC] What-I've-Been-Up-To Update: Books & Convention
Books
One weekend, I took Gwendel by the library. (She COULD theoretically drive herself there, and I maintain and pay for TWO vehicles for just such contingencies, but she doesn't avail herself of the option.) As it so happened, I noticed two books on a shelf that had "Timothy Zahn" printed in big enough letters to get my attention. One was a Star Wars book -- "Thrawn." The other was NOT a Star Wars book -- "Pawn."
To Gwendel: "Wow. Pawn. And Thrawn. By Timothy ZAHN. I could go ON."
Sayeth Gwendel: "No, I think you're DON(e)."
In the graphic novels section, I picked up a book called "Child of Tomorrow," by Al Feldstein.
Why? Because I couldn't resist the retro sci-fi rocketships-and-rayguns aesthetic. I figured it could be suitable "research" for either Fallout, or else for the upcoming Flash Gordon RPG. The stories are short, and (IMHO) decrease in quality with time. Many of them have a "Twilight Zone" vibe, to the point where I'm SURE I've heard the exact same plot narrated by Rod Serling. I have a suspicion that what the artist would REALLY like to be drawing is pinup girls, and I think that tended to steer a lot of the story-lines toward endings along the lines of, "Oh HORROR! Due to this mishap of SCIENCE I shall not get the girl!" It's pretty cheesy stuff, and made for a short, amusing read.
As for the Zahn novels, "Pawn" was a nice old-school sci-fi story. I'm embarrassed to say that although I praise Timothy Zahn's work for the Star Wars "extended universe," I'm still largely oblivious to his NON-Star-Wars creations. I need to fix that. "Pawn" wasn't immensely thought-provoking or ground-breaking, but just a fun exercise of having a random protagonist who gets thrown into a perplexing situation, and the reader gets to discover along with her WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON, as pieces get filled in. It's not a "mystery," per se, in that there's not much in the way of clues that would let you go, "Aha! I knew it!" and the story looks to be the setup for a series (it doesn't wrap everything up in a nice little bow), but it was definitely worthwhile "stuck-in-an-airport" reading material. ;)
Of the two Zahn books, I enjoyed "Thrawn" more. This book is a bit peculiar in that the Timothy Zahn books that largely launched the "Expanded Universe" stage in Star Wars beyond-the-movies fiction (drawing a bit from the West End Games Star Wars RPG) are now considered "Legends" -- or no longer "canon" in the Disney-Star-Wars scheme of things, though they still reserved the right to dip into the bin and pull out things they found to be worthwhile. I honestly can't blame them for refusing to be beholden to the old canon scheme, because it got pretty bloated with some awfully weird and arcane stuff. (That, and just about anything that happened involving young Jedi-Academy wunderkinds or Force-using babies or Chewbacca-as-nanny or EWOKS or "Darksaber" or "Suncrusher" or far too many other super-weapons....)
It was nice to see that Thrawn lives on in some fashion in the renewed canon, insofar as he appears in Rebels. And now a book. It doesn't really address how much of the original "Thrawn Trilogy" might be "new canon" if any at all, but it at least preserves the best bits of the character. That would be that Thrawn was intriguing as an Imperial who wasn't a bungling evil incompetent cardboard caricature like so many adversaries in Star Wars fiction, nor a cackling Sith Lord or whatnot. He had his own motivations. He wasn't some altruistic "good guy." But he wasn't evil for evil's sake, either. I dare say this was possibly the most enjoyable Star Wars book I've read so far.
This was more enjoyable for me than Pawn, but I cannot discount that there's a certain amount of nostalgia figuring into this. "Pawn" has to pretty much stand alone, as when I'm reading it, I really don't know WHAT SORT of sci-fi story this is going to turn out to be, and what the "genre rules" are. "Thrawn" comes with the baggage (for better or worse) of the Star Wars universe, and a great deal of its power is in subverting many of the superficial tropes of Star Wars fiction, and attempting to make things a bit more involved and nuanced.
I particularly find it intriguing that this takes place in a time period of "transition": the Empire is the Empire, and there are certainly Stormtroopers and Star Destroyers about, but the Old Republic and the Clone Wars are still recent history. It's not just all seedy bars and secret Rebel bases and Imperial holding cells and the occasional backwater place that's about to get stomped as war comes its way. It focuses upon people who live WITHIN the Empire, for whom the nasty politics and graft and maneuvering are a regular part of life ... but not so much the imminent threat of getting zapped randomly by Stormtroopers -- because if that were the case, how COULD a society really hold together at all?
Really, if I were to lock myself in a cabin starting tomorrow and spend a month writing a novel, among the topics I'd be interested in pursuing would be to tackle a story featuring a protagonist who is working for an arguably "evil empire," but is not EVIL himself. This is the world he was born in, and he does what he can, how he can, but he doesn't do it by blowing up symbols of authority. If there were more people like him, perhaps it could become a better place ... but there AREN'T, so it DOESN'T. I just don't know how I'd tackle it without it being a thinly veiled Star-Wars-fanfic-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off. How to make it stand on its own? All too often my "story" ideas are just a REACTION to something else.
Necronomicon
It came. I ran games. It went. This year, we were at yet another new hotel -- this time the Holiday Inn near the Tampa airport. It was a smaller venue, but Necronomicon's been getting smaller as well. Megacon, which used to be the big competition for anything held in Orlando, has branched out, and last year Necronomicon took a big hit when "Megacon Tampa" happened on the SAME WEEKEND. This year, it wasn't the same exact weekend, but still pretty close, and I figure there were at least a few "I could go here OR I could go there" decisions that swung toward the new, shiny Megacon instead of little old Necronomicon.
The Grand Hyatt on Tampa Bay had some nice views, but its isolated location made it inconvenient to dart out somewhere for cheaper fare than $$$ hotel food or $$$$ restaurant food at the on-premises "Oystercatchers" overlooking the bay. This time around, we had a bunch of restaurants arguably within walking distance, and a lively mall (not like the "ghost malls" of the Orlando area) just on the other side of I-275.
The weird part of it was Saturday. Friday, I was busy, and my game was overbooked. (7 people signed up for a 6-player game, and I let all 7 in.) SUNDAY, even, I had another "overbooked" game, and was busy all day (until the convention ended in the afternoon with the "Survivor Raffle"). But Saturday -- which is the "main event" day -- I had barely quorum for my "Nuclear Family" game, and then it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. We joined Gontharas for an excursion to the mall for lunch, and then Wendy (in one of her nocturnal swings) ended up napping for most of the afternoon (I worked on last-minute game prep for the next day -- most of it, as it turned out, completely unnecessary), and then she ended up swimming in the hotel pool in the evening. Digital_Rampage disappeared early, and Dr_Rhubarb and his family didn't come this year since they're in the middle of a house-move (which will bring them much closer to our part of town). Wookiee actually played in a couple of my games, but then just somehow disappeared for the rest of the con.
At least I managed to find Mr. Zahn while things were relatively quiet, and I got a chance to gush to him about a couple of his books. I had to headline it, though. I boiled it down to saying that, about Pawn, it made me feel the sense of discovery I felt way back when I was in high school and reading various sci-fi books that would feature some "everyman" transported into space, and having to sort out the new situation.
About Thrawn, I just loved how this character defied the usual cartoonish villain tropes of the setting -- not by being a "white-hat-forced-into-being-a-black-hat" but simply by having more nuanced motivations. He does what he does FOR A REASON, and he is able to set his personal pride aside in order to look at the long game. In particular, I noted an incident that happens when he's at the Academy and singled out for trouble when he's put on the fast-track into the Imperial program. He has an opportunity to get revenge upon those who have wronged them -- and he doesn't, but it's not for altruistic reasons, but for strategic reasons. (That, and "getting revenge" is simply not on the agenda, since it doesn't inherently get him any closer to his ultimate goal.)
That's really all I got to say.
Now, thinking about it, as he's the star of this book, the characteristics that make him into an interesting adversary could turn him into an insufferable "Marty Stu," but I think we avoid that largely because he's not the sole focus of this story (we're essentially given another character as our "viewpoint" character -- though there's also a parallel story line where we switch to another viewpoint character every once in a while), and it's clear that he's not the worshipful center of the universe. (It's also clear that he does not always succeed. Things DO NOT always turn out the way he wishes, despite all his clever maneuvering.) But I didn't have time to try to articulate all that. ;)
...
I picked up a couple more Timothy Zahn books, overpriced for used books, at a little vendor table in the dealer's room. (I felt I ought to buy *something*.) I haven't cracked them open yet, but I'll keep them on hand as "stuck-in-the-airport" or "stuck-at-the-DMV" books. :)
no subject
Did you know Timothy Zahn had a YA series starting with 'Dragon and Thief'? I also enjoyed his Quadrail series starting with Night Train to Rigel. (there's a book titled The Third Lynx so...)
no subject
No, I wasn't aware. I did hear it mentioned that he has some 55 non-Star-Wars novels that he's published. Whoa. That's pretty prolific. :)
no subject
It's always kinda sad when small cons get smaller. :/
no subject
As for Necronomicon, yeah, it's sad to see a decline, but I've been there long enough to see it fluctuate considerably. My own involvement there has altered significantly: Once upon a time, I was there primarily to see people I knew online (TuftEars, Bart_Fox, Bookwyrm, Prester_Scott, and many more) -- particularly those I thought of as "the Tampa crowd" -- and my primary activity would be to try to mat and frame a few scribbles for the art show, and I'd sketch doodles in the hallways and byways. Somewhere along the way, I tried running some miniatures games (board games with "RP" elements such as Advanced HeroQuest, Doom, and Descent), and wargames (Warzone), and put some effort into making flyers to advertise my games. I think the high point was way back when I got involved with Deadlands and ran my "Westward on the Orient Express" adventure, complete with a big Art-Nouveau-style poster I sold in the art show. (I wish I had kept a higher-resolution scan of that piece.)
But then, the former familiar faces got scarce, and the quality of artwork in the art show got a lot better (whereas mine didn't improve appreciably). I don't know for sure, but I think "Megaplex" might have been more of a draw from the people I knew online, but I had no particular interest in going to a "furry" convention, per se. (I like the occasional talking cat, wolfman, kitsune, bioengineered animal-person synth, beastman fantasy race, etc., in my cyberpunk, sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, and other settings, but I prefer not to EXCLUSIVELY focus on such characters. That, and there are certain associations with the "genre" that I don't feel quite in sync with; I feel more at home at a more general sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention.)
More recently, I suspect that Megacon is taking a bite out of things on the "general geek fandom" side, whereas "DiceTower Con" is competing for those there for the gaming. Also, the "video room" has disappeared; once upon a time, Necronomicon was our place to catch glimpses of new anime titles that we might try to hunt down fan-subs for, but with Netflix and Crunchyroll and Amazon and Hulu and so on, that aspect has become rather moot.
Necronomicon is still a nice intersection of things of interest both to me and to Gwendel (and Gwendel often puts effort into some sort of fannish costume each year). There are still some familiar faces -- just a very different set. It's a nice outlet for me to get to experiment with a few RPG scenarios my regular gaming group isn't so keen on, but it's a rather EXPENSIVE outlet. It's really hinging mostly on Gwendel's continued interest in it. When that wanes, I'll have to reconsider the time and expense.