A Writer (In Progress)

I spent last weekend at LTUE, a local SF & F convention here in Utah. I was one six panels where I imparted tremendous amounts of wisdom...well...I talked a lot. Who knows if wisdom entered into it.

I had more than one person ask if I actually maintained my personal blog anymore. I guess a few people actually read here. I know, right? Who would've thought?

Anywho, I figured I should give an update on what is going on in my writer life, and explain a few things.

1) I have another piece of short fiction coming out this year dealing with Lazarus Tombs. It will be co-authored with my good friend, Larry Correia. This will probably be the last story, though Larry and I have talked about adapting/changing and expanding it into a full length novel at some future date. This will mark the fifth story in the Action Horror series from Larry and I. Here are your links to grab the other ones (because they are freaking awesome!):

THE CRIMSON PACT: VOL 2 - Contains "Still Life" and "Son of Fire, Son of Thunder"
THE CRIMSON PACT: VOL 3 - Contains "That Which We Fear"
THE CRIMSON PACT: VOL 4 - Contains "The Best Lies"

2) I was invited to write a short story for SPACE ELDRITCH 2. I am very excited to tackle space horror (not space whore...two VERY different things).

3) I'll be writing a novella set in the Warmachine universe for Privateer Press. I'm not at full liberty to say what I'll be writing, but it will be awesome, and very likely violent. I love Warmachine. It is an amazingly fun game with a rich world just begging to be explored via literature. My goal here is to knock the socks off the guys at Privateer Press so they ask me write a story or two from them every year.

4) I'll be submitting a story of mine to another anthology. No guarantees, but I like my chances. More info as it becomes available.

5) This is the big one. The full manuscript to my YA Horror novel RESIDUE is with two agents. Not gonna say which two, only that I'd kill to have either of them. Essentially, I have an anxiety attack every time I get a phone call from a number I don't recognize.

So, now that all that news is out of the way, on to some housekeeping. I took down all my fiction that was posted. Why? Because I'm going to try to sell some of it now, and also because I want to polish the rest of it up so that I can sell it later.

That's it. I'll be writing up my summary of LTUE and posting it here within a week or so, and it may turn into a series of posts where I spout off on my personal thoughts that I didn't get to share on my panels.

Here's a brief glimpse at my short story "Still Life" that appears in The Crimson Pact: Vol 2. I have a follow-up story to "Still Life" in the same collection co-written with NYT Bestselling Author, Larry Correia titled, "Son of Fire, Son of Thunder". You can get a glimpse of that story from Larry's character in the story at: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/son-of-fire-son-of-thunder/

Nope, I can't give you any pieces of that story from my character because it would spoil "Still Life". Guess you'll just have to buy the stories!

***

A while back, my friends and co-workers began calling me Lazarus. It isn’t my given name—Jarvis Tombs is the name my mother blessed me with—but it’s what I answer to now. It should be fairly obvious why they call me Lazarus.

I’ve died twice, each time on the job. I work for a division of the FBI that specializes in activities of a paranormal nature, the Paranormal Sciences Division—the PSD—where we deal with the stuff from horror stories on a daily basis. I’m fairly high on the totem pole.

Vanilla agents in the FBI don’t know what we really do in the PSD. They think PSD is short for Psychological Studies Division. We get brought in on the really odd cases that they just can’t, or won’t, understand. But when certain agents do see through the veneer, they either end up dead, in a psych-ward somewhere or they get recruited. Recruitment is a big part of keeping our country safe. The brutal truth is that the average life expectancy of an agent in the PSD is only two years.

Huzzah! My two short stories are now out for all the world to see and enjoy...or make fun of. Whatever. The point is, they are out!!

You can grab them at either Amazon.com, or at Barnes & Noble's online site. Here are the purchase links:

Amazon:
The Crimson Pact, Vol 2

Barnes & Noble:
The Crimson Pact, Vol 2

I'm pretty proud of the two stories I have in this collection. The first one, "Still Life" is about a paranormal investigator for the FBI by the name of Lazarus Tombs. Check out the story trailer for a bit of a teaser:

"Still Life" story trailer

The second story, "Son of Fire, Son of Thunder" is co-written with my good friend Larry Correia. It is a direct follow-up to "Still Life". In this story, my character Lazarus Tombs teams up with a Marine by the name of Diego Santos to kill some demons. The cool thing about Santos is that he knows the exact date and time that he is going to die. There are two trailers for this one:

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

I hope people like my two stories. I'm pretty proud of them. That said, there are some other great stories in this collection too (28 stories in all! Holy crap!). This collection is only $5. There isn't a better bang for your buck out there.

And remember, this is Vol 2. There is a Vol 1 out there. You may as well grab it too, right?

I have finished a few games of late. I'm probably a terrible person to be saying what I think of video games since I always end up liking the game I play. Why does this happen? Most likely because I choose to ignore the flaws of games for the sake of enjoyment.

I can't do this with books. I automatically find every little thing that drives me insane. Imagine having this attitude towards movies, TV and video games. I guy like me would go nuts from the complete absence of enjoyment. So I choose to turn my brain off when watching shows and when playing games.

So let's talk a bit about the games I've played through recently.

Dragon Age 2

This game was such a mixed bag. There were certainly things that I really loved about it. In this series I play a rogue, and in Dragon Age 2 the rogue was ridiculously fun to play in battle. It was a bit of a button-mash, but you know what? That's OK by me.

The thing I really liked about this game over Dragon Age: Origins was the story. While the entire game was in a much smaller area, the actual story being told was more focused on the narrative and was actually much more epic in feel. At least that's how I saw it.

The graphics were an immense improvement, and the characters had more life to them. Why is this important to me? Well, because in any narrative the end result of my liking the product has to do with the characters.

There were some problems. The repetitive zones really started bugging me by the final act. Also, from the bit of time I played the Warrior class, it was freaking boring. There was no flash to the button mashing, and that robbed that class completely of it's enjoyment. The mage class? Meh. I've never been one to play that class. Doesn't interest me.

So over all? I liked it. I liked it enough to get the Platinum trophy. But I didn't like it enough to keep my copy. Its value was better recuperated so I could buy L.A. Noire...(more on that in a bit)

Overall ranking: 8/10
What do I need from Dragon Age 3?: I need more variety in areas. I also need a bit more strategy in the playing like I had in Dragon Age: Origins.


Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

When I finished Assassin's Creed 2, I thought, "Geez, that was a blast. Look at my shiny Platinum Trophy1" But I also thought I'd had enough of the experience. Brotherhood didn't really seem like it would be worth my time.

But I caved anyway and bought it. Mostly on the idea that I could recruit and train assassins. Awesome.

The thing I noticed right away when loading up the game was how comfortable I felt. Some of the controls were a tad smoother, yet it was all very intuitive. The other thing I noticed--unexpectedly so--was how much fun I was having right away, and how intrigued I was with the story.

The new mechanics were awesome. I loved the added emphasis on the varied guilds. I was absolutely addicted to training assassins. Loved every second of it.

What I don't dig is multi-player. Look, I get that companies like to include it to add to the lasting appeal of the game, but it isn't needed in every freaking game. A side effect of multi-player is the attached trophies (or achievements for you lovely XBOXers). I hate multi-player trophies. They are time-sinks, and I've long decided those kind of things are lame (too much WoW in my gaming past). I understand the addiction many people have for multi-player. But unless the multi-player is local co-op, I don't want any part of it.

I loved the single-player part of this game. I got every single trophy that was related to the single player portion. I avoided the multi-player (the long wait times certainly didn't help matters when I DID want to try it out).

And man, that ending was insane!

I can't wait to play Assassin's Creed: Revelations. I want to see the ending to Ezio's story. Some people are really tired of that guy, but I think he is great. I love the SF angle of the story. It will be a day-one purchase for me.

Overall Ranking: 8.5 - would have been a 9 if not for the multi-player.
What do I need from AC:Rev?: I need a solid ending to this chunk of the story before AC3. Look, I'm all for WTF cliffhanger moments, but this needs to be the end of Ezio.


L.A. Noire

Yikes. What a game. Visually I was entirely blown away. The facial animation was awesome. The setting was perfect. Come on? 1940's LA? And I get to be a detective? Heck yeah!!!

The game starts off perfectly. You play Cole Phelps, a war hero that is making his way as a cop in LA. You start in Patrol, then go to Homicide, then Vice, then Arson. The story here is top-notch for the most part. The music and theme is absolutely perfect. The voice acting is some of the best I've heard. The facial graphics were so incredible--in my opinion they are on par with Heavy Rain, and the rest of the graphics of L.A. Noire are far better overall than Heavy Rain. The faces are just SOOOO expressive in L.A. Noire. If more game devs don't use this tech, they are stupid.

I really liked the role I played in this game. A flawed, but good cop. So many games and shows portray cops as totally corrupt, or completely stupid. That bugs me to no end. Cole Phelps is a smart guy. As the player, I felt like I was being clever and smart when catching people in lies, or when discovering evidence.

Here's the thing, there comes a point however when I started to lose the immersion in the game. The interrogations got repetitive. The tells a person gave were misleading. It broke the moment for me. Another thing was the driving. There was no real art to it. It was mundane. Also, what the heck happened to the awesome narrator? I was absolutely enthralled with the game when there was a narrator, but then he vanished. Bummer. Also the ending would have been more powerful if the family portion of Phelps' story was more fleshed out. Additionally, switching character with only 3 missions left is a mistake. The gamer has no emotional investment with the new character.

I do wish there had been a profanity filter. I understand that the devs wanted to show some authenticity, but there's nothing wrong with making it an option you can turn off. If nothing else, it will make the game appeal to a broader audience. This is actually what I like about the Assassin's Creed series--I can turn off the blood. Content doesn't really offend me, it just distracts me from the game. That is bad.

All that aside, I loved the game. It may seem like I am bashing it, but I only point out these things because I liked the game SO MUCH. This could have been PERFECT. Instead it is a flawed gem.

Overall Rating: 9. There is no replayability here. When you finish it, you sell it to pay for Batman: Arkham City (or something). Yeah, I got the Platinum here as well. And I bought al the DLC cases. This is the only game I’ve ever bought DLC for.


InFamous 2

Oh how I loved the original InFamous. It was one of two games that made me transition nearly completely to my PS3 from my XBOX 360.

InFamous 2 was a day-one buy for me, and I don’t regret that for a second.

The controls are fluid. The action heavy and fun. On the “Hard” setting things could actually be tough. The powers are more fun. The graphics are way improved. The developer, Sucker Punch, freaking rocks.

What more can I really say? I played the game through twice, once for each ending. They were both awesome. The good ending was tragic, and the evil ending was…well, evil. I loved the idea of User Generated Content (though I hated actually making the content—a pain in the behind…the things I’ll do for a Trophy).

The game was not perfect. The story wasn’t quite as awesome as the first game. But the main thing was the lack of comic-styled cut-scenes. Man, those were awesome in the first game. It seemed like there were way less in the 2nd installment. But the gameplay was way better in this one.

I really wonder if there will be a 3rd game. They’ll have to work hard to make it plausible based on the two endings, but I think it could work. I’ll buy it day-one if they decide to go with it.

Overall Rating: 9. Lack of cut-scenes and more story knocked it down.

I sent this bit to my friend Larry Correia when I saw the news about Borders complete shut-down implosion of failure. Figured I'd post it here.

***

Here's the thing about Borders:

They've been screwing themselves for years. This whole "Borders shutting down" thing and the store closures earlier this year that were supposedly a stop-gap? Yeah, it didn't just pop up over night. Every article you read out there has someone at Borders talking about how ebook sales doomed them. How convenient. No, the real genesis of Borders' complete implosion is due to an idiotic state of mind in upper-management.

Once upon a time I worked at Waldenbooks. For those of you who don't remember Waldenbooks, Waldens ended up under the umbrella company of Borders. They were the same team, though you wouldn't know it by how they cannibalized that trusted brand. Waldens was known for being a smaller bookstore that had employees who actually, you know, knew their stuff. I know right? Booksellers at a national chain that weren't complete tools? When I worked at Waldens, my store was the #1 ranked store in the company. Why? Because we ignored all the mandates that came down from Borders' upper management. As the saying goes, however, no good deed goes unpunished. Auditors would come by and slam my store because we didn't have things in the places "mandated" by Corporate HQ.

True story: When working at Waldens/Borders my two favorite authors were Steven Erikson and Brandon Sanderson (before he was big). At my store, Erikson's novels out sold every other author. He was a moneymaker for my store. Soon my store was restricted from mass ordering his novels because we weren't conforming to other stores in different states who would only sell a dozen of Erikson's novels in a year (we sold hundreds of just his first book. Repeat customers baby!). With Brandon Sanderson? My store was essentially in his home-town of Provo, Utah. To all you authors out there, the average signing may net you 10 or so hardback sales if you're lucky. My store? We sold 80 copies of Brandon's first novel that had zero marketing push behind it. His second novel? Oh just 200. Borders' response? "How dare you have all these extra copies of his books on hand. You'll never sell that many books at a signing. in fact, maybe you should stop doing signings altogether."

You see, Borders' had the mentality of telling you what you were NOT allowed to do rather than giving bookstores the freedom to, oh I don't know, make money. By breaking the rules were were raking in the cash. Unfortunately that wasn't good enough. After all, the corporate goons OBVIOUSLY knew more about out local client base than the staff at my store did. That's why they kept sending us African American porn...in Provo.

The issue here is that employees of Borders saw this crap on the wall back in 2005 and 2006. Even earlier really. The upper management (which was like a proverbial revolving door) were so intent on saving a penny here and there (What? You don't need raises! I don't care if your store is #1 in the company!), that they skipped over the dollars just waiting for them. They were so focused on making these stores run like a little Borg collective that they lost sight of actually helping customers. The Walden name? Screw that. We'll just rape their book stock and make them all carry the exact same thing as every other Borders in the country. Variety is overrated.

With that mind set, the must have thought profitability was overrated too.

I understand that book selling is a business, but it's a business that relies on customer loyalty. It's hard to really help customers when all of the originality is constantly squeezed out of the store staff. So now they are closing the rest of their stores. Hopefully they told their remaining 11,000 employees this before it hit the news...unlike last time. How awesome was that when the employees of the stores in the first round of closures didn't know their store was closing until the Wall Street Journal published the list of stores being shut down? Yeah. That happen to some good friends of mine.

So what does all this say? If a company is so shallow and self-centered that they don't even have the integrity to personally tell their employees the bad news, how can customers trust them? How can anyone trust them?

No, ebooks didn't ruin Borders' business. Borders screwed themselves.

11,000 employees are screwed. Customers are screwed. Authors? Yeah. Screwed.

They didn't even buy us a drink first.

***

Larry's insight as an author in this whole mess is a very good read too. Go check out the full post:

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/on-borders-closing/