Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

May 16th, 2012 • 5 Comments

You know what, I actually quite enjoyed this.  It weren’t no Skyrim, it weren’t no Mass Effect, but it was an enjoyable enough way to spend a few evenings.  Quite a lot of evenings, actually, as it is undoubtedly massive.  Perhaps a bit too big to maintain interest throughout.  A little less size and more work on the character interactions would’ve been time well spent, I think.  It had a slightly young adult feel, a little on the cartoony side, but was certainly very pretty at times.  Perhaps it had slightly the sense of an MMO without any other players in its rapid fire quest giving and constant battles.  Cheesy world-building, one would have to say – you got some kinda dwarves, some kinda elves, a foresty area, a deserty area, a jungly area, you know the type of thing.  Fantasy 101, one would have to say.  Lots of background and stuff being said, history of this or that, but I really wasn’t listening too closely after a while because, being honest, the way the conversations were rendered was pretty stiff and dull, not so much the voice acting, although that wasn’t really A-grade, but the tedious way the whole thing was shot with the same three camera angles endlessly employed, the utter lack of convincing emotion on either your character or any others, all made for a bit of a stultifying experience, especially after the quality of Mass Effect, which really does lead the pack in that regard.  The saving grace of Amalur is really the action, which is pretty cool, actually, probably one of the better efforts I’ve seen at combining RPG with arcade-y elements, and a nicely flexible method of character development, all of which ties in nicely with the game’s central conceit of unteasing the threads of fate.  It all does get a bit easy once you’ve worked things out and mastered the item crafting, though.  Game developers seem to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the whole area of crafting…

Anyway, it won’t blow your mind, but a pleasant enough romp.

Category:games

Whisky Deathmatch

May 13th, 2012 • 33 Comments

By popular demand, I bring you WHISKY DEATHMATCH.  Two whiskies enter, one whisky leaves, that’s the essence of it.

We begin with twelve contenders, which I’m going to pair up like against like according to origin and style.  That’ll give us six thrilling matches and six worthy winners, and I’m then going to let through my two favourite losers to give a field of eight.  Quarter finals, probably with some seeding, semi-finals, final, and there can be only one winner.  Like in that Highlander – except the contestants will actually be Scottish.  Thirteen matches all told, the broken bodies of eleven whiskies left scattered on sand soaked with … well, whisky, I guess, one standing over all, victorious, shaking weapons daubed with the whiskey of fallen adversaries at the lowering skies.  Oooh, the excitement!

‘But!’  I hear you cry, ‘whiskies are inanimate, and therefore cannot actually fight each other!’  Of course, you are right.  They shall wage war within the metaphorical Thunderdome of my face.  I shall assess them on LOOK – of the whisky, packaging, and marketing blurb, though I’m not going to be placing too much weight here, SMELL – the effect it has on my nose holes, and TASTE – what is it like in my mouth?  Since my palate is risible this will all be highly unspecific and will dwell on strange metaphors and unquantifiable emotional responses.  I shall then issue a CONCLUSION – giving a smart-arse summing up.  Other critics might suggest a suitable food, cigar, or time of day to pair with a whisky, I am going to suggest one of my point-of-view characters with whose chapters a given whisky might be aptly enjoyed.  Finally I shall don my black cap, sit in terrible judgement, and issue the RESULT of my deliberations, heaping glory upon one whisky and consigning the other to the flames of Mount Doom.  Or, more likely, drinking it later.  I mean, why throw good whisky down a volcano?

So, our six first round Deathmatches will be:

Lowland: Bladnoch 20 vs Auchentoshan 3 Wood

Speyside (Sherried): Glenfarclas 21 vs Aberlour 18

Island: Talisker 18 vs Highland Park 18

Speyside (Bourboned): AnCnoc 16 vs Longmorn 16

Islay: Bruichladdich Infinity vs Ardbeg Corryvreckan

Others: Dalmore 15 vs Balvenie Single Barrel

I’ve given all of them a thorough sampling and some favourites are already emerging, but I must say my opinion on a couple has shifted quite radically even over a few tastes.  When the brutal work of direct comparison begins, who knows what will be the outcome?  There’s everything to play for.  Or, since this is a Deathmatch – to kill for.

Is your mouth watering already?  I know mine is…

Category:whisky deathmatch

Part the Third

May 10th, 2012 • 23 Comments

So I’ve now got to the end of the third part in my first big pass through Red Country.  There was a lot less to do here than in the first two parts – just some tightening up, a few extra sequences to add in order to keep significant characters in mind, and a few sloppy scenes that needed some rewriting.  The fourth and fifth parts should need even less work to bring them up to snuff for the time being, and they’re relatively short anyway, so it shouldn’t be long until I have a single coherent draft!  Woo hoo!  What was I worrying about?

At that point I’d normally turn my attention to more detailed character and setting type stuff but this time around the process is having to shift about due to the availability of the copy editor, who needs to start in early June, which means my editor is already  marking up the manuscript as it stands and I’m going to be responding to her input first.  Probably no bad thing as I’m getting a little jaded and could do with an outside kick in the pants.  I want to do a re-read of all my other books while it’s away with the copy editor, soak up anything necessary for returning characters, and then do a character pass trying to get all the secondary characters as differentiated and vibrant as possible – replacing bland dialogue with more personalised, bland description with more specific, and so on.  Then after the copy edit comes back and I respond, there’ll probably be a setting pass where I try and get a bit more pop into the descriptive sections, an eye on the weather and the feel of the surroundings.  Which means hopefully towards the end of July I’ll be doing my final run-through trying to get the detail of the language as good as wot I is able to do.  Then proof read.

The UK cover is developing apace – map is done and roughs for the weapons are in, design work already underway.  So should be something to see there within the next few weeks.

In awards news, I note that The Heroes had been shortlisted for this year’s renewed and reconstituted British Fantasy Award which is now operating in a similar way to the original Gemmell notion I was espousing a few posts back, funnily enough, with an academy picking a shortlist and a jury picking a winner – or actually two winners in this case, one for horror and one for fantasy.  Interesting…  I also said I’d notify folks when the voting on the Legend Award opened, so with the greatest of fake reluctance I will link to the relevant voting page.  Fly, my flying monkeys, fly!

A WAY more thrilling contest comes upon us, though, and one EVEN MORE likely to get me drunk – Whisky Deathmatch.  A summary of the rules soon to come, followed by our first bout, Bladnoch 20 vs Auchentoshan 3 Wood in a Lowland BATTLE to the DOOM.

Category:process, progress

The Heroes UK MMP

May 7th, 2012 • 30 Comments

A box full of UK mass market paperbacks of The Heroes have come through my door.  They look a little something like this:

So a good deal smaller than the trade paperback, as one might expect, and though it has 611 pages rather than 502, about the same thickness.  Also a little bit paler, pretty much exactly the same colour as the Best Served Cold cover, in fact, for those afficionados of parchment tones among you (no need to be embarrassed about it).  Some tinkering on the blood spatter, a change to the design of the title (more commercial, was how it was explained to me).  And, of course, the addition of the little Sunday Times Bestselling Author thingy, because, I don’t know whether I mentioned this at all, The Heroes hit the Sunday Times Hardcover Bestseller List when it came out last January.  No.3, not sure whether I mentioned that.  On the bestseller list.  No.3.  Between 2 and 4.  Just sayin’.  Oh, that round white thing is a sticker with a quote from George RR Martin.  I hear he’s quite significant in the field of gritty fantasy at the moment…

Amazon says they’re available from 10th May, so I daresay you’ll see them turning up in your local bricks and mortar around that time as well.

 

Category:news

Whisky Galore

May 3rd, 2012 • 71 Comments

Ah, the simple pleasures.  I have for some time enjoyed a drop of the old single malt, but have done so in a pretty scattergun fashion.  So I figured that it was time to take things to the next level and remove all the fun from the business by really starting to identify what I like and what I don’t, hence:

I had inherited an old bottle of Macallan from my grandad (1960 vintage), and thought it would be kind of worthless.  Imagine my surprise when I was able to trade it for a dozen serious bottles of scotch and still have some change left over!  So, from Islay – Ardbeg Corryvreckan, Bruichladdich Infinity.  From the Highlands, just a Dalmore 15.  From the Islands, a Talisker 18 and a Highland Park 18, from the Lowlands, a Bladnoch 20 and an Auchentoshan 3 Wood.  From Speyside, an AnCnoc 16, Longmorn 16, Balvenie Single Barrel, Aberlour 18, and a Glenfarclas 21.

The differences in packaging and presentation always amuse me, I must say.  Look at the Bruichladdich (second from the left) in a can and with information technology type jargon on it – they so modern!  Look at the mid-80s gentleman’s club styling of the Glenfarclas (third from right) – they so traditional!  The plucky folks at Bladnoch couldn’t afford a marketing consultant so they just used an old milk-bottle and stuck the label on with spit.  The Longmorn on the far right has had a fancy relaunch and hence sports some truly ludicrous packaging, with articulated magnetic box and leather footed bottle.  Really.  Cos I often find when I put the bottle down the jarring impact is most upsetting and I think to myself – I don’t care what it tastes like, what I really want is a whisky whose bottle-bottom is somehow softened for my added convenience.  THEN I’ll feel like I’ve arrived.

If anyone’s interested in hearing more about this self-indulgent voyage into my own navel, let me know.  I’m not really a tasting notes kind of guy, but I may well pair them up and compare them in a grudge match styley, a blood-sport tournament of whiskies in which there can be only one winner…

Or, if no one’s interested (and I wouldn’t blame you), maybe I’ll just drink ‘em in contemplative silence.

 

 

Category:Other Life

Best Served Cold Limited

April 30th, 2012 • 53 Comments

For this post I think I shall step back and let Raymond Swanland kick your ass:

The cover art for the limited edition of Best Served Cold from the ever wonderful Subterranean Press.  I’ve been a big admirer of Swanland for some time, but he’s gone for a slightly less fantastical, more realistic style than usual with this and I think it suits the book rather nicely.  Both numbered (limited to 500) and lettered (limited to 26) copies will include five black and white interior illustrations by the aforementioned Mr. Swanland, and from what I’ve seen of the roughs those will kick quite a sizeable quantity of ass as well.  Order early to avoid disappointment…

Category:announcements, artwork