Brilliant But Broken: A Video Game Review of Rocksmith

If you've been following this blog for a while, then you'll know that I limit myself to the topic of self-publishing and my efforts to get my first novel published. That said, I felt compelled to write my first (and probably only) video game review for the guitar game "Rocksmith" made by Ubisoft. I felt compelled for two reasons: one, the large number of negative reviews that seemed to miss the point of the game, and two, because it has eaten an increasing amount of my free time. Since I bought it back in November, I have sunk more than 300 hours into the game, leaving less time for creative writing and this blog. That said, the time has been worth. Rocksmith is a brilliant tool to learning the guitar. I have advanced far faster than if I had practiced on my own or with a monthly tutor. That said, the game is easily one of the buggiest ever made and can cause no end of frustration.

Synopsis

Ubisoft's Rocksmith is a rhythm game for PS3 and Xbox360 (RESP: $69.99) that allows you to plug in a real electric guitar and learn how to play music. If you don't have your own guitar, then you can buy a combo package (RESP: $179.99) that comes with an Epiphone Junior guitar (which is what I did).In general, the game teaches you guitar by letting you play popular rock and blues songs in which the notes fly towards you on a simulated fretboard. You can practice your skills by rehearsing songs as a whole or phrase-by-phrase, performing them in events, or developing your technical skills in technique challenges or simple arcade style mini-games. We're going to go through these in more detail later. One of the more interesting innovations of this game is the dynamic difficulty, which increases or decreases the difficulty of the arrangement of the song dynamically based on how well (or poorly) you're playing.The typical structure of the game is that you practice songs by rehearsing them or using riff-repeater (which lets you practice the song section by section) until you reach a certain point threshold. Once you have levelled up a selected group of songs to this point threshold, then you'll them one after the other in an event. Pass the event and you are given  a new set of songs to practice and perform. In short, it works quite well. The game gives you bite-sized chunks that you can handle while waving a carrot in front of your face to keep you moving forward. The use of the game's currency (Rocksmith points or RSP) as experience points to level up your character is another motivator to keep playing. However, there are some pitfalls in the design and operation of the game that can cause some serious frustration as we'll delve into the individual pieces below.

Song List

At first, I thought that the song list was weak. There were very few songs that I recognized. As I played through the campaign more, however, I began to appreciate Ubisoft's song selection. There's a lot of variety here from blues, glam-rock, psychedelic rock, folk, to punk from some great artists including the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Cream, Muse, and Radiohead. Each of the songs seems to call on a different skill set that allows you to develop all of your skills while you play through the career mode. In my case, it has given a greater appreciation for bands I had never heard of such as Cream, Muse, the Black Keys and Dan Auerbach. The available DLC also has a nice selection although I've noticed that they've become a little too dependant on late 90s early 2000s pop-punk. Some more classics would be greatly appreciated.

Rehearse

As noted above, rehearse mode allows you to play through an individual dynamically adjusting the difficulty level as you improve. In short, it works quite well. Instead of using guitar tablature, Rocksmith instead has the notes appear in a black background and approach a virtual fretboard in the foreground. To communicate which string to strum, the notes are colour-coded (Red-Yellow-Blue-Orange-Green-Purple) from the lowest string to the highest. By default, the virtual fretboard has the lowest note on top and the highest note on bottom. This simulates the strings of a guitar if you looked at it from the front. However, when you're playing the guitar, you're actually looking at the strings from overtop, so the order will seem backwards. Guitar tablature reverses this arrangement and has the lowest strings on the bottom and the highest on top which matches your perspective. For these two reasons, I would recommend inverted the positions of the strings (through the Options menu). You might as well make this transition early if you have any interest in reading tablature or music notation.At first, I had difficulty identifying which colour represented which string as they don't follow a recognizable pattern such as a rainbow. However, after a few hours of playing it became quite natural. To distinguish between different types of techniques for playing each notes such as bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs, sustains, harmonics, etc., the game uses unique symbols to represent each of these techniques. At first I had trouble differentiating between them quickly but again I picked it up after a few hours of playing. The games note recognition algorithms work quite well, recognizing when I play notes correctly or incorrectly with a few minor exceptions. For example, it seems that the game can't recognize the difference between a regular note and a note that is palm-muted. I still attempt to play palm mutes just so it sounds right but there are times when I'm chasing a high score where I just cheat and play a regular note. The dynamic difficulty system also works quite well. It gives you positive feedback by starting you off easy and then ramping it up slowly as you build technical proficiency over a song. Some reviews have criticized this as been boring for expert players, as they have to play a song several times to level it up to an appropriate level. I don't share these concerns for a couple of reasons. First, the game is targeted at novice guitarists like myself. Second, updates have raised the default level of a song and also give you the option in the pause menu to choose the level of difficulty of songs: either phrase-by-phrase in Riff Repeater or for the song as whole. Even with the dynamic difficulty, expert players should only need to play the song two or three times to max the phrases up to full. If you level up all the phrases to 100% and score over 100,000 points, then you'll open up master mode which allows you play through the entire song blind (the notes don't appear) for double the points.In short, it works well and its fun to play. It combines the mock-rock sensibility of Guitar Hero with the real-world demands of learning the guitar.

Riff-Repeater

Riff-repeater is a series of three separate modes that allow you to practice the song phrase by phrase in order to concentrate on the more difficult parts. These three separate modes are Freespeed, Leveler and Accelerator. Freespeed plays the phrase the phrase at normal speed and stops dead if you miss a note. Play the note correctly and it restarts. Play through the phrase without any mistakes and you master the phrase. Leveler starts off the phrase at its current level and then adds more and more notes as you play through it successfully (95% or greater I think) until you run out of lives (was originally five to start, not it's 30 after the update) or master the phrase at 100% difficulty. Accelerator runs the phrase once at normal speed and stops dead at each note you miss, just like free speed. At the end of the first run, Accelerator decides which speed to re-start the phrase based on how many notes you miss. Then for each subsequent time you play through the phrase successfully, the phrase will increase in speed until you master it at full speed or run out of lives.Out of the three modes, only Leveler works well. Accelerator can be useful for tricky phrases but Freespeed completely breaks down at higher speeds with lots of notes. Every time you miss a note you are forced to stop and replay the note, frustrating you by blocking your flow. For the most part, I have stuck with Leveler as it's by far the most useful. I do wish that I could switch back and forth between Leveler and Accelerator without having the reload the song. There are just some tricky phrases where it would be convenient and useful. Also, an update has also given you the ability to change the level of mastery in the phrase. It allows expects to quickly level up easy songs but the game still expects you to play it through once just to prove that you can play at that level.

Technique Challenges

Technique Challenges are short, tutorial-style sections that teach you about numerous guitar techniques such as shifting, sustains, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, harmonics, palm mutes, tremolos, bends, chords, power chords and barre chords. After a short tutorial, you are thrown into a short arrangement that will test your proficiency in this new technique. Bronze, silver and gold medals are awarded for scoring more and more points. Personally, I found that this section works really well. Sometimes you could use some more feedback over why you're not getting credit for a note (more of a problem in bends and barre chords) but after a while you'll get the hang of it and easily score the gold medals. When I first tried these challenges as a complete novice, I was overwhelmed by their difficulty. But after several months of playing, I soon mastered each of these challenges. The trophy that I received for getting gold on all of the challenges gave me a nice sense of satisfaction. The only thing missing is a tutorial on tapping. Perhaps this will be fixed in the Bass DLC coming this September.

Guitarcade

Guidarcade is an interesting take on teaching guitar students the basic rudimentary skills. Essentially, six of the most important guitar techniques (shifting, scales, tremolos, bends, chords and harmonics) are translated into seven 80-style arcade mini-games (Ducks and Super Ducks, Scale Runner, Quick Pick Dash, Big Swing Baseball, Super Slider, Dawn of the Chordead, and Harmonically Challenged). They're simple, they're fun, and they're effective at developing your skills ... with some exceptions.

Ducks and Super Ducks

Ducks and Super Ducks are essentially the same game. In both, you are presented with a fretboard and must time your notes to shot a duck as it flies away from a specific note position on the fretboard. The only difference between the two games is that Ducks is limited to the lowest (red) string whereas Super Ducks uses all six-strings. You score points quickly through speed and accuracy. The games work well in muscle memory so that you don't have to look on your fretboard in order to hit the correct note.

Scale Runner

Scale Runner takes the agonizing practice exercise of scales and pumps it up with some fun. To start, you chose your scale and your key and then play the notes on the guitar that match the coloured platforms coming towards you on the screen. If you take too long to find the right note, then your "scale runner" falls off the edge, costing you valuable time. This game is a lot of fun and teaches you more about the different scales and keys and how they work on your guitar. This is a great opportunity to learn more about music theory and why some notes tend to be grouped together on songs. Unfortunately, this is the only activity in the game that deals with this subject. It's a shame the developers didn't put in more modes like this to teach you how to read musical notation and to learn more about chord progressions.

Quick Pick Dash

Quick Pick Dash puts in charge of a space ostrich as he runs along six coloured paths. He can only run on the paths that are lighted and his speed with depend on how much you can tremolo the string. This is one of my favourites. The back beat (from the hidden song Space Ostrich) gets you pumped and the replenishing clock à la Outrun keeps you pushing forward. A great way to develop your tremolo skills.

Big Swing Baseball

Big Swing Baseball puts you in control of a hitter facing a pitcher. You are given three strikeouts to rake up as many points and hits as possible. As the pitcher winds up, you'll be given a fret, then a string. In some cases it'll be a regular note and other times it will ask you to bend your string. If you take too long or hit the wrong note, the batter will miss the pitch and you'll be awarded a strike. Time it right and you'll get a hit, maybe even a home run. Successive hits rake up your combo multiplier, making it easier to score high points. However, this game is extremely challenging. You have very little time to hit the right note and soon the game will ask you to move more around the fret board. But still pretty good.

Super Slider

A columns clone. You slide a falling block horizontal by sliding the note on your guitar. Match it with three of the same colour and the blocks will be eliminated. If you do it right, you can cause a cascading chain reaction. If you let the blocks reach the top of the screen however, the game is over. Fun and addictive.

Dawn of the Chordead

Easily my favourite. In Dawn of the Chordead, you have to hit the correct notes for the on-screen chord in order to shoot the approaching zombies. This is far and away the funnest mini games. The zombies are adorable but you'll racing to keep them at bay and learning chords at the same time. The only thing I don't like about this game is that it moves on to barre chords far too quickly and then does only barre chords. As much as I like practising barre chords, I felt I could have used more work on regular chords. The barre chord progression will also test your ability to handle pain in your fingers. Not perfect but extremely fun.

Harmonically Challenged

A clone of memory. You are presented with a ticking bomb and a growing list of harmonics that you must hit in the correct order. Personally, I think this game may be broken. I can't get more than three or four notes without the bomb blowing up and there's no feedback to tell me what I'm doing wrong. For that reason, my games are over almost instantly giving me almost new time in practicing my harmonics skills. I did find a suggestion online that states that you need to mute the string after each harmonic so that the game doesn't get confused. That might work but this is easily the worst game in the bunch. Frustrating and dull. It dissuades from practicing what it is a very difficult skill.

Perform

When you've qualified each song in your set list through successful rehearsals, you'll then have the option to play them back-to-back in an event. If you don't like the set list that the game gives you, then you edit it in "Event Manager". Reach the minimum points for the event, and you'll pass and get a boatload of points. Events are the fastest way to level up in Rocksmith. Whereas you can only score about 100,000 points rehearsing a song, you can score upwards of 400,000 points performing in an event. If you keep levelling a song up then you can play the same song multiple times to score maximum points. Typically during your career, you'll play the same song and arrangement multiple times as you work your way to level 11.If you score 120% of the minimum points needed to pass the event, then you'll be rewarded with an "encore" (an extra song) to allow to score even more points and a rare pedal for Amp Mode. If you hit more than 90% of the notes in this "encore" song, then you'll be rewarded with a "double encore" which opens up one of the six hidden songs in the game. The structure of the events is sound. It gives you a sense of the excitement surrounding a gig, uses the huge point boost as a carrot to encourage you forward and rewards you for excellent playing. Some reviewers have criticized the mode for its lacklustre presentation. While it's true that the presentation doesn't match the fun of Rock Band or Guitar Hero, I was never really bothered by that. Unlike those two games, Rocksmith is not a party game. It is a teaching game that will most likely be played alone. While it would great to have more graphical pyrotechnics, I wouldn't be able to watch them anyway as I'm usually concentrated on the notes flying towards me. The sparse presentation works for me as it minimizes unnecessary distractions.The real problem with the mode is that it's far too buggy, at least for the PS3. During my first career, I was blocked multiple times by the game freezing just after I finished certain songs. Removing the songs from my set list removed the problem momentarily but soon I was blocked by never-ending crashes. The only way I could find to progress was the erase all of the downloaded DLC from my hard drive. This was frustrating as I had paid $3 per song and I wasn't able to play them. I pushed through these problems and levelled up my character to level 11, finished all of the events, completed all of the challenges and received all of the guitars. It was only then that I learned of a more frustrating flaw.The "double encore" system for opening hidden songs essentially breaks down after 10 events. No matter how well you do on the encore song (if you can get one), the game will not reward you with a double-encore. The developers state that there is a 50% chance of getting a double encore with 90% note accuracy on the encore, but this doesn't stand up to practice. Even when repeating events with a master mode (scoring nearly a million points) and hitting 97% on the encore, the game would not reward me with a double encore. Essentially, I had gotten to the point where it was literally impossible to open up the hidden songs. Not because of my playing skill, but because a bug in the game locked out the content. This was extremely infuriating and absolutely terrible game design.After reviewing my options, I chose to back up my save file and start all over again. Starting from scratch with a much higher level of skill, I was able to open up the six hidden songs within seven events. Every time I failed, I quit the game and then practiced the encore song (if the event set list stays the same, then the encore song will remain the same). After three weeks of grinding, I finally opened up the last hidden song. It was not fun, but it was worth it as the songs are great. Now I'm grinding my way through the events again to level up my character. This will probably take me another month but soon I will have everything in the game opened up. But I should have never been forced down this route. The broken perform mode greatly reduced my enjoyment of the game and stands as a stark smear upon the final product. It should have never gone out of the door with bugs like this. I haven't seen a game this buggy since Fallout 3. At least in that game, you could just reload your save and you'd be fine. In Rocksmith, the bugs are repeatable, forcing you into some extreme choices to progress. I could work through small bugs but the bugs present in perform mode, perhaps the most important mode in the game, essentially break the game. In some cases, it becomes almost impossible to proceed or to open up all of the content on the disc. The developers should give their heads a shake. In response to this bug, the developers have committed to fixing the issues in the next update in September, but this is five to six months after the bugs have been identified. If a game-breaking bug is found in most games, then the development teams races to push out an update to fix it. In the case of Rocksmith, they have simply failed to react. Absolutely brutal.

But Will It Teach You to Play Guitar?

But despite these bugs, the game really works. For novices like myself, Rocksmith works extremely in teaching you guitar, despite what many of the reviews online say. The structure of the game is constantly pushing you forward with standard video game carrots (levels, unlockable objects, hidden songs, leaderboards, trophies) and slowly builds your guitar skills as it throws song after song at you. The thresholds for each event are usually just at the limit of your skills and if not, they will lower themselves accordingly. If I got stuck on a song, I wouldn't try to master it. I would just move on to something I could handle. This strategy worked extremely well with this game. I was constantly surprised when I returned to difficult songs 2 or 3 months later and found that I could easily increase my score by 20-30k points. While the game could use more instruction on subjects such as alternate picking, intuitive picking, hand placement and strumming rhythms, you'll find that  you'll just pick it up as you grew more and more comfortable playing the guitar. In my first five months, I must have gone through six or seven different pick grips until I finally found one that worked for me. Ironically, it was the one Rocksmith showed when I first started the game. You'll find that happening with all of your techniques. You'll learn how to do it one way, run into a problem with a song, learn how to do it in a better way and greatly develop your skill. More tutorials would be nice, but then again, that's what YouTube is for.In its update in March, Rocksmith made number of improvements, including increasing the number of lives in Riff Repeater from 5 to 30, but there is still a number of improvements I would like to see them make in future updates or sequels.

• More technique challenges.
• More tutorials on the finer details of playing guitars.
• More feedback on your playing technique. If you're constantly missing palm mutes, it should give you some tips on how to make it easier.
• The ability to switch between Free Speed, Leveler and Accelerator in Riff Repeater.
• Short audio clips for songs in the DLC shop so you know what the song sounds like before you buy it.
• More information about each arrangement (rhythm, bass, lead) on top of the single note-chord-combi triad. This would give players a better idea of what member in the band plays which arrangement.
• Add an awful missed note sound so that you can hear when you miss a note. At present, you have to watch the screen or a replay to figure out what you missed.
• Statistics. Lots of statistics. I would love to know how many hours (I estimate 300+) I have spend on the game, how accurate I've been, the time between levelling up. There is a real opportunity to give the player some great information about their development but unfortunately it's missing. I hope they add it for an update.

Conclusion

After over 300 hours, I can say confidently that I can play the guitar and for that Rocksmith is a huge success. It's just a shame that some of the poor design choices and some unacceptable bugs really drag on the experience. Rocksmith is a revolutionary game. It finally delivers on the promise of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, delivering a fun game that will actually teach you how to play. If you're interested in learning the guitar and can stomach some terrible bugs, then Rocksmith is the game for you. It's brilliant but buggy. Highly recommended.

Progression of Evermore Cover Art - Update

For those of you who have been following the progression of the cover art for Evermore: Call of the Nocturne, you'll be happy to know that Kevin Bae has been hard at work on developing the illustrations with my feedback. I have great sympathy for Kevin for he's had to endure me changing my mind so many times. Thanks to his patience, the cover art has really come a long way and looks more and more impressive by the day. If you remember from the previous post, Kevin had arrived at the general design of the front cover following a great deal of back and forth.

The first one is Kevin's first attempt at the back cover. In short, I was pretty happy with it. The white dress is consistent with the themes and symbolism present in the manuscript and is a nice contrast with the violent front cover as you will see later. Kevin later put it aside to focus on getting the front cover right. Once that was done, he will return to finish the back cover. All in all, it looks really cool. I can wait to see more of this now that we've establish the basic fundamentals of the front cover.The next image is Kevin's first major attempt at the front cover. If you compare it to the previous front cover, you'll see that a lot has changed. Blue has moved from a profile posture to a more angled and dramatic pose. Her hair is more maniac and she appears to be gripping her duster overcoat. While I understand what Kevin was doing, I didn't really like this image. There was something in the previous image, the sense of Blue glaring at the audience that I loved and that is missing here. I was a little worried to tell Kevin to go back to an older design because I knew how hard he had worked on it. However, I knew how much better the final product would look. Thankfully Kevin quickly made some adjustments and returned the image to the previous framing. It is quite extraordinary how quickly he works.The next image returns to the posture of the earlier drafts and adds a lot more details. This is just spectacular. Blue is glaring at the audience with her visage divided by two different colours: a raging red and a sickly green. The hair is distinctive yet still wild and the scar comes through very clearly. You can also see a hint of the duster overcoat which is a nice touch. The facial expression says it all. Blue glares at the audience with joyful malevolence, a characteristic that is pretty close to her actual character in the novel.I told Kevin that this was exactly what I was looking for. Earlier, we had discussed how her face could disintegrate into polygons to symbolize her losing her mind to the virtual world of Evermore. I was really excited to see how the concept would look in practice.Kevin went to work and produced the next draft. As you can see, he's add the "polygon wave" that connects the front and back covers. The image is really strong and you can see that the left side of Blue's face is disappearing into the "polygon wave". It's a neat effect but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I was looking to her face fall apart into polygons, not to gently transition into a waveform. I also noted that her mouth had a little bit too much grin to it. It reminded me somewhat of the Joker and I realized that it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Blue is a violent sociopath who rarely smiles. She would glare at the audience but never sneer or adopt a psychopath grin. She's more a violent force of nature. She gets pleasure from violence as it makes her feel more alive but it never rises into joy. I let Kevin know my thoughts and included some photos from the Internet to visually demonstrated the polygon disintegration effect that I was going for. Kevin promptly sent me three images: all iterations of the same theme.        As you can see, the curl in Blue's lip has been toned down, giving her the searing rage look that I was going for. In each of the three images, the polygon disintegration of Blue's face has been implemented but each in a different way. The first has the face disintegrating into large polygons that merge into the blue "polygon wave". The second is the same but with the addition of much smaller fragments. The third removes the blue "polygon wave" grid, leaving just the polygon splinters.Kevin preferred the first image as he thought the second was too busy. I found the third to missing that synthetic effect that the blue "polygon wave" suggests. Its presence is a reminder that Blue is connected to a virtual space and that the disintegration of her face suggests that she is losing her mind to the virtual world. So the third is out.I took the weekend to decide between the first and second image. Ultimately, I found that I preferred the second image. Like Kevin said, it is "busy", but it is also chaotic. It seems more violent and dangerous than the neater first image. It made me think that Blue had been shot by a shotgun. The violence of the image fits in well with the character while also suggesting that her violent approach to life will be her undoing. "Live by the sword, die by the sword", so to speak. It is also very eye-catching, an necessary trait when most people will decide to buy your book based on the cover art (especially in an Amazon e-book world). In short, I simply found the second image more intriguing and an excellent fit for the story.So there you have it. After many months of work by poor Kevin, the front cover is ready to go. Now he'll return to work on the back cover and integrate it into the final version of the front cover. This project, though expensive and time-consuming, is really starting to pay dividends. Thanks to Kevin Bae, Evermore: Call of the Nocturne will have a provocative, eye-catching cover that fits in well with the themes and elements of the story. The next stop will be to take the cover art illustrations and get them to Jordan Knoll to design the final cover. I'll get back to you when I have the final versions. 

A Game of Thrones Book Review

After hearing so much about the Game of Thrones television show and the numerous media (such as Skyrim) that cite it as a reference, I decided to finally tackle the massive A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. After plowing my way through the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, it is pretty clear that I am hooked on the series. By what really struck me was the similarities between it and the recent book I reviewed, Spook Country by William Gibson.Even though they both use multiple perspectives to tell their stories, I found that my enjoyment of the two books was completely different. Spook Country left me flat while A Game of Thrones drew me in and seduced me into reading further. But why were they so different? What did George R.R. Martin do right that William Gibson did wrong. Because of this conundrum, I decided to do a comparison of the two books rather than a straight-forward review of A Game of Thrones. I hope that by doing so, we might identify some of the general storytelling fundamentals in play.Let's start with their one major similarity: multiple perspectives.Multiple perspectivesBoth A Game of Thrones and Spook Country tell their stories through a third person limited narrative. In short, the narrative focuses on the perspective of a single character, but does not take the voice of this character. The reader is limited to the viewpoint of a single character but the text is written in the third person. This is a fairly standard narrative style, especially in mysteries, as the reader is limited to the knowledge of the protagonist, and thus must follow him or her as they unravel the plot, enhancing the tension. However, what makes both A Game of Thrones and Spook Country so unique in this narrative structure is that the story follows a different character in each chapter. To use the example of A Game of Thrones, the story may follow the perspective of Tyrion Lannister in one chapter and Eddard Stark in the next. Spook Country limits this perspective to three characters while A Game of Thrones changes to whichever character strikes Martin's fancy. The end result is quite different. Whereas Spook Country is relatively dull with stilted, uninteresting characters (with the possible exception of Tito), A Game of Thrones sucks you into the characters lives and involves you intensely with the life and death struggles. Does this mean that the characters of A Game of Thrones are more or distinctively. No, not really. I don't think its the characters themselves that make them so compelling. It's how Martin sets up their stories, creating a sense of ....... AnticipationLet's take a look at some of the characters in A Game of Thrones. WARNING: This section does contain stories.Bran StarkFormerly a strong climber, Bran is crippled when he thrown off a tower by Jaime Lannister for spotting him cavorting with his sister, and Queen, Cersei Lannister. Now a paraplegic, Bran try to find a way to make himself useful to a world that worships men of war. To get around, Bran gets around by riding on the back of Hordor, a slow-witted half-giant. Will he ride Hodor into battle and turn the tide?Tyrion LannisterA dwarf disrespected by everyone, especially his own snooty family, Tyrion gets by on his wits while holding fast to a personal code of honour that far exceeds those of the rest of his family. Will he overcome society's prejudices to find the glory and victory he so rightly deserves?Daenerys TargaryenAlong with her brother, the only two surviving offspring of the former King of the Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys sacrifices greatly for survival, including being married of by her brother, losing her husband and daughter, and her place in Dothraki society. Isolated and alone, she takes her three dragon (which have extinct for centuries) eggs into a pyre and watches as they hatch and bond to her as their mother. Will she lead her dragon children into an assault on the Seven Kingdoms to retake Iron Throne?Eddard StarkReluctantly taking on the responsibility of the King's Hand, Eddard must unravel the mysteries of the attack on his son Bran and the death of the former Hand, Jon Arryn. Will he unravel the mystery or will he fall in the game of thrones.Jon SnowThe bastard son of Eddard Stark, Jon Snow volunteers to serve on the wall to find some place of honour in a world that has none for bastards. Amongst his rag-tag group of ruffians, will he overcome his station to protect the Seven Kingdoms from the unknown threats to the north?Arya StarkA tomboy, Arya is more interested in learning to fight with a sword than the courtly manners of her sister Sansa.  Reluctantly, her failure allows her to be trained by a cunning, yet eccentric sword master. Will she one day grow up to command respect as a warrior, not just as a prospective bride?As you can see in each of the cases, I am filling in the story far off into the future while Martin is still introducing me to them. By setting up most of the characters as weak, unloved, ignored or disrespected, he is giving me an opportunity to fill in the story with how I want things to turn out. We all love underdog characters. We want to see them overcome their challenges and find the respect of their peers because we face these same sorts of struggles day in and day. George R.R. Martin fills A Game of Thrones with underdogs and that is why I have to keep reading. I have to find out what happens to them.In Spook Country, we have a former rock star, a drug addict and a superhuman parkour specialist. They're unique but they're not really underdogs. They don't feel overwhelmed or at risk in the world in which they find themselves. Even at the end when Hollis is captures, the tension is immediately diffused by the secret underworld character asking her to be a witness to their operations. There is simply little sense of danger and even less sense of overcoming the odds.SympathyAnother way in which Martin uses the multiple perspectives well is building sympathy for characters who later perish. When you are in close promixity  in someone's shoes, you feel greater sense of loss when they are gone. It's the reasons that we mourn for family and friends but not for complete strangers. We can react with horror and sadness but its far more abstract then when it's someone you know personally. In the case of A Game of Thrones, we are introduced to a couple of characters who later perish. Walking in their faces, we gain a measure of sympathy for them that makes their later deaths, seen from another character's perspective, that much more powerful. It also makes the world feel like a far more dangerous place. In Spook Country, nobody dies. It brings me to my final point when comparing the two novels.Raising the StakesIn A Game of Thrones, the stakes are huge and growing with each passing chapter. People die, the land is plagued by war and atrocities, and new threats can be sensed over the horizon, across the war and beyond the sea. In Martin's opening book, characters are fighting for their future, Kings are fighting for kingdoms, and humanity in general is fighting for its survival. The growing sense of threat and danger ramp up the tension, pulling us forward and deeper into the book anxious to see what happens next. In the case of Spook Country, danger is muted. Nobody really seems in trouble. Nobody is killed and threats go unfilled. Even the central mystery falls flat, rather than the MacGuffan threatening humanity or even an individual, it comes off instead as post-modern joke. It may be clever or interesting but as a storytelling device, it falls flat. In A Game of Thrones, stakes are simpler, more menacing and easier to feel. The story greater benefits as a result.In short, A Game of Thrones is an excellent fantasy novel that I can't recommend highly enough. It will grab you and never let you go. I hope that by comparing it to Spook Country I've been able to show why it's so effective and how it can serve as a template for aspiring authors. I'm well into the second book of the series, A Clash of Kings, and it's still going strong.

Spook Country Book Review

Among other activities, one of the great things about my recent vacation was the opportunity to sit down on a summer afternoon and catch up on one of the many e-books that I had bought but never finished. Spook Country was one of those novels. I had bought it about a year and made a valiant attempt to read it, but I lost interest in its constantly changing perspectives and gave up.Have finally read it a year later, which necessitated re-reading the earlier chapters, I am finally ready to render a verdict:Skip it.William Gibson is an excellent writer. His work preceded and predicted many of the elements of the information age. He has this unique ability to look into the future and see where we as a species are going. Spook Country is no different. We are introduced to concepts such as augmented reality, which is only now coming to effect in the real world, five years after the publication of Gibson's novel.That said, the look into the now present is not enough to save the story from its own lack of momentum. For the most part, the story is a mystery that when revealed is a little anti-climatic. There's a lot of build-up but not a strong climax, rather a petering out.Gibson uses a unique tactic of switching the narrative voice between several characters but it fails here because none of the characters are really that interesting. The most interesting character is Tito due to his religious beliefs that combine spirituality and physicality in a way that I've never seen before. But the perspective switching doesn't really build momentum in the story as you don't really get too interested in what happens to these people. For a better example of how to use multiple perspectives, I would recommend A Game of Thrones. I'm only 25% through the novel, but I can't wait to see what happens to at least five or six of its characters. But I'll save that for another review.Even though this is a negative review, I can't help but point an amazing sequence in the middle of book. Tito is tasked to meet with one of his associates while expecting to be chased down by the authorities. His goal is to make sure that the authorities capture a usb stick without capturing him. Over a sequence of several chapters, we watch Tito and one of his adversaries prepare for this confrontation. It is nothing short of exhilarating. The preparations build a real sense of excitement and bring momentum to the story. When the confrontation carries itself out, you know what the plan so it's easy to get caught up in the chase. The whole sequence works really well and is a fine example of how to build up to an action set piece.Even though that sequence was amazing, Gibson is not able to maintain the momentum. The story slows down until we are left with a very quiet anti-climax and a rather un-satisfying conclusion to each of the character's individual story arcs.In short, I wouldn't recommend it. Instead you should read Neuromancer. It's a little difficult to read and understand but you'll be surprised by the words that Gibson creates (in the early 80's) that we still use today.

The Hunger Games Book Review - SPOILERS

I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games before I went on vacation but didn't have time to write a book review before I left. Considering that the film adaptation has just made a gazillion dollars, it seems as good a time as ready to give my thoughts on the book.First, a short summary. The Hunger Games follows a young protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to represent her district in the annual deathmatch/reality show known as the Hunger Games in order to save her sister, who had been drawn at random. There she fits for survival against 23 other competitors from all 12 districts, including Peeta, the baker's son from her district who she is pretending/actually falling in love with. I know that there's a lot more details such as the pageantry, social-political commentary, and palace intrigue, but that's the basic story. Simple, straight-forward, easy-to-understand. Good stuff.This ground has been well-trodden before with Arnold Swartzeneggar's The Running Man (which I love) and the Japanese  Battle Royale (which I've never seen). It's not the most original material but it hasn't yet been done to death.So, aside from the unoriginal premise, how was the book?Pretty good in fact.While Suzanne Collins is not going to be confused with J.K. Rowling (who I can't read without staying up all night), she does keep the story interesting and the pace brisk. The language is kept simple and easy-to-understand, allowing you to concentrate on the story and not the prose. The characters, while somewhat stock, are likeable and draw you into rooting for them (especially Rue). The only real problems that I had with the story was that romance between Peet and Katniss seemed a bit forced (maybe intentional considering that they also pretending to be in love) and drags on too long in the third act of the novel. Near the end, we are greeted with around 50 pages of the finally re-united pair resting in the woods and mending their wounds while they grow more and more twitterpated. Given the good pace that Collins had maintained throughout the rest of the novel, this break really breaks the tension just when it should be rising to a crescendo. But it ends strong and sets up some interesting conflicts for the next book.So should you read it?Yeah sure. It's not Lord of the Rings but it is fun and enjoyable because it is well-executive. Give it a shot.However, that does not say that it's perfect. There is a couple of things that bugged me as I was reading.The first, is that Katniss does really kill too many people. If my math is correct, she only kills two people directly. The rest are killed by others or inadvertently by actions that Katniss takes. If you include her dropping the tracker jackers on the other tributes, then that makes four. It's an interesting choice in that it helps preserve her innocence (she kills only when necessary and only the "bad" characters) but it also makes her a bit of a spectator for most of the games. I would have loved to see her hunt the other tributes more directly (the "bad" ones of course) in order to show off her superior archery and tracking skills.The second thing that bugs me is the tracker jacker incident. It seems a bit too Deus ex machima for me. Poor Katniss gets treed by the allied tributes and then is saved by a tracker jacket nest that just happens to be there. To this point, we had never heard about tracker jackets (unless I missed something, comments please) until they are needed. It would have been better had we been introduced to them much earlier, say when Gale and Katniss are hunting. This would have given Gale an opportunity to explain what they are to Katniss (and by extension the reader) while setting it up for use later on in the Hunger Games.But those quibbles are relatively minor in the broader context. The Hunger Games is a good read that won't take you long. Go out and enjoy it.PS - Rue is by far my favourite character.

Suicide is a Tax Write-Off Now Available on Kindle and Lulu

As a dry run to prepare for the publication of Evermore: Call of the Nocturne as well as a way to promote it, I have made one of my short stories, Suicide is a Tax Write-Off, available for download on the Kindle Store and on Lulu.com. While my goal was to give away the short story for free, the Kindle Store mandates a minimum price of $0.99. However, the short story is free on Lulu and will also be free on the iBookstore when it passes through the approval process. Much to my surprise, the publication process with both Lulu and Kindle was easier than I thought. All I needed was:

1. The .epub version of the manuscript.
2. An ISBN
3. A short description of the book

That's it really. It took less than a couple of hours to set everything up and the book was on the store within a couple of hours. I had plenty of time to play around creating my Kindle Author page, although that made me realize that I need to get a better picture of myself. The process to get it on the iBookstore (via Lulu) takes a little bit longer because it needs to be reviewed by both Apple and Lulu. In short, the process was short, easy to understand and easy to do. I can't wait to repeat the process with Evermore: Call of the Nocturne. Anyway, I hope that you all like the short story and that it wets your appetite for more. I'll have more posts soon walking you through the publication process. Have a great night.

Progression of Evermore Cover Art

In order to help E:COTN set itself apart on digital bookstores, I've hired an illustrator to draw the cover art for the novel. Thankfully, Jordan Knoll, who did the cover design for Suicide is a Tax Write-Off, recommended Kevin Bae from Toronto. His highly expressionistic art-work seemed to be a pretty good fit for Evermore's imagined world.So after some preliminary discussions, he started working on short form bookmarks while we worked out the contract details. After a short period of time, he sent me his first two ideas.The first image on the left is Blue who, while not the protagonist, is nonetheless the most iconic character in the book. This first image is a simple profile shot of the character with shadow on the left slightly concealing her scar. My biggest concern with this image was that the scar was not nearly grotesque enough and a simple profile shot isn't enough to catch a prospective readers attention. We needed more.The second image on the right goes in a completely different direction. Highlighting three different areas of Evermore in the spheres and the three distinct parts of Blue's subconscious (id, ego, super-ego), the second image was interesting but we both found that it was too complicated and abstract. A reader looking at it would have no idea what the novel is about or its major themes.With my feedback and further discussions, Kevin came back with a third image.Kevin found the geometric dimensions of Market Square to be quite fascinating, so he devised its structure in more detail. At the bottom left of the image you will find his idea of what the cover page would look. Much simplified, the cover illustration sets out an interesting outline and draws the eye. However, it is still a little too abstract. At this point, the reader is not going to know anything about Evermore. Thus, he will be unable to discern that the geometric shapes are supposed to represent a meta-physical place inside the virtual world.Kevin went back to the drawing board and completed a fourth image that you can see on the left. The image is profile shot of Blue but her face is disintegrating into polygons. I found that I loved this idea as soon as it was suggested. It's simple, focuses on the most interesting features of a major character and it symbolizes powerful one of the major themes of the novel: the loss of self in a virtual world. Her face falling into polygons represented how Blue was slowing losing her mind inside the virtual world of Evermore. I loved the idea. It seemed to say so much while showing so little.However, this is where we also got off track. When Kevin asked if I loved the tessellations, I thought that he was referring to the polygons and said yes. In case you're wondering, polygons are single-side geometric shapes that are used to create three dimensional models, tessellations are images that mirror one another. They are completely different yet I didn't seem to notice until the next image, seen on the right, arrived.As you can see, the fifth image is getting more detailed. Blue is looking over her shoulder to something menacing approaching. The skin detail is extraordinary yet I didn't like the calligraphy blocking the rest of her body or the tessellations. Kevin stated that the calligraphy was a stand-in for her hair and duster jacket. That was fine but the tessellations were a sticking point.We arranged a phone meeting which gave us a chance to get on the same page about what we were looking for visually. It was probably something that we should have done earlier in that it made it far easier and quicker to get across my ideas. It also gave me a chance to give Kevin the short five-minute version of the story (as there's not enough time for him to read the manuscript) so he would have a better idea about what happens and the visual themes that he could take advantage. It was also here that I decided to expand our contract so that Kevin would create both the front and back page of the cover. I felt that since I had spent so much time and energy on this novel, I might as well get both front and back covers created just in case I decided to offer a print version sometime in the future. Kevin was excited as this would give me more space with which to work.Kevin's next image was much closer to what I was looking for. The image is startling. The use of colour and light is gloomy yet provocative. The main imagery is in place with only the details to work out. As you can see, the main image of the Blue disintegrates into pieces that continue on to the back cover. Great design. The only real problem that I had with it was that the facial expression. Blue looked like she was about to fall asleep where normally she would wear a continually expression of repressed rage.Kevin kept at it and produced the seventh image that you can see on the left. You can definitely see the physical features of Blue coming together. Her menace is there but not yet apparent as it is still an earlier image. The colour contrast is interesting and I love the beam of Blue light on the backside of the cover. The only problem that I had was that the polygons have become pyramids. This gave me an opportunity to touch base with Kevin to make sure that we were on the same page. I wanted single-side polygons because their synthetic nature highlights the virtual world that is tearing Blue apart.With that in mind, Kevin kept working and produced image number eight on the right. The minute I saw it, I know that he had nailed the facial expression of Blue. This is exactly how she would like if her mind was being pulled to pieces. She would be pissed, looking for somebody to hurt. We were definitely getting closer. For the last couple of images, Kevin had been working on having her mind disintegrate first into key objects from the virtual world of Evermore before they disintegrated further into simple polygons. You can see this idea beginning to come into fruition here. My only person is that polygons are a little flat. At the end, the polygons should look like they're spinning in empty space.Following my feedback, Kevin went and created the ninth image, which you can see on the left. While still early, you can definitely see the structure coming together. It has that great whoosh of light going off to the left, the facial expression is maintained and the polygons, while still flat, look appropriately synthetic. Kevin also added red lighting on the right to replace her anger and yellow lighting on the left. At this point, the basic structure of the is complete. Now Kevin will find-tune it with my feedback, make a connected design for the back cover, and start adding in the fine details.At this point, the cover art is well on its way and in very capable hands. I am really excited about how it's going and I hope you all really like it. As Kevin creates new versions, I'll upload them to the website so you can check them out. All in all, it's been a really cool process to go through with Kevin and I can wait to see how it turns out. For the serious self-publisher, I would highly recommend it. In a new world where anybody can publish, you have to look for every edge to stand apart. Cover art is a great place to start.