Dragon Age is obviously BioWare’s attempt to create a new fantasy game franchise that’s entirely owned by them and not bound to any licence, in the same way as Mass Effect is their original science-fiction franchise. They’ve been working on it and hyping it for some time, and clearly are treating this as one of their big prestige projects. Unfortunately, looking at what they’ve produced… Well, I’m still eagerly awaiting Mass Effect 2, but I suspect I’ll be skipping the next game in this series.

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Saw a poster for the new uncanny valley inducing Christmas Carol movie, which baffles me both because it looks utterly horrifying, but also because do we really need another Christmas Carol movie? The definitive version was the Muppet version, and I don't see anyone improving on it any time soon.

And that reminded me of one of my recurring brilliant ideas: There should be Muppet versions of every movie! It should be like how in classical Athens, you had to write a Satyr play to be performed alongside a tragedy, if you make a movie you should have to also write a Muppet version of it!

After working myself into a fever over honors applications and trying to work out why I kept getting automated rejections every time I applied for a post-graduate study unit, I actually looked at my academic history record... and realised I still haven't completed enough units to finish my undergraduate degree.

I guess that makes working out what to do with myself next year a lot easier...

I stopped reading Star Trek novels a while back, when they seemed to abandon standalone stories in favour of an increasingly byzantine continuity with seemingly endless crossovers and a galaxy spanning crisis every other month. I’d heard they’d killed off Captain Janeway a while back, but I’d largely forgotten about it until jedinic mentioned it in passing a few days ago. In the interests of getting some idea just what the hell’s been going on since I stopped reading, I thought I’d track down a copy of the relevant book myself – Peter David’s 'Before Dishonour', and see how her death was handled.

Well, I guess the debate must have gotten pretty heated for someone opposed to the laws to bring up Hitler-


Huh. Did he... Was he... Wait, what? He's arguing in favor of the laws by saying that passing them will make the WA Liberals like Hitler? That's a... creative choice of examples.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted in a while, it’s because I’ve been having a shit of a few weeks.

( Personal rant things behind... )

Not that I'm a fan of more Americanisation of our culture, but I always kind of wish Halloween had taken off a bit more here. Not for its own sake, just because hopefully an easily merchandisable holiday around this time of year would at least delay the Christmas decorations and music going up until, say, mid-November...

Why is Christmas unique among major holidays for having god-awful music, anyway? "Away in a Manger" alone is enought to make me avoid public places for the last quarter of the year.

Is it wrong that my first reaction to seeing people complain about Hulu going to a subscription model is to laugh at their disapointment?

Perhaps if their content had ever been viewable outside the US, I'd feel differently...

It’s been a while since I actually visited a site hosted on Geocities, but I still feel kind of sad that it’s gone. Granted, the sites on it were generally crap, filled with animated gifs, under construction signs and inexplicable lists of people’s CD collections – still, at the time it was really exciting to be able to set up your own website, put your own content out there where anyone could see it – even if the chances of anyone actually stumbling across it was slim to none.

I first used my username to set up a geocities account – admittedly, I never really got around to making a site and mainly used the account to just store images I wanted to link to on message boards. Still, just having the option of being able to create a free website was something that really brought home the potential of the web – which, at the time, was still struggling to justify its existence in the public mind.

I remember reading someone pointing out that the 1990s and twenty-first century could become something of a dark age for future historians; sure, everything’s being recorded somewhere online, but how long is any of it going to last? Geocities being shut down just brings home the ephemeral nature of content on the web; granted, maybe there’s not much value in preserving ten thousand ‘Joe’s Cool Site’ award gifs and non-functional webrings – still, it’s a whole section of online history that’s gone now, and I can’t help feeling that’s something of a shame.

Well, this was a nice change from the general low quality of the first three Dell B5 novels. I suspect Clarke’s Law was the first of the novels to be written by someone who had actually seen episodes of the series, and it references the existing continuity very well. The story is clearly set in the wake of the fall of the Narn homeworld, and there are references to plenty of other episodes from the end of season two – a brief appearance by Lyta Alexander, a mention of Dr. Franklin still being haunted by the recent death of the Markab, a Vir storyline that’s clearly intended to follow on directly from his attempt to apologise to G’Kar. It’s a welcome change from the earlier novels, which were all rather awkwardly placed in points in the show’s timeline the authors were clearly unfamiliar with.

To summarise the plot, leaving out a lot of subplots and minor details – A recently arrived alien delegate has murdered a human while in a maddened state. President Clark recently reintroduced the death penalty for murder, and, of course, doesn’t want to look weak on crime or to let an alien get away with murdering a human. The problem is the alien first wasn’t in her right mind when she killed the human, and has since suffered brain damage due to vacuum exposure, and cannot be considered responsible – indeed, her own people now consider her to be a new individual. Sheridan tries to prevent the execution while avoiding openly opposing Clark, eventually faking the alien’s execution. The apparent failure of the courts to prevent the execution of an innocent leads to a riot on the station between anti-death penalty and anti-alien mobs in which several people die, while the demonstration of the new tough on crime policy shores up Clark’s position on Earth.

There’s some interesting characterisation of Sheridan here. I suspect this is the first novel written by an author familiar with the character, so that on its own is nice. But specifically, I think the author is taking his cues largely from “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum”, which portrays Sheridan as a far more ambiguous figure than most of the rest of the show – and to me, as a more interesting character. The Sheridan shown here is someone disgusted with his government, with his situation – and also a little disgusted with himself, with what he has to do while walking the tightrope of avoiding direct confrontation with Clark or the Shadows while still trying to work against them. There’s also the subtle theme that Sheridan could be susceptible to Shadow influence under the right circumstances, that he's someone who won’t necessarily do the honest thing first off, but will instead try to manipulate and use people to get what he thinks is right. It’s a very interesting take on the character, and I think it does work in the story, and I think the tension between Sheridan’s obvious frustrations with having to solve problems using the same covert manipulative style as Clarke and his apparent willingness to still grit his teeth and do such things, even knowing there could be unexpected fallout on innocents, is one of the real strengths of the novel.

There are weaknesses in the story, though, particularly in the portrayals of G’Kar and Londo. Londo is a little too much of a straight villain here, lacking any of the complexity or internal conflict that he has on the show. Here, we have Londo casually contacting Morden to have G’Kar killed as part of a complicated plan that is not only out of character, but doesn’t seem to make much sense on its own either. It’s nice to see an author that’s noticed that Londo has moved beyond the simple comic relief role of early season one by this point in the series, but here it’s taken too far to the other extreme.

G’Kar meanwhile… well, the alien delegation in this story? They’re from one of the worlds conquered by the Narn regime, who only managed to regain independence after the fall of the Narn homeworld, and they’re on the station looking for foreign help in repairing the damage caused by the Narn occupation. That’s all well and good, and it’s nice to see consequences of the collapse of Narn power. The problem is that the book also includes a flashback to the conquest of the alien homeworld – a conquest in which G’Kar led the Narn forces, destroying their capital from orbit before landing and blaming the devastation on the Centauri, tricking the aliens into allying with Narn, an alliance that would result in a generation of brutal enslavement. Now, sure, G’Kar’s probably got a few skeletons in his closet – but portraying him as someone guilty of crimes as great or greater than Londo’s and portraying the Narn Regime as literally just as bad as the Centauri… no, that just plain doesn’t work with the characters portrayed on screen.

That’s really the problem with the novel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a real cut above what’s come before (damning with faint praise), well written with interesting ideas and some interesting examinations of aspects of the series and characters left untouched by the show itself. On the other hand, that makes the occasional missteps just that much more glaring. Not just when it comes to characterisation, either – the book’s generally very good with series continuity and bringing in minor characters, but then there’s a couple of inexplicable errors, like asserting that Lyta is deaf or that the Centauri Emperor is called “Narleeth Jarn”. Even more bizarre is a minor character introduced in the prologue who returns in an epilogue… and for some reason now has a completely different name. I’m beginning to think these books didn’t just not have a good editor – I’m thinking they didn’t have one at all.

So, the KotOR 2 Restored Content mod came out a while back, and I’ve finally had a chance to play through the game with it installed. It’s well worth checking out – there’s a few bugs here and there, but it adds back in a lot of stuff that was cut from the game before release. Most significantly, it adds in the HK-50 Droid Factory and as a result the confrontation between Goto and the Remote now actually has a conclusion. There’s also now a lot more bits of dialogue on Malachor V that make the end game feel… well, less unfinished. Plus there are a fair number of other little bits added to the rest of the game.

Of course, it’s still not perfect – the mod team have done a great job, but they’re limited by what resources they have, and a lot of the ‘missing’ content just didn’t exist in the first place. The game was really rushed out the door, and I’m not sure if the designers had ever worked out how the final sections of the game were meant to work. As it is, even with everything added back in, the last few areas of the game are still obviously unfinished compared to, say, the Nar Shadaar section.

Then again, I’ve always felt the increasingly unfinished feel of the game from the return to Dantooine onwards actually sort of works in terms of the story. The game’s story is essentially entirely the relationship between Kreia and the Exile, and it seems to me unintientionally inappropriate that once Kreia leaves the party, the next few sections of the game are so brief and seem so disjointed – defeating Nihilus doesn’t matter, saving the Repubic doesn’t matter to the Exile any more, they’re just delays on the way to confronting Kreia one last time. The tragedy, of course, is that the Exile and Kreia can never face one another as equals, only as deceiver and deceived, betrayer and betrayed… and in the end, as slayer and slain.

Random observation: I’ve always thought it odd that the official position is that Revan was male and returned to the light side, when KotOR 2 by default assumes the opposite on both. Certainly, KotOR 2’s storyline with the Jedi dead and the Republic on the edge of collapse make far more sense if you assume the first game ended with the Dark Side ending. Revan’s gender has les s impact, though if you have her as a woman, there are some lines of dialogue in the sequel that due to the ambiguity of pronouns could be referring to either Revan or Kreia, which I find adds a little interest to things.

Ah, nothing like a good old-fasioned Halloween Bible-Burning to encourage people to join your church!

Are there any other translations of the Bible that attract fundamentalists in the same way as the King James? I can understand why people would choose to elevate the KJV above all other translations - it's got the authoritative weight of being old along with the more important weight of sounding very old - but you think occassionally you'd hear about crackpots that have developed an obsession with some other version. Is there, for example, a specific German translation that tends to be at the centre of nutty interpretations?

Three books in to the Dell series, and we’re already seeing the same author again. I realise media tie-in novels aren’t that prestigious, but surely it’s not that hard to scrounge up three different authors?

( On the plus side, Vornholt's writing has improved somewhat... )

Handy hint: The opportunity to take a unit on the history of witchcraft should not be passed up. Not only is it a facinating area, but it also gives you one of the few legtimate excuses to use the phrases "malevolent sorcery", "the infamous Maleus Maleficarum" AND "blasphemous parody" all in the one essay!

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Seriously, what has he done to earn the honour? "Extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"? What efforts? I mean, yes, he's made some nice speeches here and there, and he's not actively hindering diplomacy like his predesessor - but nothing I'd class as 'extraordinary', and his primary focus seems to have been on domestic issues.

I mean, alright, I've never been onboard with the Obama hype, but please, can anyone point to something he's done that justifies this award?

(My choice? I was betting on Morgan Tsvangirai)

So, it turns out blackface is offensive. Who knew? Well, presumably Channel Nine should have, considering they got in shit over Sam Newman appearing in blackface ten years ago... but, hey, maybe they thought, sure, one person in blackface is offensive but a whole bunch of people is fine. Who knows?

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, currently in the US, has the unenviable job of answering questions about the act. What does she have to say?
Well, that's good to hear. I'm sure she'll-


This must be some new definition of 'repudiate' I'm not familiar with.

Theory: All train doors should always be at least three-quarters closed, so you can feel like Superman when you force them open to get on. I think this would add a lot of satisfaction to most people's daily commute.

A few comments on the cover: this book’s cover features G’Kar as Sir Not Appearing in this Novel. Giving you an idea as to how rushed out the door the first lot of B5 novels were – the covers were commissioned completely independently of the books. Then again, G’Kar had prominent appearances on practically all B5 material at this time regardless of his actual role, presumably because he’s more interesting looking that, say, Londo. I remember specifically the video cassette of “Voice in the Wilderness” featured him prominently on the cover, with his cranium being superimposed over the curve of the planet Epsilon 3, despite him not actually being in the episode.

I’m also feeling it’s unnecessary to have the big Babylon 5 logo, and then have a red sign saying “Based on the hit TV series!” And then, just in case you weren’t clear on things, adding “Based on the series by J. Michael Straczynski”. I guess Dell were really hoping they’d be able to churn these out the same way Pocket Books does Star Trek novels. The big “Book #2” is also kind of amusing, considering not only do the Dell books not reference each other, they’re not particuarly in order relative to the series either.

Like “Voices”, the book is largely a murder investigation with the central character being Garibaldi – an understandable choice. As the everyman Garibaldi’s the easiest character to write for - especially if you’ve got no idea where the series might be heading - and a murder mystery’s a nicely generic plot that can fit into any setting with little work. There’s some attempts at continuity – linking the first season raider attacks to the unrest on Mars, and some references to corruption among the upper echelons of the Earth military – which ends up tying in rather nicely to season two’s conspiracy storylines. The writing’s certainly a lot more polished than Vornholt’s novel (Among other flaws, he tends to overuse exclamation points! This can get very irritating to read!), and in general this book feels a lot less rushed.

There is one major flaw, and that’s the characterisation of Sheridan. “Voices” largely kept the captain in the background, with much of the resolution of the story taking place on Earth. “Accusations” takes place entirely on B5, yet Sheridan’s just as ineffectual and irrelevant. At one point, Ivanova’s been accused of murder and treason and is likely to be forced out of her position even if exonerated. Sheridan’s response? To quite literally sit back and muse “What a shame.”

There’s a few token references to the Narn-Centauri war, indicating this is meant to take place after “The Coming of Shadows”, but I suspect that this novel was actually written long before then, before the second season started airing. If the author had never actually seen an episode with Sheridan and had no idea what he was meant to be like, it would explain why she keeps him so much in the background and never has him do anything. Still, you’d think even writing him as a generic action hero character would be a better choice than as the ineffectual non-entity shown here!

Oddly, in a rather blatant example of an editing error, Sheridan is referred to as Sinclair for about two pages half way through the book, implying this book was originally written during season one, then hastily ‘updated’; in which case Sheridan’s characterisation is even odder – the character presented here sure as hell isn’t Sinclair either.

The main problem with these early B5 novels is how restrained they are. I assumed the authors were told most of the interesting elements of the setting (the alien cultures, for example) were off-limits, but stories dealing with the human military isn’t exactly focusing on what was interesting about the series.

Can anyone point me towards any good articles on race in fantasy literature? Got an essay due, and could always use a few more sources...

Over at the b5_revisited community, the Centauri trilogy of novels came up in a recent discussion, and it reminded me that I haven’t re-read any of the B5 novels I own in a while. That’s understandable, most of them aren’t very good – still, I thought I’d dig them out and give them a look once again.

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