Okay, this trailer for the 2007 Beowulf movie looks pretty cool. I have no idea what they’ve done to the story. I mean, I saw Grendel in there, and the dragon. And I can guess at which actors are playing which characters.
But this is something very, very different from the original poem.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The poem is, like, 1500 years old. They’re allowed to make updates and play with a classic. And if Neil Gaiman had something to do with the adaptation—which he did—it will probably be a spectacular film.
But also a strange one.
July 27th, 2007
More than twenty years ago, Orson Scott Card published Ender’s Game, so why am I reviewing it now? Well, partly because, after twenty years, I suspect that some few newer fans of science fiction may actually not have encountered the book yet. But I have a better reason.
Ender’s Game is the best science-fiction novel focused on games and gaming that has ever been written.
The book isn’t just about games, which is part of why it succeeds. It recounts the experiences of Andrew Wiggin, who goes by “Ender.” Only six years old, he’s taken to a Battle School in orbit around Earth to train for an officer’s position in the International Fleet, the united interstellar army dedicated to defending humanity from the hostile insectoid aliens known as Buggers.
Games serve as a primary means of education in the book. Students spend their free time playing video games in a shared arcade or on their own “desks”—effectively, networked laptops. All the games, apparently, teach small lessons in strategy, tactics, and even more academic subjects. Card gives us just enough detail about the video games that we can imagine them as fun and innovative, even after twenty years of innovative game development have elapsed.
The book focuses especially on a zero-G battle simulation game that is the obsession of all the students. Divided into armies, the students vie with one another to achieve top rankings in various categories. Naturally, Ender performs exceptionally well.
But the game sounds damn fun. Card believably explores the physics of the game, imagining what would and would not work in such detail that you can almost feel the thrill of tactical combat. Someone could easily use the book to make a top-notch video game today. Almost all the design work is already done within the pages of the book.
I’m not much of an athlete (and I never want to be a soldier), but if I had the chance to participate in a zero-G game of human pseudo-soccer with guaranteed non-lethal guns and suits that freeze when they’re hit, I wouldn’t hesitate.
Games even influence Ender’s psychological growth. A vivid fantasy roleplaying game effectively serves as Ender’s personal psychiatrist, though he doesn’t realize it. And although the book came out well before MMOs had grown into their own, this psych program has surprising multiplayer dimensions. But that’s part of one of the book’s big twists, so I don’t want to go into detail.
The story itself is compelling enough that I’ve managed to convince many readers who dismiss science fiction as “kids stuff” that some of it is damn fine literature. Indeed, Ender’s Game has everything such readers fear: laser guns, bug-like aliens, spaceships, and more.
But it also has real heart. Card gives Ender, his classmates, his family back home, and his instructors real stories. Not one comes off as a two-dimensional villain, and the heroes carefully examine their own motivations, not taking their successes for granted for even a moment.
Card also engagingly tackles tough philosophical issues surrounding war. It presents a “just” war, but doesn’t shy away from the fact that war is awful and that even a just war is barely just. As does Ender, the book struggles to find new ways to solve problems, new resolutions to age-old conflicts, and new understandings of just why people fight and why they might not always have to.
Whether in the skirmishes in Battle School or the Usenet flame wars Ender’s siblings conduct back on Earth, the book wrestles with philosophical questions as part of the story. The narrative doesn’t come to a screeching halt while the author climbs on a soap box. In fact, the books seems to be a genuine exploration on the author’s part of some tough questions, not a final statement in the matter.
(In the past two decades, Card’s politics have become, to me, thoroughly reprehensible, though he and I may have started out with similar viewpoints. I can’t understand why he believes what he does today, knowing him through his work and a couple of brief personal encounters. But I know he believes it, and sincerely, so I won’t attack him for deceitful motives.)
Card clearly loves games. (They’ve featured big in some of his other books, like Lost Boys
.) In fact, as I understand it, he’s worked a bit in the video game industry.
In Ender’s Game, he presents a convincing case for games as educational tools. Sure, they’re being used to train soldiers. (Aside: America’s Army was a marketing tool, not a training tool.) But the book makes you believe that games are a powerful learning tool, maybe one of the most powerful.
With the MacArthur Fellowship granting over a million dollars to fund a school exploring games as teaching tools (the latest I’ve read about it is here, in an article by Robert Torres, one of the recipients, though it’s been in the news for weeks) and scientists and game companies alike exploring and marketing “serious games,” it’s astonishing to look back twenty years and see such a powerful argument in favor of educational games.
And I’ll reiterate here as I did before that the games are fun.
The book is fun, too. If you haven’t read it yet, grab a copy and settle down for a just plain good read. And if you have, maybe it’s time to read it again. Even when you know all the surprises and twists, you’ll find pleasure in watching the story unfold. And it’s fun to spot the gaming innovations that Card didn’t imagine. While reading, ask yourself if the book would have been different had someone put out a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game in 1985.
July 27th, 2007
| I don’t just like games; I’m a foodie as well. On Fridays, I publish a drink or cocktail recipe that I enjoy as an accompaniment to some sort of game. These aren’t necessarily drinks I’ve invented, but they are superior potations that gamers who tipple are liable to enjoy. |
In a far-future science-fiction roleplaying game (it was basically the Traveller
universe), I played a Greek starship captain named Sophia Soulis. Unscrupulous doctors had genetically enhanced her to be able to move with blinding speed, but they hadn’t worried about the serious metabolic disadvantages that would result. Sophia was plauged by occasional bouts of epilepsy, a massively increased need for food, and strong dependence on an illegal drug. (Yes, her set of abilities was inspired by Miles Teg from Frank Herbert’s Chapterhouse Dune.)
She drank—often and heavily—as one of the few escapes from the discomforts of her physical disadvantages and the need to keep her illegal genetic modifications hidden. Loyal to the long-dead civilization of her ancestors, the Greeks, influenced her choice of potables. She opted for the strongly anise-flavored ouzo.
I don’t like anise. And I’ve never tasted anything with a stronger anise flavor than ouzo. Inspired by the (apocryphal?) story of method actor Dustin Hoffman insisting on eating garlic soup while he starred in Death of a Salesman simply because that’s what his character would do, I brought along a bottle of the stuff to each session and tippled while we trawled the stars looking for work while avoiding the galactic authorities.
Many countries have a national anise-flavored drink (Sambuca, pastis, raki, anisette, and so on). This Greek variety is very sweet without becoming syrupy. As I said, I’m no fan of anise, but I actually do like ouzo from time to time. (My wife hates olives but love olive tapenade, which tastes more like olives than olives themselves. Perhaps this is a parallel case.)
I’ve never been to an ouzerie (nor to Greece, for that matter), but I can recommend that ouzo is best enjoyed cold, with a small glass lasting a long time.
And I can certainly recommend bringing a character-appropriate snack or drink to the gaming table (with enough to share for those who are interested, of course). For instance, I knew a guy who brought pickled herring in sour cream to any session in which he played his Viking character. This Scandinavian delicacy repulses most people who hear about it (though I loved before I became a vegetarian) energized the roleplaying. The other characters were from more “civilized” parts of the game world, and the rising smell of vinegar-preserved ocean fish and thick sour cream added greatly to their disdained reactions to this northern barbarian.
Next time I play, I think I’ll create a character who enjoys outrageously expensive single-malt scotch!
July 27th, 2007
Okay. The camera strategy worked. Both of yesterdays caught shots of Bourne.
But now for a complete spoiler of today’s challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne. Don’t keep reading if you don’t want the mission to be spoiled for you.
Our missions briefing tells us Simon Ross, our current contact, is a liar. We’re instructed to revisit the clue sites from the last two days to see if we can find a more accurate rendezvous location. Those locations are Google Group “Sightseeing in London” and a page at Priceless.com. Note that the Google Group is exactly the same, but the Priceless.com page linked to in the mission briefing is definitely different.
The Priceless.com page contains almost exactly the same text as the message thread in the Google Group that wasn’t relevant in yesterday’s challenge. “T.Gray” posted it on the Google Group, “T.Grey” did on Priceless.com.
The Priceless.com page includes a photo of what appear to be bus routes connecting to Waterloo Station, judging from the icons. This is an alternative to the image of the statue of Terrence Cuneo, an English painter whose statue features prominently in the station.
It’s easy to get distracted by red herrings today. Cuneo, the bus routes (or train routes), and all the Googling you could possibly do is a waste of time, as Agent Simon Ross has told us directly in the text—and with a big, bright-red circle on a map in the Google Group focusing on the Station—exactly where he is.
Just transmit Waterloo Station in the communication panel to solve today’s challenge.
As for camera placement, since my last two cameras both worked, I’m leaving them in place at the London Eye and Waterloo Station. For the third, I’m going with the camera at 62 South Audley Street, because searching for that in Google reveals that it’s the location of The Counter Spy Shop. This is a spy game, after all, so maybe Jason Bourne will stop by to pick up some surveillance gear.
The game won’t continue till Monday, so check back then if you need spoilers for day 11.
July 27th, 2007
