Splinter of the Mind's Eye
by Alan Dean Foster

I wonder why i didn't read this as a kid? I remember seeing this and the Han Solo books, but didn't read them.

The copy i have says "copyright 1978 by The Star Wars Corporation." That puts it right after "Star Wars". So it's a more raw interpretation, without the further refinements of the later movies and novels.

Luke is a lot smarter here than he is in the movies. At times i wondered if this story wasn't intended for Han Solo at some point in its development. He not only seems more streetwise than his character on screen, but more than any farmboy ought to be. There's a scene in which Luke and Leia are trying to pass for manual laborers, and Luke knows exactly what parts of the Princess' demeanor to criticize. Sure growing up on a farm would give him appropriate mannerisms for such a task (speaking broadly), but it wouldn't make him conscious of those mannerisms, or teach him how to teach those mannerisms to someone else. (This is not a criticism of the book, just an observation.)

This resonates with the pulp sci-fi (space opera, planetary romance, etc.) that inspired the movies. That is very much a strength, IMO. That's where Star Wars gets the bulk of its appeal. That's where the fun and excitement come from. We could use more of that, done with honesty and joy.

On my goodreads pages, i put the Star Wars novels on my "fantasy" shelf b/c i think they're closer to heroic fantasy than science fiction, b/c there's loads of heroic fantasy stuff going on, and practically no science. Maybe instead i should make a shelf for things that use the trappings of sci-fi to tell fantastic stories? The Barsoom books would go there, too (big influence on SW)

Election, NaNoWriMo, Annihilation

Election, NaNoWriMo, Annihilation

We had a local election this past Tuesday. It was a small one for mayor and city council seats. The ballot didn't even fill a whole page. Everybody i voted for lost. Even in the race for the "At Large" council seat, where the top three vote-getters get a seat, i picked all three losers. I think it's kinda funny.

NaNoWriMo is going very slowly right now. The idea i had suddenly got very boring when i started putting it to paper. So now i either retool it extensively or start over with something else.

This week i started reading Annihilation V1, and so far i'm liking it. The first section is the Drax mini. The small-town Alaska setting is cool, but maybe that's b/c i have that sense of Romance for small towns, though i've never chosen to live in one. I don't think i would have liked this story as a monthly comic. It would have felt sparse, plot-wise. But collected, it's a satisfying little prelude/setup to Drax's involvement in the bigger story.

I knew nothing of Drax before reading this. There are a couple of flashbacks that show his old costume, which i recognized from comics i've seen but never read, so i vaguely know he was involved in some of the "cosmic" Avengers stories from the 70s. That's all fine though, b/c this story doesn't depend on any of that. What background you need to know is told here, and the rest is new.

Now i'm at the part where the Annihilation Wave enters the scene, and the action rachets way up. It will be interesting to see how the various minis collected here flow as a unit. Will the pacing be choppy, or balanced? How much will the tone vary? What effect will different creative teams have?

Nanowrimo!

I've taken the plunge and signed up for nanowrimo, aka National Novel Writing Month. That might mean a) i don't blog at all, b) i post novel segments here, or c) the nanowrimo writing inspires stuff for me to blog about.

It almost certainly means that i won't be planning any rpg sessions in November. There's not enough time for both, and i think they are different-similar enough that i can't do both effectively. For a while (and this helped me decide to do nanowrimo) i've felt that the kinds of worlds i want to create and the stories i want to tell are suited more for fiction than games. My interest in designing rpg elements has waned while my interest in fiction has increased.

Anyway, i'll at least post updates on my progress during the month here, and encouragement will be appreciated.

Big thanks to the hosts of Secret Identity, without whom i probably would've forgotten all about nanowrimo until February. (On the CGS forums i'm known as blockhead.)