Month: August 2010

The Death of Print?

I read today that the fabled Oxford English Dictionary will most likely never be printed again.  When the next edition comes out, it’ll most likely be in digital format only.  In the article, a pundit predicted that the death of the book was imminent.  I somehow doubt that books will really fade away that quickly.  I think that versatile tablets like the iPad, rather than one-trick ponies like the Nook or Kindle, are going to be the future of e-reading.  But the iPad and its imitators are going to have to become a lot more common, and a lot cheaper, before demand for ebooks completely supplants demand for printed books.

Eventually, I think the day will come when printed books are relegated to the same niche market as vinyl records.  And part of me is saddened by that.  Books have been a huge part of my life and, even as a kid, I thought there was something thrilling about going to a bookstore and browsing for something new to read.  There’s a little spark of magic there that you just can’t get downloading something over Amazon’s Whispernet.

But even I have to admit that sometimes convenience trumps magic.  I don’t own a fancy tablet or an e-reader.  All I have is the Kindle App for my iPhone, and I’ll be the first to admit that the iPhone isn’t the best platform for reading.  It’s acceptable and that’s about it.  Still, there is something to be said for being able to download a book from the comfort of your home without being forced to run to the store.  And if you live in a small space like I do, it’s nice not to have another physical book to take up valuable shelf space.

What do you think about the digital revolution in reading?  How long do you think it’ll be before ebooks are the norm and paper books are only purchased for their nostalgia value?

Another Diablo 3 tidbit

Gamescom has produced a few more tidbits of info about Diablo III.  In an interview, game director Jay Wilson revealed that there’s going to be a new feature called the Scroll of Wealth, which will allow your character to sell items ‘in the wild’ without having to return to town.

Like the artisans, I think this is a welcome addition to the Diablo franchise.  Going back to down just to sell stuff gets old real fast, and the Scroll of Wealth should help keep you immersed in the game longer.  In Torchlight, you could send your pet up to town with excess stuff, but I like the idea of having a magic scroll better.  Helpful as it was, the idea of sending a cat to sell a suit of armor was always a little bit jarring.

And while this isn’t exactly ‘news,’ Jay Wilson reiterated that town portals won’t exist in Diablo 3.  Instead, you’ll have a system of fixed waypoints, similar to those found in Diablo II.  Needless to say, if you can’t return to town whenever you want, having a Scroll of Wealth on hand will be even more handy.

Sadly, despite the pleas of the interviewer, Jay is still keeping mum about D3’s release date.  At this rate, I think the sequel to The Name of the Wind will come out before D3!

New Diablo 3 feature!

For those of you who don’t already know, I’m a huge fan of action RPGs, in particular Blizzard’s Diablo series.  Naturally, I was thrilled when, way back in 2008, Blizzard announced that there would be a Diablo III.  Since then, Blizzard’s kept mum about much of the game and only released little tidbits of information here and there.

At Gamescom today, Blizzard announced a new feature of Diablo III: the artisan.  Artisans are special merchant NPCs that follow your character through Sanctuary.  In addition to basic buying and selling, artisans will also be able to make items for you based on materials that you find during your travels.  For example, the blacksmith will create weapons, while the mystic will make scrolls and charms.  You will also be able to level up your artisan to give them access to better skills and abilities.

This news is probably going to piss off  people who think that D3 is already too much like World of Warcraft, but I think it’s cool.  I particularly like the news that you can now salvage unwanted goods for their raw materials rather than just selling them for gold.   In games like Diablo II and TitanQuest, it’s really easy to become as rich as Crassus and there comes a point where it’s not worth picking up most stuff since you already have more gold than you’ll ever need.  But if you can break stuff down, salvage the materials, and then use them to make something cool, loot-gathering starts to serve a purpose again.

Here’s a video narrated by D3 game director Jay Wilson that introduces the blacksmith artisan:

What do you think of the artisans?  Will they make D3 more enjoyable or are they just another example of the evil influence of WoW?

Scott Pilgrim vs The Mediocre Movie

Yesterday, I went to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World with The Physicist.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve read the comic books on which the movie is based and found them to be amusing, so I was interested to see how they would survive the transition to the big screen.

The plot of the movie is the same as that of the comic.  Canadian slacker Scott Pilgrim meets space ninja delivery girl Ramona Flowers and, in order to date her, he must defeat her seven evil exes.  Dorkiness ensues.

First, the good points.  Not being a rabid Scott Pilgrim fanboy, I didn’t find the movie as uproariously funny as others did, but there were a number of witty lines that made me smile.  Also, the casting director did a great job of finding actors who resemble their comic counterparts and the special effects were very impressive.  I also admire the director’s ability to make each fight scene unique and interesting.  I was worried that the ex battles would all run together, but each one of them ended up being distinct.  Matthew Patel’s song-and-dance attack was especially cool, though in the comic Scott and his friends returned fire in kind, and it’s a shame that part didn’t make it into the movie.

The major flaw of the movie is that the love story at its heart just isn’t compelling.  Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim like every other character Michael Cera has ever played.  In other words, he’s bland and affable, which doesn’t make for a particularly inspiring lead character.  His love interest, Ramona Flowers, drifts through the movie with all the enthusiasm of a Dell customer service agent, so it’s hard to see why Scott is willing to fight seven evil exes for her.  It takes a lot of zingers and special effects to make up for ho-hum leads and, in the end, Scott Pilgrim can’t overcome them.

Scott Pilgrim also doesn’t know when to stop when it comes to its own cleverness.  The old-school video game references are a case in point.  They’re cute the first couple of times, but when they are repeated ad nauseam and they swiftly lose their oomph.

The final issue I have with the movie concerns the portrayal of Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace Wells.  In both the comic and the movie, he’s your stereotypical catty, bedhopping gay with a penchant for quips and multiple partners.   The catty slut stereotype has been done to death and it’s high time Hollywood buried it in the graveyard.

FINAL GRADE: C+

Ice cream!

Until recently, I wasn’t much of an ice cream person.  My ambivalence was all the more shocking because (a) my dad is a huge ice cream nut and (b) I’ve spent the last four years at a school which sells ice cream from its very own on-campus dairy.  But I recently had an operation on my mouth and, for three weeks, I was unable to eat hard foods.  My diet was limited to soups, nutritional drinks, very mushy macaroni and cheese, and, of course, ice cream.  Even though my diet’s back to normal now, I seem to have developed a permanent craving for ice cream.

When I went to Cold Stone Creamery a while back, I fell in love with their Cake Batter ice cream.  But, though it is delicious, I’d prefer to not pay an arm and a leg for my ice cream.  Thankfully, I’ve found a cheaper alternative: Blue Bunny’s Birthday Party Cake ice cream!  It’s cake-flavored ice cream with swirls of blue frosting and little candy confetti pieces mixed in.   A bowl of that makes for a perfect way to end the day.  Yum!

Self-Publishing: The Way of the Future?

Today I came across this article in Newsweek about the recent rise in self-published titles:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/30/who-needs-a-publisher.html

The basic gist of the article is that some authors have been lucky enough to hit it big with self-publishing.  What the article doesn’t mention, however, is that, when you self-publish, you usually get little or no promotional support, which forces you to take sole charge of marketing your book.  Stephen King could probably market a book on his own, but I doubt that most first-time authors would be as successful.  Without industry connections or PR experience, they’re basically adrift.  It’s hard enough to sell books with the backing of a publisher’s publicity machine.  I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be to go it alone.

The other major problem with self-publishing is that there’s little or no quality control.  This was vividly proven a while back when a group of (published) sci-fi and fantasy authors got together and wrote an intentionally awful book entitled Atlanta Nights.  And when I say ‘awful,’ I mean it.  This book had characters who changed from scene to scene, duplicate chapters, and an entire section written by a text generator.  They submitted their work to a well-known self publishing company and, lo and behold, Atlanta Nights was accepted (though the company later dropped it when they realized they’d been duped).  Sadly, Atlanta Nights is only a little bit worse than a lot of the sample chapters from self-published books that I’ve read on Amazon.com.

It has been argued that self-publishing is The Great Leveler that allows John Q. Public to compete with J. K. Rowling on an even playing field.  But there’s still the issue of talent to contend with.  If no one is interested in John Q. Public’s novel (and I’m assuming he’s queried widely instead of just contacting five agents and calling it a day), it’s entirely possible that it’s not as polished as it should be or else it’s just not marketable.   Of course everyone has heard about how Harry Potter was rejected by numerous publishers before it was picked up by Scholastic.  But, ultimately, it was picked up by someone.  Maybe I’m just a Pollyanna, but I believe that good books will eventually get published, albeit later rather than sooner in most cases.  Self-publishing may allow you to get your work out there, but if the writing’s not good or there’s no market for it, you’re still going to be out of luck.

So while more and more people may turn to self-publishing, I suspect that traditional publishers will remain an author’s best shot at turning their hobby into a career.