And then out of nowhere...

Okay, so I’ve let my obsession with doing one post a week slide a little. Sure, we can start by blaming Christmas Eve, but there’s a simpler explanation. Couldn’t think of anything to write. In those situations, forcing myself to sit down and write is very, very counterproductive. Tearing my hair out and screaming at the sky counterproductive. I’m melodramatic. Deal with it.

However, side-stepping this melodrama for now, we take a trip back in time to August 2014. Somewhat fitting, given what I’m about to start talking about. Anyway, it was in that month of that year that something caught my eye. An article about a new game Square Enix were going to publish. What caught my eye was that the screenshot of the game’s central protagonist bears a striking resemblance to a lovely young lady whom, at a friend’s wedding that year, I was arranging flowers with. Yes, that’s right. I got roped into arranging flowers at a friend’s wedding. It was awesome and possibly my favourite wedding experience ever. Also I have a flower-arranging buddy. That part is pretty cool too.

The game is called Life is Strange. It was released today, a fact I discovered yesterday, caved and bought the whole thing on Steam. It’s a five-part episodic videogame created by Dontnod Entertainment that focuses on eighteen year old girl Max Caulfield (who bears striking resemblance to my awesome flower-arranging buddy). Max is a student at the prestigious Blackwell Academy in her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, a place she had long since escaped. One day, in her beloved photography class, she discovers the most curious thing.

She can rewind time.

There’s the hook. My housemate is a big fan of TellTale games, I’ve watched him play The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us and I’ve dabbled in the latter myself. Need to dabble some more I suspect. Of course, these are games driven by player choice and build the action of the next act from the consequences of the player’s actions. What Life is Strange offers is the chance to rewind, test the waters and see where you want to go from there.

Naturally, there’s a limit to how far you can rewind time. You have to make a choice and stick with it. But it is interesting to experiment with where those choices can take you, then make a decision, rather than having to make the split-second determination.

Time travel. Check. Next up for what draws me to this game? Visual style. It’s beautiful. Thanks to Max’s penchant for photography, a defining characteristic that no doubt has huge parts to play in the upcoming action, there’s a lot of emphasis on visuals. And boy are they something to behold. Plus, Max doesn’t have a half-bad eye for a good shot – or at least, the developers made sure the right opportunities were open to her.

The other, slightly more curious, draw for me is the teen angst/teen drama aspect of the game. Underlying the main plot are the subtle intricacies of a high school student’s life. The social pitfalls, befriend this guy, snub that girl, help them out or let them suffer. I am sure the developers have figured some way into making all fit into the overarching plot and have all those neat little consequences too, but as a kind of side-quest kick, I like it.
Episode two of Life is Strange is due in March. Between now and then, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to replay it and have fun playing with the laws of time.

Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies

It’s a curious saying that floats around our D&D table. The general gist – piss off the DM, bad things will happen to you. And the party. At least that’s my interpretation. It could also be interpreted as a warning to check for traps – a warning our party failed to heed the last time we played, fortunately not to our untimely doom. Though there was this moment where we nearly brought about the end of the world, but then one of the best, lightning-bolt-from-the-gods, right-at-the-last-second critical success rolls saved not our bacon, but the world’s bacon too. And we like bacon.

Oh, by the way, you’re welcome world. Fantasy world, but nonetheless, we saved your asses. You’re welcome. Just saying.

If you haven’t guessed already, today I am going to be talking about Dungeons & Dragons. It’s been given a paragraph of attention, once upon a many Moon ago. But one of my DMs (I have at least four, depending on campaign), Harlequin, queried my lack of a dedicated D&D post. In the interest of rocks not falling and everybody not dying, it seemed about time. Plus my conversion from D&D novice to D&D adept is now complete. Not only do I own the requisite Player’s Handbook, I invested in the Monster’s Manual and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. I’m a long way from making rocks fall and killing everyone, but the intent is now there.

In the brief paragraph written once upon a many Moon ago (a phrase I appear to be awfully fond of), I described my first steps into the world of tabletop roleplaying games. Here now, a brief overview of some highlights from the year that has been my first in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons. First off – the heist caper.

This was something from our primary campaign, run by Harlequin. We’ve progressed to Act Two of her campaign’s story arc and we’re learning more about the nefarious big bads and exactly what we’re up against. But we need more information. The hitch – that information is in the heavily guarded Royal Palace. Wait! There’s an opportunity though. The Prince’s birthday. Under the cloak of the festivities we could sneak in, find the information...oh and rescue some of our comrades who had been unceremoniously captured. (My character, an undead fire mage who has died not once but thrice in the course of the campaign, was one of them).

Rolling a temporary player character, we plotted our way in, we planned our very own heist caper. Our rogue would gamble his way into gaining an invitation to the Prince’s birthday party (featuring a beautifully done poker rolling mechanic) and then help distract the Royal Family. How does he achieve this? Well, it wasn’t part of the plan, but...he led the Royal Family in raucous drinking song. That’s right. He got the King, the Queen and the young Prince utterly plastered and sang. Loudly. Which was fortuitous, because behind the scenes, the rest of us were busy killing people.

The heist was brilliant. It was great fun. I got to roll a different character then return to my original character, which was a nice change of pace and renewed my appreciation for the fire mage with a propensity for blowing himself up. And our plan for the caper was flawless! Well, nearly.

We may have forgotten to plan our exit route. This resulted in my undead mage being stuck in a water pipe (luckily he doesn’t need to breath) behind three others who kept getting stuck and the my temporary character, a Psion gnome, having to escape through the palace’s effluent pipes. Nearly drowning in them in the process. That boy is going to have some serious psychological issues with toilets for the rest of his life. So there’s a note for next time. MAKE A FRAKKIN’ ESCAPE PLAN!

Also in our campaign we’ve engaged in a little bit of piracy...a kind of side-mission, off the main quest, which resulted in our rogue reducing an entire Navy frigate to cinders. Suffice it to say, my fire mage is unimpressed with this demarcation of his duties as the party’s official burner of things. Oh and we now have a stake in a pirate ship. Sometimes a bit of mutiny can be a good thing. I mean, this pirate ship could find itself coming in immensely handy during our campaign.

But this isn’t the only campaign we engage in. Harlequin’s campaign has been referred to as a “homebrew”. The settings, the country and its cities, have all been devised by her. We also play a campaign run by Jester, who has set his in the worlds of the Forgotten Realms (all I really know is that it’s a D&D campaign setting and Jester is pretty much an undisputed expert on all things within the Forgotten Realms).

Within Jester’s Forgotten Realms campaign, I am once again rolling a fire mage. Does anyone see a pattern emerging here? Except, instead of incinerating himself to death, it would appear my character has a vested interest in killing the party outright. In our first session of this campaign, I decided that there was this one building that Jester had described in an interesting way. It seemed really, really important. But no one wanted to investigate it. So when everyone had settled in for the night and it was my watch, I decided to saunter off on my own and investigate. In the process lighting a torch and essentially summoning a company of orcs right down on top of my head.

Fortunately for me, one of my party didn’t trust me, remained awake and watched me sneak out. There was a neat bit of battling, I got a bit of a telling off, then we headed off to the big spooky house on top of hill, the spooky house that wasn’t reduced to rubble in a city laid to waste. I guess I was interested in entirely the wrong building...

I could go on, explain in depth and detail all my D&D exploits...but then I think I’d be missing some kind of point. I’ll be honest, I went into this post not exactly sure what I was going to say. I think the general gist of what I’ve been trying to say with my anecdotes of fun times in D&D is that this is an awfully fun game. I thank Harlequin and Jester for drawing me into this world and I look forward to the raucous drinking song, rampant piracy and rambunctious escapades our parties will find themselves in during our various campaigns this year.

Je Suis Charlie

Let’s start with the painfully obvious. I’m not an artist, not a cartoonist. A couple of times I’ve talked about The Writerverse, the idea of there being a collective universe that writers inhabit, a community in which we share our creativity and have shoulders to cry on. The other day I posted a rant about European Union VAT regulations, standing in solidarity with artists. Today, I wish to posit the existence of a Creativerse (a horrible jamming together of words, this is a working title for now) as creatives of every ilk stand in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, victims of a heinous act of terrorism.

Twelve people killed in the attack. All because three men – who don’t deserve to be credited with belonging to a Middle Eastern religion – thought it would make their deity happy to grab a couple of Kalashnikovs and jam down on the trigger. It has provoked some deeply heart-wrenching responses from the wider community of cartoonists and artists, a small sample of which can be found in this Buzzfeed article.

I was born in the tail end of the 1980s, I wasn’t old enough to remember one of the darker aspects of Northern Ireland’s history known here as “The Troubles”. I dimly remember the 1998 Omagh bombing. One thing I can recall is that during the height of The Troubles, your religious affiliation – Protestant or Catholic specifically – could, in certain parts of Northern Ireland, result in some pretty grievous harm upon your person. But no one pointed to the Vatican and said “This is your fault!” No one pointed to the Church of England and branded them as extremists promoting the murder of innocent people. So this part of the post is kind of my disclaimer of sorts. Islam isn’t responsible for this. Three idiots who thought they were acting in the best interests of that religion did this, three idiots whose minds have been twisted by insidious propaganda did this. All because they can’t take a joke. I’m fairly sure their prophet would be able to rise about it. Christians would tell you Jesus would just rise above it. And their religion was responsible for starting countless wars in Medieval times.

There’s a comic from The Oatmeal that sums all this up quite neatly. It carries the fitting title “How to suck at your religion”.

Today I stand in solidarity with cartoonists, artists and creatives of every kind, with the staff of Charlie Hebdo. My thoughts are with the families and colleagues of those lost at Charlie Hebdo and the families and colleagues of the brave officers of the French police. One of the wisest things I read today was from a friend’s friend’s comment on a Facebook post. “Can silence the one. But not the many.” Three men have silenced twelve voices. Thousands more will rise to take their place and will not be silenced.

The Obligatory 2014 Retrospective

In the two years I’ve been writing this blog, I have made a tiny habit of doing a little retrospective post about the year that has just been. Reading through some of my old posts searching for some inspiration on the subject, I apparently succumb to my obligation to retrospection after New Year’s Eve. However, since I already cheated and didn’t write a blog post last week (my logic for this being it was Christmas Eve, surely that’s worthy of a break and that there wasn’t anything I could think to write about), I didn’t feel I could really wait until next week to talk about 2014. Especially as by the time this is posted, there’s barely anything left of 2014 for anything of significant note to happen.

So, on with the blabbering.

It occurs to me that a retrospective on 2014 is more than likely to be a summation of everything you dear readers have already read about. Of course, there has been a significant chunk of time not rambled about, that period of silence between May and October, itself preceded by a lengthy silence going back to January. Regardless, I’m going to soldier on. If I can even remember half of the stuff that happened this year...

The first part of the year was spent recuperating from an unprecedented surge in writing. Upon the completion of the first draft of my novel, I decided to kick back and leave it in the hands of my proofreaders. I did just that. It’s probably about here that my addiction to XCOM: Enemy Within came around. And watching all of the TV shows I had neglected in the latter quarter of 2013 in order to finish the novel.

One thing I neglected to mention in any of my blog posts was one of the highlights of my year – 8th April 2014. On that day, I saw my favourite band, Halestorm, performing live in Bristol. It was only the second time I had been to a live gig – the first time being 20th October 2013 in Cardiff. An Alter Bridge gig, with Shinedown and Halestorm supporting. However, because of the need to eat first (I was rather hungry), accidentally missed Halestorm. But did later see Lzzy Hale on stage. Which kind of made my night. But then April. When I got to see them in their full glory in Bristol. It was awesome. And I obtained my very first band t-shirt. Currently the only band t-shirt I have. But it’s Halestorm, it’s my favourite, so right now I don’t feel like I need any others...yet...

The rest of the year is pretty much a matter of me ambling through from one point to another. Well, I say that. There were some highlights in-between, chance meetings with people who just came in for a coffee and ended up writing their number on my arm (I say meetings with people, this last bit only happened once) and let’s not forget some pretty cool movies. The immense highlights of these being Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And in the latter half of 2014, we were given the first trailers for Avengers Assemble: Age of Ultron.

Perhaps the biggest, most momentous highlight of 2014 came in November. 25th November 2014 to be precise. I’ve talked about it once already, so I won’t go into massive details, but yes, it was the day I met one of my literary heroes, William Gibson.

Now from skimming my previous retrospectives, there appears to be a tradition of looking ahead at the year to come. Probably something to do with that old Roman curmudgeon, Janus. You know, two-faced fella (literally, had a whole other face on the back of his head), god of beginnings and transitions, no equivalent in Greek mythology? Well, thanks to him this pivotal point of years, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, is not only a time of getting wasted and partying hard, but also a time of reflection on time past and aspirations towards time to come. In my own form of “tradition”, I tend towards looking ahead at all the awesome movies that will be coming out.

2015 is shaping up to be a good movie year. Avengers Assemble: Age of Ultron. Minions. A new Neill Blomkamp movie, CHAPPIE. They all look awesome. This is just to name but a few.

I’m sure I should be saying more on this subject, more about things I hope for in 2015, but, well...how about we just let things unfold. Gives me more to talk about as I attempt to continue my trend of writing a blog post once a week. But if you really want some teasers...I hope to see the Heroes of Canton more and learn more about tea. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity to meet my other literary hero, China Miéville. More than anything though, here’s hoping it will be a year of productive writing. Some good news with my novel maybe, or perhaps just that I will also be regularly contributing to Boston Tea Party’s emerging blog.

Whatever happens, here’s hoping for a great 2015. After all, 2014’s been pretty good to me thus far. I’ve had some pretty damn good times with old friends, made some pretty damn cool new ones and generally, it’s been a year of continued growth and development into more of a well-rounded, if slightly dysfunctional in an amusing fashion, human being. Cheers, 2014. It’s been nice knowing you.

Ranting About EU VAT

I’m not a comic book artist. I don’t own a micro-business, I’m not a sole trader. But I have a friend who is a comic book artist. She is a sole trader. And on New Year’s Day 2015, she could be looking at the end of any kind of dream of making a living from her artwork. Which is amazing. I have a framed piece of it on my desk. I’ve had her work displayed in our café twice. I’m thinking maybe a third time is order because I like her work so much.

My friend is Jennie Gyllblad. Click the name to learn more about her work. Click this link to read what the independent artists have to say about a new circle of hell of bureaucracy and red-tape being looped around their livelihoods. Then read what one of the EU’s top dogs has to say about the whole thing. Doesn’t read like a pile of patronising wank from a government official. Not at all.

I’m prepared to admit that I probably don’t understand this stuff half as well as I should. I’m not providing any kind of digital services that would require me to register for VAT in other EU countries. But I am a creative person was aspirations of making a living out of my work. Sure, I intend to go down the standard commercial route. Get myself an agent, let them do the legwork with publishing houses, take their piece of the pie and leave me with the crusts to live off. But what if that doesn’t fly? What if I decide that I just want to get my work out there any way I can and go in for the ever-growing market of ebooks. Oh yeah, that’s right. The European Union is going to make they get their cut. All in the name of “fairness”. Making sure big businesses don’t utilise one country’s relaxed tax laws to benefit their coffers. Yes, ladies and germs, the small business people, the sole traders, are getting dicked over so nameless corporate fat cats have to get a smaller bonus and go for last year’s Ferrari instead of this year’s flashy new model

Gross over simplifications, I’m sure. I’m straying into the dangerous arena of political discourse and I might as well by painting a big target on my chest and jumping up and down shouting “Hey you there with the excessively large rifle! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” But this whole thing has led me to thinking about subject which has been cropping up a lot in my head lately.

We’re about to make an abrupt topic change. Seatbelts on, kids. I’m about to talk about one-world government.

My favourite videogame is Deus Ex. Towards the end of the game’s first act if you will, one of the main characters has a little throwaway line of dialogue – “The wealthy has always been the ones to profit from one-world government.” I have no idea why they do. I have no idea if a single, unified human government wouldn’t just end up screwing everyone over, but I feel rather convinced in my heart that if we don’t all come together and cooperate, there isn’t any hope for humanity.

The Republicans swept both chambers of Congress in the mid-term elections. There’s the terrifying possibility that if they can muster a charismatic enough candidate in 2016, they’ll snatch the White House. It’s a thought that makes me shudder. But then I look back home and I shudder even more. The rise of the UK Independence Party. An unholy band of fascist gasbags who would take the UK out of the European Union and probably attempt to re-establish the British Empire while they’re at it. I wouldn’t put it past them to settle the old score with France by flattening the country with nuclear weapons. And maybe just throwing a few pot-shots at the rest of the EU. And these aren’t the only two examples. In the recent European Parliament elections, many right-wing ultra-nationalist parties made gains. It’s a disquieting trend. It could be considered quite the naive worldview, but I studied history for a good long while and there’s a very important thing I learned about nationalist parties – they are BAD NEWS.

Let’s examine some extreme examples. Benito Mussolini. Turned Italy into a fascist dictatorship and led them into World War II side-by-side with Nazi Germany, the most dangerous nationalist, fascist regime in history. Millions dead in heavy fighting, millions more murdered for the simple fact of their ethnic heritage. Why? All in the name of the nation’s spirit and purity. Are you sure you don’t want to shudder at the idea of UKIP and parties of their ilk taking power in other nations?

But how does this relate to one-world government? Simple. We need to shed our insistence on being identified by nationality, on this idea that our sovereign identity is more important than our shared humanity. I grew up in Wales. I’m Welsh. But I live in England. So I’m British. Because of this dichotomy of national identities, I find I care very little for my national heritage. I don’t give a frak. I don’t wave the British flag, I don’t sing the national anthem because I don’t know or care to learn the words and I sure as frak don’t want this country separated from the rest of Europe or the world for that matter. It’s more important that I’m human. That humanity comes together and embraces that fact that our future is decided together. When the world comes to an abrupt end, we’re all gone. No little country is going to be spared to take all the glory for themselves.

Perhaps it’s my lot as a science-fiction writer to dream of a brighter, more utopian future. Let’s talk about that. I say utopian. One-world government will not be a utopian dream of cooperation. It will not be the United Federation of Planets living in peace and harmony with all peoples. But I think it will be better. With the combined resources of all nations, laws established from one source applied to the whole world...no need for individual VAT regulations for countries. One tax law to govern the whole planet. It’s instances like this that I think the United States has a pretty good model. You’ve got federal laws and state laws. Apply that model to the world and I think you’ve got a nice stop-gap solution, a good first step. Because a lot of countries won’t want to give up their individual laws. So treat them like state laws. Except in incidents of human rights for example, where it’s a global law matter.

More than anything – and this is where I get incredibly flighty and my sci-fi roots really take hold – there is no way, in our current state of squabbling nations, that humanity has any hope of getting off this planet. That, for me, is a big deal. Because this planet is beyond frakked and doomed. Generations down the line, this place is in incredible danger of being rendered completely uninhabitable. And it won’t be the sole strength of China or the United States that will save us. No. It will require cooperation on an unprecedented global scale to save the future of humanity.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said it best: “Earth is the cradle of humanity. But one cannot remain in the cradle forever.” I believe that the future of humanity lies out in the stars. Extra-solar colonisation is the way to go. But we can’t do it alone. We’re going to have to do it together. The sooner we realise that our fate as a species is irrevocably tied together and the Universe doesn’t give two shits if we’re British, American, Chinese, French, German, Egyptian, Sudanese, Iranian or Indian (it’s going to try and kill us all anyway with massive solar flares, asteroids and all sorts of other junk), the sooner we can get on with the business of realising our species’ full potential. The sooner we can step out into those stars and forge a brighter, more incredible future for humankind.

Started out ranting about prohibitive bureaucracy and unnecessary financial red-tape. Ended up philosophising about the future of humanity. All in a day’s work for my incredibly sporadic mind. Still frakked off (on behalf of dear friends) about this EU VAT regulation thing. Sign this petition please. Stop them from bankrupting my friends and fellow creatives. This world would be an even more dull and depressing place without our minds in it.