Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game is based off of the popular Scott Pilgrim graphic novels (see previous post #1 and #2 if you don’t know what I am talking about). The story is your typical boy meets girl, boy lesbians girl, boy must defeat girl’s seven evil exes. In the book it is up to Scott to defeat the exes since he is the one dating Ramona. However, in the game you can play as Scott, Ramona, Kim, and Stephen. It’s possible to play the single player game as a character other than Scott but doing so completely destroys the story. Why would Stephen, the lead singer in Scott’s band, go and single handedly defeat Ramona’s exes. There’s nothing in it for him, nothing for him to gain. Same thing with Kim, drummer and Scott’s ex.

In order to make the game playable I made up stories that take the place of “defeat Ramona’s exes” in case I find myself playing as someone other than Scott. Let’s face it, without a story holding the game together it’s impossible to keep interested in this beat’em up game.

Ramona Flowers vs. the World: The Game
One would think that after an appropriate amount of time Ramona’s exes would have gotten over her. Instead they constantly send her friend requests on Facebook, are sending her Tweets, and have from time-to-time shown up at her work. She’s fed up with it. It’s time for Ramona to teach her exes what the meaning of “we’re through” is even if she has to beat it in to them. After beating all seven of the exes, Ramona enjoys to solitude. It might be a little lonely, not being the center of attention, so maybe she’ll get a cat. And one cat turns in to three or four and before you know, Ramona because that “cat lady” who lives above your apartment. Ramona will wonder why she can’t get another boyfriend, but you’ll know why. It’s the all of her cats and the smell that comes with them.

Kim Pine vs. the World: The Game
Kim comes from a broken home. He father left before her first birthday, and her mother refuses to talk about it. Her mom has dated other men, searching for a replacement father figure. But every time she got comfortable with them they left. After Kim’s mother passed away in a car crash one snowy night after being dumped again, Kim was forced to live on the streets and support herself. She learned to fight to protect herself from the scary hobos of Montreal. Life turned around and eventually was taken in to foster care (or the canadian equivalent) and started life over again. At last she had a family, but her anger towards men remained. Her violent outburst can not be contained and all of her friends are worried about her rage issues but are too afraid to say anything. Only after Kim’s seventh violent outbreak do her friends sit her down and tell her how worried they all are about her. There are tears and a lot of hugs. Too ashamed to face her friends after that, Kim retreats to the Chic-Choc Mountains where she manages the local tavern and is able to beat up the occasional drunk without anybody noticing.

Stephen Stills vs. the World: The Game
In what may be the least expected plot twist (and the least cared about) in the Scott Pilgrim books was that Stephen Stills is gay. He finally came out to Scott 10 pages before the end of Volume 5. Nobody saw that coming. The reason for that was because it took 5 volumes for Stephen to accept who he is. At first he was like “Oh dude no, I can’t be gay. I’ll date a girl or something to prove.” But that, naturally, doesn’t work out. His confusion turns to self-hatred and he becomes incredibly homophobic. To prove his manliness, he sets out to beat up the seven toughest people around, who just happen to be Ramona’s exes. As he defeats each ex, he learns a little about himself. Upon defeating Ramona’s final ex, he earns the power of acceptance and is finally able to admit to himself and his friends that he likes dudes. Stephen and his boyfriend go on to open a bed and breakfast in Saint-Georges.

Next time, I’ll explore the story’s of the two hidden characters in the game.

I had set a goal for myself to reach the 20,000 word mark on this thing I am tentatively calling “my first novel”. I know, every English major has a “first novel” their working on, so why should I be any different? I came up 5,000ish words short and reached 15,635. I good deal of those words, however, is the word “that” which seems to be one of my favorite words to use. I have a problem. I admit it.

My goal for September is to hit the 35,000 mark before October. Possible? Sure, if I can type 1,000 words a day.

A few years ago Stephen King wrote a little book called The Colorado Kid. The book was the first big book published through Hard Case Crime imprint which specializes in re-publishing pulp fiction novels as well as new stories. The Colorado Kid is the story of two newspaper writers who are old enough to use the phrase “back in the day” tell innocent intern the story of The Colorado Kid, a body that washed up in 1980 and the mystery of how he came to be dead in Maine. While in the end readers may not get the answers to the questions they’ve been asking for whatever amount of pages, the main theme put forth is the search of answers when there are none to be found.

It was an incredibly cruel trick on Mr. Kings part.

Anyway, recently the Syfy channel has adapted The Colorado Kid into a TV series called Haven. Three episodes in and the story has differed slightly but the possibility of finally finding out what happened to The Colorado Kid is there. Haven focus on an FBI agent who takes a temporary leave of absence from the FBI to serve as a local police officer in the town of Haven, Maine where strange things are constantly happening. Please be careful not to confuse this show with Syfy’s other series Eureka about a street-smart cop who relocates to Eureka, Oregon to investigate all the strange things that are constantly happening.

Anyway.

In the first episode Audrey, the FBI agent, discovers an old newspaper article about The Colorado Kid and in the included picture is a person she believes to be her mother. It’s a bit of a stretch. Okay, it’s a huge stretch in my opinion. “Look, this women kind of looks like me and I was adopted. She’s probably my mother.” Really. That is the extent of the explanation we get from the show and what keeps her in Haven.

Another problem I have with the show is that all the episodes so far have followed the exact same format.

1) Weird thing happens.
2) Audrey accuses the most likely person responsible.
3) If the wrong person is accused, accused the next most likely person.
4) If Audrey is wrong yet again (and so far she has been), have it dawn on her that the person responsible is the person she least suspects.
5) Case solved!

Really, she made it in to the FBI with this type of deduction skills?

Is this show worth caring about? Probably not. I see a lot of potential in it. Haven could turn out to be really interesting if only is would drop this “monster of the week” format it’s following and take the time to build some solid mythology. They are only dropping hints right now as to what causes all these supernatural things to happen. It’s been made clear that there are characters who know something about what is going on, but it has not dawned on Audrey yet to ask them because she is too busy searching for this woman who she is convinced is her mother.

Anybody else have thoughts on this show so far?

Whoohoo! I was tired of the old one and longed for a two column format that wouldn’t get in the way of Youtube clips. But ya’ll use the RSS feed anyway so it’s not like there was much of a point.

At least i’m happy and that’s what counts the most.

Audrey Niffenegger. You might remember her from such books as The Time Traveler’s Wife or her latest Her Fearful Symmetry. I was super excited to learn that she would be visiting Powells and that she would be signing books. I remember reading TTTW a few years back and thought it was a fantastic blend of science-fiction and romance, a difficult balancing act on Niffenegger’s part. She recently released Her Fearful Symmetry which is so completely different from TTTW that it surprised me in a pleasant way. Second novels for authors are normally hit or miss because they are trying to be as good as their first one and consequently don’t take any risks.

At the signing she read from the chapter that talked about being a ghost and what they are capable of doing. After that she transitioned to the Q and A, the heart of any good book reading. The questions asked were good and Niffenegger answered them in ways gave us, the readers, a little insight in to what she was trying to accomplish with HFS. It’s a shame that books can’t include a bonus DVD that features a Making Of documentary that chronicles the writer as he/she writes the book. I think that would be awesome.

I should really get around to posting my thoughts on Her Fearful Symmetry shouldn’t I?

2010. 2010. 2010. What can I say about 2010? “Hello”?

I hope to be a more active blogger this year. I only reviewed 16 (that few?) books this year although I am sure that I have read many more then that. I’ll get better at posting, I swear.

Then there is the matter of The Book Parrot (aka Terry) who will also be posting about books on this site. Him and I have pretty similar tastes in books so it works out well and you may get two different takes on the same book.

I also updated all the links to other book blogs in the sidebar.

Anyway, Happy new year.

It was/is Wordstock this weekend. Wordstock being Portland’s big book festival. I volunteered again this year as a Stage Manager. Maybe they thought that because I Managed Stages last year that I was deserving of a promotion of sorts and put me in charge of the Powell’s Stage. I.e. the big stage. The most important stage. The one where if something goes wrong 400+ people will notice.

No worries, I thought. Worse comes to worse this sounds like the perfect situation for comedy.

In the end everything went find. I love hearing authors speak, but when they go over their allowed time and I need to get the stage ready for the next author but the current author is ignoring my hand signals announcing that they are out of time, then there is nothing I want more for them to shut up. I’m not going to name names, but come on!

Then there was James Ellroy. Apparently he is America’s greatest novelist and each book that he rights is better than his last. However, he was the one who told me this so I took it with a grain of salt. He reminded me of James Frey that one time I had the displeasure of going to his reading. People named James are bastards it seems.

It was fun. I think next year I may hold off on volunteering and just go for pleasure.

I’m conflicted.

I’ll be finishing Portland Noir within the next couple days I am not sure which book I want to start next. With And Another Thing… coming out soon, I feel compelled to re-read the entire Hitchhikers Guide series. I’ve already read them twice, but they are good enough to warrant a third reading. My “to-read” (for the first time) pile however still has books that I have been meaning to get around to since February. Do I go on re-reading books or should I read books I have not read yet? There just seems like so little time and so many books.

I feel re-reading books is a waste of time seeing how I have already read them. My reading time should be filled with filling my head with new stories and ideas instead of refreshing old ones. But Hitchhikers is a classic.

I just finished watching the British adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic. The film is based off of the first two books of the Discworld series which I have not read. One of the reason I have not touched the series is because it is currently 36 novels long. I DON’T HAVE THAT MUCH TIME! Geez. A 36 book series. I have also read Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) but didn’t really care much for the book. Maybe I need to re-read it. Anyway, getting off topic here. I liked The Color of Magic and Tim Curry plays the bad guy which is awesome. I am now tempted to pick up the first book in the Discworld series.

Going to Reno today for an extended weekend. After much deliberation I decided to take Armistead Maupin’s Babycakes as well as Tin House’s The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House.

Speaking of Tin House, I attended their 10th anniversary shindig and was treated to some quite awesome readings from Tin House Magazine contributes. My personal favorite reader was Steve Almond and his essay on Toto’s song Africa. Anyway, I need a nap before the flight.