Clipping Through: One Mad Week In Video Games by Leigh Alexander

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I discovered Ms. Leigh Alexander when she appeared on one of the E3 podcasts at Giant Bomb. I found her perspective fascinating in a sea of men. I was still too new to this world to understand why this led to so much hate and abuse that she hasn’t been back on. (At least that’s how I understand what happened) Since then I’ve followed her on twitter (and even made an ass of myself with a tweet to her) and I generally enjoy her reading of the industry and games. From her pieces, she seems to be slightly older than me, but we’re roughly from the same era in video games and so it’s a voice that speaks with the same cultural background and that’s always neat.

The Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this as part of a bundle - probably Storybundle as I’ve bought nearly all their video game bundles - and I had put it off in favor of other books because I don’t have a strong connection to Prince of Persia (POP henceforth). My family was working poor until I was getting into later elementary school, by which time a lot of computer game industry had lost its first “death” to the consoles. By the time I was playing computer games, it was mostly just RTSes hanging on and we weren’t anywhere near the Steam Renaissance that would make the PC the best place to play games again (except for bad ports).

Big Pulp Fall 2011: On The Road From Galilee by Michael D. Turner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun anthology that had more stories I liked than didn’t. As usual for an anthology, a collection of my status updates as the review:

“On the road from Gallilee” - time travel and it tackles the age-old question. But they deal with it in a very creative way.

The Machine God by MeiLin Miranda

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this story functions quite well to continue the story from Black Mercury. We see the fates of many of the characters from the previous novel, but this really is quite a different story with a different focus. The series is going from mostly Steampunk to Steampunk Fantasy in this book while also exploring ideas of colonialism, fallen empires, and racism. (Also university and identity politics)

Black Mercury by Charlotte E. English

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book started off seeming as though it would be some sort of Victorian, Steampunk Speed Racer. But that turned out to just be a red herring to introduce us to the characters and set up some of the conflicts. I also thought it would focus more strongly on the floating island, Inselmond. It seemed as though it would be one of those islands that feature in many anime and JRPGs where the rich or magical live. Nope, that served as a McGuffin of sorts - although in a lot of ways the Black Mercury of the title is practically a McGuffin, but there might be some debate about that.

Massively Multiplayer by P. Aaron Potter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don’t really think this book was “AMAZING”, but I gave it an extra star for doing a good job of messing with my expectations. I’ve been reading nearly 30 years now so it’s very hard for an author not to fall into the trap of various tropes that leads me to be able to guess the plots of most books before they get to their twist. (With the exception of noir or detective novels and some POV books like ASOIAF because the characters have an extra-limited perception of what’s going on)

Hunt at the Well of Eternity by Gabriel Hunt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m pretty dang sure I got this book during one of B&N’s free ebook fridays. I don’t know if they still do that, but it’s something they used to do when I first got my Nook. There’s no way I would have bought this book on my own. That said, this book is just as pulpy as you’d expect from the cover - a painted look from back when they would use illustration rather than photos for book covers and a mostly naked woman watching a muscular man dispatch someone else. This cover’s pretty accurate to a scene in the book except that the woman isn’t wearing a bikini - she’s fully clothed, but her recently ripped shirt has exposed her bra.

Augie and the Green Knight by Zach Weinersmith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I was a kickstarter backer on this book

I Kickstarted this book because I liked Weiner’s work on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and because the description sounded appealing to me - create a book that would appeal to a young, nerdy female. I’ve two daughters and the one who can talk (the other is only 15 months old) appears to be genuinely curious about the world around her and might relate to Augie in this book.

Angel’s Ink by Jocelynn Drake

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While in some ways this is an OK thriller, it makes for a very fun read. Ms Drake has created a very interesting universe which has the relationship between witches/warlocks and humans as the inverse of Harry Potter. In HP the magical world is kept hidden from muggles to prevent persecution. But in this alternate version of our world, humans know that warlocks have god-like powers and are keen to make themselves scarce when warlocks and witches are around.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the middle book of a trilogy (I think….maybe a quadrilogy? Because there’s another book called Extras). Therefore, not much happens narratively. I think it continues to have pretty good metaphors for teen life revealed via this dystopia, but it was slightly disappointing to not really move forward very much compared to the first book. In fact, it takes the entire book to do what they planned at the end of the first book. Like the middle book in a trilogy, there is a lot of fleshing out of the world, and that’s neat.