Beckism.com

Ever since I read Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood I’ve been slowly working my way through Patricia Briggs’ body of work. I’ve finally read everything that’s readily available on the Kindle (the first book in her first series is unfortunately not on Kindle, or anywhere else that I can find), and it’s safe to say that Patricia Briggs is one of my absolutely favorite authors. Here’s why:

• She writes excellent fantasy, every time. There’s lots of really bad fantasy out there. Ever since the runaway success of Harry Potter, publishers have been pouring money into making crappy fantasy look worth buying. Briggs is consistently excellent and sometimes edges into outstanding. I really value an author whose books I can buy without worrying whether I’m in for a disappointment.
• She writes realistic fantasy. Too many authors forget how fragile human bodies are. In Briggs’ novels, villains don’t waste time monologuing; they kill the people they want dead. Injuries matter. Heroes sometimes win simply by surviving long enough for the villain to bleed out. Sure, there’s magic and so forth, but Briggs keeps reality firmly out of Superman-ville where bullets can be shrugged aside and there’s no need to fear for the hero because you know in your gut that they’ll make it through unscathed.
• She writes fun, believable characters and moves beyond stereotypes. Briggs’ characters are quirky, believable, and no one is irredeemably evil or good. She also has a flair for capturing social interactions; her werewolf sub-culture is fascinating and feels utterly realistic (assuming there were a subset of people who could turn into wolves).
• The books in her series are self-contained and always a decent few hundred pages long. I am not impressed by people who write epics, to be perfectly honest. Granted, there are some amazingly good epics out there (I was recently captivated by Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy — Assassin’s Apprentice, etc.) but writing absolutely every detail is lazy in a lot of respects (aside from the challenge of keeping someone’s interest through every little detail). I am much more impressed by authors who can compress a worthwhile story into a digestible chunk without letting themselves go. Briggs does this without fail.

I really can’t recommend Patricia Briggs highly enough. This is definitely the kind of fantasy that I’d like to be able to write myself, and I greatly admire Briggs’ ability to write realistic fantasy that maintains the excitement and fun of more clichéd fantasy. But as much as I like blathering on about how great Briggs is, you probably are more interested in which book to pick up first. Here’s my thoughts on that:

• Moon Called is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series (currently three books long, a fourth on the way). This is urban fantasy of a sort (set in Kennewick, WA), and likely to have the broadest appeal of any of Briggs’ work. Although I love Dragon Bones, I think this might be my favorite group of Briggs books.
• Dragon Bones as I’ve noted before is an excellent book, and my recommendation if you’d like to try some of Briggs’ more traditional fantasy. Raven’s Shadow is her other traditional fantasy duology, but it isn’t as strong as the Hurog books.
• The Hob’s Bargain is a decent standalone traditional fantasy, but not really one to introduce you to Patricia Briggs. Read it after you’ve finished some of the other stuff and need your fix one way or another.
• Cry Wolf is Patricia Briggs’ newest novel set in the same world and with a number of the same characters as the Mercy Thompson novels, but it isn’t a good starting place for two reasons: first, you’ll want to have read at least the first Mercy Thompson book or the world won’t make enough sense to you; second, the book picks up after a novella and the beginning third or so throws you abruptly into a relationship between two people you don’t know all that well (unless you read the novella). Cry Wolf is excellent, of course, but it’s more geared toward people already loving Patricia Briggs.

So go read Briggs. I certainly am glad that I’ve discovered her, and I’m looking forward to her next books.

Cuil, a newly released search engine, is extremely interesting. I love the multiple column approach (perfect for today’s widescreen monitors), and the idea of sorting by relevance rather than popularity (even if it’s a total pipe dream) is something I can get behind. I’m happy to find that it’s a lot simpler than Google, too, which is great. Google is easy, but Cuil is way easier (and more helpful when it comes to constructing queries).

That said, I did a vanity search for “beckism” (though I sometimes am tempted to vanity search my name, it’s always useless thanks to another, rather more famous Ian Beck; the fame doesn’t bother me, but what really pisses me off is that he’s an author and writes fantasy, which means if and when I’m able to get published I won’t even be able to use my own name). In any case, it turned up an interesting result:

Aside from the fact that the link (and as a result their index) is woefully out of date (I redesigned the blog back in February, which was when I changed my link structure), I’m curious how that image got associated with Dirt Man. It’s clearly some sort of clothing accessory, but aside from the fact that it’s an image that has never been on my servers, why on earth would it be associated with my site? I don’t sell clothing. I don’t even like clothing. Well. It’s nice when it keeps off the rain, I suppose.

I want to love Cuil, but it definitely has some kinks to work out.

In other news, the last time I updated Dirt Man was February 2006. Jesus. No wonder no one ever reads it.

Jets’n'Guns is on sale at the MacUpdate Promo for 50% off today July 26, 2008, and if you’ve never played it but enjoy sidescrolling space games, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I’ve said why I love Jets’n'Guns elsewhere, so suffice it to say it’s still one of the best arcade games out there.

MacUpdate often continues their sales past the “expiration date” of the MacUpdate Promo, so here’s a direct link to Jets’n'Guns at MUPRomo if you want to check if there’s still a deal available for it.

The only downside is that this appears to be the original Jets’n'Guns, and not the extended Gold copy. If you want the Gold version, you still save $10 by buying it at MacUpdate Promo and then upgrading at Rake in Grass’s website. A bit disappointing they didn’t just put the Gold version itself on sale, though.

After having finally seen the end of The Dark Knight yesterday (which we previously had missed thanks to a wide-spread and suspiciously well-timed power outage), my girlfriend and I were wandering homewards. What had seemed like the culminating moments in our first go turned out to be only about three quarters of the way through, and as a result it was quite a bit later than we had expected to get out. With no quick and easy entrees beckoning us home, we decided to try the local Mongolian Grill and see if it was any good.

The food was alright (although unlike any other Mongolian grill I’ve ever been to you didn’t get to make your own sauce, which was disappointing), but the best part of the trip was the poster displaying nine good reasons to eat frozen yogurt that was on the wall. Or, more accurately, “9 Reasons to Eat Y/O/G/U/R/T”. Your guess is as good as mine why they slashed it up.

1. Yogurt is easier to digest than milk

This seems to me like a decent argument for eating yogurt.

2. Yogurt contrubutes [sic] to colon health

Again, a healthy colon is certainly a plus in anyone’s book, although I’m a little perplexed why this is the second reason. It seems more like the kind of thing you’d slip tactfully in around reason number seven or eight.

3. Yogurt can boost immunity

We seem to be on a health kick here.

4. Yogurt aids healing after intestinal infections

Whozawha? “Aids healing in intestinal infections?” Purely aside from the fact that this seems more like something you’d find in a doctor’s office than a restaurant, how many of the customers here have intestinal infections? It must be a pretty significant number if the fourth reason you should eat yogurt is to help those pesky infections on their way. Suddenly the partially frozen meat that went into my dish is looking less and less like a good idea.

5. Yogurt can decrease yeast infections

Well, damn. As if the intestinal troubles weren’t enough, they wanted to be absolutely certain we knew the healing and preventative power of yogurt. Except that yeast infections are not something I want to think about when I’m eating. Yeast infections, in fact, manifestly put me off food.

Fortunately, though, after the first five reasons the author of the poster decided that they had extolled the virtues of yogurt for the digestive tract long enough.

6. Yogurt is a rich source of calcium
7. Yogurt is an excellent source of protein
8. Yogurt can lower cholesterol

Ah, now there are three reasons that a sheltered American like myself can appreciate. From Cheerios boxes to news anchors, calcium, protein, and cholesterol are all subjects safe for public consumption. Sure, they don’t have the shock value of yeast infections, but they’re also familiar enough that I don’t have to think about them. Which is nice. Because I still can’t get the thought of those yeast infections out of my head, and am cursing the impulse to add cauliflower to my meal.

9. Taste good

“Okay, there’s our list.” “But we said nine reasons, and we only have eight.” “Oh, fine, say it has a good taste. We already covered all the important bits like yeast infections.” “Alright. ‘Taste good’. Let’s go print this son of a bitch.”

Needless to say, despite nine very good reasons to eat y/o/g/u/r/t, neither my girlfriend nor I was tempted to try it.

It was probably because neither of us had a yeast infection.

(As an aside, this poster was almost certainly created overseas somewhere, and the cultural disconnect between Americans like myself, who value pleasurable flavors, and the authors, who evidently prefer restorative powers after intestinal infections, is quite telling.)

My girlfriend and I decided to go see The Dark Knight today. We both loved Batman Begins, and the previews for The Dark Knight were exciting. So we show up at the theater, and after being advertised and previewed at for a solid 40 minutes, we finally get to the movie.

And it’s good. Really good. The Joker is a psychotic killer, but he’s an exquisitely well-done psychotic killer. Granted, it’s hard for me to reconcile this gritty Joker with the Joker of the 1966 Batman movie (Batman: “An exploding shark was pulling my leg!” Gordon: “The Joker!”).

But still. Good movie, lots of action, and definitely in keeping with Batman Begins.

Then, almost at the ending, Batman is lying on the ground, possibly unconscious and certainly hurt, while the Joker stalks toward him. One of the Joker’s henchmen (where does he get these guys?) leans over our prone hero, and reaches for his mask. There’s a spark from the mask, the henchman starts jumping back, and at that very instant, everything goes dark.

The audience sits silent for a few seconds while it sinks in. Something went wrong. The timing really was that perfect. Spark, malfunction. Then we realize that we’re likely ten minutes or so away from the end of the movie and the laughter and catcalls start.

Turns out the power went out (the whole block the movie theater was on looked to be out, although it was hard to tell since it was a gorgeous sunny day without a speck of wind; very surreal), so unfortunately my girlfriend and I have still not seen how The Dark Knight ends. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to use the free movie voucher the theater gave us. But still. You couldn’t have planned that kind of timing.

This kind of thing is why I think god probably does exist: if we can believe the Bible, he was into angry, jealous smiting to start (“Worship someone else? DIE!”), then when that didn’t work fell back to cajoling and offering bribes (“Come on, if you believe in me I’ll treat you real nice in the afterlife!”), and finally got old and tired and said the hell with it, I’m just going to fuck with them. Which describes just about every parent-turned-curmudgeon who I know.

We rented Batman: Gotham Knight from iTunes last night, and it was decent. Not amazing or worth owning, but a fun sequence of six interrelated animated Batman shorts nonetheless. If you’re in the mood for some Japanese animated Batman action, it’s definitely worth seeing.

I have to say, though, the short sequence where Batman waxes poetic on the appeal of guns is like hearing commentary for some gun enthusiast’s wet dream. No, Batman. Having a gun, no matter how sleek and well-oiled, does not make you God. It makes you someone who can very easily kill or maim someone else. That is all. Go get laid.

Take a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup (preferably the bite-sized version). Freeze it. Eat it frozen.

Tastes the same (aside from being very slightly colder and harder), but without the disgusting greasiness on the wrapper and outside that otherwise mars a perfectly decent candy. Brilliant.

Thanks to my girlfriend for introducing me to frozen Reese’s. Definitely the way to go. The only downside is that the inner wrapper is slightly more difficult to remove, but I’m willing to live with that.