Author Archives: Bob Evans

A Pleasant Surprise

In addition to just hanging with family I haven’t seen in three years one of the joys going back east on vacation was seeing which games my nephew David had acquired and wanted to play.

On this trip he introduced me to Viticulture: The Essential Edition a game of growing grapes and making wine. Okay so it principally an economic game about a subject that I have low interest in, after all even before my no-alcohol medications I was a very spare drinker. The game mechanic is ‘worker placement’ so there’s no dice rolling in this game, only card draws for randomness, and very little direct action against the other players. All in all this sounded like a game that would have at most just a passing interest for me.

At my urging we played it nearly every single day I was there.

I still can’t break it down logically why this game worked so well for me, but it truly sang with fun. Perhaps it was the mechanic, ‘worker placement.’ I look at my collection and I see that I have no game that use that mechanism as their core play. Perhaps it was the simplicity of the game play without degrading the game’s reply value. Whatever the reason I really enjoyed Viticulture and I am thinking about introducing it to my friends, though I suspect except for one it is really not their gaming style.

It has also gotten me more interested in the whole ‘worker placement’ game mechanic. I shall have to look up more games with this and give them a try. Perhaps last month I discovered a whole new world.

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Blu-Ray Review: Shin Godzilla

One of the pleasant surprises from my vacation visiting my family on the east coast was getting a copy of the Blu-ray of Shin Godzilla, Toho’s reboot of cinema’s most successful franchise. Regular readers of my blog may remember that I saw this movie in a theater last year and enjoyed the experience. I can say that re-watching it on home video only enhanced my enjoyment and appreciation.

The Blu-Ray itself is thin on bonus features, containing only a trailer and a panel interview about the movie, however the transfer looked great. The picture was sharp, vivid with a clear and powerful soundtrack.

As I stated Shin Godzilla is a reboot of one of film’s most iconic characters. Rather than stick with the convoluted continuity stretching all the way back to 1954, this story wipes the slate clean and proceeds with a story in which Kaiju monsters have never exited.

One of the more difficult aspects to this sort of movie is finding the human story that takes place within the setting of a giant rampaging monster. The original Gojira cracked this using the story as a frame to discuss the recent war, the fears of nuclear power, and the conflict between what you want for yourself and sacrificing for the greater good. Shin Godzilla, well removed the horrors of World War II, centers it story on government officials tasked with dealing the impossible situation. While carrying forward a story about a young idealistic politician and his team of misfits and heretics the movie also finds organic methods of discussing nuclear weapons, governmental paralysis in crisis, and Japan’s international relationships, particularly with the United States.

The film has plenty of unobtrusive call backs to the 1954 original, principally in the soundtrack with sound effects and music well repurposed. Nearly all of the effects work quite well. (I did not like the eyes of the monsters earliest form. They struck me as pasted on and looking like the toys eyes you can stick on just about anything. This, however, is a fairly minor flaw.)

This is film that in many ways mirrors the tone of the original, approached with a seriousness that works and well worth having on Blu-ray.

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Movie Review- Morgan

A few weeks ago I had Netflix send me the disc for The Belko Experiment and on that blu-ray were previews for two films that sparked my interest one of which was Morgan.

Now I will admit that I had low expectations foe this movie. After viewing the trailer it seemed to me that it had a fairly high probability of being a modestly budgeted Alien clone, but that was not the case.

Morgan is a mid-budget SF films about a corporation’s secretive artificial life experiments, the L-9 Morgan project. After an incident resulting in the serious injury of program personnel Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) a risk assessment and management specialist is sent to the isolated facility to determine the dangers to the corporation and if the project should be terminated. The staff, having developed emotional attachments to their projection, resent her presence and her mission.

As I stated this did not turn out to be an Alien copy but Morgan is its own thing. (Some reviewers have unfairly compared it to ex Machina but that I think is a misreading based on surface elements alone. A tight, mostly one set locale, an artificial intelligence of unknown motivations, and a general atmosphere of suspense.) I believe, and unfortunately because this was a rental disc with all the bonus features crippled, it is only a belief, that the filmmakers were more directly inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and James Whale 1931 adaptation. This is the story of creating life and the relationship between the created and the creator. Unlike Frankenstein there is not a single genius but rather a talented team of scientists played by a group of experienced character actors including Michelle Yeoh, Paul Giamatti, Toby Jones, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and with Anya Taylor-Joy, whom I last saw in the lead in the terrific horror film The Witch as the titles character Morgan.

Morgan is a decent, enjoyable, and competently produced movie. Directed by first time direct Luke Scott and produced by his father Ridley Scott, the film makes the most of its modest budget, never looking cheap or like corners were cut, but rather utilizing the limited location and cast to created a confined suspenseful story. This is not a must see movie but it is still worth your time and an enjoyable way to pass 90 minutes.

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Time Scales

As a writer of science-fiction I often have to think about the time scale of future history, which wraps around and has me thinking about the time scale of actual history.

For example take a hypothetical person born around the time I was 1960. (I was not actually 1960 but it good enough for an example.) If that person lives until they are 80 they die in 2040, that an interesting stretch of history. Now say that person has a grandchild or great-grandchild born when in 2030. The kid and the oldest hang out for ten years because the oldster has cool stories before personal computer, home video, cell phones and so on. The kid born in a better time has a better run and dies when they are 90, or 2120. That kid, when they die, has spoken with and interacted with a person who was alive before man flew in space, but is passing away in the 22nd century.

With the rapidly expanding abilities of our medical technology there’s no doubt those number are on the conservative side. To me this gets more staggering when you play these numbers against history.

Move it all back and we have someone passing away in 2020 who had direct contact with someone born in 1860. That old person in 2020 could very well have known someone who had born on a plantation as a slave. That’s how tight and close our history truly is. Things and events we think of as the distant past are really just barely one step removed from living memory.

It is staggering.

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Confederate Statuary – A Modest Proposal

Recently the statues, plaques, and memorials to officers and soldiers of the confederacy of states that rebelled against the Union have surged into controversy. There are many who wish these icons removed from public spaces, arguing that the items honor the legacy and evils of slavery and those who defended race-based chattel slavery. Opposing arguments have been raised that to remove the

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monument_Ave_Robert_E._Lee.jpg

Used with common license

statuary and such is in effect ‘erasing history’ and that these memorials are not honoring the issues but the courage and bravery of the men who fought for their states,

Let’s set aside for a moment what the statues and such represent, not because the symbolism is unimportant but because for those who have already come of a conclusion about what they represent are already unlikely to change their opinions no matter the force of the arguments.

The question most people as is should the memorials stay or be removed, but I think there is another angle to approach the issue from.

How do we remember the past and give it the context it requires?

To my knowledge there are no memorials or icons honoring the end of slavery. We do not have a host of statues dedicated to the brave people who put their lives on the line to eradicate that evil practice. We have no solemn places where we atone for the millions enslaved and murdered.

Let us now rectify that. Let us now erect statues to the slaves, sculptures to celebrating the America Exodus, when a people were released from the bondage of a modern Pharaoh. Let us place each and every one of these next to an existing confederate memorial so that context will always be present.

You can get creative, perhaps simply listing with their statue the names of the slaves each confederate owned.

There can be no claim that history is being erased.

There can be no claim that an evil system is being honored.

There can only be an absolution for past sins, an honest appraisal of our shared history, and acceptance of what that means.

Of course if the idea of these statues and sculptures angers and offends you, then you might ask what exactly you want those traitorous statues are honoring.

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Movie Review: Logan Lucky

Well, I am back. I enjoyed my just over a week vacation to sunny and humid Florida, but now I am back in San Diego and ready to return to my day-job.

Yesterday on the last day of my vacation, my sweetie-wife and I went to see Logan Lucky. This is a movie whose preview interested me but I also held not a small amount of trepidation. Hollywood has not often treated characters from the south with respect or as people with full agency but after a review on-line I was ready to give this film a go.

Channing Tatum and Adam Driver play Jimmy and Clyde Logan, two West Virginia Brothers whom have been the target of a number of life’s bad luck potshots. Jimmy lost his ticket to up when an injury destroyed his sports career and left him with employment troubles while Clyde lost his left hand while serving in Iraq. Jimmy is not a bad person but circumstances have now forced him to contemplate a heist to change his fortunes.

Lucky Logan is a heist movie. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, who helmed the rebooted Oceans’ 11 franchise, this movie has all the classic moments and tropes of the heist genre. There’s the detail planning of the theft, the assembly of the team, the seeming impossible tasks required to achieve success, and the inevitable crap hitting the fan.

The entire cast is wonderful, playing their parts with honesty and not using their accents as thick cudgels to mock these people. It must be said that Daniel Craig steals every scene that he is in. With a thick as tar North Carolina accent (And if you think that pun was by accident you do not know me) Craig plays Joe Bang, the team’s explosives expert. Sporting a crew-cut of bleached blonde hair Craig is about as far from Bond as you can imagine and carries the performance beautifully. I enjoyed Craig before he became Bone, he has been my favorite Bond, and I can’t wait to see what he does post Bond.

Logan Lucky is a fun, entertaining, and fast movie well worth the time and expense to see it in a theater, Go out there and have some fun.

 

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Questions for the GOP

Specifically these are some of the questions that I think the GOP needs to ask itself, it is not meant as a pile-on or as an option for others outside of the GOP to smugly assert their superiority. (And trust me questions aimed at the Democratic party would yeild people acting just as smugly. As I have head ‘self-righteousness is an addictive drug.’)

 

Why are neo-Nazi’s attracted to your party?

Why would neo-Nazis believe that they were welcome in the GOP?

Why do the racists and ethno-nationalist brand themselves as alt-right?

What actions and or policies have the GOP enacted or attempted to enact that may have welcomed the neo-Nazi?

Are there line of discourse that you have pursued that welcomed the neo-Nazis?

Why was a political novice and outsider able to become the leader of your party?

Which is more important victory or principles?

 

A serious and dedicated study and answer to questions I think are vital to the survival of your party.

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My Fictions and Fading Empires

The military SF novel that my agent is currently shopping around has two core concepts baked into its world building; that the nationalism does not die away and that the United States becomes a faded empire.

(Let’s set aside the entire debate over the word empire and the evilness of the United States. I am using the term ’empire’ in a generic sense for a vast and dominate political entity.)

All empires fade. This is a fact history has repeated over and over so the fading of the American Empire is hardly going out on a predictive limb. In my world building I decided that the United States took a wrong path in the early 21st century, never recovered it senses, and began a downward spiral that among the interstellar nations reduced it to a second rate power. My principal character in the setting is an American who serves as an officer in the European star forces.

Should the publisher that is currently considering the novel decided to buy it and in 9 to 12 months you end up holding a paperback copy that I think is likely to produce an interesting and false conclusion; that the novel is a critique of American politics as they stand now and in particular Donald Trump.

My agent read the manuscript and we became partners in the literary endeavor two years ago, long before anyone dreamt that a TV reality star might take the presidency. The idea is even older than that. I first began working on the concept, early short stories and th basic world building back in the mists of early time, 1988.

(I can pinpoint it even though I usually have a terrible sense of when an event in my past happened because its creation was at the same time that Star Trek: The Next Generation started its first season.)

A lot changed in the world building for my Nationalized Space setting. The world changed, I adjusted ideas but the two core concepts remained the same. So when you read a book, any book, you may find parallels to the world around you but that doesn’t mean that was the specific intention of the author or that work. Sometimes it really is just coincidence.

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Going on Vacation

Soon, Saturday, I will be heading out on vacation to see my family. I do not know how often I will update this blog. I will try to stay on top of it but there are no promises.

Given that flying coast to coast will be a five hour affair and that I am traveling solo for this trip I should at least be able to get some writing completed. (There are few vacations from writing.)

One project I hope I might get started and finished during the trip is a new horror short story. I shared the central premise with some of the writers of my writers group and it was well received, giving me encouragement that the conceit is new enough to be worth pursuing.

If I do get that story completed I’ll do a public reading of at the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival next month. I will be attended as part of the literature horror panel along with a number of horror authors.

I am also working a big blog post, something else I may compose on the flight, going into detail as to why I find Star Trek: Insurrection the most offensive of all the Star Trek films.

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It’s Worthless

Trump’s belated and forced condemnation of the virulent ugly racism from some of his longest supporters is as worthless as any of his promises. As many others around the web have noted when Trump is genuinely angry there is very little that can be described as moderation or carefully considered. He lashes out with vitriol, hate, distortion, and lies. None of that was present in his forced condemnation. We know it, he knows it, and most important of all the racists know it.

They can see the political calculation as clearly as anyone else. Trump has their back, they know that. Trump employs their own, they know that. Trump has picked a side and it theirs.

Too many people in the Republican part thought that they could uses Trump to achieve their ends. The naïve believed that such tools still allowed them to produce pure results; the cynical didn’t care willing to use anything to achieve their personal petty ambitions. We are hurtling towards crisis and it may the crisis that defines this nation for generations. It is a crisis of the soul and it will define what it means to be an American.

 

Choose wisely.

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