Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 20

Does it meander? Yes. Does it embrace a few predictable patterns and twists? Yes. But it also depicts not only a lushly imaginative SF setting but a set of characters convincingly wrought by that world.

It is beautiful and horrifying and tragic. And if nothing else, you will remember the Lazy Gun.

1 6

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 20

Iain M. Banks's Against a Dark Background is discounted to $2.99 at the Kindle and Google Play stores.

Banks, of course, is widely beloved and needs little promotion. But AaDB is widely considered one of his lesser works.

I love it. It's one of my favorites.

play.google.com/store/books/...

Against a Dark Background by Iain M. Banks - Books on Google Play

Against a Dark Background - Ebook written by Iain M. Banks. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes...

play.google.com

1 6

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 16

(My favorite Locomalito project is--and may always be--Hydorah, but I sank plenty of hours into l'Abbaye des Morts, Curse of Issyos, and Toxic Tomb as well!)

2

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 16

The brilliant Locomalito has been making beautifully crafted, totally free, retro indie arcade games for years. He is video gaming's equivalent of the unknown guy in small-town Texas making some of the world's best barbecue.

I really enjoyed original Gaurodan. Definitely interested in the revamp.

Locomalito @locomalito.com · May 15

#Gaurodan 2.0 final touches!

Potential release date: May 30th,
Día de Canarias / Day of the Canary Islands.

It is much more polished than the original version in every way, but especially in gameplay. I'm happy with the result, and that's rarely the case.

It will be available at locomalito.com

Video game screenshot. A giant bird is shooting rays and fying around a city with tall buildings and cannon nests.

1 4

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 14

Pitch for a young adult romance novel: "My BF Skinner". A young woman dates a student of behavioral psychology at Harvard, but his well-meaning yet manipulative approach to their relationship causes her to eventually split.

8

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 12

...but I'd been envisioning small and cramped (probably ruling out the CR-20), maybe modified from a shuttle of some sort.

1 1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 12

Thanks so much! It's a fair question but I'm afraid I don't have a good answer... I don't like to speak to what's not in the text (and I don't remember the specifics).

I certainly wasn't thinking about U-Wings at the time, as the book was written a while before those first appeared...

1 1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 3

So lovely to hear! Thank you for reading.

3

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · May 3

If memory serves, I named the orobird way, way back in the day! What's not to love about them?

1 1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 28

I spent way too much time trying to smudge the text!

I'm sure some clever enough person could make an algorithm to reconstruct it based on likely word lengths, but that seems like a lot of work for what I suspect would be a disappointing result.

2

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 27

Saw the Columbo episode "An Exercise in Fatality" for the first time. Maybe not among my absolute favorites but very solid and the Internet consensus is right: Milo Janus is absolutely one of the most loathsome murderers in the series.

9

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 26

Oh, and look what the Google Play bookstore algorithm just threw at me. On sale for $2.99! There are worse ways to spend your money.

5 3 41

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 26

Robert Irwin's brilliant novel The Arabian Nightmare is on sale as a Kindle ebook, for those of you who use Amazon.

www.amazon.com/dp/B07RW6VNB4

The book has many merits, not the least of which is one of the greatest set of chapter titles I have ever encountered:

1 7

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 25

But also because every writer works differently. My guess is that you could run draft comparisons for a dozen different authors and see different patterns in the redlining, revealing a bit of their style.

Everyone finds a process that works for them. Very often ONLY for them.

2 12

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 25

I do most structural work early, in my outlines, and largely stick to that plan. There are always exceptions, but you won't see whole scenes added / cut every chapter. Or many whole chapters added or cut. Usually, anyway.

Why am I sharing all this? Mostly because I think it's neat.

1 13

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 25

...but it's not unrepresentative of my process, either.

There are pages lightly touched. There are pages with multiple paragraphs torn out and new ones inserted. No whole scenes added or cut in this section, though--those are rare for me.

2 9

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 25

Excerpt of a work in progress. I used Word's "Compare" tool to redline everything that changed between first and second drafts.

The changes are slightly more pervasive than usual for me (there are some recurring minor changes that show up a lot, making it look more red than it "should" be)...

3 21

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 23

But all of that is speculation on my part, and I don't normally keep notes on minor points like that, so I can't confirm or deny anything.

1 1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 23

Wish I had a good answer for you but it's been a very long time since I wrote those lines. Your assumptions about Umbara and Salient seem reasonable, and my guess is that the Corporate Sector campaign wasn't referencing any specific continuity (other than the existence of the Corporate Sector!)

1 1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 22

Genuinely tempted to (but probably won't) start a book-by-book critique, analysis, and ranking of the non-Beginner Book works of Dr. Seuss.

Reread "I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew" the other day... still great!

9

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 21

So glad it worked for you, and thanks so much for the kind words!

1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 19

(Seriously, I do not want to overstate my contributions in any way. But it's a neat project and I love a good turn-based tactics game--and they've got a top-tier team of designers, writers, artists, cinematics folk, and so forth. I'm looking forward to playing it.)

1 24

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 19

Wrong time period!

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 19

Thank you so much for reading!

1

Alexander Freed @alexandermfreed.bsky.social · Apr 19

Pleased that Star Wars: Zero Company has been announced at last! I had the privilege of working a bit with Bit Reactor early in the project and am excited to see where it's all going.

Wonderful team, full of talented and caring people... wishing them the best.

youtu.be/rcxnRaZ6slU?...

Star Wars Zero Company | Official Announce Trailer

YouTube video by EA Star Wars

youtu.be

7 13 120