The Best & Worst SFF Governments

Every now and then (read: all the stinkin' time), there is some controversy in SFF and comics about how they should be a-political. This is usually the result of something in those worlds pushing forward, and conservatives trying to protect "the good old days" or some such. I reject the notion that SFF & comics are not political, indeed, that they even can be. Even if you're not trying to make a statement, anything you create will naturally reflect one's own views and beliefs.

Since SFF inherently involves visions of the future or alternates realities, there are governments there. Sometimes they are very good to show what humanity can be, or very bad to show... the same thing. Today is a Presidential Election here in the You Ess of Eh, and, frankly, it's terrible and terrifying, so I thought we'd retreat into fiction to look at some of the best and worst governments out there (NOTE: I have not seen every movie, read every comic, or read every book, though not for lack of effort. So if you disagree, awesome, add it in the comments. This is just for fun).

The Best:

The Federation, Star Trek. This seems like the obvious one. The Federation is great for a whole slough of reasons, but primarily because is really does show the best of humanity, and what can be achieved if everyone works together and accepts one another. Also, bad ass spaceships, obviously.

Vote Spaceship

Gondor, Return of the King. Under Aragorn, after Sauron has been defeated, just so we're clear. Gondor went through some stuff, didn't they? Denethor was worse than useless, Faramir (book Faramir) was awesome, but Daddy loved Boromir, so he got shoved to the side. BUT, Aragorn took over, evil was gone and good times again in Gondor. Tell me you don't want Aragorn as your king, and Arwen (BOOK Arwen) as your queen.

The Worst:

The Old Republic, Star Wars. Wait, you're saying. They had Jedi and united the galaxy and were basically awesome. To which I say: oh, yeah? The Jedi sucked and were ineffective, unable to keep the peace or see threats in their own midst. The government was so bloated and weighed down by corporate influence, it allowed itself to be taken over by a scheming, selfish, wrinkled idiot from within. Do you see a parallel?

Immortan Joe, Mad Max: Fury Road. You could throw any number of dystopian governments on this list, since they all basically exist to highlight extreme class disparity. Most of them, though have the governing class outfitted in fancy garb and eating the best food, and, hey, I get it and it works for those stories. The problem, is that actually appeals to a certain class of people, who want their own happiness, no matter the expense to others. The difference with Joe is, his life is crap, too, just a little less crappy than those he oppresses. His chest is covered with metals and decorations - of his own making and award. His children are deformed and power hungry and delusional, just like him. He has a collection of women, which he thinks represents his prowess, when in fact, they hate him. And while he fancies himself all-powerful, in fact, he relies on others who are richer, smarter and more powerful than he is. Sadly, there is no such parallel in real life, and we should all be glad of it. Oh wait.

Tiny Tina's Assault on the Dragon's Keep

good gravy, Gearbox saves the best for last!

There's so much I want to tell you about the fourth installment in the Borderlands 2 downloadable content library! I'm going to do something I don't normally do and have a "spoilers" section so those of you who want to can read about some of the game and those that don't want to hear a peep before they play can avoid it. If you couldn't tell from that caveat, I absolutely loved this add-on. The Mr. Torque DLC was fantastic, but I have to say that this one is even slightly better.

The story is a game inside a game. You are playing Bunkers & Badasses, a clear tribute to Dungeons & Dragons. However, instead of playing as wizards and warriors, you are playing as vault hunters. Tiny Tina is the Bunker Master (Dungeon master) and, therefore, in charge of the action. Having a psychopathic 13-year-old running things can lead to some awfully interesting situations. The writing for this DLC is the best of the set. Not only does it hold up in the wit department against the rest of the game, it has more references than an episode of Family Guy. Besides D&D, it also pays homage to Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Fantasia, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones among others. I probably missed a few in there, too. 

knight of justice and cupcakes and stuff

You begin the game at the Unassuming Docks of Potentially Little Importance.  You are immediately killed by an unbeatable dragon, at which point Lilith has to explain some of the rules to Tina like, you can't start the game with an un-killable boss. After Tina relents and brings on "Mister Boney Pants Guy" instead, you make your way to Flamerock Refuge. The town has lost its queen. An evil, yet Handsome sorcerer cast a spell that brought eternal darkness to Flamerock Ridge. The queen went on a quest to try to get rid of the spell and bring back the sun, but she hasn't returned to town. That's where you come in! While there are many side quests, the main story revolves around your search for the queen. That's all I'll say for the moment as I don't want to give too much of this glorious game away.

They manage to tie in some emotional content along with the violence. Tina pretends not to know that Roland and Bloodwing were killed in the main questline. For a game that is rarely sentimental, they pull it off quite well. They work in references to the dead characters, which are followed quickly by Tina's willful ignorance to their passing. Borderlands manages to work in sympathy and feeling with the skill of early Saturday Night Live star movies like Trading Places and Animal House while remaining true to its action-packed, wit-filled roots.

roll for initiative, suckas!

Nearly everything but the guns in the game has a melange of Tolkein, Game of Thrones, and D&D, down to the vending machines. Marcus Munitions has become Marcus Missiles and it warns you to, "Watch out for those orcs!" Zed's Apothecary quips, "Have fun storming the tower." There's another reference to a movie I just watched, The Princess Bride. It felt a bit like walking around in Skyrim with corrosive sub-machine guns and missile launchers while listening to music reminiscent of Fable. The parts that take place in a dwarven mine and temple recall the soundtrack from Snow White and Raiders of the Lost Ark, respectively.. 

Luckily for all of us, Mr. Torque returns to reprise his role as the comical juice box that made his own DLC so entertaining. He calls Tina on her cell phone and begs to be a part of the action. His nerd cred is duly tested and she reluctantly gives in, but places restrictions on the Macho Man so that control of the game remains squarely in her little borderline personality disorder brain. There are several other new additions to go along with the return of Mr. Torque. New to the Borderlands are enemies that include skeletons, spiders, dwarves, orcs, and dragons. The only thing that is missing is a hobbit or two. 

rotten meat - spoilers (don't worry, pics won't contain spoilers.)

I can't help it. Usually I have enough restraint, but this time I just have to share some of the amazing dialogue that this DLC has to offer. Most of these are just hilarious quotes that reference existing sci fi classics. Go ahead and skip to the next section if you don't want to read some funny stuff because they're spoilers. This section finishes when the text returns to black. 

• The town of Flamerock Refuge smells, according to Tina, like "Butts and death."
• When testing Mr. Torque's nerd cred, Lilith states, "(I've) gotta make sure you're not just faking geek-hood because it's trendy." You're darn right it is, fellow nerf herders!
• In a reference to Back to the Future, the Hyperion reincarnation machine slightly adjusts the classic line for its own purposes saying, "Lives? Where we're going we don't need...lives."
• At one point, characters repeat the line, "Oh dum shivi. Oh dum shivi. Oh dum shivi," which is only slightly altered from its original appearance in the Temple of Doom. 

• Claptrap the Wizard tries to halt your progress across a bridge shouting, "You shall not pass!" Guess what? You get by. 
• At another point, Claptrap attempts to use his powers but he ends up in the same situation as Mickey in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. 
• There is a dwarven rune password you must put in the right order. Tina has made the password F-A-R-T. Heh, fart. 
• In one mission, the combination of robes and facial hair is outlined clearly:
• Robe + Beard = Wizard
• Robe + Goatee = Warlock
• Robe + Mustache = Not allowed near public schools 
• Mordecai isn't a huge fan of the game, saying, "I hate dice." I tend to agree. 
• During a mission that is more of a dream for fans of Game of Thrones than a copy, 
• Mordecai says, "This is like that...show that...show. I haven't watched it.
• Lilith responds, "Well if you had, you'd think this was awesome!" It was. 
• A Necromancer from Evil Dead repeats the REAL magic words, "Clatto, Verata, Nicto," before being killed.

\That's all I have in the way of spoilers. I didn't want to share anything that would ruin the game, but I like to err on the side of caution when dealing with games and their fans. While some of these quotes might dampen your enjoyment of the game when you hear them live, none of them will reveal vital parts of the story line. I can spoil a little bit, but not the entire game. I have too many gamer morals for that. 

so, it was perfect?

No, it wasn't perfect, but it was darn close. One of the VERY minor annoyances was that the smaller loot boxes didn't always contain cash like they did in the rest of the game. When playing with a character who has maxed out his or her ammo, there's really no reason to open the normal loot boxes, but I always opened the smaller ones because I can't say no to cash, even small amounts. This was more than made up for by the chests like the one seen above. You are able to spend one eridium and roll one die. For five eridium, you can roll both. If you manage to hit a 20 or higher, you're almost guaranteed some serious loot, purple guns or better. 

Another mildly annoying portion of the DLC is the leveling system. In playing with my level 37 Commando on regular mode, all of the missions were level 35, nevermind that I had leveld up to 40 by the time the DLC was complete. When I finished that playthrough and turned to my level 51 Assassin in True Vault Hunter Mode, all of the missions were level 50. In the first go around in regular mode, the missions started out as a "good match," but eventually became "trivial" as I leveled up. I suspect the leveling will take too long in True Vault Hunter Mode to make any of the missions trivial, but it's still a bit off-putting that they wouldn't just level the game to your existing character. I didn't try with a lower level character, but it's on my to-do list. 

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

The fourth (and possibly final) installment in the Borderlands 2 downloadable content library is the best. It isn't far and away from the next best DLC, but it's clearly tops. It isn't just witty, but the smartest of the BL2 DLC. The writing is worthy of awards. It is the first to add considerable amounts of emotional content. It takes place almost entirely in an alternate universe, but unlike Fallout 3's Operation: Anchorage, it uses the alternate setting to its fullest potential. If you are only going to play one Borderlands 2 downloadable add-on this year, make it Tiny Tina! If you play two, get Torque. 

the math

Objective Score: 9/10

Penalties: -1 for a few minor complaints. The lack of setting the level near the player should be easy to do, but they aren't. Unless you're near the pre-determined level, the game is either too easy or too hard. 

Bonuses: +1 for the most creative, hilarious, deep, and emotional writing of any of the Borderlands 2 downloadable content. 

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. Very high quality. Standout in its category. 

GUEST POST: Stories Outside History by Daniel Abraham

We are proud to present a guest post by fantasy and science fiction author Daniel Abraham! Regular readers of this blog are doubtlessly familiar with our reviews of Daniel's work, most recently the excellent and thought-provoking fantasy novel The Tyrant's Law. A prolific writer, Daniel also writes urban fantasy under the name MLN Hanover and co-writes the Hugo-nominated Expanse space opera series as James S. A. Corey (with Ty Franck). He has also written the graphic adaptation of A Game of Thrones for Dynamite and numerous short stories and novellas, the most recent of which ("The High King Dreaming") was a standout in Jonathan Strahan's top-notch Fearsome Journeys anthology. 

What you may not know is that Daniel is an equally accomplished critic of fantasy and science fiction--his piece on historical accuracy and "realism" in fantasy fiction for A Dribble of Ink is a must-read for any fan with a critical eye. Today Daniel revisits the topic of fantasy's relationship to history...

There's a way in which all stories are fantasies, but there's also a way in which some stories aren't.

I came to the conclusion a few years ago that reading is essentially an act of performance. When we read, we imagine the scenes described before us in a way that's a lot like remembering or dreaming them. When the passage talked about the smell of the sea and the darkness of the sky, we as readers evoke those sensations, putting them together based on whatever experiences we have that apply. We create a drama that each one of us experiences alone. How I imagine Frodo and the Balrog probably isn’t quite the way you do. How I hear Lord Peter Wimsey speak is probably a little different. The finest details and even whether those details are part of the experience will change from reader to reader, and even from reading to reading. Which is to say that the experience of a story – as opposed to the experience of grammar – is an act of imagination, no matter what the content of that story may be.

I live in the early twenty-first century. I have no direct experience of Weimar Germany. Or 1800s England. Or Napoleon's final prison on Elba. Or – more to the point – of Bag End, Winterfell, or Barsoom. Whenever I read a story, I am evoking places, people, actions, and states of mind that are outside my immediate experience. But some stories lay claim to a special status. To one degree or another, they claim to be real. That can range from "Based on a True Story" claims like the Amityville Horror books to any piece of fiction that takes a setting in the present or historical past. By placing characters and events in the world we know – or feel like we know, anyway – the story gains something. I may not have been to ancient Rome, but I've seen it depicted before. I am aware of who Julius Caesar was, who Brutus was, what a toga looks like, just the way I have a sense of Edwardian England or the suburbs of Chicago. A shared cultural background gives information that the writer then doesn't have to put on the page. It gives the since that what we read could have happened (and maybe really did).

The stories we call fantasy give that up. They take place outside of history, outside of the world, outside, that is to say, of plausibility. The deaths of Boromir and Ned Stark have no relationship to the deaths of Constantine and Alexander the Great. It isn't only that the events didn't happen at the same time, they didn't happen at times that could be compared. The yardstick of history becomes meaningless.

The obvious advantage is that it gives writers more freedom. The struggle between York and Lancaster may have a documented outcome, but Stark and Lannister has no other source to take information from. It's tempting to say that this distance is what makes fantasy powerful, but I think that's a mistake. As a reader, my experience of fantasy isn't that, by being outside of my world, it becomes less connected to me. On the contrary, the experience of reading it seems more personal. More my own. That doesn't some from greater distance, but greater intimacy. It's a puzzle I haven't entirely solved, but I have some clues that I've followed, and some guesses that I've made.

The first fantasies I remember engaging with were pretend games I played with my mother. I was young enough at the time that my connection to the real world didn't extend much past my front yard anyway. Any world I spun up was as good as another. It was only when I started school that the question of whether it was real or not – whether it was right or wrong – was an issue. The real world where everyone agrees to common facts was something that school and education constructed for me over the course of years. It's a necessary context, and it allows for civilization to exist. I don't resent it.

But when an author starts a story by saying I can throw all that out, I fall back into that more intimate kind of dream. Yes, maybe it looks a little like something I know – there's a king, maybe, or a free city built on lagoon, or a train station at the edge of a city that's never existed – but for the most part, I've stepped back into a pretend game, and it feels a little disloyal to the world. There's a joy in that. And more than that, there's a power.

The roots of fantasy have often been instructive, and they've often been a little dangerous. Fables, fairy tales, parables and the stories about the gods all functioned to make the world make sense, not by cataloging it but by framing it. And it seems to me modern fantasy still has that in its blood. It is a literature that is equal parts swashbuckling playground adventure and ideas. To the degree that it is escapism, it can tell us what we're escaping from. To the degree it reflects our own world back to us, changed to let us see ideas freed from the particulars of history, and in my lifetime, that is most often concerned with the loss of innocence and the futility of war. 

I don't think it's coincidental that the two great tentpole fantasies of the last century – Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire – are first and foremost meditations on war. Lord of the Rings is an extended argument about the morality of disarmament and the redemptive power of mercy. A Song of Ice and Fire is profoundly sorrowful story about the futility of petty, vicious wars in the shadow of an overwhelming catastrophe. Both speak to the weariness of war and the human cost of violence.

By stepping outside the flow of history, fantasy gives us the toolbox to tell stories that are about deeper concerns, and often ones that we don't have other places to talk about. Because all fantasies, whether they say it or not, begin with "Once upon a time, but not now and not here" and those of us who love them, love that. And we love it because it isn't true.

The Elder Scrolls: Past, Present, and Future

The Best RPG Saga Ever?

My first introduction to the Elder Scrolls universe came with Morrowind, and I was less-than-enamored. I didn't actually play it until after Microsoft released the Xbox 360, so it was a bit dated at the time. That couldn't have helped my impression. There were no fast travel options as the two most recent iterations have had. You had to either pay close attention or take written notes if you wanted to complete quests because towns weren't instantly visible on the map. If you took a phone call or stopped paying attention even for a few seconds, you could miss a detail that would have you wandering blindly through the wilderness for hours looking for a certain tree or castle. Suffice it to say I didn't make it very far into Elder Scrolls III. 

Then Came Oblivion

I'll be honest. I probably didn't give Morrowind its proper due because I borrowed it from a friend to play after I had already purchased Oblivion. I just wanted to see what the prequel was like before diving into the massive world of Cyrodiil. With the addition of a fast travel option, this game was much more playable to ADHD gamers like myself who aren't used to investing over 100 hours in a single game. Players can (and I did) spend hours touring the countryside picking flowers, collecting pelts, and generally living out a wizards and warriors fantasy without ever having to actually complete a single quest. That said, I eventually completed every quest in the game including all of the downloadable content. I have friends that refused to join the assassin's or thieves guilds because they were too attached to the characters they had created and refused to let them "turn to the dark side" but the completionist in me just couldn't let those quests go.  

Oh, those wretched Oblivion Gates! Even though they yielded priceless artifacts that could turn a regular sword into a magical weapon of unbelievable power, they really got old, didn't they? The idea was good: travelling to another dimension to battle and close the gates that were releasing hordes of demons upon Cyrodiil. There were just so damn many of them! If the game had had half the number of gates, I think it would have worked much better for all involved. As it is, they became more of a chore than a joy by the time you'd cleared out many of them. I have to say I massively preferred the dragons in Skyrim to the gates in Oblivion. The battles didn't take an hour, the music was fantastic, and let's face it, fighting dragons is just cool!

Winter Is Coming

Finally, we come to it. In my humble opinion, the best of the Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim is a massive, beautiful, dangerous world that is teeming with life throughout its beautiful mix of environments. Where Oblivion had a Tolkien-like feel to the world, Skyrim shares its soul with Martin's Winterfell and the Wall to its north. While I played Oblivion as a tank, choosing the soldier's life and a sword over spells and magic cloaks, in Skyrim I went all-out mage, a decision I ended up being very happy with in the end. Early on in the game it presented certain physical limitations, but by the time I reached level 40 I barely had to fight at all since my re-animated minions handled all the rough stuff for me. With two Draemora at my side, I only had to take part in the bigger battles where boss-level enemies were involved. 

Elder Scrolls Online

A few weeks ago I wrote about the five games I'm most excited about in the coming year. This one was at the top of my list, which is strange because as I've said before, MMORPGs are not really my thing. It was a popular post and made me decide to take this week to delve further into the saga as I experienced it. The upcoming Elder Scrolls Online will contain not only brand new destinations, but many of the old ones from the three previous games, as well. 

It is set 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim. The amount of customization found in the previous games makes me salivate knowing that they're going to blow them all away with this one. One thing that will be interesting to see is the combat system. In previous Elder Scrolls games, you could essentially pause battle while you chose a spell or weapon. With MMORPGs that's impossible since everything must happen in real time. The aiming system in previous Elder Scrolls wasn't exactly Rainbow Six Vegas, which could present some problems to the spray-and-prayers among us. Rather than having multiple servers, they plan to hold the entire thing on one "mega-server" that will host the players in the world, I guess. At least that's what it sounds like from what I've read, although it's a bit hard for me to imagine there's a CPU powerful enough to handle the number of players this game is going to generate without some sort of issues arising, at least around the launch. 

I Can't Wait!

They haven't even announced a release date yet, which probably means Christmas, dangit! Even so, my excitement level for this game couldn't be higher. I don't play every RPG that comes along and I rarely pick up an MMORPG, but the completeness and care that has gone into the Elder Scrolls series has won me over. Anything Bethesda does with this series is going to have me doing backflips in anticipation. Until they come up short, I'll be first in line to try anything they make. I look forward to playing alongside many of you in the following year. 

BIG IDEA: Creating Better than the Creators

I am in the process of nerducating my wife. When she was a kid, her dad told her that Star Wars was stupid because lasers don't make sounds in space, so she believed her whole life that Star Wars was stupid and never watched it. Until just recently, when she fell in love with it.

But discussions of Star Wars these days always lead to a caveat that goes something like, "Well, not the prequels. I mean the real Star Wars." This was a sentiment that got its own movie in The People vs. George Lucas.

Only 1970s-vintage Star Wars for me, thanks. When it was all awesome!

While Star Wars may be the most egregious example of a creator undermining the artistic merit of his or her own franchise, it's certainly not the only one. And the more I look around, the more I seem to see it pretty much everywhere. Here are a couple of examples:

Star Trek:
Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek in the early 1960s for CBS Television and was actively involved as Executive Producer on the first 55 episodes of the series. He left the series before Season 3, and the show kinda went a little nuts. Roddenberry got involved again about a decade later and tried to develop a second Star Trek series, but it never took off and the plot was heavily reworked to make Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is arguably the worst of the six original movies.

The other candidate for worst of the original movies is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which was co-written and directed by the series' star, William Shatner. Shatner's ego is writ large across this movie ("I will show Nimoy who's boss and guide us on a search for God, himself!"), and it's chock full of stuff Bill likes simply because he likes it (horses, mountain climbing, etc.)

With Roddenberry absent and Shatner singing "Rocket Man," three people stepped into the void: producer Harve Bennett, writer/director Nicholas Meyer, and Leonard Nimoy. They gave us the Melville-quoting, massive-chested Khan, Spock's emotional death scene (seared into my memory even as a little, little kid) giving his life for his friends, the destruction of the Enterprise (similarly memory-seared), and the crew journeying back to 1980s-era San Francisco to rescue extinct Humpback Whales. I would argue that these three were far better stewards of the franchise than Roddenberry himself, and that the popular success of their emotionally rich storytelling was more responsible for the subsequent spin-off Star Trek series than anything else. Notice that in rebooting the franchise in 2009, J.J. Abrams and writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci did not negate the emotional growth arc that Spock (Spock Prime) went through in those movies. It is the only thing that remained intact when the timeline was altered. I don't think that was an accident.

"Laugh it up, Pointy, but just remember who made you..."

Harry Potter:
Fellow Nerds-Feather contributor and my former roommate Mikey once went to the UK, and came back with four paperbacks about this wizard-kid called Harry Potter. He handed me the books, I read them in four days, and never looked back. I was a fan. I tried to get my wife to read them, but she refused, saying they would be dumb (I'm sensing a pattern here). But I prevailed upon her, and the next thing you know, we're at an Order of the Phoenix midnight release party, racing home with two copies, and reading them side-by-side into the wee hours.

"But wait..." I asked myself then, "are you telling me Harry just lost the only family he had left because Sirius was acting like kind of a jackass?" Hmm... By the time we got to Book 7, I could almost feel J.K. Rowling's loathing for her own characters spilling off the page. Killing folks willy-nilly just to kill them, it seemed like, and then dispatching with Lord Voldemort in maybe two paragraphs. The whole thing felt overlong, a little incoherent, and shoddy to me. I recognize I may be in the minority on that, but subsequent interviews with Jo Rowling bear me out that she was tired of writing the books, wanted to be done with them, and even wanted to kill off Ron because he annoyed her.

"Somebody get this red-haired kid outta here or I'll do it myself..."

Enter producer David Heyman and writer Steve Kloves. Heyman spent a decade producing the eight Harry Potter films, and Kloves wrote all but one of them. I will argue that starting with Goblet of Fire -- or possibly The Order of the Phoenix -- the movies became better stewards of Harry's journey and its telling than the novels that inspired them. In the books, the killings-off of main characters infuriated me, but moved me in the movies because the characters died for reasons, they died protecting their loved ones, as Harry would himself have to do, and the series-climaxing showdown with Voldemort was exactly that -- climactic. And though they couldn't fix every problem with the books (Dumbledore's dead, but still gets to explain everything to poor, confused Harry at the end, and I really didn't need the flash-forward to middle age), but they did have the good sense to leave S.P.E.W. out of the movies all together.

Lord of the Rings:
Let me be clear, J.R.R. Tolkien did nothing to rob his magnum opus of its artistic merit, but holy hell is it long. It took me two tries to get through all the walking in The Two Towers, and (not being a big reader of maps) I was never quite sure what all the different folks were fighting about in the first place or where. Also, the Battle for the Shire just made me tired. Didn't we already beat the baddest of bad guys? Now we have to spend another hundred pages cleaning up his underlings, too? Ok, I guess...

But Peter Jackson took the books up on the mountain, allowed them to be struck by lightning, and brought the result back down to us in the form of three movies, the likes of which I had never seen before. Watching The Return of the King in the theater on its initial release was literally breathtaking. And even though it ended too many times, it didn't end as many times as the book, so bonus points for Peter, Fran, and Philippa.

But now, I fear, they have worn the One Ring for too long, because The Hobbit, shorter than each of the Lord of the Rings novels, will be as long onscreen as the whole other saga was. And that's kind of a bummer.

Like with Lucas and Star Wars, I don't know where a created world leaves possession of the one who created it and becomes the "property," if you will, of those who populate it in their dreams and escape into those worlds for countless hours of inspiration, encouragement, and wonder. But one thing I'm starting to realize is that we have it in us to create things that are far bigger than we are, and far bigger than we can control. And often, the people who gave birth to these young worlds are not the best people to raise them. But that's ok, too. One person can only do so much, after all.

Except this guy. He can do it all.

2012 Nerd Gift Guide: Molly

Let's face it: if you're reading this, there's a good likelihood you're a dude (50% at least) scrambling to find a gift for the lady in your life (or dude, but I'm a lady, so that's what we're going with) before Xmas comes and she realizes you think more about Skyrim than how best to express your love for her. But, lo, she too is a nerd, and that's when you realize: you can't eff this one up.

As the only member of the Nerds of a Feather team with ladyparts, I feel obligated to provide a list of nerdy thing geared toward the nerdy lady in your life. Pretty much I'm just going to show you everything that's in my Amazon wishlist, but if your female friend is anything like me, these things are sure to woo.

For the literary, bling-worthy nerdy lady

Sharing a book with someone is special. What sorcery it is to share separate memories of the same thing! Let your boo know that you love her brain and her decolletage by giving her real fake jewelry from her favorite fiction (and its movie).

• Hermione's Timeturner necklace or Yule Ball earrings
• Galadriel's ring or anything else from Middle Earth
• Denna's ring (or Tehlu's iron cross or Eolian Talent pipes)

For the bakin' nerdy lady

If the fastest way to your nerdy Xmas elf crush is through her kitchen (not a euphemism), give her the gift of geeking out while on a homemade sugar high.

• Chocolate frogs molds
• Science lab cookie cutters
• Get crafty and make her a one-of-a-kind set of planetary plates

For the one you wanna stay with

In it for the long haul? Show her you're thinking long-term. Forget Ikea; real men buy oak furniture and get excited about raising the Next Generation of geeks. (See what I did there?)

• Next Gen onesies
• Catan building blocks
• An amazing gaming table!!

First Impressions -- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I just got home from a showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (as I'm writing this, not as you're reading it) -- and I'm going to write down some thoughts in no particular order that popped into my head during the high-frame-rate, 3D preview screening of this anticipated movie.
Full disclosure -- this was a VIP prescreening with free booze -- which is why I'm at home with a buzz hating Elijah Wood writing this while you're probably standing in line to hate Elijah Wood at the midnight opening. Spoilers ahead!

1. I was really looking forward to Elijah Wood not being in this movie. It was nice to see Ian Holm in freaky shiny young make-up, but if I had heard "My dearest Frodo..." one more time in voiceover, I would have expected Frodo sick in bed playing NES baseball and a whine of "Is this the kissing part?" to interrupt the middle of the movie. A little too much frame for me, and even those five minutes of Elijah were enough to turn my stomach. At least he didn't giggle.
Yes, I know I'm an angry drunk, but I dislike Elijah Wood even when I'm sober.

2. It was worth seeing because Ian McKellan as Gandalf is always worth seeing, even when the script is a little watered down, which I think this one was. Stretching one book into three movies is a feat, and it really showed -- particularly with the "It's not Hogwarts without you, Hagrid" ending on the peak when the giant eagles saved the day (again, though story-chronologically first). I'm sorry, but I just won't ever buy cheering for someone else's touching moment when you just got battered all to hell eighteen times in a row like those dwarves just had. In that moment, wouldn't you rather lay there being insanely grateful you're still alive than give one fleeting lick than a halfling saved the day?

3. Cate Blanchett stole the show again. She's so amazingly beautiful and eerie and must actually be half-elf.

4. The stone giants were SO COOL. Thranduil's stag was badass. Mr. Anderson Elrond was charming as ever. Radagast was strange and perfect. Also: Bret! There should have been more Bret McKenzie as Lindir.

5. I don't know if it was the HFR, the 3D, or the three neat whiskeys -- but a lot of the movie looked choppy when that's exactly what it shouldn't have looked like. Some of it looked AMAZING, like Rivendell and Galadriel and the Shire, but a lot of the action looked like a video game. And, like, not a new game; like, Shadow of the Colossus -- which is a great game -- but graphically outdated. This is not a bad thing because it's going to make an AWESOME GAME, especially the goblin city level.

6. Gollum is one of the saddest, most complex characters ever portrayed -- but the moment of Bilbo's pity was not as powerful as I would have liked it to have been. Bilbo was good, likable, but he lacked depth and internal conflict. I will probably change my mind about this as I see the film over and over again and detect his nuances, like I did with Aragorn, but I'm left unsatisfied at the moment.

7. Did we really need all those dwarves? It may have been worth it to cut a few out during the adaptation so that viewing audiences could get to know at least a couple of them. Happy, Grumpy, and Gluttonous would have been better than Thing 1, Thing 2, and Bad Who-Hairdo. And Thing 3, Thing 4, and Other Bad Who-Hairdo.

So what's my conclusion? Ehhh, it was ok. It felt a little bit like seeing Episode I -- obviously geared more toward kids, less of a story and more of a pageant of days gone by. Surely a massive accomplishment and a lovely entertaining film, but I won't cherish it so dearly as the other Lord of the Rings films. I blame Elijah Wood.

Lord of the Whinge: Annual Mockery

It's one of my winter traditions to watch the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings movies when there's first sticking snow on the ground. It's one of the ways that I trick myself into looking forward to winter, and it's awesome that this year it's right in time for the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (in theaters December 15).

Now that I've seen the movies a billion times, the joy of watching them has devolved into pitiless mockery of the characters and actors I hate to love and love to hate. Here are the characters/performances I won't miss watching The Hobbit.

Aragorn
With time, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn finally grew on me. Originally I hated his whiny, nasaly, annoying voice ("You cannot wield it!"), but the moment I always fall back in love with him? Return of the King: Elrond arrives at camp before the battle at Minas Tirith to present reforged blade, and Aragorn just WHIPS that sucker out. Like a boss. Nay! Like a king. He shouldn't skipped the song at his coronation though; Billy Boyd's Pippin is a hard act to follow.

Frodo
Elijah Wood is the worst fake giggler ever. But the scene that really kills me is when Shelob pokes him in the gut. There's a close up of Frodo frothing at the mouth, and all I can think about when I watch it is how much I want to punch him. Sorry, I've always hated Elijah Wood.

Eowyn
She's the most badly adapted character -- more of a hodge podge, really -- but Miranda Otto's Eowyn is comically bad for about 90% of her screen time. I will blame the extended editions for some of this, as a couple of the extra scenes are pointless besides adding to the incredibly awkward and (seriously, girl, duh) one-sided romance with Aragorn. Leave the love triangle to Twlight, and Eowyn can have her forced consolation romance with Faramir. (Had they ever even met?)

She's whiny, petulant, and -- and I know this is mean -- has the biggest forehead in the world, but she is awesome for four words in the whole trilogy: "I am no man." I just can't understand why someone with hair that long would braid it or throw it up into a pony before going to war. The best thing going for Eowyn is her foxy brother Eomer. I guess dirty horselords do it for me.