Peggle

Feed My Addictive Nature! IT MUST BE FED!!!

Peggle is one of those cute little games that sneaks up and grabs you, and only then do you realize that cute little bunny has a death grip. Pop Cap is the maker of another of my favorite puzzle games that was reviewed here a few months ago called Bejeweled Blitz. This one may actually have it beat in terms of outright addictive gameplay. I got a Smash Burger for dinner tonight, brought it home, and before I knew it I'd let the burger get cold while I played twenty more minutes of Peggle. It's that fun!

Peggle is like a mix between pinball and heroin. You try to shoot a limited number of silver balls and clear the board of all the red pegs. Green pegs trigger the super power of whichever Peggle Master's levels you happen to be playing. Blue pegs just get in the way. And how is it like heroin, you ask? Once you start, it's incredibly difficult to stop (or so I hear, I've never actually tried heroin). For example, Tula the Tulip's special power is that all of the red pegs near the green one turn into tulips. The entire game is full of creative tricks like that, which make it all the more demanding that you play through to the end to try them all. 

Once You Pop, You Can't Stop

The ball is shot out of the cannon at the top of the screen. It then proceeds to bounce around somewhat like Plinko from The Price Is Right. You can win extra balls by landing yours in the ball bucket that moves back and forth at the bottom of the screen. This is a rare feat, but when you get some of the blue pegs cleared out of the way it helps to try and time your shot so that the bucket is going under it when you fire. At least you have a better chance at a free turn that you do if you completely ignore it as I did for the first few levels. When you get that final red peg, it plays the climax of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, and I can't think of anything more fitting. It goes right along with the endorphin dump you get and vocalizes your feelings exactly. More games should use classical music. I remember a war game on the 3DO that played Ride of the Valkyries during the helicopter fighting sequence. It was perfect!

You start each level with ten silver pinballs. Match that against twenty-five red balls, many of them spinning and gyrating, and you can see how this is not just an easy kid's game. While it may appear so on the outside, the gameplay is definitely challenging enough for the hardened gamer if they can get past its' cutesy exterior. Believe me, as a fairly adept gamer myself, I got as frustrated with Peggle at times as I did getting headshot by the same camping sniper in Call of Duty three times in a row. It could be aggravating, but you just need that one lucky shot to clear a level. When you finally do, it's as pleasing as sneaking up on that same sniper and spraying him in the back. Mmm, mmm...good! 

The Peggle Masters

There are ten Peggle Masters in the game, and each brings with them a special power for their five rounds. The Masters in the order in which they appear in the game are:

1. Bjorn Unicorn - His power is called Super Guide. It shows you which direction the ball will bounce off the peg, which can be useful information when you're down to two pegs and one ball. 
2. Jimmy Lightning - Multiball is Jimmy's power, throwing an extra ball into the board when you strike the green peg. 
3. Kat Tut - He attaches an ancient pyramid to the ball bucket that triples its width. This at least doubles your chances of winning an extra ball. 
4. Splork - He uses Space Blast to explode all nearby red pegs. 
5. Claude - This was one of my favorites. Claude is a lobster, I think. When you hit the green peg, you are awarded Claude's claws to use as pinball flippers. Although they didn't have quite the reaction speed that Zen Pinball Empire Strikes Back HD does, but that's understandable. 
6. Renfield - The Dracula reference is classic. It's fitting that the vampire's minion produces the Spooky Ball for his special power. It makes the ball re-appear at the top of the screen once at the exact point it fell down. This effect lasts for two turns. 
7. Tula - This beautiful tulip uses Flower Power to light up all nearby reg pegs. She tells you she hopes that hers is your favorite power. Sadly it wasn't, but it wasn't at the bottom of the list, either. 
8. Warren - He is a magician's bunny rabbit. Hitting the green pegs on his levels brings up Lucky Spin (and again we're back to The Price Is Right). A wheel appears and a spinner chooses one of four power options. His own is Magic Hat, which attaches a hat to your ball that lights up any pegs it touches. You can also win triple score for a turn, an extra ball, or any one of the other Masters' powers. 
9. Lord Cinderbottom -When you strike the green peg, you earn Fireball on your next turn. It turns your ball into a flaming orb of destruction that takes out all pegs in its path. There is no Plinko bouncing here, just fiery destruction!
10. Master Hu - His Zen Ball helps improve your shot through the power of mindfulness. No matter where you shoot it, he makes your shot the best it can possibly be. It maybe the most useful power in the game. 

the math

Objective Score: 9/10. This one's a keeper!

Bonuses: +1 for the most addictive gameplay I've seen in a while. I couldn't wait to get home and play more!

Penalties: -1 for not having more characters. I wanted it to keep on going. I guess it's time to buy Peggle Nights now, huh?

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

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. 

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine

Live Arcade Thievery

Monaco is a throwback to the tabletop games of old. It takes a top-down view in the same vein as the classics of the eighties, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Centipede. I can still remember waiting for a table at Western Sizzler as a child and playing a tabletop Ms. Pac-Man, but I digress. This Xbox Live Arcade beauty has won several independent game of the year awards. It has a 79 on Metacritic, which is pretty good considering its graphics would fit right in with those other tabletop games. Let's just say they don't rely on stunning CG to cover the lack of a quality game.

Monaco proves you don't need mind-blowing graphics to create an enjoyable game. It has a fun story, a good sense of humor, a nice melange of character options, and challenging gameplay. Put them all together and you get a unique game that takes you back fondly to your earliest years in video gaming. You can keep the "you're old" jokes to a minimum. I realize I'm dating myself here. The comparison to Ms. Pac-Man or, more accurately, Gauntlet, are apt in both visual depiction and enjoyment.

The gist is that you are a part of an Ocean's Eleven-like team of thieves, burglars, and general n'er-do-wells. Holding down L2 or left trigger put you into "sneak" mode. This made you fairly hard to detect, but if you walked in front of an officer, it didn't matter at all. You start the game with four of the eight character types. The other four must be liberated from captivity before they can be used. Along the line you rob banks, steal yachts, crack safes, kill cops, and cause country-wide mayhem. The story was cute, but not where developers placed their focus. The focus was clearly on unique and addictive gameplay.

All of the speaking in the game is in French, which is strange considering the developers are based out of San Francisco. However, I suppose the events of the game do take place in Monaco, so it makes sense on those terms. You can play the game in single player mode, but it really shines when four players are trying to be stealthy together. The chaos is unlike anything I've seen in Halo or Call of Duty. Instead of it being four times easier, as is usually the case when you fill out a multiplayer team, it was four times more challenging. Keeping one character hidden is hard enough. Keeping four out of all the guards' line of sight was nearly impossible. I was definitely the weak link in the chain, too. In my defense, my friends had been playing for two weeks and it was my first time. Now that you've heard my excuse, you'll understand I know that of which I speak when I say that you spend a LOT of time in multiplayer reviving teammates. 

The line-of-sight display used in Monaco means you can only see what was visible by your flashlight or ambient light from the environment. Even though certain rooms may be on the screen, unless you are physically in them you can't see what's going on. It would be nice to know whether there are cops inside or not. This effective visual decision made picking locks and entering new areas nerve racking, but in a good way. It was one of the little stealth additions that make Monaco a success. When you aren't relying on stunning graphics as so many of today's games do, you absolutely must have extra polish on your gameplay to get any attention at all from the gaming public. 

cast of characters

There are eight playable character types in Monaco. Each one brings a certain set of skills to the action. I found the Cleaner to be the most effective in the early going. Later on, the unlockable Mole became a personal favorite. Here is a list of the characters and their powers:

• The Hacker can disable computers and cameras faster than other characters. He can also create computer viruses from outlets. 
• The Cleaner can knock out unsuspecting guards. If they don't see you coming, you can put them to sleep for a short period of time. The Cleaner also uses med-packs faster than other characters. 
• The Pickpocket has an adorable pet monkey that collects coins and other loot for him. Hector (the monkey) won't alert guards, so you can stay hidden while he does the dirty work for you. The Pickpocket also hides in bushes faster than his compatriots. 
• The Gentleman can create a disguise while hidden. It doesn't last very long, but can be vital in keeping you from meeting your maker when being tailed by five or six trigger-happy coppers. For some reason, they don't seem to realize that they were shooting at you not seconds before once you don a disguise. He also enters getaway vehicles faster than the other thieves, but I never found that to be an advantage as you were pretty much free-and-clear once you reached the car. 
• The Mole has the ability to chomp through most walls and obstructions. This was invaluable when you were trying to escape from a bevy of guards. It also made getting around the board more straightforward. One of the problems I had with the game was the inability to tell what was a door and what was a wall. With the mole, you could go through either. 
• The Redhead has the ability to seduce a single enemy. More than one and she was toast, but she can get one guard to chill out if he's chasing her by himself. She also revived teammates faster than any other character type. 
• The Locksmith can, fairly obviously, pick locks very quickly. That includes doors, safes, cash registers, and ATMs. 
• The Lookout has the useful abilty to see every guard on a level while sneaking. She can move faster than any of the other types. She can also open windows, vents, and stairs faster than the rest. 

retro revolution

The music is as retro as the graphics. It brings to mind Scott Joplin and leans heavily on piano music from the first half of the twentieth century. The opening music sounds like it belongs in a saloon in Dodge City with Wyatt Earp dealing Faro. It also plays a part by informing the action. When you are undetected, there is little to no soundtrack. Someone just tickles the ivory. However, when a posse of guards is hot on your trail, the Joplin-esque piano really kicks into high gear. I found it to be a quality addition that really improved the overall experience. 

The game is very challenging, sometimes a bit too much so. It operates under the same gameplay model as those previously mentioned games from the eighties. You aren't supposed to be able to clear a level on your first try. This model varies widely from most modern games. Many of today's titles have levels that are passable on your first try. The focus is more on progressing the story line than mastering each individual level. For example, I knew every level warp, extra life, secret trick, and negative world in Super Mario Brothers. In today's games, an online walkthrough is almost always required to learn every secret that a title has to offer. For completionists, online walkthroughs have become a completely necessary part of the gaming experience. Many people, myself included, purchase 400-page game guides in order to achieve the same level of knowledge about a game that used to be acquired via multiple deaths and playthroughs. 

One reason for this shift in gaming trends is simply the size of games. HowLongToBeat.com claims Ms. Pac-Man takes 2-3 hours to beat, but I never came anywhere close to lasting that long. It took 3-4 hours to cover every level of Super Mario Brothers. Some single missions in Skyrim could take that long. To reach the same level of completionist OCD relief in Skyrim as Mario, you would have to spend at least 200 hours playing the game. If Skyrim missions were as difficult as those in Monaco, that number would be closer to 1,000. At first, the requirement that you replay levels over and over was a tad annoying. As the game went on, though, I grew to love the older style of gameplay. Like Mario Brothers and Pac-Man, you are given three lives in Monaco. Once you use them up, it's game over. It's been quite a while since I played a game with a limited number of lives. The retro-style design and gameplay were great fun and a nice change of pace from most of my recent fare. Although it could be a bit disheartening when you failed a level for the tenth time, it made it all the sweeter when you finally cleared it. I did more yelling at this game on my television than I have at anything short of sports for a long time, both out of anger and sheer joy.

the math

Objective Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for making a supremely rewarding game despite the lack of graphics on par with this generation's biggest titles. I'm not a huge "independent" gamer, but Monaco has convinced me to give more Live Arcade indie titles a try. 

Penalties: -1 for being so difficult as to possibly turn off some gamers before they really get into it. If I didn't have to play it for this blog, I might not have made it through.

Nerd Coeffecient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention. 

6 Tips for Nerducating Your Children

Several of us on the Nerds of a Feather team have young kids, and in our own ways we're each doing our best to make sure our little ones understand important things like comic books being just as valid as any other type of book, and that Han shot first.

We display it proudly on our fridge. The drawing is of
Chuck Solo, the Angry Bird.

As my kids are now demanding that I call them "Ahsoka" and "Han," I've been giving a lot of thought to their introductions into new corners of the nerdiverse. Here are some tips I've come up with:

6. Respect Your Kids' Limits
It's a wonderful gift to be able to share something that was meaningful to you as a kid with your own kid when the time comes. Knowing when the time has actually come, though, depends on a kid's personality. I've come to realize that things I saw at a very young age and was ok with don't necessarily translate. One of my kids is extremely empathetic and sensitive, so I've had to hold off on a couple of things until I felt he would be able to process them emotionally. The other one, though, loves fantastic adventure stories and can set aside with much greater ease some of the human costs the characters experience, as long as the story moves. Like toilet training, kids all get there eventually. It's pretty awesome when the bad guys' faces melt off in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it'll be just as awesome six months or a year from now if they're not ready for it yet. That said...

5. Trust Your Kids
They'd been playing with my lights and sounds Back to the Future Delorean for a while, so it was inevitable that they'd ask to see the movie. I had some reservations - Doc getting mowed down by machine gun-toting terrorists and profanity, mostly - but decided to roll the dice. So I had The Talk about bad words before we started the movie, and helped them get through Doc getting shot, which was tough on them at first. But as the movie went on, I watched them fall in love with it just like I did when I was almost their exact age. It was fantastic. I feel like as long as the kids feel safe (which is my job), and that there are rules that make sense (the movie's job), they can get through new stuff that's a little challenging to them. Dan Harmon wrote a great piece about Monster House where he talked a little about this.

4. Respect Your Kids' Tastes (However Awful)
I've tried like four times and just can't get my kids interested in Pinky and the Brain, much to my dismay. One of my friends is quite disappointed her daughter's favorite Avenger is Captain America. She finds Cap too vanilla, and has tried without success to interest her daughter in Iron Man or at least Thor, for Pete's sake. But no. My kids are suddenly into the Star Wars prequels, whose existence I deny. But they are their own little people, and as with so many things in life, we must let them make some mistakes for themselves. We can only teach them and hope they make wise decisions. And it can work - my kids have rewarded my trust by creating their own chant every time Jar Jar comes onscreen: "WE DON'T LIKE YOU, JAR JAR BINKS!"

3. Understand Now That They Will Break Your Toys
A great money-saving tip for families is to just hand over all your old toys to your own kids. Do you know how much a Star Wars action figure costs at a Target in LA these days? Like $12! It is utter madness. When my son got into fighting bad guys in all their many forms, he became very interested in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their array of weapons. I just so happened to have Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Donatello from when I was a kid, complete with weapons, and gladly presented them to my boy, feeling the warm glow of the circle of life radiating all around us. Five minutes later, Donatello's bo staff, which had survived so many battles in the 1980s, was in two pieces. "Sorry, Daddy. His staff broke." I don't know why it broke - whether he did something to it that was a bad idea or whether 30-year-old plastic is just continually disintegrating - and you won't know, either. But it's going to happen. And that's cool. We have fought our fights with them, and we should be grown-up enough to make our peace with their possible demise. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

2. Don't Forget About a Franchise's Back Catalogue
When my more-sensitive child got interested in Batman, I got worried. Or, since I'm a parent, maybe the more accurate phrase should be "I continued worrying, but now about something new." The thought of him watching Harvey Dent hold a gun to a little boy's head for what seems like 19 hours in The Dark Knight and the years of therapy bills I would immediately have to start paying as a result of exposing my young son to this scene and others in Christopher Nolan's trilogy gave me a momentary, silent panic-attack. But that's only because I was too focused on the present, when so many franchises are being reborn in some type of "gritty" iteration. There's also Batman the Animated Series, I remembered, and even the old Adam West/Burt Ward campfest I loved as a kid. We have now watched the 1966 movie more times than I can count, and I learned that 1) Caesar Romero actually had a mustache the whole time he played the Joker because he refused to shave it off, and 2) hearing little kids saying "Holy Polaris, Batman!" is awesome. Even though "gritty" is the new black, it wasn't always that way, and there are almost always ways to introduce our little scions to characters we love in ways that are age-appropriate, no matter how young. I mean, we actually have a picture book where The Incredible Hulk rescues a cat from a tree and joins the family for a picnic we read to the kids as infants! Which brings us to...

1. Remember What We're Really Doing Here
It's important to remember this is really all about one thing: love. We love something, it gets us excited and strikes sparks to those secret areas in our hearts that are lined with kindling, and we want to share that love with our kids, whom we also love. And whether it's comic books, movies, video games, or fantastic novels and stories, the common denominator is that it gives us an opportunity to spend time with our little ones, and that's the thing that's going to mean the most in the long run, to us and to them. It also reinforces that no matter how weird their tastes may eventually be, no matter how odd their visions and dreams, there will always be other voices with which they can commune, and those who will love them.

AiIP: Proper Author Care

The huge increase in ease of self-publishing- and decrease in cost- has led to a shift, not just in the way books are read and sold, but in the way they are discovered, marketed and promoted. Gone are the days where a select few reviews in periodicals had the power to make a book (although those entities still exist and have power), replaced by a multitude of sites such as this one, and GoodReads, where readers exert tremendous cumulative influence via their own ratings, reviews and promotion.

The Care and Feeding of an Author on Amazon, by Sherry Snider

This, for the record, is a good thing- mostly. It is, of course, open to abuse, but so were the old systems. Many people have no rating system between five stars and one, and will give a two-star review because their devise froze up while they were reading a given book. In the aggregate, though, it's a good thing to see the audience at large being able to sound off on and share books easily.

Which leads to that list to the right, which has made the rounds a couple times in the past months. Some authors love it (most notably those who aren't particularly noteworthy) while others decry it.

So, to be brutally honest with y'all and myself, I am soundly in the 'not noteworthy' camp of author (so far), but I don't agree with the sentiment that anything is owed to the person you just shelled out a few bucks to. If you buy my book (and I most certainly hope you do), here's what I ask from you:

Enjoy it.

If you want to do the rest of the things on that list, I will appreciate it. A lot. Because it will likely lead to more sales, which in turn lead to me writing more, which in turn means I hopefully will be able to write more for you to enjoy. Now, you might not enjoy my book. That's your right, as it would be your right to give it a horrid rating and review. But all I can ask, as an author, is for you to enjoy my book.

However, the people who really benefit from you rating and reviewing it (honestly) is the community at large. With the proliferation of indie works out there of varying quality, reader reviews will serve to guide others to quality work and make that stand out from the static.

It's about more than the care and feeding of an author, but about the literary community as a whole- authors and readers.

Hot Off the Presses

If you've been reading this column for a while, a while back I interviewed SC Harrison, who had a pretty rad fantasy novel out. Well, she's grown up into horror and her first horror release, Planks comes out next month. I will have a review shortly, but holy cow you guys it's so good. So stay tuned for that.

It's already way over-funded, but there is a Kickstarter for The Very Hungry Cthulupillar which I can confidentiality say is the greatest thing ever.

Rolling with Kickstarter, Walk the Fire is a promising SciFi anthology with just a few days and several bucks to go.

Moving across the pond, SciFind is launching a monthly short SF/F/H magazine, or attempting to, and there will be a story from yours truly in it if it gets funded. So not only do you get really good fiction, you get to support my alcoholism writing career.

One last bit of blatant self-promotion, but I have a few bookmarks to give away. I'll be doing a new run before too long, with different art, so if you want the really early stuff, this is pretty much the last chance to get it.

Snack Pairing of the Month - Jan

People who drink wine like to talk about "pairings," by which they mean matching wines to specific foods. For example, a crisp, dry Sauvingnon Blanc is supposed to match well with seafood, while a big, earthy Syrah/Shiraz, it is argued, works best alongside something rich and meaty like steak or stew. You can be an utterly cantankerous, ornery and obsessive nerd about wine and wine pairings, and this is 100% socially acceptable. Wine nerds even get a fancy-pants name: oenophiles.

Regular nerds don't drink a lot of wine, at least not while they're engaged in nerdery. But they do eat a lot of salty snack foods! Yet, to my knowledge, no scholar of nerdly pursuits has, to date, attempted to pair specific salty snacks to specific nerdy occasions. That time has come, my friends. Given that nerdery has, like wine and haute cuisine, shed its parochial roots to become a truly global phenomenon, so too should snackery. So without further ado, I present to you your most refined snack pairing of the month!

Salt Licorice (Sweden/Finland)

Nordic types like their licorice, and they like it salty, though technically it's not salt you're tasting...it's ammonium chloride, which you may recognize as an ingredient in cough syrup. But that's not enough for these thrill-seeking vikings of taste: sometimes their salty licorice is also covered in ammonium chloride powder! I grew up with the stuff, but it's an acquired taste for the uninitiated--a friend once described it to me as "freaky weird." That's an understatement. 

Pairs with: Moody Scandinavian films like Let the Right One In, Hour of the Wolf or Valhalla Rising. Moody Scandinavian books like Karin Tidbeck's Jagannath. And basically anything with vikings, trolls or Moomins.