books

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 3 – The One About Hollow Knight Silksong.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Hey, it’s my website, I’m changing the order this week with Silksong as the main event.

Books – Green Bone Saga Gold Edition by Fonda Lee

I’m still reading through those two Anthony Ryan books from last week. I won’t like, I’ve only had Silksong on the brain since it released.

Not only that, but I will say, I splurged a bit and bought these fancy hardcover editions of Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga that just came out. Jade City was a book I’ve owned since it came out, but kept putting it off to my to-be-read pile until, I recall, 2021, when the final book in the series, Jade Legacy, came out. Urban Fantasy is not usually the flavor of fantasy I’m into, but this is one of those series, like A Chorus of Dragons, The Murderbot Diaries, or The First Law, that instantly clicked, and I knew instinctively, “Oh, this is going to be one of my favorite series ever after this.”

It’s a family crime drama with magical Jade that gives you superhuman abilities that result in some of my favorite fight scenes in fiction. The characters are beyond flawed, to put it more bluntly, they’re fucked up, and you’ll love them even when you hate them or the decision they make.

Wrestling – Third Stretch is the Charm for Kenny Omega

All the complaints about the closing angle for Kenny Omega this week on AEW Dynamite, I read, were fairly on point about not having good payoffs. The Elite sent him home last year, with Jack Perry bragging about it. Kenny returns and doesn’t immediately retaliate against the Elite. Jack Perry is also nowhere to be found. Okada and Don Callis attack him again before their match at All In brutally, with blood coming out of his mouth, Kenny ends up losing and taking about a month and a half off. Last week, it was hype city for a Hangman and Kenny reunion. Now, the Don Callis family, namely Kyle Fletcher, beat the shit out of him, and he’s stretchered off with Hangman distraught. I am unsure of where this is leading for Kenny Omega, and yet, I must admit, I still remain invested in this one, probably because Hangman was involved, to be honest. Will it have a proper payoff? I’m not sure, but if All Out ends up being AEW World Champion Hangman Adam Page vs TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher, it’d be a funny little parallel to last year’s AEW World Champion Bryan Danielson vs. TNT Champion Jack Perry. I think, if they had set this up maybe a week or two before the reaction, it might have been better because more time for Hangman and Kenny to really be seen together, maybe more than one match with some talking segments, whether backstage or in the ring, would really have had people on the hook. If Kenny comes back and does not interact with Hangman upon his return, I’ll likely be more critical of this whole scenario. We will see.

Games – Hollow Knight Silksong

It’s finally arrived, Hollow Knight Silksong is real, it’s finished, it’s released, it’s everything I wanted from a sequel to Hollow Knight, and it’s difficult as hell. I thought, hey, I’ve played a fuck ton of Hollow Knight, how hard could the sequel be? The beginning of the game does not ease you in but throws you into the deep end. I really don’t want to go on and on about the difficulty, because that is what so many people are talking about. Act I is difficult because you start with basically nothing, but you get new upgrades and new abilities and learn the patterns of the enemies as well as your own combat. It’s kind of like learning a fighting game in that way. Bosses doing double damage, something only late-stage Hollow Knight bosses did in the first one, was rough, as well as those rooms that were basically a gauntlet of dudes. In fact, I find those gauntlet rooms far tougher than the bosses. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s my horrible eyesight, but I’ve always had trouble seeing the whole screen. It’s why I have such trouble with that piano mini-game in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. Wait, no, it’s probably not an issue of seeing the whole screen but having to be closer to the screen because my vision is not great. The platforming, though, specifically the red flowers in Hunter’s March, that’s the kind of thing in Hollow Knight that I loved. Sure, you might mess up and die, but once you find the rhythm, especially with Hornet’s diagonal down attack, it’s really fun. I’ll tell you now, you’d better learn to do it because you’re going to be doing it a lot and in far more treacherous areas than Hunter’s March.

“This is probably my game of the year,” he says about Silksong, like he said about Deltarune Chapters 3+4, Donkey Kong Bananza, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. The First Berserker: Khazan, Monster Hunter Wilds. I probably would have said it about Shinobi: Art of Vengeance too, if I hadn’t already known SIlksong was coming out. However, I will say, more than any other game I’ve just mentioned, except for maybe Donkey Kong Bananza, Silksong has caused me to lose time in the joy of playing it. I’ll sit down and be like, I’ll just play for an hour, and suddenly the sun has gone down, and my stomach is rumbling for some reason. People hate this, but like Dark Souls, both Hollow Knights have this atmosphere of melancholy and a society decaying that draws you in, but the bugs are all so joyful, cute, and bring a smile to your face plus, and I love the stories of FromSoftware games don’t get me wrong, the stories of both games are much more straightforward with all this lore underneath you can choose to what level you want to engage in. Silksong‘s plot is basically Hornet gets kidnapped, taken to this far-off land called Pharloom, and has to find out who and why by ascending to the Citadel above. It’s much more complicated than that, but that’s basically all you need to know to start the game. The NPCs in this game, I love them, all these little bug friends of mine, especially Sherma, whom I just want to make all their dreams come true. His little song for the gate I will never forget.

I love them.

— Josh M. (@fouroffivewits.pizza) 2025-09-05T01:39:51.761Z

Metroidvanias (No, I will not nor will I ever call them Search Action games) have to be one of the best genres of video games, top 5 easily. The satisfaction of finding a secret, beating a boss, getting a new upgrade, discovering new areas you didn’t know about before, and going back to areas with secrets you couldn’t get before is one of the most satisfying things in video games. Games are all about the illusion of achievement, and Metroidvanias nail that to a T. I know that now that I said Hollow Knight: Silksong is my game of the year, I just know Supergiant Games is going to announce Hades 2 is coming out of Early Access and into version 1.0 before the year ends. Still, I think, as of right now, Hollow Knight Silksong might be one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. No doubt, I will still be playing it and talking about it next week.

If you want to see my current Games of the Year + games of 2025 I want to play, you can check out my full Backlogged list here. My Top 10 is as follows

  1. Hollow Knight: Silksong
  2. Donkey Kong Bananza
  3. Deltarune: Chapter 3+4
  4. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
  5. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
  6. Doom: The Dark Ages
  7. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
  8. The First Berserker: Khazan
  9. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
  10. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 2 – The Ryan, The Joe, and the Bandido

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Before we jump straight into it, I will say while this will focus on my main hobbies, Books, Games, and Wrestling, I do have other interests that I will comment on from time to time, like TTRPGs, Music, NBA, and Anime in much shorter comments at the end, but very briefly.

Books – An Anthony Ryan double-whammy, The Feeding and Born of an Iron Storm

I’m delving into two Anthony Ryan books recently that could not be more different. I’m still early in The Feeding, and I purposely didn’t read the description, so I have no idea what the Feeding actually is, but from what I surmise, this is a post-Zombie-like apocalypse set behind what may be the last human settlement fortified by walls that keep out the feeders. The remains of humankind seem desperately low on resources, but are trying to survive. They send out people to trade with other remaining settlements to trade for supplies, which hasn’t been going well. I can feel the desperation of everyone living in the settlement and the rising tension of hearing the people who go outside the walls not coming back with supplies. The horror of the feeders has not quite hit yet, but the way the setup for the plot is going, it looks like the main character, Layla, will be going out into the remains of the world soon. I’m looking forward to it.

Now, Born of an Iron Storm, I’m much further in. Ryan is so good at jumping straight back into where he leaves off in the previous book, and this follow-up to A Tide of Black Steel jumps right into it. I won’t spoil what happens, but my favorite, I don’t know what you would call it, a trope, concept, recurring story idea? Anyway, I love it in a fantasy book with multiple Point of View characters is when the branches of the story start all separate but then as the series goes on the branches begin to converge like for example a side character of one POV character in the first book has something happen to them only to end up in POV chapters of another character in second book. This is starting to emerge in Born of an Iron Storm and I’m loving it.

My review for Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is out now, so be sure to check it out. Automatic Noodle Review – Robots, Rights, and Restaurant

Games – Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, plus others.

I have never played a Shinobi game ever, but I saw the art style for this game and saw someone describe the combat as made for people who love fighting games, and I had to have it. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is so much fun. The combat is simple but has the capacity for a ton of combos that only expand as you play through the story, unlock new abilities, and buy new attacks. The platforming is not as complex as the game it’s going to be compared to the most, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, but still robust enough for in between bouts of combat. To 100% it you’ll definitely have to revisit stages as you gain abilities, but the different fights and stages you reach with those new abilities feel worth revisiting earlier stages. The bosses are so much fun, challenging the first time and fun to just destroy when you figure out their patterns the second time, especially as you learn to juggle and chain combos. I’m a sucker for skins, so having multiple colors for Joe Musashi rules, but in my opinion, every game that has skins should count how many they have and add four or five more. Once more, I have to say the art, the backgrounds, the details of the characters, and the music are outstanding. This is a great game to play right before Silksong comes out. I want to take my time with it, but I also want to beat it before Hollow Knight: Silksong comes out, since I know that will completely take over my brain.

There are some other games I’ve been playing alongside Shinobi. I tried the Lost Soul Aside demo and did not care for it. It looks pretty, but the gameplay feels floaty, and the combat is not for me. I’m nearing the end of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I find this game difficult to talk about. I like it a lot, especially the combat, but I find the characters and story kind of flat and sometimes frustrating. It’s wild to say I both feel like this is one of the best games of the year and also largely overrated. It has a lot of flaws, I feel like they aren’t acknowledged, but also the game rules. It’s a bit of a conundrum for me. Thanks to getting a new PC, I’m finally playing DOOM: The Dark Ages. Between the gameplay involving the shield, the weapons, and the melee, like the flair, the game is so much fun, but who told id Software that we wanted more story from DOOM? I’m enjoying it, but it’s a bit much, and the story is not why anyone plays DOOM. Lastly, so many games deemed as cozy usually are not in fact cozy at all, especially ones that simulate labor. Tiny Bookshop, however, is actually cozy. You drive a bookmobile to a location, you suggest books to customers, you buy more books to sell, you decorate your bookmobile. I play it a lot before bed and it is fact, quite cozy.

Wrestling – Bandido vs. Hechicero is must see.

Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor was last Friday, unfortunately, during my D&D game, so I did not get to see most of it live, but our session did end just in time to see the first half of Bandido vs. Hechicero for the Ring of Honor Men’s World Heavyweight Title. I knew it was going to be great, but I was sure that before the show, they had wrestled one-on-one before this, which was incorrect. Coming into it, I had no doubt of the outcome, but Hechicero did a great job of countering Bandido’s offense in the early parts of the match that sold the idea of him and his manager, Don Callis, having the champion scouted out.

Despite Hechicero’s size, Bandido was able to show impressive feats of strength against his opponent and, combined with his agility, displayed technical prowess to counter the submissions and holds Hechicero was more of an expert in. Likewise, despite his larger size and focus on technical wrestling, Hechicero was not intimidated by Bandido’s high-flying maneuvers. There is a sequence where the challenger ducks and weaves out of Bandido’s handspring backflip, only to be caught in a hurricanrana that he immediately flips out from and onto his feet. Spots like this resulted in Bandido not only needing to escalate his offense, but also the amount of risks he needed to take to retain his title. The crowd didn’t like it when Bandido returned the favor, beginning to pull on Hechicero’s mask, but I do believe in babyfaces who sometimes reach a limit of what they’ll take from their heel opponents. The suplex on the barricade was genuinely brutal (positive), and a lot of Bandido’s offense that led to the ending was like fuck-yous in wrestling move form. In the end, this is definitely one of my matches of the year, and I believe I loved it more than the match with Konosuke Takeshita, which was also amazing and worth seeking out.

Due to a problem with the stream on Ring of Honor’s website, Tony decided to put the show up for free on YouTube so you can check out the match for yourself, which I have time-stamped here.

AEW Dynamite was great, AEW Collision was good, yeah yeah yeah. What I want to end this with is this week on AEW Dynamite, I was hooting and hollering for one reason and one reason only, The AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Champion Hangman Adam Page reunited with his former tag team partner and faction member of the Elite, another former world champion, the Best Bout Machine himself, Kenny Omega. That’s all I thought about all episode UNTIL they announced they’d be reuniting not just in a segment but in a match that airs TODAY on AEW Dynamite. Insert more hooting and hollering.

Music I’m currently listening to: The Beaches’ new album No Hard Feelings, just came out and I’m really digging it, especially the single Last Girls at the Party and Did I Say Too Much

Anime I’m watching: I must confess that I love romance anime, and Season 2 of My Dress-Up Darling is escalating the rising romantic tension between Marin and Gojo so sweetly and nicely. I really want to watch The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity, but goddamn, a Netflix subscription is so expensive now. I don’t regret canceling it a year ago, but letting the money go when I had an active subscription was easier than joining now at the current price point. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 1 – Noodles, Knights, and NJPW

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I’m not going to give a long explanation yet to what this is or why I’m writing, because before I know it, I’ll have a thousand words, and that’ll be this entire post before I get to the point of the thing. To sum it up, I want to write about what I like in a shorter format than my book reviews on Geeklyinc.com or on No Page Unturned. I love books, I love video games, and I love wrestling, hence Book, Games, Wrestling. I hear the Aesop Rock song Food, Clothes, Medicine when I say it, but here we go before I get off track again.

Book – Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

My review will be up soon enough, but I have to say, my reading habits this summer have been such a mess. My To-Be-Read pile has grown too tall this summer, yet my reading habits have been subpar. Fall and Winter are such better reading seasons for me as someone who doesn’t do well in the heat.

Automatic Noodle, though, has been a book I’ve been thinking about since I first heard about it. The premise is essentially set in an unidentified future, where robots want to, for once, serve good food to their patrons and are given an opportunity, out of sheer luck, to open their own noodle shop. It’s labelled as cozy, but there is definitely a cloud of desperation hanging over most of the plot, both from the bots, the humans, and the overall world that is in the vibe of a dystopian future run by megacorporations that we seem to be getting a lot of, gee, wonder why? The feeling of dread and oppression is not what I would call cozy, but I’d still recommend it regardless.

I mean, just because it’s marketed as cozy but doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting read. The oppression of sentient robots is a subject I’m sure will be explored more as technology advances and more rights get taken away in the United States and beyond. I will admit I’m holding back for my review, pretty sure, but I really enjoy how Newitz makes each of the bots distinct.

Game – Hollow Knight – Team Cherry

Silksong is real and will be out as of this post in a little over a week. I’ve done everything but the Godmaster DLC on the Switch edition of Hollow Knight because by the time it was out, I was already finished with Hollow Knight, at over 100%. Plus, in 2018, on the Nintendo Switch, I remember being kind of insane, as well as my life at the time being kind of insane. When I bought a Steam Deck last August, Hollow Knight was one of the first games I bought during the next Steam sale because, quite honestly, though it had been six years since I played it, I still felt it was one of the greatest games of all time or at least one of my greatest games of all time.

Now that Silksong is coming out, I felt it was time to play it on PC/Steam Deck. It was like riding a bike again to be honest, and I was aiming to get that achievement of beating the game at 100% under 20 hours. I got very close at about 20 hours and 23 minutes, so annoyingly close. I do not remember there being achievements on the Switch edition; it probably had in-game quests as the equivalent, but it’s not quite the same. Take or leave achievements, I do often find them fun, even if Steam achievements feel lesser than other platforms. I’ve left just enough time between Hollow Knight playthroughs that the challenge remains thrilling, yet not so much that the backtracking feels tedious, while retaining enough memory to avoid repetition. I’ve already beaten it, and once I did, I thought to myself, “Oh shit, it’s still not September 4th.” I started a new file, intending to hopefully get that achievement this time, and also to leave Zote to die, the ungrateful little shit that he is.

Wrestling – AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025

The build to Forbidden Door was messy, it’s always messy, and to be quite honest, even with the mess I still do find it fun. However, a lot of MJF’s creative ideas I do not find fun, and it felt like, with the stipulations he had forced Hangman to agree to under the pretense that he was going to light Mark Briscoe on fire, that I’m being forced to watch Triple H from the early and mid 2000s reborn. In 2023, I was annoyed with MJF, but in 2025, I’m just tired of it. His promos to all his opponents feel the same; his nicknames for his opponents are all terrible, not in a fun way, but in a way that makes me want to look at my Steam Deck and continue playing Hollow Knight. It just feels all the same. But Josh, you might ask, isn’t that just what heels do? Well, I’m not sick of what Kyle Fletcher and the Don Callis family are doing, nor since All In am I sick of what Jon Moxley and the Death Riders are doing. Ricochet with the Gates of Agony is quite interesting, and Christian Cage, who often has the same edgelord shtick as MJF, quite frankly does it better because he’ll do enough to at least give me the illusion of changing it up. Except for Christian, the difference between a lot of those heels and MJF is that they actually wrestle quite frequently. Maybe if MJF took up so much TV time wrestling as well as promos and segments I might feel different but as of right now, I’m quite tired of MJF.

This isn’t about MJF, though; it’s about Forbidden Door, and despite Max’s terribly convoluted idea for a finish, yes, I am one hundred percent sure it was his idea because it reminded me of the era of WWE I know he loves. Hangman’s world title defense against him, I thought, was excellent before that. It’s how I felt about the pay-per-view overall, quite good overall. Hiromu Takahashi looked great against Kyle Fletcher. Toni Storm defeated Athena in what I thought was a very good match, but I thought they might be holding back for a future rematch. I took a break during the beginning of the tag title match and came back just in time to see some mysterious masked men drive the Hurt Syndicate back to the airport before Bandido could even get the pin on whichever member of FTR was pinned (I think Dax? Don’t correct me, I do not care.). Bozilla, Persephone, and Alex Windsor all showed out for the four-way against Mercedes Mone for the TBS Title, impressing me with ideas I don’t think I’ve seen in four-ways before, and it felt like Mercedes made sure to make them all look good in defeat. Swerve versus Okada might have bee my match of the night. Say what you want about Okada’s efforts I felt he really put his all or at the very least 90% into his defense of the Unified Title against Swerve. The main event lights-out cage match, was both fun and intense, and if this is the last we see from Ospreay and Swerve in a while, it was a great showing by both of them.

Was it my favorite Forbidden Door? No. Was it the best Forbidden Door? I don’t think so either but I felt happy watching it, and when it was over, I was more curious about what was going to happen next rather than worried about the direction AEW was going.

Changing The Dark Tower – The Dark Tower Movie.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Today sees the first trailer for The Dark Tower film,  directed by Nikolai Arcel with a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, starring Idris Alba as Roland Deschain, the last remaining gunslinger, Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, and Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers. The film has been in development for a number of years with names like J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Ron Howard, and Javier Bardem all attached and having to drop the project at some point.

With movie adaptations come changes, and as Stephen King has said this is a direct sequel to his magnum opus so will change come to pass in this series of films. This reminds me of the series of posts I wrote airing out all the frustrations, with love, that I have with the book series. With the movie releasing in December perhaps it is time to reread the series and decide if the changes I thought of in 2015 were appropriate.

Changing to The Dark Tower – Part I – The First Three Books

Changing to The Dark Tower – Part II – Wizard & Glass

Changing The Dark Tower – Part III – Wolves of the Calla

Changing the Dark Tower – Part IV – The Song of Susannah

 Changing The Dark Tower – Part V – The Final Book & Mordred: All Hype, No Substance

After Zelda, Superheroes Were My Gateway To Fantasy.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

After the news of celebrated writer and artist Darwyn Cooke’s passing, I picked my copy of Absolute DC: New Frontier and absorbed Cooke’s love letter to the Silver Age of the DC Universe.

It’s massive scale and the enormous cast of diverse characters combined with the lingering thoughts about Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World reminded me that after The Legend of Zelda it was superhero comics that opened the gateway for my love for fantasy.

The similarities between the two are surprisingly plentiful. Just to name a few:

  • Garish costumes.
  • Systems of magic.
  • Unusual names and codenames.
  • The use of symbology.
  • Enhanced or enchanted armor, weapons, and items.
  • Prophecy and legends influencing the protagonists.
  • History, mythology, and continuity that dates back before a current story but has a lingering effect.
  • Multi-faceted heroes and villains that walk the moral line.
  • Archetypal heroes and villains that serve as both characters and symbols for their cause.
  • Conflicts on the micro scale within close knits groups,
  • Macro scale conflicts that put universes in jeopardy,
  • and those in-group conflicts affecting the chance of success of resolving those universal threats.
  • War: The consequences of war, the threat of war, and the aftermath of war.
  • Death: Heroes, villains, love interests, and side characters all dying and in some cases, coming back.

Superhero comics do have the advantage of being broad enough in storytelling that it can encompass many genres including fantasy. A majority of DC’s magic users, including Etrigan, John Constantine, Dr. Fate, Swamp Thing, Alan Scott, and oh, I don’t know, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman all either dip their toes or fully submerge themselves into fantasy.

What it comes down to is world building. If you can understand the chaos that is the worlds of Marvel and DC then remembering the houses on Game of Thrones isn’t that difficult. What’s different is that for Marvel and DC the rules are always changing. What most fantasy tends to do is either established the rules early on or establish the rules and break them early on to create conflict. This is because eventually those fantasy stories are going to end. Comic book companies are in the business of keeping their stories running for as long as they sell. Thus their characters have to change overtime but not necessarily evolve.

Plus, most series of fantasy novels are written by one creator while superhero comics is a ever-spinning turnstile of different writers and artists. Their environment, purpose, supporting cast, powers, appearance, and even their history could change from one writer to another. Elements that stem from roots in fantasy could not longer be in fashion. Now, their powers, equipment, cast, or origin may not be science fiction in nature.

This can be frustrating to the reader which could not be more apparent with the recent developments in [spoilers] DC Universe Rebirth and the first issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers. Change is acceptable in a fantasy novel, especially a series with no previous history (real world history that is) but not so with most superhero comics considering their long history dating back to World War II. Even new superheroes have this struggle because by the time you establish a new character in an ongoing over a certain amount of issues any change you make is going to met with resistance from your readers.

That and the price is why I made the jump. I was frustrated by bad writing of characters I loved and the ever increasing price of comics versus the price of books made the switch easy. Fantasy novels have stayed relatively the same price, they have a more complete story, no other bad writer is coming in and fucking up what the good writer has done, there are no editorial mandates to fit within a big event happening in another series, and  the story is self-contained.

Still, I may never hace found fantasy without superhero comics.

Writing A Novel Vs. Writing A D&D Campaign.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

I’ve set a deadline for myself. By the time I turn 31 on April 23rd my novel will be finished. I am talking final draft, not the first draft, as I only have five chapters to finish editing.

At the same time, I’ve become the Dungeon Master for my D&D group. Writing and developing a D&D campaign, at least, I thought would be simple compared to writing a novel. I thought since worldbuilding is so much fun, that it would be a walk in a park. Oh ho, no. It is a very different beast entirely. I wouldn’t say it is more difficult but it is difficult because it is different.

Unless you plan a whole campaign before you start there are no second drafts i D&D. You write what you need and move on. Most of it is improvised anyway especially minor NPC (Non-Player Character) names like the merchant or regular at the tavern your players decide to get into a fight with.

With the characters in your novel, you have complete control over their actions, personalities, and decisions. In D&D, the players are the characters and you have little to no control over them unless you want to make a boring campaign. On the other hand, it takes a lot more pressure off you to write good protagonists. That’s up to the players.

The world of a novel, especially fantasy, can be more organic. The rules are looser. With D&D, there are so many rules. You have to keep track of them for your players, your NPC’s, and the monsters they fight.On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner

On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner monologues to worry about. A D&D campaign, in fact, can be a lot more vague since the Dungeon Master isn’t the sole storyteller. The players can and will change the story. This can be both frustrating and freeing.

With a novel, though, unless you are a published author, it’s all on you. You have to sit down and write your story first draft then second draft then third draft then final draft. A D&D campaign is vaguer. You have to take into account how long a session takes, everyone’s plans for the week, what level the characters are at, and where they may want to go.

If the main villain of your novel is in a certain building of course your protagonist is going to wind up confronting him. Not necessarily so in D&D. The players might decide to burn that building down, as we decided to do in my friend’s campaign, instead of confronting the main baddie of that particular storyline who had story beats for us to follow.

It’s much easier, at least for me, to communicate through writing then it is through speaking. Therefore, theater of the mind is much more difficult to work with. I don’t need extensive maps for my novel because I can convey a scene with as many words as I need but with D&D, if they’re going into a dungeon I am definitely going to need a map because there is a lot to remember.On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over

On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over certain room if they’re not important to the story. Not so with D&D. My player may end up exploring every room of a castle and I need some kind of description, however short, for all of them.

The antagonists has to be one of the most difficult parts. Well, really, anything that involves balancing the game versus telling a good story is what is so difficult. A villain can’t be so overpowered that it is an obvious party kill but he can’t be so underpowered that any threat he makes, plot-wise, goes unappreciated or unconcerned. Same goes for just about any encounter or plot element of your campaign.

However, a D&D is more accepting of aspects you try to eliminate from your writing when it comes to a novel. Your players are inhabiting archetypes, so giving their characters typical archetypal stories is fine. Tropes, cliches, and parody is welcomed rather then eliminated in later drafts.

Plus, though novels don’t have to do this either, a D&D campaign can be silly and less serious. If you tell a good story in your campaign, you get validation every session by the joy your players are having A novel takes much longer to get that validation.

A friend, fellow writer, and former Dungeon Master himself tells me being a DM will likely make me a better writer. I can see where that stems from but what I get out of it now is combining my love for storytelling and worldbuilding with friends who I love to be around.

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere Beyond The Well of Ascension.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

If one shouldn’t judge a book by a cover, even though that’s basically what book covers are for then one might also try to never judge an author by one book.

Where Brandon Sanderson was concerned I did exactly that. While the first two books I read by the fantasy author, Elantris, and Mistborn: The Final Empire belong with some of my favorite fantasy novels the second Mistborn novel, The Well of Ascension, left a bad taste in my mouth that has kept me away from  all Sanderson novels since 2012.

We find Vin after having defeated the Lord Ruler, who has acted as their god for a thousand years, and being reunited with the man she loves has become an angsty teenage brat in her early twenties. Elend and the remaining members of Kelsier’s crew from the first novel don’t act any better. Then there’s Zane. Oh, Zane, you are a shitstain of a villain.

This isn’t about shitting on The Well of Ascension, and believe me, I could for at least a thousand more words. The point is, the second Mistborn book left a bad taste in my mouth that stopped me from reading anymore Brandon Sanderson novels from 2012 to late 2015.

Fellow frequents readers and bibliophiles will empathize with this. Your “To Read” pile increases much faster than your “Read” pile. Therefore, you may own a book but not necessarily have read it yet. Then one of your friends starts reading one of those books you own and it awakens a fire in you. “I have a competition in me,” you might say, “I want no one else to succeed.” They can’t finish that book before you, you’ve owned that book for years! You have the first edition!

Maybe it’s more like, you want to be part of something, a story, a world, or an experience along with your friend at the same time he’s going through it. Simultaneously, this happened me to with Sanderson’s
series and the 2nd Era of Mistborn. I had one friend who long since read The Alloy of Law and was breezing through The Shadows of Self. Another had started The Way of Kings with praise all around for it.

So, despite my apprehension, I dived in. The Alloy of Law immediatly grabbed me. I had missed with the world of Scadrial. The powers of Alomancy and Feruchemy greeted me like an old friend. The book was sprinkled with hints of a history I was familiar with.

The Way of Kings beginning was a slog through muddy swamp water. The beginning is mind-bogglingly slow but when you reach the other side it’s like walking into an oncoming storm. Everything is happening, everything is connected, and nothing will be the same. I was hooked.

I ate up books from the Cosmere like I was starving. Shadows of Self, Words of Radiance, and The Bands of Mourning were all read before March 2016 even hit. I reread the first two Mistborn books and while I still hated The Well of Ascension I knew it was one bad book out of many amazing ones.

Finally, after refusing to read it back in 2012 I picked up the third Mistborn book, The Hero of Ages. You have to remember I had already read three of the books from the second Mistborn series. I knew the fates of Vin, Elend, Sazed and the rest of Kelsier’s former crew. You’d think already knowing what happen it wouldn’t hit as hard but that third book’s ending is still devastating.

All this in mind, when I finally read Sanderson’s new novella, Mistborn: Secret History I wasn’t prepared for what happened. I wasn’t prepared for the reunion with some of my favorite characters. I wasn’t prepared for this interwoven plot that is Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. I was blown away.

Finally, I ended my journey where I began with Elantris. That was the book that made me fall in love with Sanderson’s writing that I had somehow lost struggling to hate-read through The Well of Ascension.

Maybe, though, that break from his book is what I needed. I washed the bad taste of the second Mistborn book out of my mouth and returned to his Cosmere older and with a new perspective on stories and writing. I am highly anticipating my next chance to go exploring through the Cosmere when Oathbringer, the third Stormlight Archive book comes out.

If You Want To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Start Them Now.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

People don’t like seeing Christmas decorations when Halloween hasn’t arrived. We all hate hearing about Black Friday before Thanksgiving has even arrived especially when stores try to convince us to shop the night of Thanksgiving. Christmas ends and suddenly we’re thinking about our New Year’s Eve plans and how we can make it less disappointing than the year before. It’ll always be disappointing because it’ll never be as magical as it is in your brain.

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, including the people who say there New Year’s resolution is to not have one. The problem is the majority of us don’t keep them. For most of us, January is cold, we’re still broke from Christmas, and goddammit, every treadmill at the gym is taken up again. We decided on that one special night when we countdown to the new year that the next will be different but different can be difficult.

So instead, let’s just start our New Year’s resolution now that way when January 1st hit we’ll already be on track during the regular days of our lives instead of making promises we can’t keep on the tail end of the Holiday season. Here are some of mine.

But wait, I’m not going to do this alone. So for all of mine I’m going to make some suggestions of resolutions some people who I’ve encountered should make for themselves.

We did it you and me liquor

  • I’ll either figure out how to “fake it until I make it” or just give up on faking it entirely and dedicate endless amounts of time researching on how just to make it.
  • Drivers, when making a turn, you will go completely in your lane rather than staying halfway in mine blocking me from going forward.
  • I’ll keep the words in mind “You can only control yourself” whenever my life feels out of control.
  • When you see someone reading a book you won’t ask them “What are you reading?” or strike up a conversation especially if you don’t know them. If you’ve read the book, you’re permitted to say “great book,” and continue walking when they don’t engage.

YesAndNo

  • I’ll completely shut off once a week. Desktop, laptop, tablet, television, and smart phone completely turned off. I’ll write in notebooks and read on the floor if I have to keep my devices out of view.
  • You will stop playing videos and music out loud in public places with no regard for the people around you.
  • I’ll take a walk once a week and not to work out or lose weight but just to be outside.
  • Fall and Spring in New York, you will have those moderate temperatures you’re known for instead of flip flopping between being too hot or too cold all the time.
  • I’ll say yes just as often as I say no and vice versa.
  • You will take no for an answer.
  • I will go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con.
  • Con-goers, you will shower, wash, and put on deodorant before a convention. It’s already hot enough.

Sogood

  • I will find, pitch, attempt, or whatever I have to do to find some freelance writing work. It’s something I have to try to do.
  • You will stop asking English Majors “But what are you going to do with that?”
  • I will go to Madison Square Garden. I will go to a stand-up comedy show. Not just some random night at Carolines but for a comedian who is touring that I love.
  • Stand-up comedians living on West Coast, you will come to New York.
  • When I go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con I will say hello and talk to new people.
  • New York Comic Con, you will have more authors coming to your con.

theandys

  • I will think better of myself.
  • You will also think better of yourself.
  • I will only buy one book after I’ve read three I’ve never previously read.
  • Favorite authors, you will release the next books in your series in 2016.
  • I will write every day. Five of those days will be for four hours each day.
  • Everything else, you will stop distracting me from writing.
  • I’ll give up coffee for one month, maybe two, and deal with the caffeine headache.
  • Coffee mugs, you will stop tempting me with your bad puns and pop culture references.
  • I will write and submit a short story, even though I hate short stories.
  • Words, you will stop before my short story turns into another novel.
  • I will follow and comment on someone’s WordPress blog including someone who follows this one.
  • Pizza, you will stay exactly as you are. Maybe be fewer calories.
  • I will fill at least four notebooks front to back.
  • Pens, you will stop running out of ink just as writing is going so well.
  • I will allow only ten minutes to take it personally when friends and family criticize my book or just plain don’t like it.
  • Game of Thrones season six, you will be better than season five.
  • I will talk less about writing than actually writing because “talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.”
  • Time, you will stop passing by so quickly.
  • I will break out of more comfort zones.
  • Comic book readers, you will stop being so afraid of change.
  • I will spend less money on things and spend more on experiences.
  • Experiences, you will stop being so expensive.
  • I will draw a map of the world from my book whether I can do it well or not.
  • Knicks, you will at least have a 27 win record this season.
  • I will communicate better with friends and family.
  • You will keep asking me when my book is going to be finished, it reminds that I need to get my ass in gear.
  • I will start my second book.
  • New Year’s Resolutions, you will stop making people feel guilty when you become unrealistic goals that no one can keep. Instead, you will become goals that people work towards all year to better ourselves.

snoopdoggheadshake

What’s So Exciting About Book Adaptations?

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Patrick Rothfuss’s “The Kingkiller Chronicle” was recently optioned by Lionsgate for not just a movie, not just a TV, and not just a video game but all three. This has caused a stir amongst fans of the book all across the social media landscape while people who’ve never read the books are shrugging as they read this.

Put your favorite book in place of “The Name of the Wind” and imagine how you would feel. Are you excited? Finally, that book you fell in love with is going to be a movie, a television show, and a video game. It’s exciting news! Why though?
The readers who make up a fandom around a certain series have become savvy to how books become movies, TV shows, and video games. We’ve also seen how those adaptations can disappoint. I’ve written extensively on why our expectations for adaptations can be harmful, often expecting too much or maybe too hard to it without understand how these adaptations are made.
I don’t stand alone with the knowledge of the arduous process of making these projects nor have I entirely kept my Sword of Adaptation Criticism sheathed in regards to the last two seasons of “Game of Thrones.” The news of Patrick Rothfuss’ deal did beg the question, once my own excitement died down, why do we get so excited for news about adaptations in the first place?

The reality is: Do you have a favorite character? There’s a chance he or she may be cut from the script. Do you have a scene that cry every time you read it? Or feeling a swelling in your chest when that satisfying moment comes on the next page? It might not make it in there at all. That line from the book you quote all the time? It might be said by a completely different character because the one that originally said it was cut and now one word of it was changed so it’s just a little bit off from the original. That line though is of course everyone favorite who has seen the movie / show so you have to hear it said wrong all the time and attributed to someone completely different. Lucky you! That subplot you thought really developed the protagonist, the one that really got into his head, well there’s no time for that anymore.

These are just some of the pitfalls of adaptations. It’s not like the author can write the scripts, pick the casts (though sometimes they have a hand in that), designs the settings, costumes, and props. He or she is too busy writing their next book. Even if the author took the first crack at the screenplay there could be three others who rewrite next, and all of them have their own perspective on the series.

Just look what happened with the screenplay adaptations of the Harry Potter books. Steve Kloves may have set JK Rowling at ease when he told her Hermione was his favorite character, but he made the trio completely unbalanced by giving Hermione all of Ron’s best moments and dialog in addition to her own shining moments.

The fact is there is going to be change when it comes to the adaptation, and a lot of fans of the books are not going to like it. So why do we get excited at the prospect?
Because, and I think a lot of readers will agree, when you love a book you want others to love it too. Adaptations are the easiest gateway to that. I have many friends who decided to read “The Lord of the Rings” and “A Song of Ice and Fire” because of the Peter Jackson’s trilogy and the HBO series. As a result it has led to many great discussions and conversations about them to an English Major like myself, nothing is better than discussions about books.

Also, there is a bliss that comes when they get it right. I remember that feeling watching the pilot for “Game of Thrones” from the beginning when the gates to Castle Black opened to the end when Jaime Lannister lamented the things he does for love. Imagine that opening scene when we’re introduced to the Waystone Inn in whatever “The Kingkiller Chronicle’s” adaptation becomes is exciting. We want to see the world we imagine for so long.

The second question I asked myself after I asked why do we excited is why do we need adaptations? There’s a reason why writers need adaptations. Financially, being a novelist is chaotic. There is no steady pay but peaks and valley. If you’re a writer and you are entering that valley period an optioning deal may be what keeps you afloat. For readers, though, why isn’t the book enough? I’m speaking generally, of course, because there are definitely people out there that don’t feel the need for the adaptation and they’re self-aware enough to not indulge. If the story is still ongoing, it’s a chance to get more. If the story is over, it’s a chance for it to be revitalized for a new audience and for the reader to relive the experience.

It may not seem like it, but we want to like adaptations. Who doesn’t want new favorite movie or show? How nice is it to turn on the TV and see a story we love on it? We want more of the story and the world. That’s why it is exciting, the prospect of more of that story that make us happy.

Featured image “Wise Man’s Fear” by Marc Simonetti. 

Steel Is The Answer for Abercrombie’s Last Shattered Sea Novel.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Joe Abercrombie goes in swords and axes swinging in his third volume of the Shattered Sea series of Young Adult novels. War looms over Father Yarvi, Thorn Bathu, and Gettland through the eyes of three new point-of-view characters for a novel that is closest in tone to The First Law trilogy.  Only detraction is the non-stop action and abrupt ending leaves Half A War with less room for moments of character development but otherwise satisfying conclusion. Read more for spoilers.

Continue reading →