Greg Sanders

Quickie review: Demon’s Lexicon

Modern urban fantasy book with an interesting variant on an old staple that I won’t reveal in this review.  There will be an upcoming blog post describing how we got the book signed, but I’ll save that for my wife.

Basic universe setup: there’s a parallel demon universe and people with magical aptitude need to make deals with them if they want real power.  The deals involve sacrificing people to let the demons experience our world, which means the mages are pretty uniformly evil. 

Points of note: it’s a fairly dark book, not so much because of the fair number of evil magicians, but because the protagonists were willing to take fairly extreme measures.  Some of them I wasn’t comfortable with, but I don’t think we’re necessarily supposed to be. 

The magical sub-world was fairly well defined and made a good amount of sense, although the integration with the larger world wasn’t particularly covered.  That said, the failure to work out real world implications of magic tends to be a given in urban fantasy, so I’ll accept that. One oddity though, possession was fairly big in the book and caused rapid deterioration in the subject; however, the fairly logical albeit evil solution of chain possession to save the original victim was never discussed.  Maybe in the sequel.

Doctrine and the Zombie Wars

Pallab Ghosh of the BBC reports that researchers in Canada have done a mathematical model of a widespread zombie outbreak and evaluated possible counter-strategies.  Dan Drezner has done excellent work in postulating what various systemic international relations theories would predict about the outcome of such an undead crisis [Update: link fixed].  Inspired by his analysis, below is my attempt at providing an in character explanation of how advocates of different U.S. military doctrines would suggest we face the zombie peril.  This analysis is in good part a response to the work of premier writer on this topic, Max Brooks, with particularly attention paid to the excellent fictional social history World War Z. 

Conventional warfare: Some elements of conventional warfare have been widely derided even before facing a threat that can neither shocked nor awed.  Similarly, against zombies decapitation strikes are no longer in any sense a game-changing euphemism but are instead a constant operation requirement.  However, while weapons and munitions must be modified, the solution to a zombie outbreak falls is still a matter of properly applying force on a massive scale.  Proper use of the Weinberger-Powell doctrine would ensure that the zombie menace is met with overwhelming force rather than the sort of half measures that could get U.S. soldiers killed or worse zombified, 

It is the job of the military to secure borders and when going abroad clear territory of zombies and then implementing an exit strategy rather than getting sucked into a quagmire of nation building.  As a side note, while the A-10 and AC-130s may be the most useful platform against the zombie, it is vital that we restore funding to the F-22 to deter hostile nations from exploiting the outbreak and U.S. distraction to expand their territory.

Counter-Insurgency: Critics of COIN doctrine argue that zombies lack hearts and minds, they only possess brains that must be splattered.  However, this facile argument overlooks the fact that counter-insurgency has always understood that zombies; the ultimate irreconcilables, cannot be won over.  What conventional warfare advocates fail to understand is that zombies, much like violent extremism, cannot simply be cleared via overwhelming force. 

Vectors for reemergence will always be prevalent, the undead are nothing if not patient, and long-term defeat of ghouls requires the cooperation of local populations abroad or heaven-forbid at home.  If a local has seen the military apply indiscriminate force they will be unwilling to report if their neighbors, let alone friends or family, have shown signs of infection.  We may have to occupy failed states that have become persistent sources of zombies, but we will largely act in a supportive role by training and equipping local anti-zombie forces.   Ultimately, resources must be put towards putting skull-crushing boots on the ground although there is a also a role for national guard troops and civilian agencies rebuilding communities ravaged by the zombie plague.

Net-Centric Warfare: World War Z was pointedly skeptical about the use of technology deeming the Landwarrior system as good for little more than watching the death of comrades from their point of view.  The book’s faith in simple rifles, lines of soldiers, and even melee weapons overly romanticizes earlier periods of warfare.  Cutting edge technology is expensive, but in the event of a mass-casualty zombie outbreak, the lives of survivors are all the more precious. 

Ingenuity and invention can substitute for manpower by using sensors to detect precursors of outbreaks in populated areas or to keep an unblinking eye on wilderness, abandoned settlements, and even the oceans.  Anti-zombie squads can use unmanned ground vehicles to scout out urban areas and perhaps even to target ghouls remotely.  Unlike humans, robots cannot be added to the ranks of the enemy.  This technology can also save lives, infrared scopes can be used to differentiate between the heat signatures of living creatures and the undead.  Best of all, the against zombies net-centric systems of systems do not have to worry about enemy eavesdropping, cyber-terrorism, or anti-satellite strikes. 

Intervention-Skeptic: The flaw of all the above perspectives is that they view the military as the solution to a zombie outbreak.  The ultimate solution to a zombie outbreak is a cure or at a bare minimum a vaccine.  As we work to develop such a solution, our first priority must be securing the United States, although many suspect that the actual risk to developed nations is overstated in the first place.

Yes, some violence may be necessary, but there is a reason most military anti-zombie sorties result in disaster.  Taking the fight to the zombie ultimately only depletes our resources while adding to their ranks.  Even the less violent counter insurgency approach is delusional.  Do we honestly expect citizens of other countries to accept a U.S. soldier killing their mother, even if said ghoulish mother was craving brains a few moments earlier?  We are not capable of effectively developing other nations under peacetime conditions, how can we expect to do so during a zombie outbreak?

 

I wouldn’t spoil the actual doctrine used in WWZ, but it makes more sense than the above while and still is quite horrifying.  If you enjoyed this, or if you thought you might have enjoyed this were I a better writer, I’d strongly recommend the book.

Apology for slow weekend

Been busy with move and wedding stuff (and a Fallout 3 addiction).  I've got a memorial day post planned, but don't think I'll get to it until this evening at the earliest.

Among other things, I've put almost my entire collection of books up at Librarything.  I've been rather pleased with it so far.  I even bought a CueCat barcode reader to speed up insertion.  That helped and was more fun then typing them in, but I think it only managed about half to two-thirds of the books. 

Aside from enjoying cataloging, I put up the data in an effort to organize and trim some of the fat from my ~500 book library.  I figure it will be easier to check out reviews and such on some of the old textbooks whose quality I have forgotten if I ever measured them.  If anyone recommends any other methods for weeding out the less helpful non-fiction books, please let me know.  Lots of books are fun, but ultimately there are transaction costs in mixing good and mediocre material.  The marginal return of an okay book might be outweighed by distracting me from looking something up in a better one.  Space limitations are also an issue, but the time factor is a bit more of an interesting problem.

Blog roll addition: Hathor Legacy

Hathor legacy is a cultural criticism site with the tagline “in search of good female characters.”  They recently revamped things by consolidating their multiple feeds into a single one (they also have a LJ feed), so this seemed like a good time to link.  The design of the core site doesn’t excite me, the text is a little big and you need to read more to get the details on any post.  However, that’s not an issue with the feeds, so I don’t really care.

My favorite discussion has been one by guest author Audra on Laura Roslin, the female President in Battlestar Gallactica.  The write-up does a good job of both addressing her strengths and acknowledging that she does make a fair number of iffy decisions.  The discussion went off topic some, but added more analysis and kept the things interesting well after the initial post.

A second post I enjoyed was one I disagreed with put up by Kris Ligman.  She thought Portal did more to advance female protagonists than Mirror’s Edge because the latter’s marketing was really driven by its main character.  Loving both games, I disagreed, as did other commenters, but while the discussion was a bit harsh on Kris I think she handled herself well and updated her views as new info came to light.  Potential for good discussion really is key in my view to a good criticism site.  Another fun series by the same author is a salutary set of pieces on the women of Metal Gear Solid.

The site was started by Jennifer Kesler who both gets a nice mix of writers and wades into comments as a moderator when appropriate, which is key to getting the commenting community that I enjoy.

Can a creator be too willing to kill their fictional characters?

As television has moved from more episodic stories to dramatic arcs, there’s been an increase in willingness to kill characters that have been around for more than one episode.  This is less of a new thing in books, although the death tolls of some recent series, such as a Song of Ice and Fire, are legendarily high.

The cost of using death is obvious, if the death is real, you can’t tell any more non-flashback stories using the character. I’m not really talking about killing off lame characters here, as the downsides are much more minor. The advantages are also important.  First off death is part of life and having plot advancement and character growth in more dangerous settings will involve facing that.  Second, death increases the drama of putting characters at risk.  The occasional death keeps viewers or readers on notice that bad outcomes are possible.  This secondary effect can also be achieved by character failure or non-trivial wounding, but with failure there’s a risk that that plot advancement will also suffer.  Similarly, if the wounds are psychological, characters can just become broken ground out shells.

I think having a few deaths in a series is normally a safe bet.  The risks come in when it becomes a more regular phenomenon.  I’d argue the structure of the show or book, as well as the practical realities of the medium, have an important impact on whether regular death is a mistake.  For this purpose, I’d argue that there’s three main types of structures.

• Static team:  By and large from one arc to the next the cast is stable.  If someone is replaced it will often be in close succession with the arrival of the replacement.
• Rotating team: Common in team stories, particularly in comics.  Characters may leave and return, assuming they don’t permanently die.  The cast may vary greatly over time, although there’s often a few central stalwarts.
• Farm system: These stories have a wide range of characters and are often told from multiple viewpoints.  New characters are fairly regularly introduced, are less likely to be killed within the short-arc they arrived in, and those that resonate often stick around.

Hybrid systems are fairly common.  The main cast, supporting characters, and antagonists may each have a separate structure.  The use of a rotating team or a farm system often means that the boundaries between main cast, supporting cast, and antagonists are permeable.

Books and shorter firm mediums like films and miniseries have the most freedom to kill characters.  There’s no actors involved so the real-world consequences are minimal.  In Japanese anime, the series often follow plots from written manga and thus death is more commonly expected.  Comics in the short and medium term tend to be more like books but for major franchise works their habitual resurrections show a real fear of losing characters.

Despite the increasing lethality of some modern American television series, I don’t think the underlying model has changed that much.  A variety of shows with arcs: Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, post-TNG Star Trek, and to a lesser extent shows like Buffy and Angel have stable main casts and are most likely to change if there’s a problem with an actor or actress.  As a result, if the show is more lethal, it will tend to express this lethality by running faster through supporting characters.  Under the old episodic system, supporting characters that weren’t star cameos would probably have never lasted beyond the end of the episode, so this is still an improvement.  However, and I’m thinking most clearly of Battlestar Galactica here, the lethality denies us some of the benefits of a strong supporting cast.  As the relative safety of the main cast becomes widely noticed, the dramatic boost that the lethality provides will be undercut.

Thus, I think unless a show or story employs a rotating cast or a farm system for the main cast, it should avoid being too lethal or risk undercutting the supporting cast enabled by arc-based storylines.  Similarly, if a show wants to go more than three seasons, I think it should also be careful with psychologically wounding a static cast.  Shows like Buffy and Angel tend to run into this a lot as the main characters are all ground down by a war of attrition with comparatively few reinforcements.  I think this also was beginning to take it’s toll on Battlestar Galactica, but since the show only ran four seasons it was easier to stick through the pain because an end was coming.

Book Review: Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

Unlike your average travelogue author, Guy Delisle is a cartoonist.  His drawings are fairly spare and stylized, but I think it's an approach that works rather well.  He'd spent a year in Burma with his wife, who works with MSF (Doctors without Borders).  He touches on many parts of the ex-pat lifestyle: raising his young son who is adored by locals, his wife's work and the barriers in her way, stand tourist trips plus visits to more remote locals, and a cartooning class he runs for locals plus his own work of course.  The timing was fairly recent, but before the latest series of uprisings.

I found it quite enjoyable and I think I hve a better feel for the country.  I was on occassion reminded of reading Burmese Days, by George Orwell, which depicted a fictional colonial officer but was based on Orwell's own experience.  Both were primarily stories of outsiders that give insight into the local culture but shouldn't be mistaken for the lives lived by those with the ill-fortune to be born under British imperial rule or the iron-fist of the present generals.  Of the two, Burmese Chronicles was the much more interesting read, I think Orwell's essays are the better source for learning about his experiences colonial service.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone that was primarily interested in the history of Burma or just depictions of its tourist sites.  That said, he makes excellent use of dialogue free drawings giving the rundown of some of his visits.  I definitely want to check out Lake Inlay if I ever go to the country myself.  Similarly he gives enough background on the current situation that even if you haven't followed the news you can catch up rather quickly.  Really, the book tells what it's like to spend a year in Burma and as a result teaches a reasonable amount about what life's like for the locals.  If that interests you, as it certainly does me, this is a good purchase.

As a side note, the book was written in French and is translated by Helge Dascher.  The translation was excellent as far as I could tell.  I didn't even realize the book was translated until I glanced at the cover page.

Origin: Christmas 2008 gift from Fiancee

Unexpectedly pleased with the revised WP Outlook section

While I still certainly mourn the loss of Bookworld, I’m happy to say that Outlook seems to have stepped up its game as a result of the merger. There’s been a few good long form reviews, the short reviews are shorter than I’d like but still useful, and the articles have been an often interesting mixed bag.

I’m particularly impressed with the 5 Myths about X pieces.  I often hate those as they tend to beat down a strawman or overstate the contrarian case.  The last few have been pretty solid, and I find that very reassuring.

So kudos.  I hope it keeps up.