the Seasonal Cycle of Media

I'm not sure if this is just me - or if everyone is like this - but I've noticed something about myself: my media interests seem to be somewhat cyclical, based on the time of year.

To give a few examples...

• In May, I'm especially interested in spirituality books (such as Rob Bell's books, and of course the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson), as well as manga, anime, and/or video games that take place in modern day Japan.
• In late July and August, I lean towards American and European media - BBC tv shows, Cormac McCarthy books, etc. Asian media still makes an appearance here and there (such as a large concentration on Psycho-Pass last year) but it's not as predominant in the late summer like this.
• Unsurprisingly (and as I spent the entirety of the month discussing), October features a lot of horror stuff - whether books, movies, or video games. In addition to this, though, October also features a come back to an emphasis on Asian media. 
• November and December are really the only times of year I'll partake of fantasy - again, whether books, movies, or video games. I also enjoy more colorful things around this time - for example, it's the only time I'm likely to play Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda), as opposed to PlayStation games. Correspondingly, it's also the time of year I'm most likely to read children's books.

Anyway. Time to go into a more concrete example.

Recently I’ve been thinking about 47 Ronin. You remember that horrendous 2013 movie starting Keanu Reeves? - yeah, you're right; it was pretty terrible.

One fateful November day two years ago, I happened upon a used copy of the novelization of the movie. I hadn't yet seen the movie - and so didn't know how bad it was - but of course the premise interested me. You'll notice above that October brings me back to Asian media, and November is when my interest in fantasy kicks in. Considering that 47 Ronin is a Japanese fantasy, the timing was perfect.

So then. I decided to give the book a shot. And it was incredible.

Weird, I know. 

Again, this is a novelization - meaning it came after the movie. And the movie was unforgivable. Yet somehow Joan D. Vinge managed to take atrocious source material and turn it into a beautiful epic about honor and the things we cherish. 

This was two years ago I read it. And, like clockwork, last November I started itching to read it again. So I did. 

Sure, this second reading may have been a little too soon - I remembered the story quite well from the year before - but it's still a magical book. 

And here we are, November one year later, and - surprise! - I'm itching to read it yet again. Granted, this time around, I've decided to skip it. I don't want to overdo the magic; I'll wait another year or two until my memories of the book fade a bit more. But let's call it what it is: next time I read it, it will probably be in a November.

Is this just me? Or do you do anything like this, friends? Does your interest in media follow any sort of seasonal cycle like this? 

If You’ve Played This Video Game, Read That Book (Horror Edition!)

In my post Are Horror Books Actually Scary? I explained how it is that movies have the potential to be scarier than books.

Of all forms of media, though, nothing beats video games when it comes to scares.

Sure, movies have all the same sights and sounds of video games (and, of course, often appear more realistic than games), but there's still an element missing in movies:

You sit in the theatre and watch a story unfold in front of you. Will the hero survive/escape/beat the bad guy/save the day? - sit there long enough, and you'll find out.

In a video game, though, you can't just sit there and find out.

It's up to you if the horror is overcome.

You're the one who must defeat the monster, solve the puzzles, escape the maze. Are you keeping an eye on your character's health? Your ammo? Can you solve this riddle? Run fast enough? Set up the traps in time? Find a place to hide?

Movies and books can't even come close to that sort of tension.

That said, if, like me, you enjoy games, I want to join the worlds of video games and literature for you:

So if you've played This game, read That book.

(Alphabetical by video game title)

if you've played Alice Madness Returns...

...read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

___________

if you've played Amnesia: The Dark Descent...

...read The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

___________

if you've played Bloodborne...

...read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

___________

if you've played Dead Space 3...

...read At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

___________

if you've played Fatal Frame 2...

...read Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn

___________

if you've played Inside...

...read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

___________

if you've played The Last of Us...

...read World War Z by Max Brooks

___________

if you've played Layers of Fear...

...read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

___________

if you've played The Nonary Games...

...read Secret, Doubt, and/or Judge by Yoshiki Tonogai

___________

if you've played Prey...

...read Sphere by Michael Crichton

___________

if you've played Resident Evil VII...

...read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

___________

if you've played Silent Hill (1)...

...read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

___________

if you've played Silent Hill 2...

...read I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

___________

if you've played Until Dawn...

...read Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories by Algernon Blackwood

___________

if you've played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter...

...read Tales of Soldiers and Civilians: and Other Stories by Ambrose Bierce
(particularly the story The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge)

___________

What do you think of this list, friends? Have you experienced any of these pairings? Have any similar recommendations of your own to share? Let us know!

REVIEW: Alan Wake - Rick Burroughs

• Year first released:  2010
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780765328434
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Tom Doherty Associates
• My rating (out of 5):  1.5

As much as I love horror video games, I haven't (yet) gotten around to the 2010 game Alan Wake. It's on my list to play - in fact, I've owned it for awhile now - I just haven't touched it yet. Weird, since it's gotten almost universally positive reviews.

This novelization of the game came out the same year. And, as I explained in my post Guilty Pleasures, I'm rather a sucker for video game novelizations.

That said, giving a review about a novelization has an interesting dilemma: if there is anything amiss with the plot, you can't actually blame the author - at least not quite as much as if the author had invented the story himself.

And, though I still haven't played the game to compare it to the book, I have to say: there is definitely something amiss with the plot. I'll give Burroughs the benefit of the doubt and not pin it on him, but it certainly impacts my feelings about the book, and so needs to be discussed.

First, to give you an idea of the premise:

Popular horror author Alan Wake and his wife, Alice, head to the tiny island town of Bright Falls, Washington for a three-week vacation. Almost as soon as they get there, things go mighty wrong and Alice ends up missing. Alan then spends the rest of the book hunting her down, grappling with some sort of clunky, manifest-darkness/evil/possessed/monster/something-or-others with downright annoying speech patterns. (Yes, they talk, unfortunately.)

This is a fine setup (except for the monster talk). The mystery effectively leaves you scratching your head until near the end of the book - a necessary trait for suspense. And the main twist near the end was fairly clever, though not quite as fleshed out as it needed to be, especially considering how complex everything is.

...actually, I think I said that too nicely.

To be more clear:

At some point, it's almost as though the writer (whether Burroughs or the game's writer, I can't say) seems to hit a wall and say, "That's enough explaining; you kind of just have to accept it from here on out."

Um...why?

This is flat laziness. If you, the creator, can't even explain the complexity, then most likely the pieces don't actually fit together that well. (Indeed, they don't in this book.)

Further, though I won't go into spoiler territory here, there's a big splash right at the very end which it seems we're expected to accept as "It simply has to be this way." Yet I could think of no plot reason that it really had to be this way. Could there really not have been a different ending? - I'm sure there could have been, if the writer had taken a bit more time to sort it out before throwing it at us.

This is all too bad, because the secret behind everything could have made for a much better story - in fact, I'm tempted to say it deserved a better story. 

Aside from these gripes about the plot, there are a couple other points that should be said:

The setting felt rather unfocused. Bright Falls was certainly a great place for this sort of situation to occur. Yet Burroughs really didn't quite give us enough of a feel for the island town to really put together the imagery and scenery for ourselves. Perhaps he assumed we would have already played the game (and, therefore, already have a mental image of the island)? - it's hard to say. Either way, the location and atmosphere of the book felt like a missed opportunity. 

Also, the movement from one scene into the next was often downright jarring. We'll have Alan falling asleep in a bed somewhere, then, in the very next paragraph, he's crashing his car into a tree. 

...wait - what? When did he get behind the wheel? Is this a dream? (Oh, and yes - lots of sections of the book are dreams, which made the overall picture quite confusing about which pieces we really needed to know/pay attention to for the sake of the actual mystery at hand. A huge rookie mistake, if ever there was one.)

It often felt like pieces of the narrative were simply missing - and not for any particular, plot-driven reason; the creator just didn't feel like including them, I guess.

Ultimately, Alan Wake delivers an intriguing mystery - albeit with a bad ending - but wrapped up in a disarrayed, difficult-to-follow package. I'll still play the game eventually, in hopes that the presentation is more sensible there. The book was just plain messy, though.