D. B. Weiss

Perhaps it is because i own at least one of every gaming system that came out since 2600, but this book spoke to me. To watch the protagonist's self-absorption, and his self inflicted alienation with humanity, emotions, and eventually his own sanity as the book progresses, spoke to me as i recall spending literally hundreds of hours on a single game and can recognize the dangerous step from moderately unhealthy obsession to overpowering mania. For those not fully versed in video games and show more the idea of losing oneself for such extended hours at a stretch, one must of necessity make allusions to characters with overwhelming mania and hubris, foremost in my mind, Colonel Kurtz and Captain Ahab. When one can extrapolate so much of the underpinnings of the human psyche from games such as Donkey Kong and Pac Man and turn them into rants smart enough to make you wonder if that might actually be true.... If nothing else, the book deserves to be read as an interesting take on a driven, erudite, manic's view of classic video games. Spot on. show less

Various factions plot to gain political control over a fantasy world.

I'm reluctantly giving it an A instead of an A plus. I loved watching it, but there are a few major problems. Some key plot points are unexplained. Martin's obsession with incest is off-putting. Some of the villains are senselessly evil just for the sake of being villains (huge pet peeve of mine). Oddly, the biggest problem is that there is a ridiculous amount of gratuitous sex and nudity, to the point where it becomes show more funny. The general rule seems to be that if there's no good reason for characters to not be having sex during their scene, then what are their clothes still on for goddamnit? HBO viewers demand titties! Fantasy is always treading a fine line between immersing and silly, so a show like this that takes itself Very Seriously couldn't do much worse than give you a reason to laugh at it.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: D

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 2.8/4 show less

http://lampbane.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7508230&publicUserId=5495985

"This book has a pretty long setup for the main plot, and it's not even that long a book. To try and describe the flow of the plot would make this post way longer than it needed to be, as well as spoiling some of the fun. And it is a fun read - as the blurbs on the back said, it does capture a lot of the wonder of playing video games back then. I was raised with an Intellivision, so I could relate. The part that especially show more got me was the discovery of MAME, which was something I did in college. I don't know how well the book would translate to a younger gamer trying to read it. I don't think this book was written for that audience." show less

Various factions plot to gain political control over a fantasy world.

2.5/4 (Okay).

I'd expected this to be much worse. It's not a bad ending, it's just a really boring ending. It takes eight hours to tell three hours worth of story, with almost nothing unpredictable happening.