Book review in one tweet

I fought at the Last Battle and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. #epicfantasy #12thousandpageslater #totallyworthit

Favorite quote

He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone.

Review

The Wheel of Time turns, fourteen books come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, then disappears altogether by the time the last book comes out, and some character you don't remember from The Shadow Rising makes an appearance and does something important, and you're like, "Wait, who is this person? I am not rereading the whole series again."

So then you spend twenty minutes on the Dragonmount forums trying to figure it out, but then some jerk reveals that [name of main character] dies so you spend another twenty minutes typing up a biting, sarcastic response chastising the person who posted that information in a non-spoiler section of the website, but you get bored and go back to reading and it turns out they were just messing with you, but then [insert second main character's name] actually dies, and you try really hard not to cry, but darn it you've been reading these books for nearly twenty years, and who cares if the sneezy guy at the doctor's office is giving you a weird look? It's not like you're going to see him ever again.

I guessing that if you've read A Memory of Light, you probably had an experience like this. Robert Jordan's final book in the epic(ally long) fantasy series The Wheel of Time brings the story of Rand al'Thor and the Dark One to a satisfying ending, if a bit bittersweet. The series started back in the early 1990s, survived Hurricane Andrew, the Star Wars prequels, and even the premature passing of Robert Jordan in 2007. The last three books have been completed by Brandon Sanderson, using extensive notes and scenes that Jordan finished before his death.

This book is the culmination of twenty years and 11,000 pages of work, and as much as its possible for anything to live up to that kind of hype, A Memory of Light does. There's a chapter in here called "The Last Battle," that is over 200 pages long. Just that one chapter. I bet you can't guess what it's about.

Nerd book rating

9 wizard staffs (out of 10)

If you're a nerd and you haven't read the Wheel of Time, you're wasting time reading this review. Trust me, you'll need all the time you can get.

Non-nerd book rating

1 cold, frosty beer (out of 10)

Not for normal people.

Jordan Jeffers encourages you to punch him in the face if when he writes a book series that's 12,000 pages long. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.

This documentary in one tweet

Several nerds dedicate their lives to creating video games that connect with people like works of art. #ResultsInconclusive

Favorite quotes

"That's the goal of the game in Fez; you're putting these pieces of the universe back together to try and make it stable again. I basically always feel like the entire world is falling apart around me these days." - Phil Fish, maker of Fez.

"Super Meat Boy is a retro sort of platformer where you play as a boy with no skin. Who's just meat, basically. And he's trying to rescue his girlfriend - who's made of bandages - from an evil doctor that's a fetus, in a jar, wearing a top hat and monocle. Wearing a tuxedo." - Tommy Refens, member of Team Meat, makers of Super Meat Boy.

Why is this supposed to matter?

In order to really buy into this movie, you've got to buy into the premise that video games can rise to the level of art, that they can express something about their creators and about the world that connects with people and broadens our understanding of this complex, deeply joyful thing we call life. And you've got to buy into the premise that a deeply engaging, worthy work of art can be called something like Super Meat Boy.

If you can accept this, you'll find Indie Game: The Movie well worth an hour and a half of your time.

Does it actually matter?

The Netflix description kind of made me think I was going to be watching an underdog story - indie game makers fighting the man and what not. But Indie Game turns out to be more of a mad scientist movie. You watch four guys pour their life and love and sanity into 64-bit graphics, sacrificing sleep, health, and personal relationships until the success or failure of the game becomes their happiness.

About halfway or so through the movie, one of the documentary crew asks Phil Fish, maker of Fez, what he would do if the game never got released. (For those of you not up on your insider indie gaming news, Fez was a highly anticipated game that was delayed for years while Fish constantly tinkered with it.) Fish's answer? "I'd kill myself. That's my incentive to finish the game. Is to not kill myself."

This is disturbing on so many levels, and I nearly turned the movie off when I heard it. Because that kind of fanaticism toward a game (even if it is a work of art - and it is) is horrifying, making the ending of the movie, which is supposed to be a happy triumph, seem a lot more like a tragedy.

Final rating

7 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

What this movie did more than anything was make me ask myself whether the stuff I'm devoting my life to is really worth it. Like, I write stories about goblins all day, is that any better than Super Meat Boy? And the answer is no, it's not any better - unless there's a reason to do it beyond selling 20,000 copies of it on release day. Which is why I'm down on my knees most mornings, begging God to use every word.

And for that reexamination alone, it was worth watching.

Jordan Jeffers thinks the best video game ever is and always will be Heroes of Might and Magic III. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.

I've noticed that when there are big changes and upheavals in my life, I tend to want to focus my energy on something small and unimportant, probably just to give myself some kind of sense of control, I suspect. Madelyn and I have that in common, actually. Occasionally I’ll come home from a hard day of work sitting in the library and making up stories about goblins to find her with a determined look on her face, vacuuming the floors or endlessly scrubbing off the charred bits of food that are welded to the burners on our stove.

“Tough day at work, hun?” I ask, trying not to stare at the gob of black gunk that has sprayed up onto her nose.

“No!” she says, cheerily. “Just have forty-three kids to schedule, and their teachers won’t get back to me, and my supervisor just told me we were getting at least four new students next week who need speech, and I’m supposed to do hearing screenings tomorrow, but I have no idea where, and they asked me to plan the district homecoming party again this year, and I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant, so I thought I’d finally get this oven clean for once.”

(Just kidding - about the her actually being pregnant part, not about the her saying she’s pregnant part. She says that about every other week.)

My own coping mechanism is much less useful than cleaning; I organize my email. Probably because it’s really easy, and I get to delete stuff. I like deleting stuff. Makes me feel cleaner. Healthier. Like scraping dead skin off of sunburn.

Well all this goblin writing and website building and career launching stuff was really stressing me out, so I started sorting my email again yesterday. I found one you sent me, maybe six months ago now. It was a link to an article - “Murdering Your Parents With Joy,” I think it was called, or probably something less offensive than that.

I do remember that the opening line was a quote from Aeschylus’s The Libation Bearers: “Shall I be ashamed to kill my mother?” How cheery! Wikipedia tells me this line comes right after Orestes walks in on the murder of his father by his mother, so that he is then faced with the necessity of murdering his mother to avenge his father. (Old Aeschylus had some smart things to say about the stupidity of revenge.)

The point of the article was that you couldn’t really be a healthy, independent adult unless you “orphaned” yourself in someway, if not by killing your parents like Orestes, then at least by refusing to talk to them on a regular basis. It wasn’t saying you would be better off if your parents were dead... but actually it kind of was. “Break free from me,” you wrote in the email. “Be your own man. I hope I never hold you back.” Etc. Etc.

This was an odd moment for me. It’s a bit of a paradox, you know. Because if I try to get rid of you, then I’m just doing what you say, so I’m not really rebelling against you at all. But if I don’t try to get rid of you, well then I am rebelling against what you say, but I’m still keeping you around. So I’m asserting my independence by not breaking free of you? Odd things to think about.

I think you just sent it because you knew I was starting this grand adventure of mine, setting off into the terrible land of freelance writing, where there be dragons. And I think you sent it ‘cause you love me, and want what’s best for me, even if that means you don’t get to see me. Like White Fang in White Fang.

So thank you for the nice gesture. No, I don’t want you to die, but it means a lot to me that you offered. I’ll set off into the world on my own if you really want me to. Though I’ll still write home on occasion, against your wishes. So there.

With Love Always,

Your son Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother on the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.

This book in one tweet

Dead, cape-wearing English guy from early 1900s still wiser/funnier than anyone you know. #apologetics #iwishpeoplestillworecapes

Favorite quote

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

Review

Reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy is a bit like wandering through an art museum. There are a lot of pretty things to look at, a lot of artists whose names you kind of recognize but don't actually know anything about, and at the end of it you buy something pretty from the gift shop to hang up in your room. Only it doesn't seem quite as cool in your house as it did when you were there.

I got Chesterton's most famous book for Christmas this year. Because Christian apologetic books from the early 1900s are the sort of thing I ask for (suck it Nike+ FuelBand!). It's filled with stunningly beautiful passages like the one quoted above, references to other early 20th century thinkers I know nothing about, and lots of sound, practical apologetics that I mostly forgot about the second I put the book down. Chesterton was sort of like C.S. Lewis 1.0; he has a way of putting things that just make so much sense you feel stupid for not having thought of it yourself. Also, they both abbreviated their first and middle names. And as far as names go, "Gilbert Keith" pretty much wipes the floor with "Clive Staples."

Also, Chesterton used to wear a cape around all the time. This was as weird in his time as it is now.

Nerd book rating

8 wizard staffs (out of 10)

Plenty of obscure references and biting wit. Worth a read, even for you non-Christians out there.

Non-nerd book rating

5 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

A lot of obscure references and biting wit. Spend twenty minutes going through his Goodreads quote page, instead. It's worth the time.

Jordan Jeffers really likes capes. Has he mentioned that before? Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.