"We're Oscar Mike!"

Alrighty. Thanks to Mr. Adam, we have something that's looking like a new website for Idle Productions. Though it may look like it has about the same organizational structure as this place, it's a lot easier to work with behind the scenes. So until further notice, all updates will be thrown up here:

http://idleproductions.weebly.com

You've been good to me, Blogger. And maybe I'll be back. We will see, but thus far I haven't found any reason not to use the new place.

Cheers.

Oh, right. I have a blog.

So there I was, standing by the river, when all of a sudden this giant fish WITH LEGS came galloping up the shore right at me. I didn't know how to respond to this, as it's not exactly something I had been expecting, so I just sort of stood there. But could you blame me? I mean, really? There wasn't anything on the news about behemoth walking fish in the Tennessee River and I had never seen one of the History Channel; not even MonsterQuest. Just as the thing was about to collide full-force into me, it leaned back on its heels and quickly came to a halt. It was a little shorter than me, by virtue of it's fishy nature, but our eyes met. It felt like we stood like that for hours, but I'm sure it was only a few seconds. Then it spoke.

"Hey man... do you have any money that I could use to buy my family a pizza? I got laid off last week and I just want to take care of them. Anything will help. I appreciate it, man."

But before he even finished, I was rolling my eyes and turning away. The fish was a freaking bum! My terror had quickly melted into frustration. The bloody fish just wanted a hand-out. What's up with creatures on this planet nowadays, huh? Everybody thinks they're entitled to some Papa John's just because I can afford to get it every once in a while? Fish needed to get a real job, like everyone else, and get off my back.

So I just shook my head, but the thing persisted.

"Come on! I have a whole school of kids to take care of and their mom's out running around with a freakin' rainbow trout! Do you know what it's like, being the laughing stock of an entire river just 'cause the old woman's running around with a flamer?! I just need some cash."

He was getting desperate; I could see his little gills flopping violently. So I turned to him with a glare set on my face.

"I have the money, yeah. But you can't have it, alright? Now. Go. Away."

"Fine! Forget you, man!"

He was angry, I could tell, but he shuffled his way back down to the river and disappeared below the murky surface. I shook my head once more as I turned back down the path I had been following before. He would probably just use that money to buy himself one of those little plastic divers or a fancy air filter. Take care of his family. Right.

Stupid fish.

***

So... I figured I needed to post something here and a fish with legs was the first thing that came to my mind. What that says about me, I'm not entirely sure.

So I'm trying to get develop some sort of schedule for writing stuff, as I always feel better when I write. Letting my imagination run free for a little while every week can be rather therapeutic. But here's what I want to do, and I've mention it before: find a website that will allow free hosting that lends itself a little more toward the type of organization that I need. I want each story to be able to have its own page, or series of linked pages. I also want some sort of introduction place where I can just throw up a quick update thing so you don't have to wade around to see what's changed. And, last but not least, I sort of like the blog feature so attaching one of those wouldn't be bad, either. I wouldn't use it very often but whenever I wanted to post a quick story about a walking fish, I could.

So there's your mission, intrepid reader(s). Go find this mystical place for me. Or pay for a real website. Either will work for me.

That's all for now.

Cheers.

Another Comic!

Because I want to validate my "ownership" of a blog, here's another webcomic you should be reading: chainsawsuit. This is some good stuff here, folks. It's just your typical comic that makes fun of stuff, drawn in simple line art. But you don't need pretty graphics or, uhh... other stuff to make a good comic. Case in point:













Oh yes. Freakin' brilliant. Look at the face on that alien. The tilt of the head, the glare of the eye, the posture. Fantastic. Go, read, enjoy.

Moe!

(Click the image to see the whole thing.)

Since I may or may not have tricked a few of you into coming here from time to time, I thought that I would actually add stuff on occasion. That seems fair, right? I already started the book review thing, which I figure will give at least a post a month, neglecting anomalies such as the past few weeks. The "Just Post Stories" thing didn't seem like a proper investment of your time. Now you'll get more out of this place! Granted, that's why the Digital Sentinel was created... maybe I'll resurrect that, though managing two blogs sounds ludicrous!

Anywho, I just thought I'd bring the webcomic over at Firman Productions called Moe to your attention. Created by Michael Firman, it's a funny little comic about Moe, who is just a hair shy of retarded. Basic hilarity insues. It doesn't really have a theme, per se, unlike a lot of other webcomics. Unless "Guy named Moe does stuff that is funny" is a theme, though I doubt it. I don't really have much else to say about this, surprisingly. The comic occasionally has story arcs, but typically they don't dwell on one another much. Back in the beginning of the comic, the style was very sketchy (meaning it looked like a sketch, not that it wanted to steal your wallet). Nowadays, it still looks that way but in a much more stylized way, if that makes any sense. Stylized style. I'm personally a fan of it. I also like the typical color scheme - which involves a lot of browns - as it just adds something that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's just that it fits well with the theme of the website, in general. I like matching.

The comic is also going to celebrate its first birthday this Friday, which is pretty cool. There are currently approximately 250 comics, which is a pretty good start, I'd say. But best of all, Mr. Firman sticks to a rigid update schedule. And that schedule, you ask? Why, one of the best: Every Weekday. That's right, folks, Monday through Friday can be filled with a brand new Moe comic. Glory to the Maker.

So go read it if you have some time. Read it before Friday and you can say you were reading it when it was still young. You know, in the future. When it isn't. You can say that and not lie. Anywho...

Enjoy.

Everyone step out of the Twilight…

This text is acceptable to the forces of Light.
                                        The Night Watch

This text is acceptable to the forces of Darkness.
                                        The Day Watch

I think I am a Procrastinator Beyond Classification. “Zach Wolfe, Procrastinator, Higher”. I may even be a zero-point procrastinator. That may be a little presumptuous, since I can’t see my own aura, but I’m willing to assume that it’s true. And why would I assume something like this? Why, because just little over twenty-four hours ago, I was giving you the rundown on the latest book I had read and here I am again, wishing to do the same once more. That’s right, folks, I’ve already polished off another one. This time, if you haven’t guessed, the book was Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.

The Night Watch series has held a special place in my heart since I first learned of its existence a few years ago. For one, it’s on a very short list of books that I’ve read that weren’t originally written in this country. For another – or perhaps directly linked to the first – the story is highly unique. I mean, sure, there’s magic and whatnot but it just doesn’t have the same feel as it does in other fantasy novels. It’s also urban fantasy, which is a genre that I don’t have a lot of experience in (baring The Dresden Files, anyway). One way or another, I have greatly enjoyed this series and am sad to see it conclude with this novel.

As this is, indeed, the last book in the series, I don’t really feel like I should go into details about the plot and whatnot. If you haven’t read it, my words won’t make a lick of sense. And for those of you that have read up to this point… well, you’re aware of the writing style; it probably still wouldn’t make any sense. That’s something I do want to comment on, however briefly, if you’ll humor me. The style of these books is noticeably different from that of Western novels, and fantasy in particular. Now this shouldn’t be such a great shock, as the book was written in Russia. I’ve only recently read one other contemporary fantasy book written across the pond – that being The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski from Poland – and I noticed a similar sort of what that stories are framed. It’s a more… direct, abrupt way of going about things. It’s rather hard to describe, though I’m sure there are those who have tried. But simply, even basic sentences aren’t structured in the same way and it makes the reading experience completely different from that of your typical Western novel.

Neglecting sentence structure and the like, though, the simple presentation of events is handled in a different fashion. Often, characters have revelations that aren’t revealed to the reader for possibly hundreds of pages (those familiar with the books will recall that Anton does this near the end in every book). Secondly, though the books play out as a sort of horror mystery with a fantasy element, the reader is never really permitted to guess at things; Lukyanenko typically just slaps you in the face with a plot twist in the last couple of pages that came from the bleachers somewhere off behind left field and expects that to be a logical solution. Often, however, these left me perplexed as to what was even going on. The first book was the worst, if I recall, though it progressively got better in this regard as the series progressed. Sure, Anton has a habit of wasting obscene amounts of power. At least the explanations for why he did it got better as they went along.

In this sense, I was rather pleased with the ending. For one, this story follows the “mystery procedural” a little closer than others, with a few clues here and there. Now, maybe reading the thing in one sitting allowed to me pick up on foreshadowing that you wouldn’t immediately recall when reading the book over a period of a week – much like when you watch an entire television show’s season in one sitting; the foreshadowing has to be heavy-handed for you to remember it ‘til next week – but I was actually able to figure things out long before Anton did. I’m not trying to prop myself up as some mystery-solving expert, though. What I’m getting at is that the machinations in the book simply aren’t overwhelmingly ludicrous like they were in the other books. For instance, the true nature of the Twilight it pretty easy to figure out once they find Merlin’s little poem near the end of Story One (This isn’t a spoiler, even if it may seem like one; they just sort of… find it all of a sudden. “Hey, look down here.” Not kidding.). Though I will give myself a little bit of credit here; after three of his books, I’ve started to see how Lukyanenko thinks. It’s the same trick every time, just used in different ways, so it was a little easier to figure stuff out this time around. I want to go into more detail, but I know some of you haven’t read this book yet so I won’t spoil it for you. But let me just say that the end of the book doesn’t read like this: “Suddenly, a character that you’ve never heard of before this moment appeared and took the Crown, a smile upon her face, before disappearing once more. With a knowing grin, [Gesar/Zabulon] patted Anton on the shoulder. ‘It had been his plan all along,’ Anton thought, looking at the leader of the [Night Watch/Day Watch]. ‘I understand what I have to do now…’ [Obscene misuse of power here].” In all fairness, it’s actually a decent ending.

[Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read up through Twilight Watch, the following is going to be a mild surprise.]

One bone to pick, however, is the fact that, even though Anton is now a Grand Light Magician, he hardly does anything more powerful than you’ve seen him do a hundred times before. The only real difference is his ability to go deeper into the Twilight. Now, of course, his enemies have basically scaled in power as well, but it’s still not a proper excuse. “Beyond Classification” means – and this is stated in the first couple pages of the book by Anton – that all Higher Magicians are so close in power, it’s hard to tell which one is more powerful at any given time. Otherwise, the numbering system would go higher and they’d get themselves some numbers, too. However, there isn’t even the slightest hint that Anton could stand for more than a second against an attack from Gesar, Zabulon, his wife Svetlana, Thomas (he’s new), Olga, etc. Sure, most of this could be attributed to inexperience (though Svetlana is an outlier) and you do see him go toe-to-toe with another Higher Magician… but even in that fight, he was aided by another Magician with some fancy toys and he was still worried that he would lose – and probably would’ve had the bad guy not fled the scene. Maybe I just want to see Anton finally flex his muscles a bit and actually have the upper hand on occasion, but it just seems like Lukyanenko missed an opportunity here for some really nifty storytelling. A person that magically (heh, get it?) comes into a large amount of power, struggling with learning how to control it and use it for the Light, etc. Oh well, I guess.

I would recommend these books simply because they’re from Russia, have a style unlike our own, and I feel that anyone who enjoys reading should expose themselves to different techniques. The fact that they have a really interesting story and world is a definite bonus. Lukyanenko is one of Russia’s most popular authors and it’s easy to see why. So by the Light and by the Darkness – whichever tickles your fancy – read these books. You won’t regret it.