Book Review: Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan

Title: Midnight Never Come
Author: Marie Brennan (swan_tower)
Published: New York: Orbit, 2008
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 379
Total Page Count: 54,627
Text Number: 159
Read For: interest after reading the author's blog, checked out from the library
Short review: In 1588, England flourishes under the rein of Queen Elizabeth, but deep in the hidden catacombs beneath London, a second queen reins: Invidiana, the cruel, cold-hearted ruler of faerie England. Above ground, Deven enters Elizabeth's court while below ground, Lune is cast from Invidiana's court, and when the two are drawn together they must discover the secret bond that joins the two monarchs—and break it. Midnight Never Come is a historical fantasy which takes full advantage of both parts, spinning out a vivid story of faerie magic which is intimately bound by English politics. Intelligent, skillfully written, but a bit tied up in research, this is a solidly good book that never quite manages to be exceptional. I recommend it.

( Long Review. )

Review posted here on Amazon.com.

Spore Creature Creator: Mini-review, chatter, & some of my creations.

Stealing time away from Second Life and book reviews (although not my reading): I am obsessed with Spore Creature Creator. Having played Viva Piñata and after my long affair with Second Life, I've discovered a love for that sort of game: an open sandbox that allows you to create everything from setting to plot—so, of course, I've avidly been tracking the development and coming release of Spore. Devon and I downloaded the Creature Creator demo, and I had such fun with it that we splurged on the ten dollar "full demo." As much as I hate the concept of it concept—of a paid demo, I mean, which rather seems like a contradiction in terms—I have to admit we are getting our money's worth because I play with it all the time.

After the first couple creatures, you start to notice the limitations of the program: a fixed front and back, a spine, necessary symmetry, difficultly positioning items, lack of a skull, the land-based model, and so forth. But after the first creature which you make and fall in love with, after a bit more experimenting, and after checking out what others make—you discover that while the program has limits, the greatest limit is yourself. Broaden your own expectations, and the creator becomes a vast playground.

It's not unlike Second Life: If you can dream it, you can probably make it, but you might have to trick the system to do so. That trickery comes with practice, and the Maxis-provided set of creatures are also useful to pick apart and see how they work. But by bending a neck into a forehead or tweaking a jaw into a face, arranging bone plates as fur, repositioning spines and removing joints, and trying random crazy shit just to see how it works—a whole new world opens up.

Cathunt—the winged feline creature above—was the first creature that I was really happy with, and he pulled me from casual exploration to avid enjoyment. He was also the first time that I almost maxed out genetic complexity, something which happens all the time now—and he has max stats for almost everything. Under the cut are Herbert (the would-be-bird with no beak and mere vestigial wings—his singing voice is something to be heard) and Plantstalk (the carnivorous plant with poisonous sap and eyes hiding beneath his leaves). I don't save many of my creations and I took pictures of even fewer—by playing with all shapes and forms but keeping only those that function best overall, I guess I function as my own force of natural selection. These three are a good selection of the best of my collection ... so far

( See Herbert and Plantstalk. )

Click for larger images.
Also I suck at naming, and those I use here are hardly permanent. Suggestions for names which do not suck would be cool.

The demo of the demo crashes like crazy. I wish that the mesh and piece placement weren't so buggy. I wish that heads were easier to make. I wish there were more than one attack. I wish creatures could interact, so that there was some purpose to the creature stats. I wish I could test gliding, and that they could swim or fly. Mostly, I wish that Spore were out now, instead of in September. The demo alone is almost infinite, and it is just one fraction of the game's whole. I can only imagine what the finished product would be like.

And obviously—I recommend Spore Creature Creator.