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alias_sqbrJust two because they both ended up being longish reviews. And they're both things I liked set in space!
Game/Let's Play:
Star Wars: Fallen Order: A fun RPG with a great Star Wars story and what is apparently enjoyably challenging combat and platforming if that's a thing you're into! Unfortunately I am terrible at platforming, and the difficulty settings only affect combat, so I watched the Playframe Let's Play instead and still had a good time. Cam is middling at platforming and says he overall enjoyed the game, especially the combat, but found the platforming annoyingly difficult.
The story is set five years after the prequel movie trilogy and follows Cal, a traumatised former jedi apprentice, barely surviving now that the Empire has taken over and seemingly wiped out the jedi. He is recruited by Cere, a traumatised former jedi master who hopes the revive the jedi, and both struggle with trauma, anger, and hopelessness, as well as guilt over the fates of their master and apprentice respectively. The two of them form a really lovely bond, and meet other characters trying to find hope and a second chance. Also there's cool fights with lightsabers, and a cute droid! Cal is a white dude, while Cere and the primary antagonist are WOC, and I felt a little weird about some of the race and gender stuff, but still liked the story overall. There's no romance for anyone.
Book:
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: A fun space opera about a newly appointed translator, in the glitteringly seductive capital of a xenophobicly expansionistic empire, who finds herself trying to figure out how her predecessor died before whoever did it comes for her next. This is one of those frustrating novels where it wasn't bad, in fact it was quite good, but I kept feeling like if it was just a little better written it could have been spectacular. It had a lot of very cool ideas, and some of them landed while others I could just see sailing past without feeling much about them. I did like the characters and overall plot, and intend on reading the sequel. The social commentary and worldbuilding reminded me of Anne Leckie and Lois McMaster Bujold, for good and ill, including the "exploring colonialism with an empire of brown people and/or based on a real world non-white culture" (in this case the Aztec) thing. It didn't feel quite as heavy handed as those authors often do but maybe that's just because it was too generally muddled for the intended moral to be clear. Maybe some of this is a me thing, but I vaguely recall seeing other people with similar complaints.
This is definitely more of a me thing, but... TIME FOR NON-BINARY RANTS WITH SEAN: I did like that everyone is cheerfully bisexual and unconcerned with gender roles, but they're also always immediately 100% certain of their own and everyone else's (always binary(*) and implicitly cis) gender, even when dealing with people from other cultures. The main character is a woman sometimes sharing her head with a man and while many other parts of their personalities/feelings blend they are both always 100% certain of their own gender, yet the narrative never explores wtf gender actually means for them, or in either of the two very different societies. I have no problem with not wanting sexism or homophobia in your story but once you've decided to do that there is no good reason not to also have a bunch of unambiguously trans (and specifically, non binary) people around. As it is, the implication that gender is always obvious and binary even in a sexism free society made me low-key dysphoric. /END RANT
(*)There is one brief mention of someone being either non-binary or just hard to read gender wise. But also it's explicitly stated that everyone with a uterus is a woman, so. NO POINTS FOR YOU, ARKADY MARTINE.
Game/Let's Play:
Star Wars: Fallen Order: A fun RPG with a great Star Wars story and what is apparently enjoyably challenging combat and platforming if that's a thing you're into! Unfortunately I am terrible at platforming, and the difficulty settings only affect combat, so I watched the Playframe Let's Play instead and still had a good time. Cam is middling at platforming and says he overall enjoyed the game, especially the combat, but found the platforming annoyingly difficult.
The story is set five years after the prequel movie trilogy and follows Cal, a traumatised former jedi apprentice, barely surviving now that the Empire has taken over and seemingly wiped out the jedi. He is recruited by Cere, a traumatised former jedi master who hopes the revive the jedi, and both struggle with trauma, anger, and hopelessness, as well as guilt over the fates of their master and apprentice respectively. The two of them form a really lovely bond, and meet other characters trying to find hope and a second chance. Also there's cool fights with lightsabers, and a cute droid! Cal is a white dude, while Cere and the primary antagonist are WOC, and I felt a little weird about some of the race and gender stuff, but still liked the story overall. There's no romance for anyone.
Book:
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: A fun space opera about a newly appointed translator, in the glitteringly seductive capital of a xenophobicly expansionistic empire, who finds herself trying to figure out how her predecessor died before whoever did it comes for her next. This is one of those frustrating novels where it wasn't bad, in fact it was quite good, but I kept feeling like if it was just a little better written it could have been spectacular. It had a lot of very cool ideas, and some of them landed while others I could just see sailing past without feeling much about them. I did like the characters and overall plot, and intend on reading the sequel. The social commentary and worldbuilding reminded me of Anne Leckie and Lois McMaster Bujold, for good and ill, including the "exploring colonialism with an empire of brown people and/or based on a real world non-white culture" (in this case the Aztec) thing. It didn't feel quite as heavy handed as those authors often do but maybe that's just because it was too generally muddled for the intended moral to be clear. Maybe some of this is a me thing, but I vaguely recall seeing other people with similar complaints.
This is definitely more of a me thing, but... TIME FOR NON-BINARY RANTS WITH SEAN: I did like that everyone is cheerfully bisexual and unconcerned with gender roles, but they're also always immediately 100% certain of their own and everyone else's (always binary(*) and implicitly cis) gender, even when dealing with people from other cultures. The main character is a woman sometimes sharing her head with a man and while many other parts of their personalities/feelings blend they are both always 100% certain of their own gender, yet the narrative never explores wtf gender actually means for them, or in either of the two very different societies. I have no problem with not wanting sexism or homophobia in your story but once you've decided to do that there is no good reason not to also have a bunch of unambiguously trans (and specifically, non binary) people around. As it is, the implication that gender is always obvious and binary even in a sexism free society made me low-key dysphoric. /END RANT
(*)There is one brief mention of someone being either non-binary or just hard to read gender wise. But also it's explicitly stated that everyone with a uterus is a woman, so. NO POINTS FOR YOU, ARKADY MARTINE.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 01:15 am (UTC)Yeah I was surprised how into it I got! I'm not watching the Boba Fett show, and as I recall you're not either, but a BD unit showed up and Cam got VERY EXCITED and showed me a clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYFF83QWLOY
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-09 01:49 pm (UTC)It's good to know it wasn't just me!
no subject
Date: 2022-02-08 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-09 01:52 pm (UTC)A platformer is a game where you have to jump between platforms, making sure to get the timing right. If you are as bad at this as I am, I recommend the linked youtube series, which is lighthearted and thorough. But hopefully you will enjoy the game as is!