Lamb by Christopher Moore

In the opening of Christopher Moore’s Lamb offers a warning and defence. This is an apocryphal book of the Bible being written by Jesus’ childhood pal Biff to cover the years underrepresented in the other books of the Bible—essentially from Jesus at 5 years old until thirty three. While Moore, I think, stays true to the spirit of Jesus’ personality, the situations he’s placed in are absurd and I think the more seriously religious might find it borders on the blasphemous.

The book’s frame narrative takes place in a motel room to which Biff, recently resurrected, has been confined by the angel Raziel. He’s been granted the gift of modern language and instructed to write this apocryphal text. Throughout the book, he has a few zany escape attempts and Raziel is lampooned as being obsessed with (but not fully comprehending) the soap operas on TV.

The core narrative, though, works through the various stages of Jesus’ life and operates somewhat like a Bildungsroman as Jesus (Joshua in this text) grapples with the idea of being the messiah. The childhood friendship between Joshua, Biff, and Mary is an endearing journey peppered with conflict with their local authorities. Joshua discovers his capacity for miracles, including resurrecting the dead (it’s not always perfect to start…), and when the conflict escalates, Biff and Joshua go on a journey to discover whether Joshua is indeed the messiah.

What follows is a mix of a Bildungsroman, humour novel, and fantasy adventure. The absurdity of some of the episodes would, I’m sure, upset people, but it’s delivered in such a tongue-in-cheek way that it’s hard to be too hurt by it. Biff plays opposite to Joshua; while Joshua is increasingly self-serious, pious, and compassionate, Biff is much more fast and loose with morals and decorum. One of the most memorable episodes, for instance, is that Joshua needs to understand sex (while remaining strictly celibate) and so Biff acts as a ‘tutor’ by bedding sex workers every night while Joshua listens through the wall or has Biff explain the experience afterward. It’s a reasonably lengthy section, a drawn out ‘bit.’

Biff as narrator is unselfserious and Moore draws on different kinds of humour. Some of the stories he tells, like the aforementioned tutelage, demonstrate Moore’s commitment to the long-form joke. In other moments, Moore operates via irony and sarcasm (indeed, Biff claims to have invented sarcasm). Some of the funnier moments are when Josh uses Biff’s own (sarcasm) weapon against him or operates with a bit of mischievousness (like compulsively poking everybody who gets referred to as ‘untouchable’). There’s some allusive humour that draws on Bible stories; Moore reworks moments like turning water into wine and jokes around being lost in the desert. One of my favourite ‘bits’ is that Biff continually justifies his actions with wisdom from nonexistent books of the Bible. He tells Josh one of his aphorisms: “for it is written: ‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to be a fish and his friends eat for a week” (293). When Josh asks him where that is written, they have the following exchange:

“That is not written. Where is that written?”

“Amphibians five-seven.”

“There’s no friggin’ Amphibians in the Bible.”

“Plague of frogs. Ha! Gotcha!” (293)

Those fun exchanges are just cheeky enough in their wordplay to spark a smile. Sometimes it’s the restraint that pays off, whereas the more excessive gags don’t have, for me, a comedic payoff.

Lamb is also more plot-driven than most of the books I read. There are distinct phases of the story that each could serve as standalone episodes. In particular, Joshua and Biff meet up with the three wise men. In the first, they stay at Balthasar’s palace, which takes on a Bluebeardesque mystery: there are Chinese concubines all around and a door that must never be opened. Amidst the debauchery, Biff opens the door and unleashes a demon—it becomes a fantastical adventure where the demon murders the women and then Joshua, Balthasar, Biff, and Joy are fighting back to control the creature. Then, they journey to see Gaspar in India. This part of the book is, in my view, the most controversial. Moore’s depiction of India plays into some harmful stereotypes; the men are depicted as both overly sexualized and effeminate, and Hinduism is presented as barbaric, with brutal human sacrifices. Melchior’s section is probably the most tame and least distinctive in its depiction. The final phase of the book revolves first around gathering the apostles, delivering the sermon on the mount, and his subsequent crucifixion (is this whole book a cruci-fiction?). The section wherein we’re recruiting apostles really drags, but the drama of writing the sermon on the mount is pretty strong. I also liked the tension leading up to the crucifixion where Joshua is committed to his sacrifice and tricks Biff and Maggie (Mary Magdalene) into not saving him.

The ending of the book is a surprise, which is odd given that we know the Bible story. Biff’s narrative ends with Jesus on the cross and we return to the present timeline, where Biff is released from his responsibility and reunites with Maggie, who tells him that Jesus came back. Biff says he had heard but that he couldn’t bring himself to see him, which established a nice pathos for Biff. The book, though, ends pretty abruptly.

Overall, Lamb was reasonably engaging and somewhat funny, but it didn’t fully grip me. The tone of the book was pretty consistent and Biff’s sarcastic and ironic tone is consistent and well-delivered. The book may be a little overlong, in my opinion, and a tad repetitive. While the book’s excesses are important to its vision, it does at times wear a little thin. The book has some philosophical bits, like Joshua’s reflections on Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—he also learns kung-fu—but mainly it feels like a book geared towards entertainment.

I hope you enjoy it; happy reading!

Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West by Aidan Moher

I experienced some of my first RPGs as a child: specifically, I adored Earthbound and Super Mario RPG as Super Nintendo classics. A little later, when the world of emulation opened my world, I think I first got drawn into the vibrant colour of Final Fantasy V and the joy of job changes, which changed the look of the sprites in fun and engaging ways. I think I got distracted partway through the game and started Final Fantasy VI and was literally astounded by its gorgeous artistry and lively cast of characters. In grade 8, I bought Final Fantasy VII and joined the ranks of the kids that became obsessed.

I’m in good company with Aidan Moher, who sounds like he had a similar experience as a Canadian teenage boy wrapped up in the world of RPGs and punk rock. Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West is a love letter to that experience. Part of what makes the project work is that Moher takes a few paths when describing these games, allowing personal memory and experiences parallel to reviews, historical notes, and commentary. Drawing from both his voice and the voices of others gives the text a well-rounded and complete view of the history of RPGs—or at least as complete as a survey can be.

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which the children have a diorama competition. Principal Skinner reveals Ralph Wiggum’s diorama, which is a collection of in-package Star Wars figures. He exclaims: “Why, it’s Luke! And Obi-Wan! And my favourite: Chewie!” The enthusiasm in his voice is palpable and reading Fight, Magic, Items was a little like that for me: “Why, it’s Chrono Trigger! It’s Terranigma! It’s Eternal Sonata!” Even lesser-known titles get a place in his history. For the games I played, I felt that swell of nostalgia. For the games I hadn’t, I felt a curiosity to see how it fit in with the trajectory of the genre.

When it comes to describing this trajectory, Moher goes through a few threads that give the text a richness of detail. In describing the entries into the genre, Moher sometimes goes into detail about the development of technology to explain why games took the shape they did. Simultaneously, Moher includes details about the features or mechanics of games themselves and how they fit into, pushed, evolved, or revolutionized the genre. The title of the book highlights the rise of Japanese RPGs in the West, and I would say the book partly delivers on its promise to explain why cultural shifts empowered the Japanese aesthetic to ‘go global.’ It serves as a pretty compelling social and cultural history, so even if you’re not interested in JRPGs in particular, if you’re interested in video games there’s probably still enough here to latch onto—heck, even if you’re into anime, there’s some explanation of how it helped to push for Japanese culture in the West.

Like the journalist and author Jason Schreier, who is cited several times in the book, Moher weaves some pretty compelling narratives by drawing on particular figures in the world of game development. Moher provides brief profiles of game developers and tells some interesting anecdotes of their ups and downs. The creators of Dragon Quest and Suikoden and Fantasian Neo Dimension and Kingdom Hearts all get their due. Also, here’s a weird and wild fact that somehow makes perfect sense: author Haruki Murakami is connected to Earthbound because the creator of Earthbound Shigesato Itoi co-authored a short story collection with Murakami. The book is full of fun little tidbits like that.

Moher’s book does critique very well. He has a knack for highlighting what is best in these games. He explains why different games work—or, when the games are sub-par, at least aspects of why they work or what makes them significant. He comments on tone, characterization, plot, mechanics, immersion, music, and other hallmarks of good game design. For games that flopped, Moher identifies some reasons that they failed but still finds some reasons for praise. He’s got a generous, appreciator’s eye.

If there’s an area I’d like more of, it’s the analysis and interpretation of games. Granted, that’s not really what this book is. We’re dealing with history here, not philosophy or criticism. Still, when discussing Nier Automata’s multiple endings, repetition, and humanity, I would have loved to have gone more in-depth with the philosophical implications. There is some social commentary, like when discussing the all-male party of Final Fantasy XV and, rather than bemoaning the lack of representation of women in gaming, takes a moment to appreciate a game that shows male friendship, vulnerability, and connection. It’s maybe a bit generous, but nonetheless it gives some considerations for the impact of different game features.

Fight, Magic, Items is a gentle, informative non-fiction read. I’m tempted to think of it as a beach read, even. It inspires the nostalgia of childhood and a curiosity for the games I’ve missed. It gives me an appreciation for the underdog story JRPGs have had in the West and makes me really appreciate the diversity of the genre that’s out there. Guess I gotta get gaming.

Happy reading gaming reading!

Stone Serpent by Tristan Dineen

  Before I start this review, I’ve got a few disclaimers I need to acknowledge. The author of the book and I are friends and I’ll primarily be focusing on my highlights for the text. Additionally, my review is based on a pre-publication manuscript that I was editing so the author, Tristan Dineen, may very well have adjusted the final copy. With those disclaimers done, we can begin on Dineen’s latest fantasy novel: Stone Serpent.

Not that I’m an expert, but I think that a few core elements that make fantasy novels successful are world-building and character development. On both fronts, I think Stone Serpent works. Right from the prologue, Dineen demonstrates a strength in setting the scene with effective imagery (a little later the “dull green hump of Weya-Nama wore a broken crown of ruins”), and the conflict between slavers and a supernatural snake-man sets up some expectations for the world’s magic. There’s a pretty gruesome moment that establishes the tone of the book—and the potential of the book’s evil forces—and serves as a compelling entrypoint to the conflict.

When the novel starts in earnest, we shift perspective to a young boy, Ta, on the occasion of a local ceremony. Once again, Dineen establishes our understanding of the world, their beliefs, their practices. I appreciated the focused scope in this section; it felt like a nice introduction to the world and the novel explores the broader scope of the world more gradually. It felt inviting and, in my opinion, the more immersive for it.

Ta stands out as one of text’s most memorable characters. He’s a brash young guy whose idealism drives his reckless actions. He longs to be a hero and, later, to claim (if a little preemptively) his destiny in the form of his ancestor’s sword. He reads somewhat like a Don Quixote figure, obsessed with stories of adventure and putting his friends at risk to live out the fantasy. Ta’s friend Lu possesses a similar affliction, but in the draft version he reads a little more one-dimensionally—an enthusiastic yes man for Ta’s misadventures. The two together serve as our initial duo that initiate us into the world and whose interest in stories of old parallels those of the reader.

In the gaming world, there’s a trope in a lot of JRPGs where a young boy goes on a seemingly innocuous adventure only to find himself the one remaining person to resist an unfathomable evil force. I like it and it feels nostalgic to me, so to see the pattern playing out in Stone Serpent has an odd satisfaction for me. Dineen transitions beautifully from a lighthearted call to adventure to an ominous and suspenseful register as Ta and Lu approach some ruins. Ta feels himself being called, drawn deeper into the ruins. I’ll avoid spoiling too much, but the dramatic irony where the audience knows that things aren’t right while Ta follows his intuition builds a great sense of dread. There’s a further double-down on the disaster, but again I won’t spoil too much.

The second phase of the book transitions to a group of other characters—Balkash, Naas, and Hong. Dineen again provides some compelling backstory for the characters and helps to establish their milieu. We see the contrasting philosophies of different people in the world and we see the ‘big city’ context and the exploitation of workers and the group quickly runs into trouble, being transported by boat to their execution. The chapter feels bleak and again there’s a great tension as they come to face-to-face with their cruel executioner.

Around this time, things start getting really interesting for my favourite character in the novel, if for no other reason than his philosophical potential. I may not get this description exactly right, but Polliss is a humanoid feline mage who, thanks to a crushable figurine, can teleport out of danger to a destination not entirely of his will. What I find most interesting about the character, though, is the transience of his identity. Polliss essentially serves as a host for the phoenix Baal, a judgmental companion that speaks directly into Polliss’ mind. There’s a lot of opportunity there to explore what it means to be an individual when constantly hosting another consciousness—this becomes even more complex when Polliss is embodied inside another man’s corpse. Essentially, it’s a body not his own, hosting a consciousness of his own, which itself hosts another consciousness not his own. It’s a rich concept that lands really nicely, especially when he’s considered in contrast to the animated statue villains, described as “soulless puppets of stone pulled by invisible strings.” It’s interesting to see the contrast of multiple consciousnesses crammed into one body in contrast to the animated stone, which seems to operate vaguely as one consciousness spread out between many bodies. There’s a lot to work with here in terms of identity, consciousness, and we could even draw parallels with discourses as diverse as psychoanalysis, trans identities, or computer networking.

The novel operates within an apocalyptic mode, where a godlike snake-man is unleashing unheard-of magic. At his introduction, people are transformed into stone and then reanimated as malicious statues hunting the survivors. Beyond that, much of the book actually presents the environment as the primary threat to survival: the natural world is warping and becoming overgrown. As the story progresses, the party expands and each character has a role to play in surviving and saving the world. I was actually hoping for a bit more of Ta throughout the main body of the text (and more episodes with the central villains to explore their motivations) but there’s enough variety and differentiation between the other sets of characters to keep the story moving. That approach is particularly true for chapter 36, where different storylines are woven together in short bursts, making the chapter feel lively and giving the story a satisfying cohesiveness.

The novel has a balance of action sequences and more meditative moments of connection between the characters. In the final act, there are some great developments with the characters’ relationships and that makes the ending of the book all the more devastating. I admit that I either forgot or didn’t realize that Stone Serpent is the opening of a new series, so as I saw the ending creeping closer I felt the dread of irresolution. Even so, the ending of the book is powerful—but not for the reasons I expected. The book’s early lightheartedness, by the end, has clearly transformed to a more somber tone. There are some painful losses and one character proves himself such a spineless bastard that I can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance in the sequel. The emotional investment I felt in that betrayal is an excellent payoff which, upon review, was clearly foreshadowed and all the more satisfying for it. There’s a lot of dread permeating the end of the book and it was both refreshing and frustrating that the ‘good guys’ failed to have the upper hand.

Dineen’s writing, as I’ve alluded to, is nicely structured around the novel’s key moments. There’s a good build-up to the key plot points and the payoffs generally feel earned (there was one early one with Polliss crushing a statue, but something later in the book justified the moment retroactively). Dineen’s use of strong phrases also gives the work its force. Sometimes, they are phrases embedded in paragraphs to build the moment, like “reality held its breath.” Sometimes, there are standalone lines that punctuate the moment by being their own paragraph. In a moment when characters are forced to keep their heads down and row, and then the following paragraph is simply: “the lash would do the rest.” I’ve alluded already to the imagery like a “dense canopy permitting only token seams of light.” There are lots of lines to like that help enrich the overall project.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of Stone Serpent. There are more characters and more moments than I could possibly cover here—and I wouldn’t want to give away all the key surprises here, anyway.

After all, Tristan Dineen is hosting a launch for the book on June 25th at 7p.m. at Red Brick Cafe in Guelph. You could pick up your copy of Stone Serpent and hopefully take a few moments to engage with its author.

Happy reading!

Shadows in the Darkness by Elaine Cunningham

   Elaine Cunningham’s Shadows in the Darkness has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. Let me set the stage. It’s St. Patrick’s Day 2012. The Queen’s University bookstore is having a sale where you cram as many books as possible into a massive tote bag and for everything that’s in there you pay…twenty dollars? You’re launched into a book-buying frenzy and just start grabbing whatever looks remotely interesting. You pick up a hardcover of a book called Shadows in the Darkness and, in the frenzy of the moment, you’re tricked into thinking it sounds deep, when in fact it’s nonsense that ‘sounds cool.’ Later, you calm down while you add 40 or so books to your shelf and promptly leave Shadows in the Darkness untouched for the following fifteen literal years.

    Elaine Cunningham’s novel is a crime / fantasy novel that focuses on Gwen, a disgraced ex-cop turned private investigator on the hunt for a missing girl. The cynic in me suggests that there’s more than a little wish fulfilment in Cunningham’s impossibly cool character. Here’s, essentially, the first introduction to Gwen:

“Sometimes she tried for a traditionally professional image, but today wasn’t one of those days. She wore jeans so snug they looked as if they’d been spray painted on, a sleeveless black shirt that stopped a couple of inches north of her pierced navel, a leather jacket she’d bought second-hand during the Reagan administration, slim-heeled ankle boots, and far too much makeup. Her eyes, which were wide and very blue and slightly tilted at the corners, tended to remind people of Siamese cats. Gwen liked to play down the feline aspect with a few layers of judiciously applied paint, which had the added benefit of making her look older. Or at least, it made her look like a high-school kid who was trying to look older” (26).

The book was published in 2004 but retains the fingerprint of the 90s. Gwen’s style is just soooo coooooool. Gwen was that over-the-top quality reminiscent of Lara Croft in the first few Tomb Raider releases. Gwen’s character, among other things, makes the novel feel dated in turn. It becomes even more obvious when one of her central character quirks is that she hates using computers. The ‘techy’ character in the story at one point has to explain what a USB key is for (which feels even more surreally antiquated when he refers to it as a thumb drive). In addition, when conducting the investigation we get the following glorious line from the technophilic character: “Fingerprints, that’s one thing, but pictures? Even if there was a way to do a computer search on a picture, there’s no database for civilian mugs.” Oh, poor Cunningham, how quaint this reads today!

    On the topic of the investigation, there are some moments of intrigue but it’s ultimately marred by two flaws. The more superficial flaw is the timeline: it’s often unclear or overly convenient when events happen. Real life is often nonsequential; while I’m marking, I might get an e-mail from a parent that I need to address and while I’m doing that, my dog might need a walk, and so on. This book sees Gwen zipping around town and issues popping up sequentially—at the end of one meeting, a phone call comes through to give her her next step.

    The more critical flaw is in the construction of the investigation and the lack of narrative payoff. I am by no means an expert in the mystery genre, but I feel like what makes the genre compelling and fun is watching the mystery unfold and seeing the character put pieces together to solve the case. Shadows in the Darkness has a trend where people just bring Gwen information. For instance, she’ll interrogate someone who says they don’t know anything, but there are at least two instances where the person returns to her unprompted a few days later to reveal new details, having experienced a sudden and largely unexplained change of heart. Rather than following clues, it feels like Gwen is led through the case via a series of video game sidequests where people just tell her things.

    What makes it even more difficult for Cunningham to bring the narrative arc to a satisfying conclusion is that Gwen has magic powers. In the prologue, a character is eye-rollingly revealed to be an elf. Luckily that plot thread is left mostly untouched for half the novel, however, Gwen has psychic powers where if she touches something she can experience memories of other people. She uses that to locate a missing girl early on, and then later her visions help her get to a new clue. It’s frustrating that it is not really Gwen’s thinking or investigative skillset that drives the mystery, but her identity. It comes down to an intrinsic feature of her bloodline that is at the core of the mystery and, in my opinion, that just deflates her heroism.

    In turn, there’s a predictability to the story that makes the payoff lacklustre. To give an example, Gwen is on a date with her ex boyfriend and about to take things to the bedroom when she gets a phone call from her techy friend who was doing some investigative work that she outsourced to him. He tells her that there’s something she needs to see and she tells him to wait until the morning. The moment he asked her to come over I knew he’d be dead by the time she got there. Called it. The epilogue reveals a more genuine twist, I suppose, about a secret villain, but even then my reaction was just like, “k.”

    I suppose my apathy towards it is fueled by the fact that by the time I had thirty pages left I realized Cunningham was setting up for a sequel. In the final phase of the novel, Cunningham uses a significant amount of time introducing a character and having Gwen bond with him. It felt like a waste when the case was at its most pressing. 

    Tangentially, this points to an issue with some of the tone of the book that reads as untrue for Gwen’s character. Gwen is driven by a sense of purpose, and yet there are inconsistencies. She is artificially put on pause for her investigation, which coincidentally aligns with the funeral of her former partner, at which she meets his son for the first time and the two share an intimate, vaguely romantic conversation. I just didn’t buy it that she’d be receptive to that scenario. In another, she emerges naked from the shower and there’s a man she barely knows in her house and they just kinda chat about the case. In another scene, Gwen tells an informant that the informant’s contact has died and that the funeral was happening the following week. The conversation literally ends with, “Okay,” and the man walks away. It’s weird. Similarly, the dialogue in the novel strives for a bunch of short, quippy exchanges that sometimes just read inappropriately to the situation. Those same dialogue tropes from a show like CSI: Miami that have been panned and parodied abound here. It seems unrealistic to me that they would be talking about human trafficking and then add some joke about Gwen not liking computers in the middle.

    Other than that, the writing is largely competent. There is good clarity to the text, if a little wonky when transitioning between scenes and establishing timelines. There were some moments of solid imagery and figurative language. While the writing is predominantly perfunctory from a stylistic point of view, I didn’t have too many complaints. There were a few strange moments, though, that a more careful editor might have found. 

    Overall, the book was not as painful as it might have been. It was a reasonably engaging story, I suppose, but it definitely reads more like a TV cop episodic rather than a high art concept film. 

    When I think about that book sale from oh so many years ago, I mourn the fact that I’ll never experience that same format again. At the same time, I know that I still have some residual books from that day. I think I’ve picked through most of the better ones, but there are a handful of ex-popular fiction books on my shelf that will likely be there for a few more years. I can pretty much guarantee, though, that I won’t follow up with the sequel to Shadows in the Darkness: Shadows in the Starlight.

    Meh.