Author Archive for agavin – Page 88

Untimed – Out on Submission!

Apr13

Young Ben Franklin at the printing press

Exciting times! My brand spanking new literary agent is already out there earning his keep. Eddie (the aforementioned agent of awesome) sent out Untimed Thursday on submission to New York and worldwide. It’s not only great to have such enthusiasm — we only signed two weeks ago — but an appropriate juncture given that the historical changes in Untimed (a time travel novel) pivot around Ben Franklin, who was one of America’s earliest important printers. People tend to remember him for the whole “founding father” bit but he was first and foremost a printer, political essayist, and satirist (not to be confused with my favorite mythological beings, satyrs).

But rest assured, Untimed is anything but old fashioned. Below and left is another awesome illustration by Dave Phillips to underscore the prose (one of approximately 21 that will be in the book). And that’s just a rough draft! Dave, like many artists, does two passes. The first (like this one) is to establish the composition, mood, and layout. Then, once we get that out of the way, he does a final with more detail. Truth is, this is little different than writing. The initial illustration is like a scene outline. Or video games, where we would rough out a level without all the visual details to see if the game play worked as intended.

The mysterious Tick-Tock gloats over a dying Ben Franklin - in 1725! — rough draft illustration by Dave Phillips

Who are the Tick-Tocks? And what do they want?

Nothing good, as far as protagonist Charlie is concerned. Their policy on time travelers is to stab, shoot, or crush first — ask questions later.

But it’s more complicated than that, as I’m working out now while making detailed outlines for book 2 and 3. Ah, plotting. I have a love/hate relationship with this phase of novel writing. Scratch that, more hate. I love the actual writing best.

This time around I’m trying to plot the entire book in detail before digging into the text, which being a pantser is against my nature. But it needs doing as time travel is complicated and I must research the periods I intend to visit. I’ve already pounded through four or five history books in the last two weeks. Hint: Buckle on your sandals, this time I’m headed way back!

By: agavin
Comments (8)

Posted in: Untimed

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Business, Dave Phillips, Eddie, EDDIE SCHNEIDER, Jabberwocky, Literary agent, New York, Publishing, Publishing and Printing, Tick-Tock, Time travel, Untimed

The Big Break

Apr12

Accidents are by their very nature accidental. And you never know when something that might change your life is around the corner. Our vacation was almost over, our flight back home from San Francisco to Los Angeles just hours away. After visiting the cable car museum, we drifted down to nearby Chinatown.

It was about noon, February 13.

For some reason, my 3-year-old son was fascinated by the Peking ducks hanging in the windows. It had just rained, and the sidewalk was wet and gritty. My son darted back toward the butcher shop and it made me nervous, him running like that a few feet ahead near the busy street. I turned to go after.

The minimal treads of my Prada sneakers flew out from under me on the slick cement. I went down hard on my butt, instinctively, I put my left hand out to break my fall. The slightly loose stainless steel band of my watch slid down to my wrist. I felt it bite into the skin on impact.

Hard. Real hard.

“Shit!” I say, a wave of pain ripples up my arm. That was hard.

Clutching my wrist, I look.

Damn! wrists aren’t supposed to do that. Thoughts flash through my head. “That has to be broken. I’ve never broken anything, but that has to be broken. That means hospital. The car is like a blocks away. Uphill. Will I make it? Do I hail a cab and have my wife and son meet me? Will we miss our flight?”

We start walking. I’m holding my wrist. The pain isn’t that bad yet, but I feel funny. There are no cabs. I don’t know how long I’ll last. I pound up the steep hill. The car is near the top, on Nob hill. Our son is lagging. He’s not one to hurry and I’m shouting back. “Pick him up!”

As we reach the car, the pain really mounts. Getting the kid buckled into the car seat takes an eternity. My wife fumbles and drops the GPS. There are like 30 hospitals. We call a friend, a bay area radiologist, she tells us to go to UCSF. The pleasantries are like stabs of agony. We key the GPS. 3.2 miles.

It takes 30 minutes. Agonizing minutes.

I don’t wait to deal with the car, but stagger into the emergency room. My wife follows after. They triage me fast through the paperwork stage. Spelling out your name and address is never fun — 1000x less so at pain level 8 and rising. The guy helps me get the watch over my hand and my Mark Jacob slate leather jacket off. This makes me feel better. I wouldn’t want them to cut it.

I’m in a room within 15-20 min. And waiting. Maybe another 30 before someone authorized to prescribe something takes a look. “Broken arm,” I say.

“We can’t know that until the x-ray. Distorted left wrist,” she says.

My sister-in-law and son find us. I rattle off instructions about making sure the camera is in the trunk. Anything to keep my mind off the rats gnawing on my bones.

The nurse fits me with an IV and gives me a shot of morphine. It takes the edge off, but less than I would’ve thought.

By about an hour and a half in, they wheel me to xray. This only takes 10 minutes. 3 images. Flat, 45 degrees, and sideways. The latter two hurt more.

We wait. I think about what I did wrong. Nothing really. I pushed to walk around Chinatown. My wife didn’t really want to (Chinese food isn’t her thing). Was that stupid? I chose to turn on the street where it happened. I almost look a different watch on the trip, one with a leather band. We almost went to Muir Woods instead, but it was raining. I’d have preferred the mud!

It’s clear the 4pm flight is a bust. We call the airline. They want $250 a ticket (x4) to change it. LOL. We can write a letter and ask for a refund.

Someone is coding in the hall. Staff swarm. I hear “clear!” and the beepy noise. It could be worse.

A doctor finally shows. She looks at the wrist for 3 minutes. “We have to wait for ortho,” she says.

“You saw the x-ray? It’s broken?” I ask. You’d think she’d volunteer.

“It’s broken.” She does up my pain meds. IV Dilaudid. It works better, I start spinning and feel queasy. They give me a shot for that too.

Ortho takes about four hours to show. The staff apologizes. He’s in surgery. By the time he arrives, with a plastic surgeon in tow, I’ve had time to practice my story so it goes fast. They want to try a “reduction” which is doctor code for setting the bone. First they have to numb me up.

Plastics does that. Lidocaine. He explains to an intern as he does. “Wait until you feel the needle slide along the bone.”

Actually, it doesn’t hurt that bad, and after, even when they hang my hand in traction, I’m in the least pain since this started. But I am very hungry and thirsty and they don’t let me have a thing in case they need to operate.

Ortho finally tries to set it at around 8pm. The good news is that he’s a Harvard/MIT MD/PhD. We bond. The bad is that he wrenches my shattered wrist around for 20 minutes. Then he takes a break to get someone “stronger” to help. I take him up on the offer of a shot of Fentanyl in between. Good thing too. That stuff hits hard and fast but I actually hear the bone snap as he works.

And he can’t get it back in place, so surgery for me. No flying either, so we have to drive back LA in the morning and find a surgeon there. In the meanwhile he throws on a cast the size and shape of Massachusetts.

It takes until 11pm to get discharged and another hour to pick up the pain meds (Vicodin). My sister-in-law had taken the boy back to our hotel a few hours earlier. We eat some room service, and I pop two pain pills. Five minutes later I’m breaking my 21 year “no puke” record. But you get used to the narcotics and that was the only time.

Surprisingly, with my throbbing arm floating on a mountain of pillows, I do sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED…

By: agavin
Comments (13)

Posted in: Uncategorized

Tagged as: Chinatown, GPS, Health, Hydromorphone, Los Angeles, Muir Woods, Prada, San Francisco, Wrist

Sushi Zo – This Time With Pictures

Apr10

Restaurant: Sushi Zo

Location: 9824 National BlvdLos Angeles, CA 90034. (310) 842-3977

Date: March 29, 2012

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Top warm rice style sushi.

LA is a sushi town. I eat a lot of sushi (just take a look at my LA Sushi review page!). People say Zo is the best in town. I’d been once before for lunch and they denied me the use of my camera (at the sushi bar) but this time, at a table for dinner, they didn’t hassle me.

Zo is omakase only. You sit down. They bring you stuff. They charge you by the piece but don’t really tell you how much. They keep bringing you sushi. Eventually you get full (not me, but normal people would) and they hand you a (stiff) bill. It’s closest in style and format to Sasabune (my detailed reviews of that, with photos, HERE and HERE).

This is Osaka-style “warm rice” sushi, like Sasabune, and presumably descended from the same Chef Nozawa source. The individual pieces are made one at a time, no precutting, and given to you in a hurry. The fish is superlative, although each piece seems to have been placed in a miniaturization machine set to 70%. I’ve never seen sushi this small. This was particularly humorous when it came to the “battleship” style ones like Uni (sea urchin). They just looked so cute and diminutive (maybe 50-60% size for these). But I’m not sure this size issue resulted directly in less value. At the end I was still just as full as at Sasabune, although it cost perhaps 10-20% more. I perhaps had more pieces numerically. But each was certainly smaller.

The fish was a bit better than Sasabune, and certainly better than Echigo. The preps are very similar, with 90% being “no soy sauce” — a fact of which we were emphatically reminded each and every time. There was a lot of use of vinegar, yuzu and other brightening flavors. I do like these, but I think it did tend to distract slightly from the fish — which was stellar.

There is no menu here. It’s just omakase. They start with miso soup in a very small bowl.

It’s worth noting here that this is my first meal out with the Canon 5D Mark iii (for more on Foodie Photography, see here). I was shooting with the 50mm compact macro handheld in low light. Usually, with the Mark ii, this would’ve made me fight to get decent focus and enough depth of field even at the slightly noisy ISO 6400. Plus, the focus sucked on the mark ii/50mm CM combo. With the Mark iii focus was effortless and I was able to stop down to 7.1 and still get 1/50 and relatively low noise. Pretty incredible.

Kumamoto Kaki/Oyster with a bit of ponzu, scallion, and the like. A very nice sweet oyster.

The sake menu is short. This $90 Kimura though is fantastic with exactly the kind of anise flavor that I like in my sake. A really really good sake.

Maguro/Tuna Sashimi. The fish was excellent, although I felt the homemade real wasabi was a little weak. Compared to what is to come, this is nothing.

Ika/Squid Noodle with Uni/Sea Urchin. Yum. This combo is similar to a favorite at Sushi Sushi.

Hirame/Halibut. One thing to note about Zo is that each normal sushi piece is ludicrously small. I guess in the end, this allows for more variety, but each does feel like a tease. On the plus side, they are uniformly excellent and this bit of halibut was no exception. It was drizzled with a touch of yuzu that brought out lovely soft texture.

Fresh marinated ginger. I ate like 6 containers of this stuff.

Binnaga/Albacore. Melts in the mouth good.

Aji/Spanish Mackerel. This fish can be somewhat fishy, but not here. This is some superlative Mackerel.

Hotate/Scallop. I love raw scallop – as long as it’s fresh – and this one was spectacular.

Hamachi/Yellowtail. An overused fish in the novice sushi world. Still, when I first started eating sushi in 1978 and through the early 80s this was one of my favorites. This particular piece reminded me why.

Butterfish with a sweet miso paste. This is a bit cooked I believe and is very approachable and warm.

Chu-Toro/Medium Fatty Tuna. These were certainly some great pieces of toro. Like butter. Sometimes I prefer the chu-toro to the really fatty o-toro too because while less rich it often has a more consistent texture.

Pompano.

Kinmedai/Golden Eye Snapper.

Amaebi/Sweet Shrimp. Soft and sweet, with a bit of chew.

Shima Aji/Striped Jack.

Ankimo/Monkfish Liver. Certainly monkfish liver doesn’t get much better than this, not even a hint of fishiness.

Giant clam. Chewy, with a nice bit of yuzu. Not my favorite sushi, but this was a great example of type.

Kanpachi/Amberjack.

A snapper of some sort.

One of the light white fishes with a bit of yuzu.

Madai/Red Snapper.

Kurodai/Black Snapper.

Ha-Gatsuo/Skipjack Tuna. Also melt in your mouth good.

Another light white fish with salt.

Sake/Salmon with kelp. Nice sweet salmon, although this is one fish where I think Sushi Sushi is a little better.

Meji Maguro/Baby Tuna. Real bang of flavor here.

Uni/Sea Urchin & Ikura/Salmon Eggs. While tiny, both were excellent examples of the type.

Anago/Sea Eel. A wonderful smoky flavor, and without the sweet sauce. One of the best pieces of sea eel I’ve had.

Toro handroll. A really great toro roll.

Crab handroll. Again, pretty spectacular (if a little small). I could have eaten about 8 of these.

Yuzu Juice. This strange bit of Japanese lemonade is served as dessert. Nothing wrong with it, and it clears the palette, but it isn’t exactly creme brulee.

Overall, I was much more impressed with Zo on this second outing. Yes, the pieces are tiny, but the quality of the fish and the preparation is truly first class. One could really use two of each (or just bigger though) as each flavor is so quick as to become ephemeral. In the end you do get to try a large number of fish. It’s expensive but on par with what you get, not like Sushi Mori which feels extremely overpriced. A definite contender in LA’s long list of really great sushi only joints.

For more sushi reviews, check out my LA Sushi page.

By: agavin
Comments (13)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Asian, Japanese, Japanese cuisine, Los Angeles, Miso soup, Omakase, Osaka, Soy sauce, Sushi, Sushi Zo, warm rice

Game of Thrones – Episode 12

Apr08

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 12 – April 8, 2012

Title: The Night Lands

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

After suffering through the week, Sunday night, Game of Thrones, night arrives. After last week’s tease, we open with Arya (finally). I liked Jaqen H’ghar (the civil man in the cage) but I have to wonder why they didn’t make one of the others noseless. I always liked that nasty detail. Loren is fun with the knife though. Then it’s on to everyone’s favorite, Tyrion, and in combo with Varys, even better. The fishpie jokes are classic. “I don’t think he likes fishpie.” Classic.

Then the small council gets Robb’s terms. Then back to Crastor’s keep with some more fun between the crows. Sam and the whole woman angle is amusing. Then Gilly temps him, and we see Jon taking last week’s lesson from the commander seriously. Dany receives an unpleasant gift in the waste. Her whole part in A Clash of Kings isn’t huge, so I suspect we will only see her briefly in most episodes.

Essentially all of the above scenes are finishers from the previous episode. Last week we only set up the positions of the pieces on the board, and it needed at least an hour and a half to even do that. We still havn’t even seen Renly (and we won’t this episode)!

But with Theon approaching his homeland (Pyke) the plot begins to move a bit. And so does the sexposition. As usual he’s laying into some poor girl. I like that she isn’t even that attractive. The view of Pyke is awesome though, with the castle split into four or five parts. The shores of the Iron Islands (achem, Northern Ireland) look good. Then talking about sexposition, we cut to a mysterious sex on sex bit in one of Littlefinger’s brothels. The momment with the wiping of the mouth and the kiss is perfect though. So gratuitous, but awesome. Then we have Littlefinger venting his frustration with Cersei on Ros. I hate Ros, but they are giving a little more nuance than the books to the personalities of some of the King’s Landing players.

After Jonas Slynt perpetrated his baby stabbing last week, we can’t help but cheer to see Tyrion set him up. The scene gives a nod to his lame squire Podryck, but I doubt new viewers will notice. Bronn gets a big promotion here he didn’t in the books, cutting the lackluster character of Jacelyn Bywater. Arya (along with Tyrion) is one of my favorite characters and I’m glad to see more or her, but we still only get the one first scene and a second here with some nice development between her and Gendry. One does wonder how he is the only one who thinks she is a girl.

Then the delicious irony of Theon’s return home. He shamelessly (SPOILER) fails to recognize his own sister and then feels her up. The whole Greyjoy look of the castle (although they skipped the windy, scary bridges) is great. And even better is Theon’s shock at the culture contrast. I love how he’s become a man of gold instead of iron and his father knows it. They changed his sister’s name for some reason but I like that she’s young.

After this, we return to Davos bringing pirate Salador on at Dragonstone. Salador is funny, and Davos is fine, but I still find this thread a bit dull — just as I did in the books. Not so with Tyrion and Cersei tearing into it. The writers have continued to develop the angle where Cersei has lost control of Joff (he ordered the slaying of the bastards). This isn’t fully stated in the books but adds some complexity to her choices.

And they continue new things when we return to Stannis and Melisandre. Maybe this was implied in the books. Maybe not, but it sure is explicit here. I just have to say that map table sex has to be a literal pain in the ass. And a final bit of extrapolation has Jon Snow follow Craster out into the woods to witness him offer a baby to the white walkers. This act was implied in the books, but I don’t remember any actual trip into the woods, and certainly not the little cliffhanger that ends the episode.

But I’m not a purist. I think most of these changes are for the better, emphasizing and clarifying things that Martin leaves half said. Some of the character count reductions are a loss, but I understand why they need to do it. If they don’t slice fairly harshly by season four we won’t see some threads but once every three weeks. As the show faded to black all I could think was “damn, I have to wait another week!”

or See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Clash of Kings, Craster, Davos, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

The Darkening Dream in Publishers Weekly

Apr07

The Darkening Dream is featured in Publishers Weekly, the “Special Spring Announcement” (i.e. the extra booklet ghetto where us Indie books go). Still, this is kinda cool. Will libraries and the like rush to order my hardcover from Ingram? It’s a nice looking hardcover, plus the book is good, so they ought too.

So far, most people choose the e-book or the paperback (and mostly the e-book).

You can see the listing in the lower right. It’s on the inside flap (back of the front cover). I even turned on returns at Ingram (gasp, I’m not a big fan of physical returns) so bookstores can order it without stressing their capital-shy selves. Time will tell!

But the real awesome thing is that in the regular issue this comes with

The Darkening Dream got a starred review!

These are very rare and hard to come by.

Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying tale… Gavin’s prose has both beautifully dark and startlingly scary moments, and his characters and their behaviors are refreshingly authentic for the genre: young people who are impulsive and full of bravado; older magicians who are slow to act, but protect their children; and vampires, who though undone by ambition, old enmities, and greed, act like people who have the perspective of centuries of (un)living.

Read the full review here.

Check out more information about the book here.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Hardcover, Publishers Weekly, The Darkening Dream

The Lost Gate

Apr05

Title: The Lost Gate

Author: Orson Scott Card

Genre: Paranormal / Fantasy

Length: 385 pages

Read: March 17-20, 2012

Summary: Fun read!

It’s been awhile since I read a book by Card, although in eons past I read dozens and he was one of my favorite authors. He’s certainly lost none of his talent or voice. This young adult adventure hooks immediately with its fairytale-like narrative tone and engaging magic system. Danny belongs to the North (read Norse) family of degenerate mages. Their talents and legacy effectively covers a large swath of myth and superstition including the powers and belief in historic pagan deities. In fact, his relatives include Odid, Loki, and the like. Nor to say that they are degenerate deities ala American Gods or The Darkening Dream, but just that ancestors with similar powers were taken as such.

We learn about this stuff from the inside, with Danny already steeped in the knowledge of his clan. But soon enough he’s on the run in the normal world and his antics — fueled by powerful magics — are equally engaging. Woven in with this is a more mythic type tale set on the world of the Mithermages origin. The relevance of this eventually comes clear, but for a while it feels quite separate, and as we learn in the afterward it had its roots as a separate and older short story. The writing is snappy and the characters likable. If there is any problem during this stage, it’s that there isn’t really that much conflict. Danny’s powers are so strong that we don’t really worry too much.

The story races along until the 80% point when both threads come together. This last bit feels over rushed and over narrated. And the coda afterward even more hurried. I really enjoyed most of the novel, but this hyper-fast and hyper-forced end bugged me. It’s a common problem. Still, I’ll read the sequel.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Books

Tagged as: American Gods, Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction, Loki, Middle Ages, Mithermages, Orson Scott Card, The Lost Gate

The Darkening Dream – Free Today!

Apr02

The title pretty much says it all. The Darkening Dream, my dark fantasy novel, is free on Amazon for the Kindle for just 24 hours — all of April 3, 2012.

Download it here!

This is a special one day only promotion via Kindle KDP Select. Make sure to grab it while you can, tell your friends about it, and promote everywhere. At the end of Wednesday at midnight it will go back to its normal price. If it does well during the promotion Amazon will bump it up in their internal ranking and it should get a lot of regular sales afterward. That’s what happened last time.

A few words about the book:

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

NOTE: Free downloads do not count toward tickets for the Naughty Dark Contest.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Dark fantasy, Darkening Dream, free, Kindle, Promotion, The Darkening Dream

Game of Thrones – Episode 11

Apr01

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 11 – April 1, 2012

Title: The North Remembers

Summary: Amazing!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

It is with great relish and anticipation that I sat down to devour the first episode of Season 2 of Game of Thrones — and it didn’t disappoint. Like many of the earlier episodes in season 1 this is an establishing episode where we rotate through the players and put into place who is where on the board. But it does suffer a bit from Martin’s widely expanded scope in A Clash of Kings. There are so many characters in so many different places that we see each major thread exactly once, for what is usually two scenes. Arya we barely see at all, only for a tiny shot at the end, and Renly not even that. Only Cersei and Joffrey get multiple segments as they are at the center of things in King’s landing. This left me licking my lips, like after two sips of wine. I can’t help but feel the season would have been better served by twelve hours and a two hour premier.

Still, I have no major complaints. Already I’m getting the feeling that the producers have taken steps to address a couple of my major problems with season 1 (and don’t get me wrong, I adored it). The shots felt bigger. The new King’s Landing feels a little different, and certainly larger, and it’s vaguely obvious they moved from Malta to Dubrovnik. It looks more coastal now, with the sea close at hand. Malta is an Island, but it didn’t feel that way in the show. There are also several notable dire wolf shots in the first episode. All CGI, but who cares, I’m just glad to see the wolves. Although where was Ghost?

Tyrion is awesome as always, I just wish we had more of him. Two young veterans from Skins are in evidence too (Gendry and Craster’s daughter Gilly). Joffery is not only as unloveable as ever, but actually seems to be getting more nuance than in the books and hence Cersei also. I really like the way it’s showing him getting away from her. With what he does to Dontos they take a page from Caligula (I can’t remember if it went that way in the books). The new characters are fine. Stannis comes off as cold an ass as he should. Davos seems likable, although it’s hard to tell in three minutes. The sad enter of his Maester though lacked any real punch as there was no time in the abbreviated version to actually build any sympathy for him or his position. I’m still cold on Melisandre. I’m no big fans of the whole Stannis sub-plot in the books. And one wonders why the hell we have Ros in here at all, and how a provincial whore from the backwaters of Winterfell is suddenly the high and mighty mistress of a King’s Landing brothel. And that scene starts off the most significant change from the books (SPOILER ALERT) an early purge of Robert’s bastards. Perhaps it’s just the producers trimming down the cast or perhaps it’s just add even more drama and menace.

All in all, I just want to see more. But we have to wait a week, sigh.

Some clips from this episode can be found here

or See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
Comments (8)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 11, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Season 2, season 2 episode 1, Television, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

The Hunger Games – Novel & Film

Mar31

Title: The Hunger Games

Author: Suzanne Collins

Genre: YA Distopian

Length: 388 pages, 99,000 words

Summary: Intense!

The book: I read it four years ago on the recommendation of a friend. The beginning didn’t totally wow me, but the second 2/3 certainly did.

It’s written in a tight first person present, which for this kind of thing is my favorite tense/POV combo (I use it in my novel Untimed). Collins expertly builds sympathy for the character of Catniss via her harsh circumstances, sympathetic voice, and self sacrifice. This crucial “inciting event,” the selection of Catniss’ sister as tribute, occurs at the end of the first chapter, at the 5% mark. First rate construction. Our heroine’s choice and the voyeuristic need to find out what happens in the arena drags us through the 30% of preparation and political mumbo-jumbo.

I had mixed feelings about this future world. I liked certain elements. I enjoyed the setup, the whole lottery thing with escalating danger of more copies of your name being added every year or in exchange for food. But I just didn’t buy the political scenario as a whole. America is a big place, yet this district 12 felt like a small mining town where everyone knows each other. Small towns are less than 15,000 people. I would have bought it better if Catniss’ town were one among many in a whole region that was district 12. I know it sounds minor, but I’m a stickler for these kind of things. The level of economic/technical imbalance between the capital and the provinces seemed too great. How could this one little mining town really be that important? How could a whole continent be represented by one city?

But none of that really mattered once you pop into the arena at the 40% mark. Here Collins’ set up combines with the tight visceral present voice to work some serious magic. The action of young kids fighting and killing each other in a televised Lord of the Flies smackdown just worked. It felt real. It felt intense. There is some great survival writing here and that is what — for me — this book is all about. It’s made richer by sympathetic and well painted characters and by Katniss’ need to chose between her feelings and the practical requirements of survival (which includes the interest of her family). Nothing like a helpless little sister to up the sympathy factor.

Great stuff. A book doesn’t have to succeed on every level. This is one that hits 10/10 in perhaps 3/4 areas, and that is more than enough.

I can’t say I felt the same about the sequel which languished for too long in political marshland. But being a reader of real history, I have high standards with regards to politics.

Film: The Hunger Games

Director/Stars: Jennifer Lawrence (Actor), Josh Hutcherson (Actor), Gary Ross (Director)

Watched: March 28, 2012

The film: Of course this is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, particularly for book lovers. I have to say that it executed effectively and faithfully as a translation. The story is identical to the book, although reduced of course. At a meta-level I thought that the pre-arena period, although a tad too long, was actually slightly better than in the book, and the area slightly inferior.

Overall, it lacks the true visceral intensity of the novel. Not that it isn’t well done, or isn’t engaging, but I sensed a restraint or hesitation on the part of the filmmakers to commit to the full reality of a bunch of teenagers killing each other in the woods. The movie is superbly cast. Jennifer Lawrence is great and does a fine job acting to fill in the missing narrative voice. She can’t make up more than some of the distance, but she does as well as any actress could. Interior connection and emotion is a strength of the novel format. Film can’t compete.

But it does do better at grand scenes. And I thought the costumes and makeup of the funky 19th century nano-punk world very effective. Perhaps not realistic, but certainly entertaining to look at. The adult actors are all good. Donald Sutherland is boilerplate but pitch perfect as President Snow. The sometimes annoying, sometimes fun Woody Harrelson leans toward fun. Lenny Kravitz is great as Cinna. Katniss’ mom kinda sucked.

The movie feels medium budget. The effects serve, but occasionally seem a little cheesy. This is just an observation, and for the most part, not a detraction. An exception involved Catniss’ two flaming outfits. Maybe it’s just the concept brought to life, but they fell pretty flat. The director does employ an interesting overall stylistic approach. By combining minimalist scoring, a sort of Appalachian feel (underscored literally by the soundtrack), and loose handheld shots, the film comes across as “underproduced” or “not very Hollywood.” This was an effective stylistic choice. He manages to squeeze a bit of genuine emotion out of us at the appropriate moments, like the death of Rue.

A couple nitpicks: The secondary tributes (basically everyone but Catniss, Rue, and Peeta) felt indistinct and underdeveloped. No one got very dirty. Come on, if you are living for a couple of days in the woods fighting for your life, you get really grimy and smelly. Hell, camping as a kid we looked downright gross without any homicidal incidents. Even as she’s dying, Rue’s cute little fro looked all perfect. The film felt to me like an 8/10, but if it had fully embraced the dark and nasty side, it might have been a 10.

For more book and film reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Books, Movies

Tagged as: Arts, Book Review, Donald Sutherland, Fiction, Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss Everdeen, Lenny Kravitz, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Woody Harrelson

Game of Thrones – Season 2 Episode 1 Clips

Mar30

HBO has released six 30 second clips from “The North Remembers” which is the first episode of season 2. Spoiler alert! And the show is only 2 days away. Woot! But maybe, like me, you can’t resist.

Dragons!

Oh, how we love Tyrion.

And more Tyrion.

Beyond the wall x 2.

Robb isn’t bending no knee.

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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: dragons, Game of Thrones, HBO, Season 2, The North Remembers, Tyrion

The Call – Down the Rabbit Hole

Mar29

On Tuesday I got the call. (Technically, I’d gotten the call a couple of times before, but this time it was from someone that fit)

Backing up. Two months ago I sent a small blast of query letters regarding Untimed to a few top literary agents. Unlike a couple years ago when I did this for The Darkening Dream, I only sent them to people I was really interested in, and I didn’t engage emotionally (a few rounds of arbitrary rejection will inure you to that peril).

Untimed is more high concept than TDD, so my full request rate was a stellar 20%!

Eddie Schneider of JABberwocky sent this short email two weeks in:

Please send over the manuscript — this is definitely something I’m interested in!

Short – but sweet. So I sent the manuscript (about 30 seconds later). A month after that I got a note that he was reading and “so far, so good.” Then I flew off to the Maldives (in the Indian Ocean) for my friend and business partner Jason Rubin’s wedding (totally awesome BTW, pic here). In the back of my head there was that usual hope/worry thing, that voice that alternately mumbles “it’s a great book” and “probably, just another rejection.” Remember, of course, that publishing and literature are hugely subjective and even Harry Potter and A Wrinkle in Time were rejected countless times.

But on Monday, when I saw an email from him in my mailbox I somehow knew it was positive (of course I “knew” this on several previous occasions too…). But this time I was right.

In any case, I had a great (and long) phone chat with Eddie and we hit it off. And I like the intuitive feel of Jabberwocky. First of all their website is awfulagent.com – obviously they have a bit of a sense of humor – and second they represent a large stable of “real” science fiction and fantasy authors. Authors I’ve read like Charlaine Harris, Brandon Sanderson (my Way of Kings review here), Elizabeth Moon (I read her gritty military fantasy series way way back and loved it), and more recently Mark Hodder (my Spring-Heeled Jack review here). Eddie likes video games and graphic novels and got excited when I started talking about Julian the Apostate (more on that here). No one gets excited about Julian the Apostate.

And did I mention that he thinks Untimed is great as is (i.e. no big fifth draft – which I would do if I thought it’d make the book better, but I’m certainly happy to skip after four drafts and the line edit to end all line edits).

So we haggled out the paperwork. I’m represented. Now off down the rabbit hole to see what the publishers have to say. Will they be willing to offer Untimed the treatment it deserves? Time shall tell. We hope so.

Nice to have a another we in the equation!

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Untimed

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Brandon Sanderson, Charlaine Harris, EDDIE SCHNEIDER, Elizabeth Moon, Jabberwocky, Jason Rubin, JOSHUA BILMES, Julian the Apostate, Lewis Carroll, Literary agent, Maldives, Mark Hodder, Spring-Heeled Jack, The Darkening Dream, Untimed

San Fran – Starbelly

Mar27

Restaurant: Starbelly

Location: 3583 16th street, san francisco, ca 94114. p 415.252.7500

Date: February 11, 2012

Cuisine: Pizza

Rating: Great pizzeria +

We needed to seat a party of 13 including two young children in San Francisco at the last minute and so we ended up in this castro new-style pizza joint. This is the kind of reinvented American pizza that came out of New York 7-8 years ago. Fusing Cal pizza back with Neapolitan influences. I have to say it’s a good movement and Starbelly did a great job.

The menu.

An inexpensive Rosso from the list.

“house made chicken liver pâté, buttered bread, sweet onion marmalade & grain mustard.”

“house cut fries with three dips.”

“warm calamari, giant butter beans, onions, cilantro & citrus caviar.”

“butternut squash dumplings, sage, brown butter & shaved bucheret.”

“burrata di stefano, grilled bread, prosciutto and basil.”

“grilled lamb meatballs., dried cherries & pistachio, minted greek yogurt.”

“Pizza margherita – no basil”

“Pizza margherita”

“Pt reyes blue cheese, market pears, roasted onion & arugula.”

“house made chorizo, sunny eggs & cilantro pizza.”

“Pt reyes blue cheese, market pears, roasted onion & arugula with added prosciutto and salami.”

“Prather Ranch burger, house cut fries & pickle, grilled sesame bun.”

The dessert menu.

This meal was straightforward, but immensely enjoyable.

For more San Francisco dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: castro, Italian cuisine, New York, Pizza, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, Starbelly

The Pillars of Hercules

Mar25

Title: The Pillars of Hercules

Author: David Constantine

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Length: 411 pages

Read: March 16-17, 2012

Summary: Bronze-punk!

The Pillars of Hercules is a very fun read and takes a serious stab at something I haven’t really seen before and is very much up my alley. For lack of a better term: bronze-punk.

What we have — for at least the first two thirds — is a combination alternate history and speculative technology book, set in 330 BC. Now this is a fun and tumultuous period, that of Alexander the Great and one which was to see (in real life) immense changes in the euro-Asian political scene which shaped the world we know. At the political level, David Constatine is clearly knowledgable and very fond of the period. He speculates on a number of specific deviances from real history: The success of Athens‘ disastrous (in real history) Sicilican campaign, giving rise to a stronger Athenian Empire. And the survival of both Phillip and Alexander past their fated dates. I found this play out fascinating and entirely reasonable.

To this, he adds a rather extreme amount of extended technology based both on secret discoveries from previous (read Atlantian) civilizations, and real ancient tech amplified by geniuses such as Aristotle who are astoundingly more practical (in the vein of Tony Stark x 1000) then their real life counterparts. Most of these inventions are weapons and war machines. Plenty of this tech does have precedents in the ancient world such as steam engines. But in a society where the cost of labor was nearly zero (slavery being more the rule than the exception) there was no impetuous for mechanization (That would take the depopulating effect of the middle ages and the plague to bring about). I found this stuff fantastic fun. But Constantine does take it a bit far for little purpose in the form of semi-sentient gear work golems and the like (not that I don’t have clockwork men if my own in Untimed). The almost magic tech of the “gods” was also a little much. But it was good fun.

Against this rather magnificent backdrop we have an adventure and war story of lightning pace and heroic proportions. Point of view-wise about two-thirds of the story is told by a Gaulic mercenary who is along for the ride with a Persian noblewoman “in the know” about some of this extreme tech in her quest to stop Alexander from taking over the world. The big political scope of the book involves Alexander, having survived his in-real-life fatal illness/poisoning, and who goes on to try and conquer the Western Mediterranean from the Athenian Empire. In the other third of the narrative we see Akexander’s plots and conquests through the eyes of a couple of his generals and foes. One of these, his right hand man, gets a good number of pages and has a developed POV. Most of the others serve as human cameras.

The first two-thirds of the book is therefore mostly glorious (and very fun) high swashbuckling action on the part of the merc or generals in the midst of a near-continuous series of huge battles, sieges, daring breakins, escapes, and naval chases. There isn’t much focus here on emotions of character arcs. The characters aren’t cardboard either, just fun, and free of internal serious flaws that need resolving. And the action is often so grand as to completely stretch the reality factor. But it is good fun and reminds me of some of the best Philip Jose Farmer.

Then at about the 70% mark most of the threads pass west of the titular Pillars of Hercules and things get weirder. Not that the pace of action lets up, but instead of being set in the likes of Alexandria, Athens, Syracuse, or Carthage, literally descends into a sort of mechanized Hades filled with machines of the gods. While well executed, and providing the book with a larger mythic framework, I personally can’t help but think Constantine went too far. That the overall effect would have been a little more satisfying sticking to this fantastic world closer to our own.

Still, highly, highly recommended.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Books

Tagged as: Alexander, Alexander the Great, Alexandria, Athens, Atlantic Ocean, Atlantis, David Constantine, Hercules, Pillars of Hercules, The Pillars of Hercules

Very Best Fantasy

Mar22

I’m frequently asked for a list of favorite novels and big influences on my own writing. So I drew up this list. In order to prevent my head exploding I kept it exclusively to adult fantasy. I have plenty more favorites in other genres, but this will keep anyone busy for a while — particularly considering many are the first in a series.

The Anubis Gates

by Tim Powers

Time travel, crazy 4,000 year old Egyptian sorcerers, romantic poets, and Victorian England. Oh, and it all works brilliantly.

A Game of Thrones

by George R.R. Martin

Simply the best modern fantasy work. The scope is huge, the characters intensely real, and the medieval-ness (as in “go all medieval on his ass”) is incredible.

The Name of the Wind

by Patrick Rothfuss

NOTW is a beautiful book. Of all the Fantasy I’ve read in the last 15 or so years, this is perhaps second best after The Song of Ice and Fire. But that’s not to say that they have much in common, other than both being good Fantasy. NOTW is focused and relies on more traditional Fantasy tropes. How focused can a 700 page novel be? Not very, but it is good, and it concentrates on a small number of characters and a single (albiet meandering) storyline.

Wizard and Glass

by Stephen King

Stephen King’s best. Almost pure fantasy, told with his knack for making even the weirdest situations and dialog believable.

The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10

by Roger Zelazny

Hokey at times, but I just love the concept and feel of this reality bender. The pattern has haunted me for decades.

Master of the Five Magics

by Lyndon Hardy

Pure fun fantasy, but I love solid attempts to systematize and render magic into a real and “believable” system.

Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

A horrific journey into the depths and nature of evil. One of the most chilling books I have ever read.

Wild Seed

by Octavia E. Butler

History, two kinds of immortals, themes of slavery and freedom, breeding of genetic powers. How can you beat that?

The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

I love this world in which “powers” come in systematic flavors which combine into unique specialties of super power.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Books

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Andy Gavin, Anubis Gates, Contemporary fantasy, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, George RR Martin, Song of Ice, Song of Ice and Fire, Stephen King, Tim Powers, Very Best Fantasy, Victorian era

Immortals – Quickly Forgotten

Mar20

Title: Immortals

Director/Stars: Henry Cavill (Actor), Mickey Rourke (Actor), Tarsem Singh (Director)

Genre: Swords and Sandles

Watched: March 15, 2012

Summary: Gorgeous and oh so confusing

It’s a moral imperative for me to see all films set in the ancient world (although that descriptor is stretched by this historically adrift fantasy). How this strange piece ever got made is a mystery. My best bet is that the studio wanted a movie to compete with the execrable Clash of the Titans remake (and I’m a big fan of the original).

Both share certain “themes” and elements. Stylized visuals (although Immortals notches that up past 300 and beyond), sexy female seers, pseudo-wise mentors, titans, incomprehensible writing, and irrational hatred for the gods.

What is up with this theme? I totally don’t understand and it utterly ruined Clash for me. Why would an ancient people, particularly one with proof of divine presence, deeply resent this lightweight governance? While there are certainly atheistic writings in ancient times, few espouse a bitter hatred of divinity. Is this some sort of modern sentiment refocused? Or, more likely, a need studio producers have to expand the scale of the combat? In any case, Immortals is considerably better than Clash – but probably not by the standards of the mindless masses.

Let’s take it apart. Stylistically this film is pretty damn cool. It’s not “realistic” or accurate, but it does borrow heavily from traditional costume and such in a highly interesting way. For example, the red oracle costumes (partially shown above) were wonderfully evocative of north African and Anatolian women’s dress. Even the overdone costumes of the gods were interesting — although not totally to my taste. Ares (I think) with his huge spiky headdress, Poseidon with a giant conch on his head. Interesting. The temples were cool. The over-cliffy landscape. It’s even the second movie in the last few months to feature the Brazen Bull. Certainly this would seem obscure and the movie makes no effort to explain this horrific and anachronistic execution/torture device (the film is set in 1200BC and the bull was invented in 500BC).

Considering the script, the acting isn’t even that bad. But this brings us to the point: the script, which largely fails at both macro and micro levels. First of all, like most big effects movies these days, there is little or no arc and characterization is minimalist at best. Archetypes all: The warrior, the old man, the evil king. All conflict is external. The basic nature of the macro external objective throws good and bad guys together. But at the micro level, this film has scenes where you go, “what the hell just happened?” Partly this was due to inexplicably black cinematography. But mostly just due to lack of editing clarity. For example, Theseus is a slave at a watering hole and the virgin oracles, formerly in their temple just show up as vague captives. Why? How? No one explains. Then they stage a breakout, which devolves into some black figures fighting in a lightless room. Then both Theseus and the real oracle and a bunch of other slaves are free and outside, and the three other virgins captive. Again, no explanation — unless it happened in the dark.

Oh, well. This movie could have been so much more. Why can’t they take their subject a little seriously, and most importantly use some real writing? It’s gorgeous to look at, but I crave a movie about the gods and goddesses with some real substance. Perhaps even a universal moral theme? Like the evils of war or the fatal overextension of hubris? That might be in keeping with the source material and we couldn’t have that!

For more Film reviews, click here.

Zeus (where's the beard?) puts the smackdown on Ares

By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies

Tagged as: Ancient Greece, Apollo, Athena, Blu-ray Disc, Brazen Bull, Freida Pinto, Gods, Henry Cavill, Immortals, John Hurt, Mickey Rourke, Poseidon, Tarsem Singh, Theseus, Zeus

Game of Thrones – Price for our Sins

Mar18

Just 2 weeks from Season 2, HBO has released more trailer goodness (3/18/12). This is one of the best yet, featuring all sorts of footage from the new season, and cut into a more comprehensible story arc.

And the 3/25/12 “Nowhere to Hide” preview:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Blu-ray Disc, Clash of Kings, DVD, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Teaser, Television program, Trailer

San Fran – Nopalito

Mar18

Restaurant: Nopalito

Location: 306 Broderick Street. San Francisco, CA 94117. 415-437-0303

Date: February 11, 2012

Cuisine: Mexican

Rating: Best Mexican I’ve been too since I was in Mexico

Continuing our San Francisco adventures, we met up with my college roommate and his family at a Mexican place in his neighborhood. This trendy — and hence crowded — little spot served up some of the best Mexican I’ve had since my wife and I used to frequent a favorite high end resort in Cabo.

The bustling kitchen.

The lunch menu.

“Hibiscus-Valencia Orange.”

“Ginger-Lemonade.” I love good lemonade and this one was pretty awesome, with a spicy ginger finish like Jamaican ginger beer.

My son got the straight up cheese quesadilla. Notice the small hand grab.

“Totopos con Chile. Tortilla chips, salsa de arbol, cotija cheese, crema and lime.” Thick homemade chips with a good bit of spice and tangy limeness. Real good. Not real light.

“Naranjas con Chile, limón y Queso. Salad of cara cara oranges, blood oranges, grapefruit, pickled red onions, chile, lime and queso fresco.” Very nice zesty fresh flavors.

“Ceviche verde de Pescado. Marinated fish, lime, tomatillo, jalapeño, cilantro, avocado and tortilla chips.” Again, reminiscent of my Cabo vacations.

“Taquitos de Papas adobadas. Crispy rolled tortillas, potatoes in New Mexico chile adobo, onion, guacamole, crema, queso fresco and salsa brava.” Yum yum. Fried is always tasty. As straightforward as the toppings are, they were incredibly fresh.

“Tamal empipianado rojo con Puerco. Corn masa, pork stewed in dried chilies, sunflower & seasame seeds, tomato, spices and queso cotija.” I’m a sucker for the sweet corny taste of a good tamale.

“Quesadilla roja con Chicharrón. Mulato chile-corn tortilla, crispy pork belly, salsa cascabel, jack cheese, queso fresco, onion and cilantro.” Very interesting jazzed up quesadilla.

“Quesadilla de Primavera. Corn tortilla, asparagus, mushroom, spinach, quesillo, queso fresco, spring onion, cilantro, and salsa de chile puya.” Good, but not as good as the pork one.

“Empanada con Deshebrada de res. Fried masa pastry, grass-fed beef, tomato, jalapeño, cabbage, avocado, queso fresco and salsa frita de guajillo.” Also really tasty.

Some almond balls to finish things off.

While not light, this was a very zesty meal — and despite the large number of Mexican places in LA I don’t know any that use ingredients this fresh or bring to bear such a modern and sophisticated palette.

For more San Francisco dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Broderick Street, Chicharrón, Mexican, Mexican cuisine, Mexico, Nopalito, Queso blanco, Salsa, San Francisco

PostDesk Interview

Mar16

An in-depth interview with Andy Gavin, creator of Crash Bandicoot and founder of Naughty Dog

Andy Gavin reflects and looks back on Crash Bandicoot, and Naughty Dog – calling Crash ‘…the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument’. He also offers some interesting perspectives on the games industry, drawing from his experiences – finally going on to tell us more about what he’s doing now, as a novelist – and how creating worlds has always been one of his great passions.

We interviewed Andy Gavin, the co-founder of Naughty Dog (with Jason Rubin) and creator of Crash Bandicoot. We asked Andy how he got in to the industry, about the inspirations, motives and ideologies behind Crash Bandicoot – one of the games industries seminal characters, and on on what makes a good videogame character. He also told us about the entirely different culture and ethos he built up at Naughty Dog – which meant putting the player first. We also asked him to reflect on his successes and ‘failures’ at Naughty Dog, about what he thinks of the company now and about his future plans. Today, Andy has turned his attention to writing – and is now an established novelist – so we also asked him about what he’s reading, and what he’s working on right now.

Just some of the highlights from this in-depth interview…

“Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game.”
“We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about… …we loved the word bandicoot.”
“I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.”
“Crash is a little like the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument. Then, years later when you run into her, find she’s a hooker with a crack problem’… ‘Naughty Dog on the other hand is the kid that grew up, got straight A’s at Harvard, then founded an internet company and made a fortune. Plus they still come home for the holidays and send Mom flowers on Valentine’s day.”
“My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds.”
“I don’t think the future [of games] will be better graphics – it’s not important any more. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilise game balance will be a challenge” …”new ways of paying will have a huge effect on the structure of games”
“One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition… Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projectswith a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.”
“Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control”

What inspired you to start Naughty Dog – how did you get in to the games industry?

In the 1970s I was hugely into fantasy novels, fantasy role playing games, and early video games. When I first encountered a computer it was only natural that I tried to make games. Back then, unless you knew how to program, computers were pretty much good for a blinking cursor. Then about two years into my programming career I met Jason Rubin. My programs were better than anyone our age, and his art skills (particularly on the computer) were better than anyone else’s. It was a match made in heaven and we started working on games together. In those early days we called the company JAM Software, but we renamed it to Naughty Dog around 1985.

“Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game.”

What were the aims behind Crash Bandicoot – what was the brief? Was it to create a character to compete with Sonic and Mario, and to create a mascot character for Sony – or something more?

Yep. At that time character action was one of the most popular genres, and one of our favorites. Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game. And it was born from the question: what would a 3D platformer be like? Well, we thought, you’d spend a lot of time looking at “Sonic’s Ass.” Aside from the difficulties of identifying with a character only viewed in posterior, it seemed cool. Although we worried about the camera, dizziness, and the player’s ability to judge. When it seemed likely that Sony didn’t have a mascot character of their own we jumped on that too. Essentially we planed for Crash to become exactly what it did – but the fact that we were successful still stuns me.

We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about… …we loved the word bandicoot.”

What was the inspiration behind Crash Bandicoot – where did the concept come from?
We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about. We bought a copy of Tasmanian Mammals – a field guide and flipped through. The Wombat, Potoroo, and Bandicoot fit the bill. We loved the word bandicoot. Personality-wise we felt he should be goofy and fun loving, and never talk.

What was the symbolism and ideology behind the mannerisms, attitude and behaviour you gave Crash Bandicoot?

As the machine didn’t really have the power to pull off giving Crash a voice that wasn’t lame, we needed to use animation to draw in the player emotionally. This jived with one of our main design goals, which was to make the animation better than had ever been seen in a game before. We wanted at least Looney Tunes level quality, if not Disney level. Animation is an emotional language and our top flight cartoon character designers showed us how to convey the whole range of human motion in the exaggerated vocabulary of traditional animation.

What was the reasoning behind the colours you gave Crash Bandicoot?

Simple, Crash needed to pop against the background so you could see him easily. Since he lived in a natural world of greens and grays orange was the hottest and most complementary colour. Real animals want to blend. Cartoons want to pop.

Crash Bandicoot is of a few games which has a real cultural impact and it’s created an extremely loyal group of superfans – a fan community which is still going strong, producing fan art, writing ‘fan fictions’ – some devoting much of their life to a character you created. What are your feelings about being behind a cultural icon?

It’s amazing that this happened and I feel very gratified to be a part of it. I chalk up one of the main reasons the game was successful to the character’s iconic quality. Crash is a sort of every-creature. While he has his goofy side, his natural enthusiasm and willingness to rebound from any upset (literally) make him highly endearing.

Crash Bandicoot Fan Art is very popular – this piece is by ‘ZoDy’ on an online community for artists called DeviantArt

Could you share any interesting facts or ‘secrets’ about Crash Bandicoot that even the biggest superfans may not know?

The original Crash Bandicoot has an entire extra level on the disk that is not accessible without a cheat device. It’s called Slippery Climb and was a monstrously big and difficult “climb on the rainy castle wall” level. It was cut because it was too hard and we didn’t have time to balance it properly.

What makes a good videogame character?

Video game characters aren’t especially subtle, but they are appealing. They need to be visually distinctive, with clear expression of personality traits. Visually, Crash is orange, big head, and gloves. Then on the personality side, playful, resilient, not the brightest bulb, but willing to go the extra mile.

Would you say that seminal ‘mascot’ characters like Crash, Sonic, and Mario are playing a less important or significant role in the games industry? Why do you think it might be the case?

It does seem that as games become more realistic they have less distinctive characters. Many current console games now are essentially military. The badass space marine is iconic, but not really distinctive. What makes one different from another?

“I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.”

Some say that Crash ‘failed to innovate’ over the years ‘rendering the character useless’ – what would you say to that?

It’s not fair of me to comment on the non Naughty Dog games. I feel that our four Crash games innovated relative to the speed of release (1996, ’97, ’98, ’99). We tried to really pack tons of new stuff into every successive game while keeping the best of the old. Fans knew that with our games they would really get their money’s worth. They voted with their wallets in huge numbers, and I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.

How much would you credit the sophistication of Naughty Dog technology to your background in LISP at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory?

I was always a technically ambitious programmer, but MIT and the addition of Dave Baggett to our team really helped us up the ante. Dave and I fed off each other, each convincing the other that the next impossible thing was possible. But Mark Cerny also played no small role in this ambition. While he only coded a guest module or two in each game he’s brilliant and he really pushed Dave and I to rise to the next level.

Why did you decide to leave Naughty Dog 2004?

This is a complicated question and there are several answers. A) My contract was up and to stay (on terms I wanted) I would have had to haggle out a new one (boring). B) I was burnt out after over ten years of 90-110 hour work weeks. C) And most important, we had been training our top guys (Evan Wells, Stephen White, and Christophe Balestra) to run full game teams. They were ready.

Since handing over the reins, are you happy with how Crash Bandicoot has developed over the years?

Crash is a little like the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument. Then, years later when you run into her, find she’s a hooker with a crack problem.

What do you think of the company now? Is it how you visualised it would be?

Naughty Dog on the other hand is the kid that grew up, got straight A’s at Harvard, then founded an internet company and made a fortune. Plus they still come home for the holidays and send Mom flowers on Valentine’s day.

Would you ever consider returning to the company?

I still have tons of friends there. I just dropped by the other day and I had a rush of nostalgia for all the excitement and the sense of being part of something huge. But Evan and Christophe have things totally under control. More than that, they keep the ship running better than ever. So they don’t need another officer at the helm.

My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds.

Do you think you’ll ever return to the gaming industry as a whole – or even create another video game?

It’s hard to say. My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds. There are still games I crave making (achem… fantasy games). Really I’d love to build the most incredible MMO ever (I’m a huge WOW and Diablo fan) but then I think about the $150 million budget, the six year development plan, and the 200 person team…

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the gaming industry throughout your career?

Ha. I can’t even begin to answer that. My career started when the Atari 2600 was king and continues to modern console games, iPhone, and Facebook games. But the really big thing that is changing is the move away from the packaged goods model where a complete game is sold for $40-70. Download only games with subscription and micro transaction models will soon be the norm.

What do you make of the games currently being released now, …including Uncharted – Drake’s Deception? What do you make of console gaming as it is today …and the games you find most interesting right now?

UC3 is a blast, I love it. I still love fantasy games. My favorites this year, having finally quite WOW (again, for now), are UC3 and Dark Souls. I really want to play Skyrim too, which I’m sure I’ll love. I got it release day too, but I had one novel to finish editing and a second to publish – I didn’t dare put it in the machine.

Zoë Ainscough couldn’t recommend Uncharted 3 enough in a review which appeared recently on PostDesk Gaming

“I don’t think the future [of games] will be better graphics – it’s not important any more. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilize game balance will be a challenge” …”new ways of paying will have a huge effect on the structure of games”

What do you feel the future of gaming will be – and how is it going to develop over the next few years? Will it rely on enhancements in technology – or are you seeing other trends?

I don’t think it will be better and better graphics. That will happen to some extent, but it’s not important anymore. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilize game balance will be a challenge. Integration of even more elaborate social structure is another trend. I think that in the next few years we will actually start to see less of the incredibly expensive monolithic console games. As disks go away new ways of paying are going to rear their heads and this will have a huge effect on the structure of games.

Is this forming the basis for the future of gaming?

Across your entire career to date, what achievements are you most proud of? What was your biggest success?

#1 is founding Naughty Dog and establishing in it a kind of corporate culture and ethos that puts the player first. Really NDI is all about providing good value to the player. Value in games is wow factor, fun, novelty, and a polished entertainment experience that minimizes frustration. I’m also proud individually of each of my “projects.” This includes all thirteen major games I wrote, Flektor, my compilers, both my novels, and even my website:http://all-things-andy-gavin.com .

One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition… Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projects with a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.

What has been the biggest ‘failure’ that you’ve had to overcome in your career?

I don’t have what I consider any serious failures. More a lot of “lessons” of various degrees of severity. One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition. Hint this had nothing to do with Naughty Dog or Sony which went great. Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projects with a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.

Has being a novelist always been an ambition of yours?

I’ve been an avid reader my whole life (over 10,000 novels and who knows how many non-fiction volumes). Mostly fantasy, horror, historical or science fiction. In high school, I won several national literary awards for my short stories and I was an editor and contributor to our high school literary magazine. In college, despite being a diehard science guy, I took creative writing classes (sometimes I was the only guy) and submitted stories to Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines (not that they ever bought any!). I wrote the stories for some of our games (don’t judge my novels by that, in the old days games couldn’t afford real stories). But the insane work output needed for Playstation games didn’t leave me the time to write and so it was with considerable zeal that I turned to it seriously two and a half years ago.

“My first novel, The Darkening Dream, was just published. You can find out all about it at the-darkening-dream.com and it’s for sale now.”

Tell us about your new books – and what are you working on right now?

I have three books in various stages of production. My first novel, The Darkening Dream, was just published. You can find out all about it athttp://the-darkening-dream.com and it’s for sale now. This is a fast paced historical fantasy about a bunch of teens who try to stop some really creepy supernatural chaps from maiming, killing, and destroying the world. The teens get in over their heads. Really over their heads. All of the magic (and there’s a lot) is based on real historical occult, which makes it much creepier than the made up stuff – because truth is stranger than fiction. My second book, Untimed, is a YA time travel novel about the crazy adventures of a boy no one remembers, who falls through a hole in time and finds himself lost in the past. It’s really slick, funny, and fast paced. I just finished editing it and am now figuring out who I want to publish it. Then I’m supposed to be writing my third novel, but instead I’m answering interview questions and learning how to layout a print ready file. J

What are you reading right now?

Julian, by Gore Vidal. This is a historical bestseller from the 60s about Julian the Apostate who is a really interesting Roman Emperor from late antiquity. It’s part of a particular a branch of investigation for my new novel. All of my books involve history in some way. One of my ambitions is to show that history doesn’t have to be boring, quite the contrary. Untimed bounces through four centuries and it’s lightning paced.

“Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control”

What are your plans and ambitions for the future?

In the short run (2012) I’d like to finish two more novels (gulp) and turn The Darkening Dream and Untimed into bestsellers. The writing part of being a writer is really fun and creative – although way more work than I imagined, and I imagined a lot. Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control. There are limitations of the medium, POV, etc., but there are few technical tradeoffs and no budgets or meetings. Only time and imagination limit what you can do. This is why, despite the profusion of all sorts of fantastic new mediums, novels are still one of the beststorytelling devices. Most games are more about gameplay and fun than story – even if Uncharted has been changing that. Long form television (like high budget cable shows) is also very good now. I love HBO and Showtime dramas. They sport some of the best writing in film or television today. Film is really too short for in depth characterization, although the best of them rise above this limitation.

You can find more on Andy Gavin’s writing at andy-gavin-author.com, on his first novel at the-darkening-dream.com, and the second novel atuntimed-novel.com. The Darkening Dream is available on Amazon Kindle for $4.99 at Amazon.com and for £3.27 at Amazon.co.uk. [Prices correct at time of going to press]

The Darkening Dream is an “ominous vision and the discovery of a gruesome corpse lead Sarah Engelmann into a terrifying encounter with the supernatural in 1913 Salem, Massachusetts. With help from Alex, an attractive Greek immigrant, Sarah sets out to track the evil to its source,never guessing that she will take on a conspiracy involving not only a 900-year vampire, but also a demon-loving Puritan warlock, disgruntled Egyptian gods, and an immortal sorcerer, all on a quest to recover the holy trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel.Relying on the wisdom of an elderly vampire hunter, Sarah’s rabbi father, and her own disturbing visions, Sarah must fight a millennia-old battle between unspeakable forces, where the ultimate prize might be herself”.

This article was originally published here on PostDesk.

By: agavin
Comments (13)

Posted in: Games, Writing

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Jason Rubin, Naughty, Naughty Dog, Sony, Video game

More Special Prize Winners!

Mar14

The second round of the crazy Naughty Dark Contest now has three special prize winners! Unfortunately, my broken wrist has slowed down my mailing speed, but I’m finally getting some of this off my plate. The winners are:

Tyson Cleary of Tasmania

and

Rob Larkin from Newcastle

and

Robert Šebo from Bratislava

For more info on the contest, a detailed list of prizes and rules can be found here!

The prizes are below:

A signed copy of Crash 2

CTR: The Music CD

And a poster

Thank you all immeasurably!

It’s also worth noting that this has made the virtual hat for the second round even more lucrative for the rest of you. Due to their prize winning each first round ticket is worth at least a 2% chance of winning a prize now — and if someone else claims a special prize, it could be even greater. So read up on the rules and participate.

Start by purchasing The Darkening Dream!

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Contests, Darkening Dream, Games

Tagged as: cd, Crash Bandicoot, List of prizes medals and awards, Naughty Dark Contest, posters, Tasmania

Untimed – Meet the Tocks

Mar13

I finished the line editing on my second novel, Untimed, last December, but that doesn’t mean the work is really over. On one front, it’s out to various agents and editors, but on the other I’m working on spit and polish.

I had it professionally proofread and just finished going over all those little fixes. This is just an extra step to make sure it’s as free of errors as possible and that the comma, hyphen, and spelling niceties are as consistent as possible. And apparently I don’t like commas half as well as I should.

But far more exciting is that I’m having the book illustrated! I know it’s relatively rare to illustrate novels, but I love art and believe — well done — that it really adds to the overall experience. Working with the agent who represented the awesome cover artist for The Darkening Dream, I found a talented illustrator named Dave Phillips (his website is here and some portfolio samples here). He has a real knack for character (see this for example) and knows how to capture lifelike personality in his figures. Over the last few weeks we’ve been developing character designs and now the first (more or less) finished image.

To the right, our hero Charlie (in front), confronts the mysterious Tick-Tock, a rapier-wielding clockwork man who serves as the only link to Charlie’s missing father.

But Tick-Tocks are full of surprises, including the ability to punch holes in time!

Two free Naughty Dark tickets to the first reader who guesses the exact physical location of the scene (reply in comments here). You must not be one of my beta readers or one of their relatives. Hint: “Ghost H…”