This will be my view.

So, yeah, my wife and I are moving to Sydney.

No, really. Like, the one in Australia.

Moving abroad is something we’ve been talking about doing for years.  We both had amazing, life-changing experiences studying abroad in college. We share the strong belief that you can’t really get to know a city unless you live there, and we are beyond excited to experience Sydney. We leave next month!

Whilst down under, I will continue to work as a technology reporter and simultaneously forward my creative endeavors, including a screenplay of WE, THE WATCHED and hopefully a few short stories. I’ll also continue to pitch my second novel, DIVIDED WE FALL, to the literary world. And of course I will keep the blog updated with news of my Australian exploits!

By the way, please check out my new Twitter account (@WatchAdam).  I plan to use it for some quick takes on the latest music, movies and videogames, as well as news on my projects.  If you’re only interested in news on my novels and other creative work, my Facebook page is probably the easiest way to stay up to date.

Yes, that’s right. I have finished my second novel, Divided We Fall. As I mentioned last month, there is still some polishing to do, but I think it’s in good shape. I’m shooting to enter the novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) contest, which begins accepting submissions next week. After that, I will begin to circulate the novel around the publishing world. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you a release date at this point because it all depends on if it’s accepted by a publisher. I’m open to self-publishing (as I did for my previous novel, We, The Watched), but I’m going to hold off until I get more feedback from agents and publishers.

For now, here’s my current tagline for Divided We Fall:

A revolutionary and a government agent try to mend their fractured nation and reconcile a broken romance.

For more updates, please keep checking back here and also my official Facebook page.  Now, back to writing…

The new novel is going well and according to my outline I’m finally getting close to finishing! I know basically how the story is going to end and how the characters are going to get there. I estimate there are just a few chapters left to write. After that, I plan to go back over the novel and flesh out a few of the subplots where necessary. Then the editing process begins. I’m the kind of author who does a lot of editing while I’m writing, so I don’t expect to find the novel in complete disarray. However, when you’re writing in long form it’s absolutely imperative to comb through the whole thing from cover to cover. This ensures that everything is consistent, there are no plot holes, and you didn’t forget to tie up any loose ends (unless, of course, that was your intention all along).

I may have mentioned this before, but a writing program called Scrivener (released last month on Windows) has been absolutely key to my progress on this book. This is a much more complicated tale to tell than We, The Watched.  Divided We Fall is told through two points of view and across two time periods. There’s a lot of action. It’s also a love story. And boy is it epic.

I can’t wait to share it with you all.

-Adam

P.S. Check out my new Google+ page for We, The Watched.

But band leader Eric Brendo (interviewed on this blog here) brings an earthy road-weariness to his baritone vocals and guitar work on this Austin, Texas band’s self-titled debut. While the album opens in space with the thundering “Destroyer,” by the second half The Asteroid Shop has landed in the dusty desert of the American West.  A lot of bands pick one sound and stick with it, so it’s refreshing to hear this band unplug the guitars and bring in instrumentation more common to the folk and country genres. The result is some real winners like the folksy “Ashes” and lovelorn “Silver Lane.”

Under the stars...

Not every song works and the album drags somewhat in the middle. The lyrics are unlikely to stick in one’s head and Brendo’s vocals are a little rough around the edges. The instrumentals are what’s compelling here. Atmosphere may be one the album’s greatest strengths, whether in the thundering bass of opener “Destroyer” or the shimmering guitar and synths of “Dandelion.”  They’re also not afraid to surprise with a quick tempo change, as they do to great effect with the groovy ’60s organ jam in the otherwise sleepy “Planetary.”  While not all the songs engage the listener, this is a promising album by a band that knows how to set a mood.

Download “Dandelion” for free right here.

Detective Comics #1 is a must read for Bat-fans

I’ve been following the DC Comics reboot with a lot of interest. I’ve always been a comic book fan but for the last several years have felt a bit left behind.  Too many conflicts in the so-called “continuity” had made it hard for even a fan to explain what was happening.  Some heroes had died and come back, others gone evil and back.  Or both, in the case of Green Lantern.

So I’m glad they’ve decided to start fresh and renumber every comic back to #1.  I know some people out there are miffed at the lost history, but I personally was getting tired of having to go to Wikipedia every time a comic referenced a mysterious super vortex first seen in issue 367. I was also getting sick of all the crises constantly afflicting the DC universe.  Seriously, they had a “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” an “Infinite Crisis” and a “Final Crisis,” and the last two happened in the span of a few years.  I don’t care about earth-shattering events; I just want to read a good story!

Swamp Thing #1: Better than you might think!

And good stories they are.  DC so far has only released about 14 of the planned 52 books labeled #1 this month, but there have already been some winners.  I’ve read five of them — Justice League, Action Comics (Superman), Detective Comics (Batman), Swamp Thing and Batgirl.  Justice League is a great introduction to the DC Universe and has more action than a Michael Bay picture (in a good way). If you’re looking for something a a little darker and more sophisticated, check out Detective Comics, which is a classic Joker story with a twist, or Swamp Thing, a devilish tale of  horror (environmental horror?)

Action Comics reminded me of old-school 1940s Superman, but didn’t wow me as much as the others (though I guess some might find it interesting seeing Superman in jeans and a T-shirt). But then, I’ve always been more of a Batman fan. The Batgirl book has strong writing, but feels very much like the first in a larger story arc. Oddly, it also seems to require some knowledge of the character’s past.

The thing I think is really going to boost sales at DC Comics isn’t the narrative reboot, though. It’s digital comics.

Have you heard about this yet? You can now buy digital versions of all of the new comics, the day they are released, and read them on your PC, smartphone or tablet.

This addresses two of the main reasons I stopped buying actual issues of comic books:

1. I had to make special trips every time I wanted to go to a comic book store. The two shops I know of in Washington, DC are in Georgetown (which takes a Metro ride and a bus transfer to get to), and Union Station (which also requires a $2 Metro ride)
2. I have very little space to store comic books.

Digital solves both of these problems.  I can buy a comic with a mouse click or a tap on my phone’s touch screen, and they’re all stored online so I don’t have to buy an entire filing cabinet.  The price per comic feels a little steep since it’s the same as what you’d pay for a print edition, but damn if it isn’t convenient.  Longtime comics fans might scoff at the idea, but I am sure it’s going to bring in a lot of people like me who were having trouble keeping up.

What do you think of the DC reboot? Does digital distribution make the difference? Please leave a comment below!

Giving the player a choice of what to say during characters’ conversation is one of the most basic ways to involve the player. But different games handle this in different ways. A game like Final Fantasy XIII pretty much bars players from having any role in the conversation, forcing them to sit back and watch. (Arguably, even FFXIII’s gameplay forces the player to sit back and watch, but that’s for another article.)

Other games occasionally pause the conversation to give players an option of what to say. In Fallout 3, players are presented with options that are fully written sentences. In other words, you say what you see. This is an approach that has been used in countless RPGs. It’s a proven winner, but not the most interesting.  The biggest downside is that it pretty much forces players to think before every little thing they say. I hope this doesn’t sound cynical, but people don’t do that in real life.

Fallout 3: What you see is what you say

To address that weakness, Mass Effect goes for a more emotion-based approach. Like Fallout, this sci-fi RPG presents players with a choice of responses. But the replies only give a vague idea of what the protagonist will say.  If you select “You’re crazy,” Shepard (the hero) won’t say those words exactly (he has a little more tact than that), but he certainly will get the message across.

Mass Effect provides the gist of what Shepard will say

L.A. Noire takes the concept a step further, and perhaps too far.  When you are interviewing a person of interest in connection to a crime, you are always presented with the same three choices after the POI gives an answer:  You can guess he is telling the truth, you can doubt the veracity of his response, or you can accuse him of lying. This simplified approach sounds good on paper, but in practice isn’t always intuitive. What do you do, for example, when the suspect seems to be telling you only half the truth?  Sometimes selecting truth encourages the POI to tell you more.  Other people need a little threatening, and “Doubt” is the right way to get him talking.

L.A. Noire: Truth, Doubt or Lie?

Maybe it’s just because I’m a reporter, but interviewing isn’t so black and white.  When I’m talking to a source, it’s not like my only three options are to agree with her answers, tell her that I don’t believe her or outright accuse her of lying. What about asking the question again but in a different, more roundabout way? Why can’t I “doubt” an answer without accusing the person of wasting my time (a quick way to end a conversation)? Perhaps if L.A. Noire gave a little better idea of what hero cop Cole Phelps was going to say next, I might choose the right response more often. Game critic Chris Kohler seems to agree in his review for Wired.com’s Game|Life column.

If you were to ask me, the Mass Effect method to conversation is the winner. It engages players in conversation and encourages gut-level responses so that players to make choices based on their own personalities rather than what they think the game wants them to say.

Agree or disagree? Let me know what you think in the comments section!

I’ve been thinking myself lately about how two writers can have incredibly different writing styles and both be great reads. In his article, Dan talks about a writer whose talent is incredibly long-winded writing that still keeps the reader tantalized. Contrast that to someone like Kurt Vonnegut who had the talent to express some of the greatest ironies of human nature in a succinct, biting sentence like “So it goes.”

I personally tend toward the Vonnegut side of the writing scale, and it probably comes from my journalism background. I’m of the opinion you can say a lot with few words (provided you have the right words). I don’t like writing paragraphs that go on for half a page. I don’t like telling readers every minute detail. I try to give them just enough information so that they can see the scene in their heads.

But you know, that’s just what works for me. I’ve read authors who describe things in exhaustive detail and it’s brilliant (take Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness). And even the most succinct writing can be boring if nothing is happening in the plot.  Then again, Franz Kafka’s whole shtick is writing stories in which the protagonist never gets anywhere, and he’s a genius too.

So what is it that makes a good book? How much of it has to do with the writing style, and how much of it is the story? What makes one book boring and another something you can’t put down?

One theory I have is that a good book (or a good song or movie) strikes an emotional chord. For example, the reader relates to how the protagonist is feeling. Going back to Kafka, maybe The Trial is so compelling because it so perfectly captures that feeling of hopelessness we feel every time we wait hours in line at the DMV.

What do you think? I’d love to read your comments below.

One of my favorite eccentric British bands, Kaiser Chiefs, have come up with a novel concept. They have just released 20 new songs and are asking fans to pick 10 of them for their new album, The Future is Medieval.  This is no election, mind you — everyone gets their own custom mix of the CD with personalized cover art to boot!  And even more mind-blowing, everyone gets to sell their custom album to the world!

To be honest, I was actually a little annoyed when I found out about all this. It was a Friday evening after a particularly long day at work. Picking ten songs from twenty, based on mere samples of the songs, seemed like a tall order. What if I left out a great song? What if that song I thought was great actually ended in three minutes of Billy Corgan screaming the letters of the alphabet?

The Future is Medieval (Faded Wave edition)

So I decided to put off making the album until Saturday morning after I’d had a good night’s rest. The result can be streamed and purchased for download at www.kaiserchiefs.com/fadedwave.

I’m happy to report that I rather like my/their album. It’s got everything — super British pop (“Problem Solved”), synthy silliness (“Heard It Break”) and even poignant balladry (“If You Will Have Me”). I think I found a great balance between the band’s fast rockers and slow grooves. But in the immortal words of LeVar Burton, don’t take my word for it.

As a happy Kindle owner myself, this particular edition has been a long time coming. I had originally hoped to publish to Amazon through the good folk at Smashwords, but the self-publishing company has had difficulty making a deal with Amazon. Fortunately, doing it myself directly through Amazon turned out to be easier than expected. I even put together a snazzy press release to herald the news.

As with the other editions, the Kindle eBook is $2.99 on Amazon. If you’ve already read it and have a minute, please leave a customer review on the Amazon book page. Thanks for your continued support!

Update (5/3/11): Check out my new author page on Amazon.com here.

First of all, the title is Divided We Fall. I’ve been couching that as the “tentative title” for a while now, but it’s been that for long enough now that it’s unlikely to change. Besides cleverly bringing the word “We” back into the title, the title nicely captures two major elements of the story — the made-up nation’s masochistic conflict between “Patriots” and “Heretics,” and the complicated relationship between our hero Seven and the lover from his former life. Originally I was calling the sequel “The War Comes Home,” but I decided that was a bit too literal.

Here’s some trivia for you: The original tentative name for We, The Watched was “Ignited.”

Divided We Fall is divided into two parts. Each is about the same length or a little shorter than the entirety of We, The Watched. I’ve completed writing Part One and am a few chapters into Part Two. I’m planning this as the conclusion of the Seven storyline, though I’m not writing off the possibility of coming back to this world later.

Of course, if you haven’t read We, The Watched yet, you’re missing out. You can sample the first few chapters of the Kindle, Nook, iPad and PC-compatible eBook for free at Smashwords and other popular eBook stores. If you like what you read, you can get the whole thing for only $2.99 (about the price of a Starbucks coffee).

Update (4/28): We, The Watched is featured today on NewBookJournal.com!