{Put This One on Your TBR List} Videogame Review: Dragon Age: The Veilguard by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Videogame Review: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Warning Spoilers! 

Dragon Age: The Veilguard videogame was released at long last on October 31, 2024 and is the fourth major game in the franchise, a direct sequel to 2014's Inquisition, set ten years after those events. All new locations in the fictional world of Thedas are revealed, including Tevinter Imperium, which fans like me have been champing at the bit to explore since it was first mentioned in the previous games and books. You can find my review of the wide world of Dragon Age here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/11/karen-wiesner-fiction-series-so-big.html. 

At the end of Inquisition, Thedas was saved yet again, but Solas, the elven mage on the Inquisitor's main team, inexplicably went missing following the final battle. Readers then watched a very strange, final scene in which Solas secretly meets with Mythal--the elven protector, all-mother, and goddess of love that we've known throughout the series as Flemeth, Witch of the Wilds, and who's come in many forms, including as a High Dragon in DA II and Inquisition. The consequences of that meeting between Solas and Mythal proved shocking to the extreme! 

The very last chapter of Inquisition you could play was the DLC Trespasser, set two years after the Inquisitor's victory against the villain Corypheous. The Inquisition goes to the Winter Palace in Halamshiral for diplomatic talks concerning the future of their organization. A secret qunari invasion is uncovered as the Inquisitor's inner circle utilizes the Eluvian network, which is a series of elven-made, enchanted mirrors that connect and allow for fast transportation and communication. All of this is interwoven with their pursuit of former comrade Solas and finding out what he's up to. At the end of Trespasser (if all the clues were found during the game), Solas reveals that he's in fact Fen-Harel, an elven god of old that many called the Dread Wolf. He created the Veil--the metaphysical boundary between the physical world and the Fade (a dimension of dreams and magic where a lot of demons and trapped spirits hang out). He did it to imprison two other ancient, evil elven gods. Solas's intention is to collapse the Veil and restore the world of the ancient elves, something that will almost certainly destroy the rest of the world. 

The Veilguard's protagonist "Rook" (the player gets to choose a first name) is recruited by Varric Tethras, who's been in the series from the beginning. Varric is intent on finding Solas to stop him from destroying the Veil. When Rook disrupts Solas's ritual, two ancient evil gods are released while Solas becomes imprisoned in the Fade and bound to Rook through blood. Gods' of old siblings Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain plan to harness the blight--darkspawn corruption--in order to rule the world. 

Because of their connection, Rook ends up at the Lighthouse, Solas's "home" in the Fade. This becomes the main hub and base of operations for Rook and companions between quests. Rook recruits a team that needs to be strengthened through faction cooperation and personal loyalty in order to defeat the villains. The following are recruited early in the game:

·       Harding of the Inquisition, who was the lead scout for all locations in the previous game, though not a member of that inner circle, as she is here. (The Inquisitor does actually play a role in Veilguard.)

·       Neve, representing the Shadow Dragons, a Tevinter resistance group that opposes corruption and slavery--and Venatori, a supremist cult of mainly mages who worship the ancient elven pantheon of gods, the Evanuris. First, the Venatori supported Corypheus in Inquisition and in Veilguard they're now backing Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. (Note that Dorian from Inquisition is associated with the Shadow Dragons.)

·       Lucanis, an Antivan Crow, an organization of elite thieves, spies, and assassins that have been part of the world since the beginning.

·       Bellara, a Veil Jumper, the group uncovering the secrets of Arlathan forest's ancient elven empire, once their capital. (Note that Morrigan, who's been a feature in DA since Origins, makes a comeback in this game, first appearing alongside the Veil Jumpers.)

·       Davrin, a Grey Warden, an age-old order committed to fighting darkspawn and the Blight, along with Assan, an adorable griffon. Up until this point in the series, it's been believed griffons were extinct. What a thrill to have my longing for them to be brought back fulfilled!

·       Emmrich of the Mourn Watch, guardians of Nevarra's Grand Necropolis.

·       Taash of the Lords of Fortune, a guild of Rivaini treasure hunters. (Isabela, the pirate, from DA Origins and II is associated with this faction and plays a role in this game.)

Even if the Veilguard--with the backing of hopefully all the factions--manages to stop Elgar-nan and Ghilan'nain, they still have to convince Solas not to collapse the Veil and destroy the world as they know it. 

I preordered the deluxe edition for both PS5 and Xbox 10 and uploaded it just as soon as I could get the wrapping off the games. I began playing and invested 125 hours in it over the next little-more-than-a-week, achieving 100% of the accomplishments. Stylistically gorgeous and immersive, I was drawn in immediately. I absolutely loved the character creation. As usual, you can "design" your Rook from top to bottom, choosing to be male, female, or even non-binary. You can be a human, a dwarf, an elf, or a qunari. You decide whether to play as a rogue, a mage, or a warrior and choose a specialization in each class. Additionally, you have to select a faction to be affiliated with (Shadow Dragon, Antivan Crow, Veil Jumper, Grey Warden, Mourn Watch, or Lords of Fortune). You even get to design the previous Inquisitor from Inquisition, as that character gets an important role in Veilguard as well, considering their background with Solas. Because there are so many choices to make, you could replay this game dozens of times and never have the same experience. 

Two new things you can choose from in the settings are: 1) whether to have your Rook full-on naked or wearing "smallclothes" when undressed, and 2) whether Rook can die in the many, many battles. I found both to be major improvements. However, I didn't care for the sparse-enough-to-be-useless, in-game maps. There were beacons in each of the locations that provided location markers and fast travel options. However, none were named so I could never remember which ones were near merchant locations or other important areas, etc. Some of the treasure was marked on the maps, but not all of it, and not all locations were open through various points in the game, so I always had to go back later and find more since I wanted the 100% achievement. There was also only one option for setting markers on the map to follow--via the visible treasure chests. Since each location had multiple floors, it quickly became a nightmare. Puzzles were a huge part of this game, which I mainly loved, though some were hard enough to make me want to cry. I wasted countless hours being lost and frustrated by finding and completing these--the things I spent the majority of my time on in this game were locating everything and solving all the puzzles in every location. At least those were mainly enjoyable. 

The first several "chapters" of the game were more like a movie the developers wanted players to watch rather than actively participate in. All the dialogue, combat, and treasure-finding struck me as distractions while the theme was being established. Then Rook made it to the Lighthouse, and suddenly the entire world opened up. I knew that this game was going to be much more linear than previous ones, which are open-world and can be explored without any need to hurry or follow a set list of quests. I'm not a huge fan of linear games, preferring to set my own pace and decide what to do in the order I choose. That said, I found I didn't mind the linear construction as much as I initially feared I would because there was a lot of freedom despite it. 

This is one of the few games I've played where everything felt so real, I could have actually been there alongside the characters, living every moment of it. Even when I left to, you know, actually live my own life, I felt that a huge part of me was still there. All the mystery, suspense, thrills, horror, sadness, devastation, laughter and relief--it's built in and abundant in The Veilguard. The character relationships were incredible. Few games are so attentive to constant interactions between all the characters. If I left the Lighthouse for a mere two seconds, there was always new dialogue with all the team members when I returned. Also, in previous games, team members engaged in dialogue that was lost whenever a situation started or we left an area. Here, the characters kept returning to that same dialogue until it was completed, so I didn't miss anything. 

Additionally, romance options were made "pansexual" with all the companions as options. I admit that in my first playthrough, I wasn't absolutely thrilled with the romance my Grey Warden human rogue Rook had with Davrin because it was so slow-moving as to be virtually nonexistent. There was a single quest near the end of his companion missions that solidified the romance, and there was some mild kissing in that. Even there, dialogue wasn't sexy or particularly romantic, nor did it continue when they returned to the Lighthouse. Then, when all hell broke loose and the world was shattering beyond recognition, there was a very weird scene in which Davrin says he'll meet Rook in her room at the Lighthouse. What took place there was so painfully inappropriate, I could barely stand it--mainly because of the timing. The very last thing I would have felt like doing at that juncture was getting it on with someone I'd exchanged only mostly friendship banter with up to that point. The relationship should have had many more romantic interactions and then taken that intimate turn much sooner, so it would have felt more natural and not so "What the heck? It's the end of the world and you wanna do what?" It was excruciating. I was glad it wasn't graphic and that the consummation was over quickly. Hopefully romances with other characters in subsequent playthroughs will be more realistic, better developed, and fit the events around them in a much more organic way. 

The locations were diverse and some of the best I've ever encountered in a game. I enjoyed getting to know each of them and learning so much more about the world and lore of Dragon Age. 

The end-of-game sequence was epic, so life-like, I alternated between tears, terror, and complete exhaustion. Inquisition was a bust when it came to the final battle. It wasn't difficult, and, after 130 hours of game play, felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. Not so in The Veilguard! My team was in jeopardy often--in part because of the (fortunately, good and wise) choices I made throughout the game--during escalating tiers of events all leading toward the final showdown. In this game, there's an ideal ending, a good ending, and a bad ending. I got the ideal my first time through, mainly because my priority never wavered from building my team's loyalty and the helping the factions in whatever way I could. 

I worried because I bought and started playing the game immediately after it came out (not something I ever do) that it'd have a lot of glitches and I'd miss something through the first playthrough that would adversely affect me until I could rectify the situation with a second playing. When a game is first released, gamers can no longer buy the huge, deluxe printed walkthrough books that Prima used to offer in advance, for those who like to know what they're going into prior to playing the game. Now we rely on other online gamers if we get to the point where we're stuck while playing for the first time. There's not a lot of material available when a game is initially released, so I spent an inordinate amount of time figuring things out on my own without help. When I'm playing a game, I want the experience of the story, not necessarily any of the frustration. So my endeavor wasn't as rewarding as you might assume. 

In the end, I did get everything that mattered. Incidentally, one of the achievements--the 52nd out of a total of 53--was basically something like "falling at the Lighthouse". I couldn't figure out what that meant and tried different things in the course of gameplay without success, so Achievement 52 and the one for getting all other achievements went unfinished when I completed the game. At that time, I decided to go back in and try something else. I had a save I'd called "PointofNoReturn" and retained which allowed me to attempt one last thing to get those final two achievements. This time what I did worked, and I got a hundred percent of the achievements. Lucky I had that save! While I'm not sure which Dragon Age game installment is my favorite (2 and 3 are definitely contenders), The Veilguard is now firmly near the top as well. 

For those interested, I've uploaded a comprehensive quest list (that includes major spoilers) for The Veilguard on my website. You can find it here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/dragonagetheveilguardchecklist.pdf. 

Next week, I'll review the corresponding collection of short stories, Tevinter Nights, that came out in advance of DA: The Veilguard. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy American Thanksgiving!

It's been our custom for many years -- aside from the COVID-19 hiatus -- to attend Chessiecon (formerly Darkover Grand Council) on Thanksgiving weekend. Located just north of Baltimore, it's an easy drive from home for us, so we don't have to worry about travel stress. This year, though, the parent organization doesn't have sufficient funds to put on a convention. They're holding a virtual meeting soon to discuss the future of the con.

Their website:

Chessiecon

Wishing everybody a joyful festive gathering and, if you're leaving home, safe travel.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Unprotectable

My "Unprotectable" title today comes with the earworm "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. One might or might not be surprised at what can and cannot be protected by copyright.

Gravestones for instance. Also, short phrases and advertising copy. Most writers are aware of  the saying, "You cannot copyright a title"...although there are exceptions. Publishers have been able to obtain limited copyright protection for the title of a series of books.

One cannot copyright "R.I.P", for instance, on a gravestone, because there is no originality about it, and it has been in general use on gravestones and in obituaries for generations. However, authors have used R.I.P. and also rip, as in Kris Johnston's R.I.P. series, Kelley Armstrong's Rip Through Time series, or the Rip Rap series. There are many other examples.

Factual information, such as the name of the person and their dates of birth and death, cannot be copyrighted, nor can traditional and wildly popular phrases  such as "beloved mother"... which one would hope is accurate, factual information.

Quotations from the Bible or from philosophers are out of copyright, however, if they are carved in an original font by a sculptor, perhaps the lettering is artistic and unique.

Brian Murphy (partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz) wrote highly readable blog on whether or not one can copyright an advertising slogan or short phrase with particular reference to a recent copyright lawsuit where one party published a very, very short book (as I recall, it was about three pages long) which contained the sort of information one might find on the packaging of a product or the instruction manual that might come with the product.

Please read Mr. Murphy's blog for the details, and check out the useful chart--I think produced by the court--listing short (and not-so-short) phrases and the reasons they are unprotectable.

https://blog.galalaw.com/post/102i8jx/can-you-copyright-ad-slogans-and-short-phrases

As, he explains, the very short book in question was not copyrightable for at least five reasons, which I quote with citations removed for brevity:

1. Originality.  Copyright protection only applies to works that are "original," - i.e., "the work [must be] independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and [must] possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity.”

2. Words and Short Phrases.  The Copyright Office's regulations provide that “words and short phrases such as names, titles, and slogans” are not subject to copyright because they contain a de minimis amount of authorship.

3.Facts and Ideas.  Copyright law does not protect facts; it protects only an author's original expression of those facts. See 17 U.S.C. § 102 (copyright protection does not “extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work”);

4. Merger Doctrine.  Where an idea can be expressed in so few ways such that “protection of the expression would effectively accord protection to the idea itself, ... the idea 'merges' with the expression, and the expression is deemed unprotectable."

5. Scènes à Faire.  Copyright protection does not extend to “expressions that are standard, stock or common to a particular subject matter or are dictated by external factors.”

Circling back to the cemetary, the CopyrightAlliance has an excellent, Halloween-themed article devoted to the copyright protection available for gravestones, and also what is not available.

https://copyrightalliance.org/does-copyright-law-protect-gravestones/

Gravestones can be protected as pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works. 

The Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101, defines “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works” as “two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art, photographs, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, and technical drawings, including architectural plans.” Since gravestones are three-dimensional sculptures, they fall within the scope of copyright-protected works. In addition, two-dimensional elements on a gravestone, such as carvings, images, engravings, and symbols, may also be protectable as artistic elements.

Vincent Melara, for the copyrightalliance.org, explains that The U.S. Copyright Office’s Compendium gives examples to shed light on what is and isn’t protectable under copyright law.

A length of wood that has been bleached and scoured by nature, or a random pile of stones would not be protectable, a cairn might or might not be if it could be seen as a sculpture (involving more than minimal creativity) and not merely a way-marker or grave marker; a photograph of stacked stones might be protectable... photographs usually are copyrightable because the photographer choses aspects of light and shadow, the angle from which to capture the work, focus, background etc. 

By the way, the act of stacking stones may be trendy, but it is not necessarily good for the environment or for the native wildlife that might have made a home under an undisturbed stone.

Much comes down to the amount of creativity and originality in the gravestone or headstone. A plain cross, or an etching of praying hands in the manner of Albrecht Durer might not be considered original, and might fall under the “scènes à faire” doctrine.

On the other hand, if it weren't so old, the grave monument of Frédéric Chopin in the Père Lachaise cemetary in Paris might have once been copyrightable. There is a statue that could have been a separate work of art (sculpture) in its own right.

For creators, it is free to join the copyright alliance. Just visit the website and sign up.

All the best, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday  

Daily Thanksgiving by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Daily Thanksgiving

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

“Be curious, not judgmental.” ~Marguerite and Marshall Shearer 

I read something recently about a father who'd lost his young daughter. Coming to terms with his grief brought him to a place where he realized that life is a gift. It's not something that's earned, deserved, or that any of us have a right to. It's just there when we're born. The proof of that estimation is that 1), in life, there's nothing that can't be taken away from us, and that, 2) in death, we can't take anything with us. The appropriate response to a gift is gratitude, even if and when that gift is taken away from us. As I'm sure that devastated dad did, the first (and probably the hundredth) reaction was to give up, roll over, and withdraw. Sometimes we're quick to judge a situation we're in--whether it's a tragedy or a reason to celebrate--without giving time the option of altering our outlook in whatever way it will from one second to another. 

This made me think about just how much we all judge in the course of a single day. We judge things not only negatively, but also positively and somewhere in-between. Judging is helpless, hapless, habitual, and a form of its own kind of hell because it won't ever end unless we try to change what seems ingrained in every living being on this planet. From the moment we wake up until finally exhausted, we fall asleep, we're continuously judging everything inside, outside, and all around us. 

We judge how we're feeling from one moment to the next as if our estimation determines the rest of the day, the rest of the year, or the rest of our lives. (What a testimony for not making quick decisions about anything we're going through!) 

We judge our dreams, our aspirations, what we eat, what we drink, what we read, the state of the weather, our wardrobe, our appearance, our own height and weight and everyone else's, our jobs (or lack therefore) and hobbies, our interactions with other living beings (including loved ones, pets, plants, strangers), our living arrangements, our bank accounts, our exercise or refusal to workout, our politics, our internet connection, our selected news reports and everything else happening in the world. 

We judge ourselves and everyone around us whether a presence is physical, over the phone, via an email, on TV or social media, or through a window to the neighbor's house or the street. 

What would it be like to live life without this kind of constant, relentless, ruthless, impulsive judging that all too often causes us to become mired in something toxic? It's really not even imaginable that we could prevent judging, is it? This activity is as natural to us as breathing. 

One thing within our power to do is realize that life in the sense of everything can be a gift that we didn't earn, we don't deserve, and we don't have a right to. I'm not sure about you, but that's a humbling thought that makes me take a breath and even a step backwards. There's nothing that can't be taken away from us in this life and we can't take anything with us when we die. In this way, is it possible to simply accept things as they come and go and view them all as experiences that shape us, hopefully for the better? Even pain could prove to be a gift if viewed the right way--after all, there's no better way to grow and evolve than with hardships that may wreck or leave us numb but could also refine and renew us. The bitter truth is frequently more welcome and illuminating than sweet deception. Darkness makes us appreciate the balm of light. A bird's eye view of death can close and suffocate us but sometimes it opens the panorama that is and can be life as we know it. 

As humans, we're going to judge. That's a given. But mindfully forcing ourselves to perceive all the gifts we're given from one moment to the next can determine our own attitudes going forward in these minutes that make up our short lives. Find a way to be grateful for the things that make up your day-to-day, including the things you've lost, because all we'll ever have is this time to exist and experience, good and bad, what life has to offer. 

Breakfast cereal may not be a Thanksgiving turkey with all the fixing's, but it's food, you need it to survive, and, hey, you got a whole box of it sitting in your kitchen, maybe even the kind with little marshmallows in it. Not everyone can say that. 

Your job may not be one you've always hoped for, but it's probably better than not having one at all. You may not have chosen to work with those particular people but, don't forget, when COVID was ruling all our lives only a few years ago, we would have been ecstatic to see those same people because it meant we were out in the world, interacting instead of merely surviving in hollow isolation. Our kids wanted to go to school during that time but were forbidden to. I don't know about you, but I never, ever want to go back to the state of a half-life where vital connections could equally mean hope to get through another day or week just as well as cause the spread of something we wouldn't wish on anyone. 

You may have lost something you loved and couldn't hold onto. But it was in your life for however long, and you got to know it and love it. While you're alive, those memories will always be yours, complete with the laughter that now puts tears in your eyes; the fun that, at the time, made it feel like it could never end; and the deep richness of intimacy with another human being that made you feel alive and that you would have said was worth anything (even eventual loss) to have if for only one moment. Remember that. Don't ever let it go. It was a gift, and it was worth anything to hold as long as you did. 

Judging everything is just what we do as human beings. We may or may not have any control of that aspect, but it is within our grasp to find vantage points that allow us to be grateful for the experiences we've been granted all around us, some dressed up in the guise of things we may initially think we don't care for. I encourage you to try to make it through a whole day actively looking for hidden gifts littered all along your path and find a way to see them as boons. Whether or not you actually make it for long, try to extend it into the next day and the next. Daily thanksgiving can grow into a habit. Ritual judging in all its extremes may become the route to finding unexpected treasures that bring profound and enduring joy in an often heartless world. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

National Sovereignty and Free Expression

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column explores the tension between the rights of nations to "establish the rule of law" and individuals' rights to freedom of expression.

Hard Cases, Bad Law

Some nations use the power of their sovereignty to protect individual rights, while some do the opposite. The internet comes into the discussion because it "crosses international borders." Currently the United Nations is working on a Cybercrime Treaty, intended to prevent "ransomware attacks and other serious crimes." The problem is that the treaty will leave it up to each country to define "cybercrime" within its borders. A dictatorship might well define it as any public criticism of the regime. Or, for example, weaponize it against a dating site that permits same-sex matches.

The essay also discusses "data localization" laws, enacted by the EU member nations and some other European countries. Beneficial effects include preventing data about internet users within these countries from being accessed by the NSA's global surveillance. A less benign provision, however, "allows sovereign nations to access and use the data stored within their borders," a power obviously vulnerable to abuse by countries such as Russia.

Encryption presents another dilemma rooted in the clash between sovereignty and individual rights. Governments would like to ban highly effective "working encryption," at least to the extent of mandating a back-door feature for investigation of criminal activity. The trouble is that it's impossible to create such encryption to allow action prosecution of criminals while still protecting the data of legitimate users. Laying out the procedures that would be required to implement the kind of restrictions authorities might like, Doctorow concludes "the collateral damage to human rights from this kind of ban are gigantic."

The essay goes into considerable detail about these and other related issues of interest to anyone devoted to freedom of speech. Conclusion -- in irreconcilable clashes between national sovereignty and human rights, the latter should rule, and "we can recognize the legitimate exercise of sovereignty without using that as a pretense to ignore when sovereign power is used to undermine free expression, especially when that use is likely to kick off a cascade of ever-more-extreme measures that are progressively worse for free expression."

Margaret L. Carter

Pease explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

WHAT'S DE MINIMUS GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Sometimes, small is better. If you are going to infringe on someone elses' copyright (which no one recommends), you want to go the extra mile to do the absolute minimum.

Like a no-good neighbor, State Farm went there. Allegedly. They took the rap for not changing the wrap on an arcade game cabinet.

To be perfectly pedantic (which is alliteration), I sacrificed accuracy for the sake of a pun. There is a more accurate name for the rap-wrap figure of speech, but it might not get past my host's AI bot. 

The case is still ongoing, so the defence, so I must give a nod to the presumption of inncence.

Blogging for Global Advertising Lawyers' Alliance (G.A.L.A.), Brian Murphy, partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz discusses whether or not one can avoid copyright infringement claims by modifying the properties used in ones advertising.

https://blog.galalaw.com/post/102jo3q/can-you-avoid-copyright-claims-by-modifying-props-used-in-your-ads

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d4cdd315-55e9-410e-afb0-73fafd935e75

The spoiler seems to be that maybe one cannot, if one stops short of doing a through job. Maybe --and this is just my thought-- they would have looked less hand-in-the-cookie-jar if they hadn't changed the name of the game they were ripping off... allegedly. Or, they should have changed everything about the game cabinet.

Brian Murphy tells a great story, and offers a highly readable analysis.

He reminds his readers (and now mine) of the four factors necessary for weighing a Fair Use defence and why the judge ruled against throwing out the entire copyright infringement complaint before trial on the grounds of "Fair Use" on every one of them:

• Purpose and Character of the Use. The arcade cabinet was not used to make commentary or criticism or for any other transformative purpose. Instead, it was used “to invoke the same aesthetic tones intended to be evoked by the artwork itself.” Moreover, the use – in an advertisement – was for commercial purposes.
• Nature of the Copyrighted Work. The cabinet artwork is an expressive, visual work, and not a factual work. 
• Amount and Substantiality of Portion Used. The majority of the artwork from the cabinet wrap was visible in the spot (even if partially obscured by the actors in the video).
• Effect on the Market. It is “plausible that the widespread, unlicensed use of Atari’s copyrighted works would impact [Atari's] alleged licensing business.

As a sometime, copyright-related weekend warrior myself, I am fascinated by the role played by social media users in the plaintiff's case. Apparently, so-called "die-hard" gamers recognized the true name of the game, and commented --one infers-- on a State Farm social media page. 

We didn't use to have that power.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Dragon Teeth was published in 2017, nine years after the author's death, although it was a book Michael Crichton actually wrote in 1974. It's touted as a historical fiction forerunner to his mega-successful Jurassic Park. Right upfront, I'll state as I did about my review for State of Fear by Crichton a few weeks ago that Dragon Teeth really doesn't have anything to do with aliens in any form, despite that the author is known for including elements of that type in his work and despite the title and really cool cover for this. However, in the vein that sometimes books about the future of humanity as well as historical accounts of it, albeit fictionalized, sometimes do seem very outlandish to modern readers can Dragon Teeth be considered alien. 

Set in 1876's Bone Wars (otherwise known as the Great Dinosaur Rush), when fossil hunting was at the height of competition, this story follows two fictional students of paleontology engaged in a heated rivalry that strains the boundaries of everything legal and moral--similar to real-life paleontologists during that time period, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. William Johnson is a Yale student, his rival Marlin. During a fossil hunting expedition in the Badlands, things go from bad to worse, just as one can expect in the Wild West (and yes, Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok do make appearances). 

There were rumors of National Geographic adapting the novel into a TV series that follows the notoriety of Cope and Marsh's intense rivalry during a time of fossil discovery and speculation. I'm not sure if anything ever happened with it, but it would be interesting for those who want to find out more about how fossil hunting first began in America. 

While this story is good and has all the elements of suspense, fantastic characters, and a historical-event studded setting and plot, I'm not a huge fan of Westerns and this book is, at its heart, the best kind of Western. I read and mildly enjoyed it for what it was. Those with an interest in that genre or who want to know more about early paleontology won't be disappointed. 

I can't help wondering why the author wrote this whole book during the time he was probably also working on other early action/adventure novels like The Terminal Man and The Great Train Robbery. Why did he never go back to Dragon Teeth, never try to get it published, as he surely could have during the height of his popularity? Did he find it lacking as several reviewers did following its posthumous release? Any answer I can come up leads me to also question what the author would have thought about this work he abandoned being published at all. But I guess that doesn't matter now, even if it should. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Sensible Style: Writing in the 21st Century

Last week I reread Steven Pinker's THE SENSE OF STYLE (2014), subtitled "The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century." All writers could enjoy and benefit from it. Although addressed mainly toward nonfiction writers, it contains plenty of material also useful to authors of fiction. Pinker, a psychologist who specializes in linguistics and cognitive science, has written several other books about language. This one isn't a conventional style manual with exhaustively comprehensive rules for punctuation, grammar in the narrow high-school-English sense, and diction (word usage), although he does delve into those areas toward the end. THE SENSE OF STYLE goes much deeper. It has only six chapters, some rather long, though they include marked divisions where the reader can pause as desired. Chapter One, "Good Writing," sets the stage with several examples of professional work that illustrate the title of the chapter. Pinker's analysis of what makes these passages "good" foreshadows the tone of the entire book -- thoughtful, humane, highlighting the positive rather than hammering on the negative. Chapter Two defines and analyzes what he calls "classic" style, straightforward, clear, deceptively simple-looking, offered as an "an antidote for acadamese, bureaucratese. . .and other kinds of stuffy prose." In other chapters, as well as sentence structure -- "grammar" in the linguist's sense -- he dissects and elucidates larger units such as paragraphs and clusters of paragraphs, revealing what features give a piece of writing the all-important quality of "coherence."

To me, the most vital chapter may be the third, "The Curse of Knowledge." The "curse" consists of assuming (often unconsciously) that prospective readers know the fundamentals of our topic as well as we do. They don't share the background of the speciality we've studied for years. They aren't familiar with the technical language of our field. Or, to put it the way I often feel when trying to understand instruction manuals, the writer doesn't start far back enough. Pinker summarizes this problem as "a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know." As he says, "it's often the brightest and best informed who suffer the most" from this form of ignorance. That's why, incidentally, a person with a breathtakingly high level of expertise in a subject won't necessarily be good at teaching it. The chapter goes on to explore different forms this phenomenon takes and strategies for combatting it. For authors wanting to communicate more effectively with audiences, this chapter may be worth the price of the whole book.

Chapter Six, "Telling Right from Wrong," deals with the topics covered by standard style manuals, such as punctuation, subject-verb agreement, correct word choice, etc. Pinker, however, explains his rationale for accepting, rejecting, or modifying each "rule," often in considerable detail. He explains which pronouncements in traditional grammar texts make a certain amount of sense and which have irrelevant origins such as wrong-headed attempts to make English conform to Latin sentence structure. Along many other knotty issues, he analyzes the proper uses of who/whom. In discussing the problem of our language's lack of a neuter third-person singular pronoun for human beings, he defends the current popularity of "they." In his educated opinion, some rules insisted on by purists remain useful, while others are outmoded or never-valid shibboleths fit to be ignored. He also distinguishes among usages acceptable in conversation or informal writing, those preferred for formal writing, and those that are simply wrong. I don't agree with all his decisions. In my opinion, he's too lax on the less-fewer, among-between, and comprise-compose distinctions, among others, not to mention the sloppiness of "more unique." Still, he always offers a strong defense of his position.

As usual, Pinker's own style is lucid, readable, and often entertaining. It's a pleasure to read him on almost any subject. On practically every page we encounter witty remarks that invite rereading, chuckling over, and savoring. He enlivens his books with numerous cartoons, "Calvin and Hobbes" being one of his favorite go-to examples. On the other hand, for me (YMMV) the visual aids intended to make explanations more understandable more often than not seem confusing. I find traditional sentence diagrams like those in my high-school textbooks easier to follow than his sentence trees. But maybe that's just a set-in-my-ways Boomer attitude. At the conclusion, he refreshingly reminds us that civilization won't collapse from changes in language, regardless of how some of them may grate on us. I need to remember that the world as we know it won't end even if everybody adopts the abominable use of "literally" as a meaningless all-purpose intensifier.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

I've had a subtheme of Figures of Speech in recent weeks. "The Press" is metonymy, probably going back to a time when the printing press really did "press" etched plates together to create a printed page, although not as far back in time as Johannes Gutenberg's printing press that made the Bible available to German-speaking laypersons.

The press would have referred to the machine, then. The Press had become a metaphor for journalists by the time the Founding Fathers wrote The First Amendment (in December, 1791).

Nowadays, newsgatherers, newspresenters, social commentators and so forth may have a distant relationship with a printing press... so much information and opinion today is neither pressed, nor printed.

An interesting website, FIND LAW explains the extent and limitations on the 1st Amendment.

https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1.html

The First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The freedom of the press may not be abridged by a Congress-made law, with respect to speech, but press "conduct" is a different matter. Sometimes, conduct is considered speech (such as flag burning as part of a peaceful protest or assembly), but sometime it isn't.

One can use sources, but not drones or hackers. Freedom of speech does not promise or protect or guarantee special access. Freedom of "the press" is not absolute, and nor is freedom of speech absolute.

One may (or may not) face consequences for doxxing, that is, publishing accurate and truthful information, but which infringes on another person's privacy and safety. One can also get into trouble if one exposes State secrets. 

Similarly, one may face consequences for publishing false and misleading allegations about another person, particularly if the act is seen to be malicious and in bad faith.

Also, "freedom of the press" does not extend beyond borders, or even to border crossings.

"..,the government may conduct routine inspections and searches at the border without a warrant, which is why press freedom groups advise journalists traveling internationally to carry devices with minimal information."

"Freedom" of the press may not extend to some information-gathering methods that involve trespass, hacking, theft, criminal activity, or fraud. If this is true, one might wonder if some of the reality-tv "sting"-based shows are on the shady side of the law. 

Gathering information from "sources" is allowed.  Surveillance is not allowed.

Legal bloggers Elana Beiser, Ashley J. Heilprin, and Mary Ellen Roy of Phelps Dunbar LLP share insights into the Department of Justice's guidelines and restrictions with regard to subpoenas, arrests,  search warrants, prosecution, and the circumstances under which the DOJ can attempt to compel journalists to surrender documents, digital content, sources, and records.

https://www.phelps.com/insights/doj-media-guidelines-protect-journalists-from-subpoenas-and-Search-Warrants.html

There are three limited exceptions when the DOJ allows itself to compel journalists to surrender information, as explained in the article. Compulsion only applies to "newsgathering". The lawyers explain:

"Newsgathering may include:

• Receiving classified information
• Possessing classified information
• Publishing classified information
• Establishing a means of receiving such information, including from an anonymous or confidential source.

Newsgathering is not any of these criminal acts committed while obtaining or using information:

• Breaking and entering
• Theft
• Unlawfully accessing a computer or computer system
• Unlawful surveillance or wiretapping
• Bribery
• Extortion
• Fraud
• Insider trading
• Aiding or abetting or conspiring to engage in such criminal activities, with the requisite criminal intent."

There's a great deal more information in the article. Please read it.

Michael Lambert, legal blogger for Haynes Boone, has much more to say about the freedom (or unfreedom) to gather "news" using drones. Texas has a drone law that protects the rights to privacy of individuals on private property, of private property owners, sports teams, critical infrastructure (pipelines, refineries, power plants), and certain goverment buildings or facilities.

https://www.haynesboone.com/news/publications/fifth-circuit-reverses-ruling-on-texas-drone-law

Mr. Lambert does not make such a frivolous point as this, but what chaos might ensue if every drone-owning citizen journalist hovered their drones over an open-roof American football station and live-streamed the game from their drone to all their friends on social media?

Mr. Lambert explains particular laws that apply to drone operators (or "drone journalists"):

"The FAA requires that drone operators follow Part 107 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which requires (1) learning the Part 107 rules; (2) earning a remote pilot certificate; and (3) registering the drone with the FAA.

Part 107 prohibits flying:

• In restricted air spaces without permission. Airspace is restricted near airports, stadiums, military bases, national landmarks, and certain “critical infrastructure.”
• Over 400 feet
• At night without authorization
• Directly over people unless certain conditions are met
• From a moving vehicle or aircraft
• Beyond the operator’s visual line of sight
• In a careless or reckless manner"

There's a lot more. Whether you are a Texan, a person of interest to journalists, or a drone-enthusiast, Mr. Lambert's is an informative piece. There is also an eye-opening polemic piece titled unfreedom of the press that is well worth looking into.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner

 

 

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 This is the 100th book I've reviewed for Alien Romances Blog!!!

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Micro was published in 2011, three years after Michael Crichton's death. The technothriller manuscript was found on the author's computer untitled and unfinished with notes and research for completing it. The publisher chose author Richard Preston (a writer for The New Yorker who was also a bestselling science author) to finish it. In interviews before his death, Crichton spoke of working on a project that was an adventure story like Jurassic Park and would be "informative" but fun and would include information "about how our environment really is structured". 

The story opens with three men found dead in a locked office building in Hawaii. There are no signs of a struggle beyond razor-sharp cuts that cover their bodies and a tiny, bladed robot that's all but invisible to the naked eye. The action moves to Oahu, where new drug applications are being founded with a groundbreaking "biological prospecting" technology. From there, the most brilliant microbiology graduate students are being recruited by Nanigen MicroTechnologies and herded off to a mysterious lab in the Aloha State. They're promised they'll be helping usher in a whole new scientific frontier. Instead, they're dropped into a hostile environment that requires their knowledge to not only navigate but to survive. 

I was wary about reading this book, as I couldn't imagine it'd be as good as something the author had produced every year or so for more than four decades, and there were shades of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids hilarity…only on a much {cough} bigger scale. But I was definitely surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. It was every bit as fun and illuminating as the original author intended. Everything that should be in it is there. I heard there was talk of Dreamworks making a movie version of it, but I'm not sure if that ever happened. 

Whether or not you've read this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale from a master of the fantastic and, you know, someone else who took what Crichton started and was able to seamlessly complete it. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

One Person, One Vote?

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Lord Vetinari, the Patrician who rules the largest city, embraces the principle of "one man, one vote." He's the man; he has the vote.

In "Franchise," by Isaac Asimov, elections are indirectly decided by AI as follows: An algorithm operated by the government's super-computer analyzes the political and cultural traits and beliefs of every citizen in the nation. One person is selected as the archetypal representative of the entire population and becomes the Voter for that year. Not that he actually makes a choice. He's exhaustively examined and interviewed, after which the computer registers his "vote."

At the end of Robert Heinlein's essay "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?" (which seems to advance the -- to me -- peculiar notion that signing a nuclear nonproliferation treaty equals destroying our freedoms, but that's beside the point), reprinted in his collection EXPANDED UNIVERSE (1980), he defends STARSHIP TROOPERS from the mistaken charges often brought against it (e.g., advocating a "militaristic" society, as portrayed in the abomination of a movie by the same title). He then goes on to discuss the general topic of voting rights. He expands on the novel's premise that a democratic society should require citizens to earn the franchise, rather than having it automatically bestowed on everyone over the age of eighteen. In STARSHIP TROOPERS, only veterans of public service can vote. That service can be either civil or military, and if military it needn't be in a combat role. Furthermore, citizens exercise the franchise only after their service ends, so the government isn't in any sense run by the military.

Heinlein speculates on other ways the right to vote and hold office might be "earned." He says the Founding Fathers "never intended to extend the franchise to everyone." They expected voters to be "stable" members of the community, such as by property ownership, employment of others, holding a journeyman status in a trade, etc. Well, yeah, but they didn't extend the franchise to women, Blacks, or Native Americans either. If Heinlein seriously advocated material "stability" as a prerequisite for voting, he would've favored disenfranchising the poor and most of the working class, a practically guaranteed method of keeping them poor.

His essay plays around with fanciful alternative ideas for voter qualifications. (1) The sale of voting rights, with the proceeds being the main source of government revenue. Heinlein maintains that the potential for corruption by the wealthy would be minimal, because most rich people wouldn't bother to spend lavishly on multiple franchise slots. I'd be less optimistic on that point. (2) Requiring a minimum level of "intelligence and education" by making each voter solve an equation upon stepping into the booth. Variations on that method: Pay a small fee for the opportunity to try to vote; if you pass the test, you get your money back. Or, more drastically, those who fail the test are instantly euthanized to improve the gene pool. (3) Why hasn't the quality of government improved with the enfranchisement of women, as some idealists predicted it would? Maybe we didn't go far enough. In a spirit of fairness, let's bar men from voting, practicing law, and holding office for 150 years. "An all-female government could not possibly be worse than what we have been enduring."

Foreshadowing a comment that has sparked widespread outrage in the current election cycle, he suggests taking that last modest proposal even further. On the grounds that "a woman who is mother to a child knows she has a stake in the future," suppose we legally restrict voting, practicing law, and office-holding to mothers?

He also mentions Mark Twain's "The Curious Republic of Gondour," which can be read here:

The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches

Under the law of Gondour, every citizen has one vote. However, people gain additional votes on the basis of education or wealth, with level of education more heavily weighted. People who control more votes win higher social status and more respect.

I trust Heinlein wasn't seriously proposing any of these innovations -- all of which, except the female-only franchise, would mean disadvantaged groups would become steadily more disadvantaged -- but they're entertaining to fantasize about. As for the election-booth intelligence test, I'm reminded of a short story about a dystopian future in which every child, upon reaching a certain age, undergoes a mandatory IQ exam. Those who score too HIGH don't come home. At least in our reality there's little danger that systematic dumbing down of the population will become official government policy. I hope.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

A Waist Of Time

 A Waist of Time would make a good sci-fi title, I think.

Yes, it was a spelling mistake seen on an online news site in the comments section, and my first instinct was to want to correct it, but then I got to thinking about how "A Waist of Time" could work (a little in the vein of Asimov's "The God's Themselves") and I visualized an egg timer.

Have you seen any mind-expanding typos recently?

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Next by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Next by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Next was a 2006 technothriller fiction novel, the very last published in author Michael Crichton's lifetime. When explaining how he got the idea, he spoke of the issue of nature/nurture and how our genetic material interacts with the environment. As such, he included transgenic (an organism with genetic material that's been altered via genetic engineering) characters--in the form of a chimp-boy named Dave and a parrot with human genes called Gerard--navigating a world overrun with greed and not always legal, let alone, moral agendas. 

In at least one back cover blurb I read for this book, it says: "We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and test our spouses for genetic maladies. We live in a time when one-fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else--and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes…" 

Crichton has the power to terrify in just this short paragraph, and I remember reading Next for the first time, wondering how real any of it was, or if it's actually possible that, like one of the characters in this book who has an aggressive form of cancer, someone could unwittingly find his disease and treatment becoming little more than a pretext for genetic research being done in a shrouded background. The hospital university of this character's own physician has sold the rights to his cells, and a judge goes on to rule that they were "waste" that was lawful for the college to dispose of in whatever manner it saw fit. In another case, the lawyers for a genetic engineering company claim they have the right under United States law to all of an existing patient's cells and thus the right to gather replacement cells at any time, by force if necessary, and that's not all--they can also take them from any of the patient's descendants. 

So much in this story feels too realistic and terrifying to read with ease and freedom. The tension starts right from the very first page and doesn't let up often, if at all. The cast, especially those in the transgenic characters' families, are so well fleshed out, readers will be racing alongside them through a whirlwind plot filled with terror, hoping they're victorious in escaping capture by those who consider themselves owners of human, genetics, and genetically engineered property. We want to see these heroes securing their individual rights, just as we want to maintain our own. But that outcome is in constant doubt fictionally, and potentially even realistically. 

There's no way to elude the haunting qualities of this gripping, thought-provoking novel. The story might have been ripped from current headlines. It seems foolish to even consider that simply because we go to experts who can help make us medically well, we're giving away things for all time that no one but we ourselves and those we specifically designate should be allowed to rule over. But, all too easily, something like it may happen sooner or later. 

I was reminded of two quotes from another favorite book of mine, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, after I finished reading Next for the first time:

"Before, they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in an agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread..."  

"I do not expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me. At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about at my fellow-men; and I go in fear..."

Whether or not you've read this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale from a master of the fantastic. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/