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protagonize: interactive fiction & collaborative story writing community 

Welcome to Protagonize: your destiny awaits.

Protagonize is a creative writing community dedicated to the (nearly) lost art of the\naddventure, a type of collaborative\ninteractive fiction. One author writes a story, and others post branches to it in different directions. The result is\nan organic, evolving story where everyone can participate

via EFL Geek

Several people as well as Amazon.com have told me that if I like Terry Pratchett, I will like the time-travelling Thursday Next series that begins with The Eyre Affair.

So I read The Eyre Affair, and while it was enjoyable I had the impression it was trying too hard to jam in “subtle” (not) references to how different everyday life was in this alternate universe. Also, the pace was a bit too frenetic for my liking.

I may return to this series later, but for right now I am glad this was a library checkout rather than a purchase. If someone were to ask me for a time-travel book recommendation I would suggest Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog over this one.

Black Books - The Complete First Series

by BBC Warner

Not a book, but a British TV series about a book-store, so close enough.

The funniest show I’ve seen in years, Black Books is about a small London bookshop run by the misanthropic drunkard Bernard Black, assisted by Manny Bianco…a former accountant who mistakenly thinks that working in a bookshop for Bernard would be, you know, mellow, and with frequent visits from Fran, the owner of the next-door shop (which sells “a lot of wank”). How much do I like this series? So much that if you’re reading this, I’ve probably already made you watch at least the first two episodes. I’ve seen them six or seven times now with various sets of my friends, and they’re funny every time. I even went to the trouble of buying the first two seasons, rather than having them block my Netflix queue permanently until I was sure that every friend I have has seen them. So if you haven’t seen them, tell me, so I can make you watch them.

A typical exchange runs along the following lines (Bernard has realized that he can postpone doing his taxes if he’s seriously injured):

(customer hands Bernard a book)
Bernard: Oh we’ve got a special offer on this one.
Customer: Really?
Bernard: Yes, it’s free if you break my legs.
Customer: Fair enough.
Bernard: Great! I’ll just get the hobbling post.
Customer: Wait. I’ve read this one. That’s the problem with Wodehouse.
Bernard: Yes it’s terrible now hurry up and break my legs.
Customer: But I’ve already read it! I’m sorry, I’ve got to go!

How Tradition Works: A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies)

by Michael D. C. Drout

My mom gave this to me for my birthday (from my amazon wishlist My Amazon.com Wish List
), and though I haven’t had time to read more than the introduction yet, it looks fascinating. I’ll update this with an actual review when I have time to read it.

Yay!

(Cross-posted to LJ and Amused In Review)

I've recently been reading A Theory of Fun for Game Design, which I mentioned ordering recently, and was struck by the following passage:

Fun is all about our brains feeling good–the release of endorphins into our system. The various cocktails of chemicals released in different ways are basically all the same. Science has shown that the pleasurable chills that we get down the spine after exceptionally powerful music or a really great book are caused by the same sorts of chemicals we get when we have cocaine, an orgasm, or chocolate. Basically, our brains are on drugs pretty much all the time. - Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun

Which brings me to the most recent time I've gotten those pleasurable chills from reading: the opening sentences of Nabokov's autobiography, Speak Memory:

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour).

For an Epicurean like me, the shock of recognition of the symmetry argument still induces those pleasurable chills, even on retyping it the next day. Or, to lift a line Norma from Victor, Victoria, with Nabokov it's like… pow, pow, pow, like the Fourth of July, every time!

Btw, Amazon is selling the hardback version of Speak, Memory that I spent $19 on at Borders for only $12.35; I really should remember to check them first for stuff like this. Mass-market paperbacks are generally full price, but the discounts on other items can be substantial.

Based on David Morgan-Mar's recommendation (in the annotations of today's Irregular Webcomic), I've ordered a copy of A Theory of Fun for Game Design, by Ralph Koster. I'll update this later to let you know what I think.

I've been reading Debbie's copy of Used and Rare, and I was tickled to see prominent mention of my grandfather and his publishing company there in chapter one. I never met him, but it was still pretty cool to read about him.

Ole Grand-dad

I've been reading Debbie's copy of Used and Rare, and I was tickled to see prominent mention of my grandfather and his publishing company there in chapter one. I never met him, but it was still pretty cool to read about him.