John J. Walsh IV

I am going to be upfront and straightforward in stating what might not have already been inferred by the title of this particular work: I am about to review a children’s book, the kind with big pictures and short, simple sentences. This might seem an odd choice for someone like me, who would supposedly tend to prefer wordier and weightier fare, but I am absolutely in love with this book and utterly compelled to share my wonderful discovery of it with those whose eyes will happen to fall upon this page.

I owe this extremely pleasant bit of happenstance to my local Barnes & Noble, which invited (as I now know) local author/illustrator Bob Logan to read and sign The Sea of Bath. In anticipation of this event, they had a few copies propped around the store with placards announcing its details. The cover illustration of a sea captain aboard a small sail boat immediately caught my eye, and I had to pick up a copy to investigate further.

The book’s short but fanciful plot involves the captain of the S.S. Rubb A. Dubb venturing through the strange waters of a child’s bathtub. However, our hero is unaware of the true nature of his bizarre ocean, and perhaps always will be. Yet, this does not deter his journey one bit as he marvels at the weird creatures he encounters.

I tumbled madly into love with this book as I turned its thick pages. Logan’s artwork is alluring in its simple beauty and positively eye-catching from cover to stern, and the story was one pulled straight from my childhood. Having a lifelong obsession with the sea from a young age inevitably led to many bathtub adventures involving stormy waters and brave captains with strong ships and stronger wills. And here, through Logan’s work, I saw those same grand stories come back to life, rushing and bubbling up from deepest memory, a creature from the truest core of my heart, wrapping its tentacles once more around my imagination.

This is the book I want to read to my future children, to their children, and to their children. I want to buy another copy and read it to my beautiful niece and bouncy nephew, to give them even just a little bit of that sense of wonder which captivated me as a young boy.

Perhaps this seems a bit much praise for a children’s book, but Logan has struck a harmonious chord in me by putting forth into the world a simple work that speaks to that growing seed in a child’s mind that there are grand and exciting and endless adventures that await us, even if those journeys begin (for the moment, anyway) only in our bathtubs and imaginations. The Sea of Bath is the grain of sand around which the pearl of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea forms. Our paths all begin somewhere. And, thanks to Bob Logan, our children have a wonderful place to start.

It was a great disappointment that I was not able to make the reading/signing event whose promotions brought this book into my life, but Logan graciously left a few copies behind, the title pages signed and scrawled with doodles. I purchased one of these, and I shall cherish it always. I do hope that the future holds a day where I might get to meet the man behind the work, but for now I will have to settle for the beautiful footprint he has left behind. I look forward to the next footprint, and the one after that, and so on, down a path that will surely be a joy to follow.

As I’ve stated before, I am not really what one calls a gamer. However, several of my good friends are, and so sometimes I am exposed to games that would have otherwise never crossed my path. This usually gives me a chance to dabble in certain titles every now and then, allowing me to get a sense of them without having to endure the time-suck of having to actually play an entire game through. It’s a relationship I’ve come to enjoy with gaming, as it allows me the luxury of only investing my time in the kinds of games I feel contribute to the enrichment of my own life, while still getting to see what else is out there.

While this is indeed my general modus operandi, every once in a while I allow myself to get pulled into this world a little deeper than I usually would. I was recently provided with one of those rare occasions when, during an overnight marathon session spanning seventeen hours, I watched friend, writer, and videogame journalist Brian Rubinow play the Xbox 360 game Deadly Premonition. The event was organized under the title “Where the Squirrels Sound Like Monkeys,” which is absolutely an accurate descriptor, and should give you at least a decent indication of its Ed Wood style low budget nature.

Make no mistake, low production values are exactly why this game was being played, especially in this manner. Employing a Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach, Brian figured having an audience of (fellow) sarcastic commentators would make the grueling experience a more bearable one.

This was a smart move, as there is much to hate about the game, especially judging it by normal gaming standards. The sound effects are terrible, the small collection of music is usually completely inappropriate given the events unfolding, and the action (survival horror) portions of the game were so repetitive as to become some small portion of hell, if Andre Linoge’s description of such is to be believed. There is no way around the fact that, as a contender for what traditionally defines a great (or even good) game, Deadly Premonition is pretty much a complete and total failure.

Yet, I cannot dismiss it so quickly as not having been worth my time. As an interactive story, there lies amongst the failed mechanics and shoddy craftsmanship something that has gotten under my skin and into my heart. I constantly wanted to know more about the townsfolk, to take additional side quests to understand their strange stories better. Indeed, after the initial shock of just how strange this game was, I became consistently curious to discover what lurked about its corners.

Granted, these opinions (and all that will follow) come from someone who never once touched the controller during the game’s run, let alone spent the entire period being solely responsible for each and every action, so take my thoughts for what you will. I, for one, know that Brian has found no redeeming values in Deadly Premonition. I certainly thought likewise early on, and even in writing this review I have had moments where my brain has piped up to state that I know this game is terrible. And yet my heart still draws forth these words to tell you that there is something to be admired.

My best argument for this, aside from my compulsion to delve deeper into the game’s bizarre world, comes in the form of a particularly (and relatively) well-designed level, in which you play as the original Raincoat Killer. Much of the game had been spent driving across town to get from mission to mission. This level came at one of those junctions. Of course, I expected to jump once more into a car in order to drive to the community center, which I had honestly forgotten was also the location of the town’s clock tower.

Instead, we are suddenly back in time, unexpectedly playing as a character we’d really only heard about in earlier dialogues. At first, our goal is unclear and the change of setting is rather startling, leaving us to wonder what to do. A strange but beautiful version of “Amazing Grace” begins to play and the clock tower’s bell chimes in the distance. In the center of the screen comes the subtitle “(1…).” We keep trying to figure out where to go. Another chime and the screen flashes “(2…).” It isn’t until the third chime that we realized that they are counting up to an aforementioned ominous thirteen, and that the clock tower is our goal.

All of those points that had before been merely backstory came rushing into the foreground, made important by our having been dropped into a past that beautifully connects with the present. And so we head toward the clock tower, sparking axe dragging behind, as “Amazing Grace” plays and the chimes count up and we move closer to an honestly intriguing future.

It was at this moment that I understood the game. You cannot approach Deadly Premonition with your mind; this game is all about heart. Even as my brain shouts that there is nothing worthwhile in this junk heap of a title, my heart sees its vision. The people behind the game certainly tried to cram more genres into a single game than I’ve ever before seen attempted, but they clearly loved them dearly. Sure, their execution was off, but everything they did, they did out of love. This was not some blatant attempt to rip off the public of some small fortune of cash.

And though it is undeniably clunky and flawed, I firmly believe that the bones that make up the core of the game and its story could (and indeed should) be redecorated and reworked, creating an end product that would be a shining example of the very best that gaming has to offer as a storytelling medium. Think of it as a rough draft, an initial concept, on its way to becoming a polished screenplay. Much like Neill Blomkamp’s short Alive in Joburg was tweaked (and expanded) to become the hit film District 9, I feel that Deadly Premonition could be remade into a bona fide videogame classic. The vision is clearly there, it just needs the time, money, and additional talent to make it a reality.

So, while I cannot in good conscious recommend Deadly Premonition as a great gaming experience, I do honestly offer it up as a study in what great gaming can aspire to be: bold, daring, different.

Original.

It has been some time since I’ve read a book and been compelled to formalize my thoughts on it in the form of a review. Renda Dodge‘s Inked arrived at my doorstep a few months ago and waited patiently in the reading queue stacked on my bedside table. Slowly, it rose to the top, unassuming and quiet. When its time finally came, I held few expectations or assumptions, save what was printed on the novel’s back cover:

Tori Liddell has struggled through her twenties suffering from undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder. She documents her radical lifestyle changes and shifting identity through the colorful tattoos covering her body. After years spent disconnecting from family and widening the rift created by her absence, Tori returns to small-town Oregon to help facilitate the care of her mother, recently diagnosed with AIDS. At her homecoming, she faces her own mortality, the inevitable loss of her mother and the interests of an enigmatic neighbor. Tori also confronts the realization that things and people are not always the way she remembers as she searches for the meaning of home in the rubble of her past.

Inked is a window into the life of a woman trying to overcome herself, her choices and a psychological affliction etched under her skin.

This, retrospectively, defined the book’s basic parameters well, but did little to truly prepare me for what I was about to endure: a mind-screw. I don’t mean this in the sense of some magical or shocking plot-twist but rather in terms of my own mental journey. Not since Brave New World have I come away from a novel so unsure of myself, so full of self-questioning. This is not a bad thing.

Dodge has done an amazing job of grafting her character’s narrative onto my brain in some form of reverse literary bio-feedback. I, on the surface, share very little in common with this tattooed protagonist, and yet I continually found myself in familiar spaces inside her head. These situations may be different from those I have experienced, but each mapped to the appropriate place, keeping me inside of the story.

Tori’s perception of past and present is chief among Inked‘s poignant life observations and the most widely-relatable aspect of the novel. Through this, Dodge expertly weaves a tale of mental distortion, of fuzzy edges and false assumptions. Just as Brave New World befuddled my sense of morality in regards to the function of society, Inked has brought into question my own believed control over the world that has passed by me and through the filters whose accuracy I have never before scrutinized.

Although dealing largely with personal realities and perception, this is not Fight Club. You will find no imaginary alter egos in Inked‘s pages, but rather another version of yourself, seen through a secret window in the back of a woman’s mind. You will find your own perceptions challenged through her eyes and through her trials, coming back changed by the process.

Dodge has crafted something truly incredible by her pen, and I’m going to have this story on my brain for some time to come. Needless to say, I highly recommend this book, and that you keep an eye toward its author’s future. I think we are going to see much, much more wonderful work from her.