Literary Guilty Pleasures

Everyone who reads for fun is going to have some literary guilty pleasure. The book equivalent of eating a  Big Mac with cheese, possibly with a couple of Hershey bars shoved on top of the burger. Books that we are embarrassed to admit that we read but we read them anyway. There's money to be made writing them. The Fifty Shades of Gray books are living proof of that.

Me, I have plenty of literary guilty pleasures. However, in my case, they tend to fall less under the salacious and more under the embarrassingly innocent and simple. Don't get me wrong. Children's books don't have to be poor literature. I am not ashamed to admit I enjoyed the Harry Potter books or the Chronicles of Narnia or quite a few other books that are primarily aimed at kids.

But, let's me honest. There are also some books that are the literary equivalent of eating styrofoam.

Okay, let me start off my most embarrassing literary guilty pleasure. I like reading books that were written by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In particular, the ones that are public domain and I can download for free from sites like Project Gutenberg.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was one of the first book mills for children's books. They turned out kiddy books by the dozen for most of the twentieth century. According to Wikipedia, it wasn't a publishing house and they tried very hard to make sure that the public didn't know that all of these books were orchestrated by a single editorial pool.

TVTropes describes the books as extruded literary product and that's a pretty good description. The Stratemeyer books were formulaic to a T. The characters are as flat as boards and about as wooden. Forget about character development or theme. These books are pure plot and you can see every twist coming a mile away.

In fact, back in the day, the moral authorities disapproved of the various series. At first, this made me laugh, since every protagonist could be a proud member of the goody two shoes guild. Then I realized that the moral authorities weren't afraid the books would turn kids into thugs and dope fiends. They didn't like them since they viewed the books as garbage.

Perhaps the most shameful thing for modern readers is the heavy ethnic stereo typing and racism. You can only push the excuse "standards were different back then" so far when everyone who isn't a white American (preferably from a good family and male) seems to have escaped from a third-rate music hall.

Okay, so I have told you why the Stratemeyer Syndicate books count as something to feel guilty about. You may be wondering how I manage to enjoy the stuff.

Well, the Stratemeyer Syndicate books are pure boy's own adventure. If you are looking for escapist fluff from a century ago, empty calories that will distract you and let you shut your brain off for a while, that's certainly something to read. And, if you are looking for boy's own, the syndicate's books are nothing if not consistent.

Like I said, guilty pleasure. And, to be honest, since the birth of my son and becoming a stay-at-home daddy, they haven't had the same allure. That's not something I need to escape from.

There are a couple of long lasting and, dare I say, decent series that have come out of the syndicate. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew came out from them and definitely have a firm place in pop culture.

But those properties are ones that are well protected and not something you get to find on Projected Gutenberg. Still, got to give credit where credit is due.

Exploring the Alphabet with Ella Minnow Pea

I’m one of those parents who sings all the time to their baby. If he actually likes it when he’s old enough to tell me, I’ll keep on doing it. And one of the songs that I sing a lot is the alphabet song, the one that shares the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Singing the phrase L-M-N-O-P over and over again made me remember the book Ella Minnow Pea, which I read when it came out back in 2001. I really hadn’t thought about it much since then but the song made me dig it out and reread it.

Ella Minnow Pea is about a tiny and fictional island nation that reveres the sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,” allegedly written by one of their own. When their monument to that sentence and that man begins to lose letters, it becomes illegal to use those letters in writing or in speech.

I cannot help but be reminded of James Thurber’s The Wonderful O, which features a pirate who makes the letter ‘O’ illegal on an island he takes over (“Alas. Woe is we) Ella Minnow Pea takes that idea and cranks it up to eleven.

Rereading it, I can’t help but feel that Ella Minnow Pea is a book that suffers from a split personality. On the one hand, the innate conceit of the book, the idea of banning letters, is a whimsical one that brings Edward Lear or Lewis Carol to mind. It’s silly and fun.

On the other hand, breaking that ban is punishable by either exile or death. The island council becomes an oppressive, fascist government that kills people and confiscates the land of the people it exiles. That’s serious stuff.

One of the ways that the novel manages to balance these two sides is that is told entirely through letters. Among other things, that helps tone down how nasty the government has to be. Since letters are censored by the council, the writers have to hold back from detailed descriptions.

Ultimately, I think that Ella Minnow Pea is a flawed book that is saved by its premise. The sheer concept on letters getting banned and the quest for an alternate sentence that uses the entire alphabet makes the book worth reading.

Yes, I play board games

I am a gamer.

When I say that, I don't mean that I play video games, although my wife is a Nintendo girl who has introduced me to the wonders of Mario Kart, Kirby and Professor Layton. Nor do I mean I'm a role player, although I have many years if D&D under my belt and still love a good RPG session.

Okay, now that I think about it, I pretty much love games in general. But what I'm talking about here is playing board games.

In particular, I'm talking about the modern board games that developed out of European family games. They get labeled Euros and German Games and Ameritrash and Designer Games. In general, though we are talking about games aimed at an older audience and have an emphasis on tactics and strategy.

Although, seriously, how did board games get a reputation for being just for kiddies? Card games from Poker to Rummy to Bridge are all considered adult fair, suitable for gambling high stakes. Games like Chess and Go are considered erudite and intellectual. Tons of people of all ages play Scrabble. As for war games, those are clearly aimed at an older audience, seeing as how half of them have rulebooks that read like engineering handbooks.

Really, unless we are talking about Hungry Hungry Hippos and the like, I don't see why games get a kiddy label. (I'm looking forward to when my son is old enough to play Hungry Hungry Hippos, by the way) Maybe it's because kiddy games are  where the marketing is really aimed at.

At any rate, I had been planning on trying to describe what defines a Designer Game a Designer Game, other than having the designers name on the box. Ten years ago, I would have said a two-hour play time, low conflict, no player elimination and simple rules that allow for complex decisions.

However, over the last few years, I don't think it's so cut-and-dried anymore. Game designers seem to be constantly looking for next big innovation. The word of gaming is a constantly evolving one, which is part of what makes it so fascinating.

I came to board games from role playing games. Role playing games, at least for me at that time, meant being committed to a long, ongoing campaign on a rigid schedule. More than that, even though everyone was supposed to be on the same team, there was constant jockeying for the spotlight in most of the games I was in. (And, often, I was as guilty as the next person of trying to hog the attention)

Board games, on the other hand, lent themselves to a casual, more friendly environment. Maybe the fact that we were openly competing helped folks relax. And you didn’t need a rigid schedule and have the same people every time. Yeah, I know for some people, that’s the draw but as I got further and further into my thirties, trying to keep up with a Dungeons and Dragons campaign felt more like a chore than recreation.

Just like folks who play lots of video games will tell you it helps develop hand-eye coordination and reflexes, I’ll tell you that board games help develop analytical skills, pattern recognition, negotiation, and system management. Sad to say, if you play enough economic games, the math practice will help you balance your check book. In short, I’d say that board games have enhanced my life as well as entertained me.

At the moment, I’m not playing many board games. It’s a side effect of being the dad to a son who’s less than a year old and, honestly, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. But I am pretty sure board games will be a part of my life, one way or another, for good.

Noir and Fantasy as I read another Garrett, P.I. book

At the moment, I’m reading Dread Brass Shadows, the fifth book in Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I. series. It’s a fairly quick read so I might actually have it done by the time this blog entry goes up.

I first tried to read the series when Bitter Gold Hearts came out in 1988, thinking it was the first book in the series since the other two books had silver and copper in the titles and gold had to come first, right? (Wrong, by the way. Sweet Silver Blues is the first book)

At the time, the book didn’t make much sense to me. Garrett was a normal guy doing detective work in a kitchen sink fantasy universe. He was tough and clever but he didn’t have any kind of magical or supernatural powers. Heck, at least Lord Darcy had Master Sean O Lochlainn to handle the magic. I couldn’t figure out the draw and the plot was grim, grim, grim.

You see, at the time, I hadn’t really read any hardboiled detective stories. I was more familiar with the Sherlock Holmes puzzle type mysteries, where all the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The hardboiled style, where the detective had to sift through motives without any clues and might be an anti-hero as rough as the crooks, that wasn’t something I was familiar with.

About three or four years ago, I decided to give Garrett another chance and read Sweet Silver Blues. By’

[ then, I’d read Hammett and Chandler and Spillane. More importantly, I’d read Rex Stout and John D. McDonald.

This time, everything clicked and I realized that the series was brilliant and I’d just been too dumb to see it.

The Garrett books are, in many ways, an open homage to Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories and McDonald’s Travis McGee books. Both series are important ones to the mystery genre and, more importantly, a whole lot of fun.

For all intents and purposes, Garrett is Travis McGee playing Archie Goodwin’s part to an undead litch playing the part of Nero Wolfe. All in a fantasy kitchen sink. It’s crazy but in a really awesome way.

You don’t need to have read either Nero Wolfe or Travis McGee to appreciate or enjoy Garrett, P.I. But, what you do need to go into Garrett knowing (and which I didn’t the first time) is that it is a mystery first and a fantasy second. Garrett is dressed like Humphrey Bogart on the covers (and never in the actual books :D) and that is honest advertising.

In fact, I sometimes wonder why the series is actually set in a fantasy world, other than grabbing readers like me :P

Well, while magic is generally not part of a puzzle, like the Lord Darcy stories, it is often a good motive. Having a whole bunch of fantasy races lets racism get explored to a whole new level. Being in a fantasy setting lets Cook make a ghost story a real ghost story and explore other horror elements.

But, perhaps most importantly, it lets the stories be set in a world that has had a war going on for generations. All the despair and cynicism that wartime brings ramped up to eleven. Now that is a serious noir feel.

I am not a rabid fan of the series. If I was, I’d have read all the books by now :P But I do know that the books are good reads and fun reads and every time I go back to Garrett’s dark, nasty world, I’ll have a good time.

Getting Started on this Blog

By just about any measuring stick you care to use, my hobbies and interests put me solidly in the geek community. I love science fiction and fantasy and super heroes. Gaming is one of my passions. Heck, back when I was part of a dance troupe, it was a Morris Dancing side.

But, having said that, I realize that my geek nature is kind of old school. I read a lot more books than I watch movies or television shows. I pretty much play tabletop games and have hardly any experience with video games. To be honest, a lot of my recreational use of computers and tablets is to use them to read books or play board games on electronic forums.

Now, I’m not some sort of hater. I have nothing against movies or video games. I think they are really amazing mediums. Every year that passes, I feel like I am living in a work of science fiction and the future really is turning out to be a great place. However, my geek nature is rooted in paper and cardboard.

The fact that I’m getting pretty close to forty might have something to do with it. I’m not saying “Get off my hobby, you rotten kids!” But I grew up with books and dice and such. I recently became a dad and I have a feeling that my son’s world will be a whole lot more digital than mine. (And I’m looking forward to watching him explore it. Probably learn quite a bit from him, I will)

So I’ve decided to start this blog to write about my hobbies. To talk about the books I’m reading and enjoying, the role playing game experiences I’ve had and the board games that I’ve enjoyed. It’s been a whole lot of fun and I figure it will keep on being fun and I want to share it.