seattlegeekly

We are finishing up the Seattle Geekly podcast by doing one of the things we have enjoyed most: talking to authors. This week we have interviews with Peter Orullian about his first novel The Unremembered and Chris Farnsworth about The President's Vampire, the second book in his horror/spy thriller series

Plus Shannon watches her final bad movie and since this is the last episode of the podcast we'll be running down a list of other places you can go on the internet to get your geek fix.

Full show notes are up at Seattle-Geekly.com

We are still dealing with the fallout from our Important Announcement. Honestly it provoked more of a response than we were expecting. People have been very kind in supporting our decision while still being disappointed and for that we thank everyone.

A lot of people have been asking us if having another person working with us would have made a difference. The answer is that of course having another person would have helped, but it probably would have just delayed the inevitable. We actually did try and bring on a couple of guest reviewers for books and music but it really didn't work out. What it came down to was that it isn't really fair to harass people about deadlines and production when all you are offering them is the opportunity to do work for free.

In order to keep the podcast going we would really have needed a person who's full time job was being a producer; lining up interviews, coordinating events and conventions, keeping track of review material and all that. In addition having a graphic designer and a website designer on staff would have helped as well. Unfortunately none of that was really viable economically. We didn't mind putting our time into the podcast because this was our pet project but we couldn't really expect anyone else to indefinitely volunteer for the hours and hours it took to do this every week or even every two weeks.

Because of the response we've been getting we are looking in to ways to keep the Event Calendar going, we will still be twittering as Seattle Geekly, Shannon will still have her personal twitter @askageekgal and you can follow our book recommendations on GoodReads. We are also encouraging people to call our voicemail line (206)201-2352 and leave a message to be played on our final podcast on May 12.

Thanks again for all the kind words and support.

Norwescon has been the center of our Geek Year for a very long time now and this year was no exception. This week we're going to try and summarize our convention experience, just to try and give a taste of what went on over what was an amazing weekend. While we were at the convention we also had the chance to catch up with local author and geek scene icon Bruce Taylor, “Mr. Magic Realism”.

All that, plus Shannon watches a bad movie and we have a major announcement about the future of Seattle Geekly

Full show notes are up at Seattle-Geekly.com

Anyone who has been following us here at Seattle Geekly for any length of time will already know two things that are going to influence this review; first, I have been excited about the prospect of Portal 2 since I finished the first game right after it came out and second, in general I cannot stand to play multi-player FPS games, at least with people I don't know well. One of the biggest criticisms I have had of reviewers of games like the Halo series, Gears of War II and even Red Dead Redemption is that they gloss over the single player modes of these games to focus on multi-player. To be completely frank, I don't give a single crap about the muliti-player aspects of games of this nature. I want to know up front if a game has enough value for a single player to justify the price I am going to have to pay for it because chances are good that is the only way I will ever play it. Now that we have that established, let me talk about Portal 2.

The short version is that I loved it. Every aspect of the game lived up to the standards that people have come to expect from Valve. I was playing it on an approximately three year old PC (that wasn't top end when it was new) and it still ran smoothly and looked amazing. The voice acting, especially Stephen Merchant as Wheatley, was very good and the writing kept the same snarkiness and irreverence that made the original game such a standout.

The basic premise of the game hasn't changed; you get your portal gun and use it to maneuver through an increasingly difficult series of test chambers. Many of the same techniques that were used to solve the puzzles in the first game still work but the addition of new elements, repulsion and speed gels, catapulting platforms, hard light bridges and the like kept it fresh enough that it really felt like a new game rather than just a Portal expansion. If you enjoyed Portal I can't think of a single reason that you would not thoroughly enjoy Portal 2.

The question is, though, does the single player campaign by itself justify the $50 retail price and, much as I enjoyed the game, unfortunately I have to say that it does not. While the single player game is definitely longer than the original Portal, I was still able to finish it in just a couple sittings. I do highly recommend picking the game up, but if you have absolutely no intention of ever playing the co-op mode, I would wait until Portal 2 goes on sale and pick it up then. $50 is a lot to ask for ten to fifteen hours of gameplay.

For myself, in spite of my aversion to multi-player I do intend to try the co-op mode but I am going to wait until I can schedule time to play with a friend rather than risk the vagaries of random partners from the internet.

Portal 2 is available now on Steam, XBox 360 and PS3.

- A selection of some of the great geek events going on in the Greater Seattle area this week -

Kind of a quiet week this week but there are still two events that are not to be missed!


First up there is going to be an awesome night of nerdcore Friday night at 10pm at the Rendezvous/JewelBox Theater, 2322 2nd Avenue in Seattle, featuring live performances by Klopfenpop, Death*Star and Sketch of a Monster. Tickets are only $7 at the door and this is a 21 and over show. This is a great opportunity to hear some great live music but if, like us, you have lamented the fact that so many geek music shows seem to be on Sunday nights you NEED to get out to this rare Friday night event. Let the venue operators know that there is an audience for geek music!


This Satuday is, of course, EPIC GAME DAY at the AFK Tavern, 1510 41st Street in Everett. Epic Game Day is a celebration of hobby gaming, where gamers from both inside and outside the industry can mingle, play games, and enjoy each other’s company. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional game designer, industry vet, community leader, or a hobby enthusiast – Epic Game Day is full of epic win for all hobby gamers! And did we mention that it is totally free?!? Epic Game Day runs from Noon to Midnight and the schedule of games is available at EpicGameDay.com. We are definitely going to be there and Shannon is even going to be hosting a game of Talisman from 4-8pm. Don't miss it!

The big convention weekend has come and gone and, as far as I can tell, Seattle survived! Attendence numbers for Sakura-Con and Norwescon were both impressive, though on very different scales. Sakura-Con topped out at over 19,000 and Norwescon had it's largest convention ever with 3,600 attendees. We spent the whole weekend at Norwescon and had an amazing time which we will be talking about in some detail in this week's podcast!

( The Monday News is under the fold )

- A selection of some of the great geek events going on in the Greater Seattle area this week -

This weekend is all about festivals and conventions in Seattle!


Running Friday Saturday and Sunday is the first ever Seattle International Film Festival Animation Fascination Festival at the SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer Street in Seattle. SIFF Cinema will take a look back at some of the best animated shorts from the past few years, recent works from the National Film Board of Canada, the latest feature from the legendary Bill Plympton, the rarely screened Chuck Jones classic The Phantom Tollbooth, a tribute to the classic short films of Pixar, and the Seattle premiere of Academy Award winning animator Adam Elliot's Mary and Max. More details and specific show times are available at the SIFF website. Passes for the entire festival are $60 or $25 for SIFF members. Animation Fascination is co-presented by The Stranger and 2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival.


Also running Friday through Sunday is Sakrua-Con 2011 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Sakura-con is the largest anime/manga/Japanese culture convention in the Northwest and all the excellent programming you've come to expect will be back in abundance. Anime theaters, gaming, cosplay, cultural panels, dances, concerts, art contests, AMV's, industry guests, over 100,000 square feet of exhibits hall, guests of honor and more! The full program schedule is available online. Weekend passes are $60 at the door and day passes are also available.


Last but not least, this Thursday through Sunday is Norwescon 34! Norwescon is one of the largest regional Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions in the United States. While maintaining a primarily literary focus, Norwescon is large enough to provide a venue for many of the other aspects of Science Fiction and Fantasy and the interests of its fans such as anime, costuming, art, gaming, and much, much more. Norwescon features over 500 hours of panel programming, presented by more than 200 panelists, covering such diverse subjects as science fiction, fantasy, science, costuming, art, writing, genre television and movies, as well as a myriad of other topics of interest to fans. Weekend passes are $60 at the door or $55 for Northwest Science Fiction Society members. This is where we're going to be all weekend and if you want to track us down our panel schedule will be under the fold.

Many people have asked why two major conventions with a high degree of overlap between their audiences would schedule themselves to be on the same weekend. We have wondered that ourselves since we would love to be able to check out Sakura-Con but it ALWAYS conflicts with Norwescon. Long time friend-of-the-podcast DJ Wudi wondered about that as well and he actually does a very good job of explaining it.

( The Seattle Geekly panel schedule for Norwescon is under the fold )

Game of Thrones premiered on HBO last night. You don't have to worry about any spoilers here though. I can't really talk about the show since, due to my ridiculous day job schedule Monday mornings, I was not able to stay up and watch it. What I can talk about is the genre snobbery in the mainstream press reviews.

Disdain for genre fiction is certainly nothing new. The Culture Show on the BBC recently aired a special titled 'The Books We Really Read' that was so dismissive of genre fiction that it prompted a letter of protest signed by 85 science fiction, fantasy and horror authors ranging from Iain Banks to Michael Moorcock. Authors like Margaret Atwood have spent their entire careers fighting against having their work classified as "science-fiction" no doubt in some part because of the stigma attached to the label by critics. Given that, it isn't surprising that some reviewers have been pretty contemptuous of the Game of Thrones premiere.

The New York Times review is particularly bad. The reviewer praises HBO for shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood and Big Love but goes on to say that "when the network ventures away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga 'True Blood,' things start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters." So real world = good, vampires or fantasy setting = bad. Got it.

The review also criticizes Game of Thrones as being "boy fiction" to which HBO added sex and romance "as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise," an accusation so egregious that George R. R. Martin took the rare step of responding to the critic

I am not going to get into it myself, except to say

1. if I am writing "boy fiction," who are all those boys with breasts who keep turning up by the hundreds at my signings and readings?
   and
   
2. thank you, geek girls! I love you all.
   

The worst part of the review is that it fails to do any kind of actual review of the show itself. The reviewer talks about how expensive it was to produce, complains about the fantasy setting, explains how the show came to be on HBO, makes a couple of cracks about the use of invented languages, takes a swipe at D&D players and makes her laughable and vaguely sexist "boy fiction" comment all with virtually no discussion of what the show is actually about.

As I have mentioned before, in spite of the rising popularity of geekdom, the easiest way to prove your cool cred in the mass culture is still to make fun of the nerds and that is pretty much all the New York Times is doing with this review. Game of Thrones is something geeks would like, therefore it can't be any good.

I will be watching Game of Thrones at the earliest opportunity and since I am both a boy and a D&D player I anticipate enjoying it thoroughly

( The Monday News is under the fold )

Geek Music is a genre on the rise and the variety of styles under the geek music umbrella is on the increase as well. This week we explore the bredth of geek music with nerdcore MC Klopfenpop, Filk heroes Vixy and Tony and hard rockers Sci-Fried. There should be something for just about anyone!

All that plus some geek news.

Full show notes are up at Seattle-Geekly.com

As I'm sure everyone has noticed LJ has been pretty flaky recently due to the DDoS attacks which meant that I hadn't been posting updates here.

Things are still progressing as usual over at Seattle-Geekly.com and hopefully, now that it looks like things are settling down a bit over here we'll be able to get back to cross-posting.