Natter

From the Tokyo Fantasy Show as reported at Pink Tentacle, images of a post-apocalyptic, empty Tokyo. My favorite is Shinjuku — an area of Tokyo that I visited when I went there several years ago, which is amazingly sleazy and yet also surreal. Later I learned that Shinjuku is considered the “spiritual” center of Tokyo, i.e., the most likely part of the city to suffer some kind of supernatural/magical apocalypse. And this is what it might look like: Just a thought — how come the apocalypse is considered science fiction? I mean, what, people think magic can’t blow stuff up

Now that the bliss of completing Book 2 has worn off, I’m suffering serious existential angst. Part of me wants to immediately start Book 3; part of me wants to immediately revise Book 2; and part of me wants a vacation. For the moment I’m listening to the lattermost part of me, since that’s the part that’s making the most sense — after cranking out 100+ thousand words, anyone would need a vacation. It cleanses the mental palate, so to speak. However, since I’m planning to attend a number of conventions this year, I don’t feel quite justified in gallivanting

1. Writing! Have passed the 50K mark on BrightGod (halfway done!) and also penned a 7K-word short story. The short story’s current title (subject to change, ’cause that’s what I do) is “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beside the Still Waters”, and it’s inspired by a documentary I recently saw: Trouble the Water, about Hurricane Katrina’s effect on New Orleans — during the storm and years after — through the eyes of its poorest residents. Some of ya’ll know I went to college in New Orleans, so this is something I care about a lot. 2. Apartment

First thing this morning I opened my inbox to find this, courtesy of my friend K. (Worksafe, but sanity-safe? I’m not so sure.) She sent it to me because I’ve been reminiscing on the game Final Fantasy 7, which really was phenomenally well-made. It had some flaws, of course — Lego-people character design, and speaking of character design, Barrett, anyone? (groan) — but it was more beautiful, more emotionally gripping, and more memorable than many fantasy novels I’ve read. What is it doing right that so many novels get wrong? It can’t be just graphics. (Though I’ll admit Nobuo Uematsu’s