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A215 Creative Writing Starts Soon
The next course on my Open University degree is a departure from the Business Studies focus, I'll be studing Creative Writing (course code A215). I got the course materials the other day, a big red book (affectionately known to the students of A215 as BRB); some CDs with author interviews and a study guide. Controversially amongst those on the forum there is no list of TMA questions (all the usual guidance etc is there, but the core questions that tell you what is required are missing). Theories abound on whether this is to get us to engage first, or whether they are just still re-writing the TMA questions. I guess we'll find out soon enough. The course website and tutor group forums are due to open on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to this course, for what I hope are obvious…
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Book Review – Guess Who I Pulled Last Night? by Nikki Ashton
Guess Who I Pulled Last Night? by Nikki Ashton My rating: 2 of 5 stars I picked this up cheaply on kindle because it was in the top ten sellers list and I'm trying to read a wider selection of fiction in the hope of making my own stories better by reading and observing. The story itself was interesting, and I can see a real human angle on it. There are three friends in their 30s dealing with quite different life outcomes and trying to deal with their own traumas. It's a sort of condensed soap opera of a book, and I can see why that might well attract a lot of readers looking for a bit of escapism by reading about how others have more problems than they do. The characters are reasonably well developed, and there is a…
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Book Review – Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin
Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin My rating: 4 of 5 stars A fairly easy read. Rebus is an interesting character and the story was well plotted with a less than obvious outcome. It has a realistic feeling to it and lives within the time that it was written, although much of that would still work now. I read it because it was cheap and I have always wondered if the Rebus novels were any good. I think that they are based on this one (the second of many) and I can see why they sell by the truckload. I suspect I'll be catching some more of these on my kindle. View all my reviews Related articles Ian Rankin creator of Inspector Rebus writes new book inspired by 'greatest guitarist' Ian Rankin: 'Mavericks like Rebus wouldn't join the modern police…
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On Syria
English: A volcano called Syria (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The situation in Syria has caught public attention because of the alleged use of chemical weapons (most likely Sarin) by someone. I don't usually stray into current affairs quite so much as this, these sort of situations are too raw to even think about designing games about them. However the press coverage seems to be quite off base to me, seeing this as a repeat of Iraq/Afghanistan where it appears to me to be closer to the break up of Yugoslavia, or perhaps the Rwanda genocide. Also much of my experience in trying to understand conflict can be brought to bear on this situation. (more…)
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Games on COIN
This post is prompted by an excellent post by the guys at On Violence. You should read Capturing Australia! COIN is Boring to which this was my belated comment. McCormick model of insurgency (Photo credit: Wikipedia) My apologies for coming late to this one, I’ve been on leave for a couple of weeks now and being spending time with the family. I’ve been interested in designing a counter insurgency game since the mid 1990s. The original trigger for my interest were the decolonisation conflicts of the British Empire. This wasn’t a board game, nor a computer game. The group I belong to designs face to face games for multiple participants, a bit like the sort of command post exercises those of us who’ve done some military or civil contingencies time would recognise. I never ran the decolonisation game that prompted…