SCUMM - A Review.

Hey guys.
I'd like to welcome you to the very first Plinx Book Review.
This doesn't represent a new 'direction' for the blog. It may well even be a one-off but hopefully you'll enjoy it. Anyway, let's crack on.

So the reason for this is that my buddy Edd (who was the animator behind these previously plinked gems) has done what I think we all secretly long to do and written a book. A real, pages-and-everything book!

This would have impressed me enough but it also happens to be a great book. A good, old-fashioned detective thriller set in the world of videogames! It's like he wrote it just for me.

It's called SCUMM (if you know what the significance of this is, you should really read it as you'll delight in the cavalcade of game references contained therein) and it looks like this:

Pretty neat, huh? It's the story of a detective named Richard who is trying to uncover the mystery behind a murder. It was written as part of a yearly book-writing event called NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) which means the whole book was written in a month, one chapter a day. As a result, the story unfolds at a rollicking pace, as idea after idea comes tumbling out straight from Edd's brain onto the page (but not as messy as that sounds). The characters are whisked from a crime scene, through a fancy french bar, a mansion and a dingy alleyway to a suspiciously familiar area filled with spikes and springs which just happens to be called Springyard. There's also a marvellous chapter based on a certain cel-shaded, class-based multiplayer online FPS that somehow manages to remain thematically appropriate. It's a consistently surprising book that produces smirks on every page as some obscure game or aspect of gaming culture is referenced.

So yeah, I liked it a lot and I reckon you will too. If you think it sounds like your sort of thing, please consider getting yourself a copy. It's available HERE. Edd is charging the minimum amount he can for it as he's more interested in getting people to read it than turning a profit. In fact, buy a copy before the 19th of Feb and you can get 30% off with the discount code FEBRUARYCART305GBP.

So there we have it. The first Plinx Book Review.

Happy reading!

Plinx Quickie.

The post title here has never been more appropriate. Today I am bringing you an article about the nominees for the Literary Review's 2009 bad sex in fiction prize!

There are some interesting nautical metaphors, the line "there is no mistaking that tang of fish-slime and sawdust", a whole paragraph that sounds as if it was written by primary school children and a book by the legendary Nick Cave.

It's an interesting read, and not for the faint of heart.

Enjoy!

Cut It Out.

Evening. I'd apologise for the gap in updates but I've been ill and there's no-one reading this anyway. Anyway, I'm back in fine, philanthropic fettle now and I have some primo internet content for you.

These, below, are the Book Autopsies of american artist Brian Dettmer and they are wholly remarkable. Look.





Not bad, eh? He painstakingly cuts away at books (encyclopedias or any other book with diagrams) and exposes them as if they were vital organs. Hence the name.

It's incredible, and you can find out more and see many more pictures Here. Incidentally, that links to another blog that puts the quality of my writing to shame. Sigh.

Book Worms

A slice of retro cool for you. There has been a spate of similar projects around the web recently, making mock-up covers for films-if-they-were-books and to a lesser extent games-if-they-were-books. I feel like I'm not explaining this very well. Perhaps a visual aid is in order. Here are a couple of my favourites from the 'movie' series:





and one from the games:



Pretty cool, huh?
View the complete sets here:
Films.
Games.

Oh, Good Book?

"Westerners revere the Greek legends. Versemen retell the represented events, the resplendent scenes, where, hellbent, the Greek freemen seek revenge whenever Helen, the new-wed empress, weeps."

Notice anything about that passage? Yes? No? Well, read it again and pay attention to the vowels...
Yep, they're all Es.
The passage is from a book called Eunoia (The shortest word in the English language to contain all vowels. It means 'Beautiful Thinking'.) and it is written by a man named Christian Bok. The book consists of fiction written so that each chapter only contains one vowel. There are more snippets from the book Here including examples from each of the vowels. It's quite impressive!

So long, for now!