Category: Writing (Page 5 of 6)

Beijing in 40 Hours

Imagine marching down this in a badly fitting uniform with 35 kilos of gear on your back.

Imagine marching down this in a badly fitting uniform with 35 kilos of gear on your back.

The flight to Beijing was supposed to leave at 7:45 Friday evening, but we ended up being delayed a couple hours. On the one hand, we knew we were going to be landing late and that meant getting to the hostel late, but on the other hand Shenzhen has what may be the nicest looking airport in the world. It’s new and modern and has more in common with an upscale shopping mall than it does a place like La Guardia or Philly. Including the overpriced food, but the free wifi made up for it.

This is a vent, and they are all over the airport. I think Shenzhen missed a great opportunity, though. They could have made them giant red capped mushrooms with white spots.

This is a vent, and they are all over the airport. I think Shenzhen missed a great opportunity, though. They could have made them giant red capped mushrooms with white spots.

We touched down in Beijing around 1:00 and the first thing I noticed was the cloud of orange smog. It was so thick I could barely see the planes 200 meters away. Then the smell hit me. An acrid, industrial stench, part jet fuel and part diesel fumes. The wretched stink of it snaked its fingers into my nose and into my lungs, and I was sure I would be breathing fire for two days. American cities have smog that wears tacky pants and makes you mutter about kids these days. Beijing has smog that doubles you over with a fist to the gut, takes your lunch money and leaves you with a wedgie.

The front door of the Lucky Family Hostel. The three lanterns light up at night, which is highly useful considering the hostel is located down a loooong (dark ((narrow)) alley.

The front door of the Lucky Family Hostel. The three lanterns light up at night, which is highly useful considering the hostel is located down a loooong (dark ((narrow)) alley.

Getting from the airport to the hostel turned into a bit of an adventure. The metro was closed, so our plan of taking the train to the subway and the subway to the hostel wasn’t going to work. And there were no cabs. First we tried getting a ride from one of the “private taxis.” The guy assured us he could fit five people, so away we went, following him through a parking garage and out to the street on the other side. It was dubious enough that we were going to let a tout take us, but when the lights flashed on his Maxima, we collectively decided to find something else. This turned out to be a really nice van with an older, grumpy Chinese guy driving. It wasn’t cheap (well, it was super cheap, but not by Chinese standards), but it took us to the hostel.

The hostel had beer on tap, and it was totally decent for what amounted to just over a dollar a pint.

The hostel had beer on tap, and it was totally decent for what amounted to just over a dollar a pint.

The hostel. I had never stayed at a hostel before. It’s located down the sketchiest alley in Beijing. Actually, it’s probably a very pleasant alley, but I come from a part of America where we don’t do alleys so much as we do giant fields full of cows. The alley was narrow and dark with buildings on either side that were older than my country. I have never seen so many rusty bicycles and scooters. The hostel itself was clean and simple and smelled like Shenzhen. Also it was cheap. And full of nice people. On the balance it wasn’t bad. Definitely an experience worth having, though not one I’m in a hurry to repeat. (Ten years ago sure, but I’m growing softer as I grow older.)

75 degrees, sunny, light breeze and no noticeable pollution. For two days Beijing was SoCal.

75 degrees, sunny, light breeze and no noticeable pollution. For two days Beijing was SoCal.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and I slept right through it until about 10:00 since we didn’t reach the hostel until around 3:00 AM. By the time I did go outside, it was still bright, still clear and if I hadn’t known I was in Beijing, I wouldn’t have believed it. There are only so many perfect spring days that a person gets to experience in a lifetime. A few dozen, maybe. The kind of day where you don’t have responsibility, the weather is clear and 75 degrees and the whole world is just a short hike over the nearest hill. The weather for my two days in Beijing qualifies as two of the most gorgeous days in the history of days. And there’s a lot of history in Beijing.

I know because I saw some of it.

There are tubes under the water, and the fish tend to swim over them. I'm not sure if the tubes are for oxygen or food or are just that interesting.

There are tubes under the water, and the fish tend to swim over them. I’m not sure if the tubes are for oxygen or food or are just that interesting.

Our plan was originally to go to the Great Wall on Saturday. It involved taking the subway to a train station and an overland train to the wall. It was already pushing noon when we made it to the station, and we realized (with the help of some friendly Americans we ran into), that we weren’t going to have much time at the wall by the time we got there. Their advice was to go to the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City instead.

And so we did.

Head on shot of the central area of the Summer Palace.

Head on shot of the central area of the Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace is a combination of nature garden, Buddhist temple, and tourist trap. We did the tourist part first, but quickly found the garden part. Hilly trails wander amongst the blooming cherry trees, and a lake sprawls behind it all. It’s the kind of place a body could go to spend a day and wake up a hundred years later. Excuse me, this is China. A thousand years later.

Architectural detail at the Summer Palace. This is on the back side of the Hall of Buddhist Tenets.

Architectural detail at the Summer Palace. This is on the back side of the Hall of Buddhist Tenets.

Shenzhen is undeniably Chinese, but it doesn’t have the sense of history that Beijing does. Shenzhen has only been around for about 30 years as a real city, but every building and every street and every alley in Beijing carries a weight of history upon its back. The demographics in Beijing skew much older than Shenzhen, and even the bicycles look like they’ve been around for 50 or 60 years. The saying is that America has space, but Europe has history. Europe has nothing on China. The English and the Germans were just tribesmen throwing rocks at the Italians while the Chinese were building a civilization.

No tanks or giant rubber ducks, fortunately.

No tanks or giant rubber ducks, fortunately.

We made it to the Forbidden City around 4:00, and learned that it closed at 3:30. Because of course you close your cultural attractions in the middle of the afternoon. I’m shaking my fist at you, China. I know you’re old and have an early bed time, but this is ridiculous. On the plus side, Tiananmen Square was magnificent. I saw the giant picture of Mao, but the whole time all I could think of was the image of the rubber ducky stopping tanks in the middle of the square.

Government building just off Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Government building just off Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Tiananmen and the area around the Forbidden City is chock full of people selling things. Hats and postcards and green cans of Tsingtao. I’m not very good at bargaining with vendors. My idea of shopping is to either order it online (after hours of careful research) or let my wife buy it for me. So when the little old lady told me 30 yuan for a snazzy green army hat, I did the quick math and decided it was worth five bucks. No big deal. A few minutes (and a few vendors) later, one of my American coworkers starts negotiating with a vendor. The bastard got his hat for 15 yuan. And then the other American guy got one, too. Two hats for the price of my one! I’m still bitter. That’s two whole dollars and fifty cents I’ll never get back.

Look delicious, don't they? And yes, those are spiders, scorpions and centipedes, all on a stick.

Look delicious, don’t they? And yes, those are spiders, scorpions and centipedes, all on a stick.

We wandered past Wangfujing (I think; we literally just wandered past it) and saw the stalls full of scorpions and spiders and centipedes. No one was brave enough to try them, though I was kind of tempted by the octopus. I’ve had grilled octopus in NYC and it was heavenly, but something about trying it from a random vendor in Beijing made me hold off. Well, that and the Americans at the train station telling us that when they’ve had food there it’s made them sick. (Thanks again random Americans! Even if you are Cubs fans.)

I've had grilled octopus before, and it was totally delicious, so I seriously considered having one of these, but I wimped out. With two days in town, I didn't want to risk spending one of them with stomach issues.

I’ve had grilled octopus before, and it was totally delicious, so I seriously considered having one of these, but I wimped out. With two days in town, I didn’t want to risk spending one of them with stomach issues.

Dinner was at Da Dong, the same place Michelle Obama ate a week before us. And it was good. Amazingly good. So good that all other duck is forever ruined for me. Thanks, Obama!

The Mutianyu Great Wall. Somewhere around tower 8 or 9.

The Mutianyu Great Wall. Somewhere around tower 8 or 9.

And then there was Sunday. And Sunday was Mutianyu. (Following in First Lady Obama’s footsteps again.) The Great Wall of China. More like the Great Staircase of China. I don’t know how the other sections of the wall are, but Mutianyu is in the mountains. Big, jagged peaks. And the wall just climbs right up them. The cherry trees were in bloom, and the air was clear and crisp and cool. We took the cable car to the top and a giant freaking toboggan back down. (Seriously. A toboggan. I even fell out and skinned my knee like a kid.)

An offshoot of the Mutianyu Great Wall at tower 12.

An offshoot of the Mutianyu Great Wall at tower 12.

The wall is worth seeing. Go once. I’m not sure there are words for it. It’s long and it’s steep and it’s a testament to the willpower of a civilization to not just build it, but to keep rebuilding it over the centuries. Stone upon stone, kilometer upon kilometer.
It reminds me of Times Square more than anything. Just jaw dropping. There only a few places I’ve been that have just left me in awe, and standing at the top of a guard tower on top of a mountain and seeing the wall snaking away into the distance is definitely one of them.

Mutianyu cherry blossoms, taken from just below tower 4.

Mutianyu cherry blossoms, taken from just below tower 4.

I’m 1500 words into this and I feel like I’ve spent longer typing it than I actually spent in Beijing. China is a different world, and Beijing is so very different than Shenzhen. One of the folks I met at the hostel told me that he’s been here a year and a half, and he felt like it took a year to really get a feel for the country. I can believe it, though I wonder what he’d say a decade from now.

Taken from just outside tower 2, Mutianyu Great Wall.

Taken from just outside tower 2, Mutianyu Great Wall.

The stairs wouldn't be so bad if they weren't SO steep and SO uneven. But they are. And this is the restored portion.

The stairs wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t SO steep and SO uneven. But they are. And this is the restored portion.

Taken from the window at tower 1, Mutianyu Great Wall.

Taken from the window at tower 1, Mutianyu Great Wall.

Mutianyu features both restored and unrestored portion of the Great Wall. The unrestored portions are obvious once you see them. The wall is crumbling and overgrown, but still passable if you don't mind a hike.

Mutianyu features both restored and unrestored portion of the Great Wall. The unrestored portions are obvious once you see them. The wall is crumbling and overgrown, but still passable if you don’t mind a hike.

Jet Lag. Or “I know why business travelers look like zombies”

It’s about a 16 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, and I left Chicago around 3:00 PM on a Thursday and landed in Hong Kong at 8:00 PM local time on a Friday. (7:00 AM Chicago time.) I dozed for a few hours on the plane, but it was a very restless sleep. Economy seats on Cathay Pacific’s 777 were similar to the economy seats on the US domestic 737s that the major airlines fly everywhere, i.e. they’re cramped at the hips and feet, and they don’t recline well.

After landing in Hong Kong, I traveled to Shenzen and managed to get to bed around midnight and slept for another four and a half hours with the help of 5mg of melatonin. Saturday was a long, fatigued day, and while I desperately wanted to take a nap in the afternoon, I forced myself to stay up until about 9:00 PM. Five milligrams of melatonin and I was able to sleep pretty soundly until about 5:30 AM Sunday. The jet lag hit HARD on Sunday, but again I stayed up all day, including a couple hours of (admittedly light) soccer with the other Americans here. Ten milligrams of melatonin Sunday night saw me drop like a sauce covered dumpling and sleep through from around 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM.

In the end, it took until about Wednesday to feel fully adjusted, but I was able to go out and do some shopping and eating the day after I landed, and play soccer two days later. I haven’t needed any melatonin since then, and I’m going to bed around 11:00 and getting up around 6:30, pretty much like I do at home.

Food Pics

I’ve been asked to provide some pictures and commentary on daily life in the city, but unfortunately my daily life so far has been work and food with a little time for writing and a little more time for calling home. It looks like I’ll have some time to explore this weekend, but until I do, here’s more food.

Wrapped tea cup, soup tureen and spoon, and saucer

Many of the restaurants here have the dishes shrink wrapped in plastic when you arrive. My Chinese coworkers explained that you take a small cup of hot tea, swish it around in all the dishes and pour the tea into a provided bowl. This helps to sterilize everything.

Menu cover

This restaurant is one of my coworker’s favorites in the area. It’s a more northern-style place and gives some contrast to the local style.

Some random pages from the Antianman menu

Some random pages from the Antianman menu

The pork fillet is served with very thin crepes and it's eaten like a taco. So far it's the closest thing to Mexican food that I've encountered.

The pork fillet is served with very thin crepes and it’s eaten like a taco. So far it’s the closest thing to Mexican food that I’ve encountered.

This is one of the best dishes I've had yet. Potato, green peppers, eggplant and a light sauce to tie it all together. I never realized how good eggplant could be until I came to China.

This is one of the best dishes I’ve had yet. Potato, green peppers, eggplant and a light sauce to tie it all together. I never realized how good eggplant could be until I came to China.

Pork fillet on top, cauliflower on the bottom. The cauliflower here is amazing. Or maybe the sauces are amazing. Either way, I really enjoy it and will have to learn how to make it once I get home. The cauliflower dish also has red peppers, green onions, garlic and the amazing sauce.

Pork fillet on top, cauliflower on the bottom. The cauliflower here is amazing. Or maybe the sauces are amazing. Either way, I really enjoy it and will have to learn how to make it once I get home. The cauliflower dish also has red peppers, green onions, garlic and the amazing sauce.

It tasted better than it looked. I don't know what it's called, but I dubbed it "eggy noodles." The noodles are pretty much a sheet of dough mixed with egg and a little bok choi tossed in for color. The sauce is reduced mushrooms, oil and "stuff."

It tasted better than it looked. I don’t know what it’s called, but I dubbed it “eggy noodles.” The noodles are pretty much a sheet of dough mixed with egg and a little bok choi tossed in for color. The sauce is reduced mushrooms, oil and “stuff.”

Most of the orange juice I've seen here is Minute Maid. And it's only about 20% juice, but still has a good amount of pulp. I'm not a fan. I did have some fresh squeezed orange juice last weekend, but I literally watched as the person used a levered juice to squeeze a few oranges and pour my juice into a plastic bottle.

Most of the orange juice I’ve seen here is Minute Maid. And it’s only about 20% juice, but still has a good amount of pulp. I’m not a fan. I did have some fresh squeezed orange juice last weekend, but I literally watched as the person used a levered juice to squeeze a few oranges and pour my juice into a plastic bottle.

Keep in mind that I generally have no idea what things are called. Most of the menus here have pictures, so we just point to what looks good and hope for the best. It works out pretty much every time.  From top to bottom: beef, onion, green onion, peppers. Those little red peppers can sneak up on you. A couple of folks at dinner had to call over the waiter and order a bing shui (cold water, usually bottled). Middle: eggplant, green onions, red peppers. This was a thing one of the guys just pointed to on the menu and hoped would be good. The eggplant is lightly friend, and it had a little crisp on the outside and melt in your mouth goodness on the inside. One of the best dishes I've had so far. Bottom: cauliflower, green onion, garlic and peppers. There's no cauliflower like Chinese cauliflower. The crunch mixed with the spiciness makes the tongue dance.

This is from dinner last night at a local place down the street from the hotel. Keep in mind that I generally have no idea what things are called. Most of the menus here have pictures, so we just point to what looks good and hope for the best. It works out pretty much every time.
From top to bottom: beef, onion, green onion, peppers. Those little red peppers can sneak up on you. A couple of folks at dinner had to call over the waiter and order a bing shui (cold water, usually bottled).
Middle: eggplant, green onions, red peppers. This was a thing one of the guys just pointed to on the menu and hoped would be good. The eggplant is lightly friend, and it had a little crisp on the outside and melt in your mouth goodness on the inside. One of the best dishes I’ve had so far.
Bottom: cauliflower, green onion, garlic and peppers. There’s no cauliflower like Chinese cauliflower. The crunch mixed with the spiciness makes the tongue dance.

The Larry Special

One of the first things I noticed when I met the Chinese team at work was that they all go by American names. It seemed unlikely that folks born and raised in China to Chinese parents with Mandarin as a first language and English as a second language would be named things like Larry or John, and after talking to the team over lunch, they explained that their English names are chosen based on translations of their Chinese name or a nickname from college or a character in a movie or—in my favorite case—on a powerful weapon from a video game. One of my American coworkers made the comment that if he had that option, he’d just go by BFG9000. It seems to me that it would be more appropriate that the American folks go by Chinese names while we’re in China, but that’s just not how it works here. If I get to pick a name, I’m going to find something nice and simple and humble. Anyone know how to say “Super Ninja Software Master” in Mandarin?

Restaurant with sign in Mandarin

The front of the AJU Hakka Restaurant, a place down the street from the office

The day after I first arrived the American folks that were already here took me out to lunch. Somewhere along the way one of them explained that in the first two weeks he was in China he lost about 10 pounds while he learned how to use chopsticks, where the good places to eat were, and what kinds of things he liked. So far I am having none of those problems, and certainly not *losing* 10 pounds. I think I just ate four pounds of noodles at dinner, and that was after a smorgasbord at lunch. We went to the park on Sunday and played soccer for a couple hours, and I’m going to have to put in a few more shifts on the pitch if I want to go home without finding the 10 pounds the other guys lost.

Fresh dumplings in a to go bag

Ten dumplings in one plastic bag. Delicious.

Aside: There were three of us on the soccer pitch Sunday. We walked down to Shenzhen Stadium and “asked” (it may or may not have involved kicking gestures) a helpful policeman where the soccer pitches were. He pointed us around to the back of the stadium, so off we went (right through the middle of the Shenzhen International Car Show, because why wouldn’t you have a car show in the parking lot of a soccer stadium?) When we found the practice pitches, we also found a couple dozen Chinese kids having soccer practice. There were a couple empty pitches, so we slipped around the edge and started kicking a ball around, no big deal. Every time we mishit a ball (often), and someone went to retrieve it, the little heads on the pitch turned to follow us with wide eyes. It’s a very strange experience for me as a white guy that lives in the Midwest to draw so many “you don’t belong here stares.” Strange and humbling.

Detailed picture of breakfast dumpling filling

A closeup shot of the inside of the breakfast dumplings. I don’t know really want to know what’s in there.

The food here is outstanding. The last two days have included dumplings for breakfast, a feast of a dozen dishes for lunch today, a bowl of beef noodle soup for dinner tonight, and finally (finally!) some actual chocolate from a little bakery down the street for dessert. (As we left the bakery they were getting their eggs delivered. Two milk crates FULL of gorgeous brown eggs.) I’ve now been to three group dinners where we ordered a number of different dishes and sampled from each, and I’ve been able to sample and enjoy plenty of new things. The only negative is that I don’t actually know what anything is called, so I have no idea how to order again. My favorites have included a braised pork belly; roasted goose; a seafood bowl that had about four heads (not cloves, heads) of garlic mixed in with the fish, squid, onions and peppers; and the aforementioned piece of chocolate cake with raspberry filling.

Mandarin menu

The Larry Special is the fourth item down.

One of my other favorite dishes is something the American folks call “The Larry Special.” We went to lunch at a little place near the office and found a table near the back. The menu was on the table, and it had items ranging from 25 yuan on down. The leader of our merry band pointed to the menu and held up four fingers. After some pointing and some smiling and saying the word “four” a few times we had ordered four of the fourth item on the menu. The Larry Special. It came out on a sizzling, steaming cast iron plate. A healthy mound of rice dominated the middle, but I could barely see the rice for all the onion and vegetables and gravy and beef that surrounded and covered it. The Chinese are big on mixing textures, but this thing had it all. Tons of flavor from the beef and peppers and anise. Lots of texture from the rice and the vegetables and onion. The Larry Special was a win.

Beef skillet dish

The Larry Special has rice, green onion, garlic, sliced onion, mystery vegetable, pepper and anise. And probably other stuff, too.

As we were eating, they explained that they had come to the restaurant with one of the Chinese guys from work, and he had ordered that item. As soon as they saw it, they wanted it, too, and once they had it they loved it. Thus we trek to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese joint, point to the Mandarin menu, and confidently inform the proprietor that we want the “Larry Special.”

(All names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Welcome to Shenzhen

As I write this it is Sunday in Shenzhen, and I’m still battling with jet lag. Went to bed last night at around 10:00 PM local time, but woke up around 2:00 for half an hour, then back to sleep until 5:00. It’s difficult to get any writing done when my body can’t figure whether it wants to sleep or be awake. Everyone tells me to avoid naps and to force myself to go to bed at a normal time. I’m trying, but by noon I’m dragging like a plow horse.

I’m on the 6th floor of my hotel, and the windows hardly block the sounds of the street below. At first I thought that the birds in China were both extremely loud and extremely persistent, even in the dark, but I learned yesterday that what I thought were birds were actually scooter alarms. Many of the scooters have proximity alarms and they chirp at passersby just for walking near them. Presumably if you were to try absconding with said scooter, the alarm would wail even louder.

street with cars in the foreground, old and new highrises in the background

Intersection near my hotel in Shenzhen. Old and new development side by side.

I’m in the Futian part of the city, and it reminds me of being in New York City in Queens. Many of the buildings are in the six to 10 story range and storefronts occupy the ground floor adjacent to the wide sidewalks. There’s a certain city odor that’s more pronounced here than in New York. Eau de toilette? Or perhaps Eau de Urine. One of the tricks I’ve learned is to not flush the toilet while the sink is unstopped. I think they handle black and gray drain plumbing differently here.

Apartment building with laundry and air conditioners and detritus.

This is an average apartment building in the Futian district.

The other major smell is the food. It more than makes up for the city odor. I’ve eaten a few meals at local places, though I have yet to have actual local food. My coworkers that are more familiar with the area have been making the restaurant suggestions, so on Saturday we had Chinese food from a place that makes food from the northern part of the country. The place makes a salad that has bean sprouts, julienned red and green bell peppers, and some kind of ginger sauce. It has this amazing crunch with a blast of sweet and spicy and sour; I will be returning there soon. We followed that up with dinner from a Korean BBQ place and lunch today from a chain that I think is the Chinese version of Qdoba, but instead of a burrito you get a bowl of soup and noodles. Even if my food hasn’t been locally authentic, it’s been quite good, and I’m looking forward to trying more.

Women standing in Walmart, waiting on customers to assist

Walmart in China has people on most aisles that help with the products on that aisle.

We made a trip to one of the local stores yesterday. It turns out that the “local” store is actually a Walmart. It’s just down the street from the McDonalds, in fact. It was a lesson in global trade: America exports stores; China exports goods. The customer service here is very different. There are people on many of the aisles to assist customers. The Dove representative helped us pick out some body wash. A kind lady in the liquor department provided us with complimentary bottle openers. I’m not sure what the folks on the baby food aisle do, but I’m told they ensure that people aren’t buying formula in bulk.

Today some coworkers and I made a trip to a tailor to get sized for a suit. That involved a quick cab ride to Luohu, a shopping area with a massive train station beside it. The tailor is in a five story mall, and as I walked there I met my first tout. These are folks that stand in front of businesses and try to get you to come inside to buy goods. Or they stand in the middle of a giant concrete concourse and try to sell you watches from a paper flyer. There are touts in New York, but they’re nowhere near as aggressive as they are here. One guy followed us a quarter mile trying to sell watches. Once we were in the mall, another lady followed us up a couple floors. In between these two folks were another half dozen that were less persistent. I assume they must be making money doing this or they wouldn’t expend so much effort, but I don’t understand how.

The language barrier is immense. Not only can I not speak the language at all (shame on me), but I can’t read it, either. The street signs have recognizable letters, but most everything other than a few brand names is in Mandarin. I now have more sympathy for my pre-schooler back home that’s working hard on reading. An amazing amount of communication can be accomplished by pointing, however, and I’ve become an expert pointer. My conversations all consist of ni hao(hello), some pointing, handing over some cash, and xie xie (thank you) to finish. The other folks here have also mastered “bing shui” for ice water, though we mangle it horribly and half the time the folks at the restaurants need hand gestures to understand what we want. It really puts into perspective how terrible we are.

Overall, it’s been exciting and exhausting, and I’m only the second full day. The coming days are going to be busy with work, and next weekend we’re planning a trip to Hong Kong. I plan to stay busy enough to keep the homesickness at bay, at least for a while.

2014 Reading

January was a lousy month for writing. I wrote a short story for the William Ledbetter contest, and that’s it. I started two novels, and while I do want to finish them both, they won’t get finished with the plot or characters I had mind. C’est la vie.

On the other hand, January was a great month for reading.

Non-fiction
War – Sebastian Junger
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story – Jeffrey Schechter
Wired for Story – Lisa Cron

Novels
Big Red’s Daughter – John McPartland
Scrapyard Ship – Mark Wayne McGinnis
On Basilisk Station – David Weber
Terms of Enlistment – Marko Kloos
Armor – John Steakley
Old Man’s War – John Scalzi
Redshirts – John Scalzi
Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
Sand – Hugh Howey (incomplete)

Short Fiction
Clockwork Soldier – Ken Liu
The Wrong Foot – Stephanie Burgis
Pastry Run – Nancy Fulda
Cannibal – Chuck Palahniuk
The Jackal’s Wedding – Vajra Chandrasekera
That Undiscovered Country – Nancy Fulda
The Lamplighter Legacy – Patrick O’Sullivan
Taking the High Road – RPL Johnson
Letting Go – David Walton
She Who Lies in Secret – Steven R Stewart
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls – Richard Parks

Not many of those were published last month, let alone last year, but this is about when I read (or re-read) them, not when they were published. I do intend to finish Sand, but I found myself distracted by non-fiction. The “I should be writing” guilt doesn’t way on me as heavily when I can justify my procrastination on “research.”

Dunning-Kruger

Messrs. Dunning & Kruger sent another letter this week, but they signed it “Neil Clarke.” I shall continue with my correspondence in the hopes that the responses grow longer.

Books on Writing

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and that’s a reflection of priorities and forgetfulness. I’m busily writing away under a non-SF/F pen name, and I’ve also found that my short thoughts are more easily encapsulated on twitter, where I can be found as @dbrentbaldwin.

Today’s post, however, concerns books on writing. I’ve read a couple dozen books on the subject in the last few years, and some have been much better than others. Here are five of my favorites.

On Writing by Steven King – Half autobiography, half book on craft, it offers much sound advice for the beginner, but more importantly it offers a considerable amount of inspiration. It’s hard to read a chapter and not find myself wanting to sit down and dive headlong into a new story.

Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block – These chapters are taken from Block’s long-running series of articles he wrote for Writer’s Digest, but they cover a gamut of topics, and they also a good amount of practical for the beginner and the working writer both.

Story by Robert McKee – The best of the screenwriting books I’ve read. It gets into more detail on what makes a scene work and what makes a story work than anything else.

On Writing Romance by Leigh Michaels – It covers romance for sure, but it also has good chapters on character development, conflict development, inner and outer conflicts and just practical things any storyteller needs to know.

Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card – If only for the MICE quotient, but he also covers very good ground here with regard to points of view, narrative distance and ways to really get deep down inside a character.

Kindle MatchBook

Amazon has today announced that select print books, when purchased new, will include a copy of the e-book for somewhere between free and 2.99. The program is called . There’s not a hard number of books, or–as far as I can tell–a full list of what’s in the program currently, but in principle, I love this.

As a reader, this is amazing. This program includes books purchased all the way back to 1995. I suspect it won’t include all of my purchases, but I already see Neal Stephenson’s Anathem on the list. That’s one I’d like to re-read, but since I’ve taken to reading on my Kindle in the last few years and I only have it in hardback, I haven’t gotten to it. (In other words, I really love e-readers and they have changed the way I consume books.)

As a writer, I’m still good with this. I just saw an email come through from Amazon informing me that I can go to my KDP dashboard and set the promo price for my titles. That’s something I’ll be doing “real soon now.” Now granted, everything I’ve published to date has been self-published, but there are still STRANGERS reading things I’ve written (howdy, stranger), and if those STRANGERS have not yet embraced the wonder that is electronic books, I’m thrilled that when they inevitably do, the transition will be easier, at least from my end.

This is exciting and I’ve long wanted to convert my print catalog to an electronic catalog, and this is a better way to do it than converting by way of the dark corners of the internet. It’s a win for readers. It’s a win for writers. And it’s probably even a win for publishers.

Game Dev Tycoon Cheatsheet

Game Dev Tycoon: making it big time

Game Dev Tycoon: making it big time

Note (March 11, 2014): Sometime after release and after the above post was written, the game was patched and the advice offered here lost some of its effectiveness. It will still keep you from going bankrupt, and maybe it will help point you in the right direction.

Like most everyone else that reads technology websites, I saw the articles this week about how the two brothers that developed Game Dev Tycoon put up a torrent of their own game. In the torrented version of the game, the number of sales lost to piracy starts to increase until the in-game studio can’t turn a profit. As a marketing move, it was pure genius: every tech website and blog on the internet covered it. And it worked on this humble writer/gamer. So I spent the $8 and downloaded the game.

It’s wonderful.

WELL worth the $8. It’s not an easy game at first, but through some trial and error, and then reading the raw data values on the wiki, I’ve built myself a little cheatsheet to ensure that I’m making games with the maximum potential. If you want to make a Mature Virtual Pet Adventure for the Gameboy–err, Gameling–go right ahead. Just don’t expect it to make much money. If you want to play the game without the constant fear of bankruptcy, or if you’ve stalled out around the PlayStation (Playsystem) era, here are some tips!

The various development options

The various development options

One of the first things a player learns in-game is that some combinations of Genres and Topics are considered “Great combos” and they will sell well. There’s more to it than that combo, though. There’s also the target audience and the device itself.

I’ll use the Gameling as my example, because it’s where I have been able to make most of my early profits to propel my company from the garage into an office park. The Gameling favors young players. There’s a penalty assigned for the other categories. In fact, all the early consoles do this. Target your early games at the youth market, and you’ll do well. This starts to shift in the XBox 360 era, though PCs always favor Mature. Most of the combos I post below will target the highest modifier Genre for the given system. In the Gameling case it’s 1.01 for RPG and 1 for both Action and Casual. Before I dug into the numbers, I saw success with youth oriented RPGs. This explains why.

  • Gameling: youth: RPG 1.01, Action 1, Casual 1
  • TES/SuperTES: Youth: Action 1
  • Playsystem: youth: RPG 1.07, Action 1.05
  • PS2: youth: RPG 1.07, Casual 1.02, Action 1
  • mBox: youth: Action 1.07, Adventure 1.015
  • PC: Mature, any genre
  • mBox360: Everyone: Casual 1.04, Action 1.015, RPG 1
  • GS: Youth: Sim, strat, Cas 1.04, RPG 1.02
  • PPS: Youth: 1.06 RPG, 1.03 Action
  • PS3: Action 1, RPG 1

The downside to targeting the youth market is that they’re picky. There are a number of topics that non-starters and take a penalty. For any youth oriented game, avoid the following: Military, Dungeon, History, Horror, Business, Romance, Cyberpunk, Hospital, Vocabulary, Law, Game Dev, Startups, Hacking, Government, Prison, Surgery, Post Apoc, Alt Hist, Vampire, Werewolf, Aliens, Wild West, Dance

Games target to Everyone and Mature audiences only have one bad topic: Virtual Pet. Anything else is fair game as long as it the combination works with the chosen genre.

Here’s the quick and easy list of consoles and combos. I haven’t included every console since I’ve mostly focused on the ones with high market share. The wiki has a good list, but this is filtered by age level and console.

  • G64: Any: Any combo below
  • Gameling: Youth: RPG: Medieval, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Martial Arts, Spy, Detective, School, Fashion
  • Gameling: Youth: Action: Sports, Medieval, Space, Fantasy, SciFi, Airplane, Martial Arts, Ninja, Spy, UFO, Time Travel, Hunting, Music, Rhythm, Superheroes
  • Gameling: Youth: Casual: Sports, Racing, Airplane, Martial Arts, comedy, Movies, Fashion, Music, Rhythm
  • TES/SuperTES: Youth: Action: See Gameling
  • Playsystem: Youth: RPG: See Gameling
  • Playsystem: Youth: Action: See TES
  • Playsystem 2: Youth: RPG: See Gameling
  • mBox: Youth Action: See Gameling
  • GS: Youth Sim: Sport, Space, Racing, Sci-Fi, Airplane, Martial Arts, Transport, Movies, Evolution, Life, Virtual Pet, Hunting, City, School, Fashion, Music, Rhythm
  • GS: youth: Strategy: Medieval, Space, fantasy, scifi, airplane, transport, UFO, evolution, city, school
  • GS: youth: casual: See Gameling
  • PPS: Youth: RPG: See Gameling
  • mBox360: Casual: Sports, Racing, Airplane, Martial Arts, comedy, Movies, Vocabulary, Fashion, Music, Rhythm, Dance
  • PS3: Action: Everyone: Sports, Military, Medieval, Space, Fantasy, SciFi, Airplane, Dungeon, Martial Arts, Horror, Ninja, Spy, Cyberpunk, UFO, Time Travel, Hunting, Prison, Music, Rhythm, Superheroes, Post Apoc, Alt Hist, Vampire, Werewolf, Aliens
  • PS3: RPG: Everyone: Medieval, Fantasy, SciFi, Dungeon, Mystery, Martial Arts, Spy, Detective, Cyberpunk, School, Fashion, Post Apoc, Alt Hist, Vampire, Werewolf, Aliens, Wild West

Dual Combos
You gain the ability to research dual genres at some point in the basic office. I’ve done best when I held off on this until I had 6 developers and Large games. I’m not as clear on what makes a winning game here, but I’ve tried to focus on combos that are both design oriented or technology oriented.

DUAL Combos:

  • PS3 Dual: RPG/Adv: Detective, Fantasy, Medieval, Mystery, SciFi, School, Spy (Design Focus)
  • mBox360 Dual: Casual/RPG: Fashion, Martial Arts (Design Focus)
  • grPhone Dual: Sim/Strat: Youth: Airplane, City, Evolution, Scifi, school, space, transport
  • grPad Dual: Sim/Strat: Youth: Airplane, City, Evolution, Scifi, school, space, transport
  • mBox Next: RPG/Casual: Everyone: Fashion, Martial Arts
  • PS4: RPG/Adv: Detective, Fantasy, Medieval, Mystery, SciFi, School, Spy

What are design and technology? Each genre rewards the player for focusing on either design oriented elements or tech oriented elements. I’ve outlined each genre and a general guide to slider levels for each of the development phases. When doing dual genres, I try to combine two genres with the same focuses.

The slider positions can adjust, but I’ve listed the minimum requirements. This refers to the chart at the bottom of the screen, not the actual sliders themselves. Once you start adding features to the game, you’ll have to adjust the ratios a little to ensure you get 100% functionality for each section. Don’t add features that require you to go outside the bounds listed.

The focus indicates that you want approximately 2/3 of your total points to be in that section. So if you’re making an RPG and you have 100 Design points, you should have around 50 Tech points. If you make an RPG that’s 100 Tech and 75 Design, prepare for bad reviews. As long as you follow the slider percentages, the overall focus should take care of itself unless all your features are in the wrong category.

Action Sliders (Tech Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (40% or more), Gameplay (40% or more), Story/Quests (no more than 40%)
Phase 2: Dialogues (no more than 40%), Level Design (40% or more), AI (40% or more)
Phase 3: World Design (20% or less), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (40% or more)

Adventure Sliders (Design Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (no more than 40%), Gameplay (any), Story/Quests (40% or more)
Phase 2: Dialogues (40% or more), Level Design (any), AI (no more than 40%)
Phase 3: World Design (40% or more), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (any)

RPG Sliders (Design Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (20% or less), Gameplay (40% or more), Story/Quests (40% or more)
Phase 2: Dialogues (40% or more), Level Design (40% or more), AI (20% or less)
Phase 3: World Design (40% or more), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (any)

Simulation Sliders (Tech Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (40% or more), Gameplay (40% or more), Story/Quests (any)
Phase 2: Dialogues (20% or less), Level Design (40% or more), AI (40% or more)
Phase 3: World Design (any), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (40% or more)

Strategy Sliders (Tech Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (40% or more), Gameplay (40% or more), Story/Quests (any)
Phase 2: Dialogues (20% or less), Level Design (40% or more), AI (40% or more)
Phase 3: World Design (any), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (40% or more)

Casual Sliders (Design Focus)
Phase 1: Engine (no more than 40%), Gameplay (40% or more), Story/Quests (no more than 40%)
Phase 2: Dialogues (no more than 40%), Level Design (40% or more), AI (no more than 40%)
Phase 3: World Design (20% or less), Graphic (40% or more), Sound (40% or more)

Tip: once you start building medium games, you can judge the exact percentages based on the workload percentages for the developers you assign to each category.

There are also specific features in the game. Things like graphics and sound and savegames. From what I’ve read and seen, they don’t specifically affect your rating. What they do is give you additional tech or design points. It’s these points have the largest effect on your games reviews. Put most of your features on the “40% or more” sections above. Generally speaking, you want the tech/design points to increase from game to game, or least every half dozen or so games. This can be done by researching more features or training your staff.

Staff become very important as you start tackling larger games. I found that I like to focus on Design oriented games, so I highly recommend having 3 very capable Design folks, 2 very capable Tech folks and 2 people that are good hybrids (one of which is probably your starting character). It’s also important to train your people. Once you start making decent money on games, and you should if you’re using the combos listed here, I’d do a round of training at least every other game. The goal is to get people that can specialize in things like Story/Quest, Dialogues, Graphics, World Design and Level Design (in more or less that order). For AAA games you want at least 3 but not necessarily more than 5 specialists on the game. Those specialists will make RPG/Casual games highly effective, and those have been my most consistent money makers.

The wiki has a solid training article, but the short version is this:
Design people should use Game Design for Pirates, G3 Pixel Cup and Game Design Course.
Tech people should use Code Incomplete, G3 Code Jam and Programming Course

Game Dev Gems and G3 Game Jam will train people about equally.

Ron Raglow is broken. :(

Ron Raglow can’t train any more. 🙁

I’ve noticed a bug where the developer in the right-most chair stops upgrading at some point. I’m not 100% if it’s a bug or if that particular employee just stopped upgrading, but he also failed to grant benefits from research. Keep an eye on it if you give someone training but don’t see any improvement to their stats.

A few additional notes: Sequels sell well, but you want to wait at least a year to avoid a penalty (so make another game or two) and you get a bonus if you use a different engine. Don’t release the same genre/topic combo in a row. There’s a penalty. Trend bonuses are straightforward except for the “strange combo” trend. In that case, you actually want to release a game that has a badly fitting genre/topic. I’ve just spent this time doing research or training. We need standards here, people!

My absolute best (non-MMO) seller has been a Casual Martial Arts RPG. It moved nearly 9 million units and turned a profit of around 117 million dollars. It was only a large game, not AAA. I did make a Fantasy RPG Adventure MMO (AAA size) and it made me 430 million before I took it off the market.

I hope this information can make the game more fun for someone else. Good luck and enjoy. (And go buy it, you cheap bastards. It’s only $8.)

« Older posts Newer posts »