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Book Review - Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
July 30, 2024
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Brandon Sanderson is wildly popular, but honestly? I don’t get it. While I appreciate what he does, for whatever reason, his novels have never really resonated with me, with maybe one exception. Ten years ago (I remember it vividly—pun not intended) I read Warbreaker and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then I immediately went on to read something from one of his other series and that’s when I saw a problem.

The magic systems are role playing game mechanics.

Thankfully, Sanderson doesn’t write Lit-RPG, where the stories themselves are board game campaigns. The characters are cleverly crafted and the plots in which they find themselves have stakes, twists and turns. But when he gets into how the magic works I feel like I need to remember all this so I know what to do when it’s my turn to role the dice. Personally, I prefer what Jim Butcher does in The Dresden Files, where the magic is all about focus and intent, with objects as focal points and delivery systems. For whatever reason, it feels more organic.

Points to Sanderson for what he does, and does very well, though.

However, a friend recently told me that she really enjoys Brandon Sanderson’s Tress of the Emerald Sea as a novel akin to The Princess Bride and other light fantasy/romance/adventure stories. Color me intrigued. I had an Audible credit to burn, so I figured why not and gave it a listen. As a writer who tends to burn through plots at breakneck speed and thus ends up with short stories, I really appreciated how much time Sanderson devotes to the Ordinary World and building the relationships between his characters.

Tress and Charlie may not be Buttercup and Wesley, but we’re still rooting for them.

Their story is almost a sort of inverted Princess Bride, where the ordinary girl must go on a quest to rescue her royal love interest. And she starts out delightfully ordinary. However, when Charlie needs help Tress doesn’t hesitate (once she has her parents’ blessing, which is a nice touch). Up to this point, the story is moving along at a pleasant clip and the magic system has yet to take center stage.

Until…

…Tress ends up on a pirate ship. And this is where the story threw me. When I think of The Princess Bride or Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (not linking, because you don’t need to read it), our heroes travel to many different places and meet a variety of people. The majority of Sanderson’s novel takes place on board the ship with a relatively small, if colorful, group of characters. The storytelling mechanics are brilliant, but it stops being the story I expected and wanted it to be. While the ship continues to sail around the different seas, in a way the currents that move a narrative seem suddenly becalmed.

So now there’s time for the rules. Get out your dice.

Actually, the magic system mechanics aren't that bad this time. Yes, they're complex and color-coded. But it doesn’t seem as gamey here, and that’s a good thing. Most interesting are the riddles surrounding curses, which lead to some nice twists. Sanderson! More of this, please. My only big complaint is the description of the sorceresses’s lair at the climax, which is far too meta and clever. A good rule of thumb is, if you think you’ve written something clever you should cut it out. Were it possible to throw an audiobook against the wall, I would have done so.

Still, I get it.

Tress of the Emerald Sea is a nice, little story. Perhaps on review I’ll enjoy it more for what it is and not what I initially wanted it to be. The twists will make re-reads rewarding if you remember them, which is always admirable. Am I going to pick up another Sanderson novel on my own? No, probably not. But someday I might be open to recommendations.  

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New article is on the way, but I'm feeling too overwhelmed to crank it out.

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Update!

I cover it in the the video, but I've got some new professional writing opportunities coming up and I'm trying to finish my next novel, all while navigating a change in schedule. So look for more pictures and videos, and new articles here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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He Who Rides on the Clouds - Conclusion

Leo and Britt come face to face with a prehistoric god a new cult on Saturn. Can they save the children doomed to sacrifice and escape?

He Who Rides on the Clouds - Conclusion
He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 2

Leo and Brittany have arrived on Saturn, but not in the way they'd hoped. Captured by a pagan cult, they don't have time to stop the unthinkable from happening. But they'll try anyway.

Content warning: language and sexual situations.

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He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 1

Star Wars is dead and the more apathy you show the faster it will be allowed to rest in peace.

Instead of griping about what Disney has done, why don't you listen to my space adventure story? He Who Rides on the Clouds is supernatural noir that spans space and time. When children on Mars go missing, Alexis Leonard and his ex-wife Brittany go looking. Their search leads them to a pagan temple and an ancient religion.

If you'd like to buy the story and read ahead, it's available in the Fall 2020 issue of Cirsova, available here: https://amzn.to/3yRRywY

He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 1
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No Budget, No Gatekeepers, No Problem: How AI Is Democratizing Storytelling

Story never changes. At its core, every story dramatizes the hero’s eternal struggle between order and chaos — whether that conflict comes from nature, other men, God, or himself. But every so often, the medium for storytelling takes a huge leap forward. We’ll never know the epics that preceded that of Gilgamesh and the idea of putting fiction on clay tablets. Before that, stories were as effervescent and intangible as a whisper by a campfire. Just as fleeting, in some ways, were the plays of Shakespeare and his actors, and the Greeks before them.


Printing presses allowed a single author’s vision to spread, giving the world Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Superman—and all the long-form literary fiction we take for granted today. Radio shows briefly took us back to “those thrilling days of yesteryear!” when motion pictures and TV were still luxuries. They were the evolution of the oral tradition, with the addition of dramatic music and sound effects, recorded for posterity. Today, most of us carry in our pockets devices that can hold thousands of books, or used to write one. Smartphones can show us movies, produce movies, and instantaneously share those movies.

 

Ironically, more than ever it seems like a good story is hard to find. The multi-billion dollar monolithic movie studios and publishers churn out hours of fresh content daily. No less prolific, given the sheer volume of them, are the independent artists, most working “real” jobs to pay the bills. They go largely unnoticed. Unless you’re directly involved, you may not realize how expensive it is to make something that looks and feels professional. There’s a reason Hollywood pours hundreds of millions of dollars into a single movie — they set the standard. There’s a reason indie films lean into esoteric artistry — no budget means no special effects, no recognizable locations, no union labor.

 

The Hollywood Bottleneck

The Hollywood machine has tar in its gears. Writing an amazing screenplay can take several weeks (if the legends are true). But getting it noticed by the right people can take decades — if it gets noticed. Then there’s the endless tinkering before production — if it’s produced. And should you ask anyone who’s been on set what making a movie is like, they’ll tell you it’s a lot of sitting around waiting. Lights and cameras have to be moved, makeup needs adjusted, endless minor details discussed. Actors are temperamental. Then there’s the editing, test screenings, and producers’ notes. 


After going through so many filters, by the time a completed film arrives in theaters it’s homogenized and sterilized. The original idea that started it all is emulsified. And now, the industry is calcified. Worst of all, the average American finds his entertainment fortified (a nice word for polutifed) with an agenda antithetical to the reality he knows. 

 

Galaxies in a Dewdrop

What if there was a way to remove budgetary shackles and create nearly at the speed of thought? What if instead of a series of writers, producers, studio heads, actors, directors, and focus groups, movies had a single vision? And what if that sort of power was given to an ordinary guy with an extraordinary imagination? That would be very dangerous to the cultural gatekeepers, and a good story might not be so hard to find.


Michael McGruther is an ordinary guy with an extraordinary imagination, and thanks to developing AI technology, he’s creating the stuff of Hollywood’s nightmares and the everyday American’s dreams. His MacBook Pro is not only his writers’ room (where he meets with his writing partner, ChatGPT), but also his studio, backlot, editing suite, special effects house, and the honeywagon for his “actors.” With all these resources available, his is the singular vision behind Long Haulers.

 

What started as an experiment with AI animation and an idea to make the opening credits to ‘80s-style sci-fi sitcom blossomed into a weekly web series. Long Haulers is the story of Knox Vega (who looks just like McGruther, so don’t come after him for stealing a celebrity’s likeness or try to borrow it for yourself), an interplanetary deliveryman on a mission. When all the jobs on Earth go automated, Knox has two choices: get drunk, or find a job with a purpose. Thankfully, he chooses the latter, accepting responsibility of the S.S. Grit and its cargo. With the help of the ship’s Virtual Integrated Research Assistant (VIRA, for short), who appears as a beautiful woman, he goes on a journey. 


Each episode is written as a visual novel after conversing with ChatGPT about the plot. The AI isn’t creating the story, though, simply amplifying and clarifying McGruther’s ideas. If he needs market research to know what his audience likes, he can get that too, along with suggestions for incorporating those things into his story. While Disney is probably spending upwards of a million dollars (budgets are not known) per animated Star Wars episode, producing an episode of Long Haulers is probably closer to what you'd spend on dinner and a movie.

 

Codes: Computer and Moral

If your only experience with AI-created content is what you see on TikTok, it may seem trite and soulless. Admittedly, as we're still finding our way out of the uncanny valley, there’s still something a little “off” about these not-quite-human digital puppets. What sets Long Haulers apart, and sets all great stories apart, is intent. Unlike the viral TikTok reels, Long Haulers is more than a meme. Through the power of story, McGruther has something to say.


Long Haulers is indifferent to politics and preaching, and just puts Knox into situations where he must live out his beliefs. Ultimately, a character is a character, whether he’s described in words, played by Tom Cruise, or generated out of ones and zeros. Characters have moral codes, and in each episode Knox is driven by his own.

 

Trailblazing

Just as Knox is modeled on McGruther, more AI stars will be actors, who are working hand-in-hand with the storytellers. The pay may not be as spectacular, but the freedom and reach will be incomparable. Even now, the studios and talent agencies are scrambling to claim a stake in this new frontier. Can they sign an AI actor? Perhaps. But will real actors who can digitize themselves still want or need contracts and agents? It will depend on what they value: Freedom or Security.


Speaking of values, are Knox’s values (or for that matter, McGruther’s) our values? That’s something we’re invited to consider. McGruther shares what he believes through his art, and we can take it or leave it. So much coming out of Hollywood is a lecture from a soulless corporate collective. Worse yet, these lectures lack the conviction to look us in the eye, because the corporations are forever looking past the audience to the next bit of content they're going to sell. Long Haulers doesn’t tease us with the next thing. It is the thing. We’re invited to engage with the story to further refine what we feel and believe, just as McGruther interacts with ChatGPT to refine his narrative. 

 

Looking Ahead

Will Knox Vega stand alongside Gilgamesh, Don Quixote, Macbeth, or Superman? Perhaps, perhaps not. Knox isn’t a complex character, and that’s the point. He was created organically, and his stories, despite the assistance of AI, don’t feel artificial. McGruther’s genuine passion for storytelling and belief that we can have a culture that heals rather than destroys comes through. Are there imperfections? Of course. Because McGruther, and every storyteller but God, is imperfect too.


Make no mistake, this is a landmark moment in storytelling. Without AI, we’d never be able to see the universe of Knox Vega as McGruther envisions it. A studio like Disney would never pour Star Wars money into such a project, and a novel, no matter how skillfully written, can only convey so much. In the early days of computer animation, Kerry Conran, director of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, spent four years on a six minute short that eventually got Hollywood’s attention. If he’d had access then to the tools McGruther has now, he could have achieved that in an afternoon—and made his feature without leaving his Michigan home. 

 

Hollywood’s golden age was filled with stories written and produced by war heroes, refugees, those who grew up poor in cities and on farms. Now it’s filled by those who grew up in a bubble devoid of real-life experience. The new advances in technology allow (not will allow, but do allow, right now) talented, everyday folk to tell stories with all the organic authenticity audiences have missed. Whether or not Hollywood survives is irrelevant. A new culture is here, and good story won’t be so hard to find. 

 

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Alien (1979) Movie Review

It'd been about 20 years since I last saw Alien, and then it was only because a roommate demanded it of me. I've never gone further into the franchise.

We've been trained to go into every movie as if it's an amusement park. There was a time (and Alien is a prime example) when movies were approached as art exhibits. Yes, Alien has moments of horror. But it's not primarily a horror film designed to carry us on visceral reactions. Instead, it's a finely tuned suspense movie.

In every frame there's something to consider. It might be the characters, how their unique motivations and personalities draw different things from the others. It might be the texture of the ship, not polished like the USS Enterprise or an Imperial Destroyer, but wet and dirty. It might be space itself, which is vast, unknowable, and filled with unspeakable terrors.

H.P. Lovecraft knew a thing or two about unspeakable terrors. He wrote, "Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood."

It's not that you need to be "media literate" to appreciate Alien. The media literate person will look at the opening of the movie and note how the camera floats through the empty ship while the crew is asleep to give us, the viewers, the sense of intruding where we don't belong. If that's your thing, I'm right there with you. Most people don't want to be media literate, and that's a good thing.

In order to appreciate Alien, all you need to do is allow yourself to slip into the atmosphere, the mood, it creates.

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Why Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rope' is More Relevant Now than Ever

When I first saw Rope, as a young college student, I didn't really appreciate it. Sure, the illusion of the 82 minute continuous shot was impressive. Watching the "perfect" murder fall in on itself was satisfying. But now, having lived some life, and especially in light of recent events, Rope is more poignant than ever.

Rope was Hitchcock's first color film and is based on a play, which was in turn inspired by actual events. Two gay men attempt to commit the perfect murder, and then ghoulishly host a dinner party at the scene of the crime, going so far as to serve the meal on the trunk in which the body is hidden.

In an even more perverse flourish, they invite the victim's parents, girlfriend, and her ex-boyfriend. But they make one mistake: they also invite their prep-school headmaster (played by James Stewart, who was looking for more serious roles after the War). The headmaster is one of those people who is rude because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and it was his philosophy that unintentionally inspired the murder.

See, our murderers feel that they belong to a class of intellectuals who have the right to kill their inferiors if they feel like it. One of them spouts his philosophy at dinner, to which the victim's father objects, noting that Hitler thought the same thing. But no, no, our killer says: he's, well, in modern parlance, an anti-Fascist.

To Stewart, the idea is completely rhetorical, and he initially and cheerfully goes along with it. Only in the end, when he begins to suspect that his rhetoric has led to actual consequences, does it break him. When you stop to think about it, any moral code not rooted in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," leads society to dark, dark places. In his closing monolog, Stewart dismantles his old philosophy in favor of the ancient one.

If you haven't seen Rope, or not seen it recently, it's worth watching now.

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