More space opera

I never would have thought when I started this blog that I'd be talking more about space opera than about fantasy of any variety. I still owe the fantasy vs space opera essay too! I haven't forgotten. I have, however, been busy. 

So, a couple of scattershot items, just in a journal/diary type fashion.

1) This summer, I've got a number of trips planned. The first one, I'll have to endure a family reunion first, the only part of which I'm really interested in is seeing my oldest son and his wife and my two grandkids. To be honest, I don't quite understand why my in-laws 50th anniversary is a family affair. Seems like something they should go off and celebrate together, to me. But we'll be at Bear Lake, which I hear is tons of fun, although I've never been, and then on "the way home" for a week, I'll be able to see some premier hiking and backpacking destinations. First off, some day hiking in the Tetons area. I may even do some of what I did a couple of years ago; there's not a ton of 1-day options, and I'll have someone with me who wasn't last time. But we'll see. I'm reviewing possible routes and options now. Then, a two-night, three(ish) day hike to the Lost Twin Lakes in the Big Horn Mountains. The Big Horns may not be quite as spectacular and "pointy" as the Tetons, although this particular destination is, in my opinion, amazingly beautiful. But they get only a tiny fraction of the visitation, and most of that from locals. Then, we'll drive out via Crazy Woman Canyon and get to see some Black Hills destinations. Probably Devil's Tower and Custer State Park, and finally, after a night in Rapid City, which is a town I really like (not that I'll be out sampling the nightlife or anything) we'll hit Badlands National Park as a final destination on the way home; after that, it's just the slog of driving for two days. Sigh. This is really more the kind of thing that I talk about on my hiking blog, but I'll probably post a picture or two here, at least, after I get back.

2) Later in the summer, one of my sons, my wife and I will take the California Zephyr, the most scenic and captivatingly fun (allegedly; I guess we'll see first hand) train rides across the country, from Chicago to San Francisco. From there, we'll explore northern California a bit, see Redwoods National Park, show my wife San Francisco (which neither my son nor I are really too keen to see, for that matter. I saw it in the 80s when I was a teenager. According to all reports, it has hardly improved in the years since.) Again; I'll post some redwood pictures and maybe some NoCal mountains or something.

3) On finishing the Han Solo Adventures, I picked up another of my old books, Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars by Leigh Brackett. Although printed in the early 80s, it was a reprint of a double book first published nearly twenty years earlier in 1964, and contains the two short novels/novellas "The Secret of Sinharat" and "The People of the Talisman", both of which feature the character Eric John Stark on Mars. I say that it was first published in 1964, and while that's true, these two novellas were expansions and rewrites of short stories first published another nearly twenty years earlier than that where they were "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and "Black Amazon of Mars" respectively. Along with these two stories on Mars, Stark also featured in a story called "Enchantress of Venus" which, naturally, takes place on Venus. Although he's her most famous character, that really was it until the mid-70s when she wrote a second trilogy starring him, although now removed from the 40s space opera version of our solar system and set on the fictional exoplanet of Skaith. Which... bears a number of resemblances in some of its regions to Mars and Venus as described earlier, but that's neither here nor there.

These stories are unusual and in many ways astonishing. They're not necessarily great. They're very short, the characterization is poor in most respects, and Brackett does an amazing amount of telling not showing in some ways. But they're also very different than what you'd expect, and other than the marked telling us that things were evil repeatedly, she's an expert at her craft. Stark is a kind of spacefaring Tarzan or Mowgli in many ways, except more grim and melancholy in personality than either (Tarzan in particular is notable for his lust for life.) And while space opera was often accused (as if this were a bad thing) in those days of being too similar in plotting and set-up to typical Westerns, Brackett's space opera has an alien horror vibe, almost Lovecraftian, that runs through these most of her stories. (Some of C. L. Moore's space opera, starring Northwest Smith is similar in this regard, especially the most famous of her stories, "Shambleau.")

Space opera is often caricaturized as being about strapping, big-chinned, manly men who are always swashbuckling their way through space with a jolly laugh, or a story of cowboys in space where green-skinned Martians stand in for Injuns and Colonist homesteaders stand in for pioneers, etc. but both Brackett and Moore's space opera stories are morose, dark and brooding... while still managing to be space opera. If you've never read them, you really should. In spite of their kind of weirdness, I find that I read this Brackett double book every few years; this is the third or fourth time I've read it since picking it up now. I'll do a more detailed review once I finish the second of the double books. I read "Secret of Sinharat" last night, but I only read a few pages into "People of the Talisman" before it got too late and I went to bed.

4) I've done very little of what I planned to do in SWTOR this week so far. In fact, I haven't played any of my new characters at all, although I've gone on a weird crafting, selling and buying bender with my old characters. A new week starts tomorrow, which will include the bounty hunter event, so I probably won't play much of my new characters, or any of their story really, this coming week either.  This isn't to say that I haven't played, I just haven't played the characters I thought I'd be playing. And although I have edited and posted a fair number of videos, I still feel far enough behind that I'll probably focus more on that in the coming week than in creating new ones, even if I wasn't otherwise doing the bounty hunter event stuff.

One of the things I did was finally break down and throw some money at the cartel market for some cosmetic items, specifically the "Mandalorian" armor set, and another one that had some elements I really wanted to use. And because I have so many pistol options, I actually created yet another character so I could use them; a gunslinger who'll be on the trooper class. So, of the tech classes, I now have two of each; two agents (one is an operative and one is a powertech, and I'm only recording one of them now), two bounty hunters (a mercenary and a vanguard), two smugglers (a scoundrel and a mercenary) and now two troopers, although they're the least advanced; a sniper and a gunslinger. The new character, who I created and grinded some gratuitous XP, but who hasn't otherwise started any of his story, is a human with modest cybernetic implants, and one of my main design parameters for him was that I wanted him to fit the lyrical phrase "with auburn hair and tawny eyes" from the classic Flock of Seagulls song "I Ran (So Far Away)". That originally refers to a girl, of course, and it would otherwise be awkward if Michael Score said that his eyes were the kind of eyes that hypnotized you through.

Professor Dungeon Master made an offhand comment in a video not long ago that one thing that has changed in the RPG landscape, and computer RPGs like SWTOR may be partially the cause of this, is that in the past, people roleplayed; i.e., they played a role. Now, when "roleplaying" many players create what is essentially an idealized version of themselves, maybe with some kind of interesting exotic physical characteristics that the person playing the character thinks would be cool if they could have in real life. I admit that my approach here is kind of a hybrid (although this is a computer game, so it's different.) One of the reason I've generally been less attracted to the trooper is that I'm not much of a joiner, I'm pretty stubborn, and I resent being told what to do by people who I may or may not know to be wrong. I was truly not cut out for military life, which is good because I never had any interest in joining the military. But my trooper characters are more independent, more egalitarian and "flat" in their approach to the military hierarchy, and will only reluctantly take orders; I'll see them more as special agents who happen to be attached to the military a la James Bond rather than typical soldiers. In the case of my gunslinger, I may even see him more as an irregular outside specialist brought on to do a special job, but not even necessarily part of the military structure at all, or at least that'll be his attitude (he does have military rank, so it's not literally true. That's just how I'll make decisions and cast my dialogue, to the degree that I can.) And I'll think about how this new character, Mirabeau Tane (I kind of regretted the name almost as soon as I chose it, but I'll run with it anyway. Should have chosen Lamar) would fit into Space Opera X, even though I'm playing him as a computer RPG character in Star Wars the Old Republic.