game, bowie, Knight

This is a very inane post on my part, but here are a few random comments: I managed to play that Castlevania game with Terminus Est in it. It rips off all kind of fantasy literature, from Moorcock's Mourneblade to the estoc and badelaire already mentioned on the list. That's a really, really cool game. If you aren't wearing special glasses when you go into the "last" room, the game ends halfway through. (Kind of like those uncritical readers of Wolfe on that rasf discussion - they weren't wearing the right mental glasses to see the huge upside down castle underneath the obvious one) Now I'm trying to fight the urge to start playing those stupid things again (actually, some of them aren't that dumb - I remember being totally confused by some aspects of Final Fantasy VII's plot (did Sephiroth die before the game even started? Is he just a clone then? Could Vincent be Aeris' father?), and the ending was more ambiguous than Wolfe (did all the humans get wiped out? Did the heroes survive in that ship?)). I thought I kicked the video game habit in high school. Thanks for the heads up on David Bowie's endorsement, Nigel. Now for the real question: who would make a prettier woman - David Bowie or Mick Jagger? While I readily admit that Mick Jagger may not be an attractive fellow, I've seen a picture of him in drag and was taken aback by the improvement. And is there really an extra "ding" in Vanilla Ice's rip off of Bowie's Under Pressure? I haven't been able to find an obituary on Damon Knight online. Was there any special, extraordinary cause of death, or simply a peaceful shuffling off? Dan'l, you seem to know. Odd that Lafferty and Knight should die in such a short span of time. Anybody have a favorite Knight work? I like Man in the Tree, and I have Humpty Dumpty but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I recall someone saying it was very "lupine". Have a nice day, everybody. Marc Aramini

Damon's obit made the NY TIMES for 4-17-02. He was an important man - arguably (even) more important as an anthologist and editor than a writer. maa is right - the older generation is dying off. hartshorn

Marc asks:

According to the Locus Online obit (http://www.locusmag.com/2002/News/News04Log.html) Writer, editor, and critic Damon Knight died shortly after midnight, on April 15, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, Oregon. He had been hospitalized since Friday, and had been ill for some time with a number of ailments.

As long as we're on the subject of games, I played one a while back (as I was rereading NEW SUN, in fact - confluence!) that I think folks on the list might get a kick out of - "Planescape: Torment". Technically, the game is fantastic; lovely evocative graphics, haunting music, and decent-to-excellent voice-acting. But the story - as PC games go - is marvelous, and clearly heavily influenced by the heavyweights of what we might loosely call "dark fantasy" - Peake, Carroll, Moorcock, and yes, possibly even Wolfe. The neat trick of the game is that it can be gotten through almost exclusively through dialogue - mad twitchy button-pushing skillz are wholly unnecessary - and the wonder is that much of the writing is actually pretty good. You play an amnesiac immortal who awakens in an interdimensional megalopolis populated by illicit arms-dealing angels, hive-mind robots, cultists of various stripes, and even a pregnant sentient city block. There're also very strong (and not wholly ironic, either) Christian overtones, for those of you whose fancy that might tickle. The proceedings resonated very nicely with NEW SUN, especially inasmuch as the ending was left pleasingly ambiguous. Good stuff, and a deal at the 5-odd bucks it can be had for at Best Buy. Jacob G. Corbin

Lots to think about, lots of points to respond to. Let's start with the most bizarre first... Marc asked:

This is exactly the kind of question I spend a great deal of time not thinking about. I can only say that I've never met Mr Bowie, but on those occasions when I have encountered Mr Jagger in the pavilion at Lord's, he has been dressed sobrely in an ordinary sports jacket and tie (a brown, knitted tie last time, if I recall) and looked astonishingly ordinary and not in the least effeminate. But yes, I have seen the photographs and know what you mean. Disturbing, isn't it? I certainly envy those of you who have met with or even corresponded with Mr Wolfe. The friend I've been staying with in the States for the last couple of weeks has been a techincal organiser at various local and world cons and has met GW on several occasions. He described him to me as, "A typical midwestern guy - very pleasant and very polite, but not someone who suffers fools gladly. I always found him very easy and professional to work with." That sort of fits in with the other descriptions that people have given, doesn't it?

I couldn't possibly say. More anon. Nigel