[Plura-list] Ballistic Kiss; Telepresence Nazi punching

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Ballistic Kiss: Supernatural, with wheels on it..

* Telepresence Nazi punching: Play Cardboard Wolfenstein, stay in training.

* This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing
projects, current reading

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🐩 Ballistic Kiss

I can still remember the delight with which I dug into Richard Kadrey's
first Sandman Slim novel, more than a decade ago. So hard-boiled! So
original! Such a deep dive into esoterica and high weirdness for this
urban fantasy novel! I was hooked.

https://boingboing.net/2009/07/24/kadreys-sandman-slim.html

The best blurb was William Gibson calling it a "deeply amusing,
dirty-ass masterpiece."

Now, ten more books down the line, it's gotten even better.

I'm talking about "Ballistic Kiss," the 11th Sandman Slim, which drops
today.

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062672575/ballistic-kiss/

I love hardboiled fiction, but it's so hard to sustain. The hardboiled
hero's arc is to fight a series of ever-tougher battles, until they
just...run out of headroom. Once you've saved the city, and the nation,
and the world, and the universe...where do you go?

Some hardboiled series just sit pat, having the (anti)hero repeatedly
contend with the same kinds of challenges in book after book. This wears
thin.

Others try to keep upping the stakes. This gets silly.

But the best ones do what Kadrey's doing here: they go internal.

Sandman Slim (AKA James Stark) was part of a circle of LA magic
practicioners who sold him out and sent him to hell. Once in hell, Stark
became a gladiator, pit-fighting demons for the amusement of the princes
of hell.

He was so good at it that he was drafted to become an assassin, equipped
with a magical weapon that would allow him to kill demons, and he became
part of Hell's power-struggles, bumping off his boss's rivals -- and
planning his escape.

The first book tells the tale of Stark's return to LA, his discovery
that his coven had seen off Alice, the love of his life, and the
terrible revenge he wreaks upon them. In subsequent volumes, Stark faces
an ever-escalating series of challenges.

He fights monsters. Power elites. Angels. Demons. Extradimensional
terrors. Gods. He goes back to Hell. He escapes.

In other words, he follows that antihero arc of fighting ever-escalating
battles against increasingly tough opponents.

In large part, that's because of Kadrey's incredible dedication to
esoterica. So much of what makes Tolkien and Howard great fantasy
writers is their deep research into primary sources of lore and legend.

So many of the writers who followed are just rebrewing their
thrice-brewed teabags.

Kadrey's got research for days. He's really into esoterica: about LA,
about magic and eschatology, about monsters. It imbues the whole series
with so much originality and credibility.

But back to Ballistic Kiss. You see, Kadrey's run out of headroom for
Stark, too. There's just no more worlds to conquer that raise the stakes
from the dizzying heights he's brought us to over a decade.

There are other pulp writers who hit this wall - I'm thinking of John D
MacDonald and the Travis McGee books. When McGee got to a certain point,
MacDonald made the fights with the bad guys the B-plot to the books.

The A-plot, where all the stakes were, were McGee's fights with his own
demons.

That's where Ballistic Kiss goes. While this is about fighting demons
and juggling love affairs with a difficult ex- and an exciting nonbinary
love interest, it's primarily about mental health.

Basically, it's anxietypunk. Or depressionpunk.

But it's not mopey or slow. That's the beauty of incorporating this
motif into pulp fiction.

As Gibson says, pulp writers are part of a tradition stretching back to
Dashiell Hammett, and  they "can do fucking plot." They've "still got
wheels on their tractors."

Texture is all about contrasts. The seriousness of the Stark's internal
journey contrasts perfectly with the high weird of his supernatural battles.

I loved where Kadrey started with this series, but I love where he's
going even more.

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🐩 Telepresence Nazi punching

Before doomscrolling, there was Doom. And before Doom, there was Castle
Wolfenstein, a Nazi-punching training sim created by time-travelers from
the 2020s who traveled back to 1981 to prepare us for this very moment.

Social distancing has made punching Nazis impractical, but you can stay
in practice with Cardboard Wolfenstein 3D, a tabletop telepresence game
where you pilot a little robot around a cardboard maze, punching Nazis
with a robotic arm.

https://thecraftyrobot.net/blogs/projects/cardboard-wolfenstein-3d-telepresence-robot-fp-nazi-punch-game

It's based on the Smartibot platform: a robotic telepresence phone case
that lets you turn Lego, cardboard, balsa wood and other rapid
prototyping materials into low-tech versions of Snowden's wheelieboy.

https://thecraftyrobot.net/

Ross Atkin created the game as a demo of Smartibot's capabilities; he's
set up several live tournaments that you can dial into and play this
week and next week (the first one kicks off in just a couple hours!)

He's hinted that future versions might equip the cardboard Nazis with
their own AI-piloted Smartibots, making them harder to punch.

I love a challenge!

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🐩 This day in history

#15yrsago American obesity skyrockets, 73% obese or overweight by 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4183086.stm

#15yrsago Court: DMCA can't prohibit third-party repairs
https://web.archive.org/web/20050912004536/http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/08/24/fed_circuit_smacks_down_bad_dmca_decision_re_independent_repair_techs.php

#15yrsago Neil Gaiman's new novel excerpt read by Lenny Henry
https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/08/track-one-of-fifty-six.asp

#15yrsago Chinese government mandating 3-hour caps on MMO playing
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/china-govt-steps-up-limits-on-online-gaming/1100-6131845/

#15yrsago ItPlaysQuake: reviews of Quake-ports on odd hardware
https://web.archive.org/web/20051122053035/http://www.itplaysquake.com/

#5yrsago Platform Cooperativism: a worker-owned Uber for everything
https://platform.coop/

#5yrsago New Zealand gov't promises secret courts for accused terrorists
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid;=11503094

#5yrsago GOP "kingmaker" proposes enslavement as an answer to
undocumented migrants
https://www.thedailybeast.com/iowa-gop-kingmaker-has-a-slavery-proposal-for-immigration

#5yrsago German student ditches apartment, buys an unlimited train pass
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/22/how-one-german-millennial-chose-to-live-on-trains-rather-than-pay-rent/

#5yrsago BBC fires UK government's Meterological Office, opens up
weather prediction to global firms
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/23/met-office-loses-bbc-weather-forecasting-contract

#5yrsago Samsung fridges can leak your Gmail logins
https://www.pentestpartners.com/security-blog/hacking-defcon-23s-iot-village-samsung-fridge/

#1yrago Podcast: Barlow's Legacy
https://ia803009.us.archive.org/6/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_309/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_309_-_Barlows_Legacy.mp3

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🐩 Colophon

Today's top sources: Ross Atkin.

Currently writing:

* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 510 words (53153 total).

Currently reading: Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum.

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 14)
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/08/24/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-14/

Upcoming appearances:

* The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Censorship Circumvention, Aug 28,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOOChyMCZH4

* Keynote for Law Via the Internet conference, Sept 22,
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/LVI2020/register

* Writing into an Uncertain Future, Afterwords Festival, Oct 1,
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/writing-into-an-uncertain-future-tickets-115378329690

Latest book:

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

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provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
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*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla* -Joey "Accordion Guy"
DeVilla


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