Peter Hodges

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Posted on September 22, 2011 by Pete

Rejection page updated again today.

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Posted on September 15, 2011 by Pete

Rejection page updated today.

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Posted on September 1, 2011 by Pete

The pending submissions page and the 2011 reading list page are both updated.

Most of my online activity is Twitter-based: @peterhodges, but keep watching this space for new posts.

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Posted on May 3, 2011 by Pete

Whoa. Seriously, whoa.

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Posted on April 27, 2011 by Pete

There’s always been an insatiable amount of curiosity about writers and their methods. It’s one of the first questions asked of an author during an interview. Whether it makes the final cut or not depends greatly on the answer, and whether or not it will match fan expectations.

I’m sure no one at this point in my career is beating down my door to learn my methods, but I think a brief discussion is warranted, if only to crystallize my own thoughts.

Trained as a scientist, I typically plot most items in my writing. I know the high points of the plot, the main characters, the setting (sometimes in stupid detail), and the ending. The details may evolve slowly, but the pieces are mostly there before I even start writing. If I don’t plan well, then I end up drifting sort of aimlessly. My voice suffers without a concrete outline; my prose isn’t as tight, and I am easily drawn into tangents.

The caveat to this is that sometimes character interactions are forced. I know that Character X must do Y to Character Z, and that creates a certain degree of artifice. If I were to allow them to interact naturally, to put them in the world and see what happens, then it might serve my craft a little better.

To do that sort of thing is what George R. R. Martin calls “gardening.” Plant characters in a fully-realized world and see where they go and what they do. How do they react? If you’re good at keeping interactions consistent, if you really grok people and what makes them tick, then your fiction can feel more authentic. The problem is that you must maintain your focus, and be willing to to excise cancerous growths from your manuscript before they consume valuable editing time. This is also, unfortunately, the reason why I believe A Dance with Dragons has taken so long for Martin to complete.

I decided to try an experiment. I’ve written several sketches over the past six months with no pre-planned plot safety net. (Say that three times fast!) I was curious to see where they took me, and what stood out about each one.  I ended up with a story that has been rejected three times (one with a personalized!), a Firefly pastiche (but with great character interaction), and a little novella that is turning into something reminiscent of S. M. Stirling and Allen Steele. In nearly every case (whether I’ve got a plot that’s worth a damn or not), the dialog is better, the character interactions are more natural, and there is a depth of emotion that wasn’t present in my writing before.

The trick then, is to marry this new-found authenticity with my penchant for world-building and plotting without driving myself mad.

Wish me luck.

Posted in Struggles with the Craft, Writing | 1 Comment

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Pete

I’ll admit, I was not a huge fan of the first Portal. I thought it was clever, but if you can’t shoot it, slice it, loot it, or blow it up, I lose interest in it pretty fast.

The game got recycled for me earlier this year when I realized what a great physics game with a quirky sense of humor it was for a precocious child, so my son and I played through it.

I bought Portal 2 for co-op, mainly to play with friends Kate Baker and PoorYorick, but since I’m baking cupcakes tonight (don’t ask), I decided to try out the single player game as a stop-gap.

Wow.

Valve (the developer) is brilliant. Whether you’re talking about Half-Life or Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 1/2, their management of Counter-Strike, or their entire Steam platform, they have the Midas touch. They managed to make what should have been a retread of survival horror into one of the most compelling co-op games out there (Left4Dead), and now they’ve taken platform-style puzzling by the scruff of the neck. Valve has squared off and kicked the Mario Brothers square in the nuts.

This is an adult’s platformer, filled with gallows humor, dark sarcasm, and interesting characterizations. The world is dark and foreboding, so much so that I will not play this one with the kiddo for a while. The resurrection of GLaDOS (your nemesis that you burned at the end of the first game) isn’t a surprise, but they way it happens is visceral and hysterical simultaneously.

After that, it’s put on your seat belt and enjoy the ride. New additions to the puzzling matrix, such as the catapults and the thermal discouragement beams add more elements into the mix, but the real standout is how cleverly the puzzles are constructed. Valve had to have spent HOURS play-testing over and over to make them complicated enough to not feel too easy, but rewarding when completed. The lightbulb moments in this game give card-carrying nerds like me the same rush that I used to get from grasping a difficult concept in science/math.

Stop reading this review and go download Portal 2 off of Steam. You won’t be sorry.

Posted in Geek Culture, Video Games | 1 Comment

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Pete

In case anyone was wondering, today is the day SkyNet achieves self-awareness, which means that we have two days until Judgement Day and the rise of the machines.

Long live the resistance!

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Posted on April 19, 2011 by Pete

Link courtesy of GK.

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Posted on April 19, 2011 by Pete

Believe the reviews, friends, this is the best movie of the year so far (and Lord knows I’ve seen all of them with a science fiction/fantasy bent).

Jake Gyllenhall plays Captain Colter Stevens, a downed helicopter pilot whose last memory is of fighting in Afghanistan. He finds himself inside a mysterious capsule, where he is sent “back in time” to relive the last eight minutes of a school teacher’s life on a Chicago commuter train.

The science gets a bit iffy, but it’s not true time travel. Stevens is actually reliving the last eight minutes of the teacher’s life through residual brain activity from a body recovered after a terrorist attack destroys the train. Because of advanced life support, he is able to relive this eight minutes over and over again, similar to Bill Murray’s experiences in Groundhog Day.

Stevens tries different approaches to determine who planted the bomb, why they planted it, and what their future plans might be. Playing through a variety of scenarios, he learns about the woman who shares his compartment every morning on their commute, the people surrounding him, and the actions that lead to the train’s detonation.

The movie plays with the ideas of free will and fate, mixes in an old-school sense of honor and bravery, and plays with some tropes that will make conspiracy theorists clutch their mental g-spots.

Gyllenhall is perfect for the role–earnest, diligent, and a perfect choice for a slightly war-weary soldier. The surrounding cast features recognizable character actors, all of whom turn in excellent performances. A director with less artistic skill than Duncan Jones (of the estimable Moon movie of two years ago) might have made a sorry mess of such a convoluted script, but it shines under his control. Pay close attention to details, though, because there are a few “Easter Eggs” for the wary viewer.

The ending is extremely satisfying, and one of the best examples of a well-tied together plot that I’ve seen recently. I can’t think of anyone who will be disappointed with it. The only recommendation you need is when my buddy and I looked at each other when the credits rolled and said (nearly in unison): “Best movie this year so far.”

Posted in Television, DVD, and Film Reviews | Leave a comment

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Pete

SPOILER WARNING!

9:05 PM – Language, Violence, Adult Content, Nudity – How can this be bad?

9:07 PM – The wall is really impressive. Nice special effects.

9:08 PM – Did anyone else get the sense that the  Night’s Watch cloaks wouldn’t be that ragged? And OMG at the child impaled on the tree. Wow. Wildings arranged in a weird geometric shape, torn limb from limb?

Waymar Royce is PERFECT. Just as arrogant as he was in the books.

9:12 PM – The white walkers are perfect. The blue eyes are effing creepy. Looks like the filmmakers borrowed something from the fast zombie camp to make their first showing. Not exactly my picture of them.

9:14 PM – The opening credits were really cool, going across the surface of Westeros. Musical score left me a little cold, though.

9:16 PM – Bran Stark and Jon Snow are perfect. Jon Snow acts more like a big brother than Robb. Not sure I like Robb yet. Arya and Sansa are just like I pictured, although Sansa appears to be older than she was in the books. Is that because of her destiny later?

Rickon looks good as well. Catelyn looks a little too old and not as beautiful as I had in my mind’s eye.

9:18 PM – Oooh…good tension between Jon and Catelyn.

9:20 PM – Jon Snow again more of a brother to Bran than Robb. And wow…actual beheading. Could’ve done without that. That’s two in only fifteen minutes.

9:23 PM – The direwolf, and the symbolism is awesome. Killed by a stag. The pain in Jon Snow’s face as he says there are five pups, and then he finds the albino. Amazing.

9:25 PM – King’s landing not quite how I pictured. Is that Jon Arryn lying dead? And a parade of the silent sisters? Followed by a secne between Jaime and Cersei that did not happen in the books, but probably works better to establish the characters.

9:27 PM – The Godswood is beautiful, peaceful. The love between Catelyn and Ned Stark is obvious.

9:29 PM – The point of the barber scene was what? And is that Theon lurking in the background? Not how I pictured him.

9:30 PM – Bran climbing – he’s SOOO perfect.

9:32 PM – Joffrey looks like a little bastard. Perfect casting. But Joffrey and Robb were supposed to be the same age, or near enough? That doesn’t look apparent.

Mark Addy is a little to grizzled to be Robert Baratheon.

9:35 PM – Tension between Cersei and Robert crackles.

9:37 PM – Random boobage. A scene not in the book where Tyrion is in a Winterfell whorehouse. A great introduction to his character, and a good way of establishing Tyrion and Jaime’s relationship when he interrupts the frivolities.

9:40 PM – Emilia Clark as Danaerys – I was worried that she wasn’t good for the role, but seeing her (and seeing her naked with her creepy brother getting her ready for a bath), makes me reconsider. She is beautiful and looks as though she possesses true steel.

9:44 PM – Viserys is a douchebag. “I’d let his whole tribe fuck you, all forty thousand men and their horses too, if that’s what it took.” I’m already rooting for him to die screaming.

9:46 PM – Sansa is just as simpering and vapid as she was in the books. Again, good casting.

9:49 PM – I didn’t mention this before, but Peter Dinklage is beyond perfect as Tyrion. I love the scene between him and Jon Snow. “All dwarves are bastards in their father’s eyes.” Such raw pain in Tyrion’s face there.

9:52 PM – Cersei asks Sansa if she’s bled yet. Ouch. That’s kind of direct, isn’t it? They left her at 13 years old. Also, nice conflict with Jaime and Ned there. Not something I would have expected, but it fits.

9:55 PM – Catelyn and Maester Luwin arguing with Ned Stark of his future – not exactly as the book had it done, but well done anyway.

9:59 PM – *sigh* – I should have known that the Dothraki made the perfect stage for HBO to do their usual shenanigans.

Jorah Mormount – I’m ambivalent about him.

Ilyrio’s gifts of the dragon eggs caused the music to change. Anyone who has not read the books should know that something is definitely up with them.

10:02 PM – The wedding consummation, with the “no” repeated over and over again by Khal Drogo was awesome. Too bad they didn’t convey the tenderness that Martin did in the books. (And holy crap, Emilia Clark is my new crush.)

10:07 PM – “The things I do for love.” Some Jaime is drilling his sister. Is the only sexual position in Westeros doggy-style? Really? Only the dwarf had something approaching normal sex. Was this Martin’s intention?

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

No scenes with Arya and Sansa and their wolf pups. I thought this was a missed opportunity. In that vein, no one talked about naming their pups, which I also think is very important/symbolic.

Jon Snow was relegated to the outdoors, rather than with the commoners during the banquet in the books. I prefer the book approach to this and am not sure why they changed it.

The Dothraki are HBO’s excuse to throw mindless depravity on the screen. I can see the producers meeting: “Do we have frontal female nudity in this episode yet?” Another producer: “No.” Writer: “Well, we haven’t finished the Dothraki scene yet.”

Seeing Bran get pushed from the tower was even more horrifying than reading the books. Jaime’s impetuousness was perfectly portrayed. It makes you want to punch him in the face.

Would someone who hasn’t read the books understand what’s going on? I’m not sure. Ned and Catelyn; Robert, Jaime, and Cersei, Jon Snow, Bran, Arya, Sansa, and Robb;  Viserys, Ilyrio, Khal Drogo, and Danaerys; it’s too many characters in such a short time. Will the standard television audience make the mental investment? I hope so, because I was enamored.

Posted in Geek Culture, Television, DVD, and Film Reviews | Leave a comment

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