Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations

Author: Alexis Kennedy
Publisher: Alexis Kennedy
ISBN: 9781916902411
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
For twelve years, Alexis Kennedy has been writing some of the most original and intelligent narrative games of the last decade - Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Cultist Simulator, and more, as well as guest-writing gigs for BioWare, Paradox and Telltale Games.And for most of that time, he's been writing *about* games as well.Here for the first time in one place are the best of his essays and columns - from hard-won lessons about game development to reviews of unreviewable games, from narrative design principles to writing masterclasses, from historical discursions on labyrinths to the notorious 'Against Worldbuilding'.

The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design

Author: Alexis Kennedy
Publisher: Alexis Kennedy
ISBN: 9781916902435
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
What makes us glad we've played some games, but regret we've played others? What are the game design equivalents of 'savoury' and 'sweet?' Why is a working title dangerous, what menaces lurk in model railway dioramas, and what is the Snare of the Tree? Alexis Kennedy is an award-winning game designer who has developed some of the most original and intelligent indie games of the last decade, including Fallen London, Sunless Sea and Cultist Simulator. He is also the author of Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations. "I published Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations, and I got a good response. Readers also pointed out some things they'd prefer. Some wanted more original content. Some wanted more writing about the games I've made. One wanted "The Design of Everyday Things but for games." A couple of helpful souls pointed out that the first edition would have benefited from page numbers. This is a first stab at delivering some of those things. I can confirm the presence of page numbers. It's all original content. Some of it is about the games I've made. And I originally intended this book to be a much longer weightier thing, a total encapsulation of my views on games and game design. You'll be relieved to hear that this ain't that. I'll need another few years to marinade anything that size. The Snare of the Tree, And... is, instead, a punchy little number that you should be able to absorb in a couple of days of commuting."

Lady of Mazes

Author: Karl Schroeder
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 146680758X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Book Description
Author and professional futurist Karl Schroeder, whose novels Ventus and Permanence have established him as a groundbreaking visionary in hard science fiction, extends his imagination into Larry Niven territory, returning to the same distant future in which Ventus was set, but employing a broader canvas, to tell the story of Teven Coronal, a ringworld with a huge multiplicity of human civilizations. Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who would destroy its fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy, Lady of Mazes is the hard SF novel of the year. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Proof of Work

Author: Rhea Myers
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1915103045
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
A beautifully produced anthology of crypto-artist, writer, and hacker Rhea Myers's pioneering blockchain art, along with a selection of her essays, reviews, and fictions. DAO? BTC? NFT? ETH? ART? WTF? HODL as OG crypto-artist, writer, and hacker Rhea Myers searches for faces in cryptographic hashes, follows a day in the life of a young shibe in the year 2032, and patiently explains why all art should be destructively uploaded to the blockchain. Now an acknowledged pioneer whose work has graced the auction room at Sotheby’s, Myers embarked on her first art projects focusing on blockchain tech in 2011, making her one of the first artists to engage in creative, speculative, and conceptual engagements with "the new internet." Proof of Work brings together annotated presentations of Myers’s blockchain artworks along with her essays, reviews, and fictions—a sustained critical encounter between the cultures and histories of the artworld and crypto-utopianism, technically accomplished but always generously demystifying and often mischievous. Her deep understanding of the technical history and debates around blockchain technology is complemented by a broader sense of the crypto movement and the artistic and political sensibilities that accompanied its ascendancy. Remodeling the tropes of conceptual art and net.art to explore what blockchain technology reveals about our concepts of value, culture, and currency, Myers’s work has become required viewing for anyone interested in the future of art, consensus, law, and collectivity.

Red Country

Author: Joe Abercrombie
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316214442
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller! They burned her home. They stole her brother and sister. But vengeance is following. Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried. Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . . Red Country takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, andThe Heroes. This novel also represents the return of Logen Ninefingers, one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.

When Species Meet

Author: Donna J. Haraway
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452913536
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 439

Book Description
In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending more than 38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.” In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal–human encounters. In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending-socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.” Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal–human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.

Ideas Arrangements Effects

Author: The Design Studio for Social Intervention
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781570273681
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
Ideas are embedded in social arrangements, which in turn produce effects. With this simple premise, this radically accessible systems design book makes a compelling case for arrangements as a rich and overlooked terrain for social justice and world building. Unpacking how ideas like racism and sexism remain sturdy by embedding themselves in everything from physical and social infrastructure to everyday speech and thought habits, this book gives readers the tools to sense, intervene in and imagine new arrangements.

Serena Fair

Author: Thomas Andrew Broadus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christian fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description

The Problem with Work

Author: Kathi Weeks
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822351129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
The Problem with Work develops a Marxist feminist critique of the structures and ethics of work, as well as a perspective for imagining a life no longer subordinated to them.

Love for the Cold-Blooded

Author: Alex Gabriel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781505695984
Category : Behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Superheroes. Evil minions. And one hell of a conflict of interest.Being related to a supervillain isn't a big deal to Pat West. So what if his mom occasionally tries to take over the world? All Pat wants is to finish university and become an urban designer. That he moonlights as an evil minion sometimes - that's just a family tradition.Then Pat accidentally sleeps with superhero Silver Paladin, otherwise known as reclusive billionaire Nick Andersen. It's a simple misunderstanding. Pat never means to impersonate a prostitute, honest. But soon Pat is in way over his head, and threatening to fall for the worst possible guy.When Pat's mother returns to bring the world to its knees, Silver Paladin races to stop her... and all of Pat's secrets threaten to blow up in his face. How can Pat reconcile being a minion with wanting a hero? Will Nick's feelings for Pat overcome what keeps them apart? Or will they both lose everything?Length: 135.000 words"Love for the Cold-Blooded" is a light-hearted jaunt through a world of superheroes and villains, android dolphins, mind control rays, eldritch artifacts stolen from the tombs of ancient gods, and young men loving not wisely, but well.