I finally finished Robert Heinlein's 1966 magnum opus, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ("MHM") last night. The book was confusing at first ("why is the character telling the story speaking in a strange dialect... and WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP!") that quickly becomes a page turner as you realize that this small band of characters is planning together to take on the world, literally. I'm not going to turn my blog post into a recap of the story, which is available at wikipedia or other sites, but I do want to comment on a few interesting elements of the book.

MHM was published in 1966 which means that Heinlein was writing the story in the early 1960's, making the book almost fifty years old. With this in mind, it is very impressive, stunning really, how foresighted Heinlein was in terms of the story. With the novel taking place near the end of the 21st century, his "forecast" of the world in terms of geopolitics, the emergence of China and India as world powers at the expense of the former Soviet Union and to a lesser extent North America was nearly spot on.Heinlein was also quite accurate in terms of the development of computer technology, software and the general arrogance of the bureaucratic mind, though on that latter point, such arrogance is reallly timeless.

MHM is to some extent a re-telling of the American Revolution by a band ofrevolutionaries that is at times pragmatic (particularly in the character of Manny) and idealistic (particularly in the character of the Professor). Heinlein used the book to further develop his libertarian philosophy of "rational anarchism", however unlike the approach taken by Ayn Rand in her novels (and he takes a shot at her in the book), Heinlein doesn't focus on developing idealistic or romantic characters - his are your everyday joes looking for a better life.

MHM is an excellent book that is highly recommended. I'm looking forward to reading more Heinlein books over the summer - next up is Stranger in a Strange Land.

I've had a small window of opportunity over the weekend to complete another mission on Valkyria Chronicles. This was quite a nailbiter that went right down to the last move on the twentieth turn before I captured the enemy base. I unfortunately lost Aika during the battle, the wonderful young lady added to the game by Sega as a tribute to one of the great games of all time: Skies of Arcadia. I thought about restarting the mission in order to complete it without this particular fatality, however given what happened during the following cut scenes (I won't spoil it) I decided to continue the game as is. I'm enjoying the game, it's long and challenging with an interesting story - this is classic Dreamcast era Sega at its best. Welcome back Sega.

On the DS I am working through Super Robot Taisan OG: Endless Frontier. This is one of the most bizarre but fun games that I've played, and coming on the heels of The World Ends With You... that's saying A LOT. I'm also enjoying the, uhhh, "graphics".

For Fathers' Day my eldest son Evan gave me inFAMOUS for the PS3. Given the "backlog" which is collected here on the "Now Playing List" that stands at 24 games... I haven't opened it up yet. I've promised myself that I'm not going to open another game until I complete Valkyria Chronicles at the very least. I WILL get to this backlog, I WILL! Damn, just realized that Devil Survivor was shipped to me today too... that's 25 games on the backlog. No more.

I'm an addict.

I'm about half way through the The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. I'm really getting into it, it's very well thought out and well done on all fronts. I'll post more once I'm finished with it over the next week.

It's been a busy few weeks. I jokingly refer to myself as an "interspatial species", and by that I mean that life's little guilty pleasures, like videogames and good fiction books or movies need to be lived in the margins of our otherresponsibilities, as parents, breadwinners, husbands, sons and friends. I'm not complaining, just venting...

Im about to get back to Valkyria Chronicles, I haven't played it in a while, and I intend to finish it before moving on to one of the games on my to-do list. I have cheated a bit, getting into and playing a little Halo Wars with my son. We recently bought a second copy of the game so that we can play against each other over Xbox Live... which is a lot of fun.

On the DS front, I keep having new gamesdeliveredto me for review that are just going straight into the backlog. CHinatown Wars, the DS GTA game that I was playing has been moved aside with the arrival of Super Robot Taisan OG: Endless Frontiers (at least, that's what I think that it's called). It's a good if somewhat erratic (and erotic) RPG that I wanted to test out primarily because KOS-MOS is in teh game... and I've missed her since finishing Xenosaga 3 a few years back. It's good to see that the old girl still looks good as ever.

I just finished watching the E3 Press Briefing by Microsoft. and it was amazing. In a typical year, any one of the announcements would have been ground breaking, and frankly putting them all together was ground breaking. Facebook and Twitter integration, music services through Last.fm, television and movie services in full 1080p and instant on streaming, a new Metal Gear Solid franchise coming to the Xbox for the first time, two new Halo games from Bungie including the newly announced Halo: Reach, plus the 3D motion sensing technology behind Project Natal. Incredible scope.

It appears to me, that what happened behind the scenes here was that Microsoft decided no to introduce a new console for the foreseeable future: in essence Project Natal, which will come bundled with all Xbox 360's *is* the new Xbox. I think that this is a great idea, there's still a lot of power in the machine that can be exploited, and adding in the new controller free mechanism will create a very new, and different experience. They did not provide any information on pricing or availability.

I think that just as important is the Facebook and Twitter integration. For the first time, Microsoft is opening up Xbox Live to the rest of the internet, but in a much more controlled and integrated manner than Sony is doing with the PS3.

I'm looking forward to discovering more about this news. It was a very impressive performance.

I finished Atlas Shrugged over the last week. The book is a masterpiece in many ways, particularly as a mechanism for the delivery of Ayn Rand's philosopy of Objectivism. This is my second read through of the book, the first time I read it was back in college in 1988, so its been a while. Revisiting it 20 some odd years later made me realize just how powerful Rand's message is, even though Ifound the plot to bemore convoluted than I remembered it to be, particularly near the end of the third act. Whatever the weaknesses and nits or picks that people may find with her underlying philosophy, the book does demand a read through by all rational people - it presents an alternative view of humanity and our role on the earth and in the universe that deserves a hearing.

I received a response from a reader on my twitter feed suggesting that I should read some of Robert Heinlein's works if I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, and I took him up on it by picking up The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I wasn't aware that Heinlein's works had a particularly libertarian or anti-authority bend to them. I'm into the third chapter of the book, and it is quite an interesting read so far. More to come... and remember TANSTAAFL!

I haven't had much time to go through my Games on the Go ("GOTGO") list in a while, and unfortunately there's not much to add due to a lack of time.

I haven't made it through the 8th level in Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3, which is much tougher than I thought that it would be. The challenge level in the game doesn't seem to be well distributed, with the first six levels having been quite easy, while the seventh and now the eight level are very, very tough requiring multiple attempts. I learned during a recent failed attempt at that eighth level that I can save the game during a particular mission, which should help in reducing my frustration - at least I won't have to start at the very beginning of a mission when I need to restart from a failed attempt. I'll get through this, the game is good enough to be worth the effort.

I had a chance to discover just how good my 10 year old son has become at Halo Wars last night. I gave him the option of going out to watch Star Trek at the theatre with me or to have me buy him his own copy of Halo Wars so that we could play multiplayer against each other online (there is no multiplayer option on a single console in the game). Smart kid that he is, he picked the Halo Wars option, and when we got home we plugged in our game disks and went at it mano a mano, Cutter vs. Cutter in a one-on-one battle. He kicked my butt. How is this possible? I can understand that he regularly kicks my butt at Halo 3 multiplayer, where the PixelJunkNinjas Halo song has become my anthem due to my lack of multiplayer ability - but a strategy game like Halo Wars should be right up my alley. I mean, he's ten years old! No luck. I was very impressed. I'm lookin forward to a rematch.

On the rest of the 'stuff', I just had a copy of Devil Summoner 2 Limited Edition delivered to me in the last week or so. I must have pre-ordered it from Amazon at some time and forgot about it. I've read some of the mixed reviews for the game, and I think that itdeserves a play through, but it's not coming out of its packaging until I make some progress on the many other games on the backlog. I'm still making my way through GTA: Chinatown Wars, I'm not sure if I'm going to finish the game on that platform (and considering that I've never finished a GTA game, ever that doesn't come as a surprise) but it is a fun romp. I'm waiting for the next great RPG for the DS to arrive at my front door - the DS has become my RPG system of choice over the last six months or so.

It's been a while since I've updated the old GOTGO list. I'm deep into Valkyria Chronicles now and I'm really enjoying the game. It's quircky in the "only in Japan" kind of way but at the same time it's challenging without being overly complicated. I'm getting to some more challenging levels now, the early chapters were frankly a bit too easy, and I'm finding that I'm replaying certain levels a few times before I beat them. I haven't had anybody die yet, I'm going to try to make it through without any losses, hopefully there's a decent payoff.

Legacy of Ys was put on the backburner when GTA: Chinatown Wars game into my life, which is really no loss as I really haven't played much of Ys (yet). Chinatown Wars is an incredible game, in some ways it's better than its big brother on the consoles. The only issue that I'm sure is going to come up for me is that one level - that I just won't be able to pass after trying it over and over and over again to the point of frustration. I'm not as young as I used to be... in any case I'm hoping against hope that this becomes the first GTA game that I ever finish! GTA is similar to the Final Fantasy series for me, I have every game but didn't finish any until FFIV and FFV on the DS. I'm looking forward to the same experience with GTA: CW.

I'm adding a BOTGO list update to my entertainment blog: "Books On The Go". I find it interesting however that out of all of the categories in the category list, Books is not one of them. Strange but true.

On the fiction side of things, I'm currently in the last few hundred pages of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It's the second time that I'm reading through it, the first being about 22 years ago. It is particularly relevant in the current environment, and perhaps more enjoyable than it was when I was in college because with some experience behind me, I can see the truth in what Rand was communicated. The book is not just a story, it's a manifesto. I understand that Rand stated that she wanted to write a story first and foremost, and she did, but it's obvious in the lengthy and sometimes awkward discussions between the characters that Rand was screaming out at the world that she saw around her... and for good reason. On the backburner I've picked up a couple of Robert A. Heinlein books: Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. They were recommended by somebody on twitter as being complimentary to Rand in their focus, and since I'm a science fiction fan with pro-liberty sympathies, I figured I'd give them a shot.

On the non-fiction side of things, there's a number of books on the backburner, from The World is Curved to a number of others that I frankly don't recall at the moment. I'll get to them... soon.

I have no time. One friend mentioned to me, upon hearing me complain, that I barely have enough time to live one life never mind trying to fit in a few others via the videogame universe... but I digress.

I've started playing through Valkyria Chronicles, it's an interesting if odd game, not really what I expected. I thought that the game was an RPG of some sort, similar perhaps to Sega's SKies of Arcadia. Instead, it's more of a strategy game, more similar to an FF Tactics or maybe even to a Halo Wars than it is to a traditional RPG. This isn't a bad thing, just not what I expected. I've played through for about an hour, got to the point where I need to build my squad of 20 team members... it's starting to fry my brain partially because I don't feel like investing the time to really understand the interpersonal relationships of each of the squad mates, but at least I have my Skies of Arcadia friends on my team, haven't seen them in years!

Legacy of Ys Book 1 just got started, haven't put much time into it just yet, but it looks promising. Let's see how it goes.