You know, Maigret gets some good translations

 While reading Maigret at Montmartre by Georges Simenon (really, who else would have written it but it’s just common decency to always list the author), I realized that it had also been published in English as Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper  and Maigret at Picratt’s. All by different translators.

Over the last several months, I have been reading Maigret novels. And, from the start, I have known that the blessed things were originally in French. However, I hadn’t really thought about how there must be different translators, how there must be different little touches here and there. Because the tone has been pretty consistent throughout my literary journey.

Which isn’t to say that Simenon’s voice must be so strong that it overpowers any quirks of individual translators. Instead, I think Simenon is considered important enough to get it right.

I sometimes forget just how much of what I read started off in another language. Because sometimes it takes a bad translation to remind you that these aren’t the authors original words. 

And I don’t think I’d get enough out of reading these three different translations of this 1954 Maigret book to justify it. I feel like I’ve done well to myself to read one.

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As the strangled stripper version of the title would suggest, the book deals with the seedier side of life. Simenon has a very psychological approach and does a remarkably good job not glamorizing unsavory things. Instead of exploitation, he discusses the exploited.

There were some strikingly homophobic scenes. And while you can just say ‘it was 1954’ which isn’t unfair but the extent that Simenon humanized sex workers makes him dehumanizing another group stand out.

Look, I love the work of H. P. Lovecraft and I also know he was incredibly racist, even by the standards of his own time. I am going to argue that it is all right to enjoy a creator as long as we acknowledge the issues we have with them. We don’t benefit from closing out the world. And a friend of mine has said that particularly applies when the creator is dead and won’t get any money from us buying their works.

And Maigret at Montmartre delivers why I read this series. I read Rex Stout to watch Archie and Nero bicker and I read Simenon to watch Maigret into everyone’s minds.

Bonsai- Earning points or slow sculpture?

 I picked up Bonsai for five bucks from a clearance rack at Barnes & Nobel. What I ultimately found was something that had a little bit more style over substance, but was firmly aimed at the casual audience. Which is an audience that I have found I fit more and more with.

Like you probably figured, it’s a game about cultivating your own bonsai tree. It combines an action point system/resource management, that you cultivate with a tableau of cards, with tile laying. 

The mechanics of the game are very familiar. While the game terms are meditate and cultivate, it’s really draw cards and place tiles. 

For the meditation action, you draw cards from a central board that let you increase your tile storage capacity and the number of tiles you were allowed to place, along with cards that just give you points. You also get a limited number of tiles while you are at it.

Cultivation is tile laying, building up a bonsai tree out of hexagonal tiles. The tile placement restrictions are very intuitive and will create a very traditional looking bonsai tree out of tiles. You can also earn bonus point tiles if you hit certain goals with your tree.

At the end of the game, you get points for certain tiles, specific cards and any bonuses you got on the way.

Bonsai is not quite a true multiplayer solitaire because you are all drawing from the same pool of cards. However, even the indirect interaction is pretty limited.

However, that’s not really the point of the game. While there are points, and there are winners and losers, you aren’t fighting clever tricks to outplay your opponents. You are figuring out how to make your own best bonsai tree.

While Bonsai isn’t the prettiest game I’ve ever seen, the artwork really leans into the theme. I would even go so far as to say that it is understated in the right way. It lends itself to the soothing process of creating the slow sculpture of a bonsai tree.

A family favorite of ours is A Gentle Rain. While there is a goal and a way of determining how close you came to achieving that goal, it is really the decompressing process of creating a tableau of flowers that makes us play it. Bonsai fits into a similar category.

Bonsai isn’t a game for everyone or for every occasion. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the audience for it is even bigger than I think it is.

Sleep deprived ramblings about Morning Coffee Dungeon

 It took a month as hectic and exhausting as this September has been for me to decide that it was time to try out Alexander Shen’s Morning Coffee Dungeon series. While much of Shen’s work is fluffy little activities that have some little twist to make them interesting, the Morning Coffee Dungeons are just light little nothings without much twist.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, there are three games in the series. Each one is one page, rules, and all. They all involve moving around a grid and using a 12-sided die. And no, I don’t consider using what has to be in the running for least commonly used die a twist.

One element that I did like was movement. You can move anywhere you want as long as it isn’t blocked by a monster. It just simplifies everything.

The first two games involve fighting monsters and opening treasure chests. Fighting is just subtract the monster’s level from your level and take that much damage. Treasure is the one random element. Roll that twelve sided die and check a table. Sometimes you will get damage instead of treasure so there is always a risk.

The third game involves hunting a teleporting monster with a time limit. Which actually makes it the most interesting game.

All of the games are efficiency puzzles with a push-your-luck game attached. The efficiency puzzles are so simple there really isn’t any puzzle. And a d12 has enough range that you can’t play the odds. Just roll and hope.

In short, the choices aren’t interesting and don’t affect the die roll, which determines what actually happens. 

(To be fair, the third game has you roll against your range from the monster to see if you hit it so your choices do matter. Monster movement still makes it very random)

I do like the art. At least half of my enjoyment came from the art.

And I knew the Morning Coffee Dungeon games would be weak. However, time has been limited and brain fog has been strong so I decided it was a good time to look at them.

Alexander Shen has designed much better puzzles and games that brain fog friendly. Blankout and Spooky Forest are particular favorites of mine.

But the game I find myself comparing Morning Coffee Dungeon to is Dice Fishing D6, one of my go to games when I’m exhausted. The decisions in it are simple and the dice ultimately decide the game. However, your decisions directly impact the outcome and the gameplay is so brief it never outstays its welcome.

Morning Coffee Dungeon offered some diversion but there are much bettter alternatives.

Tintin through the lens of Mickey Mouse

 Thanks to Humble Bundle, I have been reading Fantagraphics Disney Masters series, which are reprints of old Disney comic books, many of which are from Europe.

Honestly, other than Carl Barks and Don Rosa, I don’t have much interest in Disney comic books, although I do find it fascinating how that medium has been much more successful in countries that aren’t the U.S. If the world wasn’t on fire, I wouldn’t be reaching for this level of escapism. I look forward to a time when I don’t feel the need to read ancient Mickey Mouse comic books.

With that said, almost all of these stories are decades old. When I think about about other reprinted comic books I’ve read from the 1950s, these hold up surprisingly well. Particularly when you consider that they were aimed at a younger audience than horror or superhero comics.

I’m actually enjoying the Mickey Mouse work more than the duck works. I think that is because Barks and Rosa have spoiled me for quality stories about Donald and Uncle Scrooge. 

I kept thinking, though, that the Mickey as a detective stories reminded me of something. Particularly the ones drawn by Paul Murray. And then I realized that they reminded me of Tintin!

Oh, I’m not saying that they were as good as Tintin. After Herge really got rolling, the quality of the art and stories was something else. And they definitely can’t compare to extensive research Herge famously did. 

However, Mickey as an adventurer definitely has the same feel as Tintin. They tap into the same archetype. A moral paragon who is hyper competent but still supposed to be an Everyman. Which also means everyone else around them has to provide the conflict and interest lol

In the adventure stories, Mickey is always paired up with Goofy. Which makes Goofy take on the jobs of both Snowy and Captain Haddock. Which makes sense because Goofy is both a dog and the big guy.

And, yes, I definitely consider Captain Haddock a richer and deeper character than this vision of Goofy and one with much more interesting family friendly profanity. (Heck, I forget he’s a relative latecomer to the stories since I view him as so intrinsic to Tintin) However, I read the notes and the editors discussed on how Goofy was necessary to make the stories funny because this version of Mickey isn’t funny.

Which then made me appreciate both Captain Haddock and Snowy more because that explanation helped me understand their roles in the Adventures of Tintin. Tintin is too bland and competent. We need a klutzy terrier and a recovering alcoholic of a sea captain to keep us on our toes.

The Disney Masters series hasn’t made me discover hidden masterpieces. It actually made me appreciate other works like Tintin or Carl Barks duck work more. However, they are a pleasant distraction.

Not all lines drawn in a dungeon are equal

 I knew what I getting when I backed Trial By Fire (a name that has been used for a wide variety of media a whole bunch of times) When I see a PnP Dungeon Crawl that just requires a pencil, I know we’re talking about a puzzle where you draw a line on a grid and combat is a simple math equation.

Alexander Shen has designed a bunch of games/puzzles that follow this formula. Paper App:Dungeon adds a die but is still basically the same idea. Solo Tower Hack also used the idea in 2007 (also with dice) 

and I’m sure it wasn’t the first.

And Trial By Fire is indeed drawing a line on a grid, just like I thought. It does make some design choices that will make it see some play for me.

First of all, it has a slightly more in depth character system. Four different stats and an inventory system. And it is organized in an easy to use checkbox system.

Far more importantly than that, you pick one of four different classes that give you different stats and starting inventory. That adds variety, which is good when you don’t have any dice or cards to change things up.

Most important for me as far as actually seeing play, one of the printing options is as a pocket-sized booklet. Trial By Fire is _far_ from unique in that. Gladden Games Paper App series is built around the idea. However, Paper App: Dungeon is my least favorite game in the series and Trial By Fire gives me a dungeon crawl alternative I enjoy more.

Trial By Fire does have some drawbacks. It is an abstract puzzle and there is going to be an optimal solution. It doesn’t have a campaign mode, which is the best part Paper App: Dungeon in my opinion. And there are plenty of alternatives to it that do the same basic thing.

However, I do like the class system and the inventory system. I think it does a good job at what it does. It’s not the first little dungeon crawl I’ve backed but it’s the one that’s made it into my travel bag. 

Trial By Fire isn’t for everyone. Or even most everyone. I got into Dungeon Crawls by way of Dungeons and Dragons and it does not scratch that itch. However, it works well as a minimal space/material travel distraction.

Around the World in 15 minutes goes to South America

 Around South America in 15 Minutes is the fourth map in the Around the World in 15 Minutes series. And it breaks the mold just enough to make me want to see what else they can do with the system.

No Box Games, now a part of Shiny Pigeon Games is not my favorite PnP publisher. That would be Button Shy or, particularly if we’re just talking Roll and Writes, Postmark Games or Hammerdice. However, their small catalog has a couple of games that I really think hit it out of the park.

Beards and Booty manages to capture the essence of Beer and Pretzels in an easy to print game. Around the World in 10-15 Minutes makes me feel like I’m playing Ticket to Rise as a R&W, even it has completely different mechanics.

I do think that Around et al is a little to easy too well at, particularly if you are playing it solitaire. However, I keep on enjoying enough to regularly play it. And I honestly think it would really work for a family audience. Which is not the easiest sell for a PnP.

Around et al is built around getting points from three different paths. Visiting every city in an area, collecting souvenirs and exploration. The twist in South America is that visitation has been completely removed and exploration has been expanded.

All of the exploration is now about trying to photograph animals and the animals have varying degrees of scarcity. The rarest animals can only been seen in one city with with one per region.

I had a general strategy that worked for the world, USA and Europe map of trying to hit every single city and adjusting exploration and souvenirs as the dice dictate. That doesn’t work with South America. Hitting every city isn’t as important as hitting specific cities. And when you get fewer exploration rolls, it really hurts. 

South America now competes with the USA map for what map I think works best for solitaire play. More than that, it makes me think about how you can tweak the overall system. How the maps can be more than just different geography.

The Space Merchants still feels timely

 I’ve been aware of The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth pretty much since I started looking seriously at science fiction. I remember seeing copies of it at used bookstores when I was in high school and I knew it was supposed to be one of the great classics of the genre. 

But I only got around to reading it last month.

It’s one part thriller, two parts social commentary and three parts satire with a hefty focus on character development.

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In this world of the future, industry rules the world to the point where governments are not even figureheads. And advertising firms runs industry. The world is on the edge of ecologic ruin but advertising campaigns mask and hide that fact.

Michael Courtenay is a high level advertising executive in one of the leading firms. To give an idea of the scope, the company incorporated the entire subcontinent of India. They are now in the process of colonizing and owning the planet Venus.

So, of course, Mitch ends up getting shanghaied into a position at the bottom of the barrel, skimming algae and locked into a contract designed to bury him in forever debt so he gets to see life on the other side.

Mitch is a really well designed character. He starts off an an anti-hero. And not a Wolverine anti-hero but a Willy Loman anti-hero. More than that, he isn’t a Bertie Wooster child of privilege. He is fiercely intelligent and aggressive. When he hits rock bottom, he immediately starts digging up.

And it takes most of the book for Mitch to hit his redemption point. I remember hearing DiMartino and Konietzko, the creators of Avatar the Last Airbender, say that Zuko had to regain his privilege to give him to sacrifice for his heel face turn to mean anything. Mitch has taken over the company that owns India before he become a conservationist and a good guy.

While the thriller aspect of the book is the least important one, at least in my opinion, Pohl and Kornbluth do deliver on it. The plot keeps on making unexpected swerves and they keep on ratcheting up the tension.

I found the satire to be milder compared to works by, say, Kurt Vonnegut. However, I also wonder if it would have felt more extreme in 1952 compared to a far more social media saturated world.

The Space Merchants felt like a piece of classical literature disguised as pulp science fiction. I’m glad that I read it but I’m also glad I waited to read it.