Geek Out

     Geek Out was a gift from some friends of ours. It’s like Trivial Pursuit with “geeky” subjects. The game is played by rolling a die to select a category and then answering the corresponding question. Before the question can be answered there is a bidding element. For example: the question is “Name 2 Smurfs”, the original person says “I can name 2 (or 4 or however many she can name).” The next person can pass or bid higher. This goes on until everyone has passed and the highest bidder gets to attempt to name all the Smurfs they can think of.  If the highest bidder gets it wrong, he gets a -2 points token. If he gets the question correct, he keeps the question card. It features such categories as Comics, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Games, and Miscellaneous. The White space on the Die is a Pick your own category space .The first player to answer 5 questions correctly (after subtracting their minus tokens), wins the game. The rules even use Anne and Wil Wheaton in the examples of how the game is played. So Geeky, So Cool.

     We have played a few games in the last month and I have come to the decision, it is not a balanced game. The Die almost always lands on Blue (which is impossible to differentiate from green depending on your lighting) and, occasionally, White or Black. No one has even rolled the other three colors. We all have different areas of knowledge. While the bidding helps even that advantage out, getting only those 3 categories of questions really limits who wins. There’s no time limit on how long a person can take to bid. We can’t write answers down to keep track of them, so halfway through a long list at least one gets forgotten. Players tend to stop and argue about whether or not something should be included. At which point, the person trying to answer the question has forgotten later answers and needs to start over. I really enjoy the concept of this game but with the same person winning every time it’s a little frustrating that the rest of us don’t even challenge him because our specialties don’t even get asked. I’m going to give this game one more try with a larger set of people. If we still run into the same issues, House Rules are going to have to be introduced to even out play.

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett

“The enemy isn’t men or women, it’s bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid.”

     In the country of Borogravia, nearly everything is an Abomination of their god Nuggan, including the color blue and red haired people. Pretty much the only three things that haven’t been outlawed are Men in manly roles, Women in womanly roles, and trying to kill anyone who doesn’t follow Nuggan. As the book opens, Polly Perks is in the process of becoming Oliver Perks. Polly’s brother joined the army the spring before and now he’s gone missing in action. Polly has always protected her older brother so stupid rules aren’t going to stop her from protecting him this time. “Oliver” joins the army recruiting party and learns that the situation of their country isn’t as good as the government has been claiming. There are almost no whole men left. Everyone who has returned from the battles has been injured in some way and that’s if they returned at all. The country is on the brink of starvation. Her fellow recruits are almost all girls who have decided to disguise themselves for their own reasons. Their capital has been captured by forces from Zlobenian and Ankh Morpork trying to end the eternal war between Borogravia and everyone else. Polly decides to see if the girls of the country can’t succeed where the men have failed and attempt to free the capital and save her brother at the same time.


     Technically this book belongs in the City Watch series of the Discworld novels. While Polly is the main character, Commander Vimes and some of his officers have been called in to help stop the fighting because it’s disrupting trade in Ankh Morpork. This is one of my favorite Discworld books. It is so much better than Equal Rites, that the comparison is almost unfair. Instead of the women can’t do that, let’s find a man to teach you vibe, everyone in charge of Polly’s unit just sits back and lets her to do as she wishes. This book doesn’t set out to prove that women can be as good as men, it points out that women have already proven that even if the idiots in charge wouldn’t admit it. It also points out that gender shouldn’t be an issue but the abilities of the person. I know there’s almost 20 years between his writing Equal Rites and Monstrous Regiment, but the sentiments behind this one are what I wish Equal Rites had used.

Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett

“If you ignore the rules, people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don’t apply to you.”

     On the Discworld, the eighth son of an eighth son is always a wizard. A dying wizard seeks out the soon to be father of an eighth son to pass on his staff and give the newborn a decent start on his way in life. However he learns a few minutes too late that the “son” that was being born is actually a girl. On Discworld, women can’t be wizards or use the same type of magic as men. Eskarina’s (the not-son) father and Granny Weatherwax, the local witch, decide that if they ignore the staff and possibility of magic, then Esk will grow up to be a normal girl. When that doesn’t work, Esk is apprenticed to Granny Weatherwax to learn how to be a witch. After a couple of years, Esk’s ability with the wizard’s staff becomes too powerful for Granny to deny that Esk needs training from real wizards. They set off on a journey that includes fighting sexism, bandits, and creatures from the dungeon dimensions to find Esk a wizard willing to train her.

     Equal Rites was actually the 3^rd published Discworld novel. We see quite a few characters that develop into long running regulars. Granny Weatherwax, Death, and the Librarian all play a part. While they aren’t quite as developed and a few details we’ve come to know are changed a bit, they still keep their basic roots from this book. It’s well written as most Terry Pratchett books are and full of those punny moments we all enjoy. There aren’t as many foot notes explaining how Discworld works as there are in later works. My only little issue with this book is the pervasive “girls can’t do that” argument that everyone uses to justify Esk not being a wizard. I know this was one of his first novels and the point Pratchett was trying to make was “yes girls can do that”, but the repetition of it over and over was just grating. Even in 1987 when this was published that argument for most things was dying out. I’d also like to know why it takes 20 years to hear from Esk again. I would think Esk or Simon would be involved in Unseen University business in the later books. Apparently I need to reread I Shall Wear Midnight, since Eskarina makes an appearance and I missed it. Equal Rites is definitely a book to pick up if you’d like to see the Discworld in its infancy. 

First Post

First Post of the New Year! Yay! I don't know how many people actually read this but for the few who do, I'm still trying to determine what my actual goals for this year are. I want to expand this blog for one thing. I want to do more projects,be more social, and play more games. All of which means reading less. There will probably be less book reviews and more movie/tv/game reviews. I'm hoping with the increase of projects maybe, *maybe* I'll do a few how tos on various craft projects.


That being said, I'll stop wasting time and post the first review of the year. I've been on a Terry Pratchett and Robin Hobb kick for the past couple of weeks so be prepared for a few girl power type reviews at first. Also I kind of gave up on the Most Famous Books from every state project. It turned out quite a few of the books were sequels and I spent a lot of time completely lost. Maybe one day I'll go back to it, but not soon.