Have you ever felt trapped in a certain place that you can go in but never escape? Were you ever in love with a specific thing? For example, someone special, or maybe the inside of a shed. “Room” is a very interesting book because as a reader, you will be able to witness eclectic thoughts of what a mother and a son thinks about their world. “Room” comes from the point of view of a five-year-old child explaining about his world with bits and pieces of his mother’s as well. The mother and son are trapped in room, but what exactly is it? Room is just an 11-by-11 foot shed fabricated with wood and the insides filled with a tv, bed, fridge, table, etc. It’s basically a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom overflowing in a single room.

This is a non placid story. You don’t ever feel calm reading “room”. To me, I feel I’m reading the book in the actual room, and seeing the characters do their sudden movements. This is a unique book to read because it helps me and you as the reader, visualize living in that single space. Basically having that feeling reading or actually living inside a jail cell by yourself, or at least with one person. As a reader you definitely will have a chilly feeling go through your body giving you goosebumps. The book also helps give a first person point of view of the main character walking, running, or doing nothing around room. For example the character is sleeping, what does he feel? Is he sleeping on a bed, on the floor, or maybe on the wall? From the first person point view you might read inadequate grammar, but you can picture the character’s action, and maybe his emotions. If you can not pull out key words, then you will not be able to figure out the action or emotion. While I was reading “room” I was able to know, see, feel what the characters are doing. It will not be hard for you to figure it out as well.

This story was written by none other than Emma Donoghue. Emma is an irish-writer that actually lives in Canada.  She has published six books of fiction, two works of literary history, two anthologies, and two plays. I recently emailed Emma to get her thoughts about the book she wrote. I asked her “what inspired you to write in the point of view of a five year old child, and to write a bone chilling experience about two people living in the conditions of just one single room?” Unfortunately, Emma didn’t send a response back to me. In my opinion, I think what made Emma Donoghue write this, was to show us another way of a lifestyle, in a certain living condition. What I mean is that what does this person actually have to do with their life, and how will they live? Room is a great example because the mother and the son in the book have to deal with one single room every day.

The main character of this story tells us the whole story from his point of view. His name is Jack. Jack just turned five years old when the book started and is five throughout the whole book. He is just a normal little kid with a big opened mind, because he is always watching tv, coloring, hanging with his mother, but there is just one problem. He doesn’t know he is trapped in room. To Jack, room is his best friend, because that's his actual world. He is in love with room, which makes him not want to leave it. Well basically he can’t leave room because there is a passcode lock on the door. Jack likes everything he does in room, especially when he sleeps in the wardrobe. Jack sleeps in there to stay away from Old Nick, even though he wants to see what he looks like. Jack is always curious but his mother wouldn’t let him see Old Nick.

Jack’s mother has been trapped in room since she was 19 years old. Old Nick was the one who trapped mom in there. You will find out more details in the book, when you the reader actually read it. Jack’s mother has actually seen the world, before she was put in there. Basically Jack’s mother had a nice life until this situation happened. No one knows what happen to her. So his mother has been dying to go back out there into the world, instead of seeing 11-by-11 foot walls everyday for the rest of her life. The big issue was that Old Nick only knows the passcode to the door. Mother has tried so many times to escape, but she never won. Throughout the story she tries her best to persuade Jack that room isn’t his world, since Jack only truly knows about room. There is actually a world out there filled with more living things and nonliving things instead of what is seen inside a 11-by-11 foot shed. For example Jack knows what a tree is, but he never saw it in real life. He only sees it in the little television monitor in the room.

Bossypants, written by Tina Fey, is a comical masterpiece. It is a well written story filled with charming anecdotes of Tina’s personal and professional life. Through her success she portrays what it is like to be a woman working in a male dominated environment. She reminds her female readers of how, in those situations, people often turn it into a girl on girl competion. In response Tina says, “You're not in competition with other women. You're in competition with everyone.” Little nuggets of advice, like this quote, are sprinkled throughout the book. Between moments of pure laughter there are moments of wisdom that make this book so unique and enjoyable to read. Regardless of your age, Tina has advice that is relevant to your life. Women, men, teens, parents, everyone can take something away from her book.

Bossypants is not all life advice from Tina, she also discusses her personal life, and her constant struggle to find the balance between work, her social life, and her home life. She shares anecdotes of her childhood and her “just badass” dad, Don Fey, through her teenage years growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, working for a Christian theatre company. The stories are put together to form a timeline of Tina’s life. To add to the moments of nostalgia there are photographs of Tina, her family and friends, throughout the years. It creates an image of her life before fame. She had a normal, awkward, anything but glamorous life. And the pictures she adds in makes you feel like you know her on a more personal level. With the pictures throughout the book you also get a physical image seeing her develop into the person she is today. Continuing into young adulthood Tina discusses her luck with guys. At a point while discussing college relationships she reminds her readers, “When choosing sexual partners, remember: Talent is not sexually transmittable.”

From talk of childhood, Tina makes the transition into her career. And of course, what would her book be without discussing her time on Saturday Night Live and working on the set of 30 Rock with Alec Baldwin. Starting with a Second City, a comedy improv company in Chicago, she learned some of her most valuable lessons about comedy. From there she became a writer for Saturday Night Live where she met and worked with Lorne Michaels and developed somewhat of a mentor and mentee relationship. He is mentioned frequently in chapters about writing for SNL and late nights in the office, Tina also notes Lorne’s influences on her writing and all the useful show business advice he gave her through the years. The advice she got from him at SNL carried over to how she ran things at 30 Rock. She talks about script writing, the editing process, late nights in the studio and how stressful all of it really was is. She shows the work that goes into the script writing and how hard it is writing for comedy. At this point of the book she probably shares her most profound words of wisdom, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.”  

The writing style of the book is comical. Tina has a unique way of conveying humor through sarcasm and satire in writing. No matter the subject of the chapter she finds a way to make you laugh. One chapter in particular, “Young Men’s Christian Association”, described her time working at her local YMCA. The job was far from exciting, yet between writing about the people she encountered or the work that was required, her complaints and rants made the book worth reading. “The people who worked upstairs in the offices...had it made. A guy in boxer shorts never screamed at them, that the residence lounge TV was broken.” The main idea to take away from all of these anecdotes and reflections is that everything will eventually be okay. If you mess up it’s not the end of the world. Countless times throughout the book Tina stresses that you should try to do everything that you can, but there will be a point where you just need to let it go. Which was something I did not expect when reading Bossypants. When I picked up the book I expected Tina Fey to write about how extravagant her life is and how grateful she is for all the opportunities she had been given, like a prolonged Oscar speech. But I was pleasantly proven wrong.

Bossypants was written by Tina Fey, published by Little Brown and Company, on April 5, 2011, 277 pages, autobiography.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? is a philosophical book written by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel. This analytical book challenges every person in terms of their personal ideals of morals, justice, and freedom. It goes into depth about justice theories like utilitarianism vs libertarianism vs kantian. It gives cases involving affirmative action, birth contracts, and the free market. Sandel deciphers theories about justice and morals, while also challenging the thinking behind them. The author, Michael J. Sandel, is a professor at Harvard who teaches the courses “Ethics, Biotechnology, and the Future of Human Nature,” “Ethics, Economics, and Law,” and “Globalization and Its Critics.” He has written many books that also delve into philosophy, morality, and politics. He was recognized as an excellent teacher by American Political Science Association. His most popular undergraduate class is Justice, which has enrolled over 15,000 students. He is known globally as an influential leader in morality and justice. The book Justice is partially based off his teachings, lectures, and students in his class.

The format of the book is quite unique. Sandel will explain a theory and mention the opposing theories. After explaining the theory and ideas behind it, he applies them to the real world using either hypothetical scenarios or past events. This novel does not have a concrete plot, however each theory builds upon previous theories and conceptions throughout the book. Sandel has a very formal style of writing. It’s not casual and the book demands your attention. This book is jam-packed with ideologies, and is very dense. Even though the book is dense, requires concentration, and an open mind, you can put down the book (although you won’t want to) and pick it up wherever you left off due to the excellence of Sandel’s explanations.

Sandel really shines when it comes to the relevance of this book. Throughout the book he constantly questions how every person acts with guidance from morality or lack of. This book is a great tool for creating quality citizens, who in turn, could create a quality society. The reappearing motif in this book is the question (as said in the title) “What is the right thing to do?” Sandel continuously clarifies, reviews, and applies many theories of what’s just and what’s morally right in his book. One of the reasons why this book is incredibly thought-provoking is that Sandel never tells you what the right thing is. He gives different sides of the stories and backs them up, with added input from philosophers, but never gives a definite answer. One example Sandel gives is of a “debate over surrogate motherhood.” This case involved a woman, in New Jersey, who was paid to carry a couple’s child. The baby’s father was the man in the couple. The surrogate mother agreed to give over the baby at birth without visitation rights. However, when the birth of the baby came, the surrogate mother could not part with the child and fled to Florida. She was later brought back to New Jersey. The couple took the surrogate mother to court, and the judge ruled that the baby was to be in full custody of the couple because of the surrogate mother’s consent and contract. However the course was then taken to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and they again ruled that the baby belonged with the couple, but for different reasons. This court said that the reason custody belonged to the couple was because of what was best for the child. They also argued that the surrogate mother was not knowledgeable about how she would feel after the baby was born, therefore making the contract was not an “informed choice.” He then challenges the reader and asks who was right? This book really makes the reader question what they believe in and how they decide what is right.

Another repeating theme is the ongoing battle of group vs. individual rights. One way Sandel demonstrates this debate is through utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is based on the belief that people seek pleasure, and aim to avoid pain. The main principle is utility. Therefore when practicing utility, one must focus on maximizing the pleasure of the majority. Sandel explains that this method is used often in politics. As in ‘What will help the most people?’ Sandel explains that the biggest weakness of utilitarianism is that “it fails to respect individual rights.” He offers an example of the weakness through “Throwing Christians to Lions.” Sandel says how “In ancient Rome, they threw Christians to the lions in the Coliseum for the amusement of the crowd.” He then goes on to explain the utilitarian rationale, “Yes, the Christian suffers excruciating pain as the lion mails and devours him. But think of the collective ecstasy of the cheering spectators packing the Coliseum. If enough Romans derive enough pleasure from the violent spectacle, are there any grounds on which a utilitarian can condemn it? (Sandel also justified the utilitarian belief later on)”

In Justice, Sandel encourages the reader to learn about all ideas of justice to form their own idea of the ‘ideal’ justice, and to then practice and apply to one’s daily life. As a reader you’re under the impression that Sandel has given you an encyclopedia on morality and justice, and it’s your job to envision your own theory. Once you’ve found the right blend of principles, practice using this combination in your daily life. Everyday people are faced with ethical obstacles, and as virtuous people, it is our duty to navigate them as best as we can. After reading Justice you will not only feel well versed in various theories, but you will be able to determine yourself what the right thing to do is.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?

Michael J. Sandel

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

2009

269 pages

Philosophy

Creative piece:

I based my creative piece off of John Rawls' theory of "The Veil of Ignorance." His theory is that people cannot choose just principles of society unless every person is equal. In order to make everyone equal people should imagine the hypothetical scenario of "The Veil of Ignorance." "The Veil of Ignorance" would be so that people would not know any information about their religion, health, social status, etc. Therefore no one would be picking principles of justice from a biased standpoint, in turn making society 'just.' This model demonstrates this idea by showing a person who is very biased and what they favor in society vs. a person behind "The Veil of Ignorance" and what they favor. In Rawls' theory, the people who 'look' from behind "The Veil of Ignorance" will pick the 'right' principles.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a short book. It seems inconceivable that author Darius Kazemi would be able to fit a complete account of how a game was made in less than 150 pages, but he does this completely naturally. This book provides you with a complete picture of how a game is made, from the state of the industry at the time, to the cultural circumstances that affected the game, and even examines the game’s source code in detail.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a turn-based strategy game developed by Sir-Tech. In a turn-based strategy game, you control a set of units on a board, issue them commands during your turn, then wait while your opponent takes its turn. You most often play against the computer. In the introduction, Kazemi defines his goal for the book as a criticism that is as objective as possible, with no baseless interpretation of the game’s content or starry-eyed nostalgia. This is obviously an unattainable goal, a fact which the author immediately concedes after setting it. As the book uses interviews from people involved in Jagged Alliance 2’s development, their accounts will naturally conflict and some interpretation is necessary. However, whether analysing the artificial intelligence of Jagged Alliance 2 or examining how gun culture affected the development of the game, Kazemi uses quotes from interviews and excerpts from the game’s code to paint a unmistakable of Jagged Alliance 2 and the circumstances in which it was developed.

Jagged Alliance 2 presents the history of the game and Sir-Tech, the company that developed it, in a narrative format. However, it’s done with minimum input from the author, with the voices of Jagged Alliance 2’s developers taking the main focus. Ian Currie, the designer of Jagged Alliance and its sequel Jagged Alliance 2, is presented as the mastermind behind the game. The first chapter of the book tells the story of how Ian Currie developed the game Freakin’ Funky Fuzzballs during his free time while working on a railroad. This game was published by Sir-Tech, who eventually hired him. After shipping Freakin’ Funky Fuzzballs, Curie designed Jagged Alliance and its sequel, which the book mainly focuses on. The book avoids an easy pitfall by not making it seem like Curie was the only person responsible for Jagged Alliance 2’s creation - it puts just as much emphasis on the voices of the others who worked on the game, from the artists, the level designers, and even the managers of Sir-Tech.

Throughout the book, Kazemi shows the cultural and industry shifts that caused the success of Jagged Alliance 2 and why we don’t have games like it anymore. Sir-Tech was a Canadian company, and according to the author they strove to incorporate their country’s multiculturalistic values into the game, giving players a diverse cast to choose from. This is contrasted to gun culture in America - most of the first games fans were deeply entrenched in gun culture. Darius Kazemi shows how this affected the development of Jagged Alliance 2, as the developers felt pressured to include more guns in the game to appeal to their audience. Kazemi points out that one of the main differentiating features of Jagged Alliance when compared to XCOM, another turn-based strategy game that was released shortly before, is its diverse cast, but he neglects to mention how these same factors affected XCOM. Since XCOM was a sci-fi game, did it need to portray itself as a realistic simulation in order to win the support of its fans, or did it have an entirely different audience altogether? Was it possible that having a less diverse cast made it more appealing to its audience, as they could project their own attributes onto the characters? When trying to be objective, Kazemi simply presents facts and attempts to let them speak for themselves, with a minimal amount of analysis on his part.

One of the most interesting parts of Jagged Alliance 2 is when the author delves into the code of the game, giving a line-by-line rundown of how the game’s artificial intelligence works. Artificial intelligence can seem overwhelmingly complex when observed in action, and it’s tempting to think about it as a concept beyond mortal understanding, approachable only by savants. Darius Kazemi breaks Jagged Alliance 2’s AI down into what it is: a set of simple rules, working together in a system to create something that appears to be smart. This chapter also has one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen in a codebase. Jagged Alliance 2’s developers embedded an essay about game design, artificial intelligence, and how to combine them in a fun way in the source code of the game. In game development, you would expect to find this in the game design document for the game. Most source code only has comments when necessary, like “this function is broken.” Jagged Alliance 2 brings a side that you don’t see from a lot of videogame criticism - it not only talks about the technical aspect, but examines it in detail as something that was created by people who were making something they loved.

Jagged Alliance 2 presents in detail how a combination of circumstances combined in exactly the right way to create a game that could not have existed otherwise. While it has some shortcomings, it goes above and beyond what you would expect of games criticism, deconstructing the game down to its source code. If you are interested in game development, I would suggest you buy this book immediately, as it provides some amazing insights about game design, the game industry, and how they have evolved since Jagged Alliance 2 was released. I would even suggest reading this book if you have any remote interest in video games - it presents a fascinating story and shows a complete picture of how a video game is made, something that isn’t seen a lot. Rather than focus on just the cultural impact of Jagged Alliance 2, the code, or the game itself, Darius Kazemi chooses to focus on every single aspect that makes up the game. While this broad critique may miss things along the way, it provides a complete view of a video game and all the parts that make it up.

Title: Jagged Alliance 2

Author: Darius Kazemi

Published: August 25, 2014

Genre: Game History, Non-Fiction

Committed is the word I would use to describe Orson Scott Card. He has been writing for so many years and never fails to please a crowd. He used this job to support his family, so he put all he had into producing something great. He started writing plays and musical comedies in the 1960s. Although those were good and many people enjoyed them, he is best known for his science fiction books, Ender’s Shadow and Ender’s Game. He includes all the components that a quality story should have. There is emotion, action and suspense. Just enough to keep readers engaged.

Orson Scott Card’s, Ender’s Game is a science fiction book where a crew of children is trained to fight against very intelligent space ants, also known as “buggers.” There is one child in particular, Ender, that shows great potential in being able to defeat the space ants. The instructors of the Battle School push Ender beyond his limit by changing the rules on him to see how he reacts to the changes. This is where the action is the most intense. Ender has to face the challenges to the best of his ability and continuously exceeds the school’s expectations.  Throughout the book you go on Ender’s emotional journey as he is put in difficult situations that he overcomes time and time again. Ender’s Game is an emotionally thrilling book. You get in touch with the character’s mindsets allowing you to develop “relationships” with them. The characters’ vulnerability allows you to understand why they react to things the way they do.

On top of the challenges, Ender has his emotional baggage that he brought with him from home. His brother would always threaten him. If it weren’t for his sister, Valentine, he doesn’t know where he would be. One of his biggest fears is becoming like this brother, Peter. As he is challenged with more and more tasks, he notices that he is slowly starting to react the same way his brother would. The thought sickens him, but he can’t help it.

Card does an excellent job allowing the reader to know his characters. However, if he had expanded on the action scenes, the book would have been more attention grabbing. During the scenes that he spent a substantial amount of time with description, the book was hard to put down. If he had stayed consistent with that, the book as a whole would have been even more enjoyable. Even so, he is able to play it off by including the reasoning. The book spends more time explaining why the characters do what they do, rather than expanding on the actual actions that occur.

Throughout the book you see the drastic change in Ender from the beginning of the story to the end. There is a big difference but you can still see the person Ender always was. It’s an interesting way of writing because you are able to see the character develop, but you also see how they always think back on their former selves. Through Ender’s challenges, his inner destroyer starts becoming revealed. Ender always had this darkness inside of him, but never let it show until he was put into danger. That danger helped reveal how much Ender really was like his brother, but by then it was too late. Everyone had high expectations for Ender and he couldn’t change his ways now, the world needed him.

Card throws multiple twists and turns at the readers in order to keep them engaged. As the book starts coming to an end, so many things are revealed that help the reader completely understand why events occurred the way they did.  The book allows people to compare Ender’s end relationship to each character to what they were like at the beginning, and to see how each one has changed for better and for worse. Some changed drastically and some didn’t have enough time to change, but developed quickly. Ender was able to discover who was really on his side and had been for the whole journey.

If you are into intense graphic descriptions that make you cringe in fear, this wouldn’t be the book I recommend for you. This deals more with the emotional change throughout the actions that the characters go through. You are aware of everything that Ender goes through and you go through it with him, but you don’t feel what he feels until he refers to it through thoughts later in the book. There are other books following the Ender’s Game, so there are ways to discover what happens after this book ends. If you enjoy emotional thrillers then Ender’s Game would be a great choice to pick up.

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

A Tom Doherty Associates Book

Copyright 1991

324 pages

Science Fiction

Artist's Statement

Throughout the book Ender becomes darker. He “discovered his inner destroyer.” The sun setting shows how Ender went from an innocent little boy, to someone who’s nasty thoughts took action. The rain in the background turns into a thunderstorm also to represent how his character let his self defense methods get the best of him.