I have just been chastized by someone who is either a complete stranger or a new identity for a recurring “anonymous friend”.  The criticism is that my most recent Blogless Lepolt post has nothing whatever to do with Multiverser, and of course he is correct.  I may have again to rethink what I post here.

Fortunately, my inspiration for posting today is related to Multiverser.  Some of you will recall that as part of my work on the novels, I was creating character sheets based on the primary characters therein.  Judging from the blog posts, it has been entirely too long that those efforts have been sidetracked.  However, recently in the forums I launched one of my players in one of the worlds from the second novel, one which I am preparing for use in the next Multiverser Triple Play–that is, next after the horror one that is currently in the hands of the art director, the space-based worlds.  I was going to run it mostly by the seat of my pants and the notes and writing I’ve done on the world description–but as often happens in Multiverser games, the player’s character did something that changed things significantly.  He prayed another character into his scenario, and that prompted me to shift the plans to involve the story of that other character.  It also meant that I needed detailed information concerning the particular character from the story, including skills and equipment, so that I could put together events well.

Thus I returned my attention to the novels, and particularly to the character sheets.  In so doing, I found I had nearly finished all the data gathering from the first, and was almost ready to start the second.  I pushed forward into the beginning of the second novel, and the first bits of information about the character already involved in play, and hoping that this will facilitate both the ongoing game and the work on the novels.

I should apologize for my absence yesterday, but an explanation would involve details of family matters not at all related to Multiverser, and would thus raise the ire of people on all sides.

–M. J. Young

Last night, once the dust settled, I went into the bedroom and put Lake House in the DVD player. Honestly, I was tired of thinking about the temporal anomalies in Primer, and wanted to wrap my head around something else. Then, while the movie was getting started (I had seen the beginning already), I went back to my office and got involved in writing up Terranova Habitat for the space-themed Multiverser Triple Play worlds package. I did that for a while, and then went back, rewound the movie (which seems entirely the wrong word for a DVD) to a point that looked familiar, and watched the rest.

Lake House is going to be a lot easier than Primer; on the other hand, it’s not going to be reconcilable. The story collapses within the first ten minutes, but it’s watchable because you aren’t given the proof that those first ten minutes are impossible until the last ten minutes. It has a happy, if totally impossible, ending, and is an enjoyable film whether or not you like its stars. I’ve been a fan of stories about architecture since having been forced to read ninety percent of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead in high school, and some of the comments on architecture are insightful. There are a few spots where they get gimmicky, treating correspondence as if it were dialogue, which will have to be addressed; but in the main, it’s pretty clear what is supposed to have happened, and equally clear why none of it could have.

So I’ve accomplished something, but not nearly enough. Let me press on through today; maybe I can accomplish more.

–M. J. Young