A Disappointing Pair

The end of a good book often leaves me a little depressed. When I enjoy a book, I don’t really want it to end.

Recently, I finished a book…well, actually a set of three books and it felt more like liberation.

Then, within a few days I finished a computer game and…it felt much the same way.

I was actually both relieved and pleased to be finished with both and that was such an unusual experience that I felt the need to write about it. Plus, it makes an excellent opportunity to write a review of a popular game and an obscure book by a well-known Author.

Fallout 3 was a huge hit for Bethesda Softworks. For those who don’t know, in the game, the year is approximately 2270. 200 years before there was a nuclear holocaust, a war that devastated the planet. Your ancestors, or so you believe, hid in vaults to protect themselves from the radiation. After 200 gears of isolation you leave the vault and head out into the wasteland. I won’t give away more of the story in case you decide to play it.

My problem with Fallout 3 is that it is depressing. The game is well-crafted and well-written, but none of that can hide a depressing story. It doesn’t help that the game uses a rather muted color palette. In an attempt to be pithy, I would describe Fallout 3 as being gray, and I mean more than just the color, which to be honest is closer to sepia. There’s no green, no red except for blood, no bright colors at all.

A couple of times during the game I was tempted to quit, and having finished it, I have no desire to play anymore and no desire to get any of the downloadable content. Fallout: New Vegas looks a little better, but what does it say about a game if the sequel’s most appealing feature is that it doesn’t look as bad as the original?

I just cannot recommend it.

So, on to the books.

Many years ago, not long after it was published, I read C.D. Cheryl’s novel Rusalka. I had read several of her novels previously, most notably Downbelow Station and parts of the Chanur Saga. Rusalka, and the two novels that follow, Chernevog and Yvgenie, are based on Russian folklore. One review said they were based on Slavic Mythology, but I think folklore d better word than mythology, when applied to these stories. I enjoyed Rusalka and went on to buy Chernevog not long after. I didn’t like Chernevog as well as Rusalka, and so, while I still wanted Yvgenie, I never went back and bought a copy. In fact, I remember seeing it in hardback, but never saw a paperback copy.

And then it went out of print.

I spent over a decade watching Half-Price Books for a copy that never appeared. Finally, a few months ago I found a used copy of Yvgenie on Amazon and bought it. When my reading schedule cleared, I started again from the beginning.

Now, I read pretty fast. I have read over a hundred books some years and it usually takes no more than a couple of weeks to finish any book, usually it is measured in days, not weeks.

I didn’t like it as well the second time around. Rusalka went pretty fast, but during Chernevog I started to get bogged down. I finished it quickly enough, but when I jumped into Eveshka it seemed like I was stuck in mud. It took me forever to finish the third book.

Now, I think it entirely possible that Fallout 3 and the Russian Trilogy may have fed off each other. The books are often depressing and much of the stories seem to happen in a brown muddy rainstorm. It also doesn’t help that the books can be confusing at times as the author jumps back and forth between different viewpoints, and it gets worse as the series moves on.

In Rusalka, we jump back and forth between Sasha and Pyetr. In Chernevog she adds one move voice, Eveshka. In Yvgenie, the author just goes for broke and tells the story while swapping back and forth between the inner thoughts of all six characters in the novel.

It is just too much.

And I found the ending less than satisfying.

But, my dual ordeal is over. I’ve already moved on to another book and in just a couple of days I am more than a hundred pages in, and entranced with the story. So, I am happy to be out from under these two depressing stories and on to other things.