Month: April 2011

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Reality is Broken – A Book Review

I knew I was going to review this book so in preparation I kept away from all of McGonigal’s talks, interviews, and presentations as much as possible before reading it. I caught her appearance on the Colbert Report, but it was hard to make any prejudgments from that short interview. So I am coming into this review as clean as I possibly could and allowing McGonigal’s book to speak for itself. Having read it, I asked on twitter, rhetorically, how do you review this book. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Reader’s Manifesto and why it could be A Gamer’s Manifesto

I finished a book a little while ago entitled A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose and I loved it. I loved it so much that I’ve started calling it my little black book. It’s a long form literary critique using examples from numerous books, both-what the author calls-good and bad. It’s not a dry academic stuffy read. It is a fast, concise to the point essay about a specific topic that is not a high-minded far away abstract topic, but about book reviews, reviews people readers rely on to tell them what is good. | more

Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts

Laptop Fluff

Since this weekend was an overall bust with unexpected work hours throwing off a major project undertaking I had planned. However despite that, this has been a really great week for me. Why? Because my new laptop came. And since I have been taking on too much heavy lifting when it comes to all these what I’m calling projects I’ve been starting. (I call them projects because while the end result may just be an essay or a podcast, but the amount of work and research that goes into it. | more