Live Die Resurrection Repeat

Not so long ago, after returning home from work, where during the day I was involved in managing the project of a cottage village, I placed on the road plan and playgrounds, instructed builders where to plant trees and where to plant lawns, I sat down at a computer to play a computer game - a little rest from a hard day.

In the game, I placed roads and forges, gave instructions to builders where to plant trees and where to plant hops and how to repel the Saracen raids. That is, doing the same thing as at work. The difference with real life, of course, existed - but not significant. Modern games are increasingly becoming a copy of reality.

Almost, but not quite. The difference between the game and the real should be - after all, at work I perceive my actions as work, and in the game - as a game. I will formulate the question in the following way - what is in the game, what makes it exactly the game?

Magic? Not. Not only did Arthur Clark say that magic does not differ from developed technology, so most of the games are not tied to magic in any way. I will not pull: For me, the main difference between the game world and reality is the concept of Save / Load. It is the opportunity to roll back the time back and replay, trying another tactic - makes the game interesting. (Those games, for example MMORPG, where there is no such element, I like less).

I can not say, however, that my preferences coincide with the preferences of the majority - the love of busting options led me to the fact that only three years ago I finally finished the story company in Heroes of Might and Magic II and now play in Erefi Revival and "Stronghold".

Well, I remembered all this because the concept of Save / Load, so beloved by me, appeared a long time ago. Earlier, even, than computer games.

In 1904. Want to know more? We continue:

Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton - Major General, the inventor of the tank and the author of the simple (at first glance) comic book "Defense of the Fool Brod" - incredibly lucky. He not only wrote a novel that has been read and reread for more than a century, he became the father of a new, previously non-existent trend in literature. (Formally, at least one story with this technique is known before it, but the story of Dunlop is still remembered, as opposed to).

So what was the revolutionary reception, since the book written with its use is still being studied in military schools and fan fiction written?

The book examines in detail one day in the life of a young British lieutenant with a name that speaks to English-speaking readers: Becksite Fortot (Zadneumov-Strong - if translated literally). An excellent student who does not have practical experience, he follows a service in South Africa, where the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 ended not long ago.

Driving through a small town, the hero is poisoned with a shaverma, after which he dreams of being a commander of a reinforced platoon of about fifty soldiers, performs a combat task - trying to block a single ford on a small river and prevent the large detachment of Boers from crossing.

The task - just like from a textbook on tactics. The lieutenant had enough experience - he was taught how to command a division and even an army corps. Soldiers are loyal and do not sabotage orders. Weapons and ammunition enough.

What could go wrong?

As it turned out - everything.

All experience, all knowledge of strategy and tactics (Comparable to the knowledge of the cadet Bigler) did not help our hero to defend the ford. The perfidious Boers attacked the sleeping detachment, without making any claims, without declaring war, destroy it, without losing a single person at all.

And then there would be an end to the fairytale ... but the hero wakes up again in the same place, with the same soldiers and opponent. And most importantly - now he is armed with the knowledge of the previous attempt.

Further we are waited by five more awakenings and 22 lessons learned from the sum of all defeats. I will not retell them - the book is small, written with attention to detail with so valuable Habr - with maps and diagrams, so it can be safely recommended for reading.

In my opinion, it is the technique used that makes this excellent tutorial on tactics outstanding. It allows us, given the introductory conditions, to maximally involve the reader in the process of thinking about possible further actions of the hero.

The Russian reader, however, this literary (at first) reception is better known not from the aforementioned book, which Soviet readers were deprived of, but in the film “Groundhog Day”. I will not be original - and argue with popular opinion. Day so day.

After the publication of the book of Dunlop, the method went to the people. There is a huge list of literary works and films in which, in one way or another, Groundhog Day was played up.

Of the most interesting ones, I can recommend the voluminous novel “The Gadiuk Bridge” by Marchenko Rostislav Alexandrovich, written according to the principle “The same, just thicken it.”


In my opinion, this book, despite its clearly entertaining function, is magically dotting E, explaining how and why the Nazis were stopped only near Moscow. Immediately after Marchenko, I re-read Bauyrzhan Momysh-uly, read as a child “Behind us, Moscow. Notes officer "- probably the best book about that period, written by an eyewitness and did not feel the dissonance.

But, by fictionalized textbooks on tactics, this technique is not exhausted. For those who have not watched, I boldly recommend Edge of Tomorrow - a fantastic action movie, filmed by Doug Lyman and Tom Cruise, following the story “All you need is to kill” by Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaki.

By the way - this is a rare case when the film version is better than a book. The Japanese original, for nothing that was nominated for the Seiun Award, is simple to schematism. (In passing, I note that I, as a Heinlein fan, was pleased with the implementation of the armored screens in the film. Not so, of course, like Grandmaster, but close).

And finally, I smoothly approach the main recommendation of this review: the novel Mother of Learning by the Croatian author nobody103.

Disclaimer: This is not science fiction. This is a fantasy. With magic and maybe even with elves. Why do I venture to recommend this work on the site of a technical orientation? Because of the strictly rational approach of the author and the hero to the situation with him. It is so obvious that many readers even compare this book with Harry Potter and the Methods of Rational Thinking by Eliezer Shlomo Yudkovsky. (Where is also full of magic - even though the book, in general, is not about that)

In fact, of course, the books are very different - GPIMRM provides more abundant food for the mind than the novel nobody103. “The Mother of Teaching” is not an academic scientifically popular book, but an entertaining one. But with this function, it copes well. The author, introducing internal rules, subsequently tries not to violate them, which, as I have repeatedly written, makes the plot interesting from the point of view of the reader with a technical mindset.

So: Young Zorian just wanted to calmly complete his learning of magic. Instead, he is forced to desperately seek answers, living over the last month over and over again ...

Yes, yes - there is a Magakademia in the book. There is also the nursery sister of the main character. Glory to the Author - these two annoying teeth do not play a noticeable role in the plot, so don’t be in a hurry to erase the book file by reading the first few pages. This is completely overlapped with pluses - a rational plot, a huge book size and even a study (albeit in the world of magic) of a mechanism that forces the hero to spin in a time loop.

The second big drawback is that the book is not something that is simply under-translated, as my previous great recommendation is the novel The Worm by John McCray. It is unfinished. The author writes this novel since 2011 and the end of the novel is not visible (although the plot clearly exceeded the middle). It does not spoil the pleasure of reading - you will get your portion of the answers to “The Main Questions of Life in This Universe”, and the final will be wrapped up later. Welcome to the world of book Web Series.

But let the answer to the question “To read or not” be on your conscience - I just acquaint you with “parallel literature” - books that publishers are not interested in, and among them, the novel reader nobody103 occupies one of the top lines .

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