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Wednesday: [w] Karmic Dilemmas

[This is going to be one of those entries where I am more conversational than analytical. So you're warned.]

Right. See, I have this problem.

I have this problem I don't know how to resolve, and it pertains to the ordering of books. Games books. Books of games. From America.

One component of this "writing partner" gig is that you kind of have to grasp the things the other person is writing about in order to afford any sort of sensible critiqueage. This is a bit easier in the other direction; I don't typically indulge in fanfic, both of us are religions nerds, both of us enjoy a bit of webcomickry, and I try not to inflict anime or manga on poor Eric unless it's absolutely necessary. However, he has this In Nomine thing going which you may or may not be aware of.

And, see, people had not, you know, been firm enough about that. "You have to read the core rules for In Nomine," they would say to me. "You would dig this thing. It has angels in it." And I would go, "uh huh," because... well, you have to understand that I've been a fairly active anime/manga fan for nigh on ten years now. And I've done my time with the omg-omg-bishiebishiewai types, although that's really not my thing at the end of the day (I figure I shouldn't crush on anything I could break). So, when someone tells me that something has angels in it? I've lately come to assume a couple of things about it:

1) It's probably fucking Angel Sanctuary;
2) Dude, I totally hated Angel Sanctuary;
2.5) See.

And that was totally lame. But expected. It's not like anyone was telling me, "this is about pretty, pretty angels the same way that Preacher is about loving, caring God."

But I have come to take Eric at his word. So, he tells me, I have to read In Nomine, because then I will understand things that he writes, and I will be able to critique them from an informed standpoint. And I say to myself, okay, I can get behind that. He will probably not steer me wrong, and I don't think he's all about the bishies. And people do keep telling me to read this thing, but not in the obnoxious way that they used to tell me to read sodding Iain [M.] Banks. (There are things which I will suggest to such people that they do to Phlebas, and they tend to involve the ear.)

So, one day, the doorbell rang. Royal Mail. With a parcel from Amazon UK. My cohabitative partner, David, answered the door, and accepted the parcel, and handed it to me at arms' length. With a pained expression.

A deeply pained expression.

It was from Eric. And it was In Nomine (and Superiors 4).

I think I need to make it clear, right here, right now, that I utterly fell in love with In Nomine, hard, and everyone who did not tie me to a post and make me read the core rules however many years ago? You need smacked. I'm not even sure I made it clear to Eric how hard the falling was. I think I went down a cup size, broke my nose, and looked better in jeans for a few days. Put it that way.

Haibane Renmei hard. Sailor Moon hard. Utena hard; xxxHolic hard.

Star Trek hard. The local newspaper knew how hard I wanted Spock when I was 12; put it that way, OK? (Two years on, it was Deanna Troi. Never let it be said I wasn't flexible.)

The other thing you have to understand is that I do not game. I don't. It's not in me. To get me into your RP, you have to explain to me very patiently that this is acting, or writing, or something which has absolutely nothing to do with the act of the game at all. I will panic on numbers, hide from stats, and otherwise weep my way through chargen; it's a fatal combination of insufficiently addressed, math-related learning disability and absent self-esteem. Did you care? Didn't think so. I can arguably write; I might, theoretically, be able to perform. But call it a roleplaying game and you're invoking the Penny Arcade Defense: it's not for me. (Eric? Please put this in the lexicon.) So, when someone hands me one of these, it takes a lot to get me to read it. And, if it makes me fall in love? Something must be right.

Hell of right.

Anyhow.

Amazon is an interesting thing to talk about in our house. At one point in the past -- some years ago -- Amazon were more proactive about sending marketing-related mail to account holders than they are now, and they will still market via email to people whose preferences allow for that. David and I disagree on whether that means it's acceptable to patronize them; I'm okay with it (I've never had a problem with them, and my threshold of what constitutes acceptable personal marketing is fairly high), but he's not because he counts this sort of thing as spam. Which is fair. We typically buy books from brick and mortar shops (to the extent that we will make side trips on US visits just to stock up on things we can't reliably obtain in London), and other things wherever it's appropriate to do so.

While I'm not adverse to buying things from Amazon, I have only ordered one thing from them in my life. That was because I had left the Christmas shopping until the last minute. I needed a particular R1 Dr. Who set to get to my parents' house in the US before Christmas Eve, because doing standards conversion on an R2 set at the last minute seemed ridiculous, and Amazon could guarantee delivery. It literally doesn't occur to me to buy anything from there.

Or it didn't until today.

I live in a very tedious little suburban area of Thames Valley, not far from Reading. London Waterloo (or, via Reading, Paddington) is near enough to make a pleasant day trip or a lengthy errand, but expensive enough by rail (I own no car, and who would drive in Central London?) that one should not make the expedition frequently. Reading has a games shop, but, as of a couple of days ago, it carried very little but Munchkin, BESM d20, D&D 3rd, and World of Pointy Things^[1]. The local nerd Blackwell's isn't much better off. There is an Ottakar's in town, and they are somewhat gamer-friendly, but, by gamer-friendly, they tend to mean "all the GURPS ever. Except GURPS In Nomine." And World of Pointy Things. And, um, Warhammer/Games Workshop. (Hey, they also sell Silver Ravenwolf books, NIV bibles, and Chobits manga; everyone needs their gateways. We do better than many.)

And I'm impatient as hell. I want the Angelic Player's Guide, and I want it right now. Since I can't have it right now, I'd like it within some reasonable compromise between "now" and "reasonably inexpensive" (because, I'm afraid, my selfishness wars with my fiscal practicality). This means I need to order it online. My preferred London games shop does not have an online presence, and the god of London bookshops -- Foyles -- does not stock it. So, today, I found myself making some arbitrary eliminations in my options, and came up with two possibilities:

Warehouse 23 and Amazon. (I thought about Powell's, but I'm not convinced by the lowest-cost shipping option being surface. I've lost things that way, more than once, and, also, NOW. Ish.)

Most of my friends are American. So, when I explain the vagueries of Customs, the nuttiness of the postal system, it doesn't always register. Customs and I are old foes. My family and I, having been split across countries about as far back as I can remember, have long done war with the postal services. Canada to the US and back; US to Britain and back; Canada to Britain and back. I drop a parcel into the box, and I pray. Or, more likely, you ask me to mail you something, and I'll save it until I come to America -- it all makes sense when it's internal.

Amazon seem pretty good at dealing with the postal system. They do what they need to do as and when they need to do it, and they have a flat rate for it. (Just shy of $5/book. If you were curious.) Warehouse 23, on the other hand, does this weird thing (at the "you're cheap, but practical" level, anyhow, which is where I'm at -- look, I take care of the place while the Master is away, you know?) where they ship the parcel UPS as far as your country, and then UPS drops it in the local postal system. And, then, it gets to you via, you know, mail.

The latter? It panics me, not because it involves Royal Mail (Royal Mail is not too bad, as postal systems go, suffer as it may and might and does), but because it involves two separate mechanisms of courier. Anything could go wrong in those negotiations. Not that it couldn't go wrong in the negotiations between governmental postal services, but at least those are covered by treaty.

Panic insensibly? Yes. That is me. That is what I do.

On the one hand, Warehouse 23 is as close to the source as one gets. And I can break down and order other things, although I'd have to ask what they should be.

On the other? Amazon has the Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology on hell of discount. I covet the Westminster Handbook series. The Westminster Handbooks are my neighbour's ass. Look. I told you. Religions. Other people fangirl on Tolkien or Lewis or whatever? I fangirl on Mark Noll.

But. Yes. I need to place an order. This isn't something I'm good at.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to pick.

I know I'm gonna cave.

So tell me what to do.

¹ - aka World of Cheese, aka World of Darkness. Pointy Teeth, Pointy Hat, Pointy Claws, Pointy Ears, Pointy Stakes... Look, I love Mage as much as the next person pretending not to love Mage, and I'd quite like to see what happens with it in the new setting, but... yeah. This is the sort of thing one might fetch near as dammit everywhere, so I was most saddened. Meanwhile, I can't find a core book for Orpheus for love nor money. Never have been able to. I could cry. Yes. I am utterly, totally pathetic. You may have me shot.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at April 26, 2005 10:28 PM

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