(source)
melancholy fog
on the rocky beach—
year’s endHagiwara Sakutaro
Welcome
Hagiwara Sakutaro was a poet known primarily for his imagist work in the 1910s through 1930s, and his 1928 book Principles of Poetry (詩の原理). Hagiwara’s work usually has intense imagery, but his haiku are generally considered uninteresting and unoriginal.
Still, his ideas are interesting enough (if admittedly tendentious) that I wrote a brief bio of the poet and a translation of some of his haiku, which you can read in Modern Haiku at the source link above.
My favourite quote from him is this extremely uplifting bit from Principles, translated here by Chester C.I. Wang and Isamu P. Fukuchi:
All the themes of so many poets since ancient times are but the unfulfilled desire and the insufferable loneliness that vibrate through life’s depths.
(source)
All of which is a long, roundabout way of saying that personally I’m a fan of melacholy fog at the year’s end, whether it’s on rocky beaches or elsewhere.
So for this end-of-year newsletter, let’s make a theme of “melancholy things I enjoy!”
Delving into Dungeonsynth
In 2019, I played The Longing, a dark, meditative point and click game where you play a shade who waits for his king to awaken after 400 (real-time!) days.
The Longing is about as relentlessly gloomy and weird as you’d think from that description—it’s like Edward Gorey smashed up with Myst—and it made a big impression on me. It also got me interested in dungeonsynth, a musical genre that marries dark, ominous ambient sound with lush, quasi-medieval melodies and patterns.
A standout example of what makes dungeonsynth such a rewarding genre is Depressive Silence’s Mourning.
Despite the gloomy band and album name, Mourning is a fantastic soundscape, with a mix of synth and chant-like vocals that provide an almost revelatory quality to the music. Highly recommended if you’re into that kind of thing!
You can listen to the whole album on YouTube courtesy of the artist.
Fiction and Games Update
It’s the end of the year! And that means it’s time for a 2023 wrapup.
Whether you’re reading for awards or just curious to see what I’ve been up to, here are my poetry and fiction publications for the year:
- Three untitled haiku and a haibun titled “After the Storm” — Scifaikuest, February 2023
- “Four Scenes from Proxima b,” a short SF story inspired by the Fermi paradox and Cixin Lui’s Three-Body Problem — Manawaker Podcast, March 2023 (listen online)
- “Six Ways to Get Past the Shadow Shogun’s Goons, and One Thing to Do When You Get There,” a short, SF, banter-filled romp in the tradition of Dumas — Galaxy’s Edge, May 2023, with an audio version from Escape Pod in September (read/listen online)
- “Magic Dad’s Cookie Bites,” a short slice of life / slipstream story about a magician who wants nothing more than to see his tween child smile. Content notes for off-screen transphobia, but otherwise it’s pretty sweet. — Cosmorama, August 2023 (read online)
I also wrote a heck of a lot of game-related stuff this year.
First and foremost, I’m very proud of The Bread Must Rise, a 450,000-odd word interactive cosmic horror / fantasy / baking / comedy novel I co-wrote with the excellent James Beamon. That came out from Choice of Games this September, and it’s a lot of fun! Maybe… too much fun?
You can play the first three chapters here for free.
Other games I’ve written in 2023 include 4 solo visual novels at StoryLoom, a shorter spin-off of The Bread Must Rise in this year’s IFComp (also with James), and a short solo game called Haunted House for Social Phobics which does what it says on the tin.
You can find those on my website!
What’s Next?
2024 is very soon, somehow, and I already have a few pieces of fiction and games in the works.
My story “Companion Animals in Mahō Shōjo Kira Kira Sunlight” is coming out in Lightspeed‘s February issue. This will be my second time in Lightspeed! If you have fond memories of Sailor Moon, know that I call this my “Like Sailor Moon but more messed up and depressing, oh wait, wow, actually Sailor Moon is deeply messed up and depressing already, dang” story.
I’ve also started on a new game for Choice of Games called Gigantea: Age of Rot. For this one, I’m leaning into all the genre novel and JPRG trappings I enjoy the most. We’re talking mythic science future, godkings, gods and spirits, community organizing, festivals, and maybe even a minigame or two. The game isn’t scheduled to release until 2025 (yikes!) but so far it’s been a lot of fun just to immerse myself in the world and get to know its people.
That’s all for now. See you soon!