

The Man Who Hates Fun, a dour yet youthful Stoic.
Elvira Ellison, a young college dropout mired in sorrows.
Dascha Rand, the illegitimate granddaughter of Ayn Rand and head of the anarchist Rand Corporation.
Elton "Noam" Ellison, Elvira's brother, former anarchist, currently a cop.
Milton Frogman, a troubled sixth-grader of putative genius.
Trash, a jealous independent musician with the "Blips".
Diane the Witch.
Seneca, an inspiration to us all.Why do I find the Ultima games so hilarious? Actually, I do know. There is something fascinating about this quality one finds in the sci-fi fantasy world a lot -- this combination of incredibly dense, convoluted world-building with lowbrow humor, this kind of infinite complacency. The idea of someone disappearing into a fictional world is pretty fascinating to some of us, and Ultima provides a good example of the kind of world into which one might disappear if so inclined.
I feel like I must have stolen this joke from Charles Schulz. Obviously I stole this Patty character design from him pretty much wholesale, but that is a different kind of thing.
I feel like this story is going to make a lot more sense in retrospect.
Hey, Brian Wilson has a new album of Gershwin covers out today! It is supposedly the best thing he has done since maybe 1968! Maybe actually buy it, or I guess wait two months and buy it for $3 used.
You can also get the books at Desert Island in Brooklyn, NY.