No writing time yet today, but I'm going to get some in tonight. I hope. Still thinking about format. Saw a snide comment re. Beating Heart, saying that apparently the only reason for the format was a desire to waste trees. Yeah, that's why my next book will only have one word per page. The book will be 60,000 pages thick. With any luck, I can devastate an entire forest in one go.

Picked up Fable II and a player's guide today. I don't have time to get hooked on a video game, but boy, if I did, this is probably the one I'd play. I like the idea of creating a character over time through decisions and actions. I leafed through the beginning of the guide whilst between errands, and thought the distinction between morality and purity was interesting. Morality refers to choices that affect others; purity to choices that affect only yourself. And all your choices, of every kind, reverberate down the game, changing your options as you become more good or more evil.

The first Fable (or maybe the expansion pack?) had brothels to visit, and you could get married, but this seems to go a step farther because you also have a choice about wearing a condom or not (I don't think that was in the first one). The guide says that if you have unprotected sex with your spouse, you may have a baby instantly--no pregnancy, the kid's just there. That means you must continue to provide money for it, visit it, and bring it gifts.

If you have unprotected sex at a brothel, you can get a disease--no idea what happens after that, if it takes away health or kills you or makes you pay through the nose for a cure or what. But...this is interesting, and I'm not sure what I think about it--if you use a condom at a brothel, you get a purity bonus that can exceed the corruption points earned for doing the deed with for-pay partners in the first place.

Needless to say, this is rated M. However, I expect many, many young teens will be playing it. Perhaps even while their parents are out picking on librarians for having a book with the word "scrotum" in it.