Welcome to the inaugural Grace in the Machine newsletter!

I wanted a way for people to keep up with my work without having to sign up for anything extra. I also didn't want to clog up my blog with updates for stuff that you can only read elsewhere. Folks interested in doing anything on the internet have an email, so I figured a newsletter would be a perfect fit. The newsletter will contain a link to everything of note I've written the last month or so in chronological order.

The newsletter is also part of a couple projects connected to my blog. For more information about that, check out this announcement.

Without further ado, here's everything of note that I got up to in August.

First off, I interviewed old friend Dr. Michael Call about the historical setting and literary influences of Card Shark over at Paste. We had a lovely conversation that I think I captured here.

I was commissioned by the wonderful crew at Bulletpoints Monthly to write about Death Stranding as part of their ongoing issue. It's a deeply silly game, but one whose verbs pull at my heart and mind nevertheless, so I tried to articulate what makes the game fundamentally funny and fulfilling. The rest of the issue is fantastic so please give that a look as well!

I have a few entries in the A.V. Club's list of unorthodox video game weapons. Namely, Kuribo's Shoe, the Portal Gun, and the titular Devil Daggers. I get pretty lyrical with the premise, as is my wont.

For the anniversary of Metroid's original release, I covered the peculiarities that don't make the translation to its sequel Super and that game's countless imitators. For a "classic game" Metroid is deeply underrated and more games should contend with its legacy. Especially if those games treat Metroid's tenets as a challenge rather than something to imitate.

Safe Room, a survival horror book club podcast I do with my friend and colleague Ryan, had another episode. This one is about the Wii cult classic Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon. It's remarkably tender, even in its absurd moments, and we dig into how and why that works.

I played Bioshock Infinite again to finally write about its relationship with Mormonism. There's a lot to talk about because the game conjures so much, but it's in service of something pretty thin and facile.

Lastly, I previewed Pentiment over at Paste. It looks good! It's been excited to see a batch of games with a real historical eye, hoping we get more, especially if they work outside of Europe.

Thanks for the support! I've got some wonderful stuff lined up for September so stay tuned.

You can support me on Patreon and on Ko-Fi.