Anyone who’s seen the hit ABC show Lost (now entering its second season in the UK) knows that calling it frustrating and inconclusive is akin to calling Hitler a bit of a shit.
Lost is, in fact, a show which delights in refusing to actually deal with, or resolve, any of its manifold plot threads. Millions of viewers find it bastard annoying, but they still watch it in the blind hope that at some point Lost is actually going to have to be specific about something. If the second season ends as inconclusively as the first we're fairly certain that we'll go postal out of sheer frustration. And Bad Twin, a new book by Lost character Gary Troup, isn't exactly helping.
Lost’s popularity is proof of the public’s love of a mystery, and their willingness to go to almost any length in the hope of a solution (i.e.continuing to tune in week after week). Another perfect example of our love of a good mystery is the never waning popularity of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code novel. Another fine example of gibbering nonsense in attractive packaging: The Da Vinci Code has long straddled the top of the bestsellers list like some gigantic, lumbering literary whore. Well, this week it was pushed to second place on Amazon’s charts by a new publication called Bad Twin, by the previously unknown author Gary Troup.
How have Gary Troup and Bad Twin achieved this almost unthinkable feat of giant-killing you may well ask? Where has this novel and its unknown author come from? Well, Bad Twin's blurb informs us that Gary was a passenger on doomed Oceanic Flight 815. Yes, that’s right, the very same Sydney to LA flight which dumped the cast of Lost on The Island Of No Sense. His corpse was found in an early episode of the first series along with an apparently unpublished manuscript of his book Bad Twin. A book which lumbering hunk and resident bad-boy Sawyer, of all people, decided to read.
Having seeded the name of the book in the minds of the fanatical, Hyperion has now decided to cash in by releasing the novel posthumously. Hyperion, we hasten to add, is a sister company of the makers of Lost. And – you guessed it – people are buying it in their thousands: egged on, no doubt, by Amazon’s description that the book:
“Touches on many powerful themes, including the consequence of vengeance, the power of redemption, and where to turn when all seems lost.”
We're willing to bet, however, that anyone looking for Bad Twin to bring any sort of clarity to the myriad mysteries of Lost will be bitterly disappointed.
So who is the real Gary Troup? Well, the book’s description is quick to point out that:
“Bad Twin is a work of fiction and all names, characters and incidents are used fictitiously; the author himself is a fictional character.”
A fictitious writer? Now let's be clear about this, that is gibberish of a previously unprecedented degree even from the creators of Lost. Many have clearly taken this whole conceit to be deep and clever and swiftly double clicked away their hard earned cash to follow the mysteries of Lost wherever they might lead. The same people have also been swift to discover and excitedly blog that 'Gary Troup' is an anagram of the word 'purgatory.' This, of course, links nicely with the popular theory that the island in Lost is some kind of halfway house between the real world and the afterlife – where our characters must atone for their earthly lives before gaining passage to the beyond.
Still, however insufferably smug we find the whole enterprise you can bet we’ll be watching Lost to the bitter end, praying it doesn’t get cancelled before it has the chance to at least explain a couple of things – the top three questions being 1) Why is Hurley not losing weight? 2) Why has no-one realised that there’s a hobbit on the island with them? and 3) Why, why, for the love of Christ why have they not, at any frigging point, even considered traversing the whole island to see if there’s anyone else there?
Read more:
Lost Character 'Pens' Best-Seller – BBC
[story by T. Perrin Sledge]
all_games says
I thought you would be interested in this.
I have finally figured what the TV show LOST actually is. It is a video game. Yeah, I know, you think I’m nuts. At least read this, or you could be missing a huge story.
Just bear with me and keep in mind that the LOST creators just finished orchestrating the World’s largest and longest Scavenger Hunt- The LOST Experience. They are into games, very into games.
I have detailed exactly how the game is played on my website http://www.LOSTisaGame.com.
Why not spend a few minutes there? It will be well worth your time.
Here’s a synopsis of how the game is played:
“Two players. Two sides. One is light. One is dark.” Locke S1E2
The Light player is ‘good’ and the Dark player is ‘bad’. At the start of each level, the characters are in a mixture of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ roles.
The Light player is required to manipulate the characters into ‘good’ roles by choosing the actions that they take when faced with a variety of obstacles and situations. The way in which the character responds to these obstacles and situations determines which role that character takes on.
The Dark player attempts to manipulate the characters into ‘bad’ roles by placing obstacles in their way. The obstacles can be the various versions of the monster or they can be introduced into the game by creating situations via game prompts that can result in ‘bad’ choices being made.
The two players create the details about the main characters’ everyday lives on the island and their individual back stories (flashbacks) by responding to a series of prompts during the game. A list of pre-set options to choose from actually results in all of the duplications that occur on LOST.
Points can be won for a variety of accomplishments such as finding items like the Dharma hatches & stations, the power sources and maps & keys. Points can also be won for actions such as cooperating or saving people.
There are six levels in the game and there are time limits for completing the levels. However, additional time can be earned when a character accomplishes certain objectives.
A level is completed when all of the objectives for that level have been accomplished and when the character in the role of the White Rabbit actually goes down the hole.
Level 1 and Level 2 have been completed. Season 3 will represent Level 3
All characters are reset to their original ‘good’ and ‘bad’ roles at the beginning of the next level.
Memory losses and eye color changes often result when a character switches to a different role.
The game is won when all six levels are completed.
The game can be played by just one player. In that case, the game itself would be the Dark or ‘bad’ player.
Enjoy!
all_games