Tuesday, June 16, 2009
This year's bike trip...
... is in its planning stages. Right now, I'm thinking of Hokkaido, in Japan. Why? Because Japan is a mountainous country with polite drivers and good roads. And it's about time I visited a country where I sort of know the language for a change. If you want in, let me know and I'll supply the details.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Review: Defense Grid, The Awakening
Defense Grid: The Awakening is a member of the Desktop Tower Defense genre. When I first stumbled upon the flash based members of this genre, I spent almost a week playing it. The "just one more try" part of it was incredibly addictive, and the puzzle based yet strategy-oriented approach tickled the part of me that always wanted to excel at Real Time Strategy games but couldn't ever find the time (or perhaps the innate ability) to get good at.
Defense Grid is a variant of those flash based games, but with fun PC graphics and 20-levels. If I were asked to pay the retail $19.99 price for it, I wouldn't have considered it, but Steam ran a $5 special and at that price, I thought what the heck.
To my surprise, the game wasn't just a rip-off of the free games, but actually had some meat on its bones. For instance, the levels are quite well thought out, and some of the new monsters are fresh and new (one of them breaks apart into smaller monsters, which is something quite horrifying the first time you encounter it). There are also a couple of new towers that I enjoy, such as the command tower, which enables faster recovery of resources as well as sighting of stealthed monsters. On top of that, each level is individually designed, and has its own quirks. In particular, the game gives you interest on resources you don't spend, and in some levels that makes a difference!
In standard difficulty, the game is playable straight through without any particular hassle. In the challenge modes, however, you have to exploit at least one or two quirks of the more challenging maps. (I will admit to needing to look on YouTube for levels 18 and 20 in challenge mode. In addition, some levels of additional challenges, such as having a fixed number of resources, or only a certain number of towers.
All in all, I ended up spending way more time on this game than I should have. Recommended if you can get it discounted at $10 or less, but I wouldn't pay full price for it unless you're addicted to this genre (as it seems I am).
Defense Grid is a variant of those flash based games, but with fun PC graphics and 20-levels. If I were asked to pay the retail $19.99 price for it, I wouldn't have considered it, but Steam ran a $5 special and at that price, I thought what the heck.
To my surprise, the game wasn't just a rip-off of the free games, but actually had some meat on its bones. For instance, the levels are quite well thought out, and some of the new monsters are fresh and new (one of them breaks apart into smaller monsters, which is something quite horrifying the first time you encounter it). There are also a couple of new towers that I enjoy, such as the command tower, which enables faster recovery of resources as well as sighting of stealthed monsters. On top of that, each level is individually designed, and has its own quirks. In particular, the game gives you interest on resources you don't spend, and in some levels that makes a difference!
In standard difficulty, the game is playable straight through without any particular hassle. In the challenge modes, however, you have to exploit at least one or two quirks of the more challenging maps. (I will admit to needing to look on YouTube for levels 18 and 20 in challenge mode. In addition, some levels of additional challenges, such as having a fixed number of resources, or only a certain number of towers.
All in all, I ended up spending way more time on this game than I should have. Recommended if you can get it discounted at $10 or less, but I wouldn't pay full price for it unless you're addicted to this genre (as it seems I am).
Netgear Fail
2 years ago in July, I bought a Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ on Dan Wallach's recommendation (it helped that my brother in San Diego was running his office on it as well). At that time, Infrant was a startup and had fabulous customer service, an active web forum where its engineers hung out, and lots of fans.
Almost right after I bought the product, Netgear bought Infrant. Netgear, by contrast, has a reputation for horrible customer support. After I came back from Australia this year, my NV+ corrupted its own root partition. Well, some of those tech support folks must have hung around, because the efforts made by the tech support was heroic. They ssh'd to my machine over a period of a week and eventually fixed the problem, though not without some lossage (I had to rebuild the user accounts).
Then last week, the power supply on the ReadyNAS blew! Fortunately, the unit came with a 5 year warranty, and 2 years is good as far as the warranty is concerned. Unfortunately, they replaced my 1GB box with a 256MB box. I called Netgear, thinking that this must have been a mistake. Unfortunately, Netgear's reputation came to the fore. After 2 hours of back and forthing with them, I finally got to a customer service manager who told me that since that none of their units came with more the 256MB of RAM, I must have bought the unit from a 3rd party (well, I did, I bought it from Infrant!), and therefore I was out of luck. A 1GB stick of RAM is $50 on Amazon, so if it was critical I'm not out a lot of money, but this is definitely likely to cause me to build my own RAID array or buy one of those Windows media servers and reformat them to run ZFS the next time I look for a RAID box (which is another 3 years from now).
Almost right after I bought the product, Netgear bought Infrant. Netgear, by contrast, has a reputation for horrible customer support. After I came back from Australia this year, my NV+ corrupted its own root partition. Well, some of those tech support folks must have hung around, because the efforts made by the tech support was heroic. They ssh'd to my machine over a period of a week and eventually fixed the problem, though not without some lossage (I had to rebuild the user accounts).
Then last week, the power supply on the ReadyNAS blew! Fortunately, the unit came with a 5 year warranty, and 2 years is good as far as the warranty is concerned. Unfortunately, they replaced my 1GB box with a 256MB box. I called Netgear, thinking that this must have been a mistake. Unfortunately, Netgear's reputation came to the fore. After 2 hours of back and forthing with them, I finally got to a customer service manager who told me that since that none of their units came with more the 256MB of RAM, I must have bought the unit from a 3rd party (well, I did, I bought it from Infrant!), and therefore I was out of luck. A 1GB stick of RAM is $50 on Amazon, so if it was critical I'm not out a lot of money, but this is definitely likely to cause me to build my own RAID array or buy one of those Windows media servers and reformat them to run ZFS the next time I look for a RAID box (which is another 3 years from now).
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Tuition and Alumni Giving
Someone over at friendfeed pointed me at this New York Times article about Harvard students having a new and innovative loan for going to school. As far as whether supporting Harvard is a good thing or not, I'm going to side with Brad Delong. My Alma Mater has done an amazing job of educating the most students possible for the lowest price. When I went to school in the late 80s, I paid $3000 a semester. 17 years later, Berkeley's fee schedule has risen to a paltry $5000 a semester. This is an incredible bargain, and this despite the state continuing to short change higher education whenever it can find an excuse to do so. The administrators of the UC system definitely can hold their heads high when comparing themselves to other elite institutions.
Yet, whenever Berkeley has asked me for money over e-mail, they've always pointed me at an alumni page where I needed to remember my 17 year old student ID to be able to log on. With such stupidity, it's no wonder I haven't gotten to giving them any money at all.
Yet, whenever Berkeley has asked me for money over e-mail, they've always pointed me at an alumni page where I needed to remember my 17 year old student ID to be able to log on. With such stupidity, it's no wonder I haven't gotten to giving them any money at all.
New England 2000 Bike Trip
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| New England 2000 |
In September 2000, I flew to Manchester, New Hampshire, photographed Scarlet's wedding, and then rode my bike to Portland Maine, where Patti had rented a car to drive up to Acadia National Park for another wedding.
I met Patti Ordonez on one of my many pigeon point trips, and she impressed me with her sense of adventure, backpacking through South America by herself, so I invited her on this trip. On the day of Scarlet's wedding, when I was done shooting the wedding, she hadn't shown up by the appointed time, so I assumed that she had had a change of heart. I packed off onto my bike and rode off to a campground 30 miles away. It turned out that her plane was late and she caught up to me by evening.
Patti turned out to be a great traveling companion. We'd find a campground that rented canoes, and she'd turn out to know how to manage one. She would find us a B&B on my birthday! As someone who'd usually camped out on bike trips before, that was a luxury. I was sad when she had to leave after attending her friends' wedding.
Soon enough though, I met cycling author Marty Basch, who was not only generous with his time (we shared a campground together), but also offered me his home as a place to stay on my way back to Maine. I took him up to the offer, especially since the weather had suddenly turned cold!
Patti is now getting a PhD at the University of Maryland.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
South Africa, February 2001
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| South Africa 2001 |
Lisa and I visited South Africa in 2001, starting in Cape Town by visiting a Jana, Radek's sister. Her family kindly put us up, and we were off on our very first tandem touring adventure. I got the route by writing to a CTC tour leader, and he was kind enough to provide not just routing and long stay information, but contacts on the ground as well while we were touring.
While flying to South Africa is not cheap, touring there is still incredibly cheap. For $20 a night you get a B&B for two, and frequently the hostess will do laundry for you. Tandems are rarely seen in South Africa, so every where you go you get treated like a celebrity --- kids would chase you as you ride down the street, farm workers would wave at you while they were in the fields. When we rolled into a B&B, the hosts, the dog, and the kids would run out to greet us. It was definitely an adventure to remember.
What was bad was that the roads were not frequently cleaned, and there was a lot of glass. We got so many flats that I ran out of patches and spare tubes! Finally, we got to do the Cape Argus Cycle tour in Cape Town at the end, which was a lot of fun, as they closed down the freeways so we could ride on them for this 100km tour. With 35,000 riders, it was the biggest timed cycling event in the world. It was so big that the tandems get let off in two waves: one wave for the competitive ones and a second one for the social tandems. When we were let off, the speakers blared, "Daisy Daisy".
I never did do a full on write-up for this trip because of a personal tragedy. Soon after I got back from the trip, I was hit by a car on the way home from work. That put me in hospital for 3 days and out of commission for months. By the time I was fully operational again, I had other things on my mind.
Review: The Age of Entanglement
I loved the concept behind The Age of Entanglement. Rather than just explaining the physics behind Quantum theory and the impressive improvements in our understanding of entanglement and other issues, the author proposes to explain the persons involved, how they understood the problem, and even recreate (in an enactment sense) the conversations and circumstances under which their ideas came about.
The execution, however, was a miserable failure. It was quite clear that Ms. Gilder doesn't quite understand her subject well enough to explain it clearly, and as an apparently aspiring novelist, she found her subjects' poetry or musical likings to be just as important as their physics ideas. Well, unfortunately, physicists aren't usually famous poets for the obvious reasons, so all she left me was a failure to appreciate why she picked a particular poetry. She also left out important folks, for instance Peter Shor.
Despite the brevity of the book (some 300-odd pages), it took me weeks to finish this one. Not recommended.
The execution, however, was a miserable failure. It was quite clear that Ms. Gilder doesn't quite understand her subject well enough to explain it clearly, and as an apparently aspiring novelist, she found her subjects' poetry or musical likings to be just as important as their physics ideas. Well, unfortunately, physicists aren't usually famous poets for the obvious reasons, so all she left me was a failure to appreciate why she picked a particular poetry. She also left out important folks, for instance Peter Shor.
Despite the brevity of the book (some 300-odd pages), it took me weeks to finish this one. Not recommended.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
The Miscellaneous Collection
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| Miscellaneous |
Sooner or later, if you shoot enough, you'll find perfectly good photos that don't fit into any other category. Like most other photographers, I tend to just stick them into a slide tray just so they don't get lost among all the other photos that don't quite make the cut.
Normally, when I scan photos from a slide tray, I don't bother doing much more culling. After all, if I bothered to stick them into the slide tray, they met some prior standard. But because this tray saw so much evolution over the years, I made an extra pass just to throw out stuff that I never would show others at this point, when my standards are much higher than when I first started out.
Review: The Graveyard Book
I somehow never got to the Graveyard Book last year. It wasn't just because I was in Germany (I had a Kindle), it was that for $9.99, the book just didn't seem to have that much reading material, so I put it off until I had access to the library copy.
Gaiman's novels, I find, are a mixed bag. There's Stardust, which is a delightful story told really well (make sure you get the correct edition to get the delightful Charles Vess illustrations, which tell at least half the story), and then there's lackluster novels like American Gods, which left me cold. (I did find Anansi Boys to be fun, however) By contrast, almost all of Gaiman's comic books are worth reading.
The Graveyard Book is about a boy who survives a grisly killing of his family and is raised in a Graveyard by ghosts. It pays homage to Kipling's The Jungle Book, and there's definitely some form of patterning after that effort. Unfortunately, as stories go, it's not all that interesting --- I did not feel any sense of wonder, just a bunch of one contrieved situations after another. By the time I was finished, I was just glad to be done with the novel.
Not recommended. Pick up The Sandman instead.
Gaiman's novels, I find, are a mixed bag. There's Stardust, which is a delightful story told really well (make sure you get the correct edition to get the delightful Charles Vess illustrations, which tell at least half the story), and then there's lackluster novels like American Gods, which left me cold. (I did find Anansi Boys to be fun, however) By contrast, almost all of Gaiman's comic books are worth reading.
The Graveyard Book is about a boy who survives a grisly killing of his family and is raised in a Graveyard by ghosts. It pays homage to Kipling's The Jungle Book, and there's definitely some form of patterning after that effort. Unfortunately, as stories go, it's not all that interesting --- I did not feel any sense of wonder, just a bunch of one contrieved situations after another. By the time I was finished, I was just glad to be done with the novel.
Not recommended. Pick up The Sandman instead.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Tour of Hokkaido Solicitation Letter
My doctor has said that I will be done with my thrice weekly physical therapy sessions by the end of July, and I might even not be fat and out of shape then, so it's time to start thinking about a tour. The Yen is not expensive right now, and apparently, neither are plane tickets to Hokkaido or Narita Tokyo.
If you don't know what a Piaw trip is like, visit http://touring.piaw.net.
I expect Japan to be easier than previous trips (I'm not in stellar shape) physically, but challenging both culturally and mentally --- my Japanese is really rusty, I've never been to Japan before, and worse, I'm Chinese so I look like the Japanese to the Japanese and they'll be shocked that I'm not. :-) Nevertheless, who knows how long the Yen
will stay (relatively) cheap.
The idea would be to fly or somehow make it to Hokkaido, which is supposedly the place to go for cycling. Japanese drivers are supposedly really polite, and because of their economic stagnation for the last 10 years, they have really good roads that are rarely used. The proposed dates are: August 22nd to September 13th (I could move it forward or back by a week or so).
If you're interested, let me know, and we'll make sure to ride together so we're compatible (similar pace, ability to handle unexpected things like unpaved roads or destroyed tire levers), and make an exciting trip out of it.
If you don't know what a Piaw trip is like, visit http://touring.piaw.net.
I expect Japan to be easier than previous trips (I'm not in stellar shape) physically, but challenging both culturally and mentally --- my Japanese is really rusty, I've never been to Japan before, and worse, I'm Chinese so I look like the Japanese to the Japanese and they'll be shocked that I'm not. :-) Nevertheless, who knows how long the Yen
will stay (relatively) cheap.
The idea would be to fly or somehow make it to Hokkaido, which is supposedly the place to go for cycling. Japanese drivers are supposedly really polite, and because of their economic stagnation for the last 10 years, they have really good roads that are rarely used. The proposed dates are: August 22nd to September 13th (I could move it forward or back by a week or so).
If you're interested, let me know, and we'll make sure to ride together so we're compatible (similar pace, ability to handle unexpected things like unpaved roads or destroyed tire levers), and make an exciting trip out of it.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Dead Kindle
My Kindle just gave up the ghost. As you can see from the image, the failure mode is a strange one: it's not that I cracked the screen or did any physical damage, the screen just locked into a big black section and a black band, and nothing I could do would unwedge it. Even Amazon's tech support was stumped.
To be fair, this Kindle lived a hard life. It sat in my saddlebag as I rode across France, and got used extensively all through our two month Australia trip. I've dropped it (and there's a chip on the side where it landed) on cobbles in France. Portable electronics don't last very long under the best of conditions, and what I put it through, while not a torture test, is still pretty harsh. That's no excuse though, my Blackberry survived pretty much all the same trips plus a few more, and was still going strong when I replaced it because my employer switched providers.
Amazon's replacement policy for out-of-warranty Kindles is that you pay $180 for it. Given that used Kindle 1 units still sell for around $300, and an estimated of Kindle 2's manufacturing cost comes out to $185, $180 is a very reasonable replacement cost. I asked if I could pay an upgrade fee and get the Kindle DX, but no dice, despite the fact that at the time, they didn't project having a Kindle v1 in stock until July! (The DX ships on the 10th)
Needless to say, I didn't even consider the Kindle 2, since I consider it an inferior product to the Kindle v1, given the lack of an SD card slot and the non-user-replaceable battery.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Pictures from my first bike tour in Europe
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| Tour of Languedoc-Roussillon (Southern France) 1998 |
In 1998, Paul DuBois and I joined a retired history Professor, his wife, and two other cyclists for a tour of Languedoc-Roussillon, in Southern France. That was my first bike tour in continental Europe proper, and I thought it was a good idea to travel with someone who knew the area, and knew the language was a good idea. In particular, I thought it would be interesting for someone versed in history to tell me all about the area.
The professor had a lot to teach me, but none of it was about history. He found routes by using a Michelin map, but didn't do a great job of research, so we had several days of riding straight into a headwind, which was no fun at all. He found restaurants by using the Michelin guide, which was OK, but I've since learned that it was't necessary to even use one. His wife drove SAG and went ahead and got us hotel rooms every day, which was very nice, but it added quite a bit to the costs, though a side benefit was I got to borrow the car every so often to run out with my tripod and shoot cityscapes at dawn or at night.
Ultimately, though, what I really learned was that having someone else pick your itinerary for you is nasty, unless you really like doing what they like doing. We traveled through lots of historical places, but without the kind of context he had, I couldn't appreciate it. At least the cycling was very nice, but I had great days when I broke away from my group and met up with other random tourists who would introduce me to folks and we'd have conversations, short and shallow as they were, since my French was (and still is) no good.
Back then, I traveled with an EOS Elan IIe with a 28mm and a 50mm lens, and Fuji Sensia 100. Those pictures don't scan too badly, and having a tripod meant that despite being a better photographer now, there are many pictures I wouldn't be able to get today since I've given up traveling with a tripod for my light and fast tours.
One friend of mine mentioned that the best slides in this collection were the images of people. Looking back at it now, I have to agree. Enjoy!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tour of the Alps 2003 Updated
I've been scanning old photos, and the most recent project was slides from my 2003 Alps Trip. Most of the pictures were taken by Lisa, who was stoking the tandem. The stoker position affords the opportunity to shoot lots of pictures on the move (in some cases down a major mountain pass!), and Lisa did so. My later Alps trips, while they might have similarly good pictures, almost never have photos shot on descents because I'm too busy bombing down the pass with both hands on the handlebars to even think about shooting.
So take a gander, if you haven't already:
So take a gander, if you haven't already:
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| Tour of the Alps 2003 |
Mountain Charlie Loop
Lea Kissner, Richard Gooch, and Eddie Kessler showed up at Lexington Dam around 9:30am, and we headed off for a ride up Old Santa Cruz Highway. It was cloudy as we left the house, but by the time the bikes were ready the sun was out. We rode a slow, steady pace up Old Santa Cruz highway and by the time we got to the intersection with summit road the fog bank was in from the coast. A quick stop at the summit store for some water, we then rode down Soquel-San Jose road, which was still as smooth and fast a descent as I remembered before turning off at Laurel Glen. Laurel Glen was a climb in the shady redwoods before descending down to Branciforte.
At the turn off from Branciforte onto Granite Creek road, Lea bunny hopped a bridge joint and ejected the water bottle from her newly purchased Aqua rack. We then rode into Scotts Valley, where soon after the climb into the city proper we spotted Eric Fetch's (AKA the bike doctor) bike repair truck parked in the driveway of his house. I suggested that Lea get her bike fixed right then but she thought it would be rude to drop in without notice, so we proceeded into Scotts Valley.
I don't usually eat lunch on this ride, but Lisa, Lea and Richard ganged up and talked me into a stop at Carlos', a mexican joint just past the Highway 17 overpass. The food was fast and plentiful, but I knew there would be hell to pay on Mt. Charlie Road after that. By the time we were done with lunch it was well past 2:00pm, so we headed on our way to Mt. Charlie Road.
The bottom of Mt. Charlie road is deceptively easy --- it's rutted and has extremely bad pavement but the grade is extremely gentle, which made me wonder if I had misgraded this climb. After the initial easy section that's lulled you into a sense of security, however, Mt. Charlie reveals its true colors in the form of several pitches of 13-18% grade, which is tough going on a tandem even without an enchilada and a taco weighing me down. The temperature which had seemed cool earlier now felt like it was really warm, because at 2mph you just aren't getting a breeze to cool you down.
Half an hour or so of grinding later, we made it to the summit and zoomed down to the stop sign a mile away, where Richard and Eddie were so tired of standing around waiting for us that they had decided to lie down for a nap. We then proceeded over Highway 17 again, descending via Mt. Charlie road and Old Santa Cruz highway back to Lexington dam for a total of 42.89 miles and 4300' of climbing, which meets the Western Wheeler standard of 100' of climb per mile of riding.
Review: Samsung SBH 500 Stereo Bluetooth Headphones
I recently switched from using a Blackberry Curve as my primary cell phone to my Android G1. The main reason: Bluetooth A2DP Stereo support.
The Blackberry Curve supposedly supports A2DP too, but the native media player didn't expose the feature, and I had to try a 3rd party player. The result was atrocious --- one track would use the headphones, and the next one would use the phone's speakerphone or just cut off completely. I would have given up at that point, but then I tried upgrading my android to cupcake.
The integration is easy: just pair your phone in the Wireless Settings to the SBH 500, and start the music app. That's it. It even does the right thing when a call comes in --- the music player pauses, you take the call, and the music resumes after the call is over. Sound quality is good. No, let me take that back. Sound quality is great! When I'm in the office or at home, I get no dropped notes (unless I strain the G1's processor --- then the music skips, but that's not the headphone's fault). Phone calls sound great --- even my callers comment on that! I'm not usually a fan of listening to music at work, but now I do, because it sounds so great, and I didn't realize how much the fact that my headphones had wires kept me from listening to music until I had these!
As a bonus, the charger for these headphones has the same charger tip as for my Kindle v1. The manual claims 10 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby time, and indeed, I have yet to drain the battery on it, despite only charging the headphones once a week or so.
The only complaint I have about the headphones is that they get a little uncomfortable after a couple of hours of use --- that's not a big deal --- I take them off and 10 minutes later I'm ready to wear them again.
Given that they're available used on Amazon.com for about $25 shipped, I think these are an incredible bargain. Recommended!
The Blackberry Curve supposedly supports A2DP too, but the native media player didn't expose the feature, and I had to try a 3rd party player. The result was atrocious --- one track would use the headphones, and the next one would use the phone's speakerphone or just cut off completely. I would have given up at that point, but then I tried upgrading my android to cupcake.
The integration is easy: just pair your phone in the Wireless Settings to the SBH 500, and start the music app. That's it. It even does the right thing when a call comes in --- the music player pauses, you take the call, and the music resumes after the call is over. Sound quality is good. No, let me take that back. Sound quality is great! When I'm in the office or at home, I get no dropped notes (unless I strain the G1's processor --- then the music skips, but that's not the headphone's fault). Phone calls sound great --- even my callers comment on that! I'm not usually a fan of listening to music at work, but now I do, because it sounds so great, and I didn't realize how much the fact that my headphones had wires kept me from listening to music until I had these!
As a bonus, the charger for these headphones has the same charger tip as for my Kindle v1. The manual claims 10 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby time, and indeed, I have yet to drain the battery on it, despite only charging the headphones once a week or so.
The only complaint I have about the headphones is that they get a little uncomfortable after a couple of hours of use --- that's not a big deal --- I take them off and 10 minutes later I'm ready to wear them again.
Given that they're available used on Amazon.com for about $25 shipped, I think these are an incredible bargain. Recommended!
Review: The Steel Remains
I would have written a review of The Steel Remains in January if Del Rey had chosen to price the Kindle edition of the book at $9.99 instead of trying to price it like the hardcover at $14. As it was, since I had plenty to read, I simply placed a hold at my public library. Yes, Del Rey, you lost $14 of revenue because you mis-priced your product.
At this point, we all know what to expect from a Morgan novel: a super soldier, lots of explicit sex, and plenty of philosophy and violence. Well, Morgan throws us a twist this time: the universe is an atypical fantasy universe, the protagonist is a gay warrior, and while there's plenty of explicit sex, the violence is even more explicit, and as bloody as you would expect --- much more so than the usual cleaned up fantasy novel.
I mis-wrote. There were actually 3 protagonists, all relics of the past war with the Lizards 10 years ago. Egar the Dragonbane is now part of the Steppe nomads, a happy clan-master running an unhappy clan. Archeth, a deadly knife-fighter, now works for the emperor as a trouble-shooter, losing herself in drugs. All this ends when Ringil's mom shows up and guilts him into searching for a cousin sold into slavery. (As unorthodox a start to a fantasy story as you can find --- how many brave warriors have moms?)
The plot then multiplies and we dig into one mystery after another until it all comes together in a bloody finale. While it's not radical, it all makes for fun reading --- and Morgan, if nothing else, is a good enough writer to keep you occupied for a few hours. Recommended for those with a strong stomach. For anyone else, take a look at Altered Carbon and see if Morgan's to your taste. That's still his strongest work.
At this point, we all know what to expect from a Morgan novel: a super soldier, lots of explicit sex, and plenty of philosophy and violence. Well, Morgan throws us a twist this time: the universe is an atypical fantasy universe, the protagonist is a gay warrior, and while there's plenty of explicit sex, the violence is even more explicit, and as bloody as you would expect --- much more so than the usual cleaned up fantasy novel.
I mis-wrote. There were actually 3 protagonists, all relics of the past war with the Lizards 10 years ago. Egar the Dragonbane is now part of the Steppe nomads, a happy clan-master running an unhappy clan. Archeth, a deadly knife-fighter, now works for the emperor as a trouble-shooter, losing herself in drugs. All this ends when Ringil's mom shows up and guilts him into searching for a cousin sold into slavery. (As unorthodox a start to a fantasy story as you can find --- how many brave warriors have moms?)
The plot then multiplies and we dig into one mystery after another until it all comes together in a bloody finale. While it's not radical, it all makes for fun reading --- and Morgan, if nothing else, is a good enough writer to keep you occupied for a few hours. Recommended for those with a strong stomach. For anyone else, take a look at Altered Carbon and see if Morgan's to your taste. That's still his strongest work.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Review: The Lost Fleet, Relentless
The Lost Fleet: Relentless is the fifth book in the Lost Fleet series starting with Dauntless. They are meant to be read in order, so don't buy this book and not have read all the others in the series.
One of my biggest fears with regards to long series is that the series will never end (or Robert Jordan style, the author would die before the series ends --- even his successor is having trouble keeping the final volume of the series in one book). Fortunately, it looks like John G. Hemry/Jack Campbell is very disciplined and the series will end at the sixth book.
Unlike previous books in the series, this one doesn't center around relativistic space battle set-pieces. In any case, if I was impressed by Campbell's set pieces, Alastair Reynolds' Redemption Ark blew me away as far as creativity in space battles is concerned --- it's obvious that Reynolds was an astronomer/physicist while Campbell was a navy man. Instead, what we have is a series of intrigues, one of which centers around a mole/traitor on the flagship.
As usual, Campbell's handling of romance and relationships between men and women is shallow, but as an adventure story the pace is fast, your brain rarely needs to be fully engaged, and nothing is bogged down. Recommended as an airplane novel and not much else.
One of my biggest fears with regards to long series is that the series will never end (or Robert Jordan style, the author would die before the series ends --- even his successor is having trouble keeping the final volume of the series in one book). Fortunately, it looks like John G. Hemry/Jack Campbell is very disciplined and the series will end at the sixth book.
Unlike previous books in the series, this one doesn't center around relativistic space battle set-pieces. In any case, if I was impressed by Campbell's set pieces, Alastair Reynolds' Redemption Ark blew me away as far as creativity in space battles is concerned --- it's obvious that Reynolds was an astronomer/physicist while Campbell was a navy man. Instead, what we have is a series of intrigues, one of which centers around a mole/traitor on the flagship.
As usual, Campbell's handling of romance and relationships between men and women is shallow, but as an adventure story the pace is fast, your brain rarely needs to be fully engaged, and nothing is bogged down. Recommended as an airplane novel and not much else.
Working with your hands
The New York Times Magazine ran an interesting excerpt from a book called The Case for Working with Your Hands this past weekend. In it, the author expresses how directly working on a physical object is direct, honest and cleansing in a way that intellectual work (such as the deservedly maligned investment banking) is not.
To some large extent I agree with him, but I've also had exceedingly bad encounters with shadetree mechanics who wouldn't read a book or understand the principles behind them if it killed them. Here's an example: Bicycle Wheels. I started building them for myself after running into several issues with wheels built by bike mechanics.
What really annoyed me was that these mechanics always adopted a holier than thou attitude --- they would insist that what they were doing was correct, despite violating every engineering principle. Myth and lore would take priority over being correct and building solid wheels. For instance, mechanic after mechanic would insist that straight 14 gauge spokes were stronger that swaged spokes. They would insist that not tensioning the wheel up to maximum possible tension was better than doing so (even though wheel durability is directly correlated with spoke tension). I even recently got into an argument with a well-known wheel builder as to whether spoke prep/loctite was necessary for building strong wheels.
It was this kind of attitude that made me realize that no matter the myth/lore/experience of a shade tree mechanic (or even a reputable mechanic) --- someone who's a good engineer (even someone who's not a real engineer, such as a software engineer) who's willing to read up on prior art and apply himself really does make a superior mechanic, if that was what he wanted to do. So there's plenty of learning on both sides.
(And I have no doubt that investment bankers would make terrible mechanics)
To some large extent I agree with him, but I've also had exceedingly bad encounters with shadetree mechanics who wouldn't read a book or understand the principles behind them if it killed them. Here's an example: Bicycle Wheels. I started building them for myself after running into several issues with wheels built by bike mechanics.
What really annoyed me was that these mechanics always adopted a holier than thou attitude --- they would insist that what they were doing was correct, despite violating every engineering principle. Myth and lore would take priority over being correct and building solid wheels. For instance, mechanic after mechanic would insist that straight 14 gauge spokes were stronger that swaged spokes. They would insist that not tensioning the wheel up to maximum possible tension was better than doing so (even though wheel durability is directly correlated with spoke tension). I even recently got into an argument with a well-known wheel builder as to whether spoke prep/loctite was necessary for building strong wheels.
It was this kind of attitude that made me realize that no matter the myth/lore/experience of a shade tree mechanic (or even a reputable mechanic) --- someone who's a good engineer (even someone who's not a real engineer, such as a software engineer) who's willing to read up on prior art and apply himself really does make a superior mechanic, if that was what he wanted to do. So there's plenty of learning on both sides.
(And I have no doubt that investment bankers would make terrible mechanics)
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Review: The Prefect
With Absolution Gap being such a big disappointment, I could not bring myself to dive into The Prefect right away, even though the library had delivered both books at the same time. Nevertheless, by the time I was half way through the novel, I found myself visiting the library's web-site and ordering every book Reynolds has written that the library has.
The Prefect revolves around Tom Dreyfuss, a policeman of sorts during the Yellowstone System's Belle Epoque. What's great about this setting is that from previous novels, we know the fate of the system, but since those stories took place after a major disaster, we never get to know about the Glitter Band before it became the Rust Belt. The setting, then, is both different yet familiar to fans of the series. Even better, Reynolds has to clue you into the setting whether or not you're an old hand or a new reader. Technically, this is brilliantly done, and a clear case of the author in complete command of his universe as well as the stories he wants to tell.
Set in a post-singularity world, the story begins with Tom Dreyfuss investigating a mass-murder --- someone has destroyed an entire space habitat. From there, the story proceeds to increase in scope, as Dreyfuss has to unwind plots both within and without the Panoply (the police force for the Glitter Band) that ultimately determine the fate of the system. All throughout, we get hints and names that are familiar to us from previous novels, yet none of that name dropping is an inside-reference --- Reynolds deftly ties it altogether, and we see that what we thought were side-references in previous novels can be seen as scene-setting for this one.
Amazingly, after my complaints of wooden characters in previous novels, we now see fully-formed characters. Dreyfuss is very much not a cardboard cut-out, and we learn to respect him. There weren't any obviously wooden characters in this one, except perhaps for the villain. The only real criticism of this book is that despite the initial setup as a crime novel, it really turns into a techno thriller in the end, as the author does tell you who the traitor is long before Dreyfuss gets to him.
Nevertheless, this novel is highly recommended, and well worth paying the $10.80 Kindle price for if you're too impatient to wait for the library.
The Prefect revolves around Tom Dreyfuss, a policeman of sorts during the Yellowstone System's Belle Epoque. What's great about this setting is that from previous novels, we know the fate of the system, but since those stories took place after a major disaster, we never get to know about the Glitter Band before it became the Rust Belt. The setting, then, is both different yet familiar to fans of the series. Even better, Reynolds has to clue you into the setting whether or not you're an old hand or a new reader. Technically, this is brilliantly done, and a clear case of the author in complete command of his universe as well as the stories he wants to tell.
Set in a post-singularity world, the story begins with Tom Dreyfuss investigating a mass-murder --- someone has destroyed an entire space habitat. From there, the story proceeds to increase in scope, as Dreyfuss has to unwind plots both within and without the Panoply (the police force for the Glitter Band) that ultimately determine the fate of the system. All throughout, we get hints and names that are familiar to us from previous novels, yet none of that name dropping is an inside-reference --- Reynolds deftly ties it altogether, and we see that what we thought were side-references in previous novels can be seen as scene-setting for this one.
Amazingly, after my complaints of wooden characters in previous novels, we now see fully-formed characters. Dreyfuss is very much not a cardboard cut-out, and we learn to respect him. There weren't any obviously wooden characters in this one, except perhaps for the villain. The only real criticism of this book is that despite the initial setup as a crime novel, it really turns into a techno thriller in the end, as the author does tell you who the traitor is long before Dreyfuss gets to him.
Nevertheless, this novel is highly recommended, and well worth paying the $10.80 Kindle price for if you're too impatient to wait for the library.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Review: Soon I Will be Invincible
Soon I Will be Invincible is Austin Grossman's superhero novel. It is told from two perspectives: Fatale, who is the Next Generation of Warfare, a rookie superhero joining the New Champions a superhero team roughly analogous to the Justice league of America. The other narrator is Dr. Impossible, The Smartest Man in the World, the supreme villain who has fought with CoreFire, the Superman analogue all through his career. The chapters alternate between the two perspectives.
Being a novel, the book gets into the minds of the characters as they muse about their various predicaments. Unfortunately, Austin Grossman is studying for a PhD in English at Berkeley which means that it's very hard for him to make Dr. Impossible come off as a really smart person --- a novel that tries to get into the mind of a character has to pull off quite a bit more than a comic book that only shows the Villanous dialogue rather than quiet reflection. In fact, Dr. Impossible comes across as a self-pitying person who never quite gets the hang of villainy.
The plot behind the novel was extremely simple Dr. Impossible escaped from jail and a superheroes once again have to stop him before he conquers the world. All the cliches you can find in comic books are here, as Grossman doesn't find that he has anything to add to the genre except some meta-musings: for instance, Dr. Impossible is said to have malign hyper-cognition syndrome --- the politically correct term for evil scientist.
Unfortunately all the plot twists are telegraphed way in advance by the author, as if he was afraid that you weren't smart enough to figure out what was going to happen next. Even the ending isn't at all interesting because Dr. impossible doesn't seem to even know what to do when he has conquered the world. Oh wait, it is only implied that he might have known what to do if he did succeed. The novel isn't even courageous enough to take that step. All in all, although the novel is short and could be a fun read on an airplane or on a bus, I can't really recommend it over going to the source material, and hunting down a copy of Alan Moore's Miracleman (the paper books run on ebay for hundreds of dollars each, but I'm sure you can find electronic copies if you look)
Being a novel, the book gets into the minds of the characters as they muse about their various predicaments. Unfortunately, Austin Grossman is studying for a PhD in English at Berkeley which means that it's very hard for him to make Dr. Impossible come off as a really smart person --- a novel that tries to get into the mind of a character has to pull off quite a bit more than a comic book that only shows the Villanous dialogue rather than quiet reflection. In fact, Dr. Impossible comes across as a self-pitying person who never quite gets the hang of villainy.
The plot behind the novel was extremely simple Dr. Impossible escaped from jail and a superheroes once again have to stop him before he conquers the world. All the cliches you can find in comic books are here, as Grossman doesn't find that he has anything to add to the genre except some meta-musings: for instance, Dr. Impossible is said to have malign hyper-cognition syndrome --- the politically correct term for evil scientist.
Unfortunately all the plot twists are telegraphed way in advance by the author, as if he was afraid that you weren't smart enough to figure out what was going to happen next. Even the ending isn't at all interesting because Dr. impossible doesn't seem to even know what to do when he has conquered the world. Oh wait, it is only implied that he might have known what to do if he did succeed. The novel isn't even courageous enough to take that step. All in all, although the novel is short and could be a fun read on an airplane or on a bus, I can't really recommend it over going to the source material, and hunting down a copy of Alan Moore's Miracleman (the paper books run on ebay for hundreds of dollars each, but I'm sure you can find electronic copies if you look)
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