Day 1: Sarnen to Rosenlaui

We installed our chintzy $60 bike rack on the A180 with no problems whatsoever. Not only did it fit well, the bikes did not stick out far enough to block our exit from the tiny garage entrance. Prior to the trip, we had calculated that the savings from train tickets would justify carrying the bike rack onto the plane.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

I was not surprised that the drive out to Sarnen along the freeway was faster than taking the train, but was surprised to discover how much faster it was! The drive was an hour while the train (including transfers but not including waiting for the first train) was more than 2 hours long! That meant that we could wake up later (not that we would be able to do so given our jet-lag), and still get to Sarnen with plenty of time. The cloudy skies looked like they would bring rain at higher elevations and block out any views we could get on the Melchsee-Frutt adventure, so we opted for a traverse over the Brunig to the Lammi restaurant. After setting XiaoQin's Phone to navigate to the Lammi, Phil and I got our bikes out, and began the ride after synchronizing our cameras to the GPS unit.

To my surprise, my GPS unit routed us around the Sarnensee on the West side rather than the East side that I was familiar with. I didn't complain much, because it gave us nice beautiful views of the Sarnensee as we approached Giswil. After the intersection with Highway 4, we found a bike path signed for the Brunig with a 12% grade. That sounded like fun, so we immediately rode up it to get beautiful views of the area.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

The bike path flattened out and turned into dirt soon enough, as bike paths are wont to do, and then dropped us off into Lugern where a steep climb took us along the railroad tracks on a dirt path. The climbing got fairly hefty as the train tracks went into a tunnel and the bike path went over the tunnel, but we soon got high enough for some decent views at Chappeli.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

From there, it was a hop skip and a jump over to Brunig pass, where we abandoned the bike path in favor of a fast road descent into Meiringen. The consequence of going fast when it starts raining is that rain drops at 55kph hurt! Nonetheless, we soon arrived at Meiringen and rode up the Kirchet pass to the Lammi restaurant, where XiaoQin had been waiting. The rain had turned into just occasional drops, so we opted to eat lunch outside under the umbrella. Lammi produces what I consider to be the platonic ideal for sausages, and this time was no exception. The onion sauce is a must have.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

After lunch, XiaoQin drove off after I gave her the very simple directions to Rosenlaui followed by instructions to pull aside for the post bus. The climb started dry, but by the time we got to Zwirgi it had started raining and was getting heavier. I abandoned taking pictures, put on my jacket and just hammered at the pedals trying to get to the hotel.

I arrived at the Hotel in due time to find that XiaoQin had already checked in and was taking pictures. Christine, assessing her condition, had immediately gotten someone to help her with the luggage and so we were all moved in! I parked the bike at the usual place and then XiaoQin and I took a walk after I gave Christine a copy of the touring book so they could see the picture of Andreas and I on one of the early pages.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

Rosenlaui in the fog is no less pretty than in the sun, and while the rain was annoying, it's still a magical place. Upon returning, Andreas greeted us and said he really loved the book, asking if I had plans to get it translated into German. "There are plenty of cycling books in German," I said. "Ah, but no how-to books. They're all region guides!" I haven't the faintest idea as to how to crack the German book market, but if that's true I'd be willing to sell my German rights.

Dinner was the usual four course meal: soup, a salad, lamb, and panna cotta, all cooked to their usual high standards. Andreas said that the weather was due to change by the weekend, so we hoped for less rain for the next two days.

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Prologue: June 21st-22nd

For the first time, we used AirBerlin to fly from San Francisco to Dusseldorf, then a quick transfer to Zurich. I was warned against them previously by friends in Munich who said they were a small airline that nobody used. However, their bike policy was more than reasonable: pay an annual fee of 79EUR for the topbonus service card, and you get to bring your bike of up to 32kg for no charge. I was struck by the general competence of the customer service agent. We needed a ticket change for XiaoQin because she needed to return to work unexpectedly early, and he would get on the phone to Frankfurt and get information for us. Unfortunately, we had ordered the ticket using Orbitz, and Orbitz's customer service was much worse. Given the price difference ($50), we would have been better off ordering the tickets directly from AirBerlin.

The checkin process went smoothly and the flight transfer went with typical German efficiency. We were through the customs and transfer process within 20 minutes, and what I thought was a ridiculously short transfer time turned out to be enough. Arriving at the airport, we quickly found the airport shuttle for Hotel Flyaway, but it was too small to carry two giant bike cases, our carry on, and additional checked baggage. No problem, the shuttle drive negotiated with another shuttle bus driver who had a trailer attached to his bus and he drove us to our hotel immediately and with no hassle, even delivering our luggage for us.

While XiaoQin took a nap, Phil and I started putting together the bikes under the awning of the hotel restaurant while it rained ominously. If it kept going like this, our first day's plan would be wrecked. The bikes came together quickly enough, and soon we had empty bike cases and fully assembled bikes. While we were putting together the bikes, Phil observed that there was a bike shop across the street from the hotel, so even if we had any missing parts we were conveniently located as far as replacements were concerned!

We had a quick dinner, we took the airport shuttle to the airport for to acquire Swisscom SIM cards for our phones. Phil and Xiaoqin had N1s, which meant they could use the Easy BeFree plan with 4CHF per day of surfing, and unlimited calls for 3CHF. My blackberry, however, was not supported by Easy BeFree, so I ended up with the easy liberty uno. In retrospect, we weren't making too many phone calls with the phones, and we should have put everyone on the easy liberty uno plan, since one phone call a day cost 3CHF on the Easy BeFree plan, which was usually all the phone calls we would make that day on one phone.

We shopped for some groceries, including breakfast, because the Hotel Flyaway's breakfast was priced for Kings. Then we went to pick up the car. We had booked a Ford Focus, but Hertz was out of them so we ended up with a Mercedes A180, a small that that felt like an upscale version of my Honda Fit. XiaoQin was freaked out by how small the roads and parking spaces were, but we managed to get the car into Hotel FlyAway's garage.

Because of XiaoQin's flight plan changes, we had to rebook our return to Hotel Flyaway and change the return date of the car, all of which was accomplished with only minor hassles. We slept well that night, hoping for the rain to stop.
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Tour of the Alps 2011

In June and July, XiaoQin, Phil Sung, and I visited Europe to do a cycling and hiking tour of the Alps. The cycling portion of the trip went over 862 miles with 94,957 feet of climb. The hiking portion was 27.9 miles with 7,963' of climb. We had one flat tire, one derailleur mechanical, and a strange dust cap melt-down. We had several days of rain, but only a couple of days where rain stopped us or forced us to cut a ride short.

This is the index page for the trip report, and collects all the photos.

My photo collection:

Tour of the Alps 2011

Phil's photos
Phil's Highlights
Phil's Trip Report

Trip Report

• Prologue
  
• June 23rd, Sarnen to Rosenlaui
  
• June 24th, Rosenlaui to Wengen
  
• June 25th, Wengen
  
• June 26th, Rosenlaui to Realp
  
• June 27th, Realp to All'Acqua
  
• June 28th, All'Acqua to Brig-Reid
  
• June 29th, Brig-Reid to Vinadio
  
• June 30th, Vinadio to Barcelonnette
  
• July 1st, Cime de la Bonette
  
• July 2nd, Col du Parpaillon
  
• July 3rd, Barcelonette to Briancon
  
• July 4th, Briancon to St. Michel Maurienne
  
• July 5th, Saint Michel Maurienne to Beaufort
  
• July 6th, Beaufort to Carouge
  
• July 7th, Carouge to Zurich
  
• July 8th, Zurich to St. Moritz Bad
  
• July 9th, Engadin Hike
  
• July 10th, Corvatsch
  
• July 11th, St Moritz Bad to Glorenza
  
• July 12th, Glorenza to Bormio
  
• July 13th, Bormio to St. Caterina
  
• July 14th, St. Caterina to Fondo
  
• July 15th, Fondo to Moos
  
• July 16th, Moos to Mils
  
• July 17th, Mils to Bludenz
  
• July 18th, Bludenz to Rorschach
  
• July 19th, Rorschach to Munich
  
• July 20th, Rest Day in Munich
  
• July 21st, Munich to Neuhausen
  
• July 22nd, Neuhausen to Kloten
  
• July 23rd, 24th, Epilogue
  

Appendices

• Conclusion and Thoughts
  
• Review: Olympus EPL-1
  
• Long Term Review: Garmin Edge 800
  
• Review: Air Berlin
  

Review: Queen of Arlin

Queen of Arlin is TC Southwell's novel about a post-apocalyptic world that initially looks like a fantasy novel. The story revolves around the Queen of Arlin, who would be forced into marriage by her suitors if she did not go to war and die. Since she didn't like any of her suitors she went to war hoping to die a warrior queen. But part of her inheritance was a super-soldier, a cyborg illegally imported into her planet, and he rescues her.

The premise is initially interesting but the main character is willfully ignorant, and worse, does not try to actually learn what she does not understand. The resulting interaction is repetitious, predictable, and one reads it hoping the queen gets an ugly and untimely death. Imagine my sadness and annoyance that instead this is the first novel of a long series.

If you're stuck in a hotel room in the rain this is barely readable. Not recommended.

Review: Throne of Jade

It would have been easy for the follow up to His Majesty's Dragon to be another conventional story about the Napoleonic Wars with Dragons with tactical set-pieces, but Novik cleverly declines and takes us into a completely different direction. We visit the China of that region, but of course, a China completely infused with dragons and with dragons as part of the society.

Throne of Jade starts of with what seems to be a really contrived plot, with the Chinese demanding one of the stars of the first book to return to China. For all sorts of political reasons, our protagonists are bundled onto a boat and shipped off to China. There are some minor adventures on the way, but what's great is upon arrival, we get a view of a society that's completely integrated another sentient species into its society, as opposed to our view from the first novel, which treated dragons effectively as replacements for fighters and bombers.

I thought this was a very clever twist, and wondered how Novik would draw the plot to its conclusion, having written herself into a corner as far as the characters were concerned. Unfortunately, her solution's not very novel, with palace intrigues and betrayals being par for the course, but with some not very believable situations (even given the presence of dragons).

Nonetheless, the book had me engaged all the way to the end. While I don't find myself in a hurry to read Novik's follow on novels in this series, I'd be happy to read them in the future. Mildly recommended.

Review: His Majesty's Dragon

His Majesty's Dragon is Naomi Novik's novel about the Napoleanic Wars on an alternate world where dragons co-evolved with men. This co-evolution is obvious because dragons apparently learn human languages while still inside the egg, and easily adopt human companions/riders on a one-on-one basis.

Once you put aside that bit of suspension of disbelief, the novel works very well. We're given a run down of how squadrons are organized, how aerial warfare is conducted in an age where sailboats still rule the waters, and what the social organization and hierarchy of the aviators would be in relation to the rest of the armed services.

The novel is entirely readable and a lot of fun, though one cannot help but think about how much more interesting it would have been to read about the domestication of dragons in that universe, for instance. Recommended, especially for airplane reading or while resting during a bike tour.

Review: Assassin's Apprentice

Assassin's Apprentice is the first in Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy. It starts with a boy abandoned by his family at the Kingdom's keep, with the grandfather noting that the boy's the King-in-Waiting's bastard son.

The story starts slowly, with the story being told in first person from Fitz's point of view. He is seemingly abandoned at first, left to the care of the stable-master. But we observe the repercussion of his appearance on the political scene shortly after in the abdication of the Prince and the political intrigues begin.

The world itself is fairly non-descript, though as a fantasy world there's magic in the form of telepathy and ability to communicate with animals, magic is not a major force in the world. The story moves along at a good clip; Hobb's a good enough writer that you're never left wondering why a scene is in place but are simply carried along by the narrative. Ultimately, Fitz becomes initiated in the ways of stealth and poison, and is sent on missions for his king.

The narrative speeds up in the last 10% of the book as Fitz is sent to help bring about a closer union with a potential ally by poisoning a prince, and everything comes together at once. Hobb is not afraid to pour hell on her characters, and the ending of the novel leaves us with some long running loose ends but with a satisfactory climax. I'm going to keep reading other books in this series. Recommended.

Startup Engineering Management Beta Program Reopened

I've just finished a substantial revision of Startup Engineering Management and am about to start the print proof process. To get some fresh eyes on the book, I'm reopening the program. Since the book's much further along, the price is set at $14.95. I'll close the program as soon as I get enough beta readers.

To buy, click through.

Review: The Last Wish

I started playing The Witcher, and found myself really like the world and the cynical main character, Geralt of Riva. So on my recent tour I found myself grabbing The Last Wish off the Kindle store and reading it one rainy day.

There's a coherent plot, which revolves around the opening sequence from the game, and Geralt's subsequent recovery. We don't find out how he loses his memory at the beginning of the game, but plenty of characters in the game make references to the events described in this book, which makes reading the book while playing the game very satisfying.

The story is told in little vignettes, short stories that provide some insight into the world Geralt lives in, or into Geralt himself. Though the game would have you believe there's a lot of sex, the book is much more restrained, and everything happens off the camera. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks later, I find myself without much recollection of the details of the book. Nevertheless, the writing is good enough that I'd be happy to read it again, either as an airplane novel or otherwise.

Mildly recommended.

Review: The Story of the Giro D'Italia

Bill McGann is at it again, this time documenting the history of the Tour of Italy. As with the story of the Tour De France, this history is mostly a year by year accounting of the various Giri, each with its dominating rider, scandals, and rampant cheating, both by riders and fans.

There are a few interesting titbits, like how Northern Italy speaks German (it used to be part of Austria and was given to Italy for picking the right side during World War 1), but by and large the history isn't as interesting, though McGann makes the very good point that the Giro is a far more contested race and therefore more interesting to watch than the Tour de France.

It's fun reading, especially if you're touring or planning to tour in the area. It does give you a good idea of why doping is so hard to stamp out in cycling though! It's been in there since the beginning!

Recommended.

More Photos, and a plug for Photosynth

I lied: I wasn't completely done with photos. I have a bunch of panoramic stitches, and they're still uploading to PicasaWeb (very slowly). But the reality is, PicasaWeb (and Facebook) are designed to be social network tools: low resolution pictures posted by drunk teenagers taken by lousy camera phones. Neither of them are designed to show off high resolution photos stitched together by people who care using powerful desktop computers.

The alternative, however, is Microsft's Photosynth.

Here's an embed of my Moos stitch:


And another from the Engadin:


For the entire collection, please view my Photosynth stream.

Tour of the Alps 2011 Photos

Tour of the Alps 2011

Between XiaoQin, Phil, and I, we exposed about 4200 frames over a month of touring and cycling in this year's tour of the alps, which included 5 days of hiking, and a week of almost daily rain. Those of you who remember past tour patterns will probably expect a tour report to come soon. This year, however, I've got a series of talks at REI coming up, so I'd be preparing a presentation for that, featuring some of the photos here in this album, so things will be delayed a little bit.

Nevertheless, I do intend to write a trip report eventually. In the mean time, enjoy the photos!

Review: In The Plex

In The Plex is Steven Levy's book about Google. After Levy's last book, The Perfect Thing, I was really unimpressed and expected a typical English major assessment of Google. Fortunately, Levy's mostly redeemed himself with this book.

Levy had unprecedented access to top level executives for this book. This meant that you got all the details about Google's funding, it's approach to top secret projects (including the Android acquisition as well as Book search), and what really happened with the Analytics acquisition. Well, not quite. You could take Levy's book at face value, but it's peppered with all sorts of little inaccuracies that point to the fact that Levy was painted a very nice picture, and as an outsider and not someone who lives Silicon Valley culture, the most he could do was to be a little bit skeptical about it.

For instance, there's a little bit about how Google Docs killed Gdrive in a brilliant play of executive politics. But Levy leaves out the context: Dropbox has made a billion dollar business out of that lack of vision by the Google executive. Then there's minor little details like a remark about Jia being famous for Sushi. Uh, no. The big sushi cafes at Google at the time were Pacific and 5IVE. It's very clear that Levy regurgitated whatever line he was fed very well and entertainingly, but obviously his fact-checking was limited or he's clearly preserving future access to Google executives by being as uncritical as possible. The only place in the book where he takes a skeptical look at Google's actions was in relation to China. Even then, there's careful avoidance of the internal craziness at that time (seriously, "blame the intern" didn't go over well with the rank and file at that time, and sticking to that line is definitely something Google's executives should hang their heads in shame about).

On the other hand, there's plenty to like about this book. There are places where he foreshadows the tension between Schmidt and the founders. There's an excellent exposition of Eric Veach's re-invention of the Vickrey auction, and the sun-setting of early versions of Adwords (known at the time as Adwords Premium). There's even a somewhat extensive coda about Google's failure to copy and the consequences thereof.

If you're an old Google hand, you'll get a few kicks out of all the names mentioned in this book that you're familiar with. If you're not familiar at all with Google's story, this is a great book and is recommended. After all, if you wait for a definitive account, you could be waiting a long time.

Review: American Born Chinese

I read that American Born Chinese is so far the only graphic novel to have been nominated for the National Book Award. That blew my mind, since graphic novels rarely get that kind of recognition.

The book is short and a quick read (30 minutes or so). It starts off with 3 separate threads, the first of which I realized (with a groan) that was a mere retelling of the opening of the classic Journey to the West. The second tells the story of Jin Wang, who starts elementary school at an American school and despite having been in San Francisco all his life, is treated like a foreigner. My impression of American schools from popular media is that it's a traumatic experience, especially if you're a nerd, but being a short graphic novel means that Gene Yang only really touches on this at the most shallow of levels (like "I hear that Chinese people eat dogs."). The final thread tells of an American, Danny, whose Chinese cousin Chin-Kee visits and embarrasses him by being extremely Chinese.

The threads all tie together at the end, and we get a neat little resolution that turns the entire book into a nice little parable ("Learn to accept who you are"), but left me wondering why it became a National Book Award finalist. While it wasn't a waste of time, I'm not sure I gained any more insight to how the American Born Chinese experience is all that different. Mildly recommended.

Review: Norton Ghost

Windows Image backup does the right thing in the majority of cases --- if your replacement hard drive is as big or bigger than your old hard drive. Unfortunately, if you own an SSD and it dies, what you'll usually do is to drop in a HDD that's bigger, RMA that SSD, and then try to restore from backup from the Windows Image backup and then discover that it doesn't work.

The solution, according to my brother, is Symantec Norton Ghost 15.0 (1 PC). The price is fairly cheap, and it was easy to setup and test. Now that I have the SSD back from OCZ, I had a chance to test drive it.

The verdict: it works, mostly. What it does is to restore your drive from the image, but for whatever reason, it refused to restore the boot sector. Fortunately, I had the Windows Recovery Disk sitting around, and when I inserted that and told it to fix the boot sector it did so without any fuss. Result: one fast PC with SSD.

I hate recommending products like this (partially working products are lame), but there's really nothing else out there that will do the trick, so there you go. And yes, one more SSD RMA, and I'm just going to sell my SSD on Craigslist.

Startup Engineering Management Beta Program Closed

Due to overwhelming response to yesterday's post about Startup Engineering Management, I have all the beta-readers I need for now. (And yes, the feedback has been coming in, and I'm very grateful for everyone who's sent me e-mail)

Needless to say, I'm inspired by the response and will proceed with the project. Thanks to everyone who has participated. I may reopen the program later as rewrites and revisions warrant.

I know the web page originally said June 18th was when I would close the beta, but when beta-signups got to the point where they were almost overwhelming I had to change the plan. I honestly had no idea I'd get this much response.

Independent Cycle Touring presentations

Independent Cycle Touring, in some ways, is the book that I spent 18 years cycling in order to learn how to write. As a cycle touring book, it includes everything I've learned, but as a writer, I honestly have no idea how to sell the book, other than a traditional book tour. Unfortunately, traditional book stores attract literary types, not outdoor types. Bike shops, on the other hand, usually attract racer-wannabes, rather than tourists.

One of my favorite outdoor stores is REI. I've been an REI member since 1992, before my very first bike tour, when I bought tents, sleeping bags, and to the bemusement of my parents, started to learn how to pitch and strike these fancy high-tech American tents in our front-yard. I am very pleased to announce that I've arranged with REI to tour most of their Bay Area stores and give a presentation about my recent adventures in Europe. This will not be a rehash of material already in the book, and is timed so that I would be back from a trip through the French and Swiss alps and will (hopefully) have fresh pictures to share.

If you're an REI fan and live in the Bay Area, mark your calendars for the appropriate stores. Registering for the talk/presentation is free. Thank you very much to Polly from REI for helping me organize this. A full calendar of events will be posted on the book's Facebook page.

Independent Cycle Touring in Europe:

Imagine pedaling through quaint mountain hamlets in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, past fields of wildflowers in Germany’s Black Forest, along the shores of lovely lakes near Salzburg in Austria, or high above the Mediterranean in the French Pyrenees… With its diverse landscapes, vast network of roads and cycle paths, and bike-friendly accommodations, Europe is a fantastic cycling destination. Tonight, independent cyclist and guidebook author Piaw Na will share his expertise on planning bike tours in Switzerland, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, England, and Scotland. Piaw will cover the nuts and bolts of organizing an independent tour, including route-planning, seasonal considerations, lightweight gear, training, transporting bikes on planes/public transit, navigation tools, accommodations, and more. Following the program, he’ll sign copies of his new how-to guidebook, Independent Cycle Touring: Exploring the World by Bicycle. If you register for this free presentation at www.rei.com/stores, we will hold a seat for you until the scheduled start time. Seating may be available at the door, even if registration is closed.

7 pm–8:30 pm, Tuesday, August 2 at REI Marina

7 pm–8:30 pm, Wednesday, August 3 at REI San Carlos

7 pm–8:30 pm, Tuesday, August 30 at REI Berkeley

7 pm–8:30 pm, Tuesday, September 13 at REI Fremont

7 pm–8:30 pm, Wednesday, September 14 at REI San Francisco

7 pm–8:30 pm, Monday, September 19 at REI Saratoga

7 pm–8:30 pm, Thursday, September 29 at REI Mountain View

Beta Test My Next Book!

My next book has reached a critical juncture. It's called Startup Engineering Management, and you can read all about it (including seeing a free sample) at the above link. At this point, all the content is mostly there (though if I'm missing content please let me know about it!). While I've tried to get proof-readers by giving free copies away, that's not worked very well --- I've learned that people who get something for free don't attach very much value to it. So what I've decided to do is to offer the advanced reader copy at a massive discount. At $4/copy, there's not much room to cut the price further, and you're not out very much money if you dislike the book. I'm offering this for a limited time, and will decide whether or not to put more work into the book (more content, table of contents, index, cover) if the response is positive. If you provide feedback that affects the book substantially, I'll give you a free copy of the final book. If you provide any feedback at all, you'll get to upgrade to the final version at a substantial discount.

I've decided not to use Kickstarter this time. Even though I'm a fan of the site, it's not like I'm going to need a ton of money to finish off the book. The question is whether the book has an audience at all.

Because the book is being offered at such a discount (albeit in rough form --- I've found several grammatical sentence agreement issues already even on a rough read-through, but will hold off fixing it until I figure out whether the book will sell), I am requiring that you disclose your e-mail address so I can add you to a mailing list for reader surveys, etc. I won't sell the mailing list or spam you, I just want honest, direct feedback, and I can't ask for it if I don't have your e-mail address.

With that, go ahead and visit the book's web-site, and if you like what you see, buy!

Review: Feed

Feed is the second novel in my current Hugo Nominees reading list. It's a surprising good novel, even though the subject matter was for me a turnoff.

First, it's a Zombie novel. I feel like Zombies have been way over-exposed in the media. Even worse, one of the characters is named Shaun, as in Shaun of the Dead, a movie that didn't do anything whatsoever for me, and felt really silly. Third, the main narrative voice is a dead-panned cynical young journalist stereotype. Veronica Mars did that really well, but Mira Grant didn't do quite so well.

Then there's the world. Grant does a little better than her characters in constructing a post Zombie-apocalypse world. Many things are well thought out, including frequent blood tests, the CDC's improved status in that universe, the need for licensed journalists to carry firearms, and varying degrees of false positives on testing kits. There are several places where it's obvious that Grant, like many science fiction authors, doesn't actually have a good grasp of science, technology, or even marketing, but this is forgivable: it's quite obvious from the start that Grant's writing a throwaway airplane read, not literary fiction.

The plot involves a very close brother-sister pair who blog for a living and get selected to follow along a presidential hopeful in the campaign of 2040. Then there's a zombie outbreak that turns out not to be an accident but an active act of terrorism. The journalists investigate the secret and figure out who the bad guys are. Then they pull a series of bone-headed-stupid moves that ends in tear-jerker scenes that by no rights should have been necessary. But if you read it with your brain turned off it's not such a bad book.

While this novel would make for a great airplane novel, or a gift for your Zombie-obsessed nephew, I don't see it as a serious contender for the Hugo. If the Hugo was nominated by a committee I would say the committee would need its head examined. If SF fans end up voting for this novel and it wins over say, The Hundred Thousand Kingsdoms, then it would be a travesty. At $9.99, there's probably cheaper beach reads for your summer vacation. Nevertheless, it's so far more readable than the other two nominees that I have left to read.

Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

This is part of a series of reviews for the Hugo awards. One of the other novels, Cryoburn, was already reviewed and found wanting, so I was apprehensive about having to read novels I wouldn't necessarily like.

Well, the first, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms blew me away. It's not science fiction; it's fantasy, but not the elfy-welfy fantasy that populates the bookstores nowadays. It's bold and imaginative in a way I haven't seen for a while. If more novels were like this the world would be a better place.

The protagonist of the story, Yveine, is called away from the "uncivilized" kingdom she rules to Sky, the center of all the hundred thousand kingdoms. There, she learns that she's to be designated an Heir to the Kingdoms. Except that there are already 2 other Heirs, and they're out for blood.

That sounds very mundane. But this is not a human empire. It's a theocracy enforced by the reality of gods. Sky's inhabitants control the very gods themselves, and the politics and possibilities are all tied to the war between the gods that led to this situation and we get shown drip by drip how the situation both corrupts the gods and how this power in turn corrupts humans.

If that was the only theme in this novel it would have been enough. N.K. Jemisin works in feminism, atheism, the proper use of power, and love in this novel. There's a reveal nearly every other page, and little of it is predictable, even though every reveal makes sense as a piece of the greater puzzle. Despite this being a long book (432 pages in the dead-tree edition), it doesn't feel like as the plot and action moves at a breathless pace. In a brilliant move by the publisher, Orbit, the Kindle Edition is $2.99. At that price, forget about the library and just buy it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I now look forward to reading the rest of the Hugo nominees if they are of similar quality.