Short Takes

(6/14/08) Started reading the latest Richard North Patterson book, The Race, last night, but got sick and tired of the politics..no duh...it's about a presidential race.

(6/20/08) This William Gibson book, Spook Country, is really slow reading - he's a good writer, but one really has to pay attention to the details.

(6/28/08) Reading Captain's Fury, by Butcher, all the way to its conclusion. This has been a good series, and should continue for an indefinite time the way it's looking.

State of Mind by Sven Michael Davison

The author was kind enough to send me this book for review a while ago, and it was an interesting novel. The protagonist of the story is Jake Travissi, a workaholic homicide policeman in Los Angeles. He was expelled from the force prior to the beginning of the story for using excessive force while arresting a child pornographer who was also the governor's son. He has been reinstated now, because he has agreed to participate in a pilot program to implant the P-Chip in law enforcement personnel. The program is run by Homeland Security, and the story goes "spooky" pretty quickly.

The P-Chip is supposed to be the best thing since buttered bread, I guess. If you have a P-Chip installed in the back of your brain, you can use it to directly link to the web to access any kind of information you might need. The law enforcement people in the program are also able to use it to access, what else?, law enforcement databases worldwide, to help them identify and capture criminals, terrorists, and drug dealers.

One of the inventors of the P-Chip is gunned down while speaking at a conference, and Jake's team's first assignment is to find out who, besides the killer, is involved. The government has been implanting P-chips in prisoners for a while now, for testing purposes, and because it turns out that people with a P-chip can actually be controlled through the chip. So far, the chip has been successful in turning hardened criminals into law-abiding citizens again. However, the technology that allows the chip to be controlled from the outside has some potential for abuse, and it turns out that Jake's team is being controlled by a group of hackers called the God Heads. The God Heads are manipulating the investigation by planting false memories in the chipped policemen.

There are a ton of plot twists, betrayals, plots and counterplots in this novel. One of the things I thought was an odd flaw in the novel actually turned out to be part of a plot device in the end. The only problem is that as a reader, I ended up as confused about what really went on in the story as the God Head controlled P-chippers. When every action in the book could have been a planted memory, rather than a real event, the whole thing takes on a "then I woke up" aura.

It's an interesting read from the standpoint of the possible and probable use and misuse of near-future technology.

Short Takes

(5/21/08) Stayed up a bit too late finishing reading a Mary Higgins Clark mystery, All Around the Town. Not a bad read; she can go on my approved reading list.

(6/6/08) Read Gotcha Capitalism by Bob Sullivan. This is a pretty good book for people who don't pay a lot of attention to their bills and other financial matters to read to let them know how much money they may be losing to hidden fees by all the companies they deal with, but after five or six chapters, I haven't really found anything that surprised me, but I keep up on that sort of stuff as a hobby, anyway. I don't usually run my credit cards up over the limit, or pay any interest on them - I'm one of those consumers that cc issuers hate. I also don't ever take money out of ATMs that aren't associated with my bank, so I don't get hit with those kinds of fees, and I haven't had to pay overdraft fees in the last thirty years, that I can recall.

I just had a convo with my son about ATM fees the other day while he was home. Hope he took it to heart and starts planning his weekend outing budgets a little better, so he can quit throwing away money for nothing. Title company fees seem to be pretty much unavoidable, and in my case, they're only likely to take place a couple of times in my entire lifetime - only time I had an issue with them was when I refinanced a home I'd already owned and paid for title insurance on a few years previously, and I'm thinking "why should I pay this again so soon?" It's a racket.

The chapter on mutual fund expense ratios, and kickbacks to HR folks and plan administrators wasn't a total surprise, but it's definitely irritating to think how much money they're scamming out of those of us who care enough to put away money for retirement. I'll need to review the mutual funds I'm in to see what their expense ratios are one of these days, and maybe make some adjustments. I'll keep y'all posted as I go along in this book. Looks like mostly good info.

How to Profit from the Coming Devaluation by Harry Browne

(review written 9/25/08)
I can recall, over the last thirty or so years, having seen a book on my Mom's bookshelves in the living room called How to Profit from the Coming Devaluation. Forget the author's name (Harry Browne), but it was written in 1970. Not so coincidentally, Mom pulled it off the shelves and brought it along last weekend, and I found myself browsing through it a bit, just to see if it had any applications to our current "financial meltdown".

The author seems to have a pretty solid take on how the government manipulates the money supply in the U.S. to create inflation/growth, and to a certain extent what the effects of the inevitable deflation/devaluation are on our economy.

The boom and bust cycles of the last few recessionary periods that I'm able to remember are perfectly described in advance in this book. The only bone I have to pick with the author is that none of what he described in the way of truly serious consequences seems to have happened, such as massive rioting, total collapse of the banking system, and so forth, so I'm having a tough time taking his recommendations all that seriously. He'd predicted that these things would happen in the next couple of years - but they didn't. What do we do with false prophets?

Just a few of the things that he said to do:
1) Move away from metropolitan areas.
I've got no beef with this. I'd much rather live in a more rural area, just from a quality of life standpoint. Also, in the case of a natural disaster, such as we've seen with Katrina and Ike lately, one's dependence on infrastructure in rural areas doesn't seem to be quite as bad. Folks out in the country tend to have some foodstuffs stored up - probably home canned - and might have some livestock they can count on for food. Often, they have backup generators and/or kerosene lanterns and heaters, a fireplace and a large woodpile...you know the scenario.
There's no reason a person can't be prepared for a disaster in a metro area, but most folks just aren't. I always figured if we lost power for any length of time, we'd be ok, as I have propane stoves and heaters, kerosene lamps and heaters, and usually a fair amount of canned goods on hand. I should make it a habit to keep some fresh potable water around, too. I used to have it on hand in the drinking water tank of the camper all the time, but since I tore that apart and got rid of it, I haven't.
2) Keep a significant chunk of cash on hand, in case the banks close.
Sounds like a good idea, if one had a safe to keep it in. I think this one is somewhat outdated, with the amount of ATMs in existence. So, if the banks actually closed down nationwide and you weren't able to take your money out, there might be problems. But would the entire electronic banking system collapse at the same time. Would your currency be worth anything in the midst of something that catastrophic?
Which brings us to point 3:
3) Buy junk silver coins or silver bullion in case of a currency collapse.
This might be a pretty good idea, too. Silver will always have some intrinsic value and be useful in barter and trade, should our whole economy collapse. There's a problem with buying junk silver at this point that probably didn't exist back when he was writing - only 8 years past the removal of real silver from our silver coinage - silver coins have gotten to be very scarce. He talks about a premium of about 10% over the face value of the coins to buy junk (circulated) silver, but today $10 in face value coins is selling for $50! That's a crappy investment if I ever saw one. If you happen to have just snagged any real silver coins that came your way over the years and stuck them in your piggy bank, you probably got them for face value, and they're a good investment, but it would be rather impractical to do today.
On the subject of silver bullion. This is a commodity with a well-documented and widely agreed upon trade price, so it makes a certain amount of sense. It generally sells (and has sold) in minimum ten ounce bars, so it's a little more unwieldy for smaller purchases than coins would be. The spot price this morning, when I checked, was $13 per ounce. It fluctuates up and down with world markets, but it's easy enough to buy and to trade with others, I suppose.
4) Don't take on debt.
Good idea. No problems with that.
5) Don't invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money markets...etc.
Diversification is key. Don't get yourself over committed in any one category.
6) Set up a Swiss bank account - in Swiss francs.
Would the modern equivalent of this be to set up a numbered account in the Cayman Islands in Euros? I don't know. Back when he suggested this, the government probably didn't automatically assume that those types of accounts were for nefarious purposes. I think at this point you might open yourself up to some unwanted scrutiny. Maybe if you opened the account while on vacation in the Bahamas?
Do Swiss francs still exist? Or were they devoured by the EU?
And how in the heck do you get your money out of a Swiss bank when civilization collapses?
Upon reflection this morning, there's not a lot of his plan I'm all that jazzed about implementing, even in the face of Wall Street's implosion. The money I'm putting into mutual funds is in the umbrella of 401K plans, with an unfortunately long time horizon before I can start to draw on it. Unless everything collapses, it should generate a decent return in that amount of time. If everything does collapse, I don't think anyone is going to be able to retire, anyway, we'll all be busy surviving. Unless I'm willing to cash it all out, take the tax penalty hit, and go live on a compound somewhere...
If the opportunity arises to buy silver cheaply, it might not hurt to have precious metals as a part of my overall portfolio, but I'm not gonna knock myself out trying to buy some now.
The thing that makes the most sense is to take the LDS church approach of stocking up a bit on canned goods in the pantry. We're in some high inflation times for groceries right now. If you buy things that will last indefinitely on the shelf at a sale price right now, you'll definitely save money in the next couple of years, as you won't have to pay immediately inflated prices. I may stock up a bit on some canned soups and vegetables, and maybe even some canned hams and things. This is not only a good "investment", but will come in handy if we ever have a flood, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, or whatever. I should also make sure my spare propane tanks are topped off at all times, and fill up my five gallon jug of kerosene. Maybe picking up a few more kerosene lanterns at an auction or yard sale wouldn't hurt, either. And, I should pick up a few cases of bottled water to stash in the basement, or work on bottling some of my own in old milk jugs (thoroughly washed), or in my five gallon camp containers. Nothing wrong with disaster preparedness, and if it saves a little money somewhere down the line, that's good, too.

Overall, this is a good book to get you thinking about being prepared for a worst case scenario. Fortunately, the worst case scenario really hasn't come to pass since the book was written, so take it all with a grain (or maybe a 25 lb bag) of salt.

Short Takes

4/14/08 Started reading one of the books I got from my friend, Tim; Ordinary Heroes, by Scott Turow. May or may not review it, but it's a pretty good read so far - as can be expected from a writer of Turow's stature.

4/17/08 Finished reading Split Second, by Baldacci, in the afternoon, and began reading The Hour Game by him at bedtime. I'd figured out one of the twisty mysteries in Split Second pretty early in the book, and suspected who one of the bad guys was by about 2/3 of the way through, but it was a good read.

4/20/08 Finished reading The Hour Game by David Baldacci - pretty good - I had no clue who the bad guy(s) really were. Total surprise. Love that. Started reading Dynamite Alley by Klavan - pretty good so far.

4/21/08  Finished Dynamite Road and started Shotgun Alley, by Klavan. These recent reads are all from the box of books I got from Tim, free, so I can't make my usual determination of whether they're "worth" reading. Cheap entertainment.

The Hero by John Ringo and Michael Z. Williamson

I liked Michael Z. Williamson's first novel so well that I thought I'd check out something else by him. The only thing I had handy was this collaboration by Ringo and Williamson, so...

I was a bit disappointed. It's possibly my own fault. I stopped reading Ringo's Posleen war series after about the fourth book, and that was quite some time ago, so there was probably a lot of background information that would have made this book make far more sense to me.

There were probably many interesting things in this book about the nature of the Posleen, Aldenata, and Darhel races that avid readers of the series have been puzzling over for years, but they were pretty much lost on me.

Ringo and Williamson spend quite a bit of time building the characters on a special forces team, letting us get to know them, perhaps to empathize with them. The team is sent to a world where the Blobs (a new enemy, as far as I can tell) have an outpost. Previous teams have failed to come back with any information.

The team discovers an ancient ruin of the Aldenata civilization, with some sort of mysterious artifact, which they remove and take with them. They also find the Blob outpost, and it turns out to be a decoy. They begin to head back to their waiting ship to return to the home worlds, when one of their number, Dagger, betrays and kills most of them with a neural grenade, intending to steal the artifact for himself, as it's potentially worth a billion credits.

What the heck? Why did they give us all this information about characters who were merely going to be cannon fodder after a short portion of the book?

The one alien member of the team, who can sense emotions and sometimes thoughts, if they are intense enough, a Darhel named Tindal, realizes the attack is coming just in time to grab the artifact and run. Another member of the team, Ferret, reacts just enough to avoid being killed, though he is somewhat crippled by the neural damage to his legs. From that point forward, the three of them play a cat-and-mouse game on the route back to the rendezvous point.

Dagger wants the artifact for himself, Tindal wants to take it to his home planet, where it can be studied by his people, and Ferret just wants revenge for his fallen comrades. Aside from the tension of them stalking each other for the next 150 pages or so, there's not a lot of meat to this novel. There were some interesting "reveals", perhaps, about the Darhel race, for those who have been following the series more closely.

I don't think this was either author's best work.

Book Blogger Hop - January 28 to 31

Time for another Friday Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Jennifer at Crazy For Books.

This week's question:
"What book are you most looking forward to seeing published in 2011?  Why are you anticipating that book?"

It's really difficult to narrow it down to just one book, but if I had to choose between all the new releases, I believe I'd have to go with Ghost Story by Jim Butcher. The story arc of the Dresden Files took a very radical turn and left us all with a big cliffhanging mystery. Hopefully, Butcher will resolve this in Ghost Story.

Fate of Thorik by Anthony G. Wedgeworth

I'm sorry, but I was unable to finish this book. I've been trying for over a month to get into it, and I only managed about 90 pages before sheer disinterest forced my hand. The book is targeted more for a juvenile/YA audience, and if something is in that genre, it's got to be truly spectacular to keep my interest.

I did chuckle a bit about the local wise man reciting "spiritual limericks". Might have to see if I can write some spiritual limericks on a Sunday morn.

I may try to hand this book and its sequels off to someone younger, to give it a fair read. Could be a guest post in it for some lucky teen.

Short Takes

3/5/08 Finished reading The Sapphire Rose last night. I think Eddings writing was already starting to go downhill at this point. He spent more than two books describing the quest to find the cure for Princess Ehlana, then Sparhawk travels halfway around the world and destroys a god in the last third of the third book. I'm sure I'll have to re-read the Elenium as well, as long as I'm on this Eddings kick, but I don't promise to enjoy it. The characters in this batch of books are all right, but they're not nearly as varied and well-developed as the ones in the Belgariad and Malloreon. Nowhere near as much witty repartee, either.

3/7/08 Finished reading Chesty Puller's bio, Marine. One of the most interesting quotes I saw was from Puller in 1952, saying "What the American people want to do is fight a war without getting hurt. You can't do that any more than you can go into a barroom brawl without getting hurt." Fifty five years ago, Puller saw the heart of the problem that we're dealing with today, trying to fight against Islamic terrorists.

Radical Son by David Horowitz

A while back, my mother turned me on to a website, frontpagemag.com, that she'd enjoyed browsing. It was the creation of David Horowitz, a former radical during the 60s and 70s, who now is somewhat of a conservative spokesman and debunker of liberal myths. After reading some of his columns, I decided to try his autobiography, Radical Son.

While his political writing is astute, I found his biographical style a bit tedious. For a man who lived abroad, was married and divorced three times, lived a life of radical activism for the New Left, and rubbed shoulders with major figures in radical circles, such as Huey Newton, Tom Hayden, and Jane Fonda, his tale is told with more attention to everyday events than momentous activities.

It was difficult to wade through the first two thirds of the book, just to arrive at the point where he began to entertain doubts about the goals of himself and other radicals. A close friend was executed by Black Panther leaders, and as he began to investigate the matter, he came to understand the problems inherent in pursuing the socialist dream.
If you're the perservering type, go ahead and read this one, to gain a greater understanding of the motives and methods of the Left Wing of politics. If not, just browse to his web site and check out his columns for a more concise summary.

Short Takes

1/17/08 Reading Karavans, the new novel by Jennifer Roberson (author of the Cheysuli and Tiger & Del series). It's a bit tough to get into so far - started off with too many POVs and doesn't seem to be eliminating them as quickly as I'd like. We'll see how it goes.

2/4/08 Got most of the way through Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon last night, and finished it off this morning. Leaves me slavering for Victory Conditions.

2/23/08 Started reading a book yesterday afternoon called Keeping Faith, written by a father/son combo, John and Frank Schaeffer. The son joined the Marines back in 99, and this is a journal of sorts of his journey through recruit training and the first year or so of his service. It was quite engrossing, and I made it a quick read by skimming past all the letters the father had written and the father's descriptions of his wife and his adjustments to being empty nesters and focused on reading the son's sections. (2/23/08)

Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson

This was Williamson's first book, and was also the first book I read by Williamson. If it had been the first book I read on my Nook, I'd have hit the trifecta. All that set aside, the first half of this book seemed like a serious homage to Heinlein, mixed with libertarian philosophy, set nicely in the story of a woman's adaptation to a totally new culture.

Freehold begins when Kendra Pacelli, an NCO in the UN Peace Force, is falsely implicated in an embezzlement scheme, and forced to flee Earth. She seeks asylum on Freehold, and finds a society vastly different from the one she's left behind.

The Freeholders are definitely free market capitalists, with a touch of that old frontier spirit. The government on the planet is minimal, limiting itself to providing a military defense force, and some essential police and court services. Everything else is taken care of by contract between individuals, the courts resolve disputes about the contracts. The citizens of Freehold are also what we'd consider to be strongly in favor of 2nd Amendment rights, and nearly all of them go about their day carrying a firearm.

There are no social services to speak of, if one doesn't work, one doesn't eat. This is where the "frontier" mentality kicks in, though. When there is an accident or disaster, or when someone really needs help, friends, neighbors and strangers will jump right in to help. Social mores seem to be libertarian, in that whatever people want to do in the privacy of their own homes is basically ignored, and no intoxicants seem to be outlawed; Kendra runs afoul of a hallucenogenic cocktail when she's out on the town one night.

Kendra doesn't have enough money to pay for passage to Freehold from Earth, so she enters an indentured servitude contract. The contract is not particularly onerous, and even at semi-skilled wages, she should be able to buy herself out of it in just a few years. She takes a job right away doing landscaping work in one of the "public" parks on Freehold, which is actually more of a cooperative venture - the park is maintained and sustained by fees charged to vendors and groups renting space in it, and is a very popular gathering place for locals on days off and holidays.

Kendra is befriended by her neighbor, Rob, and he shows her the ropes on this new world. She also becomes friends with Marta, who has her own escort service. The three of them eventually become a menage a trois, but none of the sex is highly graphic, by today's literary standards.

Kendra's job ends when economic changes force the park to lay off some of its workers, and she decides to join the Freehold military. There's a pretty long segment in the middle of the book detailing her basic and advanced training that will seem all too familiar to anyone who's been in the military or even watched movies about basic training. Kendra makes the transition from a peacekeeper to a soldier.

So, there's a lot of not-so-subtle political commentary in this book, with its comparisons between Earth and Freehold, which I found interesting.

In the second half of the book, the UN trumps up some excuses to invade Freehold, to impose the Earth style of government on the poor, beknighted savages. Things get serious and bloody in a big hurry. Kendra, Marta and Rob, who is a pilot, end up in different areas fighting the UN forces, and don't know anything about the others' fates until very near the end of the book.

This was a great first novel by Mr. Williamson, and I believe I've got a bit of catching up to do on the rest of his stuff.

Short Takes

10/28/07 Reading Glen Cook's new series, Tyranny of the Night. Slow to get into it, but it's getting more interesting.

11/2/07 Finished the Glen Cook book. More to come in that series, but I'll wait till they're cheap, probably.

1/3/08 I'm either reading or re-reading The Viscount of Adrilankha series by Brust. I had a copy of the middle book in the library, and just picked up the 1st and 3rd the other day, so I decided to start with the first one and work my way into it. I vaguely remember having read it before. I think Brust could have cut the volume of these books in half if he'd left off with the droll dialogue, which grows a bit tiresome after having seen the same turns of phrase for about the seventeenth time. Looks like he's coming out with a new book in the Vlad Taltos series this spring, so that's exciting.

1/16/08 Finished reading Sethra Lavode (#3 in Viscount of Adrilankha by Brust) last night. Everything wrapped up quite nicely in the end. Provides a bit of insight into later events. Morrolan is way cooler than we ever see him being in the Vlad books.

The Garrett Files by Glen Cook

(Review written March 2000)

In its day, the Science Fiction Book Club published some great omnibus editions of authors' series. I loaned one out to a friend, who never seemed to find the time to read it, and when I got it back, I figured it was time for a re-read, anyway. The Garrett Files is one of those omnibi, containing Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts and Cold Copper Tears by Glen Cook.
 
Well, I like a good detective yarn, and when it's a fantasy detective yarn it just gets better. Cook has provided a series of six or seven novels about the cynical PI, Garrett, which I've really enjoyed over the years. Each one of the novels works as a stand-alone, though it does help to read them from the beginning, just to get a feel for all of the supporting players and "what has gone before." Each of the novels has the name of a metal or alloy in its title, so they're pretty easy to pick out from the rest of his books.
 
In Sweet Silver Blues, Garrett is hired by the father of a deceased army buddy to find the woman whom his friend has named heir to a rather sizable fortune in silver. Of course, other members of the family who stand to inherit if she's not found try to interfere, and he meets resistance from a group of ex-soldiers who helped his old buddy acquire the silver by somewhat dubious means. His search takes him back to the scene of his war experiences, where things get really interesting.
 
In Bitter Gold Hearts, Garrett must unravel the twisted schemes surrounding the kidnapping of a sorceress' heir. His usual style is to just keep bulling his way through all obstacles, falling for a woman or two and quaffing a few beers along the way. His tenacity is about all that saves him in the midst of treachery by conspirators in the kidnapping plot.
 
In Cold Copper Tears, a long forgotten acquaintance retains Garrett to find out who's been stalking her. She's gotten herself in the middle of a religious dispute over church relics, and it rapidly turns deadly. Garrett must solve the mystery, battle natural and supernatural enemies, and rescue a few damsels along the way to get to the end of this one.
 
There's nothing deep or meaningful about these stories, aside from a minor bit of social satire and hardnosed philosophy along the way. They're just good for a couple hours amusement on a cold steel night.

Short Takes

9/21/07 Finished reading Through the Looking Glass, by Ringo, the other night. It was ok, but not spectacular. Started reading Medalon by Jennifer Fallon. It's the first in a trilogy, I think loosely tied in to other stuff she's written, so I may end up picking up some more stuff by her. Enjoyable, though derivative. I recognize some thefts from Eddings, in particular.

10/2/07 I'm re-reading, twenty years later, the Paksennarion stuff by Elizabeth Moon. I'd forgotten how good it was.

10/22/07 Re-reading the Vatta's War stuff by Moon. She's so good.

Torch of Freedom by David Weber

This was the first book I got to read on my new Nook, so I'm not sure whether it seemed a little slow at the beginning because I was still getting used to the e-reader or whether it was a true perception of the pace of the tale. I'd missed this one somehow when it came out, and when I read Mission of Honor, there were some events from Torch that were referenced, so I had to go back and catch up.

As you might guess from the title, most of the story has to do with events surrounding the new star kingdom of Torch, which was wrested from Manpower's control by former slaves, and now is ruled by Anton Zilwicki's daughter, Berry. Manpower has gathered a fleet of former Havenite state security fugitives and is getting ready to attack the planet, and massacre its populace. Much of the novel bounces around between the various forces in play, setting up the final battle scene.

There is a major plot line involving Victor Cachat and Zilwicki's infiltration of the Mesan home world, to try to gather information and figure out what's really going on behind the scenes with Manpower and Mesa. If you've already read Mission of Honor, you know the outcome of that. If not, I won't spoil anything for you.

There's only one brief cameo appearance by Honor Harrington in this book, when Cachat and Zilwicki meet with her to tell her what they believe is happening. All of the other Manticoran characters we've come to know and love remain mostly off stage, as well. A good read, and now I feel like I'm up to speed once more.

Short Takes

8/17/07 I finished Bujold's latest in the afternoon (in the Sharing Knife series), Legacy. It was delicious.

8/21/07 Been re-reading the old Blood Lines, Blood Pact, etc. series by Tanya Huff. It's been fifteen years or so, so it's all new to me now. Pretty fair stuff. Need to hit a couple of the used bookstores and see if I can find #s five and six in the series, as I sorta tapered off of her stuff for a while in the collection.

8/23/07 Reading Quantico, by Greg Bear. It's classified as SF, but is really more of a very near future scenario with terrorists. If Michael Crichton had written it, they would have just called it a thriller.

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

This book is the second in his Mistborn trilogy, and remains a bit dark and, well, misty. Elend has been elected as king of Luthandel, and has been trying to restore order while ensuring that the skaa now have the same rights as all others. He and Vin are still not quite sure where they're going in their relationship, so their discoveries and growth in that area make a nice counterpoint to the suspense of the main plot.

As the novel begins, Elend's father's army has arrived at the city, demanding his surrender. Elend's half-brother Zane, whom he has never heard of, is a Mistborn, like Vin. He is also quite mad, and begins to play cat-and-mouse games with Vin in and around the city, sparring with her with their allomantic talents, and playing games of betrayal with his father, Straff, as well.

A second army also arrives to besiege the city, which belongs to Lord Cett. Lord Cett's daughter, Allriane, appears in the city, appearing to be a young woman infatuated with former Crew member, Breeze, but perhaps she's more devious and intelligent than she lets on, and she could be a spy for her father.

Finally, a third army arrives, composed of ruthless and barbaric koloss, loosely controlled by Elend's old friend, Jastes. With all three of these armies in place, Elend and his advisors attempt to play them off against each other and delay the inevitable invasion and sacking of the city. When the Assembly decides to depose Elend in the middle of the crisis, things get really complicated.

So, there's plenty of interesting things going on in this novel. One of the minor plot lines which actually may be more important than it first appears is that of Sazed, the Terrisman ferruchemist and his countrywoman, Tindwyl's search for answers as to the true location of the Well of Ascension and the origin and nature of The Deepness which threatened the land before the Lord Ruler's rise to power. They fear that killing the Lord Ruler has released this menace once again.

Vin, throughout the novel, learns more about allomancy, and picks up some skills, quite by accident, that she hadn't possessed before, and starts to understand quite a bit more about the miscellaneous powers the Lord Ruler held before she killed him. Tindwyl takes charge of Elend's kingly education, and he learns how to be more assertive, more confident and more the type of king that he believes that Luthandel needs in these perilous times.

There's a writing technicque I don't know the name of, where each chapter or section in a book is headed with an aphorism, or contains a snippet of a diary, or a bit of fictional history. Sanderson has used this tactic in both of the Mistborn novels so far, and I'm sad to say I just blew past those tidbits in the first novel. In this one, I noticed fairly rapidly that they contained "clues" to some of the mysteries that Sazed, Tindwyl, and Vin are trying to unravel throughout the book, and actually paid attention this time.

I noticed another interesting bit in the book. Sanderson comes up with a very nice way to describe a scene, untraditionally, when he has Sazed exploring a building where the Steel Inquisitors gathered. Instead of using the third person, he has Sazed narrating his discoveries as he goes along, dictating them to be recorded by one of his metalminds, for posterity. A nice little twist.

There was a point early in the book when Vin was thinking about members of Kelsier's crew, and she muses, "People were just too complex to reduce to single personality traits." I think Sanderson takes this dictum to heart, or begins to, in this novel, as he works to create more depth for the characters he created in Mistborn. Very nice.

One interesting political statement from Tindwyl, "...I still do not believe that your duty is to do as the people wish. Your duty is to lead as best you can, following the dictates of your conscience." At first, it would appear to be a warning against mob rule and unfettered democracy, but it also might encourage, in the wrong sort of leader, a dangerous arrogance. Talk amongst yourselves.

This trilogy is definitely growing more interesting, and I look forward to digging into the final volume. However, I'm holding off for a bit. This one was a bit like a really good meal, it takes a bit of time to digest before you're hungry for another.

Short Takes

7/15/07 Reading Mistborn, by someone or other (Brandon Sanderson). It's semi-amusing.

7/26/07 Finished reading the new Harry Potter novel, Deathly Hallows. Yes, it was well-written, though I got a little tired of Harry's internal anguish over everything. Get over it and grow up.

8/16/07 Finished Territory, by Emma Bull, which was strangely fascinating, yet ultimately disappointing.

The Search of Mavin Manyshaped by Sheri S. Tepper

(Review written 1996)

In The Search of Mavin Manyshaped, Tepper pretty much wraps up the story of Mavin and the Wizard Himaggery. As agreed upon in Song, Mavin has been traveling the world for twenty seasons, and now is returning to Pfarb Durim to meet with Himaggery, who may or may not be her one true love. She arrives in town to find that the wizard has stood her up, but not of his own choice.
 
A messenger from Seer Windlow comes to share the information that Himaggery has disappeared while investigating ancient ruins and legends, and no one has been able to find him for seven years. Mavin sets out to find him, and along the way confronts old enemies, allies with old and new friends, and leaps evil wizards in a single bound.
 
Ultimately, she rescues Himaggery and they live together for a time. Mavin discovers that they are two utterly different types of people, and her free spirit won't allow her to stay with him. She is pregnant with his child, and leaves him without ever telling him about this or why she is leaving. I hate this kind of stuff. Foolish tragedy caused by failure to communicate.
 
It's been so long since I read the True Game trilogy that I've forgotten whether all this has any bearing on what happens there, but it seems to me that the hero of that trilogy might be Mavin and H's child, fostered out shortly after birth. It would seem to make some sort of sense out of things if that was the case. I'll have to re-read them some day and get back to you.
 
Anyway the story about Himaggery's rescue mostly seemed like some sort of filler to make everything work out in the end for them to be tragically separated, so I wasn't all that thrilled with this book. If you've been following the series, then you've got to read it for completion, but if you're already bored with things, then don't bother.

Short Takes

5/17/07 Finished reading Heinlein's Expanded Universe, a collection of short stories and essays. I'd forgotten just how much of my own life philosophy was absorbed from reading Heinlein.

5/20/07 Finished reading Triplanetary, by Doc Smith. I was gonna try to read the whole Lensman series, but now I'm not so sure it's worth my time.

5/23/07 Started re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land the other night. Did I mention how much I love Heinlein?

Flashes from the Other World by Julie Ann Weinstein

So, there's evidently a genre of fiction with which I was previously unacquainted, flash fiction. Wikipedia says, "Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as three-hundred, while others consider stories as long as one-thousand words to be flash fiction." Now, this seems to me very much like the kind of thing I used to do when I'd immediately jot down the contents of a dream, or have a little scene go through my head, years ago, and have to write a quick blurb just to get it out of my brain, but evidently there's an entire body of this type of literature out there. Who knew?

Ms. Weinstein's book is a collection of her flash fiction, and was kind enough to send me a copy of it for review. I'd requested it not really paying attention to the genre, which really isn't my cup of tea. I did, however, find some of the ideas in the book entertaining, such as one story about a woman without children who adopts a doll, and takes it on all sorts of outings, snapping photos which she then sends off to her family. They all think she's crazy.

I could see, though, that perhaps those of us who have children or pets that we bombard our acquaintances and family with photos of, Xmas brag letters about, and so forth might evoke this sort of response or retaliation from the less fortunate. Made me think, anyhow.

One story that struck me as quite topical was the account of a woman who was labeled a criminal for excessive consumption of carbohydrates. The Food Police are watching you. The final lines from that one just cracked me up. "I break open the French bread and bite into it, ignoring the gun shots. One bullet hits the ceiling light. It breaks. Glass shatters. I continue chewing the bread and break open a bag of Cheetos. It rips in half. I throw it high in the air, the same with the next bag, and the next. It's raining Cheetos when they take me away."

Another bit that I rather liked was, "Mom called it gross and Dad didn't say anything, anything at all. Not even when the pile of gum wads in the corner of my room attracted life forms and Mom insisted I throw it out." If you've ever cleaned a teenager's room, you can relate to this.

As I said, not my ordinary fare, but if you like the odd bit of flash fiction, you may find it tasty.

Short Takes

4/3/07 Finished reading a couple of Joel C. Rosenberg novels, somewhat along the lines of current events in the Middle East, with a slant reminiscent of the Left Behind series. Wasn't what I was expecting, and the action stuff was pretty unrealistic - the hero and heroine end up nearly dying of gunshot wounds in every book - I'm thinkin' they're not likely to recover from multiple wounds as quickly as the books would have it...anyway.

Reading a strange fantasy detective novel right now that's part of a series, the Inspector Chen stuff  - Chinese mythology linked.

4/6/07 Read a book, My Year inside Radical Islam,  by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, which was a little anticlimactic, but interesting.

4/7/07 Finished Snake Agent, the Inspector Chen novel, by Liz Williams, last night. A bit surreal, but amusing and clever. Finished Sword Maker, by Roberson, this morning. A good re-read, as expected.

The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped by Sheri S. Tepper

(Review written 1996 )

In The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped, Mavin is in search of her sister Handbright, who took the form of a great white bird near the beginning of Song of MM and flew away from Danderbat keep. She comes to the land of the Chasm, where an interesting community has evolved, living on bridges and platforms. The arrival of Mavin's sister has been taken by these people to be a sign from the Boundless, and Mavin must cope with some rather unexpected events.
 
Tepper has created in this book an interesting caste-ridden society, with its own power plays and intrigues, and managed to weave it into the world of the True Game rather well. I think she's solved a dilemma that is probably quite common to writers, "What do you do with a new idea when you've got readers clamoring for the same old world and characters?". SST just files off the square corners to fit the new world into a round hole in the old one, and lets it be "discovered" by a familiar face. It works, too.
 
Near the top of this society she's created are the hereditary Bridgers, those whose skills open up new territory for the people of the Chasm. Over hundreds of years, they've created seven cities there, from the broken bridge at the top to the lost bridge near the bottom. There are three Bridger families in the chasm, and one of them is willing to go to any lengths to be the most powerful, including murder.
 
When Mavin's sister becomes pregnant by the priest of the Birder caste who has been set to care for her, the resulting disruption allows the nasty Bander family to take advantage of the unrest to make a power play. Also, at this time, there have been several incursions from some slimy beasties from way down in the bottom of the chasm, so Mavin and her allies set off for the bottom to: a. evade the Banders. b. destroy the beasties. c. defuse the religious controversy generated by Handbright's pregnancy.
 
Their journey to the bottom, and the interesting things they find along the way, make this one an even better read than Song, I think. The tale is told for a while from some other points of view than Mavin's, and Tepper does a pretty good job of creating a new and weird society, warts and all. Again, a nice light fantasy novel providing a good evening's read.

Short Takes

2/21/07 Finished reading Crichton's Next - interesting stuff.

3/14/07 Just finished reading Elantris, by Brian Sanderson - entertaining, but not engrossing. He's got another novel out I'll have to pick up. Also reading The Pentagon's New Map,  by Thomas P.M. Barnett, which is quite interesting.