Monday morning notes

1. Went to the room to set up for my 8:00 AM presentation at 7:30, only to find that the Wintel box was locked down with an admin account, and the Mac had died an unseemly kernel error death this weekend. Since no one in charge of that space was around, I had to scramble, but fortunately, was able to shift everything to a room that didn't suck.

2. Speaking of suck, I reviewed Ultraviolet late last night. I don't have much to add to that, but I did want to point out that the disposable cell phone from the movie was a really nifty idea, and deserved to be in a better film.

3. I continue to be entertained by Ken Jennings's blog and website, if only for things like random links to Scott McCloud's site and to Ken's auction of his Giant Foam Head for charity. Gotta love item descriptions featuring lines like:

Use Giant Ken to celebrate holidays on your front lawn, make your living room into a Jeopardy! shrine, scare bratty neighbor kids, or add just the right finishing touch to a mini-golf hole. Fill Ken with fireworks, blow him up. Launch him from a catapult. Scream obscenities at Giant Ken. Clean his giant ears with a giant Q-tip. Hours of fun. Don't miss this one.

I've specified "Local Pickup Only" because, let's face it, it's a 3.5-foot-square cube of styrofoam. I'm not carrying this down to the post office. If you want to bid but can't arrange for local Salt Lake City pickup, contact me to discuss alternate arrangements. I'm happy to ship this to you if you know of some no-hassle way for me to do so (i.e. someone comes to my house, packs it up, and hauls it off, I sit in my hammock and sip lemonade).

4. KOL-wise, I'm currently at level 13 on this run, working my way towards the L15 Pastamancer skill. I'm pulling in about 140K a day farming meat at the Peak. I'm not likely to grab the current iotm, as it's funny, but not overly useful, but I'm regretting not grabbing a Badger, if only because of how much the price has skyrocketed. I'm also a bit amazed at the recent upswing in the price of the Ice Sickle (and related items); I won mine in a game less than two months ago where the rule was that the prize had to be worth less than four million. Mind you, I thought they were undervalued then (the Ice Sickle is amazing for leveling up early, and the Ice Skates are a vital part of my meat farming strategy), but I'm impressed that others have realized how useful they are.

5. Need coffee now.

Four Books

Four books read between Thursday and Sunday:

1. Bios, by Robert Charles Wilson. A thin novel based on a classic sci-fi premise (a Deathworld that's got a full ecosystem but is completely hostile to us), this was a quick, but fun read. The mixture of a typical future-repressive society with the planetary exploration actually enhances the novel (and is directly relevant to the central themes). In many ways, this is an "old school" genre novel, but Wilson's got a contemporary vision (and, frankly, better writing chops than most), making it engaging from start to finish. It's nice to see writers like Wilson and Brust (below) who remember that a great story doesn't need to run for seventeen 800-page novels.

2. The Ruins, by Scott Smith. The middle 150-200 pages of this novel are simply superbly done horror (and don't let the soft sell done on the book jacket convince you that this is a "suspense" novel). Some truly original and interesting twists, great tension, and not a wasted word or phrase. It's exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect from the guy who wrote A Simple Plan. Alas, the book is hindered by the opening 75 pages or so, in which not one character shows anything resembling an interesting personality trait, and which contains tons of what Elmore Leonard calls "the part that readers tend to skip." And the "twist" ending, which I'm sure that Smith spent much time agonizing over, is so predictable and cliched that it could only come from a non-genre writer who has read five genre novels (or seen movies), and has decided that he's got a brilliant twist that no one's ever heard of before (there are more moments like that throughout the novel, but they tie too integrally to the plot to even hint at here). For all that frustration, this would have been an amazing novel if it had been released as a MMPB -- the writing is top notch, and the horror themes themselves are amongst my favorite in recent years. For hardcover pricing, though, take a pass (or a library loan), and wait for the trade.

3. Dzur, by Steven Brust. As I noted on Friday, I loved this. On the one hand, it's too damned short; on the other, Brust leaves the audience wanting more, which is a good thing. We get reappearances of a couple of characters, and even though one of them appears in the prologue to the book, mentioning who it is would, imho, be a spoiler (and I'm saying that to make sure that no one else who's read it casually mentions it here). Chronologically, this is the most straightforward Vlad book in a while, picking up a few hours after Issola, and not really employing many flashbacks (other than the chapter intros, which flash back to the prologue). I don't want to spoil much, but suffice to say that the book puts Vlad back in Adrilankha, something I've missed.

I'm already curious what the next book will be. We meet at least one new Tiassa here, but that's not necessarily an indicator of anything (especially since there's no guarantee that the next novel will take place after this one). But the last two novels have gone backwards through the cycle, which would give us Hawk next, something I'd like to see, both since they make a nice contrast to Dzurs, and because the only two Hawks I can think of -- Daymar and Paarfi -- are two of my favorite characters. ETA: Actually, it's a Tsalmoth, not a Tiassa. One day, I'll have the house straight.

4. Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett. It's clear that the Tiffany Aching series has helped re-energize Pratchett, and that's a good thing. What's particularly nice in this book is watching him gain more confidence in his ability to write a YA novel. Frankly, this could pass as a "real" Discworld novel with no problem -- it's got lots of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (whose house gets a name, in one of the best jokes in the book), the usual amount of innuendo (Tiffany is now thirteen, and as a farmgirl isn't ignorant of sex, although she still gets baffled when she hears that someone's a "strumpet," and looks the term up in a dictionary), footnotes, and even the requisite appearance by Death. Plot-wise, it's either a love story or a story about a god/force of nature stalking a human. Either way, it's damned fun, and easily up there with the other two Tiffany novels. The scene with the Nac Mac Feegles attempting to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is likely to go down as one of the funniest moments in any Pterry novel.

Color me easily amused

I love funny fine print (yet another reason I adored First comics during their heyday). Today, some co-workers and I went to lunch at the Filthy Hippy Rainbow Cafe to welcome the new guy, and afterwards, we wandered down to ChocoLate Cafe, where I snagged a Kona Mocha Frappe. While drinking it just now, I noticed the fine print on the cup: Caution! This beverage may cause brain freeze!

(Oh, and damn, that's a good frozen coffee drink.)