Enemy of Entropy
Archive for August 2008
Scattered
Anybody else using LiveMocha? Especially to learn French? I just joined (as TechnoMom, of course) and would like to have “friends” there. I started with the beginner level, lesson one, and actually learned a few new vocabulary words. (My wee bit of foreign language instruction in high school sucked, to put it mildly.) You’re supposed to ask your “friends” for feedback on your lessons, but I don’t have any and don’t really want to ask total strangers about how badly I did.
Sam and Katie have been at Dragon*Con for the past few days. We had a house guest, David, but I didn’t really “meet” him because of the late con hours and having a really bad pain flare. Sorry David! He went home this afternoon. I’m glad Sam has the day off tomorrow to recover. I’m glad Hope got to come to D*C, but pouting because I won’t get to see her while she’s in town. I know that she has brightened Sam’s weekend.
I finished reading The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross last night, and started Phaedra Weldon’s Wraith. I liked Morgue, but it wasn’t quite as strong as The Atrocity Archives. The short story at the end of the book, “Pimpf,” didn’t do too much for me, but I’m not a video gamer so that probably has a lot to do with it.
I’m really liking Wraith. A lot. The fact that it’s set in Atlanta is nice, because I can follow along the geography as the characters move around. (Usually, such things go right past me, even if there’s a map.) Thanks to Good Reads, I know that there’s a novella, “Out of the Dark,” on Weldon’s site that takes place between this book and Spectre.
I’ve also been browsing through the archives at Two Lumps, thanks to a link from ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
skitten. I had a pair of Russian Blues who were entirely too much like Ebenezer and Snooch! If you’re a veteran of cat cohabitation, be careful when reading. I recommend not having a drink in hand (or in mouth) and being careful to empty your bladder before you start reading.
Kyoshi is busy telling me that he still doesn’t want to cuddle with anybody but Katie, but he wants her home NOW! RIGHT NOW! And that we really have to stop letting the kitten out of the house without his personal supervision.
Review: Maria V. Snyder’s Study Series
rating: 4 of 5 stars
I strongly recommend reading Poison Study, Assassin Study, Magic Study, and Power Study all at a go. The two novellas are optional, but canonical and fun.
Snyder’s world seems to be made up of just two countries: Ixia and Sitia. Ixia has been ruled by Commander Ambrose and his generals for about a decade when Poison Study starts, after a military coup overthrew the old monarchy. There are no beggars, every child is entitled to an education, nobody has to go hungry or homeless, and promotions are based solely on skill, with no gender or racial discrimination—but every citizen also has to wear a uniform declaring his or her proper location and job function, government approval is required for marrying, moving to a new home, or changing jobs, and anybody identified as having magic talent is killed immediately. Everyone is subject to the Code of Behavior, and there are no exceptions for any kind of extenuating circumstances. If you kill someone, you are sentenced to death, even if you were defending yourself or another.
Yelena has been in the Commander’s dungeon for most of a year after killing the son of General Brazell. Valek, Ambrose’s spymaster, gives her a choice: go to the gallows, or become the Commander’s food taster. The job doesn’t have a long life expectancy, as poisoning attempts are fairly common, but Yelena sees a chance at life better than immediate death, and takes the job.
Yelena manages to survive several attempts to murder her. The fact that Brazell wants her dead is understandable, but the other attempts are mysterious. Why would a Sitian master magician try to kill her? Who would slip poison into her wine?
Magic Study finds Yelena in Sitia, learning to cope with a very different way of life. Magic is almost taken for granted, and a strong family/clan structure forms the backbone of the government. But why are there beggars in the streets, and why is it that only those who can afford it are educated? Everyone in Sitia believes that life in Ixia must be horrific, but looking around her, Yelena sees that Ambrose’s rule does have its benefits.
Fire Study moves between Sitia and Ixia, involving the leaders of both nations and intriguers who want to bring both of them down by pitching them against each other. Yelena and her friends are trying to prevent a war and reveal the traitors, but they’ve been declared outlaw and have to sneak around trying to figure out what’s going on.
Another reviewer found Yelena too talented for belief, but I found her fairly realistic. She certainly isn’t good at everything—she could use a lot of help in terms of social skills!—and the skills that she begins with and gains over the course of the trilogy do make sense. She trained as an acrobat when she was a child, so it does make sense that she is able to learn some types of self-defense without too much trouble. Some of her aptitudes make more sense after she learns more about her family background. She does find that she has magical abilities, but she isn’t good at everything, and indeed, cannot seem to master some tasks that other magicians consider rudimentary.
I did find some of the betrayals to be difficult to comprehend, as some of the traitors would have no defense against mental scans. There’s a Sitian Ethical Code of Conduct that prohibits non-consensual scans, but it doesn’t apply to criminals, and in a war situation, I found it hard to believe that nobody ever did a little telepathic peeking at the people around them.
These were fun books, and they could be useful in looking at the pros and cons of different types of governments with teens. There’s some sex in the books, but nothing terribly explicit. The violence is more troublesome, but the author never dwells on it.
Review: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don’t give many 5-star ratings, but The Atrocity Archives deserves one. You may need to read it with a web browser open to look up references using Wikipedia or Google, but if you enjoy Torchwood, Men in Black, or Snow Crash, I think you’ll enjoy this one.
The volume actually includes the novel and a novella, The Concrete Jungle. Both are good reading, and I recommend giving yourself time to enjoy the foreword and afterword, as well.
American Accent Quizzie
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net
Northern. Whether you have the world famous Inland North accent of the Great Lakes area, or the radio-friendly sound of upstate NY and western New England, your accent is what used to set the standard for American English pronunciation (not much anymore now that the Inland North sounds like it does).
If you are not from the North, you are probably one of the following:
(a) A Southerner who hates Southern accents and tries really hard to “talk right”; or
(b) A New Yorker or New Jerseyan who doesn’t have the full accent
Then again, it could be that I’m a southerner who grew up in the metro Atlanta area, where we hear all kinds of accents. Or that I watched too much television as a child, and broadcasters use the same standard. In any case, the author of the quiz seems to be a bit out of touch as far as the explanations of different results go (and a bit defensive, as well).
Review: Selene by Lilith Saintcrow
My review
I was just as annoyed with this little 5-chapter novella as I was by the bit that was in an anthology—Hotter Than Hell, maybe? We get a good idea of who Selene is, a glimpse of Nikolai, and lot of Selene being an utterly ungrateful bitch to him, hot sex, and NO resolution in the plot. None. At. All. Blah.
Edited: I’m informed that this isn’t just a novella, and that it is still being released. So I’ll wait and review the whole thing when it’s done, if it is interesting enough to read. What I said so far is absolutely true — Selene is a bitch and Nikolai is inexplicably devoted to her — but that seems to be part of Saintcrow’s formula. Maybe there will be more plot soon.
