Book Review: Shadows in Flight

Shadows In Flight is the most recent of the Ender Series by Orson Scott Card.  It is only available in hardcover so far and isn't available in digital format for many months yet as they try and milk the hardcover sales for all they're worth before going digital with it. Too bad really, but that's a topic for another post.


I read the book in one sitting. It's very thin and has lots of space between the lines on a page. It was more of a novella than a novel. That being said, it should probably have been a short story. Maybe a longish short-story. 

I'm a big fan of the Ender series and Orson Scott Card in general but there was nothing to this story for me. 

It was a travelling story where (and I'm going to not spoil anything here so bear with my vagueness) some people are going from point A to points unknown and they squabble, then make up, then squabble some more. Occasionally the wise mentor one will say something pithy and then they go back to doing it some more. A Deus Ex Machina falls out of the sky and lands in their laps and what do you know? It pulls a House M.D. final 10 minutes trick on us and the book ends. 

There wasn't any real tension in the book. There wasn't any sort of real story arc at all in the traditional sense. You know how a lot of Eurpean movies have that feel like you've come in on the middle of something, watched it for a while and then it ends and the credits roll? This book was like that. It's like we got the setup and the end without any real character development, other than long drawn out arguments to show the four differing view points in a wall of dialog that was tired and overdone, and after the set up instead of a dramatic ending, denouement, or climax we just cut that part of the story arc out and went to the resolution of the story. 

It was altogether unsatisfying and I'm glad I borrowed the book and didn't pay for it. If you want to know what happens in it look for a wiki entry or check it out from the library but I can't recommend paying hardcover price for it. It's just not worth it which is too bad because I genuinely love this series, minus this book.)


I feel like OSC pulled a "midi-chloreans" on us with this book ret-conning previous books and, for me, wrecking some of the impact of previous novels in the series. I will choose to ignore this book, and may just stop reading the series all together and let it end on a high-note and not a boat-payment-making franchise-milking tone that this book had. It really left a bad taste in my mouth for the Ender-verse and for OSC as an exciting and original story teller.

New Computer Set-up

It's been ages since I've done one of these because it's been ages since I got a new computer. I haven't needed one. The macbook did everything I needed it to do for years, and will continue to once I get the soup out of it. But, I couldn't do without a computer and Apple's decisions regarding entry level computers made them not an option so I went with a Sony Vaio.

• First thing out of the box? Remove Norton and Adobe Reader. First thing. The software those company makes shouldn't be on any computer you care about. There are better alternatives out there
• While those uninstalled I installed Google Chrome and removed all references to Internet Explorer from start menu and task bar. 
• Second thing was to install Dropbox to sync up all my work and personal files so I don't have to worry about moving those. I store them in the cloud and let dropbox sync the files across all my computers for me so I always have them regardless of which computer I am using.
• Next came OpenOffice.org (I uninstalled the trialware Microsoft Office while downloading OO.o)
• And then iTunes so I can get the iPod going again.
• While iTunes was downloading I installed Microsoft Security Essentials as my firewall and anti-virus. It's free and rates right up there with anti-virus software.
• As I write this the (literally) 48 Microsoft Updates are downloading and installing. It won't be fast, not as fast as customizing the computer the way I wanted it was, but it's essential.

So, I'm back in the PC world and I'm going to give it a go. The one thing I know I'm going to miss is the finder thing from the Mac. I really liked being able to hit APPLE-Space and then type part of a file name or word within a document and having that file open for me. I need to find an alternative for the PC.

Tsoupnami strikes Macbook!

Chicken Soup for the Macbook

My power cord on the macbook finally gave up the ghost so I took it to the Genius' at the Apple Store and he said I needed a new one and he'd be happy to sell me one for $79.99. I said nyah. I'll get it at Best Buy because they didn't sell me one with a known problem and then look me in the eye and say "Probably a power surge, you're beyond warranty." So, I went to Best Buy and got it

Everything worked swimmingly... 

Then I sat down to eat my Quiznos chicken noodle soup and when I took the lid off it the cup of soup slipped from my hand and sort of bounced off the desk and slopped about a quarter cup into the keyboard in a salty tsoupname if destruction.

I leapt to my feet, yanked the new power cord, powered it off flipped it upside down and beat it against the towel laying on the sink before blow drying it and setting it, still upside down, on the hotel's fan/ac/heater in the hopes that it will work for a little while at least to get stuff off it before the salty solution destroys it.

My only words as I saw the soup spillage and started tipping soup out of the keyboard, "Well that's unfortunate."


UPDATE:
Today it turned on and is running OK. I'm ripping things off of it onto a FAT32 partition now since my backups are all Mac backups and I'll be replacing this with a PC so I'll need to be able to get to my stuff. I don't know how long I have before the soup does me in, but I gotta get stuff off so that's what I'm doing before I turn it off and leave it off until it gets to the shop for a thorough cleaning.

Iowa Nice (CLEAN VERSION)

What I like reflects WHO I like

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I think I figured out today what my problem is with some books.  I love the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I love David Eddings' Belgariad. I can't get through... That's not true, I could. I just don't want to, the Tad Williams Otherland books and I'm currently not enjoying the Song of Ice & Fire by George R. R. Martin. I can't think of a bigger contrast in book styles. Another series I enjoyed, in case I'm accused of not liking epic fantasy, is the Lord of the Rings. I liked that one.

I like good guys. I like honor. I like loyalty. I like friends who stand by their friends and are willing to do anything for them. I like when friends can trust each other and act on that trust even in their absence because they know their friends and family are honorable, reliable, and trust-worthy. I want to BE that person. I hope that I am. I  hope that my friends recognize me as a reliable, trust-worthy, honorable person who will help them. I want the things I read to be like that. The books I enjoy have those kinds of people in them. I like to spend my time with those sorts of people. I like to surround myself with those sorts of people. I like to be friends with people I strive to be worthy of. I like my friends to want to be worthy of me. I don't want a relationship where either of us thinks the other is a skeevy back-stabbing, conniving S.O.B. I like idealists. I like people who strive for an ideal.

I don't mind if the people in the books have faults and insecurities. I don't mind if they're not perfect. I don't mean to imply I only read space-opera type things where everybody's perfect and bigger than life. I enjoy those too. The Lensmen series by E. E. "Doc" Smith is an excellent example of bigger than life heroes who are hyper-good, hyper-honorable, and who have no faults at all. I really like that series but it can't help but be pretty one-dimensional.

The Vorkosigan series, and another series I like is the Empire of Man series, AKA the Prince Roger series, by David Weber and John Ringo. Those characters have flaws but they strive to overcome them. They work to be worthy of each other and of an ideal. They work to improve themselves and those around them. They're trying for something great.  David Weber's Honor Harrington has a female protagonist who tends towards space-opera levels of perfection (except for the two books in the middle where she's just beaten down for two books and I didn't enjoy them at all... there was nothing good happening in them, she just suffered and suffered losses and even her victories were painful. No fun to read... but I read them.). She's almost a little too perfect, too one-dimensional.

But that's my thing. In my life I want to be someone people can trust and rely on. I want to help people. I want to be someone people want to be around and someone who people enjoy being around. I want to be worthy of the friends I choose. I want them to be worthy of me as well. The players in the Song of Ice and Fire aren't worthy of anybody. There are no heroes. They don't aspire to anything grander than survival by any means necessary... and that's not fun to read about. I feel like I'm dirtier after reading those books. There are a very few exceptions. I like Bran.  But one person in a cast of 24 isn't enough to drag me through the Song of Fire & Ice books. Perhaps if all his chapters were chopped out and put together into a single book "Bran's Tale" I'd read that. Maybe Jon Snow's as well. He's likable. I don't care about anybody else in the series and actively dislike most of them.

So, I'm closing the one I'm reading and I'm not opening any more of them. There are plenty of books and stories out there that I'll enjoy that I don't feel like I have to make myself read. I don't get enough time to read to force myself to read things I don't enjoy. I'll go to it when I've read all the things I enjoy and want to read. Once that list is done then maybe I'll go back to the Song of Ice and Fire.