Midnight's Mask: A Book Review

Having finished this book a few days ago, it is high time I got on with the review, so without further ado here it is. Midnight's Mask by Paul S. Kemp is a Forgotten Realms novel. It is the third and final part of the Erevis Cale Trilogy, which is named after the central character. The book follows on directly from the ending of Dawn Of Night with only a few pages devoted to an interlude featuring an ancient monster of the deep which would reappear later in the book.

With the gigantic obsessed sea monster out of the way, the story resumes with Cale, Jak and Magadon fleeing the vengeful guardians of Skullport, whilst struggling to come to terms with Riven's betrayal and susequent alliance with their enemies (Azriim, Dolgan and the Sojourner, they having polished off Serrin). In no time at all the trio are back on the Plane of Shadow thanks to Cales ability to step between worlds. Here they are stunned by the revelation that Riven's betrayal was part of a plan, one they had agreed upon (but subsequently blocked from their minds by use of Magadons psionics lest their telepathic foes read their intentions).

Riven meanwhile gets to meet Azriim and Dolgan's master, the incredibly powerful Sojourner who easily sends Cale and Co fleeing when they jump in to Riven's location to take the mastermind down. That the Sojourner plans something big is made apparent throughout this book and the one previous to it, but what he does (and why he does it) did surprise me.

In one of the most brutal assaults I've ever read, he massacres every living thing (and a few undead too) in a temple/tower to Cyric (the God of Strife and Murder) and then steals the tower itself, teleporting the entire structure halfway across the continent to his island to serve as a conduit for the spell he needs to cast. He sought to create and control a Crown of Flame (an Eclipse) and to this end uses Epic Magic to pull one of Selune's Tears (A group of asteroids that trail in the moons orbit) from its orbit and use it to block the sunlight over his island. What got me, is that he does all of this simply to be able to walk on the surface again (sunlight is fatal to him), for a day before dying happily!

The book, as with the others in this trilogy, is very well written. The fight scenes are fast and brutal and the author doesn't gloss over just how a medieval city would be, with vice, villainy and especially the smell detailed expertly. The ending of this book leaves a huge plot thread hanging, and so I now find myself eagerly looking forward to his next trilogy (starring many of the same characters), the first book of which will be out in November. Look for its review shortly afterwards!

Spring Cleaning

No not the house, though some parts of it could use a tidy up. Instead I've made a few alterations to this site. Nothing really major, just some tweaks to the html to tidy it up a bit and make the place look better (even though it looks exactly the same). I have also edited the list of links.

The Movie Review Diary has changed its name to Celluloid Heroes for no reason that I can think of, guess its author got bored of the old name. Anyway, that link has been renamed accordingly. After the writer completely messing up the multi-part storyline that had been running in Pet Professional in favour of returning to repetitive one shots I've removed the link to that comic in disgust.

I have however replaced one webcomic with two others. Please welcome (and hopefully read & enjoy) the webcomics Penny and Aggie as well as Brat-halla.

Penny and Aggie is about two American girls in high school. Penny LeVac is the atypical rich bitch overacheiver (think Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you're on the right track). Her nemesis is Aggie D'Amour a girl more concerned with saving the world than living her own life. Penny and Aggie is updated every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Brat-halla is a fun comic which answers the question: "What were the Norse Gods like when they were kids?". Meet Odin and his wife Frigg and their unruly brood of child deities: Thor, Heimdall, Hod, Baldur, Hermod... ohh and Loki! Complicating matters are the evil Odineye and his minions, plus hormones, underdressed Valkyries, monsters, school and having Hel as a babysitter! Brat-halla is updated on Tuesdays.

Ordered Chaos

Work was a bit boring today. Not stressful like yesterday though. Mondays is always crazy in the office and I'll tell you why. All the grocery items in the store (basically everything that isn't a fresh food line) are ordered via the order pads. These folders are taken down from the office to the shop floor every day, filled in and then brought back to the office for us Admin clerks to tap onto the system. This order is suppossed to be complete and sent off by 4:30pm (4pm on a Sunday). It almost never is, and it's usually more like 4:45 before it is confirmed.

On Mondays though the department managers have a meeting from 2pm until whenever it finishes. This is usually about 3pm. This wouldn't be a problem, only several of the order pads are filled out by the managers, and they then don't start filling them in until gone 3pm... and there are a lot of these pads, like 20 of them! So filling them in takes some time, as does tapping them on. This almost always results in a frenzied effort after 4pm to tap the bloody things into the system, all the while the phone is ringing and we have the stock counts from the various Fresh departments to tap on also.

So today was a nice change from that. The order pads were still late being sent off today, but things were a lot less hectic in the office. I finished at 5pm and bpught a couple loaves of bread before heading home. Only I didn't go straight home, I detoured to the weirs in Goodland Gardens. This is one of my favourite places in Taunton (and yes I'll take a photo of it and post it here on a Tour article sometime soon), as it is here that ducks can be found in large numbers.

I love ducks and by ducks I mean Mallards. Not Swans and certainly not Geese. I had bread and set to feeding the few that were there, smiling as more and more ducks turned up in short order. I always try to spread the bread around when I throw it as well as doing my best not to throw it near where the thieving bastard seagulls are! Or the pigeons for that matter! I also throw more towards the females, because they need the food more, especialy at this time of year.

With one loaf thrown away and devoured, I headed for home intending to bring the other loaf with me tomorrow and feed the ducks again. I like feeding the ducks, I find it very calming. Still, as I was walking along the Millstream I saw a quartet of male Mallards in the stream and decided to open the other loaf and throw them some bread also. And while they were busy eating that, a female who had been hiding from them on the other bank, flew across to my feet.

She seemed quite tame, either that or desperate for food and she was only a little afraid of me. So I fed her a couple slices of bread, and I fed her by hand. As she was feeding one of the males clambered up the bank towards her and I thought he was going to attack her, because it is that time of year and I'd certainly seen enough of that behaviour whilst feeding the others. Instead he stood back, ate only a couple of the bits I threw to him and he let the female have the rest of the bread. That put a smile on my face that I'm still wearing. I love ducks, they have so much character... and I've still got most of a loaf for tomorrow!

Urgghh... Summertime Begins

I hate summer, I really do. Much more a winter person, when it's cold, dark, wet, windy and miserable for months on end. Far more my kind of weather than the light rain, stiffling heat and the bright sun overhead. Today British Summertime began, which meant that last night the clocks went forwards an hour. Quite why we bother with this archaic custom anymore I do not know, but we do. Tenacity and stubbornness are traits that run strong in the people of these rainy islands.

I must have been reminded a dozen times yesterday that the clocks were going forward an hour. My boss told me at least twice; there were signs put up in work; it was mentioned on the news and on the BBC News website and... well you get the idea. None of it worked. I still forgot to change the clock, I was still nearly an hour late for work this morning. This wouldn't ordinarily bother me. I mean it catches everyone out at one time or another right?

Except this is the 11th time in a row that it has caught me out. Okay, not strictly in a row, because back in October when the clocks went back an hour, I had the next day off work, so it made no difference to me as I slept in regardless. But on the ten occasions before that, it got me every time. Still, I made it to work and the duty manager was greatly relieved to see that I wasn't sick.

"Huh?" was my response to that.

"Ohh someone phoned in to say that you were sick. Glad to see you're not that ill after all" was the reply I got back.

As it turned out, someone had phoned in to report another Robert as being off sick (I think there are 3 or maybe 4 of us in the store), but it was a couple hours before I found that out and until then I was utterly baffled as to who could have phoned in on my behalf as I was reasonably sure neither Tony or Gareth were awake when I left the house, or if they were they were being really quiet. Whichever was the case, I hadn't seen or talked to either one of them.

The computers of course were all screwy as the clock change messes the system around no end, which is hardly surprising considering how ancient some of the computers in the office are. The pair that the tills run on are practically antique, yet they sit side by side with Pentium 4 PC's. It took a good few hours to get everything working right again and over half an hour of that was spent waiting on the phone (had it on speaker, so I had to endure what felt like an aeon listening to the truly awful music whilst I was on hold), to talk to technical support to get them to send a report down that the Cash Office needed.

Summertime has begun... wake me in October!

Rummaging

After work yesterday I went over to my parents house. This was primarily so I could get my head shaved, as Dad has a Do-It-Yourself hair-cutting kit. He has shaved my head many times now and it is far cheaper to do it this way than to pay £6 to get a barber to do exactly the same thing. Of course a barber likely wouldn't get the attachment to the razor wrong and when I'd ask for a Grade 2 cut that would be what I'd get. Dad, on the other hand, gave me a Grade 1 shave all over and only halfway through remarked "You know... this looks shorter than normal".

My other reason for going over was so I could have a rummage through the various boxes of my old stuff in my parents attic. Specifically I was looking for a box of metal miniature figures which I knew I owned and had not painted. The figures in question are all out of print and regularly fetch a good sum on ebay. While I would dearly love to paint them I have another plan for these models. I intend to sell them off individually, as I've seen these figures go for £20+ each before now... and I have 14 of them! The money will clear a nice chunk of debt off my credit card thus reducing how much I owe and how many things I own. Two New Year's resolutions in one.

A Couple Of Thoughts On Manhood

From the book "Marauders of Gor" by John Norman.

On another world, lit by the same star, in another place, dawn, too, drew near. The distant light in the great cities, unknowing, soon to be occupied with the concerns of their days, piercing the haze of daily, customary poisons, first struck the heights of the lofty building, reflecting from the rectangular windows, like sheets of burnished copper reflecting the fire of the sun. Men would soon be up and about their duties, hurrying from one nothing to another, to compromises, to banal degradations, anxious lest they fail to be on time. They would not care for the blackened grass growing between the bricks; they would take no notes of the spider's architecture, nor marvel at the flight of a wren darting to its nest among the smoke-blackened, carved stones. There would be no time. There would be no time for them, no time for seeing, or feeling, or touching, or loving or finding out what it might be to be alive. Clouds would be strangers to them; rain an inconvenience; snow a nuisance; a tree an anachronism; a flower an oddity, cut and frozen in a florist's refrigerator. These were the men without meaning, so full and so empty, so crowded, so desolate, so busy, so needlessly occupied. These were the gray men, the hurrying men, the efficient, smug, tragic insects, noiseless on soft feet, in the billions iron hills of technology. How few of them gazed even on the stars. In grandeur so fearful that men must shield themselves from pettiness from its glory; do they not understand that in themselves, and in perhaps a thousand other intelligences, reality has opened its eyes upon its own immensity; do they shut their eyes lest they see gods?

David Fincher the director of Fight Club in an interview with Gavin Smith, "Inside Out," Film Comment, Sep/Oct 1999

We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created.

Dawn Of Night: A Book Review

It's been a few days now since I finished reading this book. Normally I try to write a review within a day or two of finishing a book, but I've been on holiday and have thus put it off until now. Dawn Of Night by Paul S. Kemp is a Forgotten Realms novel. It is the second book in the Erevis Cale trilogy (named after the central character) and follows on directly from the ending of Twilight Falling. So if you've not read the first book and intend to do so, look away now because there will be spoilers in this review.

Okay then. The start of this book introduces us to the main villain of the trilogy, who is the shadowy figure that Azriim, Dolgan and Serrin work for. With Vraggen betrayed by his minions, and Elora dead at the hands of Riven, this trio of shapechangers it turns out are working for an ancient creature known only as The Sojourner. To say that I thought this to be an odd name for a grand villain is an understatement. A sojourn after all according to the dictionary is "a short stay in a place". Still, this villain is both very old and very powerful and is well written, so he got my interest.

Meanwhile, Cale, Riven, Jak and their guide Magadon Kest find themselves on the Plane of Shadow, apparently transported there somehow as they were drowning. Quickly figuring that the plane mirrors their homeworld of Toril (at least in this part of it), they set off towards where the nearest city is (or its shadow equivalent anyway), figuring that any doorway back home is more likely to be in a place like that, than out in the wilds where they are.

Of course they are right (would be a really boring book if they couldn'tfind a way home after all), and the city indeed has a gateway back to Toril... just a small matter of getting through a Necropolis (a city of tombs) to get too it! Mr Kemp writes very good battle scenes and it is easy to picture myself to one side watching the goings on as the two groups (the heroes and the villains) go about their deeds.

This is a very worthy sequel and I'm going to be starting to read the finale of the trilogy when I go back to work tomorrow. I am eagerly looking forward to finding out what happens next, because the cliffhanger at the end of this book, is better than the one the first book ended on. And that's saying something! 5/5 for this novel and I am really hoping that the writer doesn't drop the ball in the last book.

Taunton Tour: The Market House

Well I did indeed go out and take a few photos of places in Taunton yesterday. Took about half a dozen in all, but only half of them turned out that great. The sky was a bit overcast, which led to some colour distortion (for instance the Market House here isn't really that dark a shade of red). Anyway, enough of my technical difficulties on with the article!

This building is the Market House and it sits right smack in the centre of town. The pub that I sometimes frequent on a Saturday night (though not for a couple months now owing to a lack of funds), is on the ground floor and is entered through that big door in front there. The building also houses a dance hall on the 1st floor and offices for at least two companies, which are accessed via other doors in the sides and rear of the building.

It used to sit in the middle of a surrounding road, but when the town centre was revamped several years back, they pedestrianised the road behind it, and moved the traffic flow to go around a roundabout in front of the building (just out of shot to the left of the picture).

The one thing that strikes me every time I look at this building is how similar it looks to the Town Hall building in the Back to the Future movies. You know, the one whose clock was stopped by a lightning strike in 1955 which is where Marty McFly ends up in the Delorean and that same lightning strike is used to power the time machine return to the future. Every time I look at this building, I can easily picture Doc Emmet Brown connecting the cables up, so that the 1.21 gigawatts of power can reach the cable strung across the road beside the building. Having said that, it's been a while since I watched those movies, so could just be my imagination playing a trick on me.

A Room With A View

Just for the sake of something different, I thought I'd share the view from the bay window that is to my right as I type this. This photo was actually taken yesterday (and would have been posted then too, only Blogger was acting up and I couldn't upload it... and I tried like 20+ times!). The big gothic building that can be seen there is the Somerset County Courthouse, and is suitably spooky looking (especially at night), and beyond that can be seen St. John's Church with its steeple.

I'm actually really impressed with how well the photo has come out, considering it was taken indoors through a window. I've taken a few snaps with the digicam my parents bought me for Xmas before, but none of them has turned out that well. Guess perseverance really does pay off! If the weather is good today, I might go and take some pics of other places in the town that I like the look of and post them on here.

Ghostbusters

My mind is in a silly place right now, so I felt it fitting to post a silly song. The film that this song comes from is easily one of my very favourite movies, and I've watched it more times than I can remember. That damn ghostly librarian still gives me the creeps! Apparently the tune for this song was taken from another song, which led to Ray Parker Jnr being successfully sued by the original songs writer for royalties. Still, this song is remembered. I couldn't tell you what the other song was called or who sung it.

Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jnr

Ghostbusters!

If there's something strange in your neighborhood
Who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
If there's something weird and it don't look good
Who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!

I ain't afraid of no ghost
I ain't afraid of no ghost

If you're seeing things running through your head
Who can you call?
Ghostbusters!
An invisible man is sleeping in your bed
Oh, who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!

I ain't afraid of no ghost
I ain't afraid of no ghost

Who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
If you're all alone, pick up the phone
And you call
Ghostbusters!

I ain't afraid of no ghost
I hear it likes the girls
I ain't afraid of no ghost
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
If you've had a dose of a freaky ghost
Baby, you'd better call
Ghostbusters!

Let me tell you something
Bustin' makes me feel good

I ain't afraid of no ghost
I ain't afraid of no ghost

Don't get caught alone, oh no
Ghostbusters!
When it comes through your door
Unless you just want some more
I think you better call
Ghostbusters!
Ow!

Who you gonna call
Ghostbusters!
(Repeat to Fade)

Death Warmed Over

I feel pretty rough right about now, though I'm not sleepy really. Brain feels worn out but then I've had my RPG group across at the house today for a monster session of D&D, which involved one huge battle royale where the group took on an entire Cult of the Dragon ceremony complete with Dracolich in a straight fight. 3 of the 5 members of the party were killed in the ensuing chaos (the characters played by Gareth, Tony and Matt), but by the end of the session they had either been reincarnated or raised from the dead (for the 5th time in the case of Matt's maniacal dwarf barbarian), and the group finished the session by teleporting back into the cult stronghold to continue their crusade to wipe out the cultists.

Still many hours in a small room with 5 other people has had some side effects, namely a nose that is running like a tap, eyes that are stinging and my throat feeling a bit raw from all the speaking. It was a good day though, and was in a way compensation for there being no Games Club last night (the hall was booked out for a Quiz Night instead). We got about 2 normal sessions worth of adventuring done in the space of today, as well as a lot of chat and laughs.

So I'm sat here now with the curtains open, listening to a folder of Bangles mp3's and feeling a bit urgh. I have a novel in front of me, that I need to write a book review for, but I'll leave that for later today I think. I do need to order some more novels though, as I'm down to just 3 on my back list to read now. Hopefully all the caffeine I've drunk in the form of coffee and cola will wear off soon so I can get some sleep. I am quite enjoying having this weekend off as a holiday. no work for me until noon on Wednesday!

Super Strength

I was browsing the BBC News website a few moments ago and I came across an article that both caught my attention, made my eyes open and brought a genuine "Wow" from my lips. Here, have a read! To say that this development could change the world, is I think a gross understatement.

Whilst this could lead to a whole new generation of better prosthetic limbs being developed (and it likely will), my foremost thought is that it will inevitably be used for military purposes. The Japanese can already build human sized robots. Combine that technology with this (and someone will do just that), and you get robots that are 100 times stronger than humans! Granted it will take maybe 20 years for that to happen, but think of all the other technologies that will be developed and/or refined in that time and could also be incoporated.

I don't think it is pessimistic to conceive of a robotic super soldier. Human sized, possessing super-strength, no moral quandries, able to see at night, and have access to GPS to allow for more accurate aiming of weapons and deployment. I also don't think it is pessimistic to think of seeing these things in armies (almost certainly beginning with the US Armed Forces) well within my own lifetime. I just hope that whoever they get to program these things, have first been forced to sit and watch a large number of sci-fi movies where robots we build end up enslaving/killing humanity first... especially the Terminator movies!

Twilight Falling: A Book Review

Twilight Falling by Paul S. Kemp is the first book of the Erevis Cale Trilogy, named for the central character. Cale is a character I've met before in the novel Shadow's Witness which I reviewed recently. As with that book, this one is a Forgotten Realms novel and it begins several months after the events of that novel.

Erevis Cale is a tall bald man with a dark past. A former assassin, he has for the last decade or so been the loyal butler to the wealthy Uskevren family in the city of Selgaunt. During his time in their service, he had come to regard the lord of the family Thamalon Uskevren as a surrogate father. All that ended when Thamalon died a few months prior to the start of this book, which has Cale evaluating his life. The new lord of the family Tamlin has little need for Cale's service it seems, and Cale for his part has no love for the spoilt young lord. As he debates what to do now, he is surprised to realise that he has already decided to leave the familys home of Stormweather Towers.

On the day he is to leave, he receives a note from an old rival by the name of Drasek Riven. Riven is an ex-member of the Zhentarim, an organisation of ruthless wizards, priests and assassins bent on controlling the Realms through trade. He left the organisation not because he developed a conscience about killing, but because he got tired of the constant in-fighting. Riven is everything Cale used to be before he came to work for Thamalon. Not knowing why Riven wants to see him, but needing something to do once he leaves the Uskevren home behind, Cale meets him at a tavern.

And thus begins one of the best written books I've ever had the plesaure of reading. From that simple start, Cale and Riven are drawn into the start of plot by a villainous shadow wizard by the name of Vraggen, and his murderous and seemingly unkillable accomplices: Azriim (a half-drow with a penchant for high fashion), Dolgan (a big brute with an addiction to pain both caused and felt), Serrin (an oriental with a perpetual sneer and little to say) and Elura (a seductive woman who loves men to death). Vraggen is seeking the Fane of Shadows, a temple to the powers of night that travels between worlds and in which he believes he can become immortal.

To this end he needs a curious item Thamalon purchased a few years before as an art object, and thus wants Cale out of the way. As Vraggen is also a worshipper of Cyric the God of Chaos and a former member of the Zhentarim himself, he has a personal score to settle with Riven too. The last major character is Cale's longtime friend and sometime partner Jak Fleet, a halfling priest of Bandobaris the God of Trickery and an accomplished thief himself. Three against five would hardly be fair odds, but Cale and Riven are both servants of Mask the God of Shadows and he has plans for his First and Second.

This book also has one of the coolest characters I've ever read about, Sephris a Chosen of Oghma the God of Knowledge, who sees the world in terms of mathematical equations. To him everything is solvable if you know the correct maths. The trouble is that this "gift" from his God has rendered him a trifle mad, or at least that's how he appears to be to most people.

This book is a great start to a trilogy and I'm already well into book 2 of the saga and loving that just as much as I liked this one. Top marks for this book 5/5, and I am glad to know that after I've finished this trilogy, Mr. Kemp has another coming out starting later this year featuring many of the characters that I'm enjoying reading about now.

Radio Romance

Everyone nowadays tends to regard Tiffany as a one hit wonder, as the only song anyone seems to remember of hers is "I Think We're Alone Now". Not true though, she also had a huge hit with this number back in the late 80's. I bought her Greatest Hits CD specifically to get this tune, as I couldn't find it on mp3 at the time.

It is a very optimistic song I think, in that the singer is requesting a song on a late night radio station every night, in the hope that the man she loves (who is her best friends partner) hears it. I'd go as far as to say that it is hopelessly optimistic as this bloke would not only have to figure out that the song is intended for him, but who the anonymous requester was. I do have to admire the sentiment that while she covets the man her best friend has, the singer is unwilling to try stealing him away by letting it be known how she feels about him. A strange kind of loyalty there.

Radio Romance by Tiffany

From who?
Ahh, just say from...
From the one who loves you baby

I see you baby
Every single day
Holding on to my best friend
But you don’t see me
So I make the same request now
Every single night
Going out from me to you
On the dedication line
I wonder if you’re listening
To the words that keep me wishing
That one day I’ll be kissing you

Oh wo wo

Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio romance

My secret admiration
I won’t reveal
I wouldn’t want to hurt no one
By tellin’ how I feel
The DJ knows my voice now
He even knows my choice now
He never says my name
He just says from the one
Who loves you baby

Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio romance

One night you’ll hear a song
And then you’ll know just who it’s from

I see you baby, every single day
Holding on to my best friend
But you don’t see me
I wonder if you’re listening
To the words that keep me wishing
That one day I’ll be kissing you

Oh wo wo

Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio radio romance
Radio romance

Monday The 13th

Some people fear Friday the 13th, there's even an offical phobia name for that (Which a quick Google search revealed to be: Paraskevidekatriaphobia). Not me though. To the best of my knowledge, nothing bad has ever happened to me on a Friday 13th. Monday 13th on the other hand, that's another story.

I'm not a Mondays kind of person anyway. It has got nothing to do with the usual Monday blues that affect office workers and the like, who get to go back to work on that day. I work most weekends so I don't get that. I'm not sure why it is, but me and Mondays just don't go well together. And at no time is that more apparent than a Monday 13th, such as today. Guaranteed come rain or shine, something bad always happens to me on a Monday 13th and today was business as usual.

I woke up this morning, sat up in bed, yawned and then stretched... and damn near choked from the blinding flash of pain that shot up and down the left side of my torso. I have no idea what caused it, but the muscles in that side of my body have ached like hell all day, and every now and then spasmed slightly just to rub salt in the wound. A couple of these have had me gasping for breath. It has thankfully subsided now though as the day nears its end, and I am hopeful that when my body relaxes in sleep tonight, the muscles will sort themselves out so that tomorrow I will wake with just the memory of a day spent in pain, and not facing another actual day of such.

A look at the calendar reveals that there is but one Friday 13th this year, but 3 Monday 13ths! Thankfully, with today almost over, and one last month as well, I just have one more to "look forward" too in 2006 and that is several months away.

Runaway Train Of Thought

I've lost count now of the number of times that inspiration has struck, only to leave me as quickly as it arrived. So many times I've had an idea worth writing about (at least in my opinion), and I've opened up a Blogger window or an application of Open Office or Wordpad but invariably the notion will have fled my mind before I can commit it to type or even just scrawl it down on a piece of paper. It is a very frustrating experience to sit and stare at a blank sheet of paper or a blank section of screen, knowing that I had something, only moments before, that compelled me to open that window and yet now it is gone from my mind.

When I created this blog I included at the top of it (under the awesome picture that I named the site for), the reason why I had made it. This is exactly what I meant by my mind being a whirlwind of ideas and images that is beyond my control. This occurence happens all too often and it drives me nuts, as while I cannot recall what it was that motivated me to write, I have the blank screen or sheet of paper before me as a visual reminder that I obviously did have something to write about just moments before.

It is as though my mind torments me, with fleeting thoughts and ideas. I'd like to think that because they vanish almost as quickly as they arrive, that perhaps my subconscious has evaluated the thought and decided it was not worth writing about after all. But, while that may or may not be the case, the lingering notion of loss is both confusing and frustrating for me to deal with. I'm writing this now not because I had the idea to do so, but because this same thing has just happened again and I'm irritable enough to write and make an issue of it!

I feel a little better now for having gotten that rant out of my head. This rant was brought to you today by the letters B***** and F*** and the sound of "Arrggghhhh!!!"

Off To Bed Now

I've been downstairs in the lounge for the past few hours, watching TV. First up was a documentary from the Extended DVD edition of Fellowship of the Ring, called The Fellowship of the Cast. I've watched it before, but it is very funny in parts, touching in others and I fancied seeing it again. I especially like Dominic Monaghan's impression of John Rhys Davies ordering food at a restaurant. Priceless!

After that I watched the entire Extended Edition of The Return of the King, as it's been a while since I've done that (I normally just use scene select to watch the huge battle scenes), but I felt like losing myself in something for an evening and lacking a good woman, this was the next best thing.

Spent most of the Nectar points I've gathered over the past year earlier this evening after leaving work, during a side trek to Sainsburys. Treated myself to a couple bottles of Caribbean Twist (the Pina Colada variety) which I drunk whilst watching the movie, some ice cream (some of which has been eaten already), and a few other bits like a bottle of Daddies brown sauce (which I'd been without for months), a tin of pink salmon (or "Evil Fish" as Tony has branded it!), and a couple tins of water chestnuts to add a bit of crunch to my stir fries.

I've had a pretty good evening as a result, but I'm off to bed now as I have to be in work at 8am. Nite World!

Supremacy

I've had today off work, which is fairly rare. Short of being off work on holiday, I don't tend to get many Saturdays off. So it was nice to not have to set my alarm clock this morning, and as a result of that I slept in until about noon, having let my body decide how much sleep it needed for once. I feel pretty good as a result of that. I've passed the time by watching a couple episodes of Stargate Atlantis (my favourite show at the moment, and I have all 40 episodes of seasons 1 & 2 on my HDD, which is handy). I've also been playing a game called Star Wars: Supremacy.

It is a fairly old game, the copyright on the CD case reads 1994. The graphics are pretty decent for its time (especially the various animated cut-scenes), and the gameplay even against the AI is addictive as hell. The game can be played against a human opponent, but I've never done that. The AI has 3 difficulty settings (X-Wing, Star Destroyer and Death Star, each of wich starts your side with less and the opposition with more resources), and the game has 3 settings for the size of the galaxy you want to play in. Habitually I play in the largest setting, which gives the player/s 200 planets to battle over.

Unlike other Star Wars games where you control a fighter, or an army or a single character, in this one you literaly control the entire Empire or the entire Rebellion. Every unit of troops. squadron of star fighters, capital ship and up to 30 special characters on each side are yours to command. I prefer to play as the Empire, mainly because they have the cooler ships, but it is more of a challenge to play as the Rebels which is what I've been doing today.

It comes to something when the Empire starts the game with a few Star Destroyers and your most powerful attacking ship is the Corellian Corvette. For those wondering what that is, picture the opening scene of Star Wars Episode IV, where a little ship roars into view getting shot at by a Star Destroyer which utterly dwarfs it. That little ship is a Corellian Corvette! On the plus side, the Rebels do have the ultimate saboteur team in Han Solo & Chewbacca, and their capacity for blowing up imperial installations is very useful!

I'm doing quite well so far and I've saved the game at just past the 500 day mark. I have more worlds than the Empire does, most of them well protected by shields and planetary defence laser batteries. What I don't have really is capital ships. I have a few, and I'm building more all the time, but I just don't have any that can stand up to a Star Destroyer in a straight fight, and so my tactics are still annoyingly focused on sabotage and hit & run raids at the moment, while the Empire can easily blockade planets and blast the living hell of them from orbit, as with enough big ships in one place, shields can be shot through.

I did get one extrodinary piece of good luck early on in the game though, as the first planet I attacked and overrun happened to have all three of the Empire's special characters who can research new ship designs on it and I captured all of them! This basically limits the Empire to only the ship designs they started the game with (plus TIE Interceptors which they developed before I snared their researchers). Granted, they start the game able to build Star Destroyers and even a new Death Star (if they can afford the horrendous resource cost of building it), but I'm hopeful that I've now stopped them from being able to build Interdictor Cruisers.

These are a real pain in the ass, as they prevent escape via hyperspace, thus forcing the smaller Rebel ships into fights they cannot possibly win against the Empire's far more powerful ships. Without them, I can hit & run throughout the game. Also, my research team is hard at work designing new starships for my side and will in time (unless they get caught or killed) design a couple ships that can really turn the tide in space battles against the Star Destroyers. Until then, I'll keep a low profile and keep sabotaging shipyards so as to limit the number of capital ships the Empire can complete, while building lots of star fighters and harrassing their planets. Wish me luck!

Realms Of The Elves: A Book Review

Well seems I'm gonna be posting back to back book reviews anyway, so here goes. Realms of the Elves is a Forgotten Realms anthology, consisting of seven short stories by different authors. As might be expected from the title all of these stories feature elves to one extent or another (usually as the central character/s). The anthology is edited by Phillip Athans, who also found time to write one of the stories. The stories are as follows:

1. Traitors by Richard Lee Byers. Set in the distant past of the Realms, this story is in essence a prequel to Byer's Year of Rogue Dragon's trilogy, and it details what motivated the elves to curse the great dragons as they did. It's not that great a story though, but as a historical account it is very good indeed. I rate this one 3/5.
2. The Staff Of Valmaxian by Phillip Athans. This is pretty much a straight forward morality tale about the dangers of taking "the easy way" of doing things. It is well written though, and it nicely captures the hubris and pride of the elves at the height of their ancient civilisations. 4/5 for this one.
3. Necessary Sacrifices by Lisa Smedman. This is a wonderfully written tale on the theme of revenge, with a great twist at the end. One of the best stories in this collection and thus it gets a 4/5 rating from me.
4. The Greater Treasure by Erik Scott de Bie. A confusing tale about two elven treasure hunters looking for an ancient artifact in the city of Elversult. There they team up with another elf and clash with the cultists of a demon lord named Graz'zt. There is a twist in the tale here too, but it really makes very little sense at all, and the story doesn't really have an ending either. Still the characters are well written, and a couple scenes are really well detailed, so I'll grant this one a 2/5 rating.
5. Comrades At Odds by R.A. Salvatore. I usually hate Salvatore's writing, and I can honestly say I've not enjoyed any of the short stories he has contibuted to pat anthologies that I've read. But I really liked this one! It acts as a bridge between his recently finished Hunter's Blades trilogy, and whatever book will be following on from the events of that series. It stars his signature character, the renegade dark elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden as he makes the disturbing realization that the orcs who swarmed down from the Spine of the World Mountains are setting up forts and roads in the wilderness, using the lull in battle that winter has brought to secure their position and establish the basic beginning of a nation. While the story is left hanging at the end, it still gets a solid 4/5 rating from me.
6. Tears So White by Ed Greenwood. Ed is the guy who created the Forgotten Realms world... and as this story proves he is by far and away the worst author writing for it. This story is utter shit, and frankly stinks of the worst kind of cliched fantasy I've ever had the misfortune to read. The plot (what little there is of it) has the powerful wizard Elminster take several of the Knights of Myth Drannor with him to a place of nothingness. There he and one of the Knights vanish leaving the other three (one of whom is an elf!) to battle unending hordes of lich's, all the while putting up with another elf who pops up, spouts some cryptic nonsense and vanishes again. As it turns out these masses of liches are being sent by a more powerful lich called Larloch (one of the most powerful villains of the Realms and a master strategist), even though they are virtually powerless in this nothingness place! I mean "what the fuck??" None of the story makes any sense at all (even to the Knights stranded in that place, as Elminster never explains to them why they are there or what is going on), and is pretty much an excuse to feature as many "big name characters" as possible in the space of 50 pages. A complete waste of space and this gets a 0/5 rating from me as a result.
7. The Bladesinger's Lesson by Richard Baker. This is a tie-in to his current The Last Mythal trilogy which strongly features the elves, and is set between books two and three of the saga. It is superbly written and to my mind the best story in the book, dealing with the themes of presumption and redemption. It also has a fantastic battle in it, as Baker is very good at detailing military tactics and his battle scenes as a result are easy to picture in the mind. Top marks for this story 5/5, and I'm now eagerly looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy.

All in all I'm going to give the book an overall rating of 3/5 as while some stories are good (and one is excellent) the couple bad ones really drag the score down, especially Greenwood's tale, which has put me off ever buying another book written by him. True, this means that I won't be able to read all the Forgotten Realms novels as I have been attempting to do. But, it does mean that reading all the ones I'm going to read will be a lot more enjoyable without having to put myself through the torture of enduring his writing.

The Yellow Silk: A Book Review

I finished reading this book yesterday and as I'm already well into my next book, it is best I get writing this review out of the way before I end up having to write two at once! The Yellow Silk by Don Bassingthwaite is a Forgotten Realms novel, and the fourth in a quartet of stand-alone tales called The Rogues. Each book in the series focuses on one (or more) characters who rely on their wits and dexterity to get by in life.

The rogue in this case is Tychoben Arisaenn, or Tycho as most people know him. Tycho is a bard, and makes a meagre living in the port city of Spandeliyon, by singing and playing his strilling at dockside taverns, in particular The Wench's Ease. He also runs errands for various people in the town, almost all of them unsavoury. Lastly he makes a few coins on the side as a music tutor for the teenage daughter of the city watch commander. He needs this money as much to keep a roof over his head and food in his belly, as to pay for the medicinal herbs that his ageing tutor Veseene needs to suppress the effects of the palsy that is slowly killing her.

Into Tycho's fairly humdrum existence comes Li Chien Kuang, a native of the distant eastern empire of Shou Lung (think medieval China), who has crossed a continent in search of his brother Yu Mao Kuang, who had traveled west with a trading caravan three years earlier, betrayed them and joined a pirate crew. He has been sent to restore his family's honour by slaying his brother. Unfortunately for Li, he is somewhat naive to the nature of the western world and on his first night in Spandeliyon he is brutally beaten up, stripped and left for dead. And then found in a snowdrift by Tycho.

He has only survived by the power of an artifact that his father has sent with him, the Yellow Silk Of Kuang, a large piece of silk cloth, in which the weavers trapped the power of the Sun! Teaming up with Tycho, Li sets out to recover first his stolen gear and then find out what became of his brother. His sole lead is Brin, a halfling pirate turned crime boss (think Frodo Baggins with an eyepatch and a REALLY mean attitude), and one of Yu Mao's former shipmates, only it was Brin's thugs that beat him up and left him for dead!

The plot is easy to follow, and yet full of twists and turns, providing for a fun book to read, as I was never entirely sure what was going to happen next. Every character is well detailed and springs to life off the page. The fight scenes are really something to read, as Li is a monk and fights with hands and feet, leaping and twirling about, quite a refreshing change in style from the usual depiction of combat in these books.

I'm going to give this book 5/5, it is a good read, with interesting characters (and really quite a cast of them too), and it has it all, magic, murder, betrayal, pirates, martial arts, music and a lot of pigs! A shame that Mr. Bassingthwaite isn't writing for the Forgotten Realms setting anymore really. I would love to read a sequel to this one, as the ending is left open enough for there to be one.