It's a story as old as campfires. A Dark One arises, evil, cunning, lusting for dominion and doom. But there is a prophesy! From humble birth, a hero will arise, the nations will fall before him. This hero will gather an army to oppose the Dark One. But in the end, armies are for naught: the hero will face the evil, alone, the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

And, of course, evil wins, because good is dumb.

The book itself is set a thousand years later, with humanity still suffering under the undying boot of the unkillable Lord Ruler, who's empire spans the entire world. He's unkillable, at least by any method anyone's tried. And many people have tried- but he shrugs off decapitation, incineration, defenestration, and impalation.

This is going to require a clever plan… and thus this novel is not traditional heroic fantasy, but a recently-popular subgenre of low fantasy, what I'd call "heist fantasy". A group of talented individuals of dubious moral fiber get together to take on an impossible task. Twists and turns and betrayals.

In addition to that, it's a coming-of-age story. The viewpoint switches back and forth between the leader of the gang (a tough old con with a heart of gold), and a young thief and urchin, brought in when her latent powers are noticed.

Ah, powers. The author has created an interesting new magical system for the book, too. It's called Allomancy, and, to summarize, rare people have the ability to metabolize one of eight metals or alloys, which gives them a superpower. Tin gives hightened sences, Pewter gives the body strength and endurance, etc. A very very few individuals can use all the metals, combining their powers, making them impressive individuals indeed. The young heroine is one such, so she must learn a life beyond dog-eat-dog, at the same time coming to terms with her new powers.

It's actually a trilogy; all three books are out, but I've only read the first. I am going to read the other two forthwith.

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Kung Fu Panda is a computer-animated kid's movie, starring the voice of Jack Black as a panda that works in his father's noodle shop, but dreams of being a kung fu hero. Then, the call goes forth: the land needs a kung fu hero! Sadly for Jack, he's an overweight panda with masterful skill- in cooking. But he's got a fire in the belly, even if it's a fire for dim sum instead of training. Plus, he's pretty much indestructable, which is a good start for any martial artist.

I thought it was amusing, and there were a decent helping on in-jokes for fans of classic Hong Kong wushu flicks. It's officially a kid's movie, but I wouldn't take anyone really young, because the bad guy is actually rather scary, especially if you still believe in evil talking snow leopards.

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Imagine Dumb and Dumber crossed with Three Men and a Baby. Except pre-natal hi-jinks vice infancy hi-jinks. And not as funny.

Watching The Brothers Solomon is like being stuck in a Kids In The Hall marathon: occasionally funny bits, surrounded by acres of painful mugging and weak jokes. This movie is irretrivable dumb. My LCpl C, whose standards are much lower than mine, finished watching this movie and said "I am now just a little bit more retarded."

Executive summary: Do not watch.

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John Scalzi is an overnight sensation in the SF world. Like most overnight sensations, he spent years and years working at it before becoming known.

The Android's Dream is his third published book. It's full of references to the authors that have come before; the major inspirations seem to be Keith Laumer and L. Ron Hubbard. No, really. There are plenty of other influences, of course; I picked out nods to Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, Robert Heinlein, Harry Harrison, and Phillip K Dick too.

The main character is Harry Creek, a geek genius working for the State Department as a "Xenosapien Facilitator"; his real job is "Bearer of Bad News". He's calm and has combat experience, so when someone's got to talk to an alien and it's unclear if the alien is going to get unhappy and start spraying acidic ichor, Harry gets the job. So he gets to go break the news that, say, an insectoid ambassador's wife has been denied a visa because she's in a family way.

Harry's got friends in high places, and he owes them some favors, so when a diplomatic situation goes first downhill and then asymptotic, Harry gets the call to find a particular sheep. One sheep on the whole planet Earth, needed to head off an interstellar war that Earth will certainly lose.

Except the sheep isn't really a sheep, it's a woman. Robin Baker. She had deactivated sheep genes inserted into her genome before conception. She had no idea she has sheep genetics, and in fact finds the whole idea rather distasteful. She'd really like to continue running her small pet store. But before you know it, there are three species of assassins closing in, and the only help she's got is the capable but overtasked Harry, and a band of Scientologists, err, "Cultists of the Church of the Evolved Lamb".

It's a decent book, although the first two chapters were an unnecessary shaggy dog story, and the ending seemed a little forced. In between, the hero gets credit for an idea so brilliant that no one had ever thought of it, including hundreds of alien species; but that idea has been discussed in (human) science fiction for the last sixty years.

I don't know if it was intended as a sequel hook, or just the author running out of gas, but the nature of Harry and Robin's relationship was also left hanging. Still, it was a decent read. Especially for someone widely read in SF, who will catch the in-jokes. But to start with Scalzi, I'd recommend Old Man's War instead.

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When the Burma mission was called off and we all got back together on the Essex, the Thailand shore party (bunch of skaters!) brought with them a bootleg copy of Iron Man. After watching it, I'm not impressed. I kept yelling at the screen for the general idiocy going on. Just a few points will illustrate my irritation:

1) Iron Man's power source on his chest provides, as the hero ("Tony Stark") declares, "Three gigajoules per second." Gee, if only there was some kind of unit of measure equivalent to a joule per second. It's really cumbersome, the way we label light bulbs as "100 joules per second" and "60 joules per second" and so forth. Stark is supposed to have summa cum laude engineering degree from MIT. I dunno what the hell they're teaching these days, if MIT grads don't know what a joule per second is.

2) That power source, which looks to be about ten cubic inches in size, puts out 50% more power than the Hoover Dam. It is highly unclear why Stark Industries is a defense contractor. His power source kicks cold fusion to the curb. Weapons are low-margin: he could make much more money by putting the oil and coal industries out of business.* The power supply also appears to not give off any unpleasant radiation or pollution, seeing as how it's inserted into his chest.

3) Stark claims that the power source will produce energy for "three lifetimes". I'll estimate that to be three hundred years. So it'll produce 2.840E+19 joules over it's lifetime. For comparison, that's roughtly the energy given off by the detonation of a 14.7 megaton bomb. Per e=mc^2, it'll convert 316 Kg of matter into energy over that lifetime.

4) Our hero is warned that he's been neglecting the business, and the board has removed him from control of Stark Industries. He complains that "I own 56% of the voting shares!". His assistant sadly shakes his head and says "Yes, but the board has rights too, and they just removed you." Seeing as how it's a major American defense contractor, I'll assume that his company is incorporated in the United States. In which case the board doesn't have any rights other than whatever rights Tony wants to give them. The next scene in the move should have gone down like this: Stark gives one share as a gift to his secretary. He announces a shareholder's meeting to begin sixty seconds from now. One minute later, he calls for a quorum: because he's in the room, they've got it. He moves that all the directors be fired effective immediatly. His secretary seconds. The motion carries, 56% of shares voting in favor. The laws on corporations generally require a board of directors, so he now nominates a new slate of directors, to consist of himself, his secretary, and his dog. Motion carries with 56% of shares voting yes. Move to adjourn. Next, the new board of directors appoints one Tony Stark as new CEO of Stark Industries, and recommends he take out a full-page ad in the New York times, to consist of photographs of the old board of directors, under the headline "You Lose, Suckers!"

Now, I'm told that according to the comic, #4 would never occur to Stark, because he's a drunken idiot. But he's not protrayed that way in the movie, plus he has a loyal assistant who certainly would know the way companies work.

All that above is criticism to the movie's writing and worldbuilding. The actors do a credible job, at least as good as the typical superhero movie. Similarly, the directing is unoffensive, if also uncreative. And I didn't spot any boom mics hanging into the picture, so I guess that counts for something.

In general, I wouldn't recommend spending money watching this movie. Wait for it to show up on network TV. Or skip it entirely.

* Footnote: Oil would still be useful as a petrochemical feedstock, and coal to purify into carbon for steel and other industries. But Stark's power supply would replace most forms of internal and external combustion overnight. And we know that his power source is incredibly cheap to manufacture, because he builds one out of scrap metal inside a cave in Afghanistan.

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Not a good movie. It's sort of half psychological thriller and half heist movie. But the psychology wasn't interesting, and the plan to steal $50 million was so outrageously stupid that I can't understand why anyone would have thought it would work. I wonder if the first draft had a plan that made sense, but it gradually morphed over dozens of script revisions until no one realized how stupid it had become?

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I thought I had reviewed this book some time ago, but I couldn't find evidence of that. So I'll summarize. The Myth series used to be brilliant comedy. Now, it's just painful. The original author has forgotten how the characters sound and act, and the new coauthor comes from a different comedy tradition, making it painfully obvious who wrote which of the disjointed scenes.

Don't waste your time.

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Dread Empire's Fall is a trilogy of novels by Walter Jon Williams, consisting of The Praxis, The Sundering, and Conventions of War. It's a space opera in the Napoleonic Navy mode, with our two heros being Lord Martinez and Lady Sula, two young officers in the navy of the interstellar empire that conquered Earth (and several other species's homeworlds) 120 centuries earlier. But the empire is falling apart at the seams as the the last of the Great Masters dies, and the formerly subordinate races start elbowing for power.

The Fleet hasn't fought a battle in millenia, so there had been little chance for promotion for our heros; their ancestry allowed them entry into the officer ranks, but without powerful families to provide patronage, they would never rise above the juniormost ranks.

But in a war, clever and ambitious men and women thrive, as the old guard stick to the old ways and die in blazes of antimatter fire. Martinez and Sula struck me as being modeled on English forebearers, in fact: Martinez is Nelson, and Sula is Drake and perhaps Cromwell. I don't mean to suggest that they are merely copies of the historical figures; but their tactics and situations intentionally echo thier forebearers.

In this, Williams does better than David Weber's Honor Harrington novels, which are also set in a pseudo-Napoleonic space opera regime, but have a less independant background. Weber straight up copied the age of wooden ships and iron men, and gets tied up about the ways space change things. The tactics and technologies used by Williams are much more convincing and three-dimensional.

But be warned: Williams likes to write in a realistic style, not a romantic one. Major characters can get killed in non-heroic ways, and he hates Chekhov's Law and breaks it at every opportunity. Plus, the series was intended to be longer than a trilogy (according to the author's FAQ), and the last paragraph of the third book ends with a kick in the gut for people that like all the heros fat and happy at the end.

Still, I liked it, but I'm not sure I'll read it again unless a sequel comes out, because that kick in the gut still smarts. It's perhaps not as good as his Aristoi or his Knight Moves, but those novels were written when Williams was following the style of Roger Zelanzy. Dread Empire's Fall is in William's own voice, and the better for it.

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James Triptree, Jr. is a facinating person, and I look forward to reading a recently published biography about her. She was a female author in the man's world of early SF, but avoided becoming a 'token female' like, say, Joanna Russ. Triptree's novels were hard to categorize, except for empty phrases like "new", "different", and "original." Brightness Falls from the Air (BFftA) was written in 1985, late in the author's career. It was reviewed not just by the usual suspects- Locus, Analog, Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine- but by the heavy hitters: the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the New York Times. Reviewers that normally sneer at "genre" works raved over it. That's normally a strike against a SF novel, but BFftA really is so good that the prejudices of the fine-literature crowd could not stand against it.

Normally, I ignore the text on the back of a paperback. It gets written by the junior assistant to the editor's coffee brewer, after a thirty-second skim of the first draft. The purpose of that cover text is to sell copies, and accuracy to the novel is of peripherial concern. But in this case, that back text is an outstanding introduction. Permit me, if you will, to quote it in full:

Sixteen humans have come together on Damiem, a distant world where a dream was once stolen and atrocities once took place. They have gathered to view the last rising of a manmade nova, the passing testament to an unhallowed war.
Soon time will warp and masks will be shed.
Soon some will die, and others kill. Soon some will lie, and others go mad. Some will seek love, and others release. Some will learn names, and others courage.
Some will find justice... and others judgement.
Soon.
Now, sixteen humans have gathered.
To await the light of the murdered star.

BFfrA contains many ideas that you've seen elsewhere, both in SF and Westerns. Novas as warfare, atrocities performed against the natives, corrupt big city types versus pure country folk, evil criminal masterminds and straightforward honest cops. Flying people, aquatic people. And the sorrow of those that have done what they felt was necessary, and live with the consequences. Is there a crime so large that a lifetime cannot provide sufficient expropitiation? But BFftA doesn't read like a retread- more like other novels have tried and failed to cover the same ground.
I was reminded at times of Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, and Look to Windward by Ian M. Banks. Slaughterhouse Five. Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Murder on the Orient Express.

It is certianly not without faults. The good guys made some mistakes that were difficult to justify, considering the sensitivity of their post and the selectivity with which they were chosen. One of the characters suffers a fate that has more to do with a gypsy curse than "widespread glandular damage". But Triptree is not an author to let trivia get in the way of a good story. This novel is about the ideas, not the facts.

I recommend this book unreservedly. I'm sure it's out of print. Check your library. Check your used bookstores. Read this book.

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Halting State is the new novel by Charles ("Charlie") Stross, one of the leading lights on the 21st century British Invasion of SF authors. He writes personal SF- no giant space fleets thundering across the immense vast inky blackness of space and whatnot; or rather, when he does write about that, it's from the perspective of a minor diplomat and and hard-working engineer. He's not interested in the people that make Grand Policy Decisions, he's interested in the people that work for a living and are just trying to not get crushed by the wheel of change.

He also loves to switch between characters, and Halting State carries along with that. It's told from three perspectives: a Scottish beat cop, a forensic accountant, and a game programmer. The three of them are brought together by a bank robbery. What gives the cop headaches is that the bank isn't real, and neither is anything that was stolen- the crime took place in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, when a squad or orcs backed up by a dragon broke into a game's main bank and proceeded to loot the place down to the furniture.

The heist gets interesting as soon as everyone realizes that committing the theft required breaking a number of ciphers that should be unbreakable- so why is someone robbing an online game's bank, when they could be taking real money from real banks?

The writing itself is interesting, and I'm embarrassed to admit it took me about ten chapters to realize why it seemed strange. The whole thing is written in the second person, a very unusual choice for a novel.

Now, this book was written for me. Specifically. The primary target to understand all of the jokes and allusions would have knowledge of:

• Tabletop Role-Playing Games
• Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
• Macroeconomics
• Fencing
• Scotland and England
• The DnD monsters that the author created in the 1970s
• Distributed Network Computing
• Cryptography

So really, if I was English or a Scot, it's be perfect.

In summary: highly recommended to anyone with knowledge of any two items in the above list.

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