I attended a User's Conference in San Francisco for a week in March (OSISoft, the makers of that glorious semi-functional piece of...software, Pi). It was held in the Union Square and Parc55 Hilton hotels. In years past, it has been held in equally nice or nicer hotels around downtown San Francisco and I haven't generally had time (or made time) to look around the local environs, but I did take a little time this year. And man, San Fransisco is a dump. I'm not referring to the Hilton hotels - they were awesome. There are also a lot of very nice shops, some very impressive older architecture, and was a super-nice mall right across the street from the hotel...but to get to any of it you had to wade through a tide of human detritus begging you for change, asking for drugs, and sleeping in doorways. And for every nice building in San Francisco, there were two decrepit, barely standing buildings. Yeah, I know all cities are contending with armies of hobos clogging the arteries of downtown, but this seemed egregious. But then again, I don't often (or ever) wander around downtown anywhere, so maybe it's this bad everywhere.

The keynote speaker for the OSI conference was Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics and a San Diego native from just down the road. I'd really hoped to be able to share his keynote here, but I can't find a recording of it anywhere. It was both educational and entertaining. Good, solid edutainment. He talked about the events behind Moneyball, the book/movie based on his statistical approach to making the small-market Oakland A's baseball franchise into contenders with the much deeper pockets of the other MLB teams. I had never read the book and hadn't seen the 2011 movie, but I made an effort to find the DVD when I returned home and just watched it this week (it was easy to find on the discount rack at Target). It was a really good movie. And Chris Pratt was in it, which was a total surprise. That guy is everywhere now.

But returning to the keynote, Billy's best story from the keynote was probably the one about how he came to understand just how hard it must be for a celebrity (Brad Pitt was the specific celebrity he was talking about) not to become a complete nightmare when fame strikes because of the way people act around them. His evidence: his babysitter who had never been seen in anything but Birkenstocks and a t-shirt who showed up for work in a prom dress when she heard that Brad Pitt was going to be coming by for a barbecue that day. And his wife who never got up before the crack of noon who was up fixing her hair at five AM. Both denied that there was anything out of the ordinary when confronted. It was actually a lot more funny than the paraphrased version I've presented here.

Here are a few San Francisco-ish photos from my trip. Some are from the conference events, others are from my wanderings around the city. Enjoy.

		Video of the lego thing in action

There was one exceptionally memorable thing about this conference: I got my first Raspberry Pi. I participated in a lab for the OSIPI WebAPI product that utilized Raspberry Pi devices for each lab participant (each Raspberry Pi was connected to a CanaKit breadboard with a temperature gauge wired in) to show how the readings from these wireless devices could be aggregated in Pi and then each could be displayed on a web page using a Python script and a bunch of JavaScript. When the lab was complete, we each got to keep our CanaKit and Raspberry Pi. So I now have another fun toy at home that I have absolutely no time to play with. Still, it's pretty sweet. I've been thinking about different projects I could attempt with the device (maybe a WDTV Live replacement or a magic mirror if I replace one of my digital monitors).

Speaking of funny stuff, I've been reading a lot of comedic autobiographies lately - all of Adam Carolla's books (In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks, Not Taco Bell Material, President Me, and Daddy Stop Talking is currently being read), Ally Brosh's awesomely illustrated Hyperbole and a Half, and Bruce Campbell's Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way (that one was read a few years ago, but If Chins Could Kill is currently on my to-be-read shelf now and the new Bruce Campbell book is on my Amazon wishlist). To this list I now add Joel McHale's Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be. I love a book that makes me laugh out loud while I'm reading it. And all the above fit that bill. Joel McHale's book has quite a few laugh-out-loud moments (several of which I will be sharing out of context below, which may make them slightly less LOL-able).

Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be.

Thanks for the Money is full of facts about Joel McHale's road to the top of the C-list acting heap. And is also full of a lot of stuff that's not quite as factual (or at least not as straightforwardly factual), but will make you laugh. And there are also a few things in the book that aren't quite as funny, but they might make you chuckle...at the very least, they'll make you roll you eyes. And there are photos and silly charts galore.

Here is a funny chart from the book: "How to Insult People" and an amusingly captioned photo of Joel and his family meeting the former president and his wife.

Here's an excerpt about one of Joel's experiences working with Chevy Chase on Community. It begins with a weird conversation Joel was having with Chevy.

In one Community episode, Chevy's character is teaching my character how to box. Chevy is wearing training mitts, and in the scene, I'm sparring and lightly tapping them. They call "cut" after the first take, and Chevy immediately starts chiding me:

"You're not hitting me hard enough! You gotta hit me!"

I replied, as calmly as I could, "That's right, Chevy. I'm not hitting you very hard. Because I'm pretending to punch your hands, just like I'm also pretending to be a lawyer. And we're not actually attending a community college - this in a fake building that someone built inside of a soundstage on the Paramount lot. Look! This room has no ceiling! Because it's all pretend." Then Chevy called me a pussy, and again demanded, "You gotta hit me!" I replied, "Fine - I'll give you a left jab into your mitt." On the next take, I did just that, and dislocated Chevy's shoulder. Once again, everyone yelled at me: "Joel, what are you DOING?!"

But it wasn't just mild physical harassment. Chevy would often blurt out crazy things. One time, I referred to a close friend of mine as "the funniest guy in the world." Chevy immediately responded, "I'M the funniest guy in the world. Time Magazine said so."

To which I replied, "Yes, Chevy. But that article was published in 1975. Now it's 2011, we've been here for hours listening to you complain about your dialogue, and I just want to get home and see my kids."

Oh. here's another fun one. In an effort, I think, to jokingly flatter an actress on the show. Chevy actually said, "I want to kill you and then rape you." Which, in his defense, is the most thoughtful order in which to do those things - but still. She replied, "Well, at least I'll be dead." I get it - Chevy was trying to make a purposefully tacky, over-the-top joke. But something was just off. Everything he said had a weird edge of menace.

Chevy wouldn't dance on camera because he didn't want to "look gay." This may help explain the few musical scenes in Three Amigos...

Wow. Clark W Griswold, how little we really knew you.

Here's another one about Joel's struggles in school.

It's not that I find reading to be boring, or dull, or whatever a third synonym for "boring" might be². I actually suffer from a form of learning disability. In second grade, professionals evaluated me, and they told me I was a "slow starter" - which is a really positive, encouraging thing to tell a kid who has trouble reading. I would find out, many years later, that I am actually dyslexic.

I first noticed a difficulty with reading comprehension in grade school. While the other kids were gathered around the jungle gym, sipping their juice boxes and comparing notes on the inherent Freudian symbolism of Hop on Pop, I myself just stared, dumb-founded by how dumb I found myself.

When I looked at words on a page, they just did not make sense. Like right now, as I gaze at this page - as it has been either shoved into my hands by my sweaty ghostwriters or put in front of me in a voice-over booth - I see a series of jumbled letters. Imagine trying to read Shakespeare while drunk, or road signs while drunk - that's the best way that I, and the Scotch I'm currently drinking, can describe this experience.

My mom took notice of my learning problem when I started getting horrible grades in English classes. My father didn't because he is also dyslexic. "Great job on your chemistry homework," he'd say. handing back the Thai takeout menu I had just given him. And then we'd both laugh, because neither of us knew what was on the paper I'd handed him.

But my mom - who was a professional newspaper editor for the Mercer Island Reporter³ - was initially tickled by my sloppy sentence structure. Then she grew concerned, then terrified, and finally looped all the may back to stunned amusement. As someone who fixed others' grammar for a living, she found my struggle with...

² I even gave up halfway through reading the thesaurus entry on "boring."
³ Sample headline: "More White People Converge upon This Tiny, Wealthy Community. Rain Tomorrow."

This last excerpt is less funny, but I found the footnotes to be exceptionally funny. Thanks for the Money utilizes footnotes for comedic effect throughout (something Terry Pratchett was very well-known for doing...until he pretty much stopped in his later books).

V. THE UNWASHED MASSES

If you have made it through the other categories of people and thought - as many celebrities often do - that all of them can suck it, then you could certainly give up. You could go to the head of the Celebrity Police, toss your piece and shield on the desk, and growl, "I'm done, Commissioner Gordon-Levitt. I'm taking my justice...to the streets."

But then you'd be forgetting about the most important, and also the most anonymous and relatively powerless group of all - the audience. "Hey, wait a minute! That's me! You're talking about me!" you might be shouting into your book. First of all, settle down. And secondly, yes, I realize it might be insulting to lump you all together into one big, undulating mass of yowling, farting humanity. Many of you are not indiscriminately loud and gassy blobs. In fact, I believe most of you to be intelligent, self-assured, and sexy consumers. I think of you - the people who have watched my TV shows, bought sidewalk pirated DVDs of my movies, and attended my stand-up comedy performances - as the customer. And the customer is always right."¹⁹

So even if, in your celebrity life, you fantasize about throwing it all away so you can open that combination yoga studio/plus-size consignment shop, you must keep the audience ever in your mind. You are a painter of light, a weaver of dreams...and what would the fans do without you? Probably fantasize about having sex with some other celebrity - and you can't allow that. After a while, they will run out of famous fantasy sex objects²⁰ and then might decide to put some work into their own lives, interests, and literal sex objects. And that is money being taken directly out of your pocket. Don't give up - you owe it to the frustrated, easily distracted²¹ masses!²²

The previous pages were a detailed, needlessly Roman numeralized means of saying that, basically, people are gonna want stuff...


¹⁹ Unless they give this book a negative Amazon review for being "too smug."
²⁰ Especially if they get all the way down to the various Kevins (Connolly, James, et al.).
²¹ Look - a bunny!

²² Again, not you guys. You're cool.

Okay, that's enough for this post. There's no shortage of content for further rambling, but I don't want to waste too much of Dan's (and possibly Steve's) precious time. There will undoubtedly be more incoherent ranting in the near future!

Maybe.

I was looking through the list-of-things-I-had-planned-to-mention-here directory on my computer this week (photos, videos, bookmarks, etc) and am now thoroughly depressed. There's stuff going back years that I've neglected and I'm sure I will never get around to blathering on about any of it. But, that being said, I'm going to at least make an effort to mention a few of the things I found (and a few more recent things). I may unleash a barrage of drivel over the next few days as I try to catch up on my ranting. So to start us off, how about Neil Gaiman...

Neil Gaiman-ish stuff

I bought myself a birthday present this year - tickets to see Neil Gaiman speak on March 29 at the San Diego Civic Theater. This was the kind of thing that used to be much more personal (and free) in the old days before Neil became a rock star. In the olden days, Neil would do a book tour of signings at books stores and readings/question-answerings when he had a new book. Now, I guess we have to pay to hear him read from his books and answer questions (sent in advance of the tour) and not get books signed afterward. Admittedly, it was tough for someone as cheap as me to spend so much dough on tickets for a theater downtown (where I know I'd be paying for parking, too) to see Neil again. But I did it anyway.

All complaining aside, it was a nice night with Neil and 500 strangers. Neil read the entire Freya's Unusual Wedding story from Norse Mythology, read The October Tale from A Calendar of Tales and The Day the Saucers Came ( I think it was in Trigger Warning), told some fun stories about his childhood, Amanda Palmer, his new his family, and answered a bunch of questions submitted online (which led to many of the the aforementioned stories). He spoke briefly about Terry Pratchett and answered a question about what he misses most about Sir Terry (which was not having Terry there to share ideas with whenever he feels the urge). He also talked briefly about the upcoming American Gods TV series. He didn't mention the new American Gods comic adaptation, though he did briefly mention Sandman a couple of times.

The crowd was a little obnoxious at times (much less reserved than the book store events) and didn't quite fill the entire theater, but it was a pretty good-sized crowd. The entire event ran around an hour and a half. I brought a couple of books from the living room bookcase and a comic, hoping there would be a signing, but unless it happened after the event and away from the main crowds, there was no signing.

Speaking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, here's a video clip of Neil speaking last April (2016) at a tribute to our badly missed Terry.

And here's Neil reading Green Eggs and Ham. Just because.

I didn't realize Neil's Norse Mythology had been sitting on the bestseller list for so long until Neil mentioned it that night. It seems strange that this - of all of his books - should achieve this milestone, because it's really not Neil's best work. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it, it just wasn't as good as any of his other stories. It reads as fiction written for a younger audience due to the simplicity of language used (probably an attempt to leave the original Norse myths mostly unchanged and unembellished). It's a very quick read, both length-wise and comprehensible-wise. All that said, it was an enjoyable read, if not really mentally stimulating.

Now back to the comic adaptation of American Gods mentioned briefly above. I picked up the first issue a couple of weeks after it came out and then waited a couple more weeks to read it (Neil didn't mention one word about this comic in his speaking engagement, though he did briefly mention Sandman). Not because the material wasn't intriguing (American Gods is a really good book), but because the comic book medium isn't nearly as appealing to me as it once was. That being said, I did finally read it and found it pretty well done. Not nearly as solid and engaging as the novel, but good. The upcoming TV series adaptation sounds like it may be even less true to the source (despite Neil's involvement - I suspect he's intentionally following in Douglas Adam's footsteps, creating a slightly different version of his stories in each medium). But back to the comic book - the art is good, but not amazing. It's not a fully-painted book or water-colored or mind-bendingly weird illustrations. It's sequential art that tells the story as it is. And it's definitely not pulling any punches with the adult content. There are no "tastefully-placed" objects obscuring anything. When the story calls for adult content, adult content there shall be.

The second issue came out this week. I'll probably pick it up tomorrow.

Watching too much TV

And now speaking of TV adaptations, I did finally watch the first few episodes of The Magicians season two. I love the source material and highly recommend reading the novels, but the TV adaptation is just wrong on so many levels that I don't really enjoy it. I don't mean "wrong" as in "bad," I just mean it doesn't hold up against the source material. If you haven't read the books, the TV show probably holds up just fine. My guess is that the changes were made to distance itself even further from the Harry Potter stories and Narnia. Or maybe no writer wants the same exact same story regurgitated in different mediums and they do this intentionally. Who knows? But how about niffin Alice? Wowza. All attempts to nerd her up are gone and the super-hotness within is shining brightly.

While on the topic of TV series adaptations that couldn't be further from the source material, let's talk about Dirk Gently's Detective Agency. There was an adaptation on BBC a few years ago that was pretty close to the source material (Dirk, the primary character, was much closer to the character in the book anyway), but it didn't seem to get much traction. After watching the BBC's previous attempt to adapt Dirk Gently, I re-read the two books (paperbacks purchased long before I could afford to buy anything in hardcover) just to confirm my "something is not quite right" feelings. The current version of Dirk Gently is strangely set in America and full of American characters. It shares nothing with the source material other than the holistic approach to crime solving (if that's what they're even doing on the show) and the main character's name. Everything else is so weird and so unlike anything in the very limited source material (two short books and possibly part of a story in The Salmon of Doubt) that it's a whole new story. But Dan told me he really likes the series and he hasn't read the books, so I guess it's just another disappointment to those of us who are fans of the source material. Most curious of all the characters to me is Bart, who is horrific and repugnant on the show, but not so bad in real life.

More to come tomorrow...ish.



** Oh, and I added Twoflower's luggage to the page just for Dan who has an aversion to annoying things floating around the screen.



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Since our Harry Potterland annual passes expired in December, I guess it's only natural that we would return to the land of Disney, right? Over-priced tickets, super-expensive food, and massive crowds...what's not to like?

I did at least use the Disneyland Crowd Forecast to pick the best date to attend. And it proved to be about as useful as a consulting a Magic 8 Ball. The calendar promised Ghost Town crowds on our Wednesday in January, and maybe compared to a non-Ghost Town day, but it didn't feel all that Ghost Townish.

Disneyland again met all my expectations (none of which were optimistic). Most of the rides had lines of 30-45 minutes, but at least the lines weren't extended beyond the end of their normal stopping point as they were the last time I went to Disneyland. Luckily, the restaurants were pretty empty the couple of times we stopped for food. As we were eating, we did watch the lines grow and grow and grow so I guess we just had good timing. And, to be honest, the food we had in California Adventure (at Flo's in Cars Land) was actually pretty affordable. There wasn't a ton of it, but it was really tasty and relatively-reasonably priced for an amusement park (around $12 for a smallish adult meal). We also ate at the Pizza Port in Tomorrowland and I had a pretty good slice of buffalo chicken pizza. It was probably around the same price as the sandwich I had at Flo's and not nearly as satisfying.

But enough complaining about the stuff I didn't like (don't get too excited, I'm not going to stop blathering just yet) - on to my observations about the rides that I haven't been on since the end of 2015. My observations on updates may or may not have been actual updates. I could just be mis-remembering what it was like before. Who knows?

The first ride of the day: Space Mountain...or as it's known now: Hyperspace Mountain. The first thing I noticed, other than the name change, was the missing escalator to the upper level where the line generally began. The line now snakes up around the front of Captain EO (which is some other Star Wars related thing now) and over to where it used to pretty much start. Luckily, at least half of this winding outside line was empty so I was hurrying up to where it actually started near where the escalator used to be. The video screen near the entrance to the inside-part of the line is now Star Wars related stuff. The huge video screen in the final room now shows Star Wars stuff instead of the generic space stuff it used to show, but the huge spaceship suspended from the ceiling is still a non-Star Wars ship. And the audio playing while waiting in line is all Star Wars related now. Inside the ride, they added a few Star Wars ships/battles projected on the walls, and one tie fighter canopy (that's what it looked like to me) swooping down over the track. But it's really still pretty much the old Space Mountain with a few minor changes.

And then we were off to Pirates. On the way, since we were walking past it anyway, we picked up fast passes for Indiana Jones. I love Pirates of the Caribbean. It's my favorite ride (and area of the park inside Disneyland) by far. It's the only part of Disneyland I prefer to Harry Potterland. All that said, there wasn't anything visually different inside the ride as far as I could tell. I thought I heard some updated audio in the pirate skeletons in the pirate bar section of the ride (laughter that I don't remember being there in years past). And Jack Sparrow at the ride's end seems to be breaking down a little. His mouth was barely moving - but that's more of a non-update to the ride. Also semi-pirate-related, I saw some pirate skull key chains at the ride's end (I always pop into the pirate shop after riding POC) that I don't think I'd seen before. I wanted one, but wasn't ready to pony up $7.00 for it. There was a bunch of other stuff I hadn't seen before in the shop, too, but nothing in the super-tightwad price range.

After Pirates, we checked on Indiana Jones and saw that it was now broken down. So we would have to wait to see if it was repaired later. Instead, we headed over to The Haunted Mansion. I didn't see a single update to that ride, but it's such a classic ride that I think any "improvements" they make are just a waste. One non-update: the projected face of the murderous bride near the exit of that room looked less clear and a little messed up, so I don't know what was going on there.

After The Haunted Mansion, we checked on Indiana Jones again (still broken), and then headed over to The Matterhorn. Along the way, we passed by by Peter Pan (another favorite ride, second only to Pirates) and saw it was as super-crowded as ever. The rest of Fantasyland had pretty much normal lines, but Peter Pan is always insanely busy. So we skipped it. The Matterhorn seemed to be pretty much the same ride I remembered. There could have been some new Yetis (there are so many now I can't keep track of them all) or wreckage/debris. Or maybe even new Yeti noises, but it has never been a ride I loved, so I don't have fond memories of what it once was to compare it against.

After the excitement of The Matterhorn, we needed to keep that adrenaline rush going, so we headed to...see Animatronic Abraham Lincoln. What? Not exciting? Maybe not. But we needed to justify our visit as a "field trip" for Emeli, so an educational stop was in order (not to say the Pirates ride isn't educational, but since Disney Jack Sparrowed it up, it's a lot more fictional). It's the same ol' Honest Abe show it's always been. Nothing new to report there.

We headed over to California Adventure after seeing Robot Abe. CarsLand is pretty much the best part of this park (we'll see how I feel after the remodel of The Tower of Terror into Guardians-of-the-Galaxyland), so we headed to the Cars ride (it was closed due to technical difficulties) and then ate a late lunch/early dinner at Flo's. It was very tasty and not too expensive.

We popped into a couple of shops on the way out of California Adventure, but didn't try the only other ride I enjoy in California Adventure - Soarin' Over California (I don't even know if it's still open, it might be closed for conversion to Soarin' Over the World).

Back in Disneyland, we tried Indiana Jones again. Fortunately, this time, it was open so we jumped in the Fast Pass line. I don't remember seeing anything new on this ride either, but it's not a classic ride from my childhood that has burned itself into my memory, so I don't know for sure that nothing has changed.

Since we were right there, we decided to also ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We didn't have a fast pass, so we had to wait in a crazy-long line that snaked back in front of the Mexican restaurant dining area. It was dark by this time, so I didn't really see much of the ride. There could have been updates that went unseen. The one update I thought I did see was something that stands out more at night anyway, so that could be a misconception, too. It looked like they added a lot of lit/burning fuses and dynamite to the Dynamite tunnel. It was pretty cool. And may have been cooler than last time, but who knows?

By now, we were creeping up on the 8:00 closing time, so we headed over to Tomorrowland for our last ride of the day: Star Tours. I didn't expect anything new so I was surprised by a bunch of updated videos on the huge video screen in the first room (showing all the interesting planets Star Tours can take you to, weather on the different worlds, etc) and what I thought was updated C3PO dialogue and new dialogue for the luggage scanning droid (that may not be true, though). The ride itself was to a planet that I don't remember ever having been to on Star Tours: Kashyyyk (the wookie world) and Coruscant (I think that was the end-point). Oh, and there were the usual close calls with Imperial ships and Darth Vader of course. Fun stuff.

After Star Tours, we made a shocking discovery: the Buzz Lightyear ride had a five minute wait time. And we were walking right past it, so we rushed to the front of the line for our actual last ride of the day. This was only my second time on this ride, so I have no idea if it was any different than it was from the day it opened. I did shoot a lot of targets with a gun in each hand (my weak hand, the left, scored higher than my right, which was weird).

On the way out, we were trapped behind the wall of parade watchers as the Electric parade wound it's way down Main Street. We should have escaped on the monorail, but I wasn't thinking. So instead, we were squeezed into a crowd of people as we waited to escape. It's a good thing no terrorists decided to target Disneyland that day We would have been sitting ducks.

So that's my Disneyland report. Exciting stuff.


The Whistler, John Grisham

Before I get started, yes, I know John Grisham's novels are essentially the same story rehashed with different characters/settings/legal issues, etc. I know this...and I don't care. John Grisham can tell a story that draws you in and makes you hungry to find out what happens on the next page. He makes the characters in the books feel real and interesting. Or real and loathsome, if they're supposed to be loathed¹.

I actually stopped reading Grisham's novels for a couple of years because he was really letting his politics show and it was making the same well-written and engaging fiction...less enjoyable. But I've read the last several novels and even though there is definitely a bias to the left, they're much more politically neutral - much as they were in the beginning (or at least how I remember them being - my memory is far from perfect).

The Whistler is John Grisham's latest legal thriller. And despite the implications of the title, the primary character in the book is not a whistle-blower. She is, of course, a lawyer. An attractive lawyer, as are pretty much all of Grisham's protagonists. Young, idealistic, honest - very much the typical Grisham protagonist. There is a whistle-blower in the background of most of the story, but the reader is sheltered from the identity of this person for most of the book. The FBI also figures pretty heavy in the story, as they have in many other John Grisham stories. And, as usual, the FBI agents are perfect boy scouts². And, in a Game of Thrones-y move, one of the main characters is killed of fairly early in the story.

I considered finding an interesting passage from the book to share, but nothing really stands out any more than anything else in my mind. It's all good. I could spoil the book by going more deeply into the story and characters, but I'll just leave it at this - if you read and enjoyed The Firm, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy The Whistler. If you require completely original plots in everything you read, this may not be the book for you.

¹ I suppose it's possible that the same people who root for the Empire in Star Wars could read John Grisham's books and root for the shadowy, nefarious thugs to to win. Or at least to admire their clever criminality/viciousness. But I'm not one of those people, so I can only speculate.

² Having dealt directly with the FBI in the past (in real life), I find that depiction to be a little bit of a stretch, but it makes for a more enjoyable story, so we'll overlook it.


Prince of Outcasts, S.M. Sterling

Here's an interesting note about this novel and its predecessor - The Change, an anthology³ written mainly by guest authors set in the same universe, was published between The Golden Princess and The Desert and the Blade (briefly mentioned in previous posts). I mentioned The Change briefly here. Several of the characters/settings created by other authors in The Change were then incorporated into the The Desert and the Blade and Prince of Outcasts (and will likely continue to be principal players in the story going forward). One of my favorites from the anthology, the Tarzan character, hasn't made an appearance, but the books don't spend much time on the east coast of the U.S., so he could still make his way into the stories. The latest books are giving us glimpses into more of post-change California, the South Pacific, Japan, and Korea, so that's been interesting.

Now, thoughts on Prince of Outcasts specifically...

I briefly mentioned Prince of Outcasts predecessors (The Golden Princess and The Desert and the Blade), but gave little more than a generic recommendation for both. Honestly, these three books all blend together in my mind at this point (though Prince of Outcasts is still pretty fresh), so from an overall perspective, here's the scoop: it's been a long time since technology ceased to function as it once did when the world reverted to a medieval playground. We've moved on to the third generation of survivors who think of the world their grandparents knew (airplanes, automobiles, etc) as little more than myths and legends. The big baddies from the earlier novels have been defeated, but other incarnations of the baddies are going strong elsewhere in the world so there's no time to rest and enjoy a little peace. The children of King Rudi (the son of Mike Havel and Juniper Mackenzie of the original novels) are now having adventures of their own and seeing the world.

Stirling's books are well-written and do inspire a hunger to find out what's going to happen next, but it's hard to explain why. Maybe it's because Stirling does so much research and writes with authority on nearly every topic. But he's also just a skilled, descriptive writer. If you enjoy post-apocalyptic stories and alternative history stories, you'll probably enjoy this series. But it's a weird blend of alt-history and fantasy, so if you're committed to alt-history rooted in fact, this may not be the series for you. And there's no end in sight for the series, so you can keep falling deeper and deeper into this weird universe.

³ Speaking of anthologies, Thieves' World is one of the best. If you can still find a copy (it's really old and likely out-of-print) of the original, I'd recommend it highly. I have an ancient copy in my book collection (as well as a non-comprehensive graphic novel adaptation).

Since every recent post needs to have some kind of reference to The Magicians for Dan, here's my obligatory Magicians-related comment: I still haven't watched the first episode of the new season of The Magicians. And the second episode just aired, but I haven't seen that one either. They're both queued up and ready to go, I just need to find a little time.

I started re-reading the novel again, but I had started to forget what had come before in the previous forty pages, so I started over. And on a non-Magicians tangent, I'm also currently reading the Joel McHale mostly-factual autobiography, Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be. It has been pretty amusing (I'm almost halfway through it now). I've literally laughed out loud a few times. The Joel McHale book is a physical book (I've been reading an eBook version of The Magicians), so it gets priority when I read. Maybe I'll have to go pull The Magicians out of whatever box it's in so I actually spend a few minutes reading it.



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