Review: Throne of the Crescent Moon (The Crescent Moon Kingdoms #1)

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a brilliant, if flawed, gem worth reading in spite of its problems. Ahmed does Arabian high fantasy better than any I’ve come across, with the style and panache that envelops readers deep into the warm embrace of the author’s vividly crafted world.

“Throne of the Crescent Moon” follows the trials and tribulations of an aging adventurer-scholar, his zealous young dervish protogé, and a fiercely unrefined bedouin girl as they pursue ghuls and the sorcerous evil creating them. Ahmed deftly weaves political intrigue, class conflict, sexual tension, mystery, and adventure into a wonderous yarn which picks up speed as it unfurls, hurling the reader toward the final conflict between the protagonist and an antagonist who never quite establishes himself. It is perhaps too cruel to call the mysterious villain a cardboard cutout evil doer, but his thin presence does seem better suited to Scooby and the gang than Abdoulla Makhslood, last of the ghul hunters. In fact, it is probably because Abdullah and his friends, foils, and supporting ensemble are so well rounded that the absence of a strong antagonist is so keenly felt. Nevertheless, Saladin Ahmed gets so very many things just right that this is a book worth reading and an author worth watching.

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Review: The Last Witness

The Last Witness by K.J. Parker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some ideas are meant for novellas; sadly, there are good ideas which have been thrown on a rack and tortured into novel-length monstrosities—or worse, serial monstrosities. In “The Last Wish”, K. J. Parker weaves a tapestry whose slightly frayed edges suggest that this could have been one such book, had the author not had the wisdom to keep the driving conceit in focus. The book plays with the idea of memory transfer, willing and unwilling, across a spectrum of circumstance, while examining the effects foisted upon victims and participants. Parker gives the notion well and thorough treatment, wasting neither scene nor character in service to the muse. The memory stealing protagonist’s fluid identity gets a bit confusing at times, and some supporting locations and characters would benefit from additional detail, but such transgressions are forgivable when everything else delivers such satisfaction.

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some readers have compared this book to Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", presumably due to a common tendency to digress; yet where I found the former digressions distracting and annoying, the latter are awash with insightful, wry humor. There is no great mystery within, I spotted whodunnit after the first few chapters, but the doggedly determined narrative voice exudes a compelling charm to a degree such that I nearly finished the book in one sitting. Despite some superficial problems—e.g. prime numbered chapters—it's easy to like this book and in the end I'm happy to have met Christopher Boone.

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Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It didn't surprise me that I liked this book—it came to my attention through Patrick Rothfuss' high praise and the publisher's blurb piqued my interest. What surprised me was how much I liked it. I breezed through it in a couple days, often laughing but I'll cop to shedding a tear at the end. Given the subject matter, Wil Wheaton may seem like an obvious choice for the narration, but he's bloody brilliant in this—from the hilarious alien gargle-speak in chapter two, through the moving bit in the third coda, and all points between.

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Fabulous Weekend

A Thirtieth birthday is often marked as an extra-special occasion, a strange rite of passage where the now ill fitting cloak of latter adolescence is doffed in favor of the thin mantle of adult respectability. My thirtieth birthday arrived in October 2000, and I decided to host a kind of symposium; I invited a handful of my most intellectually gifted friends to come, drink, and make a presentation—plans to take over the world were my suggestion but anything would be accepted so long as it was interesting. Far and away the winning presentation was given by David M. Ewalt. In a stunning example of a non-ohmic resistor, David dimmed the room lights and connected the wires of an electric cord to either end of a pickle, then inserted the plug end into a wall outlet. In the two or three seconds before the fuse blew, that pickle lit up with an eerie glow. All present will ever recall the man we then dubbed The Pickle King.

Last week The Pickle King published his debut novel, Of Dice and Men…

Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pairing his reporter's sensibility with a passionate, nerdy zeal, David M. Ewalt weaves the nappy threads of D&D's history, his own soul-baring journey of geek-enlightenment, and compelling in-game narratives into what must surely be the Bayeux Tapestry of Dungeons & Dragons…

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book, I found the characters likeable but somewhat static, and the dialog has a lot of yelping but is otherwise believable. There are a number of sub-plot stubs left unexplored, perhaps as possible starting points for other tales set in the same world. The main plots move at a comfortable pace and I especially liked the richly detailed glyph magic as presented; though the resolution to the plot-moving magical mystery left me wondering why it had been left unsolved for ten years. I'm encouraged to read more Sanderson, hopefully this is not his best work.

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American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's a traveling panoply of old gods and other roadside attractions. Comparisons to Stephen King's "The Stand" are not entirely amiss as it tends to drag until the body count picks up. Gaiman writes superbly as a keen participant-observer of American culture, though in the case of "American Gods" it feels as if his vantage is a long, long way off. Not entirely without interest, the characters are numerous and evocative of little; like familiar faces on a commuter's train, they may hold our interest for a spell, but we never get to truly know them. Add a star if you like road trips, two if you like them so well that you don't mind when they go nowhere particular.

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Android App Roundup

There are many great apps for android devices, unfortunately some are more difficult to find than others. Below is a quick roundup of a few recommended apps…

Linux Security: Denyhosts

If you've read my Open SSH series, perhaps even if you haven't, you are probably aware of the power SSH offers to those who know how to use it. There are many ways to protect the service from unauthorized usage, focusing on self-contained or single host solutions, one finds two common flavors: those which make use of the Linux kernel's packet filtering tools (netfilter and iptables), and those which rely on Wietse Venema's TCP Wrappers. Netfilter certainly offers power and flexibility, but this may be at the cost of simplicity and management ease. While no security measure ought to be implemented blindly, there is an undeniable benefit to simple measures which can be configured quickly and with little fuss — in this arena, TCP Wrappers stands tall.

A Practical View of Comcast vs FCC

One thing to note about the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision in Comcast vs. F.C.C.-- it doesn't restrict the F.C.C.'s ability to regulate Internet services; rather, the court ruled that the broad regulatory powers enjoyed by the F.C.C. were overstepped when they told Comcast to stop discriminating against BitTorrent traffic . Many individuals dismiss this as a "bad decision" of the court, but to do so ignores important issues relevant to this ruling.

I generally favor 'net neutrality, and I certainly don't take a kindly view of the arbitrary packet discrimination employed by unscrupulous companies; left unchecked, such practices easily (perhaps inevitably) lead to "the pseudo service scenario of bribery ... extortion", but the same slippery slope analogy could slide the other way. Had the appellate court ruled in favor of the F.C.C. it would have set a precedent for allowing a regulatory authority to essentially invent new powers not specifically delegated to it by any act of Congress. If you would prefer that Congress pass such a law, you may wish to ask your representatives to support H.R. 3458.

I have seen the light.

Having discovered the advantages of á la carte VoIP pricing, I pondered how to extrapolate my experience for general discussion while avoiding the pitfalls of interpolation and abridgement. The Reference Book of Rates, Price Indices, and Household Expenditures for Telephone Service published by the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau provides a rough estimate of wireline telephone expenses averaging $45 per month in 2007, based on market research by TNS Telecoms. This isn't too far from my own experience with residential VoIP plans which have tended to average about $35 monthly, including additional fees and charges, which can be significant: on BroadVoice's "Unlimited World" plan, for example, "Taxes & Surcharges" account for about 35% of the monthly total. Based on these data, I use an estimated $35-$45 for generic comparison of monthly residential phone bills, or an average average of $40. As I designed our current, á la carte plan, I surmised that after discounting business use, the residential remainder was unlikely to ever exceed $30 in a single month. As the plan took shape, however, I realized that intelligent planning could lower that even further; somewhere in the neighborhood of a $20 monthly average would certainly exemplify what custom VoIP plans can offer, and half the average isn't a bad talking point. ;-)

Arrrgh!

Avast ye corned jiggers; it be Talk Like a Pirate Day.

But I already have a router!

Verizon is a great company, doing great things, but that doesn't mean they're not evil. I've found that this is an effective maxim which allows me to extol the virtues of Verizon without sounding like I'm drinking the kool-aid. Today I'm hoping it works inversely as well.

Linux Bane

The Cat Who Walked Through Firewalls

While I was cooking last night's dinner, I made the mistake of leaving my laptop running, open, and unattended. Because ours is primarily a Linux household (my wife is a Mac user),`aptitude update && aptitude upgrade`. Laptops, however, are an entirely different story. As you can see in the photo, we live with a creature that is essentially a heat seeking missle bent on killing laptop computers. Sure it was funny the first couple times, but amusement quickly turned to horror when I saw that she can actually crash Linux. All my base are belong to her.

I normally don't worry much about the computers. The servers, devices, and desktops tend to chug along without needing anything more than an occasional

Competition is good.

The Common Council of the city of Peekskill, New York had a public hearing tonight to hear citizens' comments on the proposed granting of a cable franchise contract to Verizon. Some Verizon suits were in attendance, as well as an obligatory Cablevision weasel; what surprised me was the vocal support of Peekskill residents, most of whom are not Verizon employees. It's nice to live in a forward-thinking community. It will come as no surprise that the Council's vote in favor of the contract was unanimous, but the epiphanic moment was toward the end of the public commentary when a Verizon rep. was attempting to recall the website address for more information: he got stuck after "it's verizon.com, eh..." and nearly the entire gallery finished "FiOS".

Music on the Go (part 2)

The first Ogg-friendly music player I purchased was a Neuros II; this was late in 2004 and hardware support was fairly new as the Vorbis codec didn't reach 1.0 until 2002. Then, as now, the best place for information on Ogg-friendly devices was XiphWiki. I recall being quite impresssed with Neuros' willingness to open up the device specifications and embrace the Open Source community, unfortunately the device suffered from a number of design flaws that no amount of firmware hacking could ever resolve. Ultimately the combination of charging problems, a design plagued by awkwardness and bulk, and the manufacturer's shift to focus on newer devices doomed the Neuros II to my technology junk drawer.

Music on the Go (part one)

I have music on my mind. I'm listening to Voodoo Child (ten point bonus if you know how this relates to Doctor Who) and thinking about my next portable music player. Like most geeks, the first question I ask about any digital music device is, "does it play OGG?"

Generally superior to MP3, Ogg Vorbis is a must for any lossy digital music collection, but it's not the only feature I look for in a music player. I use four basic criteria to judge music players:

Dell Agress with Codefix

Dell didn't ask but if they had I would have told them that Ubuntu Linux is a good choice. I have generally refrained from the usual histrionics whenever something Linux-ish makes the news, but I'd would like to voice a couple remarks regarding Dell's Ubuntu announcement.

While I'm always happy to see Linux reaching a wider audience, Dell has been something of a fair weather friend to the open source crowd.

Happy Birthday, Codefix

Today is sort of a birthday for Codefix: I first registered the codefix.net domain on August 22, 2003-- eight days after the Great North American Blackout; however, wondering how people lived without electricity and meeting my Brooklyn neighbors weren't the only things going on back then. Work as a Linux consultant was just starting to become steady, but incorporation was more than a year away and I was still moonlighting as a photographer.Later that year, Red Hat made waves by announcing that they would discontinue support for their (free as in beer) non-enterprise Linux distributions. Fortunately Open Source projects are particularly well suited for stepping in when another has dropped the torch; in this case, there were even a couple new contenders: Fedora and Gentoo. Fedora was Red Hat's consolation prize to the Open Source community and early versions were not impressive; Gentoo, on the other hand, seemed like a genuine revolution in the Linux world.