My boy David and I have finished up Alexander’s Chronicles of
Prydain with this book, in which Arawn the Deathlord of Annuvin
makes his move against the High King of Prydain and is ultimately
defeated. As always, our viewpoint character is Taran of Cair Dallben,
Assistant Pig-Keeper–but really, the point of the whole series is that
the Taran of this book is not the Taran we began with. In each book he’s
matured, little by little; at the start he was a foolish kid who wanted
to be a hero, and now he’s a much wiser man and a leader of men. He has
become strong, loyal, persevering, humble, and honest–indeed, he has all
of what used to be called “the manly virtues.”

And on top of that, there’s also a rollicking good adventure, spiced with
real loss and heartache, but ultimately having a happy ending. As a book
(and series) to read to my kids, what’s not to like?

I’m not sure Marsh plays quite fair in this book, but it’s such a
charming read that I don’t care.

Martyn Tarne is young stage actress from New Zealand. She’s had some success
touring in Australia, and has come to London to see if she can make it
big. Most of her money was stolen en route, and she’s spent the
last two weeks traipsing from theater to theater trying to find a part.
She’s a stubborn girl, our Martyn; she wants to succeed on her own terms.
Finally she arrives at the Vulcan theater late on a dreary afternoon,
only to discover that her information was incorrect; there’s no audition,
and no job. It begins to rain, and with no money, little food, and
nowhere to go, she takes refuge in the theater lobby.

And there begins a Cinderella story so replete with interesting
characters that it’s almost a pity that a murder has to enter into
it–which, indeed, it doesn’t until over halfway through the book, on the
play’s opening night. Enter Inspector Alleyn and the usual crew, there
are many questions, the murderer is discovered, and young Martyn’s career
is launched.

All in all, quite a satisfactory book.

Seems more like something from the Unseen University library to me, but what do I know?

To assume that an author’s intent is the final determinant of what a text means is to commit the intentional fallacy, an act that is almost universally denigrated these days. As a frequent writer of technical documentation, I’m well aware that what I write doesn’t always say what I meant it to say–but when the error is pointed out, I generally admit to the error and go back and fix it. In the arena of fiction, however, it doesn’t seem to work that way; the author’s intent is less important than the meaning the reader reads into the tale.

There are a number of reasons for this, I guess, not least because reading any meaning into a narrative beyond the bare facts of the story is fraught with peril. But it’s possible to stretch opposition to the intentional fallacy too far, and say that the author’s intent has nothing to do with the meaning of the text, a position which is clearly absurd. And that’s the topic of one of the Forager’s latest posts, which you should go read.

Probably everybody knows by now that NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has arrived at Jupiter after many years in transit; I keep seeing mentions of it on various weblogs. And each time I see one I have to shake myself a little bit, and remind myself how massively cool my job is.

As long time readers might (or might not) remember, I’m a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in Southern California. My work involves some of the software used by the Deep Space Network, or DSN, which is the global network of dish antennas and the related hardware and software used to communicate with NASA spacecraft like Cassini, Spirit, and Opportunity. I’ve never worked on spacecraft software, and I’ve never had anything to do with Cassini in particular–but every time the DSN tracks Cassini, my software is involved.

And all too often it becomes just a job, and I forget how privileged I am to work where I do, where such nifty things as Cassini are commonplace.

So here’s to the Cassini flight and development teams, and to all the JPL and DSN operations personnel around the world who keep the bits flowing.

You can find more about Cassini here, including some cool pictures of Saturn’s rings.