…but as the father of a two-year-old girl I understand how Mr. Nash felt.

(Via Lynn Sislo, who’s really worth checking out if you haven’t.)

Somehow, in all the excitement of New Year’s, I neglected to mention that I’ve released a new version of Notebook. It’s a Beta version, meaning that there are likely some small quantity of bugs remaining in it (I know of three), so I’ll be releasing another version in a few days. But it’s got lots of new features, so go take a look.

The January Issue of Ex Libris Reviews is now on-line–a day late, but, given that it’s free, less than a dollar short.

This is a singular book for Brust, not just in the context of his “Vlad Taltos”
series, but with respect to all his work to date.

One of the fascinating things about Brust’s work is that he always uses
an unreliable narrator. Even when you think the narrator is giving you
the story straight, you can’t be sure–and you certainly can’t assume
that the narrator is always 100% correct.

In this book, which follows immediately after Teckla and
Phoenix, Brust dispenses with a narrator altogether, and
consequently gives us the only unbiased external view of Vlad Taltos we
are likely to get.

Toward the end of Phoenix, Vlad took some actions that
seriously angered his superiors in the Jhereg. He’s now persona non
grata and will be rendered persona non viva (if that’s the
right expression) as soon as the Jhereg’s best assassins can catch up
with him. So he’s wandering about the countryside trying to keep his
head down–and attached.

As this book begins, he’s just come to a rural area; the local lord turns
out to be an Athyra wizard Vlad had a difference of opinion with in
Taltos. The wizard kills someone who helped Vlad at that time,
and then tries to kill Vlad; Vlad obviously needs to do something about
it.

The neat thing is, not only is Vlad not narrating, Vlad’s not even the
viewpoint character. Instead, the camera follows a young Teckla boy
who’s being trained to be the village healer, and who (being curious)
befriends Vlad when our hero first shows up. It’s simply fascinating how
different Vlad looks from the outside as opposed to the inside.

Every January 1st we get up and watch the Rose Parade on TV (except for the rare occasions when we get up much earlier and watch it in person). And this year we watched as a B2 stealth bomber, accompanied by a couple of other jets, did a flyover of the parade route.

And then, about ten minutes later, we watched as the B2 and its companions did another flyover in the other direction.

And then, having a shrewd knowledge of local geography, we went out to our driveway hoping to catch sight of them.

We heard them before we saw them–and then watched in awe as they flew, low and slow, right over our house.

…we might see more of this kind of thing.

Here’s yet another outstanding review of The Return of the King. It’s really amazing, when you add it all up, how many really, truly, stupid things Jackson managed to cram in there, and it’s even more amazing how much of the original magic still comes through in spite. (Via Captain Yips.)

On another note–did Legolas’ dance with the oliphant remind anyone else of Luke Skywalker and the Imperial Walker in The Empire Strikes Back?

This, the fifth book in Brust’s “Vlad Taltos” series, picks up
immediately after Teckla. The initial plot concerns an
extremely odd bit of “work” that Vlad does for a most unusual
client–Verra, the Demon-Goddess. And as such, it takes us to some
interesting places we’ve not seen before.

But mostly, this is the book in which the tensions, the doubts, and the
self-examination begun in Teckla begin to ripen. This is the
book where Vlad decides what’s really important to him, and just how far
he’s willing to go in pursuit of it. It’s not an entirely satisfying
book–Vlad and Cawti remain estranged–but it’s got some pretty nifty
moments.

Byzantium’s Shores has a wonderful post on The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s version of it. Without ranting, or dwelling on specific departures from Tolkien’s vision, Jaquandor pinpoints a number of ways in which Jackson has…–what’s the opposite of “deepened”? “shallowed”?–produced a creation less deep than Tolkien’s.

Jane and I went to see Peter Jackson’s The Return of the King this afternoon and evening. Having seen the first two episodes of the trilogy, I wasn’t entirely enthusiastic; I figured that the good bits would be interspersed with mountains of nonsense, and in the event I was not disappointed.

I won’t do a detailed post mortem; either you’ve seen the movie, in which case it’s unnecessary, or you’ve not, in which case I don’t want to spoil it for you. I’ll confine myself to making two comments.

First, the one bit that Jackson absolutely, positively had to get right he got right. He overdid it a bit, but in general he got it right.

Second, Denethor was robbed, and if I were Faramir I’d sue Jackson for defamation of character.

’nuff said.