Tuesday, July 9, 2013
One of my library books is due back today...
...and I forgot to turn it in. I kind of feel like I should be drawn and quartered.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (and apparently I'm revisiting The Children of the Sky a bit)
I don't really have much to say about Rainbows End except in comparison to Vernor Vinge's other books that I've read. Before I read this one, the three Vinge books I'd read were all part of the same continuity, all basically the same series: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep, and The Children of the Sky. I complained a bit about The Children of the Sky on this blog a while back, and I find myself doing so again, but I want to be more precise this time.
The Children of the Sky happens to be the latest in a collection of related novels, the others of which happen to be paragons of science fiction. It could be the worst of the three and still be very, very good. It does fail to deliver the same general level of excellence as the other two, but not in a particularly egregious manner. The problem is that the story starts out taking the setup from A Fire Upon the Deep, but then fails to really follow up on that. I loosely reinterpret it like this. In A Fire Upon the Deep, the villain is repeatedly underestimated, and turns out to be, more or less, the devil. The main characters manage to burn up the world in order to slow the devil down. They can't stop the devil outright, but they can halt the imminent rampage and buy time for other things to happen, whatever those might be. The forces moving behind the scenes, including whoever originally crafted the weapon that has (with massive collateral damage) halted the devil's rampage, are still only vaguely hinted at by the end of A Fire Upon the Deep. In The Children of the Sky, the rampage of the devil himself is still delayed, but the characters are aware that the devil is coming, inexorably, and the approximate timing of this horrible arrival can even be estimated. This isn't just background: the reader is reminded of these facts repeatedly and anxiety and preparations regarding the eventual arrival of the devil are vital components of the plot and character development. Meanwhile, the antagonists in The Children of the Sky are ineffectual. Oh, some of them are quite malevolent and even occasionally threatening to individual characters, but their machinations always come across as, at worst, short-term problems. One of the primary miscreants of the story literally gets all of his power to work evil when one of the other characters hands it to him because she feels like she'd seem to be too much of a control-freak if she doesn't try to appease him. He causes problems only because the person that gave him this power spends most of the story too far away to simply walk up and take it away from him. The conflicts in The Children of the Sky are not uninteresting, but too much of the time these conflicts take a form that leaves the reader thinking, "Yeah, yeah, hurry up and finish beating up King Dedede so that you can deal with the whole issue of the devil from the first book, whose inexorable arrival has not become any more exorable than it was before."
Back to Rainbows End. It does not share continuity with those books. So it's a chance for me to examine Vernor Vinge's storytelling outside the universe with which he'd familiarized me. Although I found many aspects of Rainbows End unimpressive, I'll note that it comes with a very enticing hook: it's a story about a man that nearly died from Alzheimer's just as medicine advanced enough to rejuvenate him, introducing him to an unfamiliar future, all while he realizes that his family is at the center of some bizarre conspiracy. Sounds pretty fascinating.
Rainbows End was published in 2006 and takes place in 2025. Writing a "futuristic science fiction" story that takes place less than 20 years in the future strikes me as rather ambitious, so I'll at least say I'm impressed by that detail. Vernor Vinge's depiction of the world of 2025, though? Well, not really. I mean, I don't assume that he was trying to be prophetic, but the setting in general doesn't seem persuasive to me. Maybe I'll have to check back in 2025 if I can and revisit that.
There's a point relating to character development, which has nothing to do with technology or science fiction per se, but which I found glaring as I read the book. The main character, the one that was brought back from a bout with Alzheimer's, was a renowned poet. Much of his character development deals with a possible personality change following his recovery: before his illness, he was an asshole to everyone, all the time. The concept is potentially interesting, but Vinge takes it too far. This character is supposed to have been an acclaimed author around the time Rainbows End was written. It's currently 2013, so in the universe in which this book takes place, the guy is a famous poet now, and presumably on his way to retirement as a university professor. If Rainbows End had portrayed him as having an abrasive personality, that might have worked, but Vinge took it too far: he makes it abundantly clear that everyone that knew this guy personally hates him because he was constantly insulting them. His ex-wife arranges to appear to him to be dead when he recovers his mental faculties, then also arranges to spy on him for the sole purpose of being able to talk shit about him behind his back to the other characters. And she's supposed to be a psychiatrist. At some point, I stopped being able to buy it. If poetry was ever so venerated that someone with no redeeming qualities whatsoever could garner widespread recognition for it, that certainly hasn't been the case for a while, at least I don't think so. I contend that in our world, today, if an individual was so universally vituperative and wretched as to have no friends, no amount of genius as a poet would be enough to cause society to overlook that, not even in an ivory tower setting. It might work if the extent of the individual's curmudgeonliness was exaggerated or if he lived a reclusive lifestyle, but Vinge works hard to eliminate all suspension of disbelief on this front.
There are other, similar problems with the story, generally mildly baffling. There's an enigmatic character that the reader is made to suspect might be an artificial intelligence. At one point, characters dealing with this mystery entity raise that possibility. And then, rather than trying to confirm it or dismiss it as unlikely, they just pass over it. "Hey the other guy involved in our scheme may or may not be an artificial intelligence. And we're living in a world where that'd be a pretty big deal because there are no confirmed artificial intelligences. But it's sure starting to look like he's an artificial intelligence. Even before this suspicion was raised, we were all desperately worried that he'd betray us somehow and this revelation is made all the more disoncerting, but anyway, moving on..." I'm really only exaggerating a little bit there.
Rainbows End isn't great. The Children of the Sky is better. Still, it is a fun book in its own way and I'm intrigued enough to want to check out more Vernor Vinge books.
The Children of the Sky happens to be the latest in a collection of related novels, the others of which happen to be paragons of science fiction. It could be the worst of the three and still be very, very good. It does fail to deliver the same general level of excellence as the other two, but not in a particularly egregious manner. The problem is that the story starts out taking the setup from A Fire Upon the Deep, but then fails to really follow up on that. I loosely reinterpret it like this. In A Fire Upon the Deep, the villain is repeatedly underestimated, and turns out to be, more or less, the devil. The main characters manage to burn up the world in order to slow the devil down. They can't stop the devil outright, but they can halt the imminent rampage and buy time for other things to happen, whatever those might be. The forces moving behind the scenes, including whoever originally crafted the weapon that has (with massive collateral damage) halted the devil's rampage, are still only vaguely hinted at by the end of A Fire Upon the Deep. In The Children of the Sky, the rampage of the devil himself is still delayed, but the characters are aware that the devil is coming, inexorably, and the approximate timing of this horrible arrival can even be estimated. This isn't just background: the reader is reminded of these facts repeatedly and anxiety and preparations regarding the eventual arrival of the devil are vital components of the plot and character development. Meanwhile, the antagonists in The Children of the Sky are ineffectual. Oh, some of them are quite malevolent and even occasionally threatening to individual characters, but their machinations always come across as, at worst, short-term problems. One of the primary miscreants of the story literally gets all of his power to work evil when one of the other characters hands it to him because she feels like she'd seem to be too much of a control-freak if she doesn't try to appease him. He causes problems only because the person that gave him this power spends most of the story too far away to simply walk up and take it away from him. The conflicts in The Children of the Sky are not uninteresting, but too much of the time these conflicts take a form that leaves the reader thinking, "Yeah, yeah, hurry up and finish beating up King Dedede so that you can deal with the whole issue of the devil from the first book, whose inexorable arrival has not become any more exorable than it was before."
Back to Rainbows End. It does not share continuity with those books. So it's a chance for me to examine Vernor Vinge's storytelling outside the universe with which he'd familiarized me. Although I found many aspects of Rainbows End unimpressive, I'll note that it comes with a very enticing hook: it's a story about a man that nearly died from Alzheimer's just as medicine advanced enough to rejuvenate him, introducing him to an unfamiliar future, all while he realizes that his family is at the center of some bizarre conspiracy. Sounds pretty fascinating.
Rainbows End was published in 2006 and takes place in 2025. Writing a "futuristic science fiction" story that takes place less than 20 years in the future strikes me as rather ambitious, so I'll at least say I'm impressed by that detail. Vernor Vinge's depiction of the world of 2025, though? Well, not really. I mean, I don't assume that he was trying to be prophetic, but the setting in general doesn't seem persuasive to me. Maybe I'll have to check back in 2025 if I can and revisit that.
There's a point relating to character development, which has nothing to do with technology or science fiction per se, but which I found glaring as I read the book. The main character, the one that was brought back from a bout with Alzheimer's, was a renowned poet. Much of his character development deals with a possible personality change following his recovery: before his illness, he was an asshole to everyone, all the time. The concept is potentially interesting, but Vinge takes it too far. This character is supposed to have been an acclaimed author around the time Rainbows End was written. It's currently 2013, so in the universe in which this book takes place, the guy is a famous poet now, and presumably on his way to retirement as a university professor. If Rainbows End had portrayed him as having an abrasive personality, that might have worked, but Vinge took it too far: he makes it abundantly clear that everyone that knew this guy personally hates him because he was constantly insulting them. His ex-wife arranges to appear to him to be dead when he recovers his mental faculties, then also arranges to spy on him for the sole purpose of being able to talk shit about him behind his back to the other characters. And she's supposed to be a psychiatrist. At some point, I stopped being able to buy it. If poetry was ever so venerated that someone with no redeeming qualities whatsoever could garner widespread recognition for it, that certainly hasn't been the case for a while, at least I don't think so. I contend that in our world, today, if an individual was so universally vituperative and wretched as to have no friends, no amount of genius as a poet would be enough to cause society to overlook that, not even in an ivory tower setting. It might work if the extent of the individual's curmudgeonliness was exaggerated or if he lived a reclusive lifestyle, but Vinge works hard to eliminate all suspension of disbelief on this front.
There are other, similar problems with the story, generally mildly baffling. There's an enigmatic character that the reader is made to suspect might be an artificial intelligence. At one point, characters dealing with this mystery entity raise that possibility. And then, rather than trying to confirm it or dismiss it as unlikely, they just pass over it. "Hey the other guy involved in our scheme may or may not be an artificial intelligence. And we're living in a world where that'd be a pretty big deal because there are no confirmed artificial intelligences. But it's sure starting to look like he's an artificial intelligence. Even before this suspicion was raised, we were all desperately worried that he'd betray us somehow and this revelation is made all the more disoncerting, but anyway, moving on..." I'm really only exaggerating a little bit there.
Rainbows End isn't great. The Children of the Sky is better. Still, it is a fun book in its own way and I'm intrigued enough to want to check out more Vernor Vinge books.
Friday, July 5, 2013
So you've got a Fiddlesticks on your team in ARAM...
It may happen that, in queuing for an ARAM game in League of Legends, you get a Fiddlesticks on your team. Perhaps this prospect is confusing or overwhelming for you, but here are a few pointers to help you out...
- If Fiddlesticks does not have a full health bar and is not being attacked by enemy champions, he may use Drain on nearby enemy minions. This is normal. Do not panic. Do not frantically attack each minion as soon as he targets it with Drain. You might get a little gold if you are the one that kills those minions, but your Fiddlesticks will be at lower health than he otherwise would be, which is disadvantageous for your team.
- If you and/or your teammates are retreating from the enemy team and Fiddlesticks is present, he may use his Dark Wind on minions or champions. This ability can silence multiple enemies, preventing them from using gap-closers, thereby facilitating your escape. Do not mistake this situation for one in which Fiddlesticks is initiating a fight. Do not turn around and attack the silenced, yet superior, enemy force. If you do that, you will die. Calmly continue with the planned retreat.
- Fiddlesticks may hide in brush while the enemy team is nearby. If the green light on Fiddlesticks' portrait is illuminated, this is likely to be a possible setup for Crowstorm, Fiddlesticks' ultimate ability. Crowstorm has a brief channel, visible to enemies if they have vision of Fiddlesticks. At the conclusion of the channeling period, Fiddlesticks will instantly transport himself a short distance and kill all enemies in proximity. Do not allow the possibility of a Crowstorm by an allied Fiddlesticks to intimidate you. Do not attempt to flee toward the enemy nexus. Do not lure enemy champions into the brush containing Fiddlesticks. Take a deep breath and, if possible, continue the teamfight as normal. If the enemy champions have you overwhelmed, backing off is an option.
- If Fiddlesticks uses Crowstorm, transporting himself into the midst of the enemy team, he is killing them. Feel free to attack. Help out if you can. The Crowstorm may look dangerous, but if Fiddlesticks is on your team, it will not harm you. You can step into the area of effect and possibly earn extra gold by scoring a kill or assist on an enemy champion.
- Fiddlesticks is a squishy champion and has low mobility. If your team's Fiddlesticks is at low health, an enemy champion may attempt to dive him. In this situation, Fiddlesticks may use Terrify to stall the attacks against him, Dark Wind to damage and silence his attacker, and Drain to further damage his attacker and to keep himself alive. It may seem like a lot is going on at once, but if you do manage to spot this situation, you can probably get away with attacking the enemy champion that has targeted Fiddlesticks. Doing so might save your ally and perhaps even garner you an assist or even a kill!
- Do not mistake an enemy Fiddlesticks for an allied one. If Fiddlesticks, instead of being on your team, is on the enemy team, he will not help you and will almost certainly kill you and your entire team. Don't worry: eventually the game will end, probably in your defeat, and you will no longer be in a game in which Fiddlesticks can kill you.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
America, press R!
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
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