Old Man

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. The middle book of the Mistborn trilogy, which I am taking forever to read because real life gets in the way. Having defeated the big evil boss at the end of the last book, street-urchin-turned-allomancer Vin and her boyfriend king, Elend, discover that they've also taken out the force that was protecting the kingdom from threats both mundane and magical. Sanderson has a gift for plotting, which shows in this book as it swings from crisis to crisis in a perfectly believable fashion. Character development for the main characters is great; for secondary characters it's a little more ham-handed, but at least it's there. The unusual but original metal-driven background of the Mistborn setting gradually develops throughout the books, revealing the details to the reader as they are discovered by the characters. I also like the way the trilogy is handled--each book is a self-contained story arc, with just a few loose ends and unanswered questions carrying over to the next book. I'd give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars, and I'm only docking it half a star because I didn't feel compelled to stay up all night reading it, at least not up until the last three chapters or so. Next up, obviously, is Hero of Ages, but I might take a break and read a lightweight Chelsea Handler book first.

Re: The cranky thread Pharmaceutical packaging always sucks.

Re: Jokes Is that really something you can bass a joke on?

Re: Here be dragons... or Dragon? I'd just show them one of Balakarven's footprints, which would be about the size of one of those dragons they slew so easily...

Re: Favorite Real Scientist Sci Fi writers, and stuff you have cribbed from them. We'll count you too as soon as you write something.

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread

Re: The cranky thread These are jobs in the private sector. It's just that they sell to or provide services for the federal government. What I should do, I suppose, is look for government jobs, although I strongly suspect there are few such jobs that will cover my expenses.

Re: The cranky thread So after getting laid off because the government is unable to pass a budget, I learned today that one of the jobs I applied for is on indefinite hold... until the government passes a budget.

Re: Favorite Real Scientist Sci Fi writers, and stuff you have cribbed from them. Is Vinge a scientist?

Re: Kill the Dude with the Thing Let's not go off on a tangent here. Try to stay near the origin of the thread.

Re: The cranky thread I gave up Christianity for Lent, which is ironic since I didn't have it to begin with.

Re: Usable maps of Pangea I'm not sure if future Pangaea is what we're looking for here, though it is pretty fascinating. Should crosspost that to tkdguy's sword & planet thread over in Star Hero. I found this map and this map using images.google.com, but even so you might have to extrapolate your own version. The hard part is that I don't think any of these maps are going to show any terrain types beyond major mountain ranges and maybe river basins--vegetation, swamps, lakes, and so on might just not show up in the geological record, certainly not with any detail.

Re: The cranky thread I dunno, that was really bad perfume.

Re: A Game Of Questions Aren't we supposed to do fart jokes and other, less sophisticated, things here too?

Re: The cranky thread Oh my god, lady, you don't have to wear the entire bottle of cheap perfume at once. And this coffee shop is not that big or that well ventilated.

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread In this economy?

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread But... but... real computing is haaaard!

Re: Kill the Dude with the Thing Apparently we suck at killing.

Re: The cranky thread

Re: I have a dream. (and MAN was it wierd!) That's a really long word for an Orc. Dreamt about an air show last night. Imagine something like the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds, only with dozens and dozens of fighters, mostly in regular gray paint. I have no idea what it means. I watched it from some kind of pavilion on the beach, which is weird, since I was usually on the same level with the planes.

Re: A note on starship design: the engines point down. More to the point, perpendicular decks are contrary to the wet-navy or atmospheric-fighter conventions that most SF is shooting for. While more realistic, they are somehow harder for readers to get their minds around. The only perpendicular-deck novel I can think of off the top of my head is Footfall, which is pretty hard SF; the only game system that I can think of that did that is Star Frontiers. Babylon 5 touched on it, but mostly as a way to show how technologically hopeless the Earthlings were during the Minbari War. By the time of the show, even Earth had artificial gravity tech.

Re: A Game Of Questions What if he likes it?

Re: Kill the Dude with the Thing I think she's done that more than once. She's probably the most powerful marketing department on Earth. Anything she mentions gets bought by half the female humans in the universe.