Author: Michael Rawdon

Scalzi on Tour

My friend A. had mentioned a while ago going to see John Scalzi this week as part of his book tour. Scalzi is a well-known (maybe the well-known) blogger and science fiction author, and is supporting his latest book, The Last Colony.

With my Mom having departed yesterday, and since it looks like I won’t be going to WisCon this year to have him sign his latest books, I asked Andrew if I could tag along (read: sponge a ride off of him), and said yes (or words to that effect). So around 5:40 we piled into his car and drove over to Half Moon Bay to the Bay Book Company.

One meal at Round Table Pizza later (mm-mmm!) we arrived at the store. It’s been a while since I’d been there, and I’d forgotten that they’re a quite charming, cozy little book store off Highway 1. Usually I only stop in downtown when I’m in Half Moon Bay. All the posters on top of the bookcases announced that they get quite a few authors in for signings, so they must work hard to get on the list for authors like Scalzi; no doubt it’s a big boost to their business.

I bought a copy of Colony when we arrived, and then John emerged. He surveyed the crowd of 25 or so people, saw me, pointed and said “Michael!”

Okay, that was unexpected, but yes, I’ve met John before, before his first SF novel was picked up for publication, even, as well as twice at WisCon. I’m always flattered that he recognizes me, but really, he’s no dummy and he’s clearly got a good memory, so should I expect any less? (Actually, I have an idea of why I find it flattering, but try as I might I can’t put it into words. It has nothing to do with his being a published author, and more to do with his intelligence, wit and self-confidence. I’ve felt similarly about a few other people, notably my friend Bruce, who I think shares many of his best qualities with John.)

Lest I go on too long about that, my read on John is that he’s amazingly excited to be going on this book tour, but also a little apprehensive about seeing so many people whom he doesn’t know, even if they are fans of his. I guess seeing them at a convention is one thing, but “out in the wild” is something else. But that’s just my read; John’s able to manage and entertain an audience pretty handily (better than I could, that’s for sure), so I’m sure he’s got nothing to worry about.

He entertained us with tales of getting his books published (he was quite fortunate to have his first published novel noticed and bought by an editor due to publishing it on his Web site), getting covers chosen for his books (like cover blurbs, the covers themselves are mostly a marketing concern), and some of the work he has in the pipeline. Not to mention running for president of SFWA.

And then he signed books. A. said to me that he’s never been big on signed books. I’m not into them per se, but I enjoy getting things signed as a keepsake of the experience of meeting the author. It helps fix the memories in my mind, and sometimes I come away with some fun stories.

In this case, it was just fun seeing Scalzi again. I hope he has a great time on his tour. If you get a chance, go see him; it’s worth the trip.

(P.S.: I may end up in a photo in his blog, as he posted one from last night’s Seattle gathering. I’ll let you know if I get [further] immortalized in bits.)

Breaking Even

While writing my larger vacation entry, here’s a short recap of my poker session at Lucky Chances yesterday:

First of all, the more I play there the more I really like LC as a casino. The people (meaning mainly the players) seem friendlier and the decor is more interesting than at the other casinos I’ve visited in the area. It might be because I’m only ever there during the daytime, since it’s far enough away that I only visit on my days off, but I’ve had fun every time I’ve gone there, even when I haven’t won.

I’ve become a fairly decent low-limit Hold ‘Em player, I think. Although I must not be too good, since I’m still not winning a lot. I broke exactly even at this session, and was down for much of it before coming back at the end. A few notable hands:

  • I played K-6s in my small blind, and bet on a flop of K-x-x. Several players called. The turn was a blank, so I bet again and everyone folded. One person said, “Pair of Kings good.” My guess is several people had Aces they were hoping to pair on the turn, and when they didn’t, I made it too expensive for them to continue.
  • I picked up Q-Q in my small blind, and after several callers the player on the button raised. “Uh oh”, I thought, and just called. The flop was J-x-x. I bet, and the button raised. “Uh-oh”, I thought, figuring I was up against Kings or Aces. I check-called him down to the showdown, and he showed J-J for a flopped set. Gah. I thought there was a decent chance that he had A-K or A-J or even T-T, so it seemed worthwhile to show down, but I could see questioning my decision here, given what my gut was telling me.
  • The most painful hand of the day: I checked K-4 in my big blind, and the flop was K-8-4 rainbow. I bet the whole way and drove out everyone but two others. At the showdown I showed my two pair – and got beaten by a guy with K-8. It’s hands like these that keep you humble. This was a huge pot, too.
  • Later I picked up Q-Q – spades and clubs – and raised in late position, getting several callers. The flop was K-x-x of clubs, and I bet, and the fellow on my left called, as did a couple others. The turn was a blank, and I bet and only the guy on my left called. The river was a club, so I had the second-highest flush. The guy on my left said, “I won’t bet if you won’t,” and I said, “Sorry, I have to bet this hand.” He called, and showed the Jack of clubs, so I took the pot. Yay!

When I say I think I’m becoming a decent player, I mean that I rarely play a hand where I regret how I played it. But objectively, there’s clearly room for improvement, since I’m not winning. The mistakes I’m making are probably ones of omission (not betting enough, not playing a few hands I should play), which means they’re harder to spot.

I’m not playing as much poker as I did last year, you may have noticed. The novelty is gone. But I still enjoy the occasional game. And I’m looking forward to playing more no-limit with my friends who also play.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 18 April 2007.

Once again, I present last week’s haul this week:

  • Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #51, by Tad Williams, Shawn McManus & Waldon Wong (DC)
  • The Brave and the Bold #3, by Mark Waid, George Pérez & Bob Wiacek (DC)
  • Ex Machina #27, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris & Jim Clark (DC/Wildstorm)
  • World War III one-shots #1-4 (DC)
  • 52 #50 of 52 (DC)
  • Justice League of America #8, by Brad Meltzer, Shane Davis & Matt Banning (DC)
  • Invincible Ultimate Collection vol 2 HC, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
  • Evil Inc. Annual Report vol 2 TPB, by Brad J. Guigar (Lulu Press)
  • Hero by Night #2, by D.J. Coffman & Jason Embury (Platinum Studios)

Aquaman is a little better this month than last. I still don’t think McManus’ efforts here are as strong as in days past, but they’re better; maybe he was stretched doing a double-sized issue. Maybe inker Wong is having a strong influence. I dunno.

The Brave and the Bold: Best superhero comic on the market? Maaaaybe.

Ex Machina is definitely picking up. I’m genuinely looking forward to what comes out of the current story.

52 this week is “World War III”, where Black Adam goes to war against the world and its heroes (and villains), and does a terrific amount of damage in the process. It’s not bad. That said, the four spin-off specials are not essential. DC claims they published them because the story of World War III was too big to fit into one issue of 52, and they could cover more characters and provide more context with the extra space. It’s all horse-hockey of course, but I got suckered in anyway. If you do decide to pick up the set, I suggest reading the specials before the actual issue of 52.

Has there been, in recent memory, a more cynically packaged (even “marketed” seems too kind a term) comic than the current Justice League of America series? Meltzer is another in DC’s stable of “hot” writers (who all seem interchangeable to me), the covers are provided by “hot” artist Michael Turner (the anatomical deficiencies in whose art could fill a while entry), and the series took half a dozen issues just to introduce the new team. The artwork of Shane Davis (whom I’ve never heard of before) is out of the Jim Lee/Image Comics school of pencilling, with muscular figures, generic backgrounds, and lots and lots of crosshatching. Overall, a decidedly mediocre combination.

That said, this issue is the first part of a crossover story with Justice Society of America (also not a very good comic, but at least an earnest one), which will also feature the Legion of Super-Heroes. Since the character of Starman is one of the best features of JSA, and I’m perhaps overly optimistic that a Legion/time travel story could be a lot of fun, I’m going to give it a read. The first installment suggests that Starman and Karate Kid are time-lost heroes who are part of a contingent sent back to the 20th century on some mysterious mission, and who have lost their memories. Since the story is called “The Lightning Saga”, my guess is that Lightning Lad/Lightning Lass/Lightning Lord (and maybe the Legion of Super-Villains) will figure in it, as well. Especially since this first chapter seems to be titled “Lightning Lad” (in Interlac).

(Incidentally, the idea that Batman could take down Karate Kid is fairly laughable, but that’s the conceit that DC’s built up around Bats these days.)

The second volume of Invincible seems like the almost-obligatory resting-up-from-the-first-volume/laying-the-seeds-for-the-third-volume collection. It’s still fun, but nothing like the first volume. Kirkman’s attention to the supporting cast and the increasing number of details of their lives is enjoyable, but I hope there’s a big bang in the third volume to deliver the payoff.

Alex Rodriguez

One of my favorite columns in the San Jose Mercury News is Bud Geracie’s weekly sports roundup, “In The Wake of the Week”. He averages more good zingers per column than any other columnist I read.

This week he sums up Alex Rodriguez’ overpowering start to the 2007 season in four words:

“Alex Rodriguez: Mr. April.”

Ouch.

(ARod hit two home runs last night, but the Red Sox came back to win with 5 runs in the 8th, so, y’know, nyah-nyah!)

Brett Myers

In what in my opinion is one of the stupidest roster moves in recent memory, Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel moved starter Brett Myers to the bullpen after two bad starts this year.

If there’s a picture-perfect example of “overreacting”, this seems to be it. Maybe Manuel can see something in Myers that the rest of us can’t, but that’s one of only two defenses I think he could make here.

Baseball Prospectus author Joe Sheehan argues (in a subscriber-only article) that it’s the right move:

Manuel is trying to make lemons from lemonade. He has a roster with six starting pitchers—not swingmen, not prospects, not marginal guys, but six major league-caliber starting pitchers. He has a bullpen with one reliable strikeout guy in Tom Gordon.

[…]

Manuel tried, briefly, to use Jon Lieber out of the bullpen. Lieber hasn’t pitched in relief since 1997, and as a flyball/command guy, is ill-suited for pitching late in close games.

[…]

Going through the other choices leads to similar conclusions [that the other starters are as poorly-suited for the bullpen].

Sheehan also points out that Manuel’s problem isn’t of his own making, but rather is due to General Manager Pat Gillick collecting six quality starters while letting some quality hitters (e.g., Bobby Abreu) go. While I agree with this point, I don’t think that Manuel not having created the problem has any bearing on his choosing a poor way to solve the problem.

What this move basically boils down to (for 2007, anyway) is replacing Myers’ 200-odd starting innings with (maybe) 200 innings from Jon Lieber (and whoever in the bullpen has to make up the innings he doesn’t reach), and replacing 70-odd innings from the back of the bullpen with Myers. This is only a win if you think that Lieber is a significantly better pitcher than whomever is being replaced in the bullpen, and Lieber (who, by the way, is 37 years old) was not very good last year, with a 4.93 ERA. Now it’s certainly possible that the back of the Phillies’ pen is even worse than that, but it would have to be really, really bad to make up those 120 innings of quality starting that the team is losing.

(There’s also Myers’ big contract extension, which is a lot of money to pay a guy who isn’t going to be starting for you.)

As I said, one defense Manuel might be able to employ is that Myers won’t provide quality innings from the rotation. But so far I haven’t heard of any reasons why that’s so; two bad games is such a small sample size that it’s basically worth disregarding in isolation – and there’s no additional evidence that there’s something fundamentally wrong with Myers as a starter (and two years of evidence that there isn’t).

The other defense Manuel could employ is that Myers has some correctable problem (for which there is some evidence – Myers said as much, shortly before the demotion) which he should work out in the bullpen in lower-pressure situations so he can return to the rotation. And, since baseball teams are getting cagier about what they say, that’s entirely possible, and perfectly reasonable.

Right now, though, it just looks like Charlie Manuel is making a boneheaded move which is going to hurt his struggling team (they have a 4-10 record so far, worst in the NL).

And, of course, that’s a perfectly normal thing for baseball teams to experience, too.

Vacation Time!

It seems like it’s taken forever to get here, but I’m finally on vacation today. Nope, I’m not going anywhere, instead, my Mom’s flyng out to visit me!

I decided recently that I’d had enough of the goatee I’ve sported for the last year or so, so I shaved it off this morning. Debbi was sad, since she likes the goatee. I was getting tired of maintaining it, and it’s getting a little too gray for my preference. On the other hand, it does slim my face a little, since I am gradually starting to show my age. (I joke a lot about how “I’m getting old”. I’m not really getting that old, but late-30s is an age where one does start showing those telltale signs, and I do have a few.) On the other hand, shaving off the goatee felt at the time like the return of an old friend.

This is Mom’s second visit, and we’re going to go see a few things a second time (like the coast), and go see some new things. Maybe the M.C. Escher exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. It should be fun. And after last week’s rain, everything is still green and blooming, which will make for a different look to the area from her last visit, which was in the fall, when everything is tan and brown.

Anyway. Mom’s flight took off right on time, it looks like, and it may arrive anywhere from 30 to 60 (!) minutes early (!!), which will be nice for the both of us, but it does mean that I have less time than I’d expected to get things done before she arrives. So I’d better get cracking!

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 11 April 2007.

  • All-Star Superman #7, by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely (DC)
  • Fables #60, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham & Steve Leialoha (DC/Vertigo)
  • 52 #49 of 52 (DC)
  • Sandman Mystery Theatre: Dr. Death and The Night of the Butcher vol 5, by Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle, Guy Davis & Vince Locke (DC/Vertigo)
  • Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sleep of Reason #5 of 5, by John Ney Rieber & Eric Nguyen (DC/Vertigo)
  • Wonder Woman #7, by Jodi Picoult, Drew Johnson & Ray Snyder (DC)
  • Marvel Masterworks: Iron Man vol 77 HC, collecting Tales of Suspense #84-99 and Iron Man #1, by Stan Lee & Gene Colan (Marvel)
  • newuniversal #5, by Warren Ellis & Salvador Larroca (Marvel)
  • Nova #1, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Sean Chen & Scott Hanna (Marvel)
  • B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #2 of 5, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Guy Davis (Dark Horse)
  • The Complete Peanuts 1963-1964 HC, by Charles M. Schultz (Fantagraphics)

When the original Sandman Mystery Theatre came out, in the early 90s, I as intrigued, but had a very hard time getting into it. A lot of it was the artwork: Guy Davis is a decent artist, but he had a penchant (at that time) for drawing all his characters with huge noses, which was very distracting. (I understand that some people have larger noses. But not everyone does.) The occasional guest artist tended to be even worse. And, as it turns out, the series just didn’t lend itself well to serialization; each 4-issue story had awkward breaks between issues, which made it difficult to follow the series from a narrative standpoint.

All of which means that I’ve been buying the trade paperbacks and enjoying them a lot more than I did the original series. It’s the story of Wesley Dodds, the original Sandman, a late-1930s adventurer who is driven by intense dreams to seek out and capture the most twisted of villains. Each story features a different psychopath as its heavy, and it also chronicles the ongoing romance between Dodds and Dian Belmont, a young socialite whose father is the chief of police. The story is a little bit Peter Wimsey, a little bit Nexus, and a little bit Batman. Wes is a very fallable – but driven – hero, and Dian is smart and independent. The Sandman operates outside the law and sometimes runs afoul of the police. And, fortunately, Davis’ artwork has gotten much better by this latest volume. I’m enjoying it more than I’d ever thought I would. The series is long since defunct, but I still hope that it comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Which is more than I can say for Sleep of Reason, which updates the Sandman to 21st century Afghanistan. I’ve already commented about this series before, but I don’t like the art, the characters are flimsy, and the story seems kind of pointless. It’s a poor successor to the original.

I wasn’t going to pick up Nova until I realized it was being drawn by Sean Chen, whose work on Kurt Busiek’s Iron Man 8 or so years ago I’d enjoyed tremendously. Authors Abnett and Lanning have an uneven track record, but it might be more charitable to call it “eccentric”, and I’m usually willing to give their books a glance. Here, Nova is still an Earthman who’s inherited the mantle of the protector of an alien world, but now he’s the last such protector left, and he’s driving himself to fill the void left in the wake of the others’ deaths (which occurred in one of Marvel’s myriad crossover series – Annihilation, I think). Like Ms. Marvel, there’s potential here, but no sign at all where things are going to go. Hopefully the writers can figure it all out (and editorial won’t quash their best ideas).

Another month, another Marvel Masterworks. I’m not buying very many of them anymore, and yet I’m still behind. On the bright side, a new Peanuts volume is always cause for celebration, and I’m looking forward to devouring this one.

By the way, it looks like I’ve now been writing this weekly comics roundup for 6 months now. How time flies!

Still Quite Busy

April has been a little less busy then March, but the difference is that it hasn’t been due to a bunch of things all scheduled well ahead of time; instead I’ve been keeping busy with more spur-of-the-moment (or at least spur-of-the-week) activities.

Last weekend Debbi invited some people over to dye eggs for Easter. She likes to do this every year. Josh and his girlfriend Lisa came by first, and then Susan and Subrata came by around the time they were leaving. I’d already dyed all the eggs I’d wanted to, so Subrata and I ended up playing some Magic instead.

Before dying eggs, I went out to the nursery and picked up some plants and flowers. (While I was out I got a snootfull of the fire at the scrap yard in Redwood City which stunk up peninsula and valley air for part of the day. Eew.) Then on Sunday I turned over the dirt in my planter and put them all in. This year we have three tomato plants, a cucumber plant, marigolds and snapdragons. I was happy to get the snapdragons; it seems like I can rarely find them this early in the year, I don’t know why. I love snapdragons. We also have space for one more vegetable plant, but we’re not sure what to plant yet, if anything.

We’ve gotten some rain this week (it’s raining right now, actually) which is helping kick-start the plants. The tomatoes are taking off right away, which they always do, and the snapdragons are starting to bloom. Hopefully the looming drought won’t deep-six my growing plans this year.

Wednesday evening we had our annual homeowners association meeting, which was quite routine this year. We’ve got a few projects in the planning stages, so we were basically just talking about how they’re going, and that was it.

Debbi came home early Thursday afternoon since we had cleaners coming in. Neither Debbi nor I are very diligent about cleaning the house, especially deep-cleaning it: We keep things reasonably neat and it’s not like the place is a sty, but we do accumulate more dust and cat hair then we’d wish, and we do hate cleaning (say) around the stove. So Debbi finally convinced me to get some cleaners in, and they really did a great job! The kitchen is cleaner than it’s been in years, the bathrooms look great, and all the bookshelves are dusted. So the place is virtually gleaming for my Mom when she arrives next week. And we’re considering having them come in monthly to keep the place clean.

Thursday night we played Magic. There were six of us who gathered at Lee’s for another Time Spiral/Planar Chaos draft. At the end of the draft portion of the evening, I felt like I had a very strong green base, but mostly a big pile of cow flop as far as an actual deck was concerned. After starng at my cards for a while I realized I needed to give up on my first overall pick, The Rack and any hope of building a discard deck, and instead create a green/white/blue deck with my three Search for Tomorrows to make the extra colors work.

And boy, did it ever work.

The backbone of my deck was Verdant Embrace combined with Gaia’s Anthem, which resulted in an incredibly fast 2/2 creature generator (these are, in my opinion, two of the very best cards in the Time Spiral block so far). I had another creature generator in the Benalish Commander (the creature generators combine well with Essence Warden, too), a card drawer in Aeon Chronicler, a wacky all-purpose creature in Stuffy Doll (combining it with Ophidian Eye is just ridiculous), and a variety of good supporting creatures. I ended up winning all three matches I played, despite not drafting a single flying creature, or any creature removal. I basically just beat my opponents to death.

I got incredibly lucky to assemble this combo, really, although I do take credit for figuring out how to assemble them into a decent deck. But whether it ws luck or skill, it did result in a very fun evening of gaming for me.

That catches us up to today, where Debbi is busy at a scrapbooking event with her friends, and Subrata is hosting another Magic day. Which is not a bad thing to spend a rainy Saturday doing.

Larry Niven: Ringworld

Review of the novel Ringworld by Larry Niven.

  • Ringworld

    • by Larry Niven
    • PB, © 1970, 342 pp, Del Rey, ISBN 0-345-33392-6
Ringworld.jpg
Ringworld

When I started reading science fiction “seriously” in the mid-1980s, Ringworld had the reputation as being the most important hard SF novel before William Gibson’s Neuromancer. But as with most of Niven’s oeuvre, I’ve never read it. I tried a couple of times, back in the day, but was never able to get through it – was never able to even get as far as the characters getting to the Ringworld. But now, I have.

Given what I know about science fiction now, I think Ringworld can make a case for being the most significant SF novel between Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) and Neuromancer (1986). The reason for this is that I think Niven’s classic work fits perfectly between two generations of hard SF: He has a no-nonsense writing style and a logical approach to working through the implications of his ideas as part of the plot (which is very Asimovian, and to a lesser degree very Heinleinian), but he also anticipates the high-tech cutting-edge social implications of technology a la John Varley and Vernor Vinge and, well, William Gibson. And Ringworld shows this latter characteristic – and Niven’s high concept ideas content – quite strongly.

The whole premise of the novel is the Ringworld itself, a strip of habitable land which entirely rings its primary star. I’ve read a lot of “big dumb object” stories, and they all suffer to a large extent from having an ending which is a letdown: Trying to understand why an alien species would build such a large thing, and crafting a whole novel around it, it’s extremely difficult to have an explanation which is rewarding. Ringworld sidesteps this issue by presenting the Ringworld’s existence and reason for being from the outset: Why would someone build such a thing? For the living space, obviously!

The plot features four extraordinary individuals: Louis Wu, a 200-year-old man who is a little bored with life; Nessus, a Pierson’s Puppeteer, a highly advanced alien species whose culture is based on cowardice; Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzinti warrior; and Teela Brown, whom Nessus thinks might have been bred to be lucky. The Puppeteers discovered the Ringworld and want to know who built it, and whether they might be a threat, so Nessus – considered mad by his people – rounds up his team and they head to the Ringworld to explore it. Landing there, they are awed by the sheer scope of the project, and encounter many wondrous and dangerous things and creatures in their adventures.

What I like about this novel which I don’t like in, say, Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, is that Niven doesn’t go for the cheap thrill of Things We Don’t Understand: Everything on the Ringworld makes sense, even if it takes a little while to figure out, and it never feels forced or contrived: It all follows from the basic sense of wonder of a giant engineering feat which has somehow been left alone for millennia, and whose builders are absent.

The really unusual thing about the book is that the outcome of the story ultimately isn’t about the Ringworld: It’s about the evolution of humanity and the role these individuals and their species have played in it. The Ringworld is just a backdrop against which this drama plays out. It’s all a little improbable (which is sort of the point), and I don’t entirely buy the “perpetual deus ex machina” approach that underlies the direction Niven sends his universe, but it does make for a thought-provoking read.

Ringworld does fall prey to the “lots of walking around” pitfall of such stories: The characters spend a lot of time just flying about and seeing things and having brief, fairly disconnected encounters with people and things on the world. Consequently, the story bogs down from time to time. On the bright side, it’s not one of the extra-long novels which pepper bookshelves today, so it’s not hard to power through the tedious stuff and get back to the good stuff.

Although in some ways the book feels a little musty today – in that it doesn’t anticipate modern hard SF staples such as cyberspace or nanotechnology – so much of what it popularized is still with us and still influencing SF: Ramjets and slower-than-light travel, the varied races of Known Space, the evolution of humanity and the consequent singularity (even if Niven’s singularity is very different from Vinge’s). Niven’s narrative strength in delivering a sense of wonder still holds up more often than not, and really, in a world where Star Trek is among the best-known forms of science fiction, Known Space still feels cutting-edge.

For those reasons, it’s still a little amazing to me that I never read the book cover-to-cover until today. It’s must reading for any fan or student of science fiction.

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