Title: Planet of Twilight

Author: Barbara Hambly

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Bantam Spectra

Copyright: 1997

ISBN: 0553575171

Pages: 389

Keywords: science fiction

Reading period: 31 May–2 June, 2009

The Chief of State of the New Republic, Leia Solo, is kidnapped and taken to the remote, barren planet of Nam Chorios, whence the lethal Death Seed plague has been released across the sector. Luke made his own way there, seeking his lost girlfriend, Callista. Han and Chewie, Threepio and Artoo are separately trying to rescue Leia.

Your first reaction on seeing a Star Wars novel might be to sneer, as mine was. But I knew Barbara Hambly to be a competent writer of fantasies, science fiction, and mysteries, and she does good work here in the Star Wars universe. Leia and Luke have their own separate moral struggles with the Force. She fears studying to become a Jedi Knight, knowing the seductive temptations that brought Darth Vader low. Luke is an adept, but every time he uses the Force on Nam Chorios, huge storms run amok, killing innocents.

I just posted this message to Frank's favorite newsgroups, soc.motss and rec.arts.movies.past-films.

Frank Maloney was a longtime regular in this newsgroup. After a long illness, he died on January 6th, 2009 at his home.

Some of Frank's friends are helping Lyndol, his partner of more than 30 years, to put together a memorial for Frank. It'll be held near Seattle on the afternoon of July 5th.

Frank was a published poet and we'll be reading some of his poems. But he also spent more than 20 years participating in newsgroups, posted thousands of articles, and made many online friends. It seems fitting for us to read some of his voluminous output.

We'd like your help. If you saved some of Frank's old posts that you found memorable -- touching, witty, erudite, insightful, or even infuriating -- please repost them here or email them to me. If you have some memories of Frank in your own words, we'd like to hear them too.

If you'd like to attend the memorial, let me know. This thread will serve as the online counterpart.

(Posted separately to soc.motss and rec.arts.movies.past-films)

Title: Dance with Death

Author: Barbara Nadel

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Headline Review

Copyright: 2006

ISBN: 0755321308

Pages: 366

Keywords: mystery, Turkey

Reading period: 29–30 May, 2009

Inspector Çetin İkmen is called to a remote village in Cappadocia when a 20-year-old mummified body is found. The case is tearing the village apart. Back in İstanbul, Inspector Mehmet Süleyman investigates an increasingly violent series of male-on-male rapes.

Nadel clearly knows Turkey well, bringing to life characters from different social classes without patronizing them, showing Turkey in its complexity. The story was well crafted, weaving the two strands together to highlight tension. Pace a pet peeve of mine, the two cases did not suddenly, magically become related by the end of the book. The Agatha Christiesque denouement of İkmen's case was a bit much, though.

Other people must think I'm a grown up or something. I've been invited to a couple of dinner auctions in the last year. We were invited to one for Choral Arts tonight by one of the primary organizers. Emma was feeling unwell, so I went by myself.

I flat out made a donation and bought some raffle tickets. I also won two modest items in the auction, tickets for Arts West and five voice lessons.

I have little natural aptitude for music. I found it difficult to keep time on a triangle in the class “orchestra” when I was a kid. Songs and music don't stick in my head. I might—might—recognize a piece, but I can't summon it up. Most of all, I have a big hangup about singing. When I was twelve, I was told that I shouldn't sing with the class and I've hardly sung since.

My brother David is a professional actor who has concentrated on singing in the last year. I've meant to take singing lessons for some time. If David can learn to sing, I can learn to croak.

Title: Old Man's War

Author: John Scalzi

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Tor

Copyright: 2005

ISBN: 0765348276

Pages: 314

Keywords: science fiction

Reading period: 28 May, 2009

For his seventy-fifth birthday, John Perry visits his wife's grave and enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces. The CDF remake him and his peers into supersoldiers with decades of experience in enhanced bodies. Their mission is to protect the human colonies and to take new worlds. It's an alien-eat-alien multiverse (sometimes literally) and the habitable planets are much contested.

Scalzi owes a debt to Robert A. Heinlein (acknowledged at the end of the book). The wise old man, the citizen soldier, enduring love, youth regained—some of RAH's favorite topics. Too, it owes not a little to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War: disillusionment, soldiers as pawns.

Recommended.

Title: Good Morning, Irene

Author: Carole Nelson Douglas

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Tor

Copyright: 1990

ISBN: 0812509498

Pages: 374

Keywords: mystery, historical

Reading period: 26–28 May, 2009

An Irene Adler book; earlier than Spider Dance.

Suicidal sailors with ornate tattoos, an odd sealing wax, and lost treasure. All these lead Irene, her husband Godfrey Norton, and Nell Huxleigh to Monte Carlo. Irene, with a little help from Sarah Bernhardt and the Crown Prince's betrothed, takes Monaco by storm. Sherlock Holmes finds part of the trail, but completely misses the bigger case.

Fluff, but entertaining fluff.

Title: The Treatment

Author: Mo Hayder

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Dell

Copyright: 2001

ISBN: 0440236177

Pages: 405

Keywords: crime

Reading period: 24–25 May, 2009

A paedophile chained up an eight-year-old boy's parents, then took the boy and killed him. DI Jack Caffery finds the case particularly stressful: his brother was abducted and never found when they were boys. His girlfriend is falling apart too.

Part thriller, part psychological study, part police procedural. Hayder ratchets up the tension as the internal and external pressures on Caffery grow.

Recommended.

The California Supreme Court handed down their decision about Proposition 8 today: they're letting it stand. No new gay marriages, though the 18,000 same-sex marriages that were enacted last year remain valid.

It's a setback to be sure. The silver lining is that the gay community has been fired up since Proposition 8 passed in November.

There's a small but real danger that Referendum 71 will make it on to the ballot here in Washington state. It would roll back the everything-but-marriage domestic partnership law that passed recently.

Title: Terribly Happy (Frygtelig Lykkelig)

Director: Henrik Ruben Genz

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Copyright: 2008

I saw Terribly Happy at SIFF tonight.

Robert is a Copenhagen cop, demoted to a remote village in the bleak bogs of Jutland. The locals are clannish and do things their own way. Robert quickly finds himself coming between the man-hungry Ingerlise and her abusive husband Jørgen. She complains about Jørgen, but won't swear out a formal report. Robert is unwillingly drawn to her.

Billed as a “blackly comic thriller”, it's more of a psychological drama. Robert's unsmiling face carries the film.

Of all the major American holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day are the most divorced from their ostensible meanings. To most people—myself included—they are little more than the brackets of summer, three-day weekends of barbecues and sun.

Memorial Day commemorates U.S. men and women who died in military service. I don't think I know anyone who actually observes that, including Emma, a USAF veteran. If I knew some military families, I might think otherwise.

Veterans Day (November 11th) honors all veterans, peacetime or wartime, living or dead. Few adults get Veterans Day off, so it's poorly observed.

Labor Day originated as a parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations”. That meaning is long gone for most people.

Title: The Last Light of the Sun

Author: Guy Gavriel Kay

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Copyright: 2004

ISBN: 0451459857

Pages: 499

Keywords: fantasy

Reading period: 18–22 May, 2009

The Last Light of the Sun takes place in the Dark Ages of a parallel world. The Erlings (Vikings) raid the Cyngael (Welsh) and Anglcyn (Anglo-Saxon). A young Erling flees indentured servitude and becomes a raider, following in the footsteps of his estranged father. A Cyngael prince dies in an Erling raid and is taken by the Queen of the Fairies; his brother is drawn to another fairy; he will enter into a reluctant compact with the Anglcyn when they are raided by the Erling.

Kay is an elegant and subtle writer. The principal characters are well-drawn and complex, struggling with their intersecting destinies.

Highly recommended.

Nine years ago, the Ryan Commission was set up to produce a report on physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children in Catholic Church–run reformatories in Ireland. This week, they released a 2600-page report detailing abuse to tens of thousands of children from the 1930s to the 1990s. The abuse and violence were systemic and institutionalized, if not universal, and they were hushed up and overlooked for decades. The stories of the abused, in their own words, make for horrifying reading. It's a national disgrace.

The Christian Brothers come off the worst of the many religious orders who are implicated. Even in their day schools, they long had a reputation as brutal and thuggish. Most of the religious orders are still trying to evade responsibility and show little appetite for serious reform.

By no means every priest, nun, or brother was a paedophile or a sadist, but there were so many of them for so long with so little done to stop them, that it's clear that there's something rotten in the Catholic Church. Part of it is surely the chastity requirement—the Protestant churches have fewer paedophiles.

Fie on them.

I updated the Win64 binaries of Vim at vim-win3264 from Vim 7.2.000 to 7.2.182.

I'm amazed that the original binaries were downloaded over 11,000 times since last August.

I initially learned to drive on the left in Ireland, but have spent the last 20 years driving on the right in the States. I personally never had any difficulty switching from one side to the other—except when extremely jetlagged—but I know several people who find it enormously stressful. I find it easy enough to orient myself so that the lane divider is at the correct position.

When I was a kid, my father often brought his Irish car over to mainland Europe on the car ferries. A right-hand drive car driving on the right is doubly tricky. It didn't seem to bother him too much, but I don't think my mother ever tried it. I've never had the opportunity to try it myself.

For many years, I ignored the freeway sign for the Rhododendron Garden at exit 143 on I-5. Five or six years ago, I visited the Rhody Garden and I've gone back every spring since.

It's worth visiting at any time of year, but from March to May or June, it's in bloom. Twenty-two acres of rhododendrons, azaleas, ferns, and other flowers, near the Weyerhauser headquarters in Federal Way, Washington. There's a bonsai garden next door—unfortunately now closed to the public. As you stroll along the shaded hilly paths, you can almost make believe that the constant traffic noise from the nearby freeway is running water.

Rhodies come in all shapes, colors, and sizes, from low bushes to 30-foot trees. They are native to North America, Europe, and Asia, and thrive in the Pacific Northwest.

Emma and I brought Lyn there last Saturday. It was surprisingly empty for such a fine day, though they said they had been overrun the previous weekend for Mother's Day.

I put the best photos up at Flickr. Enjoy!

Title: The Circle

Author: Peter Lovesey

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Soho Crime

Copyright: 2005

ISBN: 156947432X

Pages: 358

Keywords: mystery

Reading period: 17–18 May, 2009

A conman publisher visits a writing circle in Chichester and gets their hopes up. Soon, he is burned to death in his cottage. Other arson-murders follow.

In the first half of the book, the story is primarily told from the viewpoint of the newest member of the writers' circle, Bob Naylor, who starts investigating, egged on by some of the others. In the second half, it becomes a police procedural, as seen by Detective Chief Inspector Henrietta Mallin, who takes over the case.

The Circle is a whodunnit in the classic vein, with interfering amateur detectives and a large cast of suspects. The characters are well-drawn, often quirky, and quite distinct. It's more real than, say, Agatha Christie's mysteries: people do get hurt; it's not just a game.

I mentioned CrossLoop before, as a tool for remotely helping someone out. It uses VNC to share desktops.

The last time I looked, it was Windows only. Now there's a Mac client too.

I had to use it to help my father out in Dublin. Somehow he had managed to delete both Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash—I haven't figured out how.

It was painful, painful, painful. The connection was dropped repeatedly and the link couldn't begin to keep up with the amount of graphical data being transferred. Even though CrossLoop reduces the color depth, actions like switching tabs in Firefox cause huge amounts of data to be sent. I couldn't tell why the connection was being dropped. There are so many places where things could go wrong: my client, my connection, the CrossLoop server, his connection, his client, some random router.

All in all, it took about 90 minutes, but it would likely have been even longer and more confusing without a shared desktop.