Well, that was fun.

For those of you who read the Forums, you know that I have spent more than two months since my last update trying to get my computer working. Basically, my boot drive was failing. It was probably a mechanical problem at heart, but it had corrupted key system files and was seriously degrading the performance of the machine. My plan was simple: Replace this aging 40 gb system drive with a new 80 gb drive, perform a completely fresh installation of Windows, and give my system a fresh start.

Needless to say, it wasn’t that simple. I replaced the drive, did a clean install of Windows 2000, and got the system to boot up… once. The next time I tried to boot up, I got a blank, empty screen where Windows 2000 should have been loading. So I tried reinstalling Windows. That didn’t work. So I went back to my old 40 gb. That had a different problem, but it wasn’t working now either.

And thus began the two month odyssey of computer repair. By the time it was done, I had replaced the hard drive, the power supply, the case, the CPU, the motherboard, the CPU again, the floppy disk drive, and the sound card. We also replaced the video card, only to conclude that the problem was not the video card, it was the AGP slot on the new motherboard… so we replaced the motherboard again and went back to the original video card. So, instead of replacing a single hard drive, I ended up essentially replacing the entire computer…. one component at a time.

On the positive side of the ledger, my (essentially) new computer is vastly superior to my old computer in almost every way. On the negative side, most of my creative work (including all the original files for this website) were stranded on hard drives which were essentially inaccessible to me between August 14th and October 18th. I was reduced to using a 2000 Thinkpad lacking not only the software but most of the actual projects I wanted and needed to work on. This would not have been an insurmountable problem, except that it always seemed as if my main computer was only “a few days” away from being fixed up, so it never made sense to invest the two or three days of effort needed to rig my aging laptop into something more functional.

So, if you’ve been reading the Forums, now you know the rest of the story (as Paul would say).

And if you aren’t reading the Forums,, you should start. You can get there from any of the “Comment? Click Here.” links scattered around the blog pages. Post something. Tell me how wonderful I am.

[[ The Forums were later removed from the site due to spam problems. ]]

I’ve finally finished polishing up the Outline for a Standard of Education. It’s too large to post comfortably here on the home page, but you can follow the link. It’s also accessible from the Politics page, of course.

I’m probably not going to finish the critique and analysis of the No Child Left Behind program I mentioned back on July 20th. I’ve got some thoughts on this subject, but I think they’re probably going to end up part of another project.

(EDIT: Now that the site is hosted on WordPress, I’ll just hide it behind this convenient “Read More” tag here.)

Read more »

THE TOP 10

1. The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
2. The Hour of the Dragon / Conan Series (Robert E. Howard)
3. Small Gods (Terry Pratchett)
4. A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin) (preliminarily)
5. Deadhouse Gates (Steven Erikson)
6. Harry Potter Series (J.K. Rowling) (preliminarily)
7. Good Omens (Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman)
8. First Chronicles of Amber (Roger Zelazny)
9. Elric Series (Michael Moorcock)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser Series (Fritz Leiber)
Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)
Dragonflight (Anne McCaffrey)
Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)
Spell for Chameleon / The Source of Magic / Castle Roogna (Piers Anthony)
War for the Oaks (Emma Bull)
The Weirdstone (Alan Garner)
Kane Series (Karl Edward Wagner)

NOVELS ALSO BY…

The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Discworld (several volumes) (Terry Pratchett)

One of the interesting results of putting together these lists last year was my discovery that, quite contrary to my own personal belief, I was far more deeply read in the field of science fiction than I was in the field of fantasy. (Hence the shorter list.)

In fact, you’ll notice that the Top 10 list only contains nine entries. That isn’t a typo. That’s because none of the Honorable Mentions I list seem to quite justify a position on that list. They aren’t quite in the same league. (To be fair, the science fiction list only had nine entries on it until late last year when Egan’s Diaspora finally filled the last spot.)

You may also note that several incomplete fantasy series have been preliminarily placed on the Top 10 list. Their placement is, of course, based solely on the books released to date, and this placement could certainly change based on future releases. (For example, I tentatively placed Michael Kube-McDowell’s Trigon Disunity trilogy on the Top 10 List of Science Fiction Novels based on the outstanding quality of the first two volumes, only to drop him back down to the Honorable Mentions list after a relatively weak conclusion.)

It is also notable that there is an inconsistency on how volumes within a series are handled. Why are Pratchett’s Small Gods and Erikson’s Deadhouse Gates singled out on the list, while J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire are grouped collectively? Why is Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon given particular note as part of the series of Conan stories?

Walt, would you like to field this one?

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

Go to Top 10 List of Science Fiction Novels

THE TOP 10

1. Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
2. Use of Weapons (Iain M. Banks)
3. Memory (Lois McMaster Bujold)
4. Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny)
5. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester)
6. Fury (Henry Kuttner / C.L. Moore)
7. A Deepness in the Sky (Vernor Vinge)
8. Cyteen (C.J. Cherryh)
9. Diaspora (Greg Egan)
10. Ender’s Game / Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)
Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
I, Robot (Harlan Ellison Screenplay)
At the Mountains of Madness (H.P. Lovecraft)
Lensmen (E.E. “Doc” Smith) (Galactic Patrol thru Children of the Lens)
Contact (Carl Sagan)
The Forge of God (Greg Bear)
Door Into Summer (Robert A. Heinlein)
Gateway (Frederick Pohl)
Dragon’s Egg (Robert Forward)
The Trigon Disunity (Michael P. Kube-McDowell)

NOVELS ALSO BY…

The Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge)
The Player of Games (Iain M. Banks)
Look to Windward (Iain M. Banks)
Mutant (Henry Kuttner / C.L. Moore)
Northwest Smith (C.L. Moore)
Robot Novels (Isaac Asimov)
I, Robot (Isaac Asimov)
The End of Eternity (Isaac Asimov)
Barrayar (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Mirror Dance (Lois McMaster Bujold)
A Civil Campaign (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Shards of Honor (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Borders of Infinity (Lois McMaster Bujold)
The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester)
Downbelow Station (C.J. Cherryh)
Merchanter Novels (C.J. Cherryh)

What do all these categories mean? Well, the Top 10 list itself should be fairly self-explanatory. The Honorable Mentions are works which just barely miss the Top 10 list for one reason or another. The list of Novels Also By is a result of self-imposed rule which limits an author to a single work on the Top 10 list. The other books listed in the Novels Also By are works by authors already appearing on the other lists which, if those slightly superior works did not exist, would themselves be considered for placement on the list.

This is not, needless to say, a precise science.

The conspicuous absence from these lists, I think, is Heinlein. In general, I think that Heinlein was at his best in his early, short fiction. (“The Green Hills of Earth” is my favorite Heinlein piece.) Of the novels I’ve read, the best two are The Door Into Summer and The Puppet Masters, and even those are flawed in fairly significant ways. Stranger in a Strange Land is mush; Starship Troopers is a short story padded with political essays; and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a novella padded with political essays. (Which isn’t quite fair to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but makes for a nice line.)

Go to Top 10 Fantasy Novels

The Misenchanted Sword is the first of Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Ethshar novels. The world is soaked in magic – one of those mid-‘80s creations of heavily D&D-influenced fantasy. The attitude can, perhaps, best be summed up by a quote from the book itself: “They wanted to believe in heroes, not ordinary, everyday magic.” (Think about it.)

The concept of the plot is a fairly clever twist on familiar themes: The main character, trapped in the middle of a generational religious war between the followers of the gods and the northern demon-worshippers, is gifted with a magic sword. Unfortunately, as the character rapidly learns, the sword’s enchantments include some rather annoying side-effects – among them the fact that the main character can’t get rid of it. (One might even say it was cursed.)

The back cover blurb on my copy of the book gives the impression that this will all result in something of a farce – like Asprin or Anthony in their prime. In reality, there’s nothing particularly funny about the book at all, and it’s rather clear that Watt-Evans never meant it to be. The story would better be described as something of a melancholic character drama.

The prose (or, perhaps more appropriately, the storytelling) can be awkward at times: There seems to be no trust that the reader will hold on to certain concepts (like the emerging nature of the sword’s enchantment), and thus the same information will be repeated incessantly.

In fact, there is a general lack of authorial confidence: Even the smallest details are given awkward justifications (as if the author were constantly fearful that someone were going to shout “gotcha!”). Every fact is repeated, and the main character goes round in circle after circle as he considers every possibility two or three times before finally taking action.

The setting also poses some problems. Ethshar is formed on the foundation of some rather intriguing and unique ideas, but the details seem to vary randomly between cleverly suggestive and puzzlingly vague.

Ultimately, the biggest problem is that the story seems to simply meander without much of a point.  On the one hand, the most interesting sequences are simply glossed over – probably because the book is meant to be a character drama, not an adventure book. On the other hand, the main character never seems to achieve that vivid depth which would make his story interesting in-and-of itself. And, on the gripping hand, the flaws in the storytelling cause the entire book to wander with wild abandon.

All in all, I found this to be a solidly mediocre book – neither exceptional nor horrendously flawed. It would be a better book if it had been ruthlessly trimmed of its repetitive elements, with the freed-up space being used to move several incidents banished to exposition into the active narrative. As it is, this isn’t a book I’ll caution you against – but it’s not a book I’d recommend, either.

I’m glad that this wasn’t my first Watt-Evans, because otherwise I might draw very different conclusions about his quality as an author. As it is, I’ll almost certainly check out the second Ethshar book at some point to see how the intriguing and cleverly suggestive elements of the setting develop in the hands of a more mature author. My next Watt-Evans, however, will probably be Crosstime Traffic.

GRADE: C

Lawrence Watt-Evans
Published: 1985
Publisher: Wildside Press
Cover Price: $14.95
ISBN: 1-587-15282-7