Cav's Place

The first stories are reasonably funny while obviously pointing out and criticizing certain character traits and behaviors. Later ones become more serious, with deeper character and social commentary presented more directly. Those taking place after the character’s return to Bulgaria continue this trend, the author harshly lashing out against the politics and the press of the time. As for the brief ones added at the end, written after the others were first gathered in one book, they’re something of a mix of these categories, squeezed in a few pages each.
As this was written in the late 1800s, by a Bulgarian and for and about Bulgarians, the specifics obviously reflect this. However, taken generally, the negative traits, behaviors, attitudes and ways in which things work, or don’t work, are sadly still very much present in many people and many parts of the world. Of course, the author often exaggerates, but that’s a characteristic of this style of writing.
Do need to make a note that the edition I read was translated and published in 1964, so under Communism, and includes a foreword that’s quite a lengthy propaganda piece, stressing how readers should take the stories as supporting certain ideologies and opposing others despite stating repeatedly that the author himself understood little about such matters. As such, on top of what’d normally be expected to get lost in translation, wonder how much else was censored or intentionally changed. But it was just a little book I wouldn’t normally care about which I picked up while going through and sorting boxes of old books to give away, so I’m not going to care too much if it may not have reflected the source material as accurately as it should have. Not going to give much thought to the rating either.

Rating: 3/5

The boxes of books sorted last week ended up in my room after I told dad I wanted to have another look through them, which look actually resulted in me picking one up to read. Satire, small and the original not being in English to say I won’t take a translation for that reason, so it seemed like something suitable to just go through while I dig through the rest and make my own lists to match with dad’s. And I just finished that earlier this evening, leaving him now to look through the differences and say whether some initially listed by him were set aside for some reason or simply misplaced and whether the fact that his initial lists don’t include some I do have here is because he wanted to keep them or it was simply a slip the first time.
Still, having six boxes of books in my room right now, and having dug through them to sort and make lists, does bring back memories of the time when me and Andra could barely make our way past all the books and boxes while managing that book club and getting the books into and out of the boxes was usually my job. Of course, that’s where any similarities end, and calling such mental links bittersweet may be painting them in too bright colors, but it is something, at least. Do wonder how long they’ll stay here though, since there seems to be little point in moving them again before we’ll actually get rid of them by donating if we’ll find a suitable place to donate to, maybe selling a few more, and recycling the rest.

Also somehow got myself to submit some more critic scores on MobyGames these days, since I’m failing all the small goals I did tentatively set for myself on there for this year. Since the top goal was at least 2000 critic scores, with a secondary one of at least 1000 points from all sources while counting less than 250 from electronic covers, then going through a few more until the last one was at least not getting less points than in any year since 2011, which would mean a minimum of 818 points from all sources, I’ll still fail all of them, seeing that I currently have 566 points and 387 of them are from electronic covers, but at least I’ll get a little bit closer to that last one I guess.

But it’s getting late and, while I keep having the feeling that I forgot something, I really should post this to at least have something here this week. Just want to add that I ran twice this week, Monday and today, when it was sunny and there was little wind, though the temperature wasn’t much above freezing. There were actually a few patches of ice to avoid on Monday, when water that ended up on the path around the lake had frozen, but today that wasn’t an issue anymore either, and I also was much better prepared to run with more clothes on me, knowing how to make sure the jacket tied around my waist won’t slip again and require me to untie it and tie it back on while running, taking gloves so I won’t have to keep trying to get my hands in my sleeves, and wearing the stopwatch over my clothes so I won’t have to dig it up from under them at the end of each sector. Also kept the hood off, as having it on made for an odd running position and something may have pressed a little against my neck as well on Monday, and did all of my tiny daily exercise routine before leaving as a way to warm up, while Monday I did one last part of it right there in the park before running, between some dried bushes. Do feel it was somewhat warmer today though, since I sweated a lot.
All of that translated in a huge difference in time, or more exactly in getting back to a normal time today, while Monday’s time was dreadful. Specifically, today it was 34:48, with sector times of 4:29, 5:16, 5:59, 4:38, 5:12, 6:05 and 3:09, making for lap times of 15:44 and 15:55. Monday, on the other hand, I only managed 36:46, with sector times of 4:51, 5:36, 6:22, 4:54, 5:37, 6:28 and 2:58, making for lap times of 16:49 and 16:59. Despite the good final sector, the rest was completely embarrassing, two minutes slower than a normal time and covering the two laps in exactly the amount of time that’s the record for completing this route, and also 11 seconds slower than the first clear time I have for two laps, though I was probably a little bit slower over that distance the two previous times I covered it on the way to ten kilometers. Even considering the conditions and the issues I had, that was just awful.

At least I’m not leaving this for the last day of the year, like I did last year. Was saying then that I’ll try to either write three regular posts or two bigger ones in this series in 2016, so there will be 15 bands in total, but that’s definitely not happening. However, after stumbling into a new one after making the initial selection for this post last night and then also remembering another one I was quite stuck on earlier this year yet didn’t include in the previous post, I’m trying to squeeze seven instead of five in this one, so there will at least be 12 bands included in such posts this year.

The new band I stumbled into last night is Crystal Gates, so I’m starting with it. Little choice in what to share, but The Soul of Rain and Wild Sons of the Earth are on the official YouTube channel and I definitely have no problem using them as the two picks. Didn’t look for anything else and really don’t know anything more about them, so little to say other than that, except that they seem to be the first band from Uruguay that I happened to stumble into and find interesting.

The band I initially meant to start this post with was DragonHarp, which was the last one added to the list before Crystal Gates. Despite their advertised use of the harp, I’d say it sounds pretty much like what you’d expect, or at least like what I’d expect, from Italian power metal, the fact that it’s female-fronted and also the obvious accent reminding me more specifically of Ancient Bards, so something I passed on at other times, but I added this one to the list and now I’m adding it here as well. You can just listen to their EP if you want, but to stick to the usual rule of two picks, let’s say the title song, Let the Dragon Fly, and Ironfield.

And then there’s Stonelight, which is the Romanian band I meant to start with when I first seriously intended to write this ninth post from this series, over a month ago. From what I know, it’s formed of the main members of Fortress of Faith, who took a break of a few years and then returned alongside a few others as Stonelight back in 2013, before launching their first album last month. And around that time I found myself quite stuck on Insanity, which they also made a video for, so that’s clearly the first pick. The second’s harder, but how about the one that at this particular moment is not also on their official YouTube channel, namely The Fallen?

Speaking of recent releases, Daedric Tales should have released Cult of Ashes on December 12, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Either way, it’s rather unexpected to see a band named after and completely inspired by The Elder Scrolls existing for quite a number of years already and seeming to become more solid as time passes, seeing as they plan to release a full album in February. That series definitely provides a whole lot of material to use though, and they sound interesting enough, so you could listen to the title song of this EP which should have been released this week. And to also add something older, guess I’ll go with The Dragonborn as second pick.

The band I was saying I was rather stuck on at some point earlier this year is Circle Unbroken. More specifically, I was really stuck on their first song, Portrait, so if you can listen to a single song from this post, I’d recommend this one. That may have changed if I could have found the studio version of City Lost, but since I couldn’t I’ll leave that recommendation as it is and add this one as well by doing something I usually avoid, and that’s link to a live recording of it as my second pick. Good sound, good voice, definitely a band to keep eyes, and ears, on.

Next is an older band that’s of a somewhat different genre and not female-fronted either, but I saw the name on the poster for a festival from here a while back, found myself looking them up and finding some interesting songs, so on the list they went and now here they are. I’m talking of The Foreshadowing and I must say I didn’t listen to that many of their songs yet, but out of what I did listen to, let’s go with the older Death Is Our Freedom and the new Two Horizons.

The last band I’ll add here is Wishmasters, which I noticed was still on my list though I should have removed it when it rather accidentally “graduated” off it quite some time ago, so said might as well even though they released no new material that I’m aware of for the past couple of years. As the name suggests, they started as a tribute band, but then decided to grow past that level and they have what it takes for it, though the spoken parts they included in some songs are dreadful. Other than that, quite like most songs, but I’m limited in what I can find to share, so let’s go with Sanctuary and Back to London.

Once again, this took a while, even if I had it mostly planned since last night. But I could post it with hours to spare and it did include seven instead of the usual five bands, so it’s definitely good enough. Obviously, there will be no other such post before the end of the year, but I’ll once again say I’m hoping to add either three regular ones or two long ones, for a total of 15 bands, in 2017. My lists will obviously grow with far more than that anyway, and in plenty of cases it’s quite a pity to discover good bands, maybe even get stuck on some for a few days or even a week, then move on to something else and pretty much forget all about them without even pointing them out to others in this small way.

Actual work was finally done on that broken tooth this week, with me choosing the most conservative option. That means a first step with no guarantees on Monday, when she treated the root canals as if they’d be normal when the seriously bent one is pierced, which I’m told means it’s more and more likely to result in an infection as time passes even if it was likely pierced way back in 2007 and has been fine so far, the immune system weakening with age. And then the second step, yesterday, was trying to partially reconstruct it, though it’s smaller than it should be on the side that broke off and I have also been told that won’t last long if used normally, what little is left of the tooth being likely to break as well and the stuff added there not having much to hold on to.
There is of course a longer story about it, but since I didn’t write it so far, I’m guessing I probably won’t write it at all, so now I’ll just add that there is a part three coming and that’s the crown meant to protect what’s there and make it last longer. Can’t be done now, since they’ll go on vacation, but I already have an appointment for January and we’ll see how that will go. Unfortunately, it means that next to nothing will be left of the actual tooth except the roots, and also that a scary operation is in the future if I’ll want to keep the crown after that root will act up in the way I was told. While the others didn’t recommend it, this doctor as well as the expert they sent me to earlier did say that root can be cut away on its own, the tooth then being fixed in the other two, which would avoid that operation, but doing so after the crown is in place would mean replacing that as well and even more expenses, when this cost a whole lot already and there’s more coming and I’ve been putting off pretty much any purchase for the entire year and then some.
There is one more thing that worries me though, and that’s the amount of x-rays done for this, especially since there are those lumps I have in the throat and jaw area since I was little and, despite the low doses of radiation used for dental x-rays, blasting them like this is not a good idea. I mean, there were a total of nine done, unless I’m forgetting a repeat and there were actually ten. There was the one done when I first went after the tooth broke, then two when I was sent to their expert, since the first one didn’t come out right, then one more done when I went back to them after that, since he neither gave me nor sent them a copy of the one he made, then three at the specialized dental imaging center when this dentist who actually did the work now requested something that would show her the roots from three angles, and then two more before yesterday’s appointment, since the dentist asked for one more to check her work but for some reason it couldn’t be done at the clinic here then, so she said it’ll be done before this following appointment but I decided to go back to the imaging center for it instead, since they’re done way better there and I can understand much more myself, yet they needed to do it twice as well.

Otherwise, after yesterday’s appointment I took the recyclables out and then meant to also drop off the used batteries that had piled up as well at the hypermarket that offers a new one for every five you drop off, but while I was quite sure the campaign lasted until the end of the year, I couldn’t see the sign there anymore and nobody else who was in that area seemed to have batteries, so I turned around despite having actually gone back there for that, as I had somehow “managed” to forget to do this both before and after going in to check some prices, before going to check them at the other one nearby. Didn’t buy anything, since one thing advertised by the second one in their catalog wasn’t actually available, the second had a best before date that didn’t allow me to add to the stock I already have and the third thing I was looking for was more expensive than I cared to pay for it in both places.
What I did after that was more interesting though. Some time ago, dad put nearly all the old books, plus some other things, in boxes and started looking into giving them away after putting others in the bookshelves left in the living room and moving those he had put on the balcony to make room for other things. But making a list and sending it to a used book store resulted in too few being accepted and for next to nothing, so he asked me to let him know if I see any events that call for people to donate books to schools or something similar, yet when I did stumble into something he didn’t seem to do much, one obvious problem being that the books were simply piled into boxes without being sorted in any way, and he didn’t have time to try to sort. Not that putting things in order is something he’s exactly keen on anyway.
So the matter came up while we were waiting at the dentist yesterday and I said I’ll sort them. I mean, it’s putting things in order, it’s books, and it reminds me of something I was doing while still with Andra. So after coming back from the failed trip, I brought everything inside from the balcony and spent the next four hours or so separating the books like he said, into Romanian fiction, foreign fiction and everything else. Also added the few poetry books to the fiction stacks, and then most of those I had set aside for being memoirs, biographies or travel stories and therefore not fiction but also not the sort of stuff going in the third pile eventually went there as well, after I asked for advice. Then also made sure that all volumes of books that were split in such a manner ended up in the same place, same for the few duplicates, and also sorted those that were part of collections together and I think I managed not to split any such connection in two different boxes, though I’m not entirely certain anymore. The third pile was harder, but I could come up with a few other categories that most of them could be sorted into and left three mixed stacks for dad to sort out later.
Now the plan is to try to donate the fiction to the high school he went to, seeing what they’ll take, keep a few more notable titles from the third pile, maybe try again to sell a few others which may actually generate some interest to some other used book store, and throw away old manuals, maybe also the books that are too damaged to be accepted, and probably anything else he’ll be left with when the rest will be all done. However, while I didn’t normally think there was anything there that I may have any interest in and hadn’t already read long ago, I spotted a book I did consider reading and never knew we had among those sold to that store and now that I know they’ll be gone I have this urge to set aside a number of them even if it’s no longer a case of not knowing we had them. And since they’re probably among those that will at least be accepted by someone quite readily, it’s a rather unpleasant feeling.

But let me move on now, or more exactly go back a day, since Wednesday I rebooted after installing the security update and that moment marked the end of 35 days, six hours and three minutes of uptime for my computer. When the uptime record reached 35 days back in June, I thought it couldn’t get any better, but with five weeks between Windows updates again, nothing actually requiring a reboot in between, and after having installed the updates and rebooted early, around noon, last month, now I could stretch that a few hours more. The screenshot I have lists 35 days, six hours, two minutes and 15 seconds, but this time I know it got to three minutes, and likely closer to three and a half, before the system actually rebooted.

Since the days when the weather seemed to allow it somewhat better were just Monday and Thursday but the appointments meant I’d have needed to go too early to do so before and jostling what was put in there around so much right after the work was done definitely didn’t seem like a good idea, I didn’t run this week. However, I ran Sunday, before going to vote, and despite needing to pick my way through the crowd I wasn’t far from managing to stay under 35 minutes, the total time being 35:06, with sector times of 4:36, 5:19, 6:04, 4:43, 5:11, 6:08 and 3:05, making for lap times of 15:59 and 16:02. I pushed as hard as I could when there was room to do so, was always thinking how to lose the least amount of time while making my way past people and had hope even at the start of the final sector, where I needed 2:58, but there was just no way to manage that. While that doesn’t account for all those seven seconds, there was even a moment when a full wall of people formed in front of me and I had to stop and really squeeze sideways between a person and a table set in front of a stall.

This is a big book, but if I managed to still sort of stay within what I consider the limits of a “quick review” for A Dance with Dragons, I thought I’ll manage it for Blessings of a Curse as well, with the plan after reading the first few chapters being to have three paragraphs to briefly summarize the good, the bad and the ugly. However, after that first part things changed and I realized there’s a lot more to say and no way to squeeze even a pretty simple list into a review no longer than that one. So here we are.

What I must begin with is that this book presents a huge fantasy world, Kellaran having close to three and a half times the circumference of Earth, multiple very different continents and areas, and being home to about a dozen sentient, or intelligent, races without counting the Hidden ones, some of those races also being separated not only in multiple nations but even in “races” in the sense people currently understand the term in the “real world” when referring to each other. The diversity is stunning and the level of detail even more so, the author being very focused on precise measurements, on top of shapes, colors and the other more common details. In addition, there is information about the history of the world even on a geological scale, the multiple types of magic and, as a result, of magic users, and the various systems according to which life is organized and functions.
Obviously, this last part also includes politics, economics, laws, social norms, customs, traditions and religious concepts, but while all of these also help paint an even more accurate picture of Kellaran, they no longer refer only to it. Whether it’s a matter of detailing how things currently are, how they were at some point in the past or how they should change in the future, it’s perfectly clear that the author makes use of Blessings of a Curse in order to present his views of how our world should be, what the current major problems are and the solutions he proposes for them. And I must say that, while what for me are by far the top issues don’t receive sufficient attention here and when they do I may disagree, or at least not quite agree, with the approach and conclusions, what is included deserves serious consideration and, though some ideas and details are troubling, it would be a significant improvement if much of it would be applied with only relatively minor changes.

Sadly, the story is not only clearly just an excuse to present these ideas, but also poor in itself. Despite the world’s outstanding potential, what you get are a series of clichés and extraordinary events that are too outrageous even for epic fantasy yet have pretty much no weight or impact. Now I keep saying I much prefer quality over originality, but there is all too little quality here, the developments often simply don’t work together and the whole is not only mere wrapping for all the details about Kellaran and the author’s ideas about our world, but evidence of too little thought spared for it. While some story was obviously necessary, since I wouldn’t have started reading something that didn’t have one, once I did I found that it actually harmed, at times making it difficult to offer the details and concepts presented the attention they deserved when the story and even the choice of words kept offering evidence of such a terribly immature approach, and that may be putting it mildly.
Actually, I’ll go past immature now that I’m moving on to the characters, whose behavior is often childish or simply senseless. They don’t react in any way which would be even remotely realistic, they keep laughing, smiling, grinning, giggling, chuckling, chortling and so on almost whenever they speak regardless of the topic or situation, they seem to just sort of occasionally remember to act affected by the extraordinary and tragic events happening around them but immediately snap back to something else… And let’s not even get to how sex factors into this because there will be a separate section just for this later. Much of the time, in most cases, it’s like they’re some strange children who hold a wealth of knowledge about the world and have spent much time giving serious thought to advanced concepts, but who are otherwise defined by their overactive libidos and their inability to actually comprehend human emotions despite believing that they experience some.
To add insult to injury, it’s obvious that the author isn’t a writer, in the sense of a person who has the talent and abilities required for writing as an artistic endeavor. All those details and concepts are presented in information dump after information dump, characters either answering questions which are obviously only an excuse to fit the dump in or doing without even that excuse and launching themselves in long speeches directly. Even when it comes to actual action and events, there’s a whole lot of telling and very little showing, many scenes being mainly presented as plans made before or reports offered after the fact, while others feel like news read by a highly professional and efficient reporter with no involvement in the matter. There are a lot of numbers and hard facts and these, such as for example simply stating that a character is tens of millions of years old or that billions took part in a battle and hundreds of millions were slaughtered in a fraction of a second by a single spell, are used in what I guess is an attempt to get a rational reaction from the reader, instead of events being presented in a way that’d result in some emotional involvement and response. Now these inner workings may seem familiar to me, since my mind also tends to switch between playing with numbers and more or less abstract concepts while having great difficulty putting any of it into words in any passable way, but here there’s no attempt to hide them, the author instead letting these “guts” get spilled all over.

But that’s not the ugly part. The ugly and troubling part starts with the sex, and I’m not talking about how sexual and promiscuous the characters are, and definitely not about the arguments against monogamy and in favor of polyamorous relationships and being more open towards sexuality, which I generally agree with and to a certain extent often make myself as well. What I am talking about first and foremost is how much the size difference between the main character and his partners is emphasized and how they behave perhaps even more like children, and how he treats them as such in various ways. Now I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but with how much this book seems to say about its author, I really wouldn’t want him around any little girls… And women in general may wish to be wary as well, the way the concept of rape is approached being likely to trouble even submissive masochists who wouldn’t be bothered by the emphasis on rough sex and BDSM. Must admit that one character has a commendable speech in favor of making these latter concepts a part of one’s sex life though.
Still, while the first part of the book seems to be used to a fair extent as a way for the author to explore certain quite troubling sexual fantasies, after a while he seems to have mostly gotten that out of his system. Sadly, this only means replacing one type of ugly with another, even if one likely much easier to stomach. Now I’m not necessarily talking about how the main character, who’s quite obviously the author’s alter ego, is so apparently perfect and proves to have such immense powers and such an amazing mind and the best solution to pretty much every problem that comes up. What I am talking about is how said character sees himself and how others see him, how he ends up obeyed and pretty much worshipped by everyone despite claiming and even always being told by others that he’s far too modest and supposedly having no interest in ruling and stressing that he does not do so. And I am also talking about the methods used by those supposedly on the side of good, which to me, once they get past a certain point, seem worse than those used by the other side.

Overall, Blessings of a Curse can be seen as a guide or a manual for a huge and stunningly diverse fantasy world described in incredible detail and in which quite a number of writers could probably spend their entire lives placing stories, coupled with a nonfiction book presenting the author’s views about the “real world” and the changes he proposes, which generally deserve serious consideration and in plenty of cases represent good solutions to real problems. The story and characters, on the other hand, are a mere wrapping around those details and concepts, and so poorly written and developed and revealing such immaturity and lack of thought that they may make it difficult to pay proper attention to the matters that deserve it. Worse, at least the first part explores sexual fantasies that appear to be for, shall we say, the author’s personal use and which are disturbing to read regardless of the reasons why they were included, while later it exposes a quite terrifying and worsening God complex and some troubling ideas about what would be acceptable or even desirable on the part of those who are supposedly on the side of good.

Rating: 3/5