Cav's Place

I’ll say right away that The Emerald Gate is the best book in the series, so it’s something of a pity that it marks its end. There’s worldbuilding, there’s character development, there’s thrilling action, there are multiple viewpoints presenting events taking place simultaneously in different areas, even in different worlds, there are developments and explanations about the magic system… I also made a mental note about the realism of presenting an army stretched over a long distance while on the march from the viewpoint of a character who’s not at the lead, but far more important was the one made about some of the hard choices faced by some characters, and in particular about those who are on the side of good but nevertheless realize that the ends do justify the means and do whatever’s required for victory, no matter the costs, the brutality or the moral dilemmas. And I also found a certain element of the ending particularly pleasing.
That said, the first part of the book does seem better than what comes once the action explodes, with the first, and probably worst, major moment when terrible means are employed in order to reach the necessary ends. From that point, the action returns to the forefront, so the way the army’s advance is presented, however realistic, does seem rather odd, and I’d have preferred the skipped action scenes resulting from that choice to make way for more detailed worldbuilding and character development. And, as pretty much always, I’ll also point out all of the instances of hero’s luck as a negative aspect… And then there’s the ending as well, which once again stretches on far too long and is something of a fairy tale, starkly contrasting the bleak, brutal realism that’s the rule until then. Yes, I did find particularly appealing elements in it, and other readers may welcome just that contrast in general and feel that the characters deserved such closure, but even so, it should have at least been far more compressed, while other parts of the book should have been expanded.

Rating: 4/5

This time around, the author does put a synopsis in the beginning, which can help even though it’s rather roughly done. But the real and truly surprising difference is that the focus is now moved well away from the action, making way for the worldbuilding that was avoided in Shadow of the Knight, and also for a fair amount of character development. The action scenes that do exist remain thrilling, but there’s much more to this book, which may be enough to paint Belen in more detail than Salador was so far, and to make the characters seem at least somewhat more like actual people, beyond their skills as warriors or magic users. And I also appreciated that actual depictions of what I tend to call the typical human filth have been largely avoided enough to not mind the fact that it was done in a rather shallow manner that harms realism.
On the other hand, there are no such justifications for finding that same lack of depth when it comes to, well, pretty much everything. Belen is supposed to be so diverse, yet there are barely a few characters that can be seen as individuals, the rest being utterly generic, and the masses almost laughably so. And the contrast between hedonism and prudishness was emphasized far too much, and the same might be said, at least to some extent, about religious fervor, and quite clearly about Ayja’s ignorance when it comes to sexuality. Plus that, while there are better moments, I’d still say that too much is told rather than shown. This still leaves The Dromost Gate as the best book in the series so far, but it also raises the bar, the author seeming to finally try to make that switch from action packed heroic fantasy to actual epic fantasy that he backed away from in the previous book, but not quite managing to get there.

Rating: 3/5

This is a mess… Tomorrow we should have had the second round of the presidential election, but yesterday, after the voters living abroad had already started voting, our Constitutional Court decided to overturn its own earlier ruling, validating the results of the first round, and annul the election, turning the entire situation into a mess that’s likely to only make things worse. Not that things weren’t obviously very wrong when it came to Georgescu, and the fact that he was more dangerous than Sosoaca and actually had Russia’s solid backing should have been noticed much earlier and resulted in him being banned from running in the first place, but since that didn’t happen either before or at least immediately after the first round and those results were validated, they should have stuck to that decision for the time being and only pull the trigger on this “atomic option” if he’d have won the second round, despite all of the pro-European and pro-Western forces uniting behind Lasconi, even Ciolacu eventually releasing a statement expressing his and his party’s support. Admittedly, the fact that the Constitutional Court did this so late probably means that they had serious doubts about Lasconi winning, but I don’t think that doing this now is much better than doing it after the second round, in that scenario, and there was still the chance that it wouldn’t have had to come to it at all.
As it is, Georgescu’s supporters, and probably not only them, are now radicalized, or even more radicalized than they already were, and I for one am expecting actual riots, not just protests. Also, Russia and far right forces have reason to make harsh accusations, the political situation is up in the air, the major parties, and PSD in particular, will feel less pressured to form a national unity government against the far right, and the resulting bickering will only play into the hands of those hostile forces, both domestic and foreign. And whenever the new presidential elections will take place, we’re almost certain to end up with a second round between the two greatest evils, as in between the far right’s top candidate, whether Simion or someone else, and Ciolacu, or whoever PSD’s candidate will be. Of course, that was seen as the probable result this time as well, and yet Lasconi somehow squeezed past Ciolacu, but PSD made some mistakes that allowed for that to happen, and they won’t do that again. Not that Lasconi would in any way be suitable as president, mind you, and in fact I continue to be surprised by how woefully unprepared she is, and her stances on both economic and social matters are to be fought against, but all of that is a far lesser evil than PSD gaining the office of president as well. And, of course, this radicalization of the far right’s voters and the additional time that the hostile forces now gained makes the risk of the even greater danger, the victory of the far right’s candidate, remain very real even then, if not even increase.

In the early hours of November 23, I ate in the kitchen, since I had licked enough of some cheese which I had moved into a jar to not want to put anything on the bread anymore, so I then just ate the bread and the salad, finishing at 2:50 AM. And then I got ready for the morning, noticing that the metro card with one trip on it which I had found long ago had expired back in June, and I was relying on it, after insisting for dad to take his monthly pass, knowing that he needed it that day, though he offered to leave it for me. But I had also noticed another one there, with two trips, which he said he didn’t remember bringing, or whether he bought or found it, so I took that one as well. And I also put the regular shoes and a pair of socks in the backpack, and took the new camera as well. And I got in bed at 4:25 AM, getting up when the alarm rang, at 6 AM, and just eating some yogurt with oats and wasting some time on the toilet before leaving at 7:20 AM, wearing the old training suit, with two undershirts underneath and the hoodie over it, two pairs of socks, and that thing that goes on my neck, but the thinner jacket. My back continued to be a concern, but there was nothing to do about it at that point.
When I reached the metro station, after first trying the expired card, with the expected result, and not daring to try to ask whether I could still be allowed in anyway, I found that the one with two trips didn’t actually have any trips left, despite not having anything printed on it to indicate that it had ever been used, so I had to buy one trip. But that didn’t cause me to miss any train, and I actually reached the Victory Square station early enough to not even worry about the fact that instead of going to use the toilet before returning to the surface I walked to the other exit, thinking that I’ll find a toilet to use around the Square and actually hoping to be able to use one from some fast food or coffee shop. However, when I saw that the first ones that I passed by opened at 8 AM, I made my way to the better public toilet from the other corner of the Square, reaching it right after another guy entered and waiting for quite a while, but eventually being able to pee and wash my hands and still reach the parking lot a few minutes before 8 AM. Then I asked someone to confirm that the bus that I meant to enter was going to the tree planting event and took one of the few seats that were still available, next to a guy, the bus leaving a few minutes after 8 AM and dropping us off a little before 9:20 AM, after an uneventful trip… Though I did feel awkward right at the end, since someone else made a point of reminding us all to vote the following day and to do so against the far right and I added a few words into the exchange, but I got the feeling that my comment about the lesser evil in what was then the dreadful but probable second round between Marcel Ciolacu and George Simion was understood as referring to the latter, and I couldn’t get myself to chase after her and stress that I most definitely didn’t mean that.

With this placeholder being all I could write before midnight, the plan was to edit the post at a later time in order to add everything else… But I was yet to do that two weeks later, so I really couldn’t add more to it after such a long time, deciding to leave it as it is, a wasted personal “slot”, and put the rest in another post.

Maybe I’d have rushed to write a quick post between the sprint race and the main qualifying session, to also be able to post it before dad got back, but I ended up needing to unclog the toilet again, so I then fiddled with some more things on the new computer instead… And that’s because, yes, I’m finally using it, after switching the cases yesterday and just taking the plunge, even though I initially meant to at least get back to the old one last night, after making a sort of pizza, once again using one of those fluffy flatbreads as the base, wanting everything to be normal when I got back on-line, especially since it was 4:50 AM when I started eating that mixed lunch and dinner, which also included a slice of the cake, three more remaining in the freezer. But, as I said, I ended up just taking the plunge and staying on this one, poking around various things and even continuing to install what I’m used to having even if I’m yet to add security software, so it was 6:55 AM when I finally finished eating and 8:10 AM when I got in bed. And before that mixed lunch and dinner I had only eaten a few plums and a few biscuits after getting up, and hadn’t even brushed my teeth that day, so I only did so once, before getting in bed.
One thing that makes me need to open up the new computer again is that I accidentally connected the power LED as well, so there’s a blue light aimed at the bed. Then again, there’s a lot of disk activity, and it seems that this motherboard is making the HDD LED light up brightly as well, and those constant flashes may be more of a problem than a steady light, but I don’t want to disconnect that one as well. And last night the power LED was useful, since I had forgotten to set the computer to never go to sleep and I’d have really panicked if I’d have entered the room to find it apparently off instead of having that blinking LED to let me know what had likely happened right away.
Except that little issue, everything seems fine in terms of hardware, so I shouldn’t have had a reason to open it again until I’ll get that other NVMe SSD, assuming that I’ll stick to that decision. But one problem until then is that I only moved the SSD to this computer, meaning that I just have two drives and the data is split between them, so I don’t know how to set up the daily backup, because there isn’t much point in backing things up on the same drive. And things will get trickier if I will actually try Linux as well, since I’ll have to figure out a way to share the partition with the documents as well as the backup ones, and they’ll be on drives that are also used for some of the data that’s being backed up even when I’ll have three. But yes, that means that I’m now on Windows 10… Which also makes it a whole lot less likely that I will give Linux an honest chance, if I’ll even install it at all. But I really can’t stand how Windows 10 looks and “feels”, and the more important part which remains to be seen is how it’ll behave, so I’ll keep poking around, but it may push me to make that attempt after all, at least at some point.
One thing that I’m yet to even try is the TV tuner, since I tried to install its software yesterday but I couldn’t find the activation code, and while I found it listed after putting the old computer back together and in the other case, and then even found where I had placed the documentation as well, I didn’t try again today. And I’m also yet to connect the data cable of any UPS to this computer, or to try the new one again at all, so everything’s still plugged into the old one and its data cable is plugged into the old computer, so that one kept receiving the data when I turned it back on to check that it worked.
Speaking of the old computer, after initially trying to take everything out with the cables still connected, I had to disconnect the HDDs and even remove the back fan, and then I couldn’t remember which SATA ports the HDDs were plugged into and I ended up plugging them into different ones, so it needed to get its bearings again after I turned it back on, but I hope everything’s fine, because I mean to give it to dad but keep the existing Windows installation as it is, clearing my data and putting a password on my account, making another one for him, and I’d say also install Windows 10 alongside that Windows 7, since we purchased that second key for that purpose. But these keys may need to be activated quickly, quite some time already passed, I’d want to put it on the SSD from his old computer, and he said that he needs that one to work without having to worry about anything until at least December 14, so it remains to be seen what we’ll actually do. I could put it on the other HDD for the time being and see whether that activation key, assuming that it’d still work even now, would allow it to be reinstalled on the SSD later, or whether I could figure out how to clone that drive and move it to the SSD without reinstalling, or if not then just leave it on that noisy HDD, which will obviously also be noticeably slower than the SSD. But for now I’m turning it back on in order to post this from it, and also take what I forgot to copy on this SSD.
Then again, I’m not sure that there’s any difference between what’s there and what I had backed up the last time, and it’s actually a good thing that I kept the installed games on this SSD instead of deleting them in order to make room for the other things, because Siege of Avalon didn’t seem to work on Windows 10 at first, but after copying the saved games and siege.ini over, it now works. It’s in windowed mode and the compatibility mode is set to Windows 7, as anything else seemed to make it hang while in this case the problem seemed to be with the display, the window remaining black. It’s also set to disable fullscreen optimizations, but I’m not sure whether that helps and now that it’s working I’m not about to change anything. As for that file, I’m not entirely certain that I remembered everything correctly, but the differences between what it installs with and what I copied seem to be the “D3DVSync=1” line, which was missing, and the “[Character]” section, which contains “Resource=Player”. But, again, I’m not sure, and it is possible that a couple of the lines that come before that section were also new or changed.
Speaking of games, I also installed Bound By Flame, Lords of Xulima and Phoning Home again, and very quick tests show that they work, but there’s something definitely wrong with some colors in Bound By Flame, at least on the interface, some parts being just bright yellow, so I’ll see what can be done about that, if and when I’ll get back to it. But it’s clear that I won’t be finishing any other game this year, and I also won’t write reviews for those that I did finish, as in Diggles, the first Vampires Dawn and Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, the main goal for December being to try to somehow reach my goal of reading 12 books this year when I’m only at eight so far. I definitely have to read The Dromost Gate and The Emerald Gate, to finish that series, but what the other two will be and whether I will manage to read them in such a short time remains to be seen.
There would be quite a few more things to write, but I don’t care to edit this post later and this is how far I can get and still post it, using the old computer, before midnight, so I’ll leave anything else for another time, when I’ll know more things as well. So no, I won’t turn this into a two-part post either, even though it would be a good way to have a second post of the week as well and I don’t really know what I will write tomorrow… But I did plant trees a week ago, so I’ll probably at least write a placeholder for the post about that and edit that later in order to add the rest.