The beginning of this book was a pleasant surprise, seeming to mark a shift to epic fantasy, introducing new parts of the world, people, cultures, types of magic and even planes of existence. That didn’t last, however, and all too soon the action once again overshadowed any other elements, leaving the impression that the author got scared of widening the scope to such an extent. There is still more to Shadow of the Knight compared to the previous two books when it comes to worldbuilding, but those elements feel more like afterthoughts, squeezed, and sometimes forced, among the action.
On the other hand, other parts of that same beginning felt jarring due to the amount of time that passed since the end of Child of the Knight, and while that also allows for some character development, pretty much all of it took place during that period, “off camera”, little of it being present in the book itself and most characters being shallow, single-minded and fitting into a few clear archetypes. And the relentless action leaves little room for anything to feel like it actually has a lasting impact, whether on the characters or the reader, and that’s on top of how much all of the healing and the heaps of hero’s luck diminish the potential for long-term consequences, and I’d say also the suspense.
Overall, it’s still the action that makes the book a reasonably pleasant way to pass some time, but appearing to have so much more potential makes it even more disappointing that it wasn’t fulfilled. And I also noticed that the proofreading was worse for this book, which had more typos than the previous ones, and there was at least one place where something said in one chapter seemed to have been forgotten by the time it was repeated in the next. But that was in the final part, and the bigger problem with the final part, what comes after the battle, is that it’s really the beginning of the next part of the story, seeming particularly underwhelming after what should have been such momentous events.
Rating: 3/5
Nine and a half years after getting this computer, I finally got a new one! Then again, I had purchased the first internal component, the PSU, back in April, planning to put it in this computer first but delaying all this time, so it had been sitting on the floor ever since. But then I made use of the recent sales to buy the other components, so the CPU and NVMe SSD were delivered Tuesday and the following day the RAM and motherboard were ready to be picked up, so I did that. But I only got myself to put them together and do a first test today, with the motherboard and PSU on the floor and the old computer next to them, so I could connect its power, reset and disk activity connectors to the motherboard.
The new components are:
Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 8700G (planning to use the 45W cTDP setting)
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 64GB DDR5 (2×32 GB, 5200MT/s, 36-40-40 latency)
NVMe SSD: Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink 1 TB
PSU: Seasonic PRIME TX-650
And what I’ll be keeping from this computer, assuming that there won’t be compatibility problems, is:
SATA SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 250 GB
DVD drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7261S DVD-RW (silver)
TV tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-5525
Case: Cougar Volant White (including its 120 mm fan)
Case fans: Noctua NF-P12 PWM and Noctua NF-P12
And I’m also looking into adding 4 TB of additional storage, probably in the form of a second NVMe SSD, Kingston NV2 4 TB, but I’m still thinking it over.
So this also marks the moment when I did something that I was thinking, and saying, that I’ll never do, which is switch to AMD, since I want proper performance on all cores and better integrated graphics, because I don’t see myself as ever getting a dedicated graphics card again. But what may be even more notable is that I’ll be making another attempt at using Linux, so I put Linux Mint 22 Xfce on an USB stick and, after poking through the BIOS a little, I used that for the first attempt to actually boot the computer, just to see that it loaded.
Now, I also ordered two cheap Windows 10 Professional keys, since dad said that at that price he’d want one as well instead of “pirating” it if he’ll find himself forced to switch as well, but while they were supposed to be delivered yesterday, the delivery company seems to be moving them back and forth and processing them multiple times, the new estimated delivery date being Tuesday, so it remains to be seen what will happen with that, and whether they’ll even work, or for how long, seeing as they’re purchased from a reseller. That reseller seems to be regarded quite well and the purchase was made through the largest on-line store from here, and listed as being delivered by them, not directly by the seller, but on the seller’s site it’s stated that electronic keys should be activated right away, preferably within five days, to avoid potential problems. Then again, I initially ordered an installation kit from the same store that I bought this old computer, and the PSU for the new one, from, but when I realized that it was also produced by some third party and saw this much cheaper option, I gave up on that, though I still have until Monday to go and pick it up if I’ll change my mind before the order will get canceled. And, assuming that Windows 10 keys will still be available, they may get even cheaper as the end of support approaches. But, even though the main problem, the forced updates and the changes brought by them, is largely left behind now that it won’t be receiving feature updates anymore and will be completely left behind less than a year from now, when it’ll reach end of support, I still don’t want to be using any Windows past 7 if I can help it, so I’ll say again that I mean to give Linux a serious chance, with Windows 10 being there if needed… The problem being that, if it will be there, I’ll be tempted to try to make it work when I’ll have problems with Linux. But I guess I’ll see what happens in time.
This will be worse than yet another rushed post from this series, because I couldn’t stay on-line and pick an older song for one of the bands this evening, so I had to edit the post before going to bed in order to list that second pick, at which point I also added the brief comments. So I’ll start with that band, which is Seven Kingdoms and which I’ve known about for many years but never got around to including in one of these posts. But now they just released a new EP, and my first pick will be its title song, The Square. As for the older song, I’ll go with Empty Eyes. Since they’re improving with time, I was tempted to go with something newer, but this seems more appropriate. And I must say that I don’t like those long instrumental bridges, and the songs pretty much have the same structure, but I can’t deny the quality, and for several years the vocals have been particularly solid.
Next comes Poema, which is a band from Ukraine that I recently stumbled into, and one thing that’s notable in itself is the fact that they’re not only still active, but all of their songs seem to have been released since the start of the war. However, I don’t have any link that I’d normally care to include for them, since they don’t seem to be on Metal Archives yet and otherwise just have a YouTube channel where they posted less than you’d expect for a new band and an Instagram page that at the time I’m writing this gives an error. But they recently released an actual video, for Circus of Death, so that will be my first pick. As for the second one, I’ll go with The Void. And these songs show that I’m definitely not just including them as a tiny show of support for Ukrainians, because they sound quite nice, and at least these particular ones even seem more polished than you’d expect, considering the circumstances.
As for the third band, that’s Dawn of Destiny and they’re about to release an album later this month. But they have already released a few songs from it, including my first pick, which is Alive. As for the second pick, I initially wanted to make it easy for myself and only check the few other songs officially posted by their current label, but when I saw that just one, To Hell, seems to have been officially posted by a previous label, I changed my mind and modified what I initially posted minutes later, making that my second pick, because it actually seems different from those newer songs in the sense that it’s not just the chorus that stands out, being better than the other parts of the songs. But, even when it comes to those newer songs, there’s no question about them being good enough to include in such a post.
As I was saying, if Trump’s side doesn’t lose, all of us, and the world as a whole, will. So we lost. And while some may continue to say that it was “only” yet another major battle out of a long string of them, still having any shred of a chance of a future that won’t seem pulled right out of the scariest dystopias or postapocalyptic works would take one hell of a fightback, using methods that the “good” side never accepted to touch in any way and probably won’t know how to properly employ even if, at least now that we’re already past the final hour, they’d be willing to do so. So, until and unless thoroughly proven wrong, my position is that this was the very final nail in the world’s coffin.
Not that there’d have been any reason to choose Harris, or Biden, or Democrats in general, other than to oppose Trump, and Republicans in general. At least ever since I started being able to find out what’s going on over there, the Democrats just stood for the status quo, business as usual while time runs out and a final day of reckoning for all of our choices draws ever nearer, never offering anyone who is actually looking for anything even remotely resembling the ever more necessary change any reason to vote for them other than to be against the others, who are clearly so much worse.
But it should have been painfully obvious to anyone with any shred of capacity and willingness to reason that this time around it was even worse than the usual difference between the two. I mean, that guy’s first term was bad enough, and now the world is caught up in so many crises, the environment is past the brink, Russia’s biting ever harder and China’s snarling and about to charge as well, Israel’s brazenly committing genocide, various others are also testing the limits, so a strong and positive US influence and actual intervention is more desperately needed globally than it’s been in decades… Yet what do US voters do? They choose that guy… And hand him full control of Congress as well. And it wasn’t a matter of external influence, of any trickery, or of some quirk of that messed up electoral system from over there; he was actually voted in, quite overwhelmingly, winning the popular vote as well, being directly supported by all those people… Which just follows the trend that’s also seen around here, with all of the victories of the far right and those from the mainstream normalizing and adopting such positions as well.
And no, there’s no way to justify this, so stop looking for excuses or other explanations. The plain and simple truth is that it’s what people in general typically do. As Pratchett put it, “The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.” Or, to also quote Babylon 5, “That does seem to be the rule, doesn’t it? Analyze the problem, choose whichever strategy makes least sense and then do it.” And this isn’t just one more of the practically infinite series of events that constantly prove this throughout humanity’s history, or even “just” a particularly powerful example. It’s true that some examples that are more obviously worse may be found, but considering the current state of the world and humanity’s current and foreseeable capacity for destruction, it may well be the one that actually marks the point of no return.
So, yeah… We’re done… But that doesn’t imply giving up. I was saying in that previous post that these US elections mark the beginning of the next stage of the fight, and while I’ll maintain that defeating Trump was absolutely necessary in order to still have any shred of a chance of success, that is not required in order to fight. Sometimes you fight because there’s nothing left to lose. Or because there’s nothing else left to do in the face of the oncoming disaster. Or just to know that you did what you could, and tried to be part of the solution to the bitter end. And, if anything, a lack of belief in success spares you of disappointment. It may make for little to take heart from and having less actual motivation than those who still, somehow, believe, but it also makes it practically impossible to make you completely lose heart. So, no matter the odds, keep fighting… Just know that the worst opponents aren’t the ones in power, who could be toppled the moment the people would set their mind to it, but just the people, or at least most of them, one way or another… And try to recognize how much of what causes that to be the case is in you as well.
Now when it seems that there’s a question whether Biden’s “garbage” remark was about Trump’s supporters in general or just about a specific one, I’d rather make things simple: What those who support Trump are is enemies. Period. And that also applies to a fair extent to anyone who doesn’t openly push back against the possibility of him becoming president of the USA once again. The reasons why such people might have such a stance and any other ways to characterize them are irrelevant. And, if anything, those of us who aren’t over there may be even more entitled to call on those who are to do more to stop him and lash out against those who don’t, not to mention those who actually support him, considering how much the outcome of these elections will influence the world in general and certain “hot” areas, which include the one I’m in, in particular, and how little we can really do about it ourselves. Anyone capable and, perhaps more importantly, willing to see reason would have done so long ago, so this is a matter where battle lines must be drawn. If that side doesn’t lose, all of us, and the world as a whole, will.
That’s not to say that Harris or the Democrats are a good option. They never were and I don’t see how they could ever be. As always, it’s a choice between bad and so, so much worse; between a bleak future and complete disaster. It’s a matter of choosing the next adversary, the next opponent of the efforts that must succeed if we, this world as a whole and all other species we share, or should be sharing, it with are to have any hope of a future that won’t seem pulled right out of postapocalyptic fiction. And from that point of view the choice is clear. Not that I’d accuse those voting for “third party” candidates; in general that’s what I firmly advocate for and in states where the outcome is sufficiently clear I’d do so now as well, but this time around the greater evil absolutely must be stopped at all costs, so at least in swing states, where every vote may matter, this sacrifice of values, voting for the lesser evil when other options may be available, may well be required.
But, of course, voting is not where it ends, but merely where this next stage begins. Those who are over there or otherwise have the right to vote in the US elections must vote against Trump, but all of us must work and fight to bring about the massive changes that are necessary, holding to account those in power, be it political, economic, social or of any other kind, here, there and everywhere, pressuring and forcing them to do what needs to be done, because they never will otherwise, or at least not until they’ll stop being able to do one of the things that humans are best at, which is making others, be it the environment, other species, or other people who are less powerful, less wealthy, less represented or otherwise just different from them, pay for their choices. As Greta Thunberg once again put it very well, nothing less will ever be acceptable.
