Timewaster's Guide Archive

This blog post sums up my feelings about the iPad beautifully.

Heh. Hehe.

WTF is up with their site design, though? What exactly is the point of having a tiny flash image viewer, with a link to the full-sized image?

The Apple-designed CPU is the most interesting part of this announcement for me. I can't wait till we get performance/watt numbers on that sucker. The PA Semi guys (the company that Apple bought in order to build that processor) have a great track record, and I'd put money on that processor beating the best figures from other ARM processors of the same class.

The worst aspect of this device is the fact that it uses the iPhone development model. In other words, the device is closed (no tinkering allowed) and all apps need to go through Apple's ridiculous approval process. If Apple ever tries to impose that model on the Mac I swear to Jobs I'll jump ship to Linux or something, painful as that will be for me.

Also, I can't resist this one:

Im with Eeron. I thought Apple was actually going to release an actual tablet computer, not an oversized iPod.

by years end, the knock off MP3 companies will release their own version. For $100 or less.

I'm not sure what you think an iPod is. The iPod Touch was already the closest thing to a computer designed to be a tablet than any other tablet computer on the market. Simply running a desktop OS on a tablet computer doesn't give a very good experience; that interface was designed to be used with keyboard and mouse. By any definition but openness, the iPad is an "actual tablet computer".

And if you think the knock-off companies can buy the same quality hardware for $100 or less, you're kidding yourself. That's completely ignoring the software, which is actually everything. I repeat, software is everything. Your $100 iPad look-alike would be an unusable turd, like every other copy-cat piece of crap those people have put out.

Thanks for the comments.

First, the only structural problem is your format.  It starts out as just a story, but finishes as a letter.  You either need to make it all story or all letter.  Easily fixed, but know that if you make it all letter, it will be harder to do the dialogue and whatnot.  You'll have to be careful.

I'll be curious to know if this was an issue for anyone else. I really want to have my cake and eat it too on this one. (that's what it's for, after all). I don't think letter format works for the whole thing, but having Cody writing to his posterity was the best ending I could come up with. I don't have the best track record with endings...

Second, what are you going to do with this?  It is not quite fantasy because it is ambiguous as to whether the dragon ever existed.  If you confirmed the dragon existed, I would say submit this to writers of the future or a fantasy magazine.  It's good enough that you'll get at least a hard look.  If you keep it the way it is and leave the dragon ambiguous, then you can submit it just about anywhere, although you might think about making the title a little less fantasy-ish so that other magazines might be more accepting.  Anyway, I really enjoyed it.  Polish it up some and submit it somewhere.

I hadn't really thought about it. In the back of my mind, I figured I'd send it to some fantasy magazine. Podcastle has run several stories that are every bit as mildly speculative as this, so I supposed there must be *someone* out there that buys this stuff (Podcastle buys second publication rights). Looking back through their archives, every one of the stories I was thinking of originally appeared in Strange Horizons. So, Strange Horizons it is I guess.

You need look no further than Brandon's own books. Elantris and Warbreaker both have very strong female leads.

The Wheel of Time also has a lot of strong female characters. It's kind of hard to recommend without reservation because it's very long and slow, but if you're patient the payoff is worth it.

A lot of Terry Pratchett books - those about Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg; the Tiffany Aching saga; and the ones featuring Death's granddaughter - all have great strong female leads.

The Lord of the Rings has...heh. Heheh. I'm joking. That was a joke.

Trawl http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com for more suggestions.

ryos, you don't get an apology until you do my other stuff, but I'll get to yours eventually too.

LOL, fair enough.

Heh, took him at his word, eh LTU? Man, that was harsh. Of course, I agree with most of LTU's assessment.

I know it's chic to turn things on their heads, but people have been using that gimmick for so long that it just doesn't stand on its own. Like any other story device, you've gotta sell it. The problem is that I don't see any more depth to this than "Oh, Heaven is corrupt and the Demons are the good guys." The thing is, demons *aren't* good (it's in the demon handbook, section 1, verse 23: "Don't be good."), so by setting them up as good, you're creating an additional barrier to my suspension of disbelief that you then must overcome.

But you don't, and I think LTU hit on all the reasons why. I haven't consumed nearly as much Japanese fiction as he has, so I'd probably draw parallels to Charmed (ugh, don't even get me started on that show), but the points are still the same.

As far as the first line is concerned, I'm not as enthused with it as LTU. It's such an obvious hook; it jumps up and down and shouts, "Hey guys look at me I'm a hook bite me!" Err...yeah. But that would be mitigated if it didn't stand alone; if it had a line, a sinker, and some bait to go along with it. Sadly, the following paragraphs fail to deliver on its promise.

(Who was in charge of revoking my metaphor license? You've failed badly at your duty, soldier.)

Now, for the last line! It falls flat because it's not a new development for this character. He didn't need to see his wife eviscerated on the floor of his home in hell to decide to kill God—he already tried to do that. So making a big deal of it now just doesn't make any sense.

I haven't read the rest of your submissions (I'll get to them, promise!), so I don't know if they're better than this or not, but this prologue does not entice me to finish the book. In all honesty, if this were on a shelf at a bookstore I'd probably put it down at this point.

Juno continues to get more interesting. I liked this section quite a bit. I had two quibbles, both related to von Bredew.

First, he seems to shift character here. I never would have pegged him as the compassionate type. That's not to say it's out of character for—wait, no, yes, it is. I think that, rather than changing this section, you should revise prior ones so he doesn't come off as such an impersonal, rigid, callous jerk.

Second, can he really stay a bit longer? He is the captain, you know. He really does have more important things to do.

My critiques are getting shorter the further I progress in my Concord catch-up session. Sorry about that. I'll try to be more useful in the future.