Overall, I liked it. Even though it doesn’t contain anything new, it’s still a nice treat for fans. Auriel’s a lot more badass than I thought she’d be. In the Book of Cain, her Cord of Hope seemed kind of lame (“Auriel will sometimes drape Al’maiesh, the Cord of Hope, around her comrades’ shoulders to grand them clarity of thought and emotion.”). It sounded like little more than an angelic Ribbon Dancer. Color me impressed when I saw her use it to hack through demons and fetter the Lord of Terror himself!

The city/fortress behind the demon army was also a nice touch. I don’t know if it was supposed to be the Pandemonium Fortress from Diablo II, or if it’s just an unnamed settlement in Hell. Whatever it is, I hope it shows up in the game itself.

When I checked out the fan reaction to “Wrath,” I was surprised to see that a number of fans didn’t seem to like it. Granted, the Diablo fandom seems to have a number of chronic bellyachers, but opinion seemed to be even more sharply divided than usual. The animation in particular received a lot of flak from fans. Many people seemed to hate it just because it was anime (one person on Diablo IncGamers even compared it to Sailor Moon! *rolls eyes*), and I don’t think they would have been happy with anything less than full cinematic-quality CGI.

So what did you think of “Wrath”?

The power to prorogue Parliament is part of the royal prerogative, though nowadays it is only exercised on the advice of the government. In the past, monarchs prorogued Parliament in person, but since the 19th century it has been customary for the sovereign to appoint a commission of peers to perform the ceremony on their behalf. Nowadays, it is also customary for the prorogation ceremony to include the signification of royal assent to any outstanding bills, but the two things are technically separate.¹

Illustration of a peerage robe courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The ‘Lords Commissioners’ are always chosen from among the ranks of the Privy Counsellors, and usually include the Lord Speaker, the leaders of the main political parties in the Lords, and the Convenor of the Crossbench Peers.² At the appointed hour, they put on their parliamentary robes (complete with ermine) and process into the House of Lords, where they take their seats on a bench between the Throne and the Woolsack. The male Commissioners were black bicorn hats, while their female counterparts wear something that looks like a squashed tricorn hat with a gold brooch on the side.³. The commission is presided over by a Minister of Cabinet rank, usually the Leader of the House. and he’s the only one who gets a speaking role. The rest of the Commission just sits there in silence.

The Leader of the House commands the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod (who also doubles as the Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Lords) to summon the House of Commons. When the Commons arrive, they can’t actually enter the Lords Chamber. Instead, they have to stand at the threshold. As they crowd in, they bow three times to the Lords Commissioners, and the Lords Commissioners in turn acknowledge each bow by doffing their hats (though female Commissioners don’t doff their hats for some reason).

Once the Commons are in their place, it is time for the best part of the entire ceremony: the reading of the Queen’s Commission. This is probably one of the most awesomely arcane documents in the British constitutional repertoire. It’s addressed to “Our right trusty and right well beloved the Lords Spiritual and Temporal” and “Our trusty and well beloved the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the House of Commons in this present Parliament assembled,” and contains references to the “fidelity, prudence, and circumspection” of her Commissioners, as well as the “divers (sic) difficult and pressing affairs concerning Us, the State and Defense of Our United Kingdom, and the Church” that caused her to summon Parliament in the first place. At the end of the document, the clerk informs everyone that it’s “signed by the Queen herself, with her own hand.”⁴

The commission read, it’s time for the Royal Assent. As the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery reads the short title of each bill, the Clerk of the Parliaments turns to the Commons and pronounces the appropriate Norman French formula (in most cases, it’s La Reyne le veult, which means “the Queen wills it”). That’s right: in Britain, a bill formally becomes an act when a bewigged man shouts at legislators in a dead dialect.

Assent given, it’s time for the Leader of the House to read the Queen’s prorogation speech “in Her Majesty’s own words.” Of course that’s not exactly true: like the Speech from the Throne, this speech is written for her by the government, and it’s basically a boring laundry-list of all the great things the government has done over the past session. When the speech is over, the Leader of the House formally prorogues Parliament to a certain day, and the Commons withdraw. Much more hat-doffing ensues.

Now there are some people who would love to do away with the robes, hats, and Norman French in the name of ‘modernization.’ After all, the prorogation ceremony isn’t necessary. It could be streamlined, or even eliminated. But at the same time, there’s also no real compelling argument for doing so.  Whether it’s fireworks on the Fourth of July or bewigged men shouting in Norman French, there’s nothing wrong with a little spectacle.

After a surprisingly long search, I ended up going with a theme called Weaver II. The brown color scheme fit in nicely with the Egyptian atmosphere I was looking to create, and Weaver also allowed me to customize the header with a picture of my choice. I’m really pleased with the end result, and I hope you are too!

As a liner enthusiast, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m not too keen on the recent trend toward ever bulkier passenger ships. Ships like the Norwegian Epic and the Oasis of the Seas look more like floating condos than naval vessels. Even the Queen Mary 2 suffers from balconyitis, albeit to a lesser degree.

Photo of the Norwegian Epic courtesy of Brian Burnell @ http://nuclear-weapons.info

The Titanic, on the other hand, looked very much like a ship, with a lean superstructure and four raked funnels. Aesthetically speaking, the Olympic-class ships were a masterpiece, both inside and out.

I couldn't find a picture of the Titanic in full profile, so I had to use the Olympic. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

As far as I can tell, no designs for Titanic 2 have been released yet, so it’s unknown how closely she will resemble her namesake. However, it’s already been confirmed that she’ll have a bulbous bow for greater fuel efficiency, bow thrusters for greater maneuverability, and a larger rudder. They’ll also have to figure out a new place for the lifeboats. On the original ship, they were stored 59 feet above the water on the boat deck, but current SOLAS regulations require lifeboats to be stored no higher than 49 feet (though Cunard was able to negotiate an exemption for the Queen Mary 2 because of the nasty conditions on the North Atlantic).

The interior will need to be changed as well. I doubt they’ll have steerage, for example, and second class will probably be ditched too. Even first class will need adjustments (back in 1912, private bathrooms were the exception rather than the rule, even in first class!). If they’re truly faithful to the original design, there won’t be any balcony cabins like we know them today. True, the so-called ‘millionaires’ suites’ on B- and C-decks had ‘private promenades,’ but those were totally enclosed. The lack of balcony space could prove detrimental to the ship’s commercial success. After all, one of the reasons the Queen Mary 2 has so many balconies is that they were thought necessary to help recoup her $900 million price tag. Granted, the Titanic 2 won’t be nearly that large, but if she’s constructed like a true ocean liner, she’ll be a lot more expensive than an ordinary cruise ship.

Ultimately, the whole enterprise seems macabre though. After all, the Titanic is only famous because her maiden voyage resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people. I do wonder how they plan to handle that in the brochure!

As always, the stumbling block will be the issue of the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. Right now, the House of Lords is subordinate to the House of Commons. The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 allow the Commons to pass legislation without the Lords’ consent, while the Salisbury Convention states that the Lords will not reject government bills that arise from manifesto commitments.

But although the Lords can no longer fight the Commons on equal terms, they still play a valuable role as a revising chamber. Unlike in the Commons, where legislation is often nodded through without any real scrutiny, the Lords look at every clause of every bill. The Lords is traditionally a much less partisan place than the Commons, and many of its members have real-world experience beyond the Westminster village. The Lords can look at legislation from a different perspective, and their amendments often go a long way toward improving the final product (in fact, the vast majority of Lords amendments are subsequently agreed to by the Commons).

The main problem with the government’s proposals is that they assume that the reformed House of Lords will remain subordinate to the Commons. But while it makes sense for an appointed body to defer to the will of an elected body, it’s hard to see why an elected House of Lords should have to give way. After all, one could argue that it would have greater democratic legitimacy since its members would be chosen through a form of proportional representation rather than first-past-the-post. It would only be a matter of time before the two Houses came into serious conflict, and it’s difficult to see how the primacy of the Commons could survive. Legislative gridlock is all-too-common here in America, but it would throw a real monkey wrench into the British system.

The government’s proposals face a perilous journey to the statute book. I suspect that, deep down, most MPs are aware of the absurdity of one elected chamber having to kowtow to another elected chamber. There are also many Conservative MPs who would love to torpedo Lords reform in order to give Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats a symbolic middle finger. If the newspaper reports are to be believed, there are even Cabinet ministers who are quietly encouraging rebellion. Even if the bill squeaks by the Commons, it faces massive opposition in the Lords. Theoretically, the government could use the Parliament Acts to force the bill onto the statute book, but that would require them to get the bill through the Commons twice. Given how divided the Coalition is on the subject of Lords reform, I’m not sure the government would want to re-fight what’s bound to be a bruising battle.

Despite what Nick Clegg and company say now, I suspect the House of Lords will remain in its current form for many years to come.

However, I do have some exciting news to report: two of my stories will be appearing in Tendrils and Tentacles, an anthology of flash fiction written by speculative fiction writers from the Madison area. One of the stories is set in the Khamtirverse (naturally), but the other one is set in the same universe as A Theft of Bones.

The anthology will be available early next month, and I plan on doing some public readings to help promote the book. It should be a lot of fun!

Since Rowling is now richer than Croesus, she has a degree of artistic freedom that most writers can only dream about . She can write about whatever the hell she wants. She could write a 1,000 page book about a young gay physicist who ruminates about dusty plasmas and cookies, and it would still make the New York Times best-seller list because lots of people will buy it no matter what. Of course, even if it were a total flop, she wouldn’t exactly be worrying about how to put dinner on the table.

It will be interesting to see what Rowling does with this freedom. Will she stay within the confines of speculative fiction, or will she try to break out of that mold entirely?

Part 1

Part 2

It has all sorts of juicy info about the new skill system (which, incidentally, is really cool, despite what the naysayers say).

In other Diablo-related news, it looks like we may actually have a release date before the sun dies. According to Jay Wilson, we’ll see a release date announcement “in the near future.”  Exciting as this news is, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. After all, Blizzard’s definition of ‘the near future’ may be radically different from that of the man on the Clapham omnibus.

TWMF continues the story of Kvothe, the music-loving arcanist first introduced in 2007′s The Name of the Wind (which I keep mistyping as The Name of the Rose!). The whole series is actually a story-within-a-story. Kvothe (now masquerading as a simple innkeeper named Kote) is telling his life’s story to an itinerant scholar known as Chronicler. And it’s quite the story: in TNOTW, Kvothe was orphaned at a young age when his parents were killed by the mysterious Chandrian. After spending years begging on the streets, Kvothe finally enters the Arcanum, a school for the study of the arcane arts. Although Kvothe soon shows himself to be a talented arcanist, his temper often lands him in trouble, and he makes a lasting enemy of a young nobleman named Ambrose.

In TWMF, Kvothe’s feud with Ambrose takes a sinister turn when it looks like Ambrose is using ‘sympathy’ to try to hurt him. Sympathy involves forging magical links between objects, and Kvothe believes that Ambrose has used some of his blood to create a sort of voodoo doll. Eventually, Kvothe triumphs over his rival, but he is then arrested on charges stemming from the events in the first book. Although Kvothe escapes punishment, it is clear that Ambrose and his family hold a deep grudge, so Kvothe’s friends and instructors convince him to take a break from his studies until things have cooled down.

During his ‘vacation,’ Kvothe heads to Severen to gain the patronage of the local Maer. Kvothe is ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining full patronage, but along the way he foils a plot against the Maer, hunts bandits, has copious amounts of sex with a Fae woman, and learns a nifty new set of combat moves from a mysterious warrior race. By the time he returns to the Arcanum, he’s a much different person. Kvothe the boy is now Kvothe the man, and he has finally begun to learn how to effectively control his powers.

TWMF has received the same near-universal acclaim as its predecessor, but I’m afraid I’m going to be one of the few dissenting voices. Don’t get me wrong: TWMF is a very good book. I think Rothfuss is one of the best world-builders in fantasy, and I really, really like his prose. Like N.K. Jemisin or Genevieve Valentine, he writes elegantly yet simply, without the ponderous prolixity that often mars fantasy novels. Rothfuss has also done a wonderful job developing Kvothe’s character. He could have very easily become a ‘Marty Stu,’ but his flaws help keep him believable.

My biggest problem with TWMF is that it the story often bogs down. The scenes with Felurian (the uber-sexy fae woman who has a reputation for humping men to death) drag on and on. Interesting things do happen (such as his encounter with the Cthaeh), but they’re obscured by the repetitive sex talk. Similarly, Kvothe’s time among the Adem felt a lot longer than it really was. The Lethani is a cool concept, but I sometimes felt like I was being beat over the head with it.

There were also a few WTF? moments. Kvothe’s trial came out of left-field, and it sort of felt like that whole episode had originally been intended for the first book. It seemed strange that Ambrose’s family would have waited so long to have Kvothe brought before a judge. Maybe it just took them a while to grease enough palms.

Kvothe’s sudden decision to run after Felurian also struck me as odd. Granted, Kvothe can be the King of Bad Decisions at times, but his eager pursuit of her made me scratch my head. He’s supposed to be returning to the Maer’s court, yet he drops everything to make time with some Fae harlot. I suppose one could argue that Felurian’s supernatural allure combined with Kvothe’s natural brashness to make him cast reason aside, but it still seemed weird. I did not get the sense that Felurian’s appeal was impossible to resist; the other male members of Kvothe’s group managed to keep their distance from her.

Ultimately, the entire book felt like one big digression from the main plot. I would have liked to have learned more about the Chandrian and the Amyr, which have lurked at the margins of the plot since the beginning of the series. Given Rothfuss’ talent, the side road is still an attractive proposition, but I sure was glad when Kvothe returned to the Arcanum (and the main plotline) at the end.

Thankfully, I managed to find a cool mod that makes the inventory a lot more manageable. It’s called SkyUI and it replaces the succession of menus with a single tabbed interface, where each tab contains a different item type (e.g. weapons, armor, potions, ingredients, etc.). It makes for a much nicer presentation, and it speeds up inventory management by quite a bit.

If you do download SkyUI, you should make sure to download the Nexus Mod Manager first. It makes installation a breeze. Plus, if you download other mods, it will help you manage them. Unlike other games, *cough* Diablo III *cough*, Skyrim is wide open to modding (the developers are even producing a Creation Kit to allow fan-made quests). Sites like Skyrim Nexus offer a ton of mods to tailor the game to fit your preferences. Want to wield Gandalf’s sword from LOTR? Now you can! Want to change the game’s flora? You can do that, too! The opportunities for customization are almost limitless.