Review: The Daylight War

The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



So, the second book in the demon cycle, The Desert Spear, was remarkable because it managed to recast the events in the first book in a way that significantly changed my perspectives about the main character while also successfully advancing the overall story. It was a tremendous, George R.R. Martin-ian achievement, and I really really liked it.

Consequently, I had incredibly high hopes that this book would do the same.

It it utterly fails to do so.

Spoilers for all three books from here on out.
The major thing that happens in book two is that we realize that Jardir betrayed Arlen because his wife, Inevera, told him to. This revelation, and the added detail of just how awful Jardir feels about the whole thing, turns him into a sympathetic character where before he was just an asshole.

And it is kind of implied by the fact that Inevera is the principal character in this book, that a similar kind of revelation was waiting for her. And the main failing of this book is that such a revelation never occurs. She told him to betray Arlen. She doesn't have a particularly good reason for it, and while knowing some more of her back story makes her more sympathetic than she was, there isn't anything giant or earth shattering about her story arc*.

Meanwhile, since the book makes it so incredibly clear that the demons are the real enemy, the inevitable clash between Jardir and Arlen just felt forced and lame. They are both sympathetic characters, so I approached the thing with annoyance rather than interest about who would survive. Oh yeah, and the answer to that question is left as a cliffhanger.

Now, one should give credit where credit is due. Peter V. Brett is an amazing writer. These books beyond readable; they are downright unputdownable. The characters are great; there's lots of sex, violence, badassery, triumphs of the human spirit, etc; the plot moves at a steady pace, with a healthy selection of bad characters turning out to be good, and good characters delivering just dessert to the bad characters that stay bad. Plus I absolutely adore Renna, and I really liked her relationship with Arlen in this book.

Bottom line, I still recommend this series, fairly heartily, but this was weaker than it could have been.

* What's that you say? Her magic truth telling dice tell her that Deliverers are made not born? I'm shocked. Shocked, I say, particularly since this has.......been a theme of the novels since the very beginning.



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Review: The Theory of Poker

The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is an excellent introduction into the mechanics of good poker play.
The explanations are clear and detailed, and the writing is actually pretty engaging for a two hundred book that is basically a lecture about odds ratios.

There were a few minor things that bothered me about this book. In order to have the aforementioned discussion about odds ratios you have to know what the probability of various things happening are. For certain poker events, you can calculate these things readily.* For others you can't, and yet the author just states these things as given. In other words, I lost count of the time an example includes assume you know there's a 30% chance your opponent will beat you." How the #$%^ am I supposed to know this?!?!?! I found this somewhat frustrating.**

Secondly, the reason I picked up this book is that I was playing a fair bit of Texas Hold 'em at the time, and I was interested in improving my game. Certainly, the concepts presented here are extraordinarily valuable regardless of which game one is playing, and in particular for Hold'em, but, the examples across lots of different games got to be kind of annoying. Seriously, who the #@$% plays 7 Card Razz?

But again, these are minor complaints. I got from this book exactly what I needed: the fundamental mathematical concepts behind good poker play, and I can actually say it has worked for me.***

* Wikipedia has a fabulous article on Texas Hold 'em probabilities amongst others.
** I am being too hard on the book. The author says repeatedly, that the estimates of opponents hand strength are for didactic convenience, and that in actual play you attempt to glean this knowledge from learning how your opponent plays and reading their hand strength, the author also talks some about how to do this. Nevertheless, I found it frustrating.
*** By which I mean I have finished "in the money" in the last three poker tournaments I've played in.



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Review: Detroit: An American Autopsy

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



At some point when I was a kid, I decided that I wanted to be a reporter. I'm sure this was a reaction to too many detective novels, but at the time it seemed like a perfect fit: I would be kind of like a detectives, uncovering crime and corruption lurking in the seedy underbelly of the city, without having to walk a beat, get shot at, etc. It was a revelation, a clear path for me to follow, and of course, I told my parents about it. I think it might have been the only time* when my parents flat out laughed at me. "You hate cities," they pointed out, "you don't like talking to people." Although, I probably pouted about it at the time, they were not wrong, and I am tremendously glad I found a different path...

I like to think, though, that if I had been temperamentally suited to being a journalist, I would have been something like Charlie Le Duff. Fearless, determined, able to use a mixture of wits, detective power, and sneakiness, to get at the root cause of the ills in america.

There are some problems with this book. There are some factual inconsistencies****. LeDuff has a weird perspective on race and privilege that ranges from vaguely insensitive to downright offensive.

But overall this is a fascinating read about how greed, incompetence, and corruption (from all sides: absenteeist workers, incompetent executives, and corrupt politicians) can destroy an empire, and how the honest, hardworking people at all levels suffer as a result.

* This includes a surprisingly lengthy tolerance of my declaration that I was going to be a veterinarian. This was a clear rebellion against my parents no pets rule, but their forbearance was impressive**.
** The veterinarian stratagem came to a spectacular close when my mother (the most stringent enforcer of the pet ban) strongly suggested that if I wanted to be a veterinarian I really ought to examine and dissect the dead squirrel that had been hit by a car in our neighborhood, and I squeamishly refused.***
*** Never play poker with my mother.
**** According to the epilogue (uh, spoiler, i guess?) the city executive gets fired for covering up theft of property, but I thought the who reason Charlie Le Duff was pissed at him was because he was overly zealously pursuing the theft of property, while simultaneously mismanaging the departments resources?



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