Review: Sword of the White Horse: An Assassin's Creed Valhalla Novel

Sword of the White Horse: An Assassin's Creed Valhalla Novel by Elsa Sjunneson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay … it is not like this is a bad story; just that it is difficult to actually identify anything specific that I like about it outside of the genre itself. It is a fairly short novel, so there is not much room for character development and it shows. The main characters are extremely flat and hard to connect to as they mechanically march through the adventure. Even the world building, which relies heavily on Arthurian tropes, was not very interesting (not to mention apparently so small the travel from Caledonia to Mercia felt like a standard work commute on the beltway … with the main character popping into Avalon (the hidden realm of the Women of the Mist) to report every time she left London to go adventuring. I suppose that I should have anticipated that a story built on top of a game would read like a game? Dialog was stilted and character interaction seems awkward at best.

The setup was interesting … An organization called the Hidden Ones was desperate enough to try and recruit local talent into their fight against the Descendants of the [Round] Table (Mordred’s kin) and the Order of Ancient (an apparent secret society of Christians hell bent on destroying the wholesome pagans of Scotland). We have a few encounters with pagan Picts around Hadrian’s Wall (along with some home sock Romans); however, most of the conflict centers around the struggle of the pagan faithful to freely worship their own deities the way that always have as the Christianity makes headway into the local mindset. This trope has been done before … and generally done better. Here everything was so black and white it just wasn’t interesting (bod guys bad … good guys good … what more is there). I actually enjoy some ambiguity here where I can connect to the motivation of both sides.

The characters … we have Niamh … a witch/warrior sent on a spy mission to see if her people (the Women of the Mist) might find an ally in the struggle to protect the simple people of the Isles from the evil Christians. She infiltrates the Hidden Ones, who send her on a mission that goes poorly … earning the privilege on becoming an initiate of the their order. Unfortunately … she discovers a secret for which force her to choose where her loyalties lie … and apparently being an initiate of the Hidden Ones doesn’t require any promises so I guess the choice should have been obvious … at any rate … Niamh alternates between not being worthy of anything to being so hot headed that she felt the need to take on unbelievable odds like a bull in a china shop (absolutely no finesse here at all … but this is a game right). The story here just felt forced and mechanical ... very little seems normal or natural.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#AssassinsCreedValhallaSwordoftheWhiteHorse #NetGalley.

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Review: The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal: Primer from the Pew-Unpacking Psychological, Sociopolitical & Cultural

The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal: Primer from the Pew-Unpacking Psychological, Sociopolitical & Cultural by Jerry J Paresa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a difficult book to review; I am sure it was probably a difficult book to write as well. The impact on “The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal” has been significant for many Catholics, myself included; however, without a good understanding of what went wrong it is also difficult to move forward. This book makes a good attempt to fill in some of the details surrounding the Church’s lack of understanding, as well as its admitted inadequate response. Paresa begins with trying to establish the common terms and vocabulary needed to actually have a productive analysis and discussion. Then he moves into what he sees as the proximate, contextual and aggravating causes/factors … before jumping a little too soon into the break down in communications before returning what he sees as the causal factors that are common to society at large and aggravated by the size of the church bureaucracy. All relevant points that unfortunately give the start something of an apologetic/defensive tone. Added to this are some additional factors that are more unique to the catholic clergy … such as the “clericalism” and the nature of an organization with forgiveness as part the foundation. 

It is important to note here that while the author cites several statistics to support his conclusions, these numbers really just highlight correlations and not causation. This is especially true with his presumption that the higher ration of homosexual clergy and young male victims suggests an obvious solution where reducing one will reduce the other. While that may in fact be true the author doesn’t actually provide the underlying reason for that believe at it comes across a bit homophobic (especially when implying the failure of science to identify a specific genetic cause of homosexual orientation proved that such doesn’t exist … which should have been an obvious fallacy). The other factors seem to be spot on though … such as the shortage of priests (which increase pressure to keep what you have combined with inadequate supervision on junior and/or less mature clergy), the relative independence of the Bishops (and the idea of subsidiarity within the church), the cumbersome jurisprudence within the Church-State more focused on forgiveness and reform instead of justice.

Not satisfied with the Church’s response to date, the author then provides several [reasonable] recommendations on what the Church can and should do differently, most of which focuses on screening and formation along with a more open and cooperative relationship with civil authorities. Also examined is the impact of regulating celibacy on the priest shortage and what changing that could mean theologically (this was by far the most interesting part of the book for me). The author closes with a more in depth look at the due process and legal issues involved with prosecuting abuse within the Church as well as the ontological issues with removing a priest from the clerical state. Over all, this is a solid book that deals with the very human factors that went into making the abuse scandal a “wicked” problem for the faithful to deal with.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheCatholicSexualAbuseScandal #NetGalley

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Review: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am a big fan of the House of Mouse, so the title really intrigued me; what's not to like about the Magic Kingdom? In truth , the story centered around 2 attractions (Hall of Presidents and the Haunted Mansion) with a brief mention of a 3rd (Pirates of the Caribbean ... My favorite) as the back drop to a story of power and greed that should have no place in a [post scarcity] society where all of our needs are taken care of and old fashioned money doesn't define power anymore. True wealth (power) is now defined by reputation ... Where public respect for what you are doing gives you "Whuffie" (street creed or political capital) that helps you accomplish things in the future. This is a lot like how bloggers work; readers vote on how much they liked or respected a particular article, which then helps increase its visibility and subsequently a bloggers audience giving the blogger greater power to influence society; not surprisingly, Cory Doctorow got his start as a blogger. Doctorow was not the first person to talk about a reputation economy, but his was the first pure portrayal of such that got me thinking about how it would truly work ... Or not. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The second major theme of the story was more post [or trans] humanism. The new 'Bitchin Society (aka BS) is based upon the surreal assumption that we can effectively eliminate the supply constraint (curve) on our economy and thereby get whatever we need in any quality needed ... Including artificial extensions on life itself. Doctorow does this with a combination of information technology (or personal backups) and cloning technology (to provide a custom platform into which your backup can be restored). This concept is taken to an extreme where clones are destroyed and backups restored to a new clone simply as a common way to avoid the inconvenience of a boredom while traveling long distances or the effects of the common cold. Now comes the question ... What exactly is a human? Can our essential self be so defined that a backup is even possible? What happens if the previous clone is not destroyed and you now have two persons with the same starting consciousness that now have two different experiences? Are they now two different people? Doctorow doesn't really answer these questions well, but you can see his characters struggling with the answers enough to start thinking on your own.

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Review: Biomass Rewind

Biomass Rewind by Terry Persun
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved the premise of this book: Human Colony ships controlled by an AI that manufactures and programs “human” colonists from the recycled biomass of previous colonists, mixing and matching parts until it gets the behaviors and results that it is looking for (sort of like a sci-fi groundhog day). At the end of each chapter, you get a short vignette from the AI about what it has learned from all of this and maybe a clouded preview of what it is trying to do. All of this raises some interesting philosophical and theological questions to ponder (Are we really just a product of our chemical/electrical/biological programming) … 

There were a few nits to pick … such as how only 6 human mating pairs would be able to actually colonize a world with the obvious issues of genetic diversity … in that respect, the story shares a bit of the surreal impression found in the HBO series Raised by Wolves. There is also a deep mystery to solve as the colonists struggle to succeed and avoid being “recycled” by the mother ship, so it is a slow, methodical and somewhat plodding story arc with a few supposing revelations that make you go Hmmm (adding to the list of questions to ponder). Despite that, I felt fully engaged with the story and enjoyed it all the way to the end.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#BiomassRewind #NetGalley.

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