Well, the holidays are over, and I'm back in California. Classes have begun anew, and in addition to teaching again this semester I shall endeavor to locate an advisor with whom I can do some interesting research. I've had some free time so far while my professors get their brass knuckles out, and I have mostly spent it playing Donkey Kong Country Returns (a delightfully diverse and challenging platformer) and finishing up a series of books I had been reading during my flights. More on the book series below. Fantasy novels are my preferred way to pass the usually boring time.

Did you know that if we cut a tunnel into the Earth's crust, through the mantel and then out the other side, one could (ignoring friction) hop in such a tunnel and, thanks to gravity, be on the other side of the planet in just 42 minutes? In fact, the magic of the conservation of energy mandates that ANY destination on the Earth's surface would be a 42-minute hop away. Pretty nice, huh?

Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy  has quite a bit less assassination that the titles of its books seem to imply (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest). The first book is a fairly average affair about a royal bastard with a stereotypically-mysterious past growing up amongst the nobility who, as usual, are fighting for the control of the particular country he lives in. There is a bit of magic involved and a lot of intrigue, but nothing about the book really stands out except perhaps the disappointingly lackluster ending. The second book features the same main character doing virtually nothing for a long period of time, and is saved only by the author's unconventional decision to have the vast majority of the book take place in a single building and a surprising finale. I wouldn't have bothered typing so much about this series if the final book hadn't broken this mold of mediocrity. You see, the main character dies at the end of the second book, and things only get more unusual from there. Although it seemed like a lot of time was wasted in the first two books, I really felt like I understood how the main character felt during his final quest because of that enormous amount of seemingly repetitive interaction he had with the small cast of characters in the previous books. Its quite engaging, little about the end of the series is normal for fantasy, and it really makes you think about characters who aren't perfect, glitteringly heroic superheros. I didn't expect to have to think as much as I did, either.

I've read the first two book's in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series so far, so I'll probably get around to talking about that series when I finish it's final installment. So far I would critique that he put a lot more thought into his magic system and over-arching plot than the minutia that really make a series worthwhile.

I guess I need to take care of the Christmas ornament on the side of my blog. I'll put something else there in a bit. In fact, it will probably have changed by the time you're reading this possibly worthless sentence.

In the meantime here's a classic villain for your enjoyment: Angel Eyes.

His heart is as black as his hat. Lee Van Cleef plays "the Bad" in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, one of the greatest Westerns (and movies) ever made. Angel Eye's introduction is a spectacularly grim scene that leaves little doubt that the movie has cast him correctly: the gunslinger murders a man for money, kills that man's family for the fun of it, and then laughs (as seen in the image above) as he eliminates his employer following the chilling line, "but you know when I'm paid, I always see the job through." No low is too low for Angel Eyes as he extorts, tortures and murders he way around the old West, vying with the other eponymous characters for a hidden stash of gold.