Electronic OtherRealms #15 May, 1987 Part 3 Words of Wizdom Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach Common publishing wisdom says that thick books don't sell, because they intimidate the impulse reader. For a book to run 511 pages in paperback, the publishers have to believe there is something going -- either the author has a name to rely on, or the book itself is something that is so good it simply must be published, marketing wisdom aside. When that 511 page book is by a first author, and when the publisher puts one of the best Whelan covers I've ever seen on a book on it (a wraparound cover, at that) and embosses the cover, and goes so far as to use two difference covers on the book (actually, the wraparound cover is flipped) you can only assume two things -- that the publisher has lost all sense of reality (you don't push first novels, you don't put Whelan on first novels, and you don't put advertising behind first novels) or the publisher knows something we don't. The book in question is In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman. The publisher is Elsie Wollheim at DAW books, and the book is wonderful. This book tells the story of two civilizations -- the Braxi are a nasty bunch, ruled by a small overlord of genetically superior (but almost sterile) men. Women have no power. In fact, a woman may be waylaid, may even be killed, at the whim of a man. Non purebreds serve at the whim of the pureblood, and may even be put to death at their wish. They are an aggressive, warlike race, breeding their sons to hate and and hunger, to wish for the Universe and strive to grasp it. Their opponent in a multi-millennia long interstellar war are the Azean. The Azean's are warring pacifists, hoping to end the interminable war in the hopes of peace. They are advanced geneticists, bringing forward those with psychic talents for training and culling those with less than perfect genes. The story is told primarily around two people: the Braxin Zatar, an ambitious man who wishes to reduce the ruling Braxana pureblood leadership to a single person, himself; and Anzha, a psychically superior woman who is refused citizenship by Azea because of her genes, but who nevertheless fights her way to the leadership position in the Azean forces. The book covers a large period of time: from the birth of the two opponents to their final battle and the resolution, a period of about 40 years. Trying to summarize the plot is impossible, because there are really three plots in the book (one for each society, and one for the conflict between them) as well as seven or eight major subplots. All of them intertwine very carefully, without a seam. There isn't a story here, but any number of them. While the Braxin are very nasty people (at one level they make a good analogy to the problems with Apartheid) their opponents aren't exactly wonderful, either, with their commitment to genetic superiority -- and the associated genetic culling they consider necessary. Azea even abuses their privileged, the telepaths, by sending them for training at the Institute not so much to maximize their skills, but to control and manipulate them. The societies, then, are very complex and very real. The story that weaves around them is just as complex and just as real. This is one of those rare books that will appeal to both the Hard SF readers for its science and technology and the readers who prefer people stories. DAW is taking a chance on this book. They are pulling out the stops to make sure you see this book. When you read it, you'll know why, and you will want to read it. [*****] Another first novel is Deborah Turner Harris' The Burning Stone (Tor trade paperback, 307 pages, $7.95). This is labeled Book One of The Mages of Garillon, and is, unfortunately, another book that suffers from sequelitis -- the disease of good books weakened by the need to tack another book on the end. Magic is a healing art, and Caradoc is a talented young man studying to join the initiate. He is rejected, however, because of an attitude problem, and during the raging drunk that follows is recruited by a master- criminal and rebel mage to help in an assassination plot. The plot is to kill the eldest son (and heir) of the local ruler to put the current queen's son on the throne. The rebel mage, of course, sees profit in all of this, and instead of killing the boy outright he abducts him and hides him where he can be useful later. This book suffers from three main flaws. The author works very hard, at times too hard, to describe the setting in the early chapters, and the early part of the book falls prey to adjective abuse. Everything, it seems, has multiple adjectives attached: the stream isn't lazy, but lazy and meandering. This gets distracting after a while, but later chapters are also written more sparingly. A worse problem, for me, is that every character you meet has a Purpose. You know they'll be back. The young stable boy, for instance, is really the missing prince with magic induced amnesia, something I don't hesitate to tell you because you'll figure it out for yourself quickly. These characters telegraph the plot along, and there are very few surprises along the way because of it. The third flaw is the ending. The end of the book is resolved in a very weak way. While it leaves things open for a sequel, it does so at the cost of an unsatisfying ending. I can't really blame the author for this, because this stopping point syndrome where there is no real ending point or climax, just a convenient place to rest until next year when book 2 comes out, is a growing problem with the genre -- everyone is writing 93 book series these days and forgetting that, with a few notable exceptions, each book really ought to stand on its own. Most don't, unfortunately. I'm really looking forward to the end of this fad, because many of the series I've read have enough material for a single book, but get padded out to fit. The result: flabby, lazy books with weak endings and little to really recommend them. The Burning Stone isn't a bad book, but it could have been a much better book. The extra cost of the trade paperback makes it an even more questionable buy. [**+] Jack Chalker's latest book, The Labrynth of Dreams (Tor, 320 pages, $3.50) is another first book in a series, in this case it is G.O.D. Inc #1. It is also a good example of how you ought to write a series book. This book has a beginning, a middle, and an end. While it leaves itself open to a sequel, this story is completed and there are no artificial hooks hanging around trying to coerce the reader into buying the next book. Which makes me want to read the next book that much more. This book is barely Science Fiction -- one of the growing number of crossovers between this genre and the spy/detective genre. In this book, two down and out detectives are hired on to track down a bank executive who skipped town. They find a very convoluted trail that leads them to G.O.D. Inc., purveyor of fine goods through the midnight hours of television, and a multi-dimensional labyrinth between parallel universes. This is good writing, especially fun if you have a hidden appreciation for detective fiction. It is written as a hardboiled novel, along the lines of Sam Spade of Phillip Marlowe. There are a few really rotten jokes and puns in the book, but in general this is quite a good novel. [***+] Gene Wolfe has written another book that will make you sit back and think your way through. Soldier of the Mist (Tor hardcover and Science Fiction Book Club, 266 pages) is written as a translation of a recently discovered scroll written by a soldier in Greece about 479 B.C. Latro, his main character, has suffered a head wound that causes him to forget everything that has occurred longer than about 12 hours ago, so in an attempt to build himself a past he writes down his adventures. We follow him through his days as he searches for the answer to the mists that cloud him from himself and his home, and we watch as he sees the society around him through virgin eyes each new day. Wolfe has written another wonderful book here, a master of forcing his readers into being active participants in the reading process. Like his classic Book of the New Sun series, this work has a richness and a lifelike feel to it that is rare in fiction today. As he did with Book of the New Sun, Wolfe is exploring new territory, and redefining the barriers around the categories by showing that you can write solid, accessible fiction that is also highly literate. This book is a success on many different levels, and while it is the first book of a series, unlike many series, it is a cause for joy. [*****] Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the premier Science Fiction authors in Russia, and scheduled to be among the Guests of Honor at Worldcon this year. Publisher Richardson and Steirman has translated their latest book, The Time Wanderers (213 pages, $16.95). It is an interesting insight into the state of the art in Russia. The book is written as a journal of entries in a report. I found it pretty tough reading -- the quality of writing is on a par with the material published in the 1950's in the U.S., and occasionally I got the feeling that the translation was getting in the way of the prose, although I could never quite figure out why. Still, it is good SF, in the traditions that Campbell would have published in Analog, so if you like that kind of fiction, I can recommend it to you. [***] Terry Carr Dies I'm very sad to have to announce the death of Terry Carr, long time fan, editor, and writer, April 7, 1987. Probably best known for his Best Science Fiction of the Year series of anthologies, he was also the editor at Ace books that first published R.A. Lafferty, Joanna Russ, Bob Shaw, and later William Gibson's Neuromancer. Time and space don't allow me to deal with Terry adequately this month, so I will write a full obituary next month when it can be done properly. If you are interested in contributing to the Terry Carr material, please contact me. Terry Carr was a wonderful man and an important figure in Science Fiction. He will be missed greatly on both counts. -- chuq Back and Forth Across the Ghetto Walls and Other Peregrinations Reviews by James Brunet ism780b!jimb Copyright 1987 by James Brunet From beyond the wall of the SF ghetto comes Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and its very appearance will topple, or at least loosen, several stones from that wall. Already the book has garnered the Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Award for 1986 -- an accolade reserved to "serious" (i.e., mainstream) fiction -- and yet it also a finalist on the Nebula ballot for best novel. The Handmaid's Tale is set in a near-future America susceptible to increasing fundamentalist influence. Against a backdrop of economic and ecological crises, women have their rights suspended. A simple recoding of computer programs suspends all bank and credit accounts marked "F" in the sex field, leaving the accounts dormant until they can be transferred to a husband or male next of kin. Paramilitary detachments descend upon employers, forcing the discharge of female employees. Finally, Congress is machine-gunned and a Scripture-based law imposed. The result is the Republic of Gilead, a revolutionary society not unlike an American version of contemporary Iran. Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel or to convert. Blacks -- descendants of Ham, or so says Scripture -- are forcibly resettled from the inner cities to the Dakota prairies. There is resistance, of course. Communities and strongholds of non-conformists -- Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics -- must be "salvaged." Those guilty of great sins -- priests who spread false doctrine, doctors who committed abortions, etc. - - are hunted down and executed; it does not matter that their activities were legal under civil law at the time they were committed, for the laws of God know no statute of limitations. Eyes of the Lord, the secret police, are everywhere, as are their informants. And women? Oh, yes. Women. Because ecological disasters have made reproduction a fragile endeavor, women are prized for their ovaries and their wombs. They are closely bound to their homes, either as wives or servants. Reading is forbidden, for knowledge and thought are dangerous. (At one point the viewpoint character savors the challenge of trying to puzzle out the meaning of "Non illegitimi carborundum," which she has found scrawled in a concealed place.) The few stores allowed to be open have picture-signs to designate their function, such as milk and eggs, or meat. In this society, children are seen as a blessing from God. But not all wives of the elite, the most deserving, can reproduce. The solution is the institution of the handmaid. Surplus women are made available. Any woman party to a marriage where one partner had been previously married is an adulteress. Such unions are dissolved, with the men being drafted for the Army or sent to the New Colonies, such as Los Angeles, for toxic waste clean-up operations that are invariably fatal within two to three years. The women are given the option between the New Colonies or, if they are still capable of reproduction, becoming handmaids. What is a handmaid? In the words of Atwood, "She must lie on her back once a month and pray that [the head of her adoptive household] makes her pregnant." Once a month, in a ceremonial manner, she submits to the head of the household. The wife is present at this time and contact between the husband and the handmaid is forbidden at all other times. In a long nutshell, this is the background of The Handmaid's Tale, a background reminiscent of Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 as much as anything. And yet in Atwood's book, it is background; the synopsis above is pieced together from snippets dropped throughout the entire book. The Handmaid's Tale is not an excursion tour into a morbidly fascinating new world, nor is it a political or social tract. It is a record of the daily activities and reminisences of Offred, who enters a household as a handmaid. (Handmaids take their names from the head of household, and thus their names would change if they were transferred, e.g., Ofglen, Ofcharles, etc.) Plot as such is subdued in this book, inasmuch as the accounting of a period from any individual's life does not lend itself to conventional plot. The account is intensely personal, a study in character, an account of daily life. In this The Handmaid's Tale is on solid ground with the conventional aims of literature in exploring the human condition. Atwood delivers her material with a vivid prose so rich that it may take some readers a while to build up a tolerance. Some accounts of daily life are rendered so vividly, so intimately, that they are painful to digest. The sheer power of the literary execution is such that is seldom found in SF, yet by force of character Atwood does not fail to provide an engrossing entertainment, if of a grim and provocative bent. This melding of stefnal icons and images with a coventional literary sensibility for character and style produces a powerful book. I recommend it highly. And I wonder at the reaction of Atwood, or members of the so- called literary establishment, at SF claiming the book as one of its own. For if The Handmaid's Tale has made a significant breach in the walls of the ghetto, it also surely is letting part of the ghetto escape beyond its walls. If Margaret Atwood succeeds in breaching the ghetto wall from without, Barry Longyear seems to essay a similar mission from within in his Sea of Glass. For me, this book was easy to begin, difficult to continue, and well worth finishing. Like Atwood's book, Sea of Glass is set in a near future United States, beginning in the year 2012 to be precise. The following is from the opening section of the book, where six-year old Thomas Windom (Windom: Wisdom:: Godot: God?) is watching a then-contemporary TV satire with his parents: With its left arm, the horned creature on the screen lifts the struggling baby by its feet and grins at the viewers as the deafening music quiets to an ominous background roar. The creature's right hand points a clawed finger at the viewers. "People of Earth." The clawed finger swings until it points at the child. "Meet your enemy." The baby's cries become hysterical, gasping screams. The creature cradles the baby in its left arm. "Hush little baby, don't you cry." The claws of the creature's right hand dangle tantilizingtly over the child's pulsating belly. "Aubry will love you 'til you die." I gasp and hold my breath as the claws plunge into the child's middle; a scream, silence, and the hand comes away dripping blood. I see the hand very close. The fingers slowly open to reveal a tiny, still beating heart. Mommy holds her hand to her mouth and looks at Daddy. "Isn't that a bit much?" "I just hope that bastard Cummings is watching." Daddy's voice is mean. Bitter. The creature's grinning face again fills the screen. "Protein, friends. Imagine, if you will, the inefficient utilization of scarce resources your enemy employed to keep this insignificant scrap of muscle twitching." The dead baby fills the screen. Blank eyes stare at nothing. The horned creature flings the tiny corpse to his left. In slow motion the body tumbles in a grisly arc, coming to rest at last upon a mountain of dead babies. The heap of infant flesh quivers from the impact. ... Tough stuff. As the parent of a seven-month old, it hit me pretty damned hard. I forced myself to continue. The Secretary of Projections, Aubry Cummings, is almost a government within the government of the Compact, the union of western nations. Two inexorable numbers govern all calculations: the Wardate and the Downlimit. The Wardate is the Optimum War Probability Projection Date, a prediction of when the war will have to happen, not if. Various events on the world stage affect this date, one way or the other. Through most of Sea of Glass, the Wardate hovers somewhere in August 2033. The Downlimit is the amount of time remaining before the strain of poplulation and resources passes the threshold beyond which the human race can't recover. Ah, ha. Sea of Glass is a cautionary ecological tale. Check? Wrong-oh. Thomas Windom, an illegal child, does reveal himself to the outside world. He is dragged away from his parents, who are summarily executed by slow electrocution as provided by statute, and sent to a farm-cum-concentration camp in New York state. In short order, he is marinated in the brutality of the environment and kills a camp guard. Ah, so this is the story of of Thomas' survival. Well, partly. Thomas does survive life in the camp, eventually borrowing books from the camp's once- a-week bookmobile to teach himself all he can about Aubry Cummings, the Department of Projections, and the political, economic, and ecological crises that shape his world. He comes to understand the grim necessities behind the system that is so abhorent to him. Then, with a few other inmates, he escapes into the world at large and assumes identies to shield himself from the Department of Projections and its computer, MAC III. Oh, in the process of his escape, he cuts off the penis of a particularly brutal guard and stuffs it in the pocket of the bound, still-living guard. After living the life of an underground fugitive for a while, Thomas' identity is exposed. And in the course of fleeing, he suddenly stops and realizes that every significant circumstance back to somewhere in his days at the farm has been manipulated by MAC III. In short order, Thomas Windom is recruited as a special agent of the Department of Projections. He is trained, wired to MAC III, and sent out to adjust circumstances in the world in order to make sure that the most optimal events occur. For MAC III has an interesting view of the world; for instead of taking on an Otherworld (eastern bloc) division directly, conditions are arranged so that, by way of metaphor, Ivan kills Vladimir, Igor kills Ivan, and so forth until the last despondent survivor commits suicide. Ah, finally the light becomes clear. What the story is is evident. It's about being co-opted by the system and adapting to all the institutions that you once hated. Closer, dear friends, but no cigar. One of Thomas missions is to assasinate one of his closest friends from the farm, one who escaped with the same group Thomas did. Thomas' faith in his new calling fails him and he asks "Why?" For this, he is allowed to visit the Shrine of Why, deep in the bowels of the MAC III computer. Connected to the computer by a direct Link, he is allowed to see all the convoluted trails of causality that lead to the assasination of his friend, and just how much worse off the world will ultimately be if this act is not accomplished, and accomplished by him, Thomas Windom. Is anyone ready to venture that the story is about Faith and Being? Ultimately, no. Come the Wardate, it is Thomas who ignores the authority of the new anti-Projections President-General of the Compact and sets off the War. Only in the infinite wisdom of MAC III, there is no nuclear holocaust. Ivan kills Vladimir, Igor kill Ivan; meanwhile Harry is killing Tom and Dick is killing Harry. (What? You thought all the casualties would be on the other side?) A few little wars heat up, ten or twelve revolutions kick off, floods and storms occur, and there is an increase in the starvation rate, traffic accidents, murder, disease, suicide, and carelessness. And at the end of it all, there will be four and a half billion dead. And mankind is safely within the limits of resources, with enough time for the newly discovered interstellar propulsion system to give meaningful access to the stars. Finally, at the end of the road, Sea of Glass is about manipulation. As MAC III manipulates Thomas Windom, so Longyear manipulates the reader, just as the reviewer has tried to manipulate the review-reader. The book is not a pleasant experience. The reader's realization that he has been manipulated is not much different, I suspect, from Thomas' moment of epiphany concerning his relationship with MAC III. Yet the prose is taut, the imagery is powerful, and the book continues to niggle at the mind long after it has been put down. If there is a weakness, it is that so much of the manipulation is achieved by sheer artifice (for instance, forced sterilization or police-inspected contraceptive implants would be a more rational method of dealing with the population problem); yet that artifice, too, may be part of the message. While Atwood is assaulting the ghetto wall from without and Longyear deals with some weighty concerns safely from within, reading Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist could make one think "What ghetto?" Based on events that occured in Greece in 479 B.C., Soldier of the Mist is the tale of Latros, a Greek soldier who was one of many that fought for the Persian invader Xerxes against an alliance of Greek city states. In the course of a battle, Latros suffers a head wound that causes him most peculiar problems with his memory: he can only remember events of the current day. Everything else he must commit to a scroll, which he must reread every day if he is to remember what has happened. There is a compensation for this impairment, however. Latros can see and converse with gods, goddesses, and other supernatural apparitions. Latros is taken prisoner by the men of Rope (Sparta) and then begins a goddess-inspired quest to recover his memory. His is a picaresque adventure, as he acquires a slave, a sorceror, a black warrior, and a woman as his companions. Seemingly, the end to his quest is around every corner, so much so that it was only in the last ten pages that this reader began to have the horrible feeling that was confirmed by the words "(These are the last words of the first scroll.)" on the last page. Anguish. For Wolfe is writing a mystery, an adventure, a fable.... Soldier of the Mist is not easily classified, yet it is a dizzying work to read. The prose style of Soldier of the Mist is slightly more accessible than Wolfe's Book of the New Sun quartet and Tor has had the grace to include a glossary of names and terms at the back of the book. The plot is episodic and revelatory in form. To say more is not easy. Wolfe has written a brilliant book which may be his best yet. If you like Wolfe, you have a treat in store for you. Wolfe's style and characters make it easy to question how SF could possibly still be confined to any sort of ghetto. Avram Davidson was voted a Life Achievement award as part of the World Fantasy Awards last November. A Hugo winner (for "Or All the Seas With Oysters", 1958) and well-regarded novelist (The Phoenix in the Mirror, et al.), Davidson has nonetheless failed to earn some of the acclaim and notoriety, to say nothing of money, that has been garnered by lesser writers. Two of Davidson's out-of-print novels are delights to be enjoyed by the diligent miners of the used-book shelves. Peregrine: Primus and its sequel, Peregrine: Secundus, are romps through central Roman Empire and vicinity in the company of Peregrine, bastard prince of Sapodilla, which, as every schoolboy knows, was the last pagan kingdom in the world to resist Christianity. Peregrine's adventures take him through brothels, rebellions against local caesars, involvement with sundry heresies, and magical transformation into a falcon. Two episodes give a good idea of the flavor of the writing. Peregrine loots the hoard of a dragon, a very small dragon as it turns out. The loot contains three oboli and one drachma, all of a very devaluated coinage (inscribed "Sennacherib XXIII, Great King, King of Kings, King of Lower Upper Southeast Central Assyria"), one very battered metal bracelet inscribed "Cailus loves Mariamne" made of base metal, and a rotting leather case containing the long-lost serpent crown of the Ephts. Later, the boat on which Peregrine is passenger is attacked by a horde of Huns, which "filled the scene as far as eye could see." However, in the bend of the river, sunken rather deep between overhanging bluffs, the eye can't see very far and the Hun horde consists of eleven men (two riding postern) and three moldy yourts being drawn by an ox apiece. In the second book, the adventures continue in the precincts of Alfland, in far northern Europe, where Peregrine is transformed from falcon to naked Bastard Prince in the middle of a royal dining table. He then becomes the romantic target of a young princess, is aided by the weefolk, and is used for ballast by a dragon. Among other things. Davidson writes with an exhilarating exuberance rarely found anywhere. There are few writers who display a greater love for language and its rhythms, few writers who are more playful in their prose. Davidson's characters are capable of uttering long, convoluted sentences that charm and delight instead of, as with any lesser writer, being an unintelligble mass of gibberish. If you like broad wit coupled with high adventure in a wonderfully spoofed and skewed version of history, search out these books. Peregrine: Primus was published in 1971 (hardcover) and 1977 (paperpack); Peregrine: Secundus, appeared in 1981 (paperback) after having parts anthologized in two magazine appearances. Davidson recently noted that Peregrine: Secundus, seemed to have sunk without a trace, without a single review. I hope that this small notice can serve as partial redress for this oversight. Davidson is a master of historical fantasy, fully on a par with Poul Anderson, and his books ought not vanish without a ripple. I hope you find them and I hope you like them. OtherRealms Reviewing the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Editor & Publisher Chuq Von Rospach Associate Editor Laurie Sefton Contributing Editors Dan'l Danehy-Oakes Jim Brunet OtherRealms #15 May, 1987 Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach. All Rights Reserved. One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may be reproduced in its only for non-commercial purposes. No article may be reprinted without the express permission of the author. OtherRealms is published monthly, through July, the quarterly by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA. 94560 Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ Review copies should be sent to this address for consideration. Subscriptions OtherRealms is available for the usual bribes & trades: a copy of your zine, submissions, letters, comments, artwork or because I want you to see it. People who don't like to write can still get OtherRealms for money: $2.50 for a single issue, or $8.50 for four issues. Folks in the publishing industry can qualify for a free subscription. Just ask. OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy bookstore, Palo Alto, California. Stores interested in OtherRealms should contact me. Electronic OtherRealms An electronic, text-only version of OtherRealms is available on a number of different computer networks and bulletin board systems. On the Arpanet, Bitnet, CSNet, and UUCP networks, send E-mail to chuq@sun.COM to subscribe. On USENET, OtherRealms is distributed in the group mod.mag.otherrealms. It is also available on the Delphi timesharing service and a number of Bulletin Board systems across the country. Submissions OtherRealms publishes articles about Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. The primary focus is reviews of books that otherwise might be missed in the deluge of new titles published every year, but the magazine is open to anything involving books. Authors are welcome to submit articles for the Behind the Scenes feature section, where you want to talk about the research and background that went into your book. I'm also interested in author interviews. Interview yourself, and finally get to that question you've always wanted to be asked. Any thing of interest to the reader of book-length fiction is welcome at OtherRealms. We don't cover shorter lengths, media, or fannish news. I NEED ART. Lots and lots of art. Especially small filler art for those little white spaces and cover art. I am also desperate for a few good pieces of cover art. The covers for my Westercon and Worldcon issues are still not filled (as are almost all the other issues, for that matter). Cartoons. Genre art. Anything! Help me make OtherRealms more fun to read! Book Ratings in OtherRealms All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books receive [***]. Ratings may be modified a half step with a + or a -, so [***-] is somewhat better than [**+] [*****] One of the best books of the year [****] A very good book -- above average [***] A good book [**] Flawed, but has its moments [*] Not recommended [] Avoid at all costs nd Charles Brown discussed some of the startup problems they had. So it was with some glee that I put last month's issue (my first on the Laserwriter) to bed ahead of schedule and with no pain whatsoever. I'd done a lot of planning on it, and having worked with the technology for a while, felt I had all the angles covered. When nobody was looking, I even chortled a little bit for outsmarting my arch-nemesis, Lord Murphy. Well, just to make sure everyone knows that the proud will do themselves in,