Book Review: The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

I recently picked up The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter from my library and wanted to take the time to write a quick review on the book. Amazon I don't really have any major spoilers here but you do learn a little bit about character names and basic rules in this world.

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The book begins with an account of Private Percy that sets up the rest of the book, revolving around "stepping" and the "Long Earth." (it even has a fanciful diagram of a stepping device before the 1st chapter) It quickly introduces us to the supporting characters, the basics of how stepping works and introduces the main character, Joshua. Other characters give us a little bit of understanding of the history of stepping encounters. There is a small bit of religion peppered into this story, with the main character being raised by nuns and a chapter with a debate on the long earth between Reverends at a small parsonage in England, one of which is connected the the Black Corporation. All the secondary characters each have a connection to Step Day that later on becomes more important than it seems when you first read it.

The main story revolves around a worldwide event, from that day on called Step Day, in which people can travel to alternate iterations of the Earth - a seemingly endless number of them. This day sets off a variety of events, including people leaving the original earth to pursue their own bits of space, and introduces us to "the Black Corporation." I enjoyed the first-hand personal accounts from a variety of characters as they encounter stepping or travel the Long Earth - its nice to see different perspectives on a global event. We follow the accounts of Monica Jansson, a cop who shows a knack for figuring out ways to deal with stepping crimes and has a connection with Joshua on Step Day. We get snippets about the journey of a family that travels the long earth through the diary entries of their daughter. 

As the story builds, Joshua, sets off on a journey with Lobsang, a sorta human robot (though he claims he was a Tibetan mechanic originally). Joshua, a natural stepper, journeys with Lobsang in a flying dirigible to study the Long Earth, learning a bit about his history as he goes along on the journey. As they travel, we learn there is more to why they're traveling across the Long Earth. Late in the book we are introduced to another character, who very much like Joshua, has been stepping from the beginning before going on the journey with Joshua and Lobsang on their ship, the Mark Twain. As their journey comes to a close and an encounter, they find themselves racing to save humanity. 

It was a decent read though I felt the very last few chapters came to a close a bit too quickly and wrapped up a bit too easily. I was hoping for a better ending I guess. With so many worlds open to the human race I felt that the story didn't utilize them in the plot enough. I had a few questions at the end of the book. Overall, I think its a good read, something to get your imagination going.

KT

Sketches for class

Sketches for a skill share class

Interview with Lindsay Adams

Check out the Q&A I did with Lindsay Adams for Hospice Dreams:

http://www.hospicedreams.org/News/Interview-with-Lindsay-Adams

Comedy Show Q&A

I did a Q&A with comedian Calvin Evans (of Second City) for Hospice Dream's blog - we're plugging our upcoming comedy show in Kankakee, IL. Check it out here!

http://hospicedreams.org/News/Interview-with-Calvin-Evans

I'll be posting the other interviews in the next two weeks, so watch out for more blog posts.

In which I have the urge to animate. In 3d. And realize I don't have any 3d software.

So I went to school and graduated a few years ago with a degree in Computer Animation. But I never did anything with it other than land jobs doing graphic design/illustration with short bouts of web animation.  Though I enjoy that, I miss telling stories and working on really big creative projects. Sure, I am working on becoming a children's book illustrator and developing my portfolio. I still miss all the 3d animation stuff I used to work on with others, and working with other artists.

I used to animate in Maya and Softimage, and even Lightwave - but when you don't touch the software for five years, you get super rusty. I don't have access to any of those so I'm downloading blender, which has been around for a while now. Its also opensource and there are LOTs of tutorials and rigged models to practice on.

Tonight, after doing all my other projects, I took time to read and watch some tutorials, download the software, and try to animate and render a really simple object. I'm happy to say that my little laptop managed to survive rendering (which has claimed many other computers I've used). At a 100 frames, with no story, it's not much to look at but it is a start.

I made an mpeg4 and converted it to a gif with some free software I found online. It sadly adds a watermark, but it doesn't matter in this case. Below is squaretest. Enjoy. It does get hypnotic if you watch it long enough.

Lent

It's that time of year when I focus on living life to the fullest, fasting, charity, and doing good in the world. I'd like to think I do this all the time but it helps having 40 days dedicated to it with a group of strangers and/or friends who are also sacrificing things and looking to do good in the world that they are part of.

This year I'm trying something really hard- giving up coffee. I've done this once before,a long time ago. I've come to rely on coffee for my day-to-day life. It's part of my daily routine, so ill be replacing it with water, and sometimes hot tea.

Next on my list is to do more productive things during Lent, and that includes dedicating myself to the things that I have a passion for or wanted to do. I have a tendency to get excited about an idea, start, and never finish.

During lent I'm going to amp up my routine to include 30 minutes of exercise daily.
I will animate something that I find fun and will share it.
I will work on a painting for a few weeks in a row.
I will finish unravelling my old scarf.
I will finish paintings that I got stuck on.

& I will do this all without coffee & share them as I progress through my project ideas.

Oh and since I'm trying to get ready for a marathon, I thought that today would be a great day to stop eating sweets. Gummy anything is my favorite, so I filled up today.

As for charity, I've set up my repeat donations for the year, and I'll try to spread the word about various charities and events that support my favorite charities as I hear about them.

Here's hoping that Lent will be productive!

Skiing weekend

Nick took me for a skiing weekend that turned out to be near Lake Geneva. I had mentioned wanting to go skiing a few times and we had an open weekend so we went. It was a lot of fun but its been a long time since I skied so I'm really sore. It was nice showing him all my favorite places in town. We went to kilwin's for ice cream the first day. Went to dinner at Tuscan (not soo tasty), went to the Grand Geneva for a crab leg buffet, and finished off with breakfast at Simple ( local source food and absolutely delish). Overall we enjoyed the weather and skiing, most of the food was awesome, and the people were really nice. Neat detail: the meters text you when your parking time is almost done and you can text them back if you need to add time! How cool is that?