The Once and Future (High) King.

"Fated to dree a hero's weird."

With The Sword of the Lady, the Changeverse series makes a gradual transformation into the Artosian Mythos. And I use the Arthurian paraphrase deliberately.

The second series has focused on Rudi Mackenzie and his companions' quest for the titular Sword to battle against the malignant supernatural evil embodied by the Church Universal and Triumphant, which has to date destroyed the powerful LDS state of Deseret and co-opted the equally powerful United States of Boise.

The close of previous book The Scourge of God saw Rudi and Edain crossing the Mississippi on a difficult quest: to retrieve the looted art collected by the orders of the hereditary Governor of Iowa, Anthony Heasleroad. Which is held in several wagons without horses, a tricky task for two men, no matter how gifted.

In the course of resolving that task, Rudi also comes to grips with the cancerous power of the CUT, literally coming to blows with one of its possessed adepts. From there, pursued by the dauntless CUT troopers bent on stopping him, the action gallops across the country from Iowa to Wisconsin to Maine and finally Nantucket, surveying the wrecked and not-so-wrecked parts of the Sunrise Lands along the way. Not, alas, including Michigan, fellow Peninsulares. But we do see the good, the evil and the downright ugly of the survivors east of the Mississippi. We also see a famous ship whose fate proved different in this world, too. Blink and you'll miss it. New allies are also collected, new cultures growing in the ashes (this time, Norse Aesirtru), crucial alliances formed and, sadly, a perspective character dies, albeit an heroic, redemptive and hope-filled death.

At the very end, we do see the Sword, and we get a strong hint of the Arthurian end awaiting Rudi/Artos at life's close.

The good: It flies. A breakneck pace, and yet the detail does not suffer. Far from it--Steve's mastery of landscape description remains unmatched. I wrote him after I received the draft of a scene where the heroes enter the Wisconsin farm country in October, and I told him I could smell the autumn air and see the way the sunlight shone off the trees. It captured it that well.

Also good: battle scenes, including the "supernatural" ones featuring Fr. Ignatius and Rudi battling the CUT adept. You might think there's nothing remarkable about the latter two holding their own in a sword fight, but you have to remember the adept usually doesn't have to draw his own weapon. The characterization also remains strong, with, as could be hoped, more depth to the characters as they move along. Even Sandra Arminger continues to show glimmers of genuine humanity, despite her ruthless practicality and lack of allegiance to any ideals larger than the survival of House Arminger.

Rudi and Mathilda move closer together (not in *that* way, to Rudi's emotional and physical discomfort), but how close I'm not going to tell you, to quote Monty Python.

Continuing to be good: the Catholic bits. Again, as I feel compelled to do, I am just the advisor/sounding board on this particular aspect. 99% of the time, Steve presents something to me and I say the equivalent of "Yep, looks good!" in an uneconomical thirty-plus words.

And yes, Sean, I hear your objection. I'll address it momentarily.

Evil here is evil. Not misunderstood, or the product of a broken home, but stench-of-the-pit evil. You can admire the virtues of a Peter Graber, raised to fight for an awful cause, but you are left wanting him to lose at every second.

Also, there are references to what happened in other parts of the world, including the new Islamic corsair states of west Africa, and the Imperial English sea power which keeps swatting them down.

The usual pop-culture references are dropped into the text, and nods to other authors appear like Easter eggs, sometimes only on the second reading.

At the last, we get a nice throwback to the Island series, and strong hints toward an explanation of the why, and perhaps who (in the sense of the good principalities vs. the bad ones) was responsible for the Change. Along with suggestions as to its permanence.

The bad: lack of space means relatively short shrift to the allies battling the bad guys out west, though it does adequately convey that it is going badly. It jumps from the shores of Lake Superior to northern Maine with just a bare reference. I understand why--the publisher's not giving him another 100 pages until his last name changes to "King." But it's still a bit jarring. Also jarring is Fred Thurston's newly-declared religious allegiance. Yes, there were signs it was going that way, but it's still a bit abrupt.

Finally, to what I *think* are Sean's objections: the Norse oracle and the respective visions of Fr. Ignatius and Rudi at Nantucket. Yeah, it's a bit pluralistic, to use the trendy theological term. To which I reply, yes, but (1) it's not a Catholic novel by a Catholic writer, (2) it's as palatably presented as pluralism could be from an orthodox standpoint, and (3) Fr. Ignatius gets an explicitly Christian vision and explanation for what the others are seeing. Added together, yes, I know, that means it's not orthodox. But we don't usually get this favorable a hearing/presentation in the first place, so I'm disinclined to complain. If I want to, I can write my own.

All told, I think it's the strongest in the second series, which now stands fully apart from the original trilogy and is not merely the continuation. Take, read.

My musical tastes are definitely in transition.

Or perhaps they're just broadening: I recognized pretty much every song played during the parts of the Country Music Awards I saw last night.

And I knew Brooks and Dunn had called it quits a couple months back.

Yippie-ki-yay!

What's more disturbing is that country is pretty much all Heather listens to on "live" radio these days. Had you told me twenty years ago in college she'd be listening to country music, I'd have responded "Steer clear of the brown acid next time."

Isaiah 2:4.

A few months back, I got myself into a brutal flame war with the Catholic blogger who goes by the name of Morning's Minion. After a carpetbombing fisk and volleys fired in other fora, I began to ponder whether or not I had done right, let alone well, in this particular fight. After a halting effort on my part to reach out to MM in another forum, he responded very graciously. I took down the fisk shortly thereafter. Upon further consideration, I came to the painful and unavoidable conclusion that I had behaved like a jerk and a jackass. And not for the first time. I conveyed that to him, and he offered a heartfelt apology for his part.

Lord, grant me the grace that I always remember there's someone else at the other end of my responses, and that not every season under Heaven is open season.

Unpaid testimonial.

Thanks--as in huge, sanity-and-identity-saving thanks--to Bob Ward for cleaning the particularly nasty virus off our computer last night.

Bob operates Bob's PC Pro, LLC, and he was able to remotely access our badly-infected computer and remove the "full-featured" virus that was threatening it. He was remarkably patient with the technically-impaired gent he was working with, and successfully outfoxed the ugly thing that was making our computer unusable. He also made some recommendations for upgrading our computer, removed the ineffective name-brand virus "protection" software, replaced it with something effective and downloaded some useful protective surfing software which will help us well into the future. All at a fair price.

As a very, very happy customer, I can recommend him without hesitation!

Well said, Mr. President.

He hit every note perfectly. And avoided the rhetorical elephant trap about "backlash."

It's about the victims, their service and their grieving families, and his speech honored them all.

Bravo!

And the harassment excuse needs to get snipped, stat.

I would never dismiss the harm caused by religious or racial harassment. It's grim, dehumanizing and hurtful. It should be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly, as our legal system allows, to its credit.

However, it sure doesn't excuse murder.

If there was any group of Americans with grounds to snap at the hateful policies of the government and military, it would have been the Nisei living in the continental U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Rounded up en masse and sent into camps by Executive Order simply because they shared the same ancestry as one of our enemies, Japanese Americans had ample reason to be bitter and vengeful toward the country that turned on them.

Instead, they responded by volunteering to serve that country. The rest, as they say, is history--21 Medals of Honor worth.

Just something to ponder over the next few days.

Good work, Sergeant.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley stopped Nidal Hasan with four well-placed bullets at close range.

"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," [Base Commander Lt. General Bob] Cone said.

Munley was only a few feet from Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

Wounded in the exchange of bullets, the 34-year-old Munley was reported in stable condition at a local hospital.

The diminutive Munley - she stands 5-foot-4 and weighs about 120 pounds - served as a cop in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., before she moved to Texas to enlist in the military, friends said.

She is married with two daughters and is no longer in the armed forces.

"She's the happiest, sweetest, most fun-loving girl you'd ever want to be friends with - and never want to cross," Peterson said.

Munley could not be reached Friday. In a posting on her Twitter page, she wrote: "I live a good life....a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life."

The hero cop spent Thursday night phoning fellow officers to let them know she was fine and to find out about casualties in the attack - the deadliest ever on a military base in the U.S., Cone said.

Yes, the jihadi was taken down by a woman. Given his disdain for the fair sex, that's an ironic delight.

The bigger question is why nobody intervened to address the man's obvious problems. The fellow pulled the pin on the grenade a long time ago. [Reynolds' SNL reference is absolutely perfect.]

Actually, the question answers itself: PC. And now it comes with a body count.

One last thing, a bit of unsolicited advice: cancel the pity party. The actual victims are in the morgue or the hospital right now, along with their families.

For future reference, the proper response is "How can we help?"

"Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Three's Company and Beastmaster. The story should use amnesia as a plot device."

Look on my Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator, ye mighty, and despair!

Ok, it's not really mine, but you'll despair nonetheless.

Yeah, but...wouldn't they have to be?

An interesting, thumbs-up review of the V reboot which starts on ABC tonight.

Leaving the political subtext aside, I found this part about the religious angle interesting:

A handful of dissidents holds out against the rapturous reception given the Vs. Some are simply uneasy, such as the youthful priest Father Jack, who sharply criticizes the Vatican's embrace of the Vs as divine creations: "Rattlesnakes are God's creatures, too."

Unless they were machine life/generated, they'd have to be part of the divine creative order, correct? I'm a little nervous about the Vatican part potentially devolving into a "Visitors' Pope" plot thread, but I'll hold fire until it happens.

Discuss!

[Oh, and one more thing: it's nice to see that they preserved that part of the original, which featured a Catholic priest as a member of the resistance, one determined to convert the aliens, to boot. The Sci-Fi Channel re-broadcast the original two series over the weekend. It held up OK, but shows its age in spots. The main problem is the acting, which, apart from the ever-reliable Michael Ironside as the cynical mercenary-turned-resistance mastermind and Robert Englund as the naifish friendly (!) alien, was generally flat.

Memo to producers of sci-fi series: forget the effects budget. If you want it to work, get a good cast. That will save you even when you lose the thread of the plot. See, e.g., Galactica (2004), Battlestar.]

That's funny--I don't *feel* like Saint Joseph.

In fact, the comparison is pretty much Ludicrous City, next stop.

But that didn't stop our DRE from press-ganging Elizabeth, Heather and me to be the Holy Family in our parish's Nativity Play.

Let's see--I have a beard...and far more importantly, an infant.

Dale III heard about the possibility of being one of the angels and wanted to know if he could be in "the sword fight." It took a second, until I confirmed he was referring to the Archangel Michael expelling Satan from heaven.

I mean, Dude. Wrong scene, wrong book, and waaay too Michael Bay-ish for our restrained suburban congregants.

I don't think I'm one of those parents yet.

But my son scored his first youth flag football points ever on a two-point conversion attempt during the 'Skins victory over the Buccaneers. A professional photographer caught the scene, and persuaded me to part with hard earned cash for a permanent keepsake.



Frankly, him doing anything productive in a skill position role is slightly suspicious, given that his paternal genetics would suggest a "Hulk SMASH!" role on the defensive line, perhaps linebacker, at best. The pigskin is to be swatted at or fallen on, not carried.

Must get it from his mom's side.