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May. 7th, 2008 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseLet's see what actually makes it into text here.
I went to Vancouver for about 8 days. Enjoyed the time with the in-laws, the direct relatives, and meeting a couple of Colin (Or his parents') friends that i hadn't before. And his parents' fifteen year old foster daughter, and one of her friends. (Did I mention his dad is over 70 and his mom is at least close?)
I did some writing while in Vancouver (Dana is Love; I don't miss having a laptop with that thing around); on Gods in Flight rather than Serpent Prince, because new text is much easier to produce on a Dana, and editing on it is rather trickier. It wasn't until late in the trip that the main human character finally gave me her name, and at that, it was the first and middle, the surname I figured out yesterday (Lilas Meridian Larkhame - usually goes by Dia or Meridian.) The demigod admitted to his a while ago.
Which also led to the question; longitudinal lines are meridians; what are latitudinal ones other than the equator and the two tropics?
Not planning to continue with that just yet, though; for oen thing, both characters started their sections with infodumps, and while the second one (the demigod's) can probably be cut for now and moved into later dialogue, Dia's opening ramble about herself and her country probably can't. Ouch.
But mainly, I did want to see if I can finish Serpent Prince first. And it's cooperating and throwing me a few ideas how to clean up after the latest "Ulp. That wasn't in the last draft" incident.
Colin stayed a few days longer than I did (I set it up so I could travel and still work my usual time at the Rehab. Centre for Children). While he was away, I started to overhaul my study, which so far has mainly consisted of emptying boxes and/or file folders of papers and figuring out what is still relevant or useful. Thus, for the time being, I have four empty boxes and a lot of stacks of paper.And almost filled the recycling bin with discards, not counting the basketful and a bit that are now sitting by Colin's shredder because they're financially related.
I also discovered two gift cards from my wedding that were mixed in with the regular wedding cards. I thought we'd separated them all out while we were going through them. Whooops. Fortunately, one hadn't quite expired (They have a two year limit. My anniversary is next Tuesday.) The other one technically has, but I was also informed by the other store, when I was checking about the expiry, that it is now illegal to have a gift card or gift certificate expire (it didn't used to be), and that one expiring means the store needs to issue another for the same amount. But the kid at the counter there was useless useless useless even before we got to the gift card. (Okay. You work in a game store that specializes in European board games, and you don't recognize a piece from a Settlers of Catan expansion?)
Going through my wedding cards, though, reminded me rather guiltily of something: I never did send out thank you cards for the wedding proper. I got the ones for the social out, with my maid of honour's help, but the wedding ones just kind of got lost in the shuffle. Partly because I meant to make it a minor craft project (As in one that would only take two or three months) and personalize them. I had all the necessary doodads, but really, card-making, while well within my abilities as an arty type, just isn't one of the arty things that most interests me. I then, realising how late they'd run, decided to put it off to my first anniversary, and make it look like a deliberate plan. With a typed-up and printed out note inside on just that. And that, though easier, text wise, than all the handwritten, never happened either, though it would ahve made personalizing the cards themselves easier.
It's not a lack of appreciation for the various people who were there celebrating, for the gifts and kindnesses and all the things I knew or did not know they did for my sake. It kind of makes me feel bad. But at the same time, I'm also not the kind of person who is put out when I don't receive thank you cards, or considers it a major point of etiquette. (I liked getting a couple of the ones that were photos of the happy couple, from friends, but that's for the gift of the picture. The ones that were just cards, not so much. The ones that never arrived? Um, I'm not even sure if there are any.)
But something tells me if, by my second anniversary, they're not done, they won't be.
Does anyone do scrapbooking or other crafts that could use some pretty papers, gel pens, decorative stickers, cards and papers with flowers pressed into them, etc?
I talked to the temp agency about working for arts-related or general non-profit, and they're okay with that, though I was warned it limits my possible jobs even more than already working one job does. They're also, to my surprise, perfectly okay with me either turning down jobs several times if I'm not sure about the place, and with me sending out resumes on my own (Meaning I can cover a number of other businesses I otherwise could not.)
Time to print up new copies of my resume. I did the updates a couple of months ago, during school, but I need a handful of the physical objects.
On the art front, I may be too late to get into the Keycon show. Not that I probably couldn't talk them into giving me a spot if it were just a deadline thing, but their site says they actually sold out. It would likely be pretty small money as it is, since Keycon is not exactly a big art sale place.
I'd been thinking about going to the con anyhow this year, as it's the 25th, and, more importantly, Jane Yolen is one of the guests, and I had a couple of panel ideas that might have worked (especially with her presence), and the programmign the last time I went was very much in need of a shot in the arm. Also, i miss filking.
If I don't get into the art show, though, I think I'm better off saving the money and the weekend for other things. I have an idea for a relief tile series, which is a ceramics project I could work on from home without any equipment I currently lack. Also, one I could actually make molds for once the first set is done, and produce en masse, without feeling too guilty about it. Alas, it will take a lot of sketching out ahead of time, and I *will* need a clay-dedicated rolling pin after all. I also decided that since my animal heads are currently all different colours, too different in size, and some of them are very unsatisfactory to my eye (I hate the panther) I should redo most of them if I ever want to make the chess set. (Thus, I have not deleted my otter and donkey reference photos - although the otter is one of the pretty results, IMO).
(Both of these not being food things, I can use low fire commercial glazes and the easiest to find public kilns, too!)
Goblin War - Jim C Hines
I typo'd that as "goblin wear" the first time. A somewhat more worrisome picture.
The first plus about this book is that the giggles start in the acknowledgements page, usually fairly dry. The second is that Jim updates us on the previous two books mainly by use of a two-page call and answer recitation that is similar to a religious ceremony -- except with lines in it like you'd expect from goblins. Funny, not boring, short.
Anyhow, this is a decidedly satisfactory end to the Goblin trilogy, which is itself a trilogy of the *right* kind, which is to say three separate stories that stand alone and make a satisfactory larger story. Which comes to a distinct close. Jim has not completely shut the door on writing other stories in this world, but he's made sure that if he does, even with the goblins themselves, they won't be the first trilogy done over again.
Anyhow, the story this time starts with a group of humans, more numerous and much smarter than an adventurer's crew, coming in and capturing Jig and various larger and tougher goblins, to draft them into a war against ... hobgoblins, orcs, and fellow goblins. The word here is, cannon fodder. If any of them were to miraculously survive the battle, the king of the country has made it clear he's interested in exterminating the goblins on his land once and for all.
Jig, still runty and waay too smart for his own good, and with a rather weird god in his head, promptly escapes and decides to look into this enemy army, which sounds, at first, like the people he ought to sympathize with. Turns out things aren't that easy. Not only are both sides in the war badly flawed, there, are, it turns out, some complicated dealings going on with the gods themselves.
Which is one of the best things about this book. We finally get a real look at Tymalous Shadowstar, at where he comes from, at what he fought against, why he lost, and why, most of all, he survived in the wake of that loss. Oh, and what he's god *of*, which i don't remember being addressed before, at least not in this kind of detail, revealing his limitations. Shadowstar, it seems, is much more like the goblins he adopted than he let on, and more like Jig in particular -- and a bit more of a bastard than Jig already thought he was.
The other best things about this book are the same things that are plusses about the others; unexpected bouts of common sense, and not only by Jig, smart ways to get out of situations. Getting the goblin's perspective on how to survive something that looks suspiciously like a quest, and their unorthodox means of undermining all the fantasy tropes. Smudge the fire spider, even though within the books it seems like Jig has to push his pet's tolerance and fondness a few times. I really hope that between adventures they get to relax and have fun with each other a bit more.
Jim is moving on now to a new series, about fantasy princesses and fairy tales, starting with The Stepsister Scheme. I'm not disappointed in him trying other territory; I'm looking forward to it.
Emma Bull - Bone Dance
I'm assuming there's a statue of limitations on spoilers, and book over a decade old (about 15 years I think?) is on the other side of it.
Anyhow: there are several things about this book that are implausible nowadays, and some that were back then. You can criticize the post-apocalyptic setting with the "even nuclear bombs couldn't turn Central America into an archipelago" or grumble about the global warming result from that apocalyptic war. (Most of which I let slide, because, not important to the current story). You can think, as I do, that considerably more infrastructure could probably be restored in a place like Minneapolis than was in this book, even though this book does considerably less of the "The world has gone to hell" than, say, the kinds like Mad Max that assume everyone is on the run and gone feral. People here are living in a city, with local agriculture around it, feasible markets, some, if rationed, electricity, and hints of other structures either in place or cobbled back together. People have jobs, or enough leisure to visit night clubs. But, based on the sheer quantities of things like music discs, movies, and books, in the present, the existance of libraries, of endemic used stores, I find it harder to believe that Minneapolis has reached the point where (per the opening scene, so not a spoiler) only the richest of rich can get any copy of Singing in the Rain, and only a handful would get the joke in that opening about "Debbie Reynolds dies at the end". Even with electricity severely limited, since the same thing is implied about books, which, not needing the scarce electricity, are readily available. There are around 20 used bookstores in Winnipeg, as many new (And the new ones, including Chapters' and McNallys, are *significantly* larger). I doubt Minneapolis could run that far out of books even if few new ones were being produced.
However, and here's the most important thing, those are *surface trappings*. The surface trappings are off. Oh, no. The thing is, you might as well complain that voodoo isn't real, so the story couldn't happen. Or that an androgynous created body, essentially a puppet, can't wake up one day as a living being with inherent knowledge. The story is set where it's set because that's what makes it easiest to tell this story, with this point. It's not aiming for physical realism so much as emotional truths.
The story, about Sparrow's transformation from wary outsider to fully involved human, the sacrifices made, by hir and others, to get hir there, those have the punch of truth. The action is given a hectic pace, with shootings and dead bodies, plots and counterplots, daring escapes and hard choices, but if that was all there was, that and the wonky surface trappings, it would be read once and thrown aside.
There's more underneath. The heart of this book isn't in whether the exact apocalypse and the exact scarcity Sparrow deals with make sense. It's not even in the action-movie like plan to take down the Monopoly, or defeat the last Horseman. It's about what it means to try to live in a society, to take its benefits, and yet pretend that what happens to people you know, people you see every day, doesn't matter. Trying to say, "I'm not a part of this." And what it does to the person who tries it.
Or maybe it's the realisation that everything you are is given to you by someone else, not naturally inherent in you, by genetics or lessons or connection -- and doesn't make you less you. Or one of the other hidden lessons or messages, about belief or what it means to be God's Vessel. It doesn't matter which.
The emotional heart, the personal vision, the people, are all vivid, the writing is solid and fast and the action is convincing, and I found that even with surface trappings askew, I was sucked into the book.
What surprised me, actually, on the reread, is how much of that transformation, of the sense of personality of Sparrow and others, Emma Bull gets across in how few pages. She manages to let a single scene stand for a whole relationship (I first had this thought rereading Sparrow's gig at the club with Theo -- and Sher, but I could as easily mean several others after that), but makes that scene complicated enough and nuanced enough that, if the reader is paying attention to the nuances, the relationship feels solid and clear in its shape. Many writers could hardly make one scene depict the whole of a two-dimensional relationship. Each page includes some detail, some event, that turns the whole thing over again. The villains are left rather flat, but Sparrow and hir allies and friends turn real very fast.
Blackmore's Night - Under a Violet Moon
Since I have their most current album, why not continue at the other end, with their first?
The contrast is, to say the least, noticeable. The the Village Lanterne, there's a distinct return to rock feel in some songs. There's a lot more surety in many of the lyrics, even those that are shamelessly about fantasy or love or romance. There's less repetition of choruses.
Under a Violet Moon is much more acoustic, which isn't necessarily bad. It's more uneven, and the unevenness feels like that of a band still coming together. The shameless positive feeling and slight cheese to the lyrics in Village Lanterne is here sometimes positively naive and awkward with it, as well. Wind in the Willows is hard toge t through if one is paying attention at all, and musically weak with it.
There are still standout tracks; the first four songs, for instance, are all strong in their own way; Castles and Dreams is a bittersweet story about believing too much in same, and if it seems belied by some of the rest of their own music, at least it hints at a realistic look. Past Time with Good Company, being written by Henry VIII is one of the few truly renaissance pieces, and performed the most like it, to its advantage; very danceable, though. Morning Star remains one of my favourites, quickpaced and easy to dance to. The instrumentals are mostly solid, as you'd expect from a longtime guitarist of some skill, although I think the attempt to limit it to acoustic and to things that sound more cod-medieval hurts it slightly.
Still, I did find my expectations slightly disappointed.
It's certainly good enough that, had I started here instead of with their current work, I'd have still decided I want to seek out more. I just might not have added the "NOW!" to it. It hasn't dissuaded me from wanting more of the work in between, either.
I went to Vancouver for about 8 days. Enjoyed the time with the in-laws, the direct relatives, and meeting a couple of Colin (Or his parents') friends that i hadn't before. And his parents' fifteen year old foster daughter, and one of her friends. (Did I mention his dad is over 70 and his mom is at least close?)
I did some writing while in Vancouver (Dana is Love; I don't miss having a laptop with that thing around); on Gods in Flight rather than Serpent Prince, because new text is much easier to produce on a Dana, and editing on it is rather trickier. It wasn't until late in the trip that the main human character finally gave me her name, and at that, it was the first and middle, the surname I figured out yesterday (Lilas Meridian Larkhame - usually goes by Dia or Meridian.) The demigod admitted to his a while ago.
Which also led to the question; longitudinal lines are meridians; what are latitudinal ones other than the equator and the two tropics?
Not planning to continue with that just yet, though; for oen thing, both characters started their sections with infodumps, and while the second one (the demigod's) can probably be cut for now and moved into later dialogue, Dia's opening ramble about herself and her country probably can't. Ouch.
But mainly, I did want to see if I can finish Serpent Prince first. And it's cooperating and throwing me a few ideas how to clean up after the latest "Ulp. That wasn't in the last draft" incident.
Colin stayed a few days longer than I did (I set it up so I could travel and still work my usual time at the Rehab. Centre for Children). While he was away, I started to overhaul my study, which so far has mainly consisted of emptying boxes and/or file folders of papers and figuring out what is still relevant or useful. Thus, for the time being, I have four empty boxes and a lot of stacks of paper.And almost filled the recycling bin with discards, not counting the basketful and a bit that are now sitting by Colin's shredder because they're financially related.
I also discovered two gift cards from my wedding that were mixed in with the regular wedding cards. I thought we'd separated them all out while we were going through them. Whooops. Fortunately, one hadn't quite expired (They have a two year limit. My anniversary is next Tuesday.) The other one technically has, but I was also informed by the other store, when I was checking about the expiry, that it is now illegal to have a gift card or gift certificate expire (it didn't used to be), and that one expiring means the store needs to issue another for the same amount. But the kid at the counter there was useless useless useless even before we got to the gift card. (Okay. You work in a game store that specializes in European board games, and you don't recognize a piece from a Settlers of Catan expansion?)
Going through my wedding cards, though, reminded me rather guiltily of something: I never did send out thank you cards for the wedding proper. I got the ones for the social out, with my maid of honour's help, but the wedding ones just kind of got lost in the shuffle. Partly because I meant to make it a minor craft project (As in one that would only take two or three months) and personalize them. I had all the necessary doodads, but really, card-making, while well within my abilities as an arty type, just isn't one of the arty things that most interests me. I then, realising how late they'd run, decided to put it off to my first anniversary, and make it look like a deliberate plan. With a typed-up and printed out note inside on just that. And that, though easier, text wise, than all the handwritten, never happened either, though it would ahve made personalizing the cards themselves easier.
It's not a lack of appreciation for the various people who were there celebrating, for the gifts and kindnesses and all the things I knew or did not know they did for my sake. It kind of makes me feel bad. But at the same time, I'm also not the kind of person who is put out when I don't receive thank you cards, or considers it a major point of etiquette. (I liked getting a couple of the ones that were photos of the happy couple, from friends, but that's for the gift of the picture. The ones that were just cards, not so much. The ones that never arrived? Um, I'm not even sure if there are any.)
But something tells me if, by my second anniversary, they're not done, they won't be.
Does anyone do scrapbooking or other crafts that could use some pretty papers, gel pens, decorative stickers, cards and papers with flowers pressed into them, etc?
I talked to the temp agency about working for arts-related or general non-profit, and they're okay with that, though I was warned it limits my possible jobs even more than already working one job does. They're also, to my surprise, perfectly okay with me either turning down jobs several times if I'm not sure about the place, and with me sending out resumes on my own (Meaning I can cover a number of other businesses I otherwise could not.)
Time to print up new copies of my resume. I did the updates a couple of months ago, during school, but I need a handful of the physical objects.
On the art front, I may be too late to get into the Keycon show. Not that I probably couldn't talk them into giving me a spot if it were just a deadline thing, but their site says they actually sold out. It would likely be pretty small money as it is, since Keycon is not exactly a big art sale place.
I'd been thinking about going to the con anyhow this year, as it's the 25th, and, more importantly, Jane Yolen is one of the guests, and I had a couple of panel ideas that might have worked (especially with her presence), and the programmign the last time I went was very much in need of a shot in the arm. Also, i miss filking.
If I don't get into the art show, though, I think I'm better off saving the money and the weekend for other things. I have an idea for a relief tile series, which is a ceramics project I could work on from home without any equipment I currently lack. Also, one I could actually make molds for once the first set is done, and produce en masse, without feeling too guilty about it. Alas, it will take a lot of sketching out ahead of time, and I *will* need a clay-dedicated rolling pin after all. I also decided that since my animal heads are currently all different colours, too different in size, and some of them are very unsatisfactory to my eye (I hate the panther) I should redo most of them if I ever want to make the chess set. (Thus, I have not deleted my otter and donkey reference photos - although the otter is one of the pretty results, IMO).
(Both of these not being food things, I can use low fire commercial glazes and the easiest to find public kilns, too!)
Goblin War - Jim C Hines
I typo'd that as "goblin wear" the first time. A somewhat more worrisome picture.
The first plus about this book is that the giggles start in the acknowledgements page, usually fairly dry. The second is that Jim updates us on the previous two books mainly by use of a two-page call and answer recitation that is similar to a religious ceremony -- except with lines in it like you'd expect from goblins. Funny, not boring, short.
Anyhow, this is a decidedly satisfactory end to the Goblin trilogy, which is itself a trilogy of the *right* kind, which is to say three separate stories that stand alone and make a satisfactory larger story. Which comes to a distinct close. Jim has not completely shut the door on writing other stories in this world, but he's made sure that if he does, even with the goblins themselves, they won't be the first trilogy done over again.
Anyhow, the story this time starts with a group of humans, more numerous and much smarter than an adventurer's crew, coming in and capturing Jig and various larger and tougher goblins, to draft them into a war against ... hobgoblins, orcs, and fellow goblins. The word here is, cannon fodder. If any of them were to miraculously survive the battle, the king of the country has made it clear he's interested in exterminating the goblins on his land once and for all.
Jig, still runty and waay too smart for his own good, and with a rather weird god in his head, promptly escapes and decides to look into this enemy army, which sounds, at first, like the people he ought to sympathize with. Turns out things aren't that easy. Not only are both sides in the war badly flawed, there, are, it turns out, some complicated dealings going on with the gods themselves.
Which is one of the best things about this book. We finally get a real look at Tymalous Shadowstar, at where he comes from, at what he fought against, why he lost, and why, most of all, he survived in the wake of that loss. Oh, and what he's god *of*, which i don't remember being addressed before, at least not in this kind of detail, revealing his limitations. Shadowstar, it seems, is much more like the goblins he adopted than he let on, and more like Jig in particular -- and a bit more of a bastard than Jig already thought he was.
The other best things about this book are the same things that are plusses about the others; unexpected bouts of common sense, and not only by Jig, smart ways to get out of situations. Getting the goblin's perspective on how to survive something that looks suspiciously like a quest, and their unorthodox means of undermining all the fantasy tropes. Smudge the fire spider, even though within the books it seems like Jig has to push his pet's tolerance and fondness a few times. I really hope that between adventures they get to relax and have fun with each other a bit more.
Jim is moving on now to a new series, about fantasy princesses and fairy tales, starting with The Stepsister Scheme. I'm not disappointed in him trying other territory; I'm looking forward to it.
Emma Bull - Bone Dance
I'm assuming there's a statue of limitations on spoilers, and book over a decade old (about 15 years I think?) is on the other side of it.
Anyhow: there are several things about this book that are implausible nowadays, and some that were back then. You can criticize the post-apocalyptic setting with the "even nuclear bombs couldn't turn Central America into an archipelago" or grumble about the global warming result from that apocalyptic war. (Most of which I let slide, because, not important to the current story). You can think, as I do, that considerably more infrastructure could probably be restored in a place like Minneapolis than was in this book, even though this book does considerably less of the "The world has gone to hell" than, say, the kinds like Mad Max that assume everyone is on the run and gone feral. People here are living in a city, with local agriculture around it, feasible markets, some, if rationed, electricity, and hints of other structures either in place or cobbled back together. People have jobs, or enough leisure to visit night clubs. But, based on the sheer quantities of things like music discs, movies, and books, in the present, the existance of libraries, of endemic used stores, I find it harder to believe that Minneapolis has reached the point where (per the opening scene, so not a spoiler) only the richest of rich can get any copy of Singing in the Rain, and only a handful would get the joke in that opening about "Debbie Reynolds dies at the end". Even with electricity severely limited, since the same thing is implied about books, which, not needing the scarce electricity, are readily available. There are around 20 used bookstores in Winnipeg, as many new (And the new ones, including Chapters' and McNallys, are *significantly* larger). I doubt Minneapolis could run that far out of books even if few new ones were being produced.
However, and here's the most important thing, those are *surface trappings*. The surface trappings are off. Oh, no. The thing is, you might as well complain that voodoo isn't real, so the story couldn't happen. Or that an androgynous created body, essentially a puppet, can't wake up one day as a living being with inherent knowledge. The story is set where it's set because that's what makes it easiest to tell this story, with this point. It's not aiming for physical realism so much as emotional truths.
The story, about Sparrow's transformation from wary outsider to fully involved human, the sacrifices made, by hir and others, to get hir there, those have the punch of truth. The action is given a hectic pace, with shootings and dead bodies, plots and counterplots, daring escapes and hard choices, but if that was all there was, that and the wonky surface trappings, it would be read once and thrown aside.
There's more underneath. The heart of this book isn't in whether the exact apocalypse and the exact scarcity Sparrow deals with make sense. It's not even in the action-movie like plan to take down the Monopoly, or defeat the last Horseman. It's about what it means to try to live in a society, to take its benefits, and yet pretend that what happens to people you know, people you see every day, doesn't matter. Trying to say, "I'm not a part of this." And what it does to the person who tries it.
Or maybe it's the realisation that everything you are is given to you by someone else, not naturally inherent in you, by genetics or lessons or connection -- and doesn't make you less you. Or one of the other hidden lessons or messages, about belief or what it means to be God's Vessel. It doesn't matter which.
The emotional heart, the personal vision, the people, are all vivid, the writing is solid and fast and the action is convincing, and I found that even with surface trappings askew, I was sucked into the book.
What surprised me, actually, on the reread, is how much of that transformation, of the sense of personality of Sparrow and others, Emma Bull gets across in how few pages. She manages to let a single scene stand for a whole relationship (I first had this thought rereading Sparrow's gig at the club with Theo -- and Sher, but I could as easily mean several others after that), but makes that scene complicated enough and nuanced enough that, if the reader is paying attention to the nuances, the relationship feels solid and clear in its shape. Many writers could hardly make one scene depict the whole of a two-dimensional relationship. Each page includes some detail, some event, that turns the whole thing over again. The villains are left rather flat, but Sparrow and hir allies and friends turn real very fast.
Blackmore's Night - Under a Violet Moon
Since I have their most current album, why not continue at the other end, with their first?
The contrast is, to say the least, noticeable. The the Village Lanterne, there's a distinct return to rock feel in some songs. There's a lot more surety in many of the lyrics, even those that are shamelessly about fantasy or love or romance. There's less repetition of choruses.
Under a Violet Moon is much more acoustic, which isn't necessarily bad. It's more uneven, and the unevenness feels like that of a band still coming together. The shameless positive feeling and slight cheese to the lyrics in Village Lanterne is here sometimes positively naive and awkward with it, as well. Wind in the Willows is hard toge t through if one is paying attention at all, and musically weak with it.
There are still standout tracks; the first four songs, for instance, are all strong in their own way; Castles and Dreams is a bittersweet story about believing too much in same, and if it seems belied by some of the rest of their own music, at least it hints at a realistic look. Past Time with Good Company, being written by Henry VIII is one of the few truly renaissance pieces, and performed the most like it, to its advantage; very danceable, though. Morning Star remains one of my favourites, quickpaced and easy to dance to. The instrumentals are mostly solid, as you'd expect from a longtime guitarist of some skill, although I think the attempt to limit it to acoustic and to things that sound more cod-medieval hurts it slightly.
Still, I did find my expectations slightly disappointed.
It's certainly good enough that, had I started here instead of with their current work, I'd have still decided I want to seek out more. I just might not have added the "NOW!" to it. It hasn't dissuaded me from wanting more of the work in between, either.
