The Chronicles of Amber, chapter 14: The conclusion

This is it. The final chapter of The Courts of Chaos and of the Chronicles of Amber. It's been a fun trip.

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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This last chapter is more of an epilogue. Random, appointed the king of Amber by the Unicorn and attuned to the Jewel of Judgment by Corwin, successfully turns away the Chaos storm. He, too, is now gone, and only Corwin and his son Merlin remain on the field of battle where Amber conquered Chaos.

The Chronicles of Amber, chapter 13

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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With the defeat of the Chaosians and the death of Brand, the Amberites won the day. But they lost their father Oberon, as well as their sister Dierdre and the Jewel of Judgment. Corwin collapsed and rested by the black road after Oberon's funeral procession passed. When he came to, Dara was riding past and berated him for killing her swordmaster, Borel, then left him to return to her own people. Corwin's son Merlin met him briefly, and they began to talk, but they were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the Unicorn of Amber.

The Unicorn has the Jewel of Judgment around her neck. She gives it to Random, indicating that he has been chosen as the heir to the Amber throne. Though surprised, he accepts, and the other Amberites lay their swords at his feet.

Science Fiction-Free September '24 wrap-up

Last week I wrapped up the 2024 installment of my annual Science Fiction-Free September. I'm happy to proclaim this year's moratorium on SF novels (and, more broadly, commercial fiction) a success.

I planned for five novels, plus two extras if time remained. I completed six, plus a handful of plays by Aphra Behn and a few Japanese light novels (in English). So overall, I read 14 individual titles this September, with a number of them being short and light reading. But the main selections were anything but light! I noted last year that I'd chosen some heavy-hitting fiction, and the same is true this year.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 12

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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Using the new primal Pattern he had created before Brand stole the Jewel of Judgment, Corwin teleported himself to the battleground at the Courts of Chaos. There, Brand took Dierdre hostage as a bargaining chip to force Corwin to help him with his own plans. However, he was shot by a mysterious green-clad archer, causing him, Dierdre, and the Jewel fell into the Chaosian abyss. The archer revealed himself as Caine, who had faked his own murder to get to the bottom of the intrigue in Amber secretly. As they spoke, they were interrupted by three trumpeters on horseback emerging from the black road.

RIP auto-posting

Sometime after Sunday, I realized that my posts weren't automatically publishing to Twitter. After a bit of investigation, I learned that dlvr.it ended their free tier. Oddly enough, I was informed that my "trial" had ended, though I've been using the service for years.

Well, that's annoying. It's their business, of course, but one of my pet peeves is when long-established free services on the Internet start demanding money out of the blue.

And then I thought, "Wait a minute, I'm a programmer." Why can't I roll my own auto-poster? Polling the site and grabbing the title and URL for new posts is easy, so the only thing I really need to learn is how to access the X API. (And in so doing, I realized I'd inadvertently been "spamming" for several months, by posting substantially identical tweets to both my accounts. I'll be a bit more creative with the second cross-post, I promise!)

Not that the Faithful Readers will necessarily notice, but automatic posting will resume shortly. That is all.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 11

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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Corwin was riding from Amber to the Courts of Chaos, to bring the Jewel of Judgment to Benedict's battle there and give them an advantage against the Chaosians. However, he was overtaken by the oncoming Chaos storm of Shadow being torn apart after Oberon's possibly failed attempt to repair the primal Pattern at Amber. To protect himself from the storm, Corwin used the Jewel to create a new Pattern where he was. He was successful, but when he was finished, Brand appeared and stole the Jewel from him.

Corwin then used the new Pattern to transport himself to the battlefield in Chaos. He found Brand at a vantage point overlooking the scene, using his partial attunement with the Jewel to fight the Amberite forces with lightning. As the Amberites reached Brand, he took Dierdre hostage.

Happy birthday, Jimmy Carter

On December 12, 1952, the first meltdown of a nuclear reactor occurred in the National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario. There were no fatalities or injuries, but radioactive material was leaked into the environment and vented into the atmosphere.

The cleanup took months and involved hundreds, including 150 American military personnel, led by a 28-year-old U.S. Navy submarine lieutenant named Jimmy Carter who was part of the fledgling nuclear submarine program. Disassembling the reactor involved donning protective gear and being lowered into it for only a few minutes at a time to avoid overexposure to radioactivity.

Supposedly, Carter's exposure to radiation was 1000 times what would be considered safe today: it's said that he peed radioactive urine for six months, and his ability to have children in the future was in question.

As it turned out, he had four children, became the governor of Georgia, and then was elected the 39th president of the United States. Following his presidency, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work. And today, Jimmy Carter turned 100. Not only is he the longest-lived ex-president and the former president with the longest post-presidency, but he's the first president to become a centenarian. Carter has outlived all his predecessors in the Oval Office, and two of his successors. It would appear that the comic books are right: exposure to radioactivity endows you with superpowers.