Finished taxes: six grand winging its out of my bank account today to pay Uncle Sam plus the Governator. That’s only how much I underpaid my taxes, nowhere close to what I paid for 2007 overall.

It’s book review time. I’m most of the way through a book entitled Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson. The New York Times business section mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. Despite the goofy Schoolhouse Rock cover, it is absolutely a must read. And very relevant right now: not just because it’s tax season, but because it’s an election year. Wondering where most of your federal tax dollars go? Hint: it’s not (yet) defense, and it’s definitely not pork-barrel, or even earmarked spending. For the most part, I avoid discussing politics on this blog because as a nonvoter for both where I live and where I’m from, I really don’t have a say in the matter. However, as a fiscally responsible (and dare I say, conservative) person watching the economy slide into recession due to fiscal irresponsibleness, I’m still keenly interested in what the presidential candidates have to say about money matters. Yes: it’s about the economy, stupid, no matter which party you vote for. How else are we going to fund universal health care? Or if that’s a non-starter for you, fair enough: replace those last three words with “national security”, and it still starts with the budget.

One of the messages I’m getting out of Where Does the Money Go? so far is this: the federal government (and by extension, Americans as a whole) is in deep, deep trouble unless we address Medicare and Social Security spending, and balance the budget. That trouble might be a couple of decades away in the case of Social Security, or looming on the horizon immediately (Medicare). Balancing the budget means reducing the deficit to zero - and not just reducing the deficit by a few billion dollars - because only then will we start making some headway on the debt (which is not the deficit, as Bittle and Johnson make clear). The authors, in a mostly non-partisan style, go into clear and precise detail about worst case scenarios; and better yet, propose common sense, realistic (yet painful) fixes to the budget crisis. Yes, raising taxes is one of them. After reading this book, it’s worthwhile seeing exactly what the current presidential candidates have to say with regard to these issues. As a single example that affects my financial situation: Social Security taxes now cap at about a hundred grand. Removing the cap means more money into Social Security, which may delay the looming SS crisis for a few years. An important point the authors make clear: the government needs much of those SS tax dollars you’re paying now, simply to pay out this year’s benefits to other people: you’re not just funding your own retirement. (This is why simply switching to a privatized, self-directed Social Security is not an answer in itself: you’re not funding the current generation of benefit receivers.) Personally, I think people who make more than the cap (self included) can well afford to continue to pay SS tax on the remainder: seeing as how they were able to live for some first portion of the year where it was automatically deducted from their paychecks. Barack Obama is in favor of removing the cap, while Hilary Clinton is uncommitted (and in fact, she’s been extremely vague on Social Security in general).

It’s only one issue, but when you realise the candidates aren’t very clear about the basic issues as presented in the book, you start realising they’re aren’t very clear about how they’re going to fund other issues they’re campaigning on. And why am I harping on Social Security? Because it’s the biggest chunk of where your federal tax dollars go. Not defense. Not earmarks. Medicare is #3 (defense is #2), but unlike defense it’s mandatory spending, and its costs are skyrocketing.

After you finish your taxes, go buy the book and read it before you vote. There’s a lot more to it than what I covered here.

Scar Night, Alan Campbell

I picked this up while Susan was in the hospital, breaking my “no hardcover” rule as it looked interesting. Finished reading it on the same night we watched Pan’s Labyrinth, which meant double helpings of dark fantasy in one evening.

I’ve been meaning to read more gothic/dark fantasy, and Scar Night fits the bill well. The setting here is Deepgate, a literally crumbling city suspended by giant chains over a gaping abyss in which lurks a fallen god, demanding the city’s dead in order to create an army to wage war against a heaven which has barred its gates to him and to the rest of humanity. (I should hasten to add that this book isn’t based at all on Judaeo-Christian beliefs.) Deepgate is a very grim sort of place: poisoned by Dickensian industry, haunted by a supernatural serial killer, generally preoccupied with the afterlife, and having property values dependant on the likelihood of falling into a giant hole. Airships connect the city to its surroundings, itself occupied by warring heathens and mysterious otherworld technology. The author doesn’t make the mistake that China Miéville does in Perdido Street Station (another recently read novel with a similar ambiance): Alan Campbell doesn’t come across as hating his setting, whereas Miéville seems to throughly detest New Crobazon’s “glutinous” surroundings and indeed most of its inhabitants. Deepgate is refreshingly unique, but doesn’t go out of its way to be gross just for the sake of being gross.

The church devoted to the abyssal god features prominently in the book: two of the protagonists are Dill, a teenaged angel, last in a line of battle archons once devoted to protecting the faith; and Rachel, the church assassin sent to supervise his training. Meanwhile, the leader of the church and city, Presbyter Sypes, also ostensibly Dill’s mentor, sets events in motion for his own mysterious ends; while Mr. Nettle, one of the city’s more downtrodden inhabitants, seeks answers for his daughter’s murder. Dill and Rachel’s characterizations, and in particular their relationship, are the weakest part of the book: it’s not completely clear what propels Rachel to bond with Dill, her uneasy relationship with her own family notwithstanding. Fortunately, Alan Campbell’s writing is very good: while his dialogue doesn’t get us fully into the head of the characters, the rest of his prose has no trouble evoking the unique atmosphere of Deepgate. The description of a airborne battle sequence at the climax of the book is particularly impressive.

This book is the first in a planned trilogy (”The Deepgate Codex”). I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series - guess I’ll be monitoring Alan Campbell’s blog for updates.


Eldest, Christopher Paolini

This is book two of Christopher Paolini’s “Inheritance” trilogy, book one being Eragon. I breezed through the first volume a while ago, and as per my rule decided to wait until Eldest came out in paperback - which it did as of last week or so. I’m glad I didn’t spend the money on the hardcover, because while I thought the first was derivative, the second takes it to a whole new plateau of pointy-eared elfdom. There are a few clumsy attempts at distinguishing the setting from the standard Dungeons and Dragons fare (Elves are strong! Dwarves like the outdoors as well as caves!) but they’re pretty thin. The invented language and names are so close to Tolkien’s as to be jarring: Tolkien’s evil godlike Morgoth versus Paolini’s Morgothal, god of fire; Tolkien’s human Beren versus Paolini’s “ill-marked Berundal/Born .. /To mortal woman”, both sung about by elves in their respective works; even the random diacritical marks sprinkled throughout seem to mirror the dialects in Lord of the Rings. Even when the names don’t match, the ideas do: Tolkien’s race of Orcs and überOrc Uruks are mirrored by Paolini’s Urgals and überUrgal Kulls. Other names and ideas are straight out of Viking mythology: Helgrind appears to be the gates of Hell both to the elves on Alagaësia, and to the Norse on planet Earth. Worst of all, (spoiler alert!) at the climax of the book there’s a revelation straight out of the fourth movie in a very popular sci-fi movie series of six.

The trilogy centers on Eragon, a boy who finds a dragon egg and eventually becomes a dragon rider ultimately seeking to defeat the evil king of the Empire (who happens to be a dragon rider himself). Being a dragon rider bestows upon Eragon magic abilities as well. Therein lies the biggest problem with Eldest: Eragon is far too powerful to be a convincing hero. Eragon starts out the first book as a callow teenager and upgrades his powers pretty significantly by the end of it, learning some magic along the way; but he’s still human, and the main enemy in book one is clearly superhuman, so there’s still some suspense to be had. In Eldest, Eragon levels up in fairly preposterous fashion, to the point where he’s basically a superhuman juggernaut of destruction. Paolini’s way of dealing with this is to pit him single handedly against huge armies - barely touching on ethical dilemmas of fighting against conscripted fellow countrymen - and when that battle concludes in a pitched single combat, the power of Eragon’s enemy is simply increased correspondingly. I could almost see the AL: CE, LVL 25, DEX 25 hidden in the text. Unfortunately Eragon’s munchkin qualities are magnified by the subplot involving his all-too-human cousin Roran and his attempts to resist the Empire: Roran is much more sympathetic, and actually regrets the deaths he causes along the way. I’ve noticed some reviews of Scar Night remarking on Campbell’s past life as a game designer and programmer on Grand Theft Auto, as if that somehow mattered in coming to grips with that novel’s graphic content. If anything, Eldest feels much more like a role playing video game: linear plot, exponential progression of enemy strength, hordes of faceless enemies followed by a single boss character, weapon and equipment upgrades, w00t! Paolini was a teenager when he finished Eragon, which has earned him critical praise; I hate to say it, but it shows in his writing negatively.

Paolini throws in a strained and unconvincing romance between Eragon and Arya the Elf (leaving Eragon coming off as a petulant, hormonal teenager); a few jarring observations about religion and atheism; and sprinklings of vocabulary relating to medieval pieces of armor understandable to Creative Anachronists and very few others. Perhaps I’m being unduly harsh on this book given that I felt compelled to finish it in two sittings, but in the end it just left me wanting to reread Lord of the Rings. I’ll skip buying the third book.

I think I am developing a one-third-life crisis.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

This is harder than I thought.

I don’t think Mimi is going to do this. (Understandable; she’s swamped with essay marking and school studies.) So I’m all alone. Damn.

Anyone reading this? If so questions and comments - even a simple “What the hell is going on in this chapter?” - are heartily solicited. Actually, suggestions for plot twists, dialogue, characters, and pretty much anything else related to a novel would be gladly appreciated too. I don’t even have a title yet.

No, Todd isn’t me - for one thing, he seems to be quite the dork so far. Anything he thinks is his own opinion, not necessarily mine. Uh, really.

I heard about National Novel Writing Month last year, but didn’t enter since I was rather busy. Then I was reminded of this year’s incarnation by monkeyspeak. One thing led to another, and so on Hallowe’en Eve, I signed up. Which means: I need to churn out a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Mimi will hopefully join me in this insanity, so I have someone to compete against.

Just to be clear - I have absolutely no pretension of writing anything resembling a work of art, nor have I ever really desired to write the Great American (or Canadian) Novel. I’m doing this as a lark, and because this will help pass the time during yet another dark and dreary November. (Sound familiar?) I fully realise that whatever I write will probably be hopeless derivative drivel. But then readers of this blog are familiar with that already.

As proof: so far I have a vague sketch involving a suicidal grocery clerk named Todd Castle, about to throw himself off the Lions Gate Bridge, and the day’s events that led him to this situation. As to where this originated: Todd Castle is the name I placed on a painting of a gravestone in grade 6 or 7, derived from the first name of a fellow classmate (the class bully) and Frank Castle (aka the Punisher). The bridge jumping idea was probably inspired by a gruesome nugget published in The Stranger last week about the parking lot beneath the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, as well as my recollections about some loser arrested for urging a woman to jump from Lions Gate. I haven’t read Polaroids from the Dead (which I understand also features a bridge jumping episode from the same bridge), although I have read (and admire) some of Douglas Coupland’s other works. And being a grocery clerk is about the only thing from my own life that I can mine for something interesting to write about. I have seen Clerks - it is utterly brilliant, quite different from mine and my family’s experiences (customers are deranged enough without having borderline psychotic clerks thrown into the mix); so I hope to avoid any similarities to that movie.

I’m hoping the rest of it will write itself from there.