Carrie Gessner 419 pages Self-Published (2016)

Read this if you like: The Wheel of Time, David Eddings, character-driven high fantasy tl;dr summary: Three magic users in a world where magic is dying set out to avert war, solve a murder, and avoid bringing about a prophecied doom.

See the book on Bookshop

I can be very picky when it comes to my sword-and-sorcery. I’ve read enough fantasy that too many familiar tropes bore me quickly—but I’m disappointed when writers drop or subvert the typical tropes entirely, to the point it no longer feels like high fantasy.

It’s a delicate and difficult balance to strike, and I’m always excited to find somebody who does it right. And I got really excited about The Dying of the Golden Day from pretty much the first sentence. The way this opens is smart. It teases with a little fake-found-text-ey intro that tells the reader this is a fully developed world, with its own history and mythology. That’s something I like seeing early on as a fantasy reader because it’s a sign this world is going to be unique and immersive, and that definitely held true throughout this novel.

I also like how this gets into the story. Starting with Aurelia on her own lets the reader get to know her outside the context of her bond with Renfred. The opening also sets up a nice mystery around Brennus’ identity that adds a lot of productive tension to the first half of the book.

Aurelia is the best-developed of the characters, which stands to reason, and for the most part I felt like the secondary cast was developed to the correct depth relative to their role. There were a couple of characters I found myself wanting more of—Minerva for one, and also Mira, both of whom had a lot of presence on the page when they graced it. I’m hopeful they’ll get bigger roles in future books, because I didn’t feel like their potential was fully realized in this one.

That said, this really wasn’t their story—the main focus was on Aurelia, Edana, and Brennus, and it does make sense to keep the reader’s focus there for the first book. Their story had a nice quest arc, and the way that wraps up at the end is enough to give it the feel of conclusion. I almost wish it had ended a bit earlier. I understand the logic of a cliffhanger ending to pull readers into the next book, but honestly I feel like this book did enough to get a reader hooked without needing that kind of device, and it did leave the ending feeling a bit unresolved.

I tend to read fantasy for the worldbuilding as much as I do for the characters, and overall The Dying of the Golden Day doesn’t disappoint. The device of the heartfriends I very much enjoyed. It had shades of the Aes Sedai/warder bond from Wheel of Time but different enough that it didn’t read as derivative. I also enjoyed the building of the prophecy and the play with translation from an in-world language. The only place I found myself wishing for a bit more was with the magic system itself. I like the division into 3 types of magic, which kept individual magic characters from being too powerful while still allowing for magic as a concept to be broadly useful. That said, I felt like the healing magic in particular came across as too weak. Most of the times Aurelia is shown healing someone she does it using herbs. While I appreciate that she can’t heal everything, I was looking for maybe one or two on-page examples of how her magic healing goes beyond what the physicians can accomplish. Granted, it does seem like all of the gifted’s powers grew stronger over the course of the book. Possibly in future books her power will expand. Still, so much is made of her being gifted that I felt like it should be used more.

This book is a great example of how to creatively subvert tropes to keep them fresh. The big one I’ll cite as an example is the prophecy. Usually when there’s a prophecy in this kind of book, the main character ends up being the prophecied chosen one—not the dark force whose arrival portends doom. While the prophecy around Aurelia is a bit more complicated than this, I appreciated that there were at least characters in-world who thought this was the case. It added another layer and a bit more depth to the traditional prophecy plot line.

I’ll definitely be reading the rest of this trilogy. It’s made me feel like I need to know what happens next, and that’s a sign of success from any book in my opinion. A strong recommend for other writers and readers of high fantasy.

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#BookReviews #Fantasy

Day 2522 Don't you find it enjoyable. When it all comes together. The moment. The time. The feeling of greatness. Sike. We're all on the cusp of nothingness. Born to be forgotten. Our achievements lost to time. Left in the darkness.

#Chapter25

Pelletyze — Update #5

Finally, I was able to work again on my Pelletyze project. 🥳

The Bug

There was a bug, where the checkbox was not recognized and the formData I've sent to the server was empty. This feature worked in the past and I don't understand why it broke.

The Fix

Because I use the @radix-ui/react-checkbox and don't handle the state manually, I need to wrap with a @radix-ui/react-form. That's it. 😎

While I was working on the component, I also transformed it into a server component. Which was easily done, by using getTranslation() from next-intl instead of useTranslation and making the component asynchronous.

The bug was the reason I've implemented the delete-all Button. To save me a trip to the Supabase admin page and clear the table.

This was my Sunday contribution to Pelletyze.

10 of #100DaysToOffload
#pelletyze
Thoughts?

Story points can mean different things to different people. Some see them as the effort needed to complete all related tasks, while others consider them a complexity measure. Since user stories focus on users' problems and needs, shouldn't we focus on the value these stories provide instead of the effort behind them? Users want solutions, not the details of our development process. That's why if we are already talking story points, we should instead address the value these stories bring to our users.

Imagine if we changed our planning poker sessions to focus on the value of each user story rather than its cost. It would still mostly be guessing, but many people agree that estimating is guessing anyway. Finally, it's not about the estimated number of points; the discussion within the team while estimating is the real benefit of the process, especially if we'd be discussing the value behind each story. It would be a significant change of perspective. Instead of pressuring the team to complete stories more quickly, we would unite to find the best ways to solve our users' problems.

I am on a team that works in a mob programming fashion, but we would very much like to be agile as well. What would be the best time to stop our session, get up, and do our Daily Standup?

An excellent resource about remote mob programming by INNOQ: https://www.remotemobprogramming.org.

Why is event sourcing still such a niche 'product'? Logging almost every possible technical information, ranging from debug messages to all kinds of exceptions, is generally accepted and a de facto standard. At the same time, discarding data and keeping only the current state is still the default approach in dealing with business case-related data.

When building a web UI for a product, the decision often comes down to which JS SPA framework to use. Another option might be worth considering if you already have a team skilled in Java (JVM) – based tech stack and frameworks like Spring and Spring Boot. Some of the mature (yes, you could also say boring) JAVA SSR frameworks like Apache Wicket and Vaadin or new options like HTMX might be just as good for the use cases you want to cover.

The alternatives might help you prevent unnecessary complexity, reduce your team's cognitive load, and prevent splitting the team into frontend and backend members while enabling every team member to focus on implementing user-related vertical slices of your product. Instead of introducing technical and infrastructure-related issues and challenges into your product delivery, you opt for a smaller team focused on building a valuable solution for your users.

Everybody likes a good story.

In the guide linked below about how to tell a story effectively, published by MasterClass (featuring instructors like Dan Brown and Salman Rushdie), one can find the following:

Choose a clear beginning and end to your story, then write the key plot events as bullet points between them.

That's why EventStorming and EventModeling are excellent and convenient tools for telling your product's story. Mix them with EventSourcing, and you can ensure the story is embedded into the product and remembered forever. Spread a layer of ExampleMapping on top, and let your product and its story live happily ever after.

MasterClass –> https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-tell-a-story-effectively

I & i ; i's volgende poging om literair te thrillen.

'Het leven was zoveel makkelijker toen mijn identiteit nog niet was gestolen, overal waar ik nu kom ben ik al' tiptoetst g in en in triest tegen de virtuele balie identiteitsdiefstal agente assistent bot q op de identiteit diefstal chat.

Waarop q zakelijk antwoord 'Volgens onze data gegevens heeft u gisteren aangegeven dat u identiteit is terug gevonden.'

'Maaar ik had nog helemaal geen aangifte gedaan!' tiptoetst g woedend.

Waarop q zakelijk antwoord 'Ik begrijp u vraag niet. Kunt u de vraag herformuleren in taal van Janneke en Jip zodat ook een simpele bot zoals mij q het begrijpt.'

'Waarom zou ik aangeven dat mijn identiteit is terug gevonden als ik deze niet als vermist heb aangegeven?' Tiptoetste g zo Jip Jannekes als mogelijk.

Waarop q zakelijk antwoord 'Ik ben niet geprogrammeerd om u te zijn, maar waarschijnlijk omdat u de verzekering een loer wil draaien'

'...' tiptoetst g om uiting te geven aan de staat van totale verwildering hem deelgevallen.

Waarop q zakelijk antwoord 'Heeft u verder nog vragen. Indien niet zou u dan mijn virtuele identiteitsdiefstal aangifte agente assistente bot diensten hieronder kunnen beoordelen.'

Bent u tevreden over de hulp ontvangen door q?

[ ] Ja [ ] Nee

aanvullingen op u antwoord:

x xx xxx xxxx xxxxx [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Ik vond poging En dit dan? één beter \ / i I