This book had some really great points, especially those with the Monk and the wizards. I didn’t much care for the sky horses coming in, or the dragons participation. These were so over the top they didn’t make the characters seem real. I also didn’t care for the way the bad guy was becoming a god with little explanation about the system of deity. He seemed to make people afraid and thus became a god, didn’t make much sense. The defeat of him by showing the bones was also anticlimactic. The main character’s death was similarly anticlimactic, and with the deific horses around they should have been able to do something about it.
This was a nicely done book, with all the leaders of the world being overturned. There was a little too much unexplained magic for my taste, particularly the djinn. The dragons are also not well explained, but they seem to fit the world more. The main characters had a lot of both good and bad luck, but not too much was done skillfully. The monk and tiger characters were amazing, but their respective sects didn’t do much in the grand scheme of things. The monk’s being just another army, and the tigers not participating at all. That last part was a bit of a let down, but it made it more realistic.
This book had a lot of interesting aspects, like the skies and the gods. The strangeness of obvious multiple gods, but some accepting only one is an interesting situation. I really like the main wizards, as they work hard for what they need to do even with all the power they have. Most of the other characters have tricks or luck, matched with a little skill. Also the gender neutral status of the wizards is pretty cool, where they are considered gender neutral in political situations but still allowed to be sexual.
Kevin, Andrew, Adam, and I played a draft of M15. It was ok, but didn’t have the same kind of fun craziness that was in the Conspiracy set. I got to use Jame’s card “Hot Soup” as part of my unblockable deck. I also had other ways of giving unblockable, and it worked well with the deck once I got the green creatures in. There was a fun green creature, Phitotitan. I was albe to get that in and unblockable for one win. There was also one card that won a game for me for giving a 5/5 creature on turn 2, Ensoul Artifact, that I put on Hot Soup. I only won 3 of the 10 games I played, but I didn’t add the green until game 5. After that I won 3 of 5. The deck with mono blue just didn’t have the same finishing power.
I really enjoyed this book, especially the parts around the political situations of the princess and the king. The princess is a very interesting character who has a little bit of badness, but is mostly good. She has an interesting part to play, and it will only become more interesting as the books go on. The understanding of the bad guys towards the end is a little odd still, and not very well explained with the relation to the whole universe. The bad guy being the same one from the fairy tale is odd, especially when what happened to him was so horrific it should have driven him to become as evil as he appears to be. I’m looking forward to more in this series.
This was a really good book, with a really fun premise. I like the religions and the magic system. The nebulous bad guys is a little bothersome at first, but it gets a little clearer in the second book. The seventh order was really cool, albeit strange. The training in the story was really cool and the deaths of the people involved were heartbreaking, but made it seem real.
We had dinner at Joya, and it was really good. The tapas we started with were great, and filling. We got the paella out and most people had their fill, but everyone tried it. It was delicious, and we got to take a ton of it home. Our parents got along well, and my dad was behaving well. It was a nice time, but I was really tired and Steph was sick, so the two of us didn’t do too much of the talking.
I woke up early to rent a car for the weekend, then pick up my parents from the Millbrae Caltrian station. They got there much earlier than expected, but I was able to pick them up not too long after that. We got on the road and went to the northern entrance to Yosemite. The drive wasn’t too bad, but it got pretty stressful towards the end with the winding mountain roads. The views coming into the valley were amazing, and we stopped by Bridalveil Falls. It wasn’t flowing nearly as well as in the picture. We then went to the lookout point before entering the tunnel to leave the valley and got some really amazing views. We made it to the hotel and got some much needed rest. We were staying at the Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, just outside the park’s southern entrance. There were a good number of decent restaurants at the lodge, and we ate there both nights were stayed there. The rest wasn’t great due to some snoring, but it was very refreshing after a long day.
The first thing we did on day two was go to the Vernal Falls trail. This has a footbridge that overlooks the falls as the first main stop, which is where my dad waited for mom and I to come back. Mom and I then went all the way to the top of the falls. The view from the top wasn’t all that good since you couldn’t see the falls at all. The creek at the top is also deceptively calm, and makes you want to go put your feet into the water. The stairs up to the falls were much trickier going down than going up. There was one guy who was running down the stairs, and we saw him later with a ranger who was looking over his ID. We hopped over to the Ahwahnee Hotel for lunch and dad was a little upset that the view he liked the last time he was there was blocked by trees that had grown into the space. The main dining hall had a large window in the back that used to look upon Yosemite Falls, but it was no longer visible. The hall itself was pretty amazing, and had a feeling of rustic luxury. After lunch we went to Yosemite falls, and mom and I put our feet in the water for a bit. The water was cool, but not as cold as we were expecting. We walked back to the bus stop and decided on more hike for the day. We picked out Mirror Lake as the last hike, but when we got there it was all dried up. There were still some pools of water there, but certainly no lake. We then went back to the car and drove back to the hotel in fish camp.
The next morning we went to the Mariposa Grove, and the trees there were amazing. There was one called the Grizzly Tree that had unbelievably massive branches. Dad waited at the California Tree while mom and I hike to the upper grove. There was a gigantic fallen tree up there, and it was very cool. I really liked walking through the grove. It was gorgeous and the trees were amazing. After going through the grove we headed back to Palo Alto through the souther route, which was much more direct. The roads back were pretty small, but they made much better time.
On Wednesday I went up to SF to visit with my parents. They were in town for a science conference my dad was attending. We first decided to take a ride on the cable cars, just for the fun of it. We went up a huge hill, then I got a Lyft. This was the first time I had used the app, and it worked out really well. We went to Kingdom of Dumplings for lunch, and it was tasty. They thought it was bland without the sauce, and the best sauce was the spicy one, so they didn’t have it. My dad isn’t into spicy things anymore since they upset his system. We then went into golden gate park, grabbed some tea at the Japanese garden, walked around the lake, then went over to the flowers at the JFK Conservatory. The Conservatory was closed, but we were able to see a ton of the gorgeous flowers outside.
My mom is going to try planting a few of them in Atlanta in the spring.
After that we got a lyft to their hotel and looked for a restaurant around there that was good and had seating. The first two we tried had decent waits, but the third, Perbacco, could seat us. We were underdressed for it, but didn’t mind it too much. The food was very good and I got the duck. I said my goodbyes and biked back to the train, just catching it in time.
It's an Exciting World 
