The Seraglio Review

Hey,

So this weekend I finished up The Steel Seraglio by Mike, Linda, and Louise Carey -- a family of authors. The book is split up into numerous short stories told from various points of view and it all adds up to tell a much larger story.

The larger story is this: In the city of Bessa, the local sultan gets killed by a religious fanatic who orders the ex-sultan's harem out into the desert to be killed. The concubines manage to escape this fate and band together to reclaim their city. So a bit of 1001 Nights, and the 47 Ronin.

Despite being written by three different authors, the book retains a fairly consistent "voice" all the way through. Characters are all fairly complex and behave pretty much like real people. Magic is pretty much limited to visits to the Djin which is fraught with peril and Monkey Paw wishes and prophecies. Mostly it's people struggling to envision a new way of doing things.

Alas, every Camelot must fall and Bessa is no different. But it takes a much more positive spin in the end than I was predicting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book. I have no idea how badly it suffers from Orientalism, but it was an enjoyable read.

later
Tom

Look, if doesn't involve dx/dy I can't even begin to think about it.

Hi,

So this weekend basic math eluded me. So herewith are my instructions for future endeavors.

1.) If you have 24 miniatures and you want to use 3 basic colors for the pants/shirts, then you just paint every third miniature with the current color. Don't...don't break them up into groups of 8 and then paint three out of every group...I know why you thought that would work, but you also knew you'd wind up with 9, 9 and 6 and you still didn't stop.

Advanced hint: If you've got 4 colors, paint every fourth mini. If you have 6, paint every sixth mini. If you've got 24...you're painting an army of circus clowns and you should maybe re-think this project.

Oh! And if you have 8 colors, then yes, paint every eighth mini (but don't paint 2 or 3 in each group of 8).

2.) I know, I know, you're missing the custom rice measuring cup that came with your rice cooker, but the 1/2 cup dry measure seems to be right. Here's the deal. For every scoop, you put in 2 cups of water. If you only put in 3 scoops, you don't put in 12 cups -- that just leads to a mess. If you mean to put in six scoops (and I think you did) then that's fine, but otherwise...

Look, here's the formula -- 1 scoop = 1 full 2-cup measuring cup full of water.

Oh well, except for rice-y water everywhere no harm was done.
Tom