{"id":932,"date":"2011-03-31T02:58:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T06:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=932"},"modified":"2011-03-31T03:01:19","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T07:01:19","slug":"the-lost-gate-by-orson-scott-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=932","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lostgate\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally finished reading a book, woohoo!  It was on hold at the library, so I had to hurry up.  \u2018Twas The Lost Gate<\/a>\"\" by Orson Scott Card, one of my favourite writers.  \u2018Twas a fun read.  Not quite Ender\u2019s Game, but hard to put down nonetheless.  Makes you want to be a gatemage.  Makes you look forward to Portal 2, coming out soon!  Now I look forward to the sequels, for this seems to be the first book of a trilogy or something.<\/p>\n

There are two quotes I liked.  First, from page 106:<\/p>\n

\n

Besides, it just felt . . . wrong.  Inelegant, perhaps, as Auntie Tweng used to say of kludgy solutions to math or programming problems.  \u201cYes, it works,\u201d she would say, \u201cbut it\u2019s not elegant.  Truth is simple and elegant.  That\u2019s how you know it when you see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those last two sentences.  \u201cTruth is simple and elegant.  That\u2019s how you know it when you see it.\u201d  Almost Occam\u2019s razor-ish.  I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s true (for it can\u2019t explain the truth of itself), but I like the idea.<\/p>\n

Also, in the afterword, on page 382:<\/p>\n

\n

I tell my students in my writing classes that suspense comes, not from knowing almost nothing, but from knowing almost everything and caring very much about the small part still unknown.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Great little writing tidbit.  Mystery<\/em> can still come from not knowing much, but it\u2019s not suspenseful<\/em> (or nearly as interesting) until the focus is on that one last answer, that one final piece to the puzzle.  Search your feelings, you know it to be true.  (Plus, it\u2019s simple and elegant.)<\/p>\n

Oh, it\u2019s also a fun book if you know your mythology.  Which I don\u2019t, but I\u2019m just assuming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally finished reading a book, woohoo!  It was on hold at the library, so I had to hurry up.  \u2018Twas The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card, one of my favourite writers.  \u2018Twas a fun read.  Not quite Ender\u2019s Game, but hard to put down nonetheless.  Makes you want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[38],"tags":[48,381],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-f2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}