New Doman and Shit

Saturday, July 27, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 4 Comments

That's right, now you can access this bitch of a site by typing in www.kzfreeman.com. I would have been more excited, if the setting up of the DNS and redirect garbage hadn't made me feel like one of those old farts that can't figure out how to work the menus on a newly bought mobile phone device. But it's done now, so that's pretty great.

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Nexus

Tuesday, July 23, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments



"When the evening faded and night fell, the distant booming of destruction at my heels, I realized this was the end. I didn’t want to accept it. I fought it until I could fight no more. I built my own coffin and buried myself from the world.”
“How did you do this?” I ask as we begin to walk ahead. Visibility is high and I can see far into the distance. Almost as if someone fashioned my view so I could see it all. There’s an explosion out there, building a twisting red and yellow spire into the sky. 
“Nomad?” Ty says, his voice uncertain, afraid. Ash the color night falls from a layer above us. The clouds are thick, thundering. A heat reaches us and I can smell it, like a thousand dead bodies. We stand in the light of it and all I see of the others are their black silhouettes. I look at Calyx, I gaze at Ty. They are silent, caught in a state like me, between marvel and utter terror. Our skin begins to burn. The pain is total, all-encamping. But it soon fades. What remains is light. And in that light, I am them, they are me, we are one. I see their black bones in the light until those too are wiped away like shapes drawn in the sand.

 Read it.


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[Review] Ahriman: Exile by John French

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments




To preface this review, allow me to state that Azhek Ahriman was my favourite 40k character before I read this book. Having said that, this book disappoints on some levels while delights on others.

I began reading this book after finishing King of Thorns and immediately noticed the lessened overall quality of writing. I know it's not really fair to compare the two books since they are not even remotely similar in setting and what they are trying to achieve, but my mind couldn’t help but compare them, as the span of time between them was no more than a few hours. By no means does it mean this book is terrible! I can explain it no better than to say that this tome is in the vein of Black Library. Those who have read a lot of BL (that isn’t The Horus Heresy) will know what I mean by that. John French does a terrific narrative job and the images are always clear, although he is restricted by the setting, I think, and the pre-made characters and those that can potentially exist in the universe of Warhammer 40.000.
 
I was surprised by the story itself and at times slightly confused at what point in time the novel takes place. That is understandable, since the story occurs near and in the Eye of Terror, so avoiding the definite location on the 40k timeline can be avoided by that fact alone, although I often times wanted to know how long Ahriman himself had been in this state in which we find him at the beginning of the novel. He couldn't possibly have fallen so far and remained there for nearly a thousand years, could he? Could a Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons remain so, dare I say, stupid, for so long? I thought not, so this is one of the problems I had with this story. I tried to get into his shoes when it came to understanding why he plunged to such depths, but I could not. Whether that was my own problem or a flaw in the narrative I could not really tell.

The other ‘problematic’ conclusion I reached when I finished this book and put it down, is the fact that some characters don't get killed because of some obscure reason. Presumably no one really cares, or they are so broken and allowed to live because they are not even worth killing... or something of the sort. In reality, they don't die because the author has plans for them – they have some hidden agenda only the reader is aware of, a poor plot device, really.

Now I do realise that after the above paragraphs you might think I didn't enjoy this book, but that's not true at all. I couldn't wait to start reading it again after I stopped, although I have to admit that had I not liked Ahriman before, I probably would not have enjoy it quite as much. There are plenty of really, really cool scenes and an abundance of excellent writing in this book. As a result, the thing was over before I wanted it to be. 
I will buy the next instalment in the series without a doubt, although the last scene in the novel is a bit redundant, I feel, as it killed the surprise which would come had it not been revealed and the reader might have found out in the next book. Coincidently, it also revealed the story's flaw which I mentioned earlier.

There really hasn't been a book like this in the 40k universe, even A Thousand Sons didn’t come close to this, I think, although it scraped the edges of it and laid the groundwork. Simply put, the sorcerers of 40k are damn awesome. Ahriman especially so, who retains his stance on that grey line of not being a heretic, yet at the same time being so damn heretical you may just spontaneously burst into fanboy glee while reading this.


7.5/10

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[Review] King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Thursday, July 11, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 2 Comments



The guy who wrote this is "on par" with Martin can go screw himself. Because this is better.



I found these pages scattered, teased across the rocks by a fitful wind.
In my previous review I stated that I hate hate hate Mark Lawrence. That hate has turned into something far worse (and far deadlier) after reading the King of Thorns, because no one should write this good and live.

I led my bride from the chapel with the applause and hoorahs of the nobility ringing behind us, almost but not quite drowning out those awful pipes. The bladder-pipe, a local Highlands speciality, is to music what warthogs are to mathematics. Largely unconnected.
With this instalment, Mark has managed to ruin the character that was Jorg Ancrath. He ruined Jorgy in the most heinous way imaginable. By making him even better. From the ruins a phoenix rose, you might say.
Jorg’s story has always been the struggle of a boy’s heart, an ‘evil’ and blood-thirsty boy, it has to be said, but one who is struggling none the less. This time around, we find Jorg pushing forward, cracking wise-cracks (?) and pushing in age and stature, while becoming a real pest for the Prince of Arrow who all the prophecies foretell of. The Prince is to be Emperor or some such, but screw that. Jorg has other plans for the blond bastard, plans that may or may not involve the sharp point of a sword.

I had wanted my uncle’s blood. His crown I took because other men said I could not have it.
We find Jorg roughly where we left him in Prince of Thorns, but it’s not the same Jorg. There’s other things on his mind now, besides being Emperor. His rather silly infatuation with Katherine makes him do some unexpected things, his bond of brotherhood likewise, and his love for other people brings out stuff which no reader is likely to expect.
What I wanted to read more about is The Builders, I admit, but that’s something I’ll get more of in later instalments, hopefully, for I managed to catch wind of there being a new book next year, The Broken Empire setting the stage once more for some slaughter. (I would spill our more but that bastard Lawrence wouldn’t say more)

 But let’s get back to this beastly tome. I will say this, if Mark doesn’t bring back a certain character in the next book I may just have to pay the assassins double, then hire a necromancer so they may murder him twice (death-threats, oh my!).

 Anyway, it seems this part of the story is more about redemption, where the first was largely about vengeance. The writing itself retains what the first book offered and builds on it; although there were two instances in this book where I thought the author’s voice came through just a bit too much and there was a bit of rambling involved. But hey, I’m a generous sort and forgiving one page in 600 is something I can pull off.
Mountains are a great leveller. They don’t care who you are or how many.
I sped through this book as if the pages were burning. That alone is proof enough of its greatness. I don’t think I yawned once, a pretty solid achievement for the author, I dare say.
I may just decide to recall those hitmen after I get my hands on the Emperor of Thorns, but we shall see just how far that book shall stretch the limits of my generosity.

 11/10


Emperor of Thorns Review 

Prince of Thorns Review 

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[Review] Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Wednesday, July 03, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments

I don't like to get angry. It makes me angry.
Reasons why I hate Mark Lawrence:

 1. He wrote the best dark fantasy book there ever was.
2. He created the best character there ever was in dark fantasy.

 And there you have it. These two reasons are, in short, why I hate hate hate Mark Lawrence. There, I've said it and I don't want to take it back.
Mabberton burned well. All the villages burned well that summer. Makin called it a hot bastard of a summer, too mean to give out rain, and he wasn't wrong. Dust rose behind us when we rode in; smoke when we rode out.

In a nutshell, the above paragraph describes well the gritty world of Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath, aka the Mad Prince, aka all the other nicknames people whisper of him behind his back.
His story unfolds along with a "merry" group of bandits called Brothers as they forge a bloody path through Empire. But all is not as it seems with young Jorg. He has ambitions, you see, people to kill and vengeance to exact, and that's what this story is. A tale of vengeance of a young boy who has seen his mother and younger brother brutally murdered -- sold by his own father. A tale of a broken young boy who thinks he has the world by the balls.

I had me a hollow ache behind my eyes. The kind that gets people killed. 

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Emperor of Thorns Review



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Fractal Tree and the Hyperhelix

Tuesday, July 02, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 2 Comments











The gravitational orbit of any moon, planet, star or galaxy forms a helix, when you view it traveling through a time dimension.  A 3-dimensional helix is a ‘slice’ of the 4-dimensional shape of the orbit of a planet; X is a time dimension, Y and Z are space dimensions.  One 2D slice of a 3D helix is a circle, another is a wave.  One 3D slice of a 4D helix is a sphere; a planet in a specific moment of time.
Interesting patterns are revealed when you start thinking about the 4-dimensional shapes of objects through time.  One example I enjoy is the fractal nature of gravitational orbits.  Consider the 4D shape of the orbit of the Moon around the Earth through time; a helix.  The helix of the Moons orbit is ‘wrapped’ around the helical orbit of the Earth around the Sun.  The helices of the Earth and Moon are further ‘wrapped’ around the orbit of the Sun around the center of our Galaxy.  When Galaxies orbit each other another iteration is possible.  Because gravity causes the same behavior at different physical scales, a fractal pattern is generated.  Viewed from the ‘side’, with one space and one time dimension, orbits are fractal waves.  Viewed from the ‘top’ (two space dimensions) they are fractal circles.  A 3D slice in spacetime (XYZ) shows a helical fractal. The true 4D object is a fractal hyperhelix.
Another beautiful fractal in time is biology.  Every time a cell divides it creates a bifurcation or a ‘branch’.  The same thing happens whenever an organism reproduces, or at each speciation event.  All life is part of the same 4-dimensional fractal tree, extending back in time to the moment of abiogenesis.  When you consider your 4-dimensional shape it becomes clear that we are all part of the same fractal organism, wrapped on the spherical surface of a hyperhelix!


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