"Gardens of the Moon"

Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon is the first of a projected four-volume series. (It was published in 1999; I'm not sure how many volumes have appeared since.) It was drawn to my attention by a review in either Analog or Asimov's, and I think I'll give it a qualified thumbs-up.

( Gardens of the Moon )

It's a longish book, and not an altogether pleasant one, but Erikson has engaged my interest enough that I will at least consider continuing with the series.

Wiki

So, well, I looked up my birthday on Wikipedia for Significant Events, as so many on my FL have been doing. I'm pleased (as a mathematician) to note that I share a birthday with Isaac Newton (New Style, mind you), and (as a dilettante linguist) also with Jakob Grimm. As a history buff, I suppose the best I can claim is Doris Kearns Goodwin.

On the "famous deaths" front, among the most prominent are Henri Bergson, Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, and Erwin Schrödinger. Less famous, but of interest to me: Elizabeth Ann Seton, Gabriel Cramer, and Humphrey Carpenter.

Famous events? Not a lot: the landing of the Spirit rover in 2004, Nixon's refusal to hand over the Watergate tapes in 1974, Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" speech in 1965, the first successful appendectomy (1885) and the founding of the Fabian Society (1884).

I think I'm best pleased by the birthday list.

Baseball, Week One

Ouch. That was awful.

One week into the season, the Padres are 1-4. After Jake Peavy's masterful performance on Opening Day, we've seen Shawn Estes pitch well but lose (and hurt himself in the process), Chris Young blow up in the middle innings, and Dewon Brazelton blow up in the first inning. Today Peavy's turn came up again - and the one pitcher I thought we could rely on got hammered. The Padres lost the weekend set to the Rockies by a combined score of 32-12, in one of the best pitcher's parks in the majors. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Sigh. Now it's on the road, against the Braves and Marlins. It's got to get better, right? Right?