Snare by Katherine Kerr

First off let me say that I have never read any books by Katherine Kerr before. I’ve heard of her as she’s a popular fantasy author but never read any books by her. This book I picked up due to its’ interesting premise.

Listen to this: Eight hundred years before the start of the novel, humans were left stranded on the planet Snare after their colonization ships were thrown off course and disabled. The humans were split between 3 camps with their own religions and beliefs, but most of them belong to a fanatical Islamic splinter cult. Islam that has been changed by the teachings of the Second and Third Prophets. However, Snare is home to its’ own indigenous life form, the Cha'Meech (Think of a giant size ET). As a result, the Cha'Meech and the technologically advanced humans reached an agreement to ensure both species' survival. 800 years is a long time however, and when the novel starts, the fanatical Islamic splinter cult has built a great empire, Kazrajistan, on Snare. However, most of them have long forgotten about the agreement with the Cha’Meech and there is growing political turmoil in Kazrajistan against their ruler, the Great Khan. Revolution is in the air.

Sounds interesting right? It got my interest. However you can ignore it because the book is very different.

For one thing, the story did not take place in Kazrajistan. Most of the story is on the plains, home of the horse tribes (think American Indians). Strange thing about the book is that outside the first 100 pages, we don’t see Kazrajistan till the very, very end of it. This was quite disappointing because Kazrajistan was far more interesting than the plains and the Cantons.

I don’t quite understand why but it seems that Kerr has some problems writing about Kazrajistan. At times she went out of the way to avoid mentioning the nation and its’ people. A good example for this was the lack of mention in the clothing of the people. Kerr mention how the people on the plains and Cantons were dressed but no mention about the people of Kazrajistan. All I got was that the women wore veils. There was no mention about what kind of veils (tudung, burqa etc), just an all-covering veil. That’s it!

The end was also disappointing. The pace in the last quarter of the book changed quite dramatically. I can’t help but think ‘rewrite’ as it felt that Kerr was rushing to finish the book. As usual, that’s not a good thing.

However, it’s not all bad. The pacing of the book (outside the end) make Snare was an easy read and I can see why Kerr has so many fans. The characters were interesting and most of them were quite memorable. Idres and Jezro Khan ate up the pages whenever they were together.

Problem was that the minuses outnumbered the plus. There were plenty of things that could have been exploited, like the political situation in Kazrajistan, but most of it were ignored for a trip though the world of Snare. Snare is a good, easy read but it’s also a book that could have been so much better. Overall, it was a disappointing book for me.

Very Necessary

The Singapore government says that it is prepared to do more to soften the impact of rising food prices in the next Budget…if necessary.

If necessary? Singapore’s inflation has just soared to 26-year highs, and the government is wondering if Singaporeans need help to cope with rising prices? Rising costs of housing and food has eaten into the budgets of most Singaporeans already, and prices are not coming down anytime soon. Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong himself has said that global food prices have spiked by 43 per cent since 2006 and he believe food prices will remain high in the next year or so. Surely those are indications that Singaporeans will need help. Where does “if necessary” come into it?

Singaporeans are already feeling the pinch with low income families being the most affected, so why not help them now? The government has steadily increased the Goods and Services Tax for the past few years; surely it’s not too much to ask for some extra help now. After all, with the good “co—operation” between employers, unions and government, it’s not like our pay is going to go up anytime soon.

To me, help is very necessary.

What took you so long?

It took them 2 months of unrest, weeks of pressure from world leaders, and a PR disaster of a Olympics torch relay, but finally the Chinese government is making plans to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

China’s state-run media reported that Beijing is going to open a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. There’s nothing “official” yet, but this is a step in the right direction. If nothing else, this is a smart PR move. The Dalai Lama has constantly called for talks and the Chinese government stubborn, almost irrational refusal to do this is part of the reason why the world is so firmly behind the Tibetans.

I don’t know if there will be any results from these talks, but this is a wise move China has made. At the very least, it will lower feelings and tensions against the Beijing Olympic Games which is why I suspect they agree to the talks in the first place. Now the question is why it took them so long to come up with this agreement. If they did this at first, half the problem they faced now would have never happened. Better late than never I guess.

Comics this week

Countdown to Final Crisis #1- It's almost over! 52 was a work that shows how a weekly series could work; Countdown is a series that shows how a weekly would not. Take for example this issue: The new-look Challengers of the Beyond (Donna Troy, Ray Palmer etc) show up and told all the Monitors that they are the new broder-police of the 52 worlds. Tell me how in the bloody 52 worlds did the Challengers got so powerful that they can actually challenge even one Monitors, much less ALL The Monitors? When I read that, I was wondering :" Why aren't the Monitors laughing at these guys?" Wait, that will require a series that actually care that it is making sense. Sorry, my bad.

Odd Report

I was patient on this. I waited till both Lee Hsien Loong and Wong Kan Seng have their say before commenting on the Committee of Inquiry Findings on Mas Selamat's Escape. After hearing both men, I am afraid I still have a lot of questions about the escape.

After I listened to Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng's presentation of Mas Selamat's escape, I find certain facts about it to be incredible. For one thing, no grills at the toilet? Okay maybe that’s just a simple oversight, but I am amazed that they say that Mas Selamat had no help in his escape. According to the report, Mas Selamat only had 11 mins to make good his escape. 11 minutes was all Mas Selamat had to escape via the toilet's ventilation window, jumped over the fence and run into the forest. How far can a man with a limp run in 11mins?

The man has also evaded the manhunt for 2 months! 2 months of evading the biggest manhunt in Singapore without any help from anyone. Does that sound likely to you?

And the government still insists the man is still in Singapore! How did the Singapore government come out with that? Mas Selamat has been on the run for more than 7 weeks now, haven’t been found, having no help from anyone, and is still in Singapore. Doesn’t that sound odd to you?

It isn’t just Singaporeans who find the report strange. In fact when you look under yahoo news, you will find this report under “Odd News”. I’m afraid the report did not answer most of our questions on the escape, and may have in fact raise more.

A White Prince of Persia?

Super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is planning for a new movie based on the videogame Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Big-screen adaptations of videogames are usually crap but as Sands of Time actually have a story in the game, I think this adaptation is worth to see.

Unfortunately, the rumored prince will be played by the very white Jake Gyllenhaal! Now I think Mr. Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain, Rendition) is a pretty solid actor, but when the title is ‘Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’, surely an actor as white as Jake Gyllenhaal is not the guy you choose. The prince has to at least look Persian, right?

But then we are talking about Hollywood, where a big, black guy can play Kingpin (see Daredevil). Luckily the actor hasn’t accepted the offer yet. I hope he never will.

Report Time

It’s Monday! Usually a bad day for everyone as we all trod back to work, but today will be especially bad for Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng as today is the day he submit the findings of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) into the escape of Jemaah Islamiyah member Mas Selamat.

I state before that Singaporeans are more interested in knowing how Mas Selamat escaped than anything else, so maybe we will FINALLY be able to know something other than “went to the toilet”. Singaporeans has a lot of unanswered questions, so maybe this is the start of the answers. After all, the COI is suppose “to leave no stone unturned” to get to the bottom of the matter.

It took them 2 months, but better late than never I say.