Book Review: Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson

Isles of the Emberdark is a Cosmere novel by Brandon Sanderson. This was offered as part of a Kickstarter I backed and I've heard it referred to as the 5th of the Secret Projects, a series of books he wrote during the COVID lockdown years. Here is the Goodreads blurb:

The Ones Above are starting to grow impatient and want to build an installation to breed and collect Aviar on one of First of the Sun's islands. Vathi and Dusk are trying to figure out how to delay their progress and are also dealing with people from another world, likely Roshar. Dusk realizes that the people of First of the Sun are hopelessly outmatched and decides to go through Patji's Eye, the perpendicularity on the island Patji, to try to enlist help.

Read on for my mostly spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

I decided to re-read the Mistborn series after the epic finale in Wind and Truth. As some folks know, many of Brandon Sanderson's novels are connected via the Cosmere. Events in one are sometimes mentioned in others and sometimes there are even characters that journey between the worlds. The news I hear is that Mistborn Era 3 will be finished before we get Stormlight Archive Era 2 and so it seems like a good time to start brushing up on the story there. Here is the Goodreads blurb for Mistborn:

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale-spinner and author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins with the book in your hands. Fantasy will never be the same again.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Data Science: Querying DnD Session Notes with Vector Databases and AI

Last week, we had some guests at work and one of them presented a multi-agent model for creating database queries with some clever documentation retrievals. It was very exciting and something I've wanted to do, so I decided to take some steps and familiarize myself with some of the concepts. I learn best by practicing, though, so I set out to do a simple hack day project: a way to create a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) application that would take some notes I have from our multi-year Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) campaign and generate appropriate responses when passed through an AI large language model (LLM). 

Let's go through what I ended up building.
You can also follow along by looking through the GitHub repo for it: https://github.com/dr-rodriguez/ollama-ttrpg-query

Book Review: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed is a major book in the science fiction community, having won multiple awards and being highly regarded. I had, for whatever reason, never actually read it, though I've read other of Ursula Le Guin's books. So after hearing about it recently at work I decided to go ahead and give it a read.

Anarres, Shevek’s homeland, is a bleak moon settled by an anarchic utopian civilization, where there is no government, and everyone, at least nominally, is a revolutionary. It has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—defined by warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to unify the two civilizations. In the face of great hostility, outright threats, and the pain of separation from his family, he makes an unprecedented trip to Urras. Greater than any concern for his own wellbeing is the belief that the walls of hatred, distrust, and philosophic division between his planet and the rest of the civilized universe must be torn down. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and explore differences in customs and cultures, determined to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.

To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. Almost immediately upon his arrival, he finds not the egotistical philistines he expected, but an intelligent, complex people who warmly welcome him. But soon the ambitious scientist and his gift is seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Some time ago, a YouTuber I follow, Elle Cordova, started an online book club with I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. While I didn't explicitly join it at the time as I was reading something else, I realized that I hadn't actually read I, Robot. I've read some of Asimov's other robot stories, like The Caves of Steel as well as the Foundation series, and watched movies like the one made from I, Robot and The Bicentennial Man. So I'm familiar with Asimov, just probably missing a lot of his shorter books. Regardless, I decided to pick this up and see what it was all about. Because this is a series of short stories I'll forgo my usual format and just write a few paragraphs on it.

Book Review: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

I had read Rendezvous with Rama a long time ago, but I've been in a bit of a sci-fi reading phase and wanted to re-read it. Here is the Goodreads blurb:

An all-time science fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama is also one of Clarke's best novels--it won the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards. A huge, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. The citizens of the solar system send a ship to investigate before the enigmatic craft, called Rama, disappears. The astronauts given the task of exploring the hollow cylindrical ship are able to decipher some, but definitely not all, of the extraterrestrial vehicle's puzzles. From the ubiquitous trilateral symmetry of its structures to its cylindrical sea and machine-island, Rama's secrets are strange evidence of an advanced civilization. But who, and where, are the Ramans, and what do they want with humans? Perhaps the answer lies with the busily working biots, or the sealed-off buildings, or the inaccessible "southern" half of the enormous cylinder. Rama's unsolved mysteries are tantalizing indeed. Rendezvous with Rama is fast moving, fascinating, and a must-read for science fiction fans. Clarke collaborated with Gentry Lee in writing several Rama sequels, beginning with Rama II.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.