Expressions – Bhagwad Jal Park

Ever since I gave up and lost hope of us preventing catastrophic climate change, I’ve been getting the feeling that I’d better know how to grow my own food. Of course, now that I’ve gone vegetarian, it’s less than a pipe dream than it once was. But till now I was always deterred by the magnitude of the task. Clearing land, sowing the stuff, mixing up the veggies, etc etc. However, I decided yesterday that enough is enough – I’m going to start no matter what. If with nothing else, then by putting a seed in the damn mud and pouring water on it!

So that’s what I’ve done today. I watched some videos on Youtube on planting tomato seeds and today I went with Anupa to the Chennai Horticultural Gardens and picked up this little packet of Tomato seeds for Rs. 5 :

Nuggets of life

I opened it up and found dozens of tiny little paper like seeds and I caught myself thinking – can a plant really grow from one of these little buggers? Well, I guess I’m going to find out!

This is what they looked like:

The poor little tomato seeds

Along with the seeds, I bought some compost, which I understand to be a mixture of decayed plant and animal stuff which will make my tomatoes go gaga. This was the packet which I got for Rs. 30:

Plant heaven

And here’s what’s inside:

Yum yum!

So I took some nice soil from the garden, mixed around 200 gms of this compost into it, and transfered the ensemble into a pot or gamla with some stones at the bottom near the hole for the water to drip out. I then placed 6 or 7 tomato seeds on the soil, covered it with more soil, patted it down and gave it a nice watering. And here is the end result:

The watered pot with the soil, compost and seeds

I placed it in an area that gets good sunlight, but not too much. The guides I read on the Internet which were meant for denizens of the UK and said that tomatoes need lots of sunlight – not less than 10 degrees C! Ahem ahem – this being Chennai where the minimum temperature is 30 degrees, I put it in a nice place that I thought I would like if I were a tomato plant…

Not too lonely is it?

And there we have it! I’m supposed to find some activity in three days or so. But I have no clue if I’ve done it right. But I figure that these tomato fellows must be pretty hardy and take their conditions as they come, or else they wouldn’t have reached the 21st century. So I’ve done my bit, now it’s time for the plants to do theirs…

Stay tuned for more updates

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I was reading news in the  TOI about how M F Husain is no longer an Indian the other day and saw the four hundred odd comments left by regular Indians who needed to express their opinion. Surprisingly for me, the overwhelming sentiment seems to be an outrage against the painter for depicting Hindu goddesses in the nude, and most are happy to be rid of him. The TOI blogger Ramesh Khazanchi has written a scathing article on how the Freedom of Expression is not unqualified and how Husain will learn  in his new home how precious it is – of course, forgetting in the process that it was India which drove him away.

I myself have to ask the question: “So what if he painted nude goddesses?” I mean what exactly are people protesting? Suppose Husain had painted the nude goddesses and kept them in his room – never displaying them to anyone. Would they have objected then? If so, then what they’re saying is that a person has no right to even think about naked goddesses since a painting is a mere expression of one’s thought.

Husain's Paintings are not being forced on anyone, so what's the big do?

But of course, Husain displayed his paintings, and again I have to ask: “So what?” It’s not as if they were forced on people, not as if they were projected onto buildings, not as if they were advertised on TV. In fact, everyone who saw the paintings chose to see them. The question crosses my mind, what kind of insane person goes to view pictures that he or she knows will offend them? And worse, what kind of person chooses to view pictures and then complains about it?

So perhaps people are objecting to the fact that others saw the pictures since one presumes they never saw the paintings themselves (they being so offensive and all). If so, they’re essentially claiming that adults don’t have the strength of mind to know what’s good for them and that someone has to ensure they’re kept in check…Not so different from people like our beloved Pramod Muthalik who feel the need to “protect” India’s culture and force their version of it down people’s throats, saying they don’t know what’s good for them.

In my opinion, people are too quick to put limits on free speech using phrases such as “Freedom of expression is not absolute” or “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can say what you want.” Well, I’m afraid it does! A mature society realizes that words themselves don’t harm anyone and more importantly, one can choose what one wants to see and hear. So if you read or hear something which offends you, you have no one to blame but yourself.

What’s your opinion? (You can choose two answers)

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Some software really is free. There’s no need to buy it, it works great and sometimes even better than that which you pay for. OpenOffice is one example of such software that completely replaces the expensive MS Office suite. The cost savings can be so great, that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) recently replaced MS Office on every single computer with OpenOffice right over the weekend!

Of course, US Corporations hate free software with a vengeance. Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer for example, has called Linux “a cancer”. Free software (also called Open Source when the source code is available) has a habit of nudging out expensive software solutions and improving faster than any paid software. However, it’s only recently that US corporations using their clout have tried to make using Open Source software a crime.

US Corporations try to make Open Source Software Illegal

Many governments – especially poor ones – have tried to save piles of money by encouraging the use of Open Source software in administration. Such governments include India, Brazil and Indonesia. Alarmed by this, the companies with money have been encouraging the US government to place these countries on a blacklist for “failing to build respect for intellectual property rights!”

Wha? Did I miss something? It’s not a secret that many developing countries have very high rates of piracy which companies like Microsoft claim is theft. So when a government decides to prevent the so called theft and instead uses software that is free instead, corporations suddenly cry foul? It’s obvious to the meanest intelligence, that what is expected of a sovereign government is not to clamp down on piracy, but rather to continue to unnecessarily shovel money into the coffers of already fat corporations!

For a country like India, the substantial savings from using Open Source software can be channeled into improving the lot of impoverished people or improving the government’s fiscal deficit. This is unacceptable according to the moneyed powers who want that cash to flow to them instead.

This issue merely highlights the stranglehold that corporations have on the US government, the effects of which are felt halfway across the world in India. If they’re successful, we will be included on the US’s special 301 blacklist which might adversely affect our trade negotiating power on other issues.

Personally, I don’t think that the recommendations will be accepted by the US trade department (perhaps I’m being overly optimistic?), but the mere fact that private interests with money can dictate the direction of governmental procedures on such a large and brazen scale is scary.

Given all this, I’m glad I’ve slowly been shifting away from all paid software. I now use Ubuntu (a Linux variant) exclusively as my Operating System, Google Docs instead of MS Office, Wordpress as my blogging platform, and Pidgin as my Instant Messenger software. No longer do I have to shell out money and adhere to restrictions such as how many times I can reinstall my OS and I don’t have to “activate” or “crack” my software anymore. Welcome to the world of free software!

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This work was Asimov’s third by publication date in the “Foundation Series” and some interesting concepts are introduced such as the “Hyperspace” idea. Nothing very special about the plot though and the last  twist is totally corny. Asimov apparently thought so too and this was one of his least favorite novels. He was persuaded to write the corny ending by H. L. Gold and never forgave him for it!

The Stars like Dust by Isaac Asimov

But it’s quite a pleasant read nevertheless. The hero is a bit unbelievable as he alternates between extreme childishness and stunning intellect. But other aspects are nicely told with cool explorations in the Horse Head Nebula. Earth’s history has become very foggy at this point – a certain character puts forward the theory that the horse head nebula is so called not because some “Horace Head” was the first to explore it, but because it has the shape of an animal called a “Horse” when viewed from earth (which is actually the case.)

It suddenly occurred to me though that science fiction writers have postulated so many cool advances in technology, not one of them ever dreamed up the Internet! What can it mean? That truth is stranger than fiction? That the Internet is truly one of the greatest advances of mankind?

I’ve started reading the next book in Asimov’s series called “Foundation” and it starts off with an attempt to create a centralized repository of all the galaxy’s knowledge – in other words, the Internet itself! Only Asimov never imagined it to be what it is today.

Getting nicely oriented with Asimov’s universe now…

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Asimov’s “Pebble in the sky” is the first of the Empire novels published chronologically – though not the first in the traditional reading order. Contrary to my expectations, there were no robots, but the book was sufficiently innovative and thought provoking for me to enjoy it immensely.

Without revealing the plot, I can say that the book is set (possibly) hundreds of thousands of years from our present day – a big difference from other star trek like stories where the difference is usually just a few hundreds of years.

Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov

And though our Earth is at the center of the plot, no importance is attached to earth by the rest of the galactic civilization. In fact, it seems that the origins of humans have been lost and no one knows that earth was the origin of modern day humans.

I like such non-anthropocentricity in science fiction writing since it puts things in perspective. Even though I absolutely loved the original “Star Trek” series, I did find its constant focus on the importance of the human race and earth as such galling. I read science fiction to take me out of my comfort zone and widen my thought patterns, not to reiterate standard modes of thought. “Pebble in the sky” does just this.

This is the second Asimov book I’m reading in the “Foundation” series and though it was only a small one in comparison to a full blown novel, it deserves its own post and will contribute to the “Books I have read this year” list!

And though I haven’t read enough Asimov yet to get a full feel of his writing, I really like what I’ve read this far and hope to read a lot more of his work in the future.

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It’s something of a national pastime to bash Indians. We’re always held up to be the world’s worst citizens in terms of behavior and not caring about those around us. Articles abound regarding the unconscionable practices of Indians and an economist even wrote a book on why we Indians are the way we are.

Rajesh Kala – a blogger for the Times of India – never misses an opportunity to crib about India and sing the praises of China and always complains about the despairing feeling one gets when thinking about the Indian’s behavior vis a vis the rest of the world. One article article even tries to elaborately explain why Indians don’t give back to society using the notion of reincarnation!

I must admit it’s tempting to believe all that one hears of Indians. Coming back to India from the US made me realize how we can’t form queues (but only with other Indians!) and how we don’t trust one another to stay put and behave decently thereby creating a chicken and egg situation.

And especially in the matter of paying tax, I always thought that Indians would seize any opportunity to evade paying Income Tax if they wouldn’t be caught. After all if we’re completely socially unconscious, then trying to evade tax is a perfectly logical outcome.

But sometimes I feel that things are not all that bad. I was frequenting a forum of freelancers today where a thread was seeking answers as to how to save on Income Tax. Nothing wrong with that of course. Tax planning is a perfectly sensible and respectable practice. The thread wasn’t seeking tax evasion techniques, but merely legitimate means to reduce the tax burden.

It wasn’t the advice so much as the sentiments that went with the advice that surprised me. Most of the comments expressed the opinion that it was our duty to pay tax even if there are doubts as to the efficacy of the government to utilize the funds. Here are some of them: (click the last two to view the comments properly)

It’s even more heartening to remember that these sentiments are expressed by random freelancers – those who are in an easy position to avoid paying tax by hiding their income. Salaried people don’t have a choice, and businesses are too conspicuous to avoid it. Freelancers on the other hand have a lot of ways to avoid tax scrutiny, and to see these same people say that India needs the money and that we must do our duty by paying tax puts the lie to all our rigid stereotypes about Indians and their “dog eat dog” mentality.

I mean its so easy to say something like “If only I don’t pay tax, then the country won’t fall to pieces” or “Why should I fatten the pockets of politicians and babus?” Both statements have a certain logic to them – a logic that should be highly appealing to a “selfish Indian.” But instead we see a sentimental patriotism that I didn’t really expect to find.

So perhaps things aren’t that bad after all and there’s reason to hope. Perhaps behind the boorish Indian there has started to flourish a sense of what is good and bad for the country and for others. If so, we must give up our stereotypes for the sake of those who are making an effort to change. It’s not right to brand even one person unjustly – national pastime or no.

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As a freelance writer, I was hit hard by the recent Paypal outage which prevented me from withdrawing funds from Paypal into my Bank account. Out of desperation, I decided to try Moneybookers [That's an affiliate link btw ] as an alternative to using Paypal for withdrawing money to my Indian bank account. And while I still get payments into my Paypal account, oDesk has an option to withdraw my funds into a Moneybookers account.

I was a bit hesitant going into Moneybookers because I had heard a lot about how they supposedly freeze accounts and charge high fees. But as I said, I was desperate and I’m glad I decided to open a Moneybookers account – it’s cheaper than Paypal with better currency conversion fees and it delivers cash into my account just as fast. The only hurdle to using Moneybookers fully is their highly strict verification process. I had to verify my Email ID, my card, my Bank account, my address (twice) and finally my ID. After all the verifications however, my account is fully operational with very high limits.

Moneybookers - An alternative to Paypal in India

Moneybookers is based in Europe, and their strict verification rules stem from implementing the UK’s anti money laundering procedures. People who have their accounts frozen have likely not completed all the procedures required by Moneybookers.

For those in India thinking of using Moneybookers as an option for withdrawal of funds into Indian bank accounts, here is a detailed account of how I set up my account and got verified step by step.

Opening an Account

Opening a Moneybookers account is simple. Head over to the Moneybookers home page and click the “Register” button. Be very careful while filling out the registration form, cause I gotta warn you – they’re going to check everything! Also, ensure that you choose your account’s currency carefully. You can never change it after this. And finally, be warned that you can have only one Moneybookers account. If you try and create two (they’ll likely find out if you do), your accounts will be frozen and there’s no use crying afterwards. They take their security procedures very seriously.

I receive all my payments in USD and I chose to have my Moneybookers currency set as USD, since this allows me to escape two currency conversion fees. If you instead choose a currency such as Euros and you receive a payment in USD, you’ll be hit with currency conversion fees twice – first from USD into EUR and then EUR into INR when you withdraw to an Indian bank account. So choose carefully!

Email ID and Physical Address Verification

Once you’ve opened your account, you’d better start the verification procedures ASAP. Your account is never fully functional until you do and even if you don’t hit your withdrawal limits, Moneybooker’s security team is likely to force you to verify your account if you don’t do it soon. The Email ID verification is simplicity itself. They send an email to the address you provide and you click the included link to verify it.

There are two physical address verifications. The first verification is designed to check whether the person who has opened the Moneybookers account really lives at the address provided. Mind, this isn’t a name verification yet. Just a check to see if you’ve given a valid address. When you try and verify your Indian address, Moneybookers will send you a physical letter containing a 6 digit number which you have to key into the Moneybookers verification page. If you enter it correctly, your address is verified and your money sending and withdrawal limits are increased.

I live in Chennai and I got the letter from Moneybookers in 5 days or so. Pretty neat!

Credit/Debit  Card Verification

The second step is to verify your card. It’s important to note that you can verify your card only if the name on the card is the same as the one you signed up with on Moneybookers. For verification, they charge your card a small amount and you have to then enter the exact value taken from your card. This proved to be a bit difficult for me for two reasons. First, I don’t have a credit card and when I tried using my ICICI debit card, the verification failed. Apparently Moneybookers didn’t like it.

I bank with ICICI and some time ago, I signed up for a b2 branch banking account – a completely online bank facility which has an “eWallet”. I tried using these details for card verification and it worked! But then a problem occurred. Moneybookers wanted me to enter the amount debited in USD and since my ICICI account was in INR, I only saw the INR value! I tried guessing the value based on the conversion rate and was confronted with a stern message in red saying “Please DO NOT TRY and guess the amount” after which they disabled the verification for 24 hrs – Ouch.

So I contacted the b2 bank using their online chat facility (damn neat that is) and asked them to give me the exact USD value debited. After a bit of checking, they confirmed that it was exactly $1.51 . I waited for 24 hrs, input the amount into the Moneybookers verification screen and voila! It was correct, I was verified and my account limits were increased further.

Adding and verifying a Bank account

This was the most difficult part of the verification procedure for me. There are two ways to verify your Indian bank account with Monebookers. First, you can upload some funds to the Moneybookers account via a wire transfer. The other is by withdrawing some funds to your bank account from Moneybookers first and then entering the verification code that they send along with your first withdrawal. Neither of them worked for me though…

The first step is adding your bank. You need to know the SWIFT code of your bank for Moneybookers to wire the funds to you. On the receiving end, my ICICI bank charges me Rs. 25 for each incoming wire transfer – quite reasonable. Sadly, though all banks have a SWIFT code, not all branches do. After trying in vain to find out the SWIFT code of my ICICI bank branch, I decided to call ICICI and find out what it is. The customer rep asked me if the sender was sending funds in USD or INR. I naturally assumed that the funds were being sent in USD (since my funds are stored in USD) and I obtained the USD specific SWIFT code for ICICI.

However, when I put in the SWIFT code, Moneybookers didn’t recognize it as an Indian bank. So after a lot of searching around, I finally got the correct SWIFT code for ICICI which is ICICINBBNRI . What seems to be happening is that Moneybookers is first converting my USD to INR and then sending it to the bank I specify. So naturally it counts as an INR transfer and not a USD. At least, that is what I think is happening. At any rate, my funds sailed through to my bank account in just two days. To be on the safe side, I had withdrawn only the small amount of $14 the first time. I was pleasantly surprised to find a conversion rate much better than Paypal’s.

Moneybookers Bank Verification

Eagerly I searched for the verification code that was promised along with the wire transfer details, but didn’t find any such code. I was informed by Moneybookers that it would be a 6 digit alphanumeric code preceded by “VRF CODE”. But after many calls to the ICICI NRI department, no such code was found.

Disappointed, I decided to opt for the other method of verification namely uploading funds from my bank account to Moneybookers. Armed with all the details I walked over to ICICI to make the transfer, when I was informed that each transfer would cost me more than $30! I couldn’t afford that, and so I came home disappointed.

I contacted Moneybookers customer support over the phone (using Skype)  and told them that it was too expensive for me to upload funds to Moneybookers and that I hadn’t received any VRF CODE in my first withdrawal either. They kindly offered to verify my bank account manually and asked me to send over either a screenshot of my online bank account or a scanned copy of my bank statement. The details they wanted shown on the document were:

1. Bank account number
2. Name of the person (my name)
3. Transaction details showing the withdrawal into ICICI from Moneybookers
4. Date of the Transaction
5. Moneybookers as the sender of the funds

I took a screenshot of my online statement and circled the relevant details in black. Here is what I sent over:

Bank Statement showing Moneybookers transfer

Unfortunately for me, all the needed details are visible except No. 5 – the name of the sender (Moneybookers). Their security team rejected the screenshot saying so, and asked me to send them the physical statement of the bank. I called ICICI and asked them if the physical bank statement would show Moneybookers as the sender, and they told me that they couldn’t see the details of the sender themselves!

I was stymied and once again called up Moneybookers and pleaded with them saying that my bank couldn’t provide me with a statement showing them as the sender. They got back to me saying that if that was the case,I must at least get a full print out of the SWIFT transaction from my bank, scan it and send it to them. So off I went to ICICI the next day to do just that and obtained this document:

Moneybookers SWIFT details

Praying to the (non existent) gods that they accept this as proof that I am indeed the owner of the Bank account in question, I sent it off to them and was rewarded two days later with an email from the security departing saying that my bank account has (at last!) been verified by their department. And my withdrawal limits were raised once more.

After my bank account verification, there was just one more thing for them to check up…

Commercial account vs Personal Account

I was reading some forums a week ago, when I came across the disturbing news that if I was using Moneybookers to receive payments for goods or services (which as a writer, I am), then I must have a commercial account and not a personal one. When you sign up for a Moneybookers account, you’re asked if you’re an individual or a company. Since I’m an individual, I got a personal account instead of a commercial one.

I went back and read the Moneybookers TOS and saw that if they suspect that I’m using a personal account to receive commercial payments, their security team will freeze the account and ban me. I was scared, and once again placed a call to them telling them that I’m a freelancer and that though I use my account for commercial purposes, I’m not a company but an individual. They got back to me with a mail saying that if that was the case, they would treat my account as a commercial one and that they wanted two further documents from me to prove my identity, namely:

1. A scanned copy of a government issued document with an expiry date
2. A utility bill that has actually arrived by post in the past 3 months

I was only too happy to send them a copy of the front and back of my passport, but I had a problem with the second requirement. Internet techie that I am, I pay every single bill of mine online and when I sent them my reliance Internet bill which arrived by email, the security team told me that it must be a scanned copy of a bill that was actually received by post in the last 3 months. Since I’ve just got back from outside India, I don”t have any such bill and had to wait for a while to obtain it.

They also sent over a “Merchant questionnaire” word document requesting details about my business and what I do etc etc. They told me to leave out the fields which are not applicable, and there were many like this since I’m not a company.

As matters stand, I’m still waiting for my Internet bill to arrive by post so that I can finish up this final verification stage. I finally got my Internet bill by post, scanned it (and scanned the envelope before opening it for good measure!), filled out the questionnaire with all details that were applicable to me and uploaded all three documents to the Moneybookers security team. I got back a reply in less than an hour thanking me for sending across the documents and informing me that all was well.

So that was the end of the verification procedures for me. I’m completely verified and all set to go! I’ve already withdrawn several thousand rupees into my ICICI bank account from Moneybookers and it’s been a better experience than Paypal due to the higher conversion rates.

I only wish there was some way to transfer money from my Paypal account to Moneybookers, since Paypal withdrawals into Indian bank accounts are more expensive and are fraught with complications thanks to the recent RBI ban. Moneybookers seems to be a professional company, and though their verification procedures can get a bit on one’s nerves, it’s that very scrutiny that inspires trust.

So here’s hoping that more Indian providers will ask their clients if they use Moneybookers for payments and if so, open an account with them.

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This is a sequel to “The Curse of Chalion” – though calling it a sequel is a bit off since the events in the book, though they take place with some of the same characters, are largely disassociated from those in the first. The main protagonist is a woman called “Ista” who was only a minor character in the first book. In Paladin of Souls, she takes off with her own story line and in my opinion, makes the story even more interesting than the first.

There’s a good bit of demon sorcery involved in “Paladin of Souls” – and some of the scenes remind me a bit of The Exorcist, which is probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Just as in the first book, the five Gods are at the center point of the plot and provide the driving force behind the events. Especially the God called “The Bastard.”

Paladin of Souls

Once again, the book is very different from standard fantasy fare and is unusually, told entirely through the eyes of a single person, just like the first book. This leads to a complete coherent storyline, whereas in works by other authors, the point of view can switch suddenly just in the middle of a juicy plot and really piss you off. And I really appreciate the way the author has given the Gods great powers, but has limited them dramatically at the same time. In many ways, the story deals with concepts of free will and whether or not a person wishes to be a “vessel” for the Gods.

The demonic system is an integral part of the book with detailed insights into how a demon can co-exist with the original soul of the body and who controls whom. In the book, there is a large influx of demons into the world, and “The Bastard” is pretty anxious to get them back into his domain, thereby trying to enlist the help of Ista.

From what I’ve heard, the third book in the series called “The Hallowed Hunt” doesn’t have the same characters as the first two books, and so I don’t think I’ll be reading it. Don’t want to get acquainted with another set of characters – can get rather tiring. So this is the last book I’ll be reading in the Chalion series and it’s been an interesting fantasy set. I highly recommend it to those who’re tired of usual fantasy fiction and are looking for something different.

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Jump straight to the Extension!

Yesterday, I wrote my first Google Chrome extension. The feature that was really keeping me on Firefox all this while was the Ubiquity add on, and though it still works, Mozilla has decided to put a hold on Ubiquity’s development.

Without Ubiquity to hold me back, I succumbed to Google Chrome’s seductive minimalistic interface, blistering speed and overall smoothness. And since the Chrome Extension gallery didn’t have an extension to count the words and characters in a selection, I decided to write one myself since it’s absolutely essential to me as a writer.

This is the first time I’m writing an extension for a browser (I don’t count Ubiquity commands as extensions as such), and the results are pretty neat. It took me well over a day to figure out exactly what the architecture of an extension is and I almost lost my head trying to implement things like message passing, but I finally came through with the goods

This is what the extension I wrote looks like – Word and Character Count:

Google Chrome Extension - Word and Character Count

I’m not much of a designer, so the logo for my extension is just a big blue “W” and the output simply gives the number of words and characters – good enough for my needs. Initially it was just a word count extension and then two people were kind enough to use it and suggest that I include a character counter too – which I did promptly.

So if you’re a writer using Google Chrome, be sure to install my humble contribution to the Google Chrome universe

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For a while, I’ve wanted to read a fantasy book that’s different from all the rest. I’ve noticed that all fantasy novels I’ve read till now (barring His Dark Materials) have some elements that really become cheesy after a while. Among other things, they are:

1. Novels are always set in medieval times
2. Plots revolve around main people getting separated
3. Inordinate focus on swords
4. People spend time traveling on horseback
5. There’s some terrible fate lying over the world

Curse of Chalion Book Review

So I picked up The Curse of Chalion because I had read that it was something different from the usual. And it was. For a change, I saw a hero who didn’t have any super duper powers or potential to be a superman, but was just a well meaning sort of fellow. The Gods however, play a huge role in the book and one of the best aspects was that there was no “Satanic god” or “Dark one” or anything like that. Even the God called “The Bastard” is a benevolent, well meaning chap.

I also really enjoyed the single narrative line of the book. Unlike The Wheel of Time series, the entire book is told through the perspective of one person – the hero (if you want to call him that) Cazaril. There are no swords, no doom threatening the world and only a little bit of separation of the main characters. Instead of focusing on the people, the book focuses on the plot more than anything else and the end result is a very well told story.

A goodish part of the book focuses on Cazaril using his wit and experience of court life to keep his young royal charge safe. He himself is delightfully unassuming and the last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself. The book also espouses the fact that being touched by the Gods isn’t a blessing that it’s made out to be, but rather a burden.

So there’s no great glory for doing the work of God in this world. In fact, you undergo just the slightest touch of madness.

I’ll be reading the sequel next called Paladin of Souls next, and I expect it to be as good as the first. In any case, I’ll write a review on it when I finish it!

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