Vincent Darlage > Recent Status Updates

“The Demon’d Mirror of Rivilis the Damned” by David C. Smith was a joy to read. The difference between his story and the previous two are night and day. Smith knows how to write a sword & sorcery story.

Chapter four was on the essence of capitalist exploitation, and did a fair job of explaining how profit is made by the wealthy, but what I am really interested in is how a socialist/communist economy would work. I'm familiar with most of the economic concepts thus far discussed. I get that it's laying a groundwork, but I am becoming impatient.

Chapter 3 was on the origins of capitalism. I most enjoyed how it described the change from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism, especially how the rising capitalists got around the guilds by using the putting-out system. I also liked the section on how the proletariat became a thing.

"A Day in Irighaya." Yeah, this story sucked. It was bad. No likeable characters, no hint of sword & sorcery. I guess it’s happening in Uzbekistan, but they have clockwork horses and giant Kaiju-sized gods that walk around fighting each other? There was no plot, just random events happening.

I should point out that I am reading Bryn Hammond's "A Day in Irighaya." But, WOW. So many names with Qs, Js, and Zs. So much made of names in the first two pages. Compelling reading this does NOT make. One character's name is "Angaj-Dazmut." That's a mouthful. I should write an article on why people trying to sound exotic should stay away from Qs, Js, and Xs, because... damn.

Wow. Two pages in. So many names. And so many of them starting or using the letter Q. Too many amateur authors use names with Qs or Xs, thinking them exotic, but then they overdo it. In two pages, we have the Qaidam Marshes, Qi Miao, Qurjaqus... not to mention the J's and Z's in abundance. Too many names in two pages. Shit.

Lara has reason to suspect that Quentin is a werewolf. She is moved to the second floor, and meets Michael Green in the cemetery. She gets some confirmation about Quentin from Barnabas, but it isn't absolute.

Chapter Two was on the concepts of commodity production, which I largely understood and agreed with, although I would have liked more elaboration why he dismissed the law of diminishing marginal utility. I don't think that economic law is incorrect. There's a reason it moved past a theory into law.

Lara has been told there are rumors of a werewolf and that the "first" Barnabas was rumored to be a vampire (and the Barnabas she met only comes out at night and has cold hands...) and that Erica Collins is an old witch, but she believes none of it, despite seeing savage wolves and... well, the girls in these novels never believe the obvious.

"The Suitcase" by Alan Flanagan is a tale of Cyrus and Sabrina Longworth, owners of the Collinsport Inn. A mysterious guest arrives claiming to be a travelling cosmetics seller, but her suitcase seems to be otherworldly and grants wishes... but not in a good way.

"Behind Closed Doors" by Paul Phipps was the first one I listened to, and was more about man's inhumanity than monsters, although it certainly had a monster in the form of a ghost. Marie Wallace is Jessica Griffin, on the cusp of happiness with husband-to-be WIllie Loomis, but haunted by the memory (and the ghost) of her abusive and controlling late husband.

Read chapter 1, which was a historical overview on the rise of capitalism. I don't have much to say about it. For all its brevity, it covered it well enough.

Finished "Rifts in Nature" by SL Huang. I didn't care for the story at all. There was nothing to hook me. The main character was unlikeable and had no discernable value to the story until the end. The romance was okay, I guess, but I just didn't care for Dorial at all. And Jason, named after Jason and the Argonauts, seemed out of place as a name. Took me four sittings to get through 39 pages. It was dull.

Lara meets Erica Collins, Quentin's aunt, and Conrad Collins, Quentin's brother. Erica is a century-old witch who hates Lara already. Quentin tells Lara he loves her, but then has to run off because of the full moon.

It is 1895 and Lara Balfour has accepted an invitation to stay at Collinwood as a guest of Quentin Collins, his great-aunt Erica and her companion Catherine Edmonds, and his brother Conrad. It's always a little disconcerting to dive into the alternate universe of these novels. Erica, Catherine, and Conrad do not appear in the show. Anyway, Lara arrives and meets Barnabas Collins...

Started "Rifts in Nature," but paused because it had WAY too much whining.

Chapter 5 was on Logic and Dialectics. The goal of logic is truth. The dialectical method is to develop a thesis, then the antithesis, then the synthesis - which can then become a new thesis. The chapter also goes on to discuss Hegel's religious standpoint, and decides he is a panentheist, that all is God, but God is more than the sum of all.

Chapter 4, the Odyssey of the Mind, discussed Hegel's concept of Geist and his Phenomenology of the Mind, showing how Hegel arrived at the conclusion that reality is constructed by mind, absolute knowledge is the mind knowing itself in the shape of mind, and that there is one reality because there is only one mind.