Books: Lines of Departure

"Lines of Departure" is the sequel to Marko Kloos's first novel, "Terms of Enlistment," and it's a pretty good read for any fan of military science fiction. The book, like its predecessor, follows Andrew Grayson and humanity's battle with the "Lankies," giant aliens so advanced that they consider our species as pests, not threats. Aside from a brief sojourn on an overpopulated Earth, Grayson flits from deployment to deployment, waging war against both Lankies and (depressingly) other humans.

I liked "Lines of Departure" a lot, though there are still some things that could be improved. As with the first book, Grayson is essentially the perfect soldier, hyper-competent and loyal to his comrades, without ever really being afraid or outfoxed. Likewise, the Lankies make for an imposing, inscrutable enemy, but the eventual weapon used against them seems a little too convenient (and obvious), so much so that Marko had to explain it on his blog (SPOILER ALERT).

All that said, this is good sci-fi that had me turning pages well into the night, and it's well worth a look.

Movies: Nebraska

Every year, when the Oscar nominees are announced, there's always a few oddball gems nestled in among the big budget blockbusters and Weinstein-approved awards-bait.  This year, the little picture that could is "Nebraska":



In the movie, a crotchety old man heads to Nebraska in order to claim a $1 million prize. Unfortunately, the "prize" is a Publishers Clearing House-style marketing gimmick, and the old man's put-upon son has to chaperone him the whole way. What follows is a sometimes poignant, somtimes uproariously funny odyssey about life, family, and the father-son relationship.

The film's a sharp departure from the last Alexander Payne movie I saw, "The Descendants." Though both films are dramedies about family life, Payne trades in the lush vistas of Hawaii for the desolate plains of the Midwest, which suits his directing style a lot better (Payne is from Omaha). The decision to shoot the movie in black-and-white only heightens the effect, and the naturalistic tone is completed with a pitch-perfect performance from veteran Bruce Dern and funny turns from June Squibb and Bob Odenkirk ("...better call Saul").

Rating: 8/10

Music: Yuletide Zeppelin

If you like Led Zeppelin or Christmas music, you'll probably like this mashup video of Led Zeppelin songs and Christmas music.

Guns: S&W M&P Shield review - The Plus-Size Subcompact

Introduction

The M&P Shield had a pretty splashy debut back in 2012. Early Smith & Wesson ad copy touted it as the ultimate CCW gun - as tough as the larger Military & Police semiautos, and yet small enough to go jogging with:



At first, I thought the Shield might be the answer to my carry gun needs. Once the actual specs of the gun were released, though, it became clear the Shield wasn't really in the same class as the Kahr CM/PM series or the Kel-Tec PF9. While the Shield's width came in at under an inch (thanks to a single-stack magazine and narrower slide), its length, height, and weight were all bigger than I expected or wanted in a small 9mm.

Despite my disappointment, the Shield remains a fairly compact pistol, and earlier this year I picked one up. Is it good enough to replace my current carry gun, the M&P Compact?

Fit & Finish

Out of the box, the Shield makes a good impression. Most slim 9mm pistols feel pretty flimsy, but the Shield uses the same tough-as-nails Melonite stainless steel slide and barrel used in the main line of M&Ps. The steel 3-dot sights are dovetailed into the slide, the included 7 and 8 round magazines are solid, and it's pretty obvious that the gun was built to withstand a lot of shooting.

Trigger & Controls

The S&W Shield trigger is heavier than my M&P Compact, with a crisper reset. The hard pull makes the Shield more difficult to shoot accurately, but it's a compromise that almost every compact gun makes because of the number of people who carry without a holster. I much prefer the lighter, spongier feel of the larger guns.

Aside from the trigger, the M&P Shield feels a lot like its bigger brothers, with a similar mag release, slide lock, and takedown lever. One addition that I could take or leave is the manual safety; though it clicks on and off positively, it's a little too small and low-profile to hit under stress. The pistol is perfectly "safe" without it, and its presence here seems mostly a way to comply with some states' gun laws.



Size Comparisons

As I mentioned before, the M&P Shield isn't really a pocket gun, unless we're talking big jacket pockets. It's about three or four ounces too heavy (i.e., as heavy as a GLOCK 26) and a half-inch too tall.

Even when compared against my go-to carry gun, the M&P Compact, the Shield isn't a clear winner. The Shield is shorter and thinner, yes, but it's also taller, and only 3 ounces lighter (19 oz. vs. 22 oz) despite holding a lot less ammo and being harder to shoot. Side by side, the size difference is noticeable but not overwhelming:



At the Range

The Shield proved to be nearly as reliable as its double-stack M&P brethren. I can recall perhaps a single failure to eject in about a thousand rounds of various types of ball and hollowpoint ammo, which is very good-to-excellent for a single stack 9mm.

Here's some sample shooting results. I'm sure the Shield is more accurate than this, of course, but even with my crappy pistol skills, the Shield still held sub-3" five-shot groups at ten yards with garden-variety range ammo. Good enough for me:

 

Conclusion

 

To answer the question posed at the beginning of the review, the Shield hasn't replaced my M&P Compact, and it rarely gets carried in its place. The Shield's harder and less comfortable to shoot, a bit less reliable, and not small enough to not require a good belt and holster. Still, the gun is a tank, and at $450 new, is a decent buy if you want to split the difference between a pocket 9mm and a compact inside-the-waistband carry.

Guns: Sayonara, Starbucks

Like the Founding Fathers intended, American gun owners represent the population at large. In such a giant, varied group, you're always going to have disagreements - is open carry protest counterproductive? Are we giving money and support to the right RKBA organizations? Should we focus on getting the laws changed in gun-unfriendly states like California, or shore up gains in pro-gun places? To an outsider, it must look easy to divide and conquer.

Simple truth, though - there's nothing that unites gunnies better than a good old fashioned boycott:



Who's up for never spending money at Starbucks again, raise your hands? To borrow a phrase from Howard Schultz, "Onward!"

Music: Undertow

Ooof, posting has been light lately. Busy at work, busy at play..."Undertow," by the band Ivy, pretty much captures how I feel:

Taking one step back.
Trying to pull yourself together.
No matter what you say nothing you do
Can hold back the forces on you forever.

You can't fight the undertow.
Not when you're all alone.
You can't fight the undertow.
How long 'til you let go?

TV: Attack on Titan

"Attack on Titan" is an interesting new anime series that I've started following. Based on a manga written by Hajime Isayama, the show is a bleak fantasy tale where humanity has been forced to the edge of extinction by the appearance of homicidal giants. What's left of mankind retreats to a series of enormous concentric walls for protection, with only sporadic (and disastrous) expeditions to the Titan-controlled territory beyond. After a century passes in relative peace, life outside becomes a memory - until the Titans return...

The anime is directed by Tetsurō Araki ("Death Note"), and the first season has been a blast so far. The show feels a lot like "Battlestar Galactica" - a ragtag group of soldiers facing off against an implacable enemy, where anyone can die at any time. I also got a kick out of the "3D Maneuvering Devices," which the characters use to scale the Titans; they're a cross between "Spider-Man" and "Shadow of the Colossus," and provide some visually thrilling sequences. If you enjoy dark fantasy, and don't mind some (at times extreme) violence, you should check out "Attack on Titan."

Miscellany: Leatherman Brewzer review

It seems like every time I go through courthouse security, I end up getting a keychain multitool confiscated, even the ones that don't have any knives on them.

Sometimes I sidestep this problem by carrying something so benign that it doesn't even look like a tool, something like the Leatherman Brewzer:

The Brewzer (formerly manufactured by PocketToolX until Leatherman acquired them) is a small mini prybar/bottle opener, smaller than most keys. The flat end terminates in a small hooked section that's handy for removing staples or ripping open packages:

 

The bottle opener works okay, too, though the location of the opener doesn't give you much leverage:

 

 

 

If I could carry any pocket multitool I wanted, I'd carry something like a Victorinox Rambler. Until the day when security doesn't freak out about a blade smaller than a toothpick, or a pair of scissors that couldn't cut a matchbox in half, though, the Brewzer is about the best I can do.

Music: Love Me Leave Me

I don't generally endorse Kickstarters or other similar fundraising efforts here at Shangrila Towers (it's hard to tell people to give money to third parties for something that doesn't exist yet). I'll make an exception, though, for Lovespirals' frontwoman Anji Bee's effort to release a debut solo album, "Love Me Leave Me."  She's always been one of my favorite electronica vocalists, and her podcast, "The Chillcast with Anji Bee," has provided hours of carefully curated music to the Internet at large, so she's earned the benefit of the doubt, I'd say.

Check out the title track below - if you dig it, buy one of the singles at Anji Bee's Bandcamp page.

Tech: The Last of Us review

During the time I was playing "The Last of Us," a PS3 game developed by Naughty Dog, I kept thinking back to Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."

Both works present post-apocalyptic lone wolf and cub stories, in the same sort of spare style. Both involve unflinching brutality, despair, and cannibalism. Comparing the two is natural. And you might think that the comparison flatters "The Last of Us," since Cormac McCarthy's book won a Pulitzer Prize and widespread critical acclaim.

You'd be wrong, though..."The Last of Us" is actually the better story:



In the game, a mutant strain of Cordyceps has wiped out the majority of the world's population. Those infected with the fungus invariably turn into feral, zombie-like killers. Society collapses, with survivors living in quarantine zones under martial law, scavenging in the wilderness, or worse. Decades after the initial chaos, a grizzled smuggler named Joel and a fourteen year old girl named Ellie embark on a journey across a ruined U.S. in search of a cure for the infection.

Despite the action-centric marketing, TLOU is really about the relationship between Joel and Ellie. For much of the game, there won't be any enemies at all - you'll just follow Joel and Ellie as they walk around abandoned buildings or deserted neighborhoods. It's in these quiet moments that Joel and Ellie get to talk to each other and the game really shines.



Of course, there are many dangers in the world, in the form of human bandits and infected monsters, but it's suicide to take these threats head on. That's because TLOU presents the player with drastically limited resources, at least in the early going: in a warehouse with ten enemies, you might only have three rounds of 9mm, a makeshift shiv (created via the game's crafting system), and half your health left. To survive, you'll need to use stealth, improvised distractions, and up-close-and-personal melee kills.

This brings me to my one complaint about TLOU, though it's a major one: after about six or seven hours in, the stealthy combat begins to become repetitive. You can only sneak around so many dark hallways and overturned store shelves before they all start to blur together, which is exacerbated by the limited selection of weapons, craftable items, and enemies. Combat never gets boring, per se, but you'll likely find yourself plowing through enemies just to get to the next part of the story.

TLOU is developer Naughty Dog's fourth and final PS3 game, and, at least from a technical standpoint, it employs everything they learned from making their popular Uncharted series. Environments are sumptuously detailed and often spectacularly lit. The sounds of footsteps and gunshots are jarring. Heck, they even went all-out for the soundtrack - the game was scored by Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla. All in all, it's obvious that a lot of people sacrificed a lot of time to make TLOU, and an unforgettable video game journey was the result.

Rating: 91/100