Who should have died in Harry Potter #7?

In Wednesdays USA Today there was an article about an interview with J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. In this interview she tells who the two characters that originally weren't supposed are, as well as the character who got a reprieve is.

Well, the two ended up getting killed were Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks and the one who got reprevie was Arthur Weasley.

In the interview, Rowling says:

Fred, Lupin and Tonks really caused me a lot of pain. … Lupin and Tonks were two who were killed who I had intended to keep alive. … It's like an exchange of hostages, isn't it? And I kept Mr. Weasley alive. He was slated to die in the very, very original draft of the story.

Harry Potter #7 (Spoiler Alert!)

Well, I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Do not read further unless you want to be spoiled.

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Back in April I posted how my Mother, Sister and I had each made a list of three people we thought would probably include the two people J.K. Rowling said would die:

One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die...A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil...They go for the main characters... well, I do.

Having talked with BriGal, a friend from #userfriendly on Undernet, I realized that we three interpreted things wrong. It wasn't two deaths that were going t happen, it was deaths = 2 + N, with the plus N being Voldemort (obviously) and the N - 1 not quite so important people who died as well. All in all, over seventy characters die in the book, with 20 of them named specifically along with an unnamed family of Muggles, a bunch of Gringotts goblins and 51 unnamed others dying in the defence of Hogwarts against Voldemort's army.

My Mom – guessing Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger, Professor McGonagall, and Draco or Lucius Malfoy – didn't get any right.

Janelle - – guessing Voldemort, Percy and a member of the Order of the Phoenix – got two right, though I think that Voldemort dying was a gimme and since the OotP were the good guy warriors and one of them dying was pretty likely.

Me, I guessed Draco, Molly or Arthur Weasley and Professor Snape, so I got one right. I guess I';ll have to eat my words about Snape not truly being Dumbledore's agent, as it turns out that Dumbledore intended Snape to kill him.

There were a few things I would have liked to see in this book, like more of Neville, Ginny and others from Hogwarts, but Harry, Ron & Hermione were on the lam for most of the book so I can see how that wasn't possible. Rowling's writing style doesn't really seem to have secondary side plots, so characters not directly involved tend to get left out. Also, even though Ron was supposed to be affected by wearing the real locket, I though his estrangement from Ron and Hermione to be a bit forced and his return had a tinge of deus ex machina to it, but it's not the first time for that in the Potter-verse and nor is it the only time in this book, what with Dobby appearing out of nowhere at the Malfoy's.

All in all, I give this book a 4 out of 5, and the postscript at the end, Nineteen Years Later, makes me wish there were other books ahead.

Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

OK, I had forgotten that I hadn't posted a blog review after reading these books, so I'm going to to a two-for-one special. :-)

Both Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth follow world-wise Terminus Councillor Golan Trevize and sheltered acedemic Janov Pelorat, a professor of Ancient History, as they look for the fabled “Origin Planet” of humankind, and Stor Gendibal of the Second Foundation on Trantor as he tracks Trevize across the galaxy. Both Trevize and Gendibal are exiled in similar manners by politcal rivals — Trevize to covertly search for the Second Foundation, and Gendibal to find out which powerful organization has been keeping Seldon's plan on an impossibly perfect path.

Foundation's Edge ends, not with finding “Earth”, but finding Gaia, a planet where all human beings are part of a single super-consciousness which includes all life on Gaia as well as the planet itself. It is Gaia is who has been been making sure there have been absolutely no deviations from Seldon's Plan, something which even the Second Foundation could never do. Gaia, beleiving that Trevize has the talent of making the right decision even on limited data, offers him a choice between three options:

1. Mayor Harla Branno's immediate New Empire based upon militarism and ruled by the Federation of Terminus
2. The Seldon Plan's New Empire in 500 years based on the mentalist sciences of the Second Foundation
3. Super-Gaia, or Galaxia, where all life in the Milky Way will be part of a single concious entity (this will take a few thousand years)

Foundation and Earth starts almost immediately after Foundation's Edge where Trevize had decided upon Galaxia but he is convinced that some entity other than Gaia was responsive for everything that had happened and that this Entity is Earth. All references of Earth had been removed from the Library on Trantor from right underneath the Second Foundation's nose, an incredibly difficult task given their mentalist powers, and Trevize wants to find out why.

Trevize, Pelorat continue to search for Earth, and Bliss, a young woman who is part of Gaia, using Pelorat's collected myths. On their way the find Spacer planets Aurora and Solaria, which figure prominently in th Elijah Baley novels, as well as Melpomenia. On the third world they find a list of all 50 Spacer worlds and their coordinates relative to it. Since the Spacer worlds were the first wave of galactic colonization and were probably settled in regular radial pattern from Earth, Trevize uses this list and adjusts for 20 000 years of stellar drift to find Earth's current position. After hyper-jumping to the centre of the sphere of Spacer worlds Trevize finds two stars &mdash one is listed in his ship's database of inhabited planets with a question mark and the other star is not listed at all. The question mark turns out to be Alpha Centauri and the second planet is indeed Earth, albeit with a lifeless, radioactive surface. Trevize, disappointed and desparate, postulates that maybe the Moon has kept the secret safe and finds R. Daneel Olivaw, Elijah Baley's old robotic partner. Daneel reveals that it was he who was truly behind psychohistory and Gaia and how he has been working to guide things from with the limitations of the Laws of Robotics.

These two novels are my two favourites of all the Foundation stories. In the decades between them and the original short stories, Isaac Asimov had become a better writer and this is evident in his ability to write a broader range of characters and better plots even though his basic style stayed the same. The fictional technology in these books will not date as badly as the other books and nor are his characters so tightly bound to teh stereotypes of the times when the books were written.

I give Foundation's Edge a 4.6 out of 5 and a 4.6 for Foundation and Earth.

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Second Foundation, of the compilation books from the stories written back in the 1940s, this one is my favourite, particularly the second story Search By The Foundation. Asimov was never an “action” writer, with most of his writing happening in discussion between the characters with a lot of exposition done by the character thinking to themselves. Search By The Foundation, comparatively, has a much more urgent plot then I find in his other works. The only other one that is similar, IMNSHO, is Caves of Steel, the first Elijah Baley novel, published in 1953.

I give this book 4.7 out of 5.

Who's it going to be — Muggle or Wizard?

Well, the biggest thing about up and coming final book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is that two main characters die. In an interview, J. K. Rowling said:

One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die...A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil...They go for the main characters... well, I do.

Talking about this a few weeks ago with my Mom and sister Janelle, Janelle came up with the idea that we would each pick three people from whom we thought the two goners would come from, and then see who was closest on 21 July 2007 when the book is due to be released. I picked two names right away, but it took until Sunday to finally decide upon the third.

Here are our picks:

Nancy Ellen

• Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger (The “sidekicks” theory)
• Professor Minerva McGonagll (My Mom likes the character)
• Draco or Lucius Malfoy

Janelle

• Voldemort
• Percy Weasley (the “git” theory)
• One of the Order of the Phoenix

Cory

• Draco Malfoy
• Arthur or Molly Weasley (the “Weasley parent” theory)
• Severus Snape

You'll see that Janelle says Voldemort is going to die, and while I agree that he probably does, Rowling says that two will die whom she did not intend to die. For me, Voldemort dying is just way to obvious, so I think Rowling means two other characters.

Also, Mom chose a Draco/Lucius possibility while I chose just Draco. I don't think that Lucius is enough of a major character to be one of the unintended deaths that people are making such fuss over. Draco, on the other hand, has been Harry's secondary nemesis from day one at Hogwarts.

The one I had so much trouble choosing was Severus Snape. I'm not entirely convinced that he was an undercover agent for Dumbledore, so I'm thinking Snape's either going to get caught as such by the other Death Eaters or he's going to pay the price for being a double agent (and being truly loyal to Voldemort all along).

All we need to know, now, is who's the character that got a reprieve from death?

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

Another one of my favourites (actually, the whole Foundation/Elijah Baley/Robots universe by Isaac Asimov is a favourite — I have this thing for multi-story universes). Like Foundation, this book is really a collection short(er) stories, than a single book.

The initial Foundation stories were written in the 1940s and thus reflect the ideas of that era as to what would “high” technology in a galactic future. Similarly, how women are portrayed is somewhat dated though I can't help but think that, relative to the times, Bayta Darell received a far more even-handed treatment from Asimov than she might have from another author of the times.

I give this book 4.4 out of 5.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

This is one of the books I like to re–read every few years. Isaac Asimov is one of my favourite authors, and while the the bits about nuclear fission being high technology are dated, the stories as a whole are classic. I have always wanted to see the Foundation and Elijah Baley stories made into movies — with modern F/X technology they would look so cool.

I give this book 4.5 out of 5 and strongly recommend it to anybody.

Ringerworld's Children by Larry Niven

When I started this book I was worried that I would find it as boring as The Ringworld Throne was Well, I was not disappointed.

This book actually has some action and the plot moves along nicely. I knew that Louis Wu was going to become a Protector in this novel, but I didn't expect what woudl happen after that. The end is let open for more Louis Wu stories, but not really more Louis on Ringworld ones (unless Niven really wants to stretch things).

I give it 3.8 out of 5.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by William M. Miller Jr.

This is a good book and, in spite of the fact that it was written in the late 50s it does not come across as out of place. I'm sure you've read that sci-fi book from decades ago that has the characters talk in awe about a closet-sized computer that is light years in advance of the typical room-sized, vacuum-tubed behemoth. That's typical of “hard” sci-fi which is almost as much driven by describing the science as it is by the plot.

Canticle is more character-driven. In each of it's three sections it focuses on a specific individual and tells the story from their perspective, albeit in third person style. It's much more of a literary sci-fi and, as such, more suitable to the non-geeky. If there's somebody whom you're trying to get to read sci-fi but they're resisting, thinking that sci-fi is still the crappy pulp fiction stuff from the 50s and 60s, give them this book. They'll like it (and understand it!) a lot better than they would something outré like cyberpunk.

I give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Kirlian Quest by Piers Anthonly

The third novel of the Cluster series, it is still readable by itself without demanding that one has read the previous two. It takes place two thousand years after the first novel and one thousand after the second.

While I liked the novel, I do find the biologies of some of the various alien species to be a bit hard to believe and occasionally this would “bump me out” if the willing suspension of disbelief required for most science fiction stories. Like many of Anthony's novels there is a lot of exposition that goes on inside the primary character's head and at points the plot can go very slowly.

I've never thought that Anthony was a fully A-list writer like Asimov, Niven or Gibson, but neither have I considered him a hack like so many others do. He can be a trifle formulaic but I have enjoyed virtually all of his books that I have read.

I give this book 3.25 out of 5 stars.

Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven

Definitely a good book, though it starts out rather slowly. It doesn't really pick up until the Pak Protectors are mentioned and Louis Wu realizes that they built the Ringworld and humanity are descendants of normal Pak colonists on Earth millions of years ago whose Protectors died off.

Because it took so long to get to that point and thus to find the Ringworld control centre, the actual fixing of the Ringworld's orbit seems a little too pat and deus ex machina to me.

I give it 3.5 out of 5.

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

This is a book that I have had on my bookshelf for decades, but I have never gone back and re-read it like I have so many other books in my personal library. So a couple of days decided that now was the time. Unfortunately, it just wasn't as good as I remembered.

Yes, I know that this book and its two sequels were written for as younger age group, but so were the Harry Potter novels, and those are awesome. So Ged meets this one dragon and uses his magic to sail around the islands of Earthsea, but beyond that there isn't much more than narrative. It gets rather boring, actually. Even the encounter with the shadow creature was anti-climactic.

I give it a measly 1 star out of 5.