reviews

Steven Erikson

Bantam Press (UK), ISBN 0553812173/0765310015, 0553813110, 0553813129, 0553813137, 0593046285, Publisher, Buy online: Gardens of the Moon Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, Midnight Tides, The Bonehunters, Reaper’s Gale, Toll the Hounds, Dust of Dreams, The Crippled God

Fantasy, like Science Fiction, is a genre that gets scant respect, in spite of (and perhaps due to) its popular appeal. Literary critics require the turgid prose of a James Joyce or T.S. Eliot to feel a smug sense of superiority over the unwashed masses unable to appreciate pedantry for its own sake. It is true many fantasy novels are serialized hack work designed to be sold by the pound, but the better specimens of the genre are worthwhile reads, beginning with The Lord of the Rings, the book that started the modern phenomenon.

The problem with The Lord of the Rings is that it casts too wide a shadow, and the inevitable comparisons do not do justice to later authors’ originality. One of the weaknesses in the LOTR is its reactionary social value system. Not surprisingly, an Oxford don like Tolkien did not break from the mental shackles of the English class system, still enduring today and much stronger in the early twentieth century. The books show strong dislike of people daring to rise beyond their station, and an uncritical approbation of monarchy.

Many authors have strived to portray grittily realistic worlds that eschew the simplistic good-versus-evil morality plays so beloved of religious fanatics and political extremists worldwide. It is important to note that this moral ambivalence, or more precisely the refusal to make hasty judgments on morality, is not a recent phenomenon. The Tale of Gilgamesh is the first epic, written five thousand years ago in ancient Sumeria, and the eponymous hero is depicted in the beginning of the tale as a tyrant. Among these non-manichean works, Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and Glen Cook’s Black Company stand out. To these major works, we must now add Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen.

This relatively recent series (one installment per year, 10 planned) is not yet famous in the United States. At the end of the Second World War, British and American publishers came to a non-compete agreement dividing the English-speaking world in respective turfs. Steven Erikson is a Canadian living in the United Kingdom. Five of the books in the Malazan series have already been published in the British publishers’ traditional market, when the first one only now reached American bookstores. He is not the only author to suffer these delays, Iain M. Banks excellent Science Fiction and other novels also take several years to cross the Atlantic — but not J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, as sheer demand would probably cause parallel imports to overwhelm the tottering system. In the era of global e-commerce, it is easy to get around these anti-competitive measures, by ordering from Canada, at the cost of higher shipping fees (shipping from Amazon UK is prohibitively expensive). Amazon Canada and Chapters are good sources.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen chronicles the legions of the Malazan Empire, strongly reminiscent of the Roman Empire, in a world ruled by magic and where mortals routinely ascend to divinity, and conversely, where gods are routinely killed or enslaved. This is not without precedent in world mythology, indeed it is very similar to the beliefs of the Greeks. The Malazans soldier on against impossible odds in their efforts to establish good government in the place of squabbling feudalists, to the backdrop of cosmic struggles spanning hundreds of millennia. Only their discipline, adaptability, dogged tenacity and judicious use of sappers allows them to save the day (though with grievous losses). This is a conceit, of course, albeit a common one in Fantasy — every historical army eventually conformed to Brien’s First Law and outstripped its ability to succeed in spite of itself. The supposed benevolence of Malazan Imperial administration would also be a historical first – no empire in history has ever been truly benign. One has only to read Polybius, Flavius Josephus, or Cicero’s Verrines to realize just how rapacious and murderous the Roman Empire really was. The Mongol Empire was noted for its ghastly invention of pyramids of skulls. The British Empire perfected moral hypocrisy, genocide, continent-scale drug dealing and invented the concentration/extermination camp.

Fantasy can be seen as an exercise in speculative metaphysics, and any metaphysics that allows for magic implicitly subscribes to some form of Idealism at its core, but only Borges, a great admirer of Schopenhauer, has truly approached it this way. In the real world, Idealism has led to unspeakable acts of mass murder through its offsprings Marxism-Leninism and Nazism (interestingly, Schopenhauer, possibly influenced by Buddhism, predicted that Idealism would transform good intentions into evil deeds). Is there any reason to suppose an universe that has Idealism as its very essence, not merely the conjecture of philosophers, would escape the same consequences? Indeed, Erikson’s universe has seen its share of genocides, some ongoing. Erikson trained and practiced as an archaeologist, not a philosopher, and while he occasionally stumbles upon the idea that negation of magic would be a major ethical imperative (most noticeably in his invention of the Azath, a force that binds and neutralizes strong foci of magical power, and Otataral, a magic-negating ore resulting from reaction to the cataclysmic unleashing of magic), he does not (yet) make the most of it.

Glen Cook’s influence is clearly visible, and is acknowledged by the author, although Erikson’s world is much vaster in scope and richly developed than Cook’s. The soldier-historian Duiker is clearly modeled on Black Company annalist (and later Captain) Croaker. The rough banter and grumbling of the Malazan legions would not feel out of place in a Black Company mess hall. The backdrop to the Malazan series, including the machinations of the gods and elder races, distinguishes it from the Black Company. Many of the most notable characters penned by Erikson are drawn from this back story and its criss-crossing story lines. It is hard to forget the warrior-mage-dragon Anomander Rake, leading his dying race in an effort to shake it from terminal ennui, or the cocky prehistoric T’lan Imass warriors who pledged themselves to an undead crusade against would-be tyrants.

The first four volumes in the series alternate two story lines, that of the beleaguered Malazan expeditionary force on the far-flung continent of Genabackis, and a brewing rebellion modeled on the Indian war of Independence of 1857 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as the “Sepoy Mutiny” by British Empire apologists). The fifth volume marks a break in continuity and tone. In some respects, notably the intrigues and market manipulations of financial mastermind Tehol Beddict, it reaches almost Pratchett-esque levels of comedy. A common trait with Fantasy series is that inspiration tends to flag with time and latter volumes are pale shadows of the originals. This is particularly flagrant with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time where basically nothing happens in over a thousand pages of the last volume. In comparison, the Malazan Book of the Fallen is very densely written. Little space is wasted on protracted narrative sequences or equivocating characters beyond what is necessary for character development. The action is gripping from cover to cover. All in all, a very promising series that ranks among the finest in the genre.

Update (2005-11-13):

I added links to volumes 2 and 3, now published in the US as well. Also check out some glimpses of the series’ future from Steven Erikson’s recent book tour.

Britain is not known for being a gastronomic haven (although the situation has improved dramatically in London over the last 20 years or so). Still, they have some decent grocery products, like shortbread or Ribena blackcurrant drinks. US specialty groceries carry some, but by no means all British delights.

A few weeks ago, a small shop specialized in imported British foodstuffs opened in my neighborhood. The product it carries are the kind you would expect to find in a regular grocery store in the UK, don’t expect esoteric Fortnum & Mason luxuries here, but a solid and growing selection, and a good destination for anyone who would like a little diversity in their daily vittles.

You Say Tomato, 1526 California (between Larkin and Polk), 415-921-2828

Update (2021-04-15):

It closed a few years ago.

Harking back to Kodachrome

My father took most of my childhood photos (like these) on Kodachrome slide film. Kodachrome was the only color game in town for a long time, but was eventually superseded in the marketplace by C41 color print films and finer grained E6 slide film.

Kodachrome has a distinctive sharpness (acutance, not resolution), and excellent durability when stored in the dark. Many photographers still shoot Kodachrome for its special “look”, even though processing options are diminishing and Kodak jacked up the price. Kodak recently announced it is closing its Fair Lawn, NJ processing lab, the last Kodak-owned plant in the US for Kodachrome, and there are now only three labs left worldwide that can run the complicated process (Dwayne’s in Kansas, Kodak in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a lab in Japan). Kodachrome was actually discontinued for a while, and brought back after strident protests, but the writing is on the wall.

Projectors and light tables

Every now and then, we would dust off the slide projector and have a slide show. I even remember building a surprisingly effective slide projector when I was 9 using Legos, a flashlight and a jar of peanut butter filled with water as the lens. Slide projectors are hard to find, a pain to setup and most people groan instinctively when one comes up, associated as they are with dreary slide show of other people’s vacation pictures. The LCD computer monitor is the successor to the projector, and many people no longer have prints made at all, perhaps because they subconsciously realize that the 500:1 contrast ratio of a LCD monitor yields significantly livelier images than prints can achieve.

A light table is just what the name implies – a piece of frosted plastic illuminated by daylight-balanced fluorescent tubes. Basic models like my Porta-trace shown above are inexpensive. Loupes, on the other hand, are a different story.

Loupe basics

Loupes (French for “magnifying glass”) are high-quality magnifiers, originally used to help focus images on a ground glass, and later to view slides or negatives on a light table. You can find them in all shapes and sizes, at prices from $15 for a cheap plastic model, all the way to over $300 for a Zeiss loupe for viewing 6×6 medium format slides. Slides viewed on a light table with a high-quality loupe are a treat for the eyes, because of the high contrast (1000:1) that you cannot get with prints (more like 100:1).

There are two ways you can use a loupe: use a high-power (10x or higher) to check slides or negatives for critical focus), or a medium-power loupe to evaluate an entire frame (usually 5x-6x for 35mm, 3x-3.5x for medium format). Viewing an entire frame is more challenging than just checking for focus in the center, because the loupe must provide excellent optical quality across the entire field of view. There are variable magnification (zoom) loupes available, but their optical quality is far below that of fixed magnification loupes, and they should be avoided for critical examination of slides or negatives.

I have accumulated quite a few loupes over time. The most famous brand in loupes is Schneider-Kreuznach, a German company noted for its enlarger, medium format and large format lenses. Many other brands make high-quality loupes, including Rodenstock, Pentax, Nikon, Canon, NPC, Leica and Zeiss. I do not live in New York, and have thus not had the opportunity to compare them side by side at a place like B&H Photo, so I pretty much had to take a leap of faith based on recommendations on the Internet at sites like Photo.net.

• Peak 10x Plalupe
• Contax Carl Zeiss Triotar T* 5x (larger photo)
• Edmund Optics 50x direct view measuring microscope
• Calumet-branded Rodenstock 3x Aspherical loupe for 6×6
• Calumet-branded Rodenstock 4x Aspherical loupe for 35mm
• Edmund Optics 10x Hastings Triplet
• Schneider 10x magnifier

Peak

The Peak was my first loupe. Dirt cheap, and reasonably good for the price, but that’s pretty much all it has going for it (more on that below).

Zeiss

I was put off by reports on the plastic construction of the new line of Schneider loupes, and opted for a Zeiss loupe instead, based on the reputation of Zeiss lenses (my first camera was a Zeiss, and I also have a Zeiss lens on my Hasselblad).

The Zeiss Triotar 5x loupe (the box does not mention Contax, but as it is made in Japan, it is presumably made in the same factory) comes in a cardboard box that can be turned into a protective case by cutting off the tabs on both ends. It does not include a carrying pouch or protective box, which is regrettable, specially for a product as expensive ($160), but apparently most high-end loupe manufacturers do not bother to include one. It does not include a neck strap either, which could be more of an issue for some. How can you look like a glamorous New York art director without a loupe around your neck? More seriously, the strap is particularly useful if you are going to use the loupe for focusing medium or large format cameras against a ground screen.

The loupe is shipped with two acrylic bases that screw into the loupe’s base. One is frosted, and is used as a magnifier to view prints or other objects, with ambient light filtering through the base to illuminate the object. The black base is used to shield out extraneous light when concentrating on a slide or negative on a light table or a ground glass. Some loupes have a design with a clear base and a removable metal light shield. Which design you prefer is mostly a matter of personal taste. The loupe has a pleasant heft to it, and impeccable build quality. The main body of the loupe itself is solidly built of black anodized metal, with a knurled rubber focusing ring.

The optical quality is what you would expect form Zeiss. Crystal clear, sharp across the field of view, and no trace of chromatic aberration in the corners. You can easily view an entire 35mm frame and then some, although I suspect eyeglass wearers might find the eye relief a little bit short.

Edmunds pocket microscope

The Edmunds direct view microscope is a versatile instrument, available in many magnifications, with or without an acrylic base (highly recommended) and with or without a measurement reticle (metric or imperial). Due to the high magnification, the image has a very narrow field of view (only 3mm), and is quite dim. Unlike the others, the image is reversed, which requires some adaptation time. The level of detail you can observe on slides taken with a good film like Fuji Provia 100F, using a good lens and a tripod, is absolutely stunning. This is a rather specialized instrument, but well worth having in your toolkit.

Rodenstock

The Rodenstock 3x 6×6 aspheric loupe has a list price of $350 and usually retails for $250. Calumet Photo sells the exact same loupe under their own brand for a mere $149 (I actually got mine for $109 during a promotion), which is not that much more than a cheap (in more ways than price) Russian-made Horizon.

There are naturally fewer loupes available to view medium format slides or negatives than for 35mm. Schneider, Mamiya/Cabin, Contax/Zeiss and Rodenstock make high-grade loupes for this demanding market. If you have a “chimney” viewfinder on your MF camera, you can actually use that as a loupe.

Rodenstock is famous for its large-format and enlarging lenses, and this loupe is very highly rated. The construction is plastic, but still well-balanced and not too top-heavy. It does not carry the feel of opulence that the Zeiss has, or even the very nicely designed Mamiya/Cabin loupes (more on that below), but is still clearly a professional instrument. It has a two-element aspherical design for sharpness across the entire field of view, and coated optics. It comes with a red neck cord, and the base has a removable plastic skirt that slides in place and can be reversed between its clear and dark positions. The eyepiece has a rubber eyecup and a knurled rubber grip for the focusing ring.

I compared it side by side at Calumet San Francisco with the Cabin 3.5x loupe for 6×4.5 or 6×6. The Cabin had a solid metal constuction (somewhat top-heavy), but its screw-in skirts are less convenient than the slide-in one used in the Rodenstock, and the image circle is too tight for my Hasselblad 6×6 slides. I think that loupe was really designed for 645 format and opportunistically marketed for 6×6, when the 6×7 loupe would actually be more appropriate for that usage. The optical quality is very similar and both are excellent loupes. I did not try the Mamiya/Cabin 6×7, unfortunately, as it was not available in the store, but in any case the Rodenstock was a steal.

The optics are excellent, as could be expected, with crisp resolution all the way into the corners and no trace of chromatic aberrations. There is a smidgen of pincushion distortion, however, but not enough to be objectionable (I took the slightly convex curved square skirt out to make sure this was not just an optical illusion).

One thing to watch out for: even though the optics are coated, they are very wide and you have to be careful to keep your eye flush with the eyecup to obscure any overhead light sources like lightbulbs or fluorescent panels and avoid seeing their reflections in the loupe’s glass.

The most comprehensive resource for medium format loupes on the Web is Robert Monaghan’s page on the subject.

Edmunds Hastings triplet

This isn’t really a competitor to the other loupes, as it has a very narrow field of view of only 10mm in diameter. It is also tiny, and I carry mine in my gadget bag. It has a folding jeweler’s loupe design with a folding metallic shield to protect it. Optical quality is of the highest order.

Schneider 10x

Despite its plastic construction, this loupe exudes quality. Unfortunately, the strap is really flimsy – the rubber cord is merely glued into the metal clip, and will easily pull out. I glued mine back, and crimped it with needle-nose pliers for good measure, but I don’t know how robust this arrangement will be.

The optics are excellent, without any trace of chromatic aberration. The usable field of view is surprisingly wide for a loupe with this magnifying power, although your eye has to be perfectly positioned to see it. I estimate the FOV diameter at 20mm, as you can almost see the full height of a 35mm mounted slide. I have an Edmund Optics magnifier resolution chart (it came with the Hastings triplet), and the Schneider outresolves it across the field of view . This means the Schneider exceeds 114 line pairs per millimeter across the frame, quite remarkable performance.

The importance of a good loupe

For a real-world test, I took my 6×17 format Velvia 100F slides of the Golden Gate Bridge, and looked at the suspension cables. The picture to the left shows the details I was looking at (but the fuzzy 1200dpi scan on an Epson 3170 does not remotely do justice to the original). Each bundle of 4 cables (4 line pairs) takes 0.04mm on the slide (I used the 50x Edmunds inspection microscope to measure this), hence you need 100lp/mm to resolve it. The Schneider 10x, Edmunds 10x and Zeiss 5x loupes all resolve the four cables clearly. My old el cheapo Peak 10x loupe did not, nor the Epson scanner, which led me until recently to believe my slides were slightly blurry because I had forgotten my cable release that day. So much for the theory you do not need an expensive 10x loupe to assess critical focus because only the center counts…

Update (2012-02-10):

In 2007 I added a Calumet-branded 4x Rodenstock aspheric loupe to my collection. Unfortunately, it is now only available under the original brand, for 2.5x the price I paid for the rebranded one, but you may luck out and find old-new stock at you local Calumet Photo store. The market for loupes has mostly evaporated, along with the popularity of film, and choices today are pretty much limited to Schneider and Rodenstock.

The Rodenstock 4x loupe has one great ergonomic feature: instead of interchangeable clear and dark screw-in skirts, it has a clear skirt and a sliding dark outer skirt. This allows you to switch very quickly from inspecting prints to slides, without the laborious swap the Schneider or Zeiss force you into. Optically it is excellent, sharp across the field and with only a smidgen of pincushion distortion. I have not tried the 4x Schneider loupe, which gets rave reviews, and cannot comment on whether the ergonomic improvement in the Rodenstock warrants a 50% premium in street price over the Schneider.

One loupe I cannot recommend, on the other hand, is the Leica 4x magnifier. It has severe distortion across the field, which is ridiculously limited at 3 or 4mm, and optical quality is worse than a cheapo plastic loupe from Peak.

Update (2012-02-25):

I added a Schneider 4x loupe to my collection. Build quality and strap is similar to their 10x loupe. It is sharp across the entire frame, with only a smidgen of pincushion distortion. It is also noticeably brighter than the Zeiss Triotar or the Rodenstock 4x, and has more contrast as well. The contrast makes it seem superficially sharper than the Zeiss or Rodenstock, but examination of the Edmunds test chart shows all three loupes outresolve the chart.

I think this will be my new favorite loupe for 35mm use.

Deborah Copaken Kogan

Random House, ISBN: 0375758682  Publisher, Buy online

I picked up the hardcover edition of this book from the sale bin at Stacey’s Booksellers, as the Leica on the cover just beckoned to me.

This is an autobiography by an American woman, almost a girl, who moved to Paris, fresh out of college, to break into the tightly-knit (and not a little macho) community of photojournalists. Who knows, I might even have crossed paths with her when I studied in Paris. She was certainly not the first female war correspondent, Margaret Bourke-White springs to mind (even though she is not referred to anywhere in the book), but women were still a rarity, specially one as young and inexperienced. She started as a freelancer and eventually ended up working for the Gamma agency, one of the few independent photo agencies left.

For some unknown reason, many of the prestigious photo press agencies are based in Paris, starting with Magnum, founded simultaneously in Paris and New York by Robert Capa (the man who took the only photographs of D-Day), Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and Chim Seymour. Others like Gamma, Sygma and Sipa followed, but most have been acquired since by large media conglomerates like Bill Gates’ Corbis. The move to digital, with the corresponding explosion in equipment costs is one reason – the independent agencies simply couldn’t compete with wire services like Reuters or Agence France Presse (AFP), the latter being government-subsidized. Saturation is probably another, and press photographers struggle to make a living in a world with no shortage of wannabes. Just read the Digital Journalist if you are not convinced.

Shutterbabe is not a mere feminist screed, however. Engagingly written, with very candid (sometimes too candid) descriptions of the sexual hijinks and penurious squalor behind her trade, this book is a pleasurable read and features a varied rogues’ gallery ranging from the cad (her first partner) to the tragically earnest (her classmate who is executed by Iraqi soldiers while covering Kurdish refugees). It only touches in passing on photographic technique, as the general public was clearly the intended audience, but more surprisingly, does not include that many of her photos either. The main thread reads like a coming of age story, with the young (25 year old at the time) woman moving on from her thrill-seeking ways and discovering true love and marriage in a life marked by death: deaths of friends and colleagues, victims of strife and war in Afghanistan or Russia, but also orphans dying of neglect in Romania.

A photojournalist is always in a rush to get to the next assignments, and she recognizes her involvement with her subjects’ culture as superficial, unlike that of her locally based correspondent colleagues or those who would nowadays be called photoethnographers. There is more humanity in a single frame by Karen Nakamura or Dorothea Lange than in all of Deborah Copaken’s work. Much like her idol Cartier-Bresson’s work, there is a certain glib coldness, perhaps even callousness to her attitude. On her first war coverage, an Afghan who is escorting her (so she can make her ablutions in privacy) has his leg blown off by a landmine, and she hardly elicits any concern for the poor soul. Granted, this is the “Shutterbabe”, not the reborn Mom. but it is hard to imagine one’s fundamental personality changing that much.

The author is not uncontroversial. She featured in a nasty spat with Jim Nachtwey, one of the most famous photographers alive, and who is obliquely referred to in Shutterbabe‘s Romanian chapter (where she implies she found out first about the terrible situation in the orphanages, and nobly tipped him so the story could come out). The follow-ups are here and here.

Her observations of the one culture she is immersed in, the French one, seldom go beyond the realm of cliché. Glamorous but feckless and chauvinistic Frenchmen! Sexpot Frenchwomen! Narcissistic French intellectuals!

In the end, she returns to the United States with her husband, and moves into an equally short-lived career in TV production to support her family. A happy ending? One hopes. I for one am curious about how her children will react to the book when they are old enough to read it.

Ghirardelli is the best-known chocolate maker from San Francisco, but by no means the only one. The Bay Area is very serious about food, and boasts many fine chocolatiers such as Guittard, Scharffen-Berger, Joseph Schmidt, and Michael Recchiuti, all of which uphold a much higher standard of quality than Ghirardelli (while not inedible dreck like Hershey’s, Ghirardelli is over-sweet and fairly lackluster).

Guittard is not as well known, as they used not to sell retail (their chocolate is used, among others, by See’s Candies and Boudin Bakery, and I once had a wonderful cherry and Guittard chocolate cake at Eno in Atlanta). This changed when they recently introduced a line of premium chocolates, named after the firms’s French founder, Etienne Guittard.

They probably don’t have an extensive distribution network yet, but their products are starting to trickle into finer San Francisco groceries like my neighborhood one, Lebeau Nob Hill Market (“People in the Know / Shop at Lebeau”).

I bought a 500g box of their “Soleil d’Or” milk chocolate, packaged as a box of “wafers” (little quarter-sized pieces reminiscent of Droste Pastilles). In this form, it is intended for cooking, but the bite-sized wafers are also perfect for snacking. It has a relatively high cocoa content for milk chocolate (38%, the usual is more like 32%), which gives it a satisfying taste that lingers in the mouth. This chocolate is also well balanced, it does not have the malty harshness of Scharffen-Berger milk chocolate or the milky aftertaste of Valrhona “Le Lacté”. In fact, it comes close to my personal favorite, Michel Cluizel “Grand Lait Java”, no small achievement, specially when you consider the difference in cocoa content (38% vs. 50%) and the price difference ($9 for a 500g box vs. $5 for a 100g tablet).

Update (2004-12-30):

Guittard updated their packaging (shown right). The newer one is more classy and eschews the pretentious “Soleil d’Or” and “Collection Etienne” labels, but the chocolate itself is unchanged. The box is also slightly lighter (1lb or 454g vs. 500g for the older one, i.e. a 10% price increase…), but at $9.99/lb, you are still paying Lindt prices for near Cluizel quality