Reversing the scarily effective performance of Google Now, I just had a dangerous experience with Google Voice Typing. I attempted to make a note in a busy café with a lot of background noise. After I stopped talking it sat and tried to take in some of the other sounds as well, and then tried to parse what it had heard.
The result: one four letter word, a colloquial term for excrement! That’s not what I said…
Regular readers may be aware that I became very fond of a Google app called Currents. This took RSS-enabled news feeds, and presented them as attractive “magazines”. For feeds with significant image content (like most of the photography blogs I follow) Currents did a remarkable job.
Beyond making news reading sexy, Currents delivered two other pieces of distinct value: an easy to read default two-column layout on larger tablets, and a “stack” widget which allowed you to quickly swipe through the day’s news, aggregated chronologically, and click through to read the items of most interest.
However, I am writing this in the past tense. Currents is no more. An “update” a couple of weeks ago quietly moved my feed list over to the execrable “Google Play Newsstand” and uninstalled Currents. The replacement is clumsy, with none of Currents’ visual flair. An uninspiring reading experience is exacerbated by a useless widget which removes the brilliant former “flip through” capability.
Unfortunately this is not the first such aberration by Google. It’s less than six months since they killed off both the Reader app (maybe not such a great loss) and the sadly-missed iGoogle (which ironically was killed off allegedly because most users prefer Google’s tablet apps!) Now they are forcing us towards a dreadful replacement for the best of those apps, and I’m not happy…
This also comes on the back of various screw-ups regarding Chrome: the ready plain-text disclosure of stored passwords, the broken scrollbars, menus spaced ridiculously widely on normal PC displays. I could go on, and on, and on…
The arrogance of Google’s developers appears to be exceeded only by their stupidity or blindness to the faults in their “improvements”. When they deign to respond to a torrent of public displeasure, they do so by claiming that it’s our fault for not understanding the brilliance of their ideas, not by listening and responding to customer feedback.
I really don’t understand why Google are behaving this way, but it does seem that having emulated Microsoft’s successes of the 90s, Google are now determined to repeat their mistakes of the noughties, breaking compatibility, destroying things which worked well, and systematically driving customers into the arms of competitors. Apple might get away with treating customers with disdain, but Google have neither their shiny hardware nor the fans’ love for the blessed St. Jobs.
For now I’m sticking with Android and probably Chrome, but I’m genuinely interested in making sure the market starts to develop high quality alternatives, before Google rip their remaining carpets out from under us. If you know of a proper non-Google replacement for Currents please let me know.
A little while back I was approached by EITA Global, a global provider of on-line training, and we have now agreed that I should present for them a webinar entitled "Agile Architects, and Agile Architecture". The current plan is for this run on 8th April. I’ll keep you all posted with any changes.
As part of my preparation, I decided to do a literature scan to see how this topic may have moved on since the last time I did some significant work on it, a couple of years ago. I have to say that based on my initial research I’m not that impressed… I don’t know whether to be flattered or slightly perturbed that AgileArchitect.org comes up squarely at the top of a Google search. There are a few decent web articles around, although most are several years old and I’d seen them before. The Google search also turns up several dead links.
Amazon turned up a couple of loosely-related books, and the most obvious candidate appeared to be "Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development" by James O. Coplien and Gertrud Bj�rnvig. I’ve now read a couple of chapters, but my first impression is not very favourable. I may be rushing to judgement, in which case I’ll apologise later, but the book seems to somehow equate "architecture" with "code structure" with "project structure", which isn’t right at all, missing a number of the most important dimensions of any true architecture.
This led me to ask myself a very basic question. "What do I mean by ‘Agile Architecture’?". In Coplien and Bj�rnvig’s book they seem to answer "an architecture which facilitates agile development". That may be one definition, but it isn’t mine.
I think the confusion arises from the difference between "agile" applied to a process (e.g. software development), and applied to a product. In the former case, the Agile Manifesto undoubtedly applies. In the latter, I’m not so sure. I think that for a product, and especially its architecture, the primary meaning of "agile" must be "able to respond to change". The larger the change which can be handled quickly and cheaply, the more agile the architecture. An architecture which has been built in a beautifully run agile project but which needs new code the first time a business rule changes is fragile, not agile. The system which can absorb major changes in the business rules without a single line of code is genuinely agile. The integration architecture which allows multi-million pound system A to be upgraded with no impact on adjacent multi-million pound system B, or which allows the company to be restructured just by re-configuring its services, is the most agile of all.
I’m slightly worried that "agile" may have become a "reserved word", and this "architecture in the large" definition may run counter to accepted practice. Is that right, or am I reading too much into a few examples?
| The Beech Avenue near Kingston Lacy | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 28-02-2014 14:55 | Resolution: 5184 x 3456 | ISO: 400 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/30s | Aperture: 10.0 | Focal Length: 180.0mm (~291.6mm) | See map | Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | |
I had a day off today from work, chasing contracts and Android development, to focus on photography and writing. The core was a workshop with the famous and venerable landscape photographer Charlie Waite, at the even more famous and venerable Beech Avenue near Kingston Lacy.
It was a good group, and we had an excellent day of discussion about photography, how we do it, why we do it, and what we need to improve. Unfortunately as for so many others this Winter the weather let us down, and we managed a grand total of about one hour on location, getting buffeted by strong winds, pelted by rain and battling a combination of ambient temperature and wind chill which together netted out the wrong side of freezing. I ended up using the same gear and clothing as I was using at the top of Kerlingfjotll (“Bitch Mountain”) in Iceland – not what I was expecting from the Dorset Beech Avenue.
I went prepared for intensive activity, with a total of about 48GB storage across two cameras, or enough for well over 1500 shots. I took… 34, including about half a dozen “technical test shots”. Ansel Adams used to complain that 35mm film photography was in danger of leading to an excess of quantity over quality of photography. Had he survived to see digital, while he would undoubtedly have mastered the technology quickly and effectively himself, his concerns about quality vs quantity would have multiplied manifold! At least today I kept the quantity down.
Quality did suffer a bit. I had hoped after Charlie’s pep talk to go out with camera tripod mounted and take a slow, considered approach to photographing the avenue. Instead i took a series of fairly hurried “grap shots” mopping everything down between shots. Inevitably the rain has also reduced contrast and clarity of the trees in the distance.
However I’m not unhappy with this shot. The composition is exactly what I wanted, I like the tonal range (although ironically I’ve actually toned down the saturation!), and clarity is OK, if not perfect. I might try a black and white version as well…
My new phone (I upgraded to a Galaxy Note 2 as I was running up against memory limitations on the Note 1) has a potentially useful but also quite scary feature. There’s a service running on it called “Google Now”. This has no direct user interface, but just pops occasional reminders into the notification bar.
This afternoon I had an appointment, which I had recorded in Outlook simply as “Sally” with the location “Strada Cobham”. At about 2.40 a reminder popped up which said not just “you have an appointment at 3”, but “leave by 2.54 to be on time” , quite an accurate estimate of the required driving and parking time!
I’m impressed, but also slightly concerned. What other information is Google mining from tiny bits of data of mine?
| Birmingham Bull Ring and St. Martin's Church - ISO 3200 | |
| Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 10-12-2013 21:25 | Resolution: 4523 x 3016 | ISO: 3200 | Exp. bias: -1 EV | Exp. Time: 1/20s | Aperture: 5.0 | Focal Length: 14.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 14-42/F3.5-5.6 | |
When I bought the Panasonic GX7 on the day of release I realised there might be a short delay before it was fully supported by third party software. A few weeks on and there was support from Adobe and some unexpected sources, but no sign from Phase One. Fortunately the in-camera JPEGs are absolutely excellent and I cheerfully blazed away in Morocco while waiting patiently.
Come December my patience was wearing thinner, with three months’ RAW files ready and others stacking up. I took to checking daily for new Capture One updates, and was finally rewarded on Monday by the release of v7.1.6. That was the first good news.
To my frustration, the release notes stated that the GX7 support was “provisional”, although Phase One had managed to deliver full support for pretty much every other recent new camera. The primary limitation seems to be the lack of any lens correction, even manual, which is a rather substantial issue for a micro four thirds camera. Any shots taken with the wide ends of my zooms will have to wait… That’s the bad news.
</moan>
There is, however, some really good news. The image quality is simply superb, much better than I have been able to achieve with Adobe Camera Raw, and a dramatic improvement on all my other cameras at high ISO. Images are essentially noise-free at ISO 1600, and not much worse at ISO 3200, suggesting I was unnecessarily pessimistic limiting myself to 1600 in Morocco. At ISO 6400 there’s a bit of noise, but essentially correctable. I would probably choose to use a lower sensitivity for something critical, but for general use it’s absolutely fine, as long as I don’t try to pull the shadow exposure too far. I might even be brave enough to use 12800 in a pinch.
So my Christmas present from Phase One may be arriving in instalments, but it’s looking really good for the latest compact system cameras.
The above shot gives you an idea of what can be achieved, and is also suitably seasonal. My very best wishes to all my readers, and hope that we all have a successful and satisfying 2014.
| Berber at prayer, Erg Chebbi | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 17-11-2013 15:50 | Resolution: 4700 x 2938 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 300.0mm (~486.0mm) | See map | Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | |
As a tail piece to my Morocco blog, and as a service to anyone else considering a photo trip there, here are a few notes on what worked, what didn’t, and how you might increase your own chance of a successful outcome.
This was the second trip I have done with Lee Frost of Photo Adventures (who also ran my Cuba expedition). He works hard to make sure you have a good time, with a balanced itinerary which gets you and your camera in front of lots of great subjects with a good chance of decent light. He’s also a fun and inspiring group leader and tutor. You just have to learn that he will always want “just one more shot” when the customers have all had their fill! Highly recommended.
Lee partners with someone who manages the local logistics, and on this occasion it was his regular co-leader in Morocco, Carolyn Hunt of Journeys Elite. Carolyn is a specialist in tailor-made Moroccan trips, and this reflected in faultless arrangements plus the ability to smoothly handle minor problems and variations. She was also a fun member of the group, and as a photographer in her own right understood our requirements well. Another strong recommendation.
Plumbing and toilets! I had some concern that toilet facilities might be a challenge, but completely needlessly. The Moroccans have a simple system that pretty much every cafe, hotel or other roadside stop has toilets which are freely available to use for a small donation from non-customers. Pretty much without exception these were in good order and spotlessly clean, often well above the standard of the British equivalent. (However, see note about showers in the “didn’t” section…)
The roads were all pretty good, well surfaced and with a capacity reasonably matched to the traffic (although I accept that I was seeing this in the low season). However it has to be observed that Moroccan drivers have a nasty habit of not worrying about which side of the road they use until an impact is imminent, and cyclists and moped riders are as much a menace as anywhere. While I would have been fairly comfortable driving outside Marrakech, I couldn’t have coped with either the poor signage in the larger towns, frequently only in Arabic, or the amazingly frequent speed traps and police checkpoints. Fortunately we had an excellent driver, Mohammed, who took all this in his stride, and was always happy to help in any way.
Morocco has very good telecoms services. My mobile worked everywhere, even in the middle of the desert. There was also free Wifi at almost every stop, although the speed varied substantially (and was not obviously correlated to distance from a major centre). I did have an odd problem that I couldn’t reliably send mail via my own SMTP server, but webmail worked fine.
It makes a welcome change to report that all my camera kit worked reliably and survived, although my Canon gear is going to need a very careful clean after the desert trek (and see note below about batteries).
I’m extremely pleased with the Panasonic GX7. This is the perfect camera for wandering around towns, whether they are packed or abandoned, and for taking high quality photos without the visible and audible imposition of a full-sized DSLR. It also makes brilliant high definition video, even in minimal light. At its limits it may not quite match the speed or the stabilisation of the Canon 7D, but I was not often left wanting. I do need to confirm its higher-ISO capabilities when Capture One support arrives, but the initial indications are good.
I’m also very pleased with the Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm lens. This fist-sized lens is pin-sharp and can pull details out of scenes which would demand major cropping with even huge lenses on full frame or APS-C cameras. It also stabilises well to cope in quite limited light. I now have hand held shots of the Moon filling half the frame, revealing detail which my eyes alone have never seen.
All that said, my Canons also had a key role. It was absolutely the right choice to take the 7D into the desert, where its heavier build and better sealing reduced worries substantially. If your trip covers a similar range you may also need a composite solution. I also used every lens except the “emergency spare” Panasonic 14-42mm zoom. I’m going to write a separate blog about how I might do a similar trip with a single camera system.
Much of the photography was in dark alleys or “open interiors”. This is very similar to outdoor photography in slot canyons and similar locations. Light is often best in the middle of the day, but changes rapidly. Inside the Kasbahs it takes on wonderful warm colours after being reflected from different surfaces. However overall light levels will often be low, and be prepared for very high dynamic ranges if you have a mixture of direct and indirect light. I got good use from my wide angle fast prime lens (f/2, 24mm-e), and took HDR bracket sets in several cases.
Morocco is dusty, and even out of the desert keeping optics clean is a challenge. My solution is a sacrificial UV filter for every lens, which I am prepared to replace after the trip. First indications are that I will have to do so for the two “standard zooms”, but the others will survive for another day. I have noticed a little vignetting on shots taken with the Canon 15-85mm when I had both UV and polarising filters in place, but this should be fairly easy to fix in the RAW processing, and it looks like the other lenses were fine. I also followed Lee’s suggestion to wrap cameras and lenses in plastic bags for the desert trip. There’s no way to tell how necessary this was, but it seems like a sensible precaution.
The food was a little repetitive and had a very high bread content (which I like but is not good for my waistline). However it was usually fresh, well cooked and tasty.
Cerberus, my invention to support multiple charging points from a single socket and cable worked very well, although I have realised that it can be further developed to also power my laptop from the same source. I have found a suitable C8 adapter for £3 on eBay, which will improve things further for the next trip.
For Geologging I now use Ultra GPS Logger by Holger Kasten. I have worked with the developer to optimise this excellent piece of software, and the results from this trip seem to be very effective.
French really is the best language with which to interact with the Moroccans. It helps to have the standard pleasantries in Arabic (yes, no, thank you etc.), and you occasionally find someone with usable English, but French is the right solution. Unfortunately mine was very rusty, and only started to work effectively at the end of the trip, but c’est la vie…
My precautions against the Caliph’s Revenge were ineffective. I avoided salads, kept my hands clean, drank only bottled water, and still suffered. My companions were fine. Go figure…
Showers – this is maybe slightly unkind, as every hotel had a device which produced a spray of water, usually at a reasonable temperature. Unfortunately almost without exception the mount on the wall was either absent, broken or, in an impressive display by the most expensive hotel, mounted so high that it both restricted the flow and ensured that what did come out flooded the entire room!
The haggling associated with some activities was unpleasant. It left a bad taste in the mouth to have a good shooting session and then end it with an argument about money. It doesn’t help that in the more popular areas some tourists and photographers are being more generous, which is pushing expectations up. Strangely this seemed to be much less of an issue south of the Atlas – whether this was due to a difference in culture or just less tourism is hard to judge.
If possible, try and agree a price for everything beforehand, and be prepared to walk away if the price is not right. I was successful in getting the price I wanted for all my souvenir purchases by this tactic.
Photographically I only had one problem. Both my spare Canon 7D battery and one I borrowed from Lee died very quickly in the cold of the desert nights. It might be significant that they were both cheap 3rd party ones – original Canon batteries and my Panasonic batteries for the GX7 seemed to fare better.
While you don’t go on a photographic holiday to lie in every morning, it would be nice to get the odd opportunity, and Lee usually obliges. However Morocco didn’t – 24×7 cockerels, mezzuins calling at 5 am and sub-zero temperatures all made their contribution! Oh well…
Morocco is an inspiring feast for the eyes, and a great photographic destination. With some planning, basic preparations and sensible precautions it’s not a hard one either. Enjoy it.
Today I was working in Solihull at short notice, and couldn’t get into my regular hotel, so I’m trying the De Vere Village. This is a modern and allegedly upmarket hotel in Shirley, but I’m simply astonished how poorly it meets what I believe to be my fairly standard and relatively modest requirements.
Firstly, it’s bloody freezing! I initially wondered whether the reception area might be suffering because it connects to the outside world, and the weather is getting colder, but the room is not much warmer. Now I’m sitting in the main restaurant, within 6 feet of an open fire, and huddling inside my suede jacket to try and keep the cold at bay.
The room has a television, but there’s no access to the external inputs, so bang goes my normal practice of watching my own TV recordings. Watching them on the laptop isn’t much of an option either, because the “desk” is shoved into a corner right up against the cold window.
Working at the desk will also be impossible as although it’s at a normal height, the only chair is a low easy chair, which comes up about a foot too short. You may remember the scene in Bless This House where Robin Asquith is trying to cook a burger without his head appearing above the counter – using my laptop is rather like that…
Mood lighting. Need I say more?
Dinner was OK, with decent service, but my hope of a decent cup of coffee at the end was stymied by the coffee bar shutting rather earlier than expected. Back in my room I find my PC has shut itself down and the temperature has dropped again. Obviously when you leave it not only shuts the lights off, but also the heating and all the power sockets.
Ghastly, truly ghastly.
It got worse!
I managed to get some heating going in the room, but the fan sounded like a water tank being dragged slowly over rough cobbles, so I was destined for a cold night. After watching some TV on my tablet (not ideal, but OK) I settled down for the night. Adjusting the bedding and turning off the multiple independent lighting switches took some time, but finally I was in bed and drifting off to sleep.
Then the fire alarm went off! It went for long enough that I started to dress and head for the cold car park, then stopped. I got back into bed. Then it went off again! Fortunately the second time was only a few seconds, but it took me a while to get back to sleep.
Now even my favourite Midlands hotel, the Chesford Grange, is not above the occasional freezing fire alarm, but at least everything else works there. I’m for an early breakfast this morning, but hopefully no early return to The Village.
My Canon 7D, like the 40D before it, has a feature I love and would find it hard to relinquish – three fully programmable custom modes, right on the mode dial. This makes it possible to sort out the myriad of settings in a flexible modern camera, and quickly get to a sensible starting point for a given type of shooting, and then, equally importantly, back to normal mode, without forgetting something important. My four main shooting modes are:
This works brilliantly. Unfortunately in Canon’s marketing strategy it’s classified as a “professional” feature and not available (or only partially implemented) on their lower models. When I found myself a couple of weeks ago at the top of a mountain in Cortina D’Ampezzo with the 550D in “landscape” mode and then saw some interesting birds of prey I couldn’t set up quickly enough to get the shots.
Now I have two “enthusiast” cameras from Panasonic, the GH2 and the new GX7. To Panasonic’s credit, both have three custom modes. (The GX7 actually has five, but three main ones.) However, comparison of the cameras has thrown up an interesting issue. Like the Canon 7D the GX7 sets everything via buttons (and the general-purpose dials). Almost all settings are gathered up and remembered for the custom modes, and then presented back to the user via the very informative viewfinder displays.
The GH2 is different. Many of its settings are controlled on dedicated mechanical switches. While this may appeal to some photographers, it actually causes me two problems. Firstly on such a tiny camera the graphics for the switch positions are so small I can’t always read them accurately with my glasses on (my norm out of doors). Worse, it means they can’t participate in the custom modes. You end up with a situation where either the switches setting is just not memorised, or the physical position and the memorised one are in conflict. I think Panasonic default to the former, but it’s not 100% clear.
I’m not advocating putting a camera’s settings all on the menu – that doesn’t work well either except on very small or much simpler cameras. The 7D and GX7 both have enough buttons to dedicate to the main settings, and that’s correct.
So I think there are three important lessons in ergonomic design of enthusiast/professional cameras:
And I suspect the GX7 is rapidly establishing itself as my preferred “carry round” camera. Now where’s the Capture One support?
| Lift off of the mass ascension at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta 2013 | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF-S15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM | Date: 10-08-2013 19:16 | Resolution: 3076 x 4613 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 2/3 EV | Exp. Time: 1/80s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 42.0mm (~68.0mm) | Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM | |
We are becoming quite the connoisseurs of balloon fiestas (unless fiesta is its own plural :)). Following on from Northampton 2008 (0 balloons) and Albuquerque 2012 (over 500 balloons) we’ve now added Britain’s biggest festival on Bristol, which featured a great balloon display this weekend, including a mass ascent on Saturday night of more than 100 balloons.
Bristol’s economic model is interesting. It’s a “free” festival, which means in practice that they have to pack in lots of punters eating lots of burgers and taking lots of rides on the funfair to break even on costs. The result was a relatively crowded and sparsely entertained afternoon, but capped by first a very exciting mass ascension, and then, when the balloons returned, by a beautifully choreographed synchronised inflation and evening glow set to a great soundtrack.
Balloon fiestas are all different, and to articulate the differences, here are our Balloon Fiesta Awards.
Best Mass Ascension: Albuquerque 2012. 500 balloons and we were part of it!
Best Entertainment (No Balloons): Northampton 2008. I don’t know whether they were expecting problems with the star attractions, but the organisers in Northampton put on an excellent day’s entertainment regardless, with stunt riders, motorcycle display teams, and an attempt on the YMCA mass singing record! Bristol was about aerial displays, but very patchy. The non-appearance of the spitfires left a big hole in the afternoon’s events. Interestingly the Albuquerque model is completely different – it’s about the balloons, and everything essentially shuts down after the morning events, and restarts for the evening about 4pm.
Best Balloon Packing: Bristol 2013. We couldn’t believe how many balloons inflated simultaneously from such a tiny field. I was a bit scared to see the baskets of balloons just taking off scraping across the canopies of those still inflating, but no obvious damage was done.
Best Traffic Management: Albuquerque 2012. The Albuquerque police took traffic management very seriously, closing or re-routing feeder roads onto and off the freeway, and the car parks were well marshalled going as well as coming. From the last bang of the fireworks to our hotel room on the other side of the city – 25 minutes!
Worst Traffic Management: Bristol 2013. The Bristol police and organisers did not make such a good job of it. We spent two hours waiting to exit the car park… From the last bang of the fireworks to a (closer) hotel – 2.5 hours!
Best Weather for a Mass Ascension: Albuquerque 2012. Sunny, warm, and a blue sky to provide a nice backdrop to the photos.
Worst Weather for a Mass Ascension: Albuquerque 2012. OK, the balloons didn’t actually fly on the Thursday. Balloons and wind don’t mix. Propane tanks and lightning strikes really, really don’t mix!
Best Night Glow: Bristol 2013: Credit where it’s due – this was superbly done. The balloons were inflated in synchronisation to music, and then the burns to light the balloons were also synchronised with the soundtrack. Brilliant.
They were all fun, and I recommend the experience wholeheartedly, but every experience will be different.
I’ve just posted my review of World War Z – The Book. In it, I liken the book to a science fiction version of “The World At War”. Now here’s the real oddity – the book of The World at War was written by Mark Arnold-Forster. The new film is directed by Marc Forster. Co-incidence, or what???
Christopher Tookey’s review of World War Z the movie made me decide two things simultaneously: I did not want to spend £20 on going to see the film, but I did want to read the book. Having done so, I’m very glad I did.
The book takes the simple concept of “a plague of zombies”, and tries to tell the story of a modern, global human struggle to first survive and then fight back and retake the world. To do this the author, Max Brooks, adopts the unusual but highly effective device of a series of interviews with key witnesses: soldiers, survivors, leaders, administrators and political or social commentators.
The book is as much about the socio-economic upheaval of such a happening as it is about how zombies behave. Given the concept of “flesh eating zombie”, the emerging story then reflects a very modern understanding of virology, military capabilities, human behaviour and geopolitics.
The interview-based structure really resonated with me, although initially I was slightly puzzled why. Then the penny dropped. This is “The World at War”, adapted for science fiction. I am a great fan of that 1970s epic documentary, told largely through interviews with soldiers, survivors, leaders… The author doesn’t explicitly acknowledge that influence, but once you see it, it’s obvious.
I haven’t seen the film yet, but based on the trailer and reviews it sounds like the screenwriters have thrown away this wonderful structure in favour of a much more simplistic linear narrative focused on a few central characters. If so, that’s an enormous shame.
For an intelligent, inspiring tale which will keep you turning the pages you won’t do much better.
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