Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

So now we know how to uncouple ASP.NET from IIS, along with the release of Cassini - Microsoft's fully managed HTTP server for the CLR. This is starting to get really interesting, as it means we can have a web server that runs inside the CLR security context. It's all down to the the System.Web.Hosting namespace...

Oh, and the Cassini code is public, with a very interesting set of licenses, which basically boil down to a modified BSD model.

Read this paper for more details.

The Red Star shares some aspects of our world, but most definitely is not the world we know. Here technology and magic exist side by side. While vast skyships crawl across the battlefields of a dying empire, soldiers raise the spirits of their dead in a desperate necromancy. The United Republics of the Red Star are disintegrating, falling apart in war as they lose faith in the leader that has corrupted their revolution, turning it into a machine that feeds his greed for immortality - a machine that will not free the citizens of the URRS, even in death.

One of a new generation of comics that mixes 3D computer art with traditional 2D pen and ink work, The Red Star is the story of a band of rebels that hope to bring the light of the goddess Pravda back into the URRS, and to reclaim their stolen utopia. Beginning on the battle fields of Al'istaan, and now in the ruined cities of the rebellious republic of Nokgorka, this is the story of Sorceress-Major Maya Antares of the Red Fleet, as she struggles to come to terms with the apparent death of her husband and the truth of the world around her.

The artists and writers of Team Red Star make the comic very much a team affair, where the original sketches move into a fully rendered work. There's a dramatic power to each issue, shaped by the forceful nature of the art (itself inspired by both Soviet underground art and the Soviet poster), and the mythic quest structure of the story. As we learn more about the world of the URRS we find out just how much has been corrupted and lost, along with the childhood of the young rebel Makita.

Currently shipping issue 8, we find Antares close to the truth at last, and ready to make the break from her past into an unsettled future (just as Archangel Studios makes the move from Image Comics to self-publishing). It's best not to jump in here, but you should look out the trade paperback that collects issues 1-4 in a lovely bande desinee style book.

Recommended.

Well, that's it. The flight is booked, the con membership form has been sent to the UK agents. So all's set.

Now to wait to the end of August. We're going to spend two weeks in the Bay Area in total, so that'll be a great opportunity to catch up with Callahans folk, as well as seeing if I can meet up with some of the SF OnFired. It's been over two years since I was in SF, and I'm sure it's going to have changed big time. December 1999 was at the height of the dot com boom, and Scient was growing really fast. Now it's a shadow of its former self, and gone from the West coast completely...

Still, it was a ride.