So what follows here is slightly unusual fare for this blog but it’s writing related and turned out to be a bit more of an interesting experiment than I initially thought. So . . . a few months back I was invited to play with a grammar checking tool and, for some reason I still don’t understand, imagined this would come complete with an extra day tucked into the week somewhere in which to play with it. Still, it was an interesting exercise in the end.

The tool is called Grammarly and, when I used it, it operated as a web application. My personal previous experience with grammar checkers is limited to the grammar checked in MS Word which I loathe with abundant passion. As a writer of fiction, I think I come to any grammar checker with a deep sense of suspicion. You see, it’s not my job or my aim to write grammatically correct prose; it’s my aim to write prose that flows and this frequently results in deliberately breaking grammar “rules” even in descriptive passages. As for dialogue . . . Well, people don’t talk grammatically, they just don’t.

The upshot is that I have two main criteria in assessing the utility of any tool like this. The first is the criteria I expect the designers aim to fulfil: how well does the tool work in identifying and explaining grammatical errors. The second is one I don’t see how any designer could possibly address: how much of my time does the tool waste in correctly pointing out grammatical errors which were intentional in the first place and so I don’t want to change. This second criteria is one at which I expect every single grammar tool ever made, now or in the future, to fail, simply because the number of deliberate “mistakes” in a work of fiction will be so high that reviewing them all will become boundlessly annoying.

First things first – a few generic irritations to get off my chest: I can understand why there’s a limit to the size of the document that can be uploaded to a web application and I suppose that for most purposes the limit (I can’t remember exactly what it is but I think 10k words) is fairly generous, but I could see it getting quite irritating loading up and editing an entire novel in chunks. In part because it’s just another irksome chore but mostly because I suspect it undermines the potentially rather useful “ignore all” feature (of which more in a moment). It’s also a bit irritating having the application doing spell-checking when I’ve already done that and now have to go through clicking “ignore all” lots of times, presumably only to have to do the same again when I load up the next chunk with exactly the same set of character names and places.

Grammarly splits all the faults it finds into a plethora of sub-categories and has an ‘ignore all’ option for each one individually. It wasn’t clear to me exactly how this actually works – I initially took it to mean all grammar faults of a particular type would be ignored in the text (which would have been useful) but this didn’t seem to be the case. It became clear to me when I used the tool later that I’d like to switch various parts of the grammar checking in and out, tailoring the use of the tool to my personal strengths and weaknesses. I thought the ignore-all options would allow this but they didn’t seem to work that way.

Something I wasn’t able to test but which might mitigate or even completely eliminate these two irritations is the tool’s integration with MS Office. Grammarly offers the option to download the tool as a plug-in (I think). Presumably this would then allow entire novel-length documents to be examined in one go while seamlessly integrating with the Office dictionaries. Presumably. Unfortunately, as I don’t use MS Office, I wasn’t able to test this. Having to cut out chapters, work on them in a separate tool and then paste them back makes the tool a non-starter for me, and that’s a real pity because the reports the tool made on my two sample pieces I found to be impressive.

On to the detail then: For the review I used two test pieces of prose. Sample one was two chapters (3600 words) of The Crimson Shield. This was text that has been (allegedly) written and rewritten to perfection by me, then edited, rewritten again, copy-edited and proof-read, so it really ought to be quite squeaky-clean. The second sample was a single chapter of 6160 words from a work in progress that I think is about ready for submission to my editor.

For the proof-read sample, the tool split identified a good few categories of faults. In each case, I’ve noted the type of fault, the number found and the number I felt merited a change to the prose:

• Use of Articles (a test for the presence of an unnecessary definite article) [2/0]

• Pronoun Agreement (a test to see whether a pronoun has the correct form (i.e. singular plural and subject/object) for the noun it replaces) [6/1]

• Use of Adjectives and Adverbs [4/1]

• Incomplete comparisons [3/0]

• Use of “Like” and “as” [1/0]

• Faulty Parallelism (i.e. in a sentence with multiple clauses, the verbs either side of the co-ordinating conjunction should have the same tenses. I had a debate with an editor about this a couple of months back) [3/2]

• Squinting modifiers (when a modifier in a sentence with multiple clauses is not unambiguously associated with a specific one of the clauses) [6/1]

• Mistakes using qualifiers and quantifiers [0/0]

• Split infinitives [1/1]

• Subject and Verb Agreement [8/0]

• Apparent missing verbs [4/0]

• Verb Form Use (wrong form of a verb) [2/0]

• Possible missing words [0/0]

• Punctuation: commas – this particular MS WENT through a great comma cull and the tool and I disagree on the appropriate use of commas for run-on sentences and before a conjunction joining independent clauses. I’m far from sure I’m right on this one. The tool made 35 suggestions of which 32 were regarding commas. I would have implemented nine of them and most of the others I think my editor would have implemented We don’t see eye to eye on commas. The tool apparently doesn’t understand ellipses . . .

• Spelling: The tool found 135 spelling mistakes all of which were names etc., The tool has its own dictionary and it only took about 30 seconds to go through and add them all.

• Commonly Confused Words [2/0]

• Capitalisation [0/0]

• Vague and over-used words [0/0]

It’s worth noting that a good few of the apparent problems (perhaps 30%) occurred in dialogue where the tool was clearly correct in identifying a grammatical fault but the fault lay within the pattern of speech for a particular character and thus didn’t merit change. In two flagged sentences, although I disagreed with the change proposed by the tool, I would have made a related change.

Overall, for this “polished” piece of prose, it took me about twenty-five minutes to upload, run the tool and review the results. Ignoring spelling and punctuation, the tool flagged forty-one possible problems of which eight would have resulted in a change to the manuscript if it hadn’t already been too late. It flagged thirty-five punctuation problems of which I would have implemented nine changes. The spell-checking was superfluous. Expanded to an entire novel, this equates to about ten hours of work to catch some 200-250 sentences that could have been more clearly written, i.e. close to one per page (I’ll ignore the punctuation and spelling). This strikes me as quite a lot for a finished manuscript.

For the “submission-ready” sample, the results were slightly different. As a general note, I found that the sentences highlighted by the tool in this sample frequently merited some examination and re-wording even if the specific problem highlighted by the tool wasn’t one with which I felt required changing.

• Use of Articles (a test for the presence of an unnecessary definite article) [5/1]

• Pronoun Agreement (a test to see whether a pronoun has the correct form (i.e. singular plural and subject/object) for the noun it replaces) [11/3]

• Use of Adjectives and Adverbs [7/3]

• Incomplete comparisons [7/2]

• Use of “Like” and “as” [1/0]

• Faulty Parallelism (i.e. in a sentence with multiple clauses, the verbs either side of the co-ordinating conjunction should have the same tenses. I had a debate with an editor about this a couple of months back) [2/1]

• Squinting modifiers (when a modifier in a sentence with multiple clauses is not unambiguously associated with a specific one of the clauses) [1/0]

• Mistakes using qualifiers and quantifiers [1/0]

• Split infinitives [0/0]

• Subject and Verb Agreement [1/0] (the tool mistook a proper noun for a plural)

• Apparent missing verbs [7/2]

• Verb Form Use (wrong form of a verb) [9/2]

• Possible missing words [2/2]

• Punctuation: In the unpolished sample, the tool raised 125 queries. The issues were much the same as above.

• Spelling: there were correct English spellings being flagged as incorrect and no apparent way to change the language of the dictionary.

• Commonly Confused Words [16/0]

• Capitalisation [4/0]

• Vague and over-used words [10/9]

For this piece it took about fifty minutes to go through the whole process. Ignoring spelling and punctuation again, the tool flagged seventy-five possible problems of which twenty-three seemed require a change to the MS and a further nine resulted in changes in the highlighted sentence due to related problems. Expanded to an entire novel, this equates to about fourteen hours of work to catch some 500-550 sentences that could have been more clearly written (I’ll ignore the punctuation and spelling).

In both samples, I found the tool clear and easy to use and its explanatory text as to why it was proposing a change was lucid and sensible. On numerous occasions, I found sentences where the highlighted ‘fault’ wasn’t one with which I agreed but there was some clumsiness in the sentence construction that deserved to be addressed and had caused the fault to be highlighted.

Crunch question – will I use it? As things stand, no, because having to chunk up work and feed it piecemeal into a web-based tool is really irritating and prone to introduce mistakes. If I used MS Office and if the integration is truly seamless, I might think otherwise; even with the support of a professional editorial team, the number of faults I would have changed in the supposedly polished sample was, I thought, high. Although the number of faults that didn’t merit any change was high too, the tool was clear and easy to use, the explanations given were lucid and yet detailed and it was almost always quick and easy to make a choice on the proposed change and move on. I’d probably wrap the use of the tool into the copy-editing stage of manuscript production. It’s probably also a useful tool for identifying and perhaps rectifying any systematic flaws in a writer’s style. I could see a few patterns starting to emerge even from these two samples.

One last minor irritation: the tool speaks fairly well for itself when you use it in its full version, but although as a non-subscriber you can put some sample text in and have it run a report, it doesn’t sell itself very well (it tells you there are a pile of problems but doesn’t show you what they are and feels a bit like a virus checker). It’s understandable that Grammarly don’t want people freeloading off their hard work but I do wonder whether giving free access to the web-based tool with a maximum text sample size of 500 or 1000 words would show the tool off much more effectively.

Disclosure: This review was presented to the suppliers of Grammarly for comment in case I’ve mis-represented their tool. They didn’t ask for any changes or clarifications.

The Dwarves: The dwarves come across as something between a gang of Klingons and a bunch of children. Despite all coming from one place originally, they have accents that cover a wide chunk of Europe. They have a similarly absurd range of beards and prosthetics and some of their horses have been to the same rug-manufacturer that George Lucas used for Chewbacca. Despite all this, they worked perfectly well for me. They fit my memory of the book well enough and so does the humour. What I don’t remember is the apparent fact that the dwarves are all 20th level fighters under AD&D rules (20d6 maximum damage irrespective of distance fallen) and also made of rubber and Jell-O and can thus can be dropped from pretty much any damn height you like over and over again without ever picking up any kind of injury. There’s a bit where they find themselves trapped at the edge of a cliff and by then I was thinking: just jump, for pity’s sake. It’s only a mile straight down. You’ll be OK…

Length: I’ve heard it said the movie is too long and they take too long to get out of the Shire. It did feel too long but not for that reason. There’s too much pointless fighting in the second half. Which leads on to…

The White Orc: I get, I think, why this was added. It gives Thorin back-story some of which I think is true to the book and I’m guessing the white orc will become the focal bad-guy for when we eventually get to the Battle of the Five Armies. Doubtless there will be a climactic fight with Thorin that tips the battle and wins the day (I am quietly rolling my eyes). I understand the need to give that enemy a face and thus bring him in in the first movie, but he could have been a) much better, and b) much less present. One encounter with orcs and a back-at-orc-HQ scene would have been enough. Also, since when did orcs live for bloody ages too? And isn’t he a bit Voldemort?

Radegast and Saruman: The other extra material worked for me, even Radegast and his absurd transport system. Incredibly twee, yes, but it felt a part of the world (which is incredibly twee in place), though I haven’t read the relevant source material to see how its accuracy stands up. Radegast and the changes to what happens in Rivendell seemed to me to be about making the six movies into a coherent whole. Not terribly necessary, perhaps, given the first three movies are done and everyone in the world and space has seen them, but the OCD-driven story-teller in me would have done the same.

The Hobbit himself: Grumble. There are a couple of significant scenes (escaping the trolls and escaping the goblin king) where the the events from the book as I remember them are changed in a way that lessens Bilbo’s contribution. Yes, it’s more cinematic for Gandalf to show up and do his GAAANDAAALFFF!!! thing but it takes away from the Hobbit himself. Most of all, these changes felt unnecessary. I found the movie to be largely exquisitely gorgeous and I don’t think it  needs nearly as many ‘big moments’ as it thinks it does. As a consequence, in order to big-up his part in the company, Bilbo does something at the end which seems a unlikely, especially given that none of the battle-hardened dwarves do it first. Shame about that.

There’s a lot more humour than in The Lord of the Rings and it verges on slapstick. Mostly it worked for me. Mostly. Gollum is in the movie for ten minutes maybe and totally steals it. A good half hour of material was, I suspect, sneakily inserted by the New Zealand Tourist Board. I’d have been very happy to have had more of that and fewer CGI wargs. The whole thing was lovely to watch (in 2D at 24 frames/second anyway) – shame about the unnecessary added fighting and GAAANDAAALFF!!! moments.

Review:The Black Mausoleum from the British Fantasy Society

Review: The Black Mausoleum from the Falcatta Times

If you know of any more, please let me know… A new book will be up for giving away tomorrow. Dragon Queen rewrite continues. Everything else continues to be SEKRIT and thus DULL.

I’m not saying anything about the review itself. I’ve had worse, although perhaps not so coherent in its condemnation. The ensuing debate in the comments got me thinking, though. See the foundation of Russian Problem Solving Technique was an immense statistical analysis of Russian patent applications, and the thing I got reminded of was this:

• About 1% of patents had breakthrough science at their core – i.e. they were based on something fundamentally new.
• About 10% of patents were new applications of existing science – i.e. the technology was original but the underlying principles were not.
• The remaining patents were modifications and refinements of existing patented technologies. I.e. they contained nothing really functionally new.

The Strange Horizon comments got me thinking how this applied to books. Now and then something startlingly different comes along, but its actually not all that often, and most books, really don’t push any boundaries. Same epic fantasy tropes, different magic system. Same space opera, different tech dressing. And if they tell their stories well, I think that’s OK, isn’t it?

I say poor old Altshuller, by the way, because he spent a good chunk of his time in the Gulag for his troublesome theories and later wrote a few science fiction novels, some of which doubtless received 1-star Amazon reviews.

And that, at first, struck me as a bit odd, because MW2 was awesome, if a bit short, and the graphics and settings and well the whole audio-visual experience of MW3 was as good as I remember, possibly better. And the settings! Paris, London, Prague, Hamburg. Beautiful, all of them. And all the little flips out into calling down airstrikes – yes! Explosions! Sense of god-like power! Not to mention getting to shoot the living shit out of the NY stock exchange. I seem to remember using up an awful lot more grenades than strictly necessary on that one.

But.

But but but.

Thing is, we all know, really, that even the prettiest FPS is frequently, in essence, a long corridor with a bunch of corners. Far Cry and others kind of moved us away from that, but y’know, honestly, mostly I just get in the jeep and drive along the convenient road and then it’s a corridor again. Just bendy, instead of with corners. But dammit, Sledgehammer, these magnificent urban environments of yours do end up feeling a hell of a lot like corridors, you know. Would it have hurt to have had a few more alternative routes kicking about? Crysis 2 was probably every bit as bad, but it didn’t feel it.

The kicker, though, are the missions. Follow this bloke, follow that bloke, occasionally protect someone, but them mostly follow someone. And sometimes it’s knuckle-clenching heart-thumping action, but mostly it isn’t, and I can hide around a corner in the corridor and everything very loudly waits for me to get back to following someone.

In the final mission, there’s a sequence at the end where you have to press the right buttons at the right time to get the right outcome. At each critical moment, the game tells you exactly what to do. Kind of like a cut-scene but more irritating unless you’re good at remembering button sequences. Other shooters do the same, but it’s perfectly why MW3 was kind of disappointing. Because well over half of the game felt much the same. It’s a game that allows you to participate in its glory as a bit of a walk-on extra when you were supposed to be the star.

ISBN: 978-0-230-75492-8

Four former university friends, now in middle age, go on a walking holiday together in Sweden. Two of them are not, perhaps, as fit as they should be. Certainly not as prepared. It seems obvious, now they are in the wilderness, that the route they had planned is too much of a challenge, so they decide to take a short cut. Just a quick detour through a few miles of primal untouched pine forest and they’ll almost be home. A few miles, that’s all. And that’s where it all starts to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Colours to the mast: Adam Nevill writes the kind of horror I like. His tongue isn’t rammed into his cheek. There are no wry knowing looks. There isn’t much gore and the horror isn’t thrown in your face. Nevill’s approach is subtle and straight and rooted in his characters – a creeping unease, little whispers that something isn’t right the slowly build into an understanding that something is, in fact, terribly wrong. The “monster” is never fully revealed, only ever glimpsed. For the most part, the atmosphere of unease is built and maintained by seeing the world through the eyes and imaginations of story’s protagonists. This is the kind of horror I like, it worked for Nevill’s first book, Apartment 16 (except for the chapter towards the end where Stephen explains everything, grrr, Adam, grrr!) and it works for The Ritual.

For the first half of the book, there are no characters apart from the four hikers themselves. Four middle-aged men with middle-aged lives and middle-aged problems; Nevill picks them up, one by one, and squeezes them until they break. They are lost, short of food and shelter, creeped out by the discovery of various old pagan remains and the growing sense that something is in the forest with them. It’s expertly done, with the focus very much on the characters and their own degeneration, and reminded me of early Stephen King, The Fog in particular. Where Nevill breaks into descriptions of the disquieting relics they find, the language is positively disturbing and crafted to make the reactions of the four protagonists all the more believable as the true nature of the forest and their plight unfolds. This part of The Ritual has some of the best horror writing I’ve read in a very long time.

After the tautness of the first half, I found the second somewhat less compelling. There’s a change of setting and some new characters are introduced along with a lashing of nordic death-metal culture. Neither the setting nor the new characters used in the second half achieve the depth and the claustrophobia of the first. The continued degeneration of the lead character continues to work well, though, the forest itself continues to exude menace and the ending is delightfully ambiguous.

A finely crafted, creepy and disturbing piece of horror.

(originally written for Vector)

“Your review should … make comparisons to other authors or works that may be better known…” (no, the missing words aren’t ‘not’).

“The danger with mentioning comparisons to other authors is that …  you’ll mention an author that somebody doesn’t like.”

“It is good to make comparisons to other authors, but do so with care…”

“I don’t like to make comparisons to other authors, but…”

And my personal favourite: “Comparisons to other authors, however, are Halloween masks for critical thought.”

I can see why some authors don’t like to be compared to others. None of us are the same. We all think we have are own unique shtick that makes us special and unlike anyone else, and it’s probably true that we do. Being likened to some other, more established author is both being put into a box that we don’t quite fit and a reminder that we are still small-fry, struggling to establish ourselves in the big wide world. I can’t say what it’s like from the other side of the fence, being linked to every other upstart new author, but if I think about it, mostly what I imagine is eye-rolling. Mind you, I reckon if that ever happens to me, I’ll be immensely pleased about it the first few times. Sign of having become a pillar of the genre and all, so maybe not eye-rolling after all. On the whole, though, as a relative newcomer, I’ll take what I can get. I think, so far, my books have drawn comparisons to Joe Abercrombie, Anne McCaffery, Robin Hobb, Paul Kearney, George RR Martin, Naomi Novik, Oscar Wilde, and Christopher Paolini on a meth-fuelled bender. Do any of those bother me? Not at all. Bemuse me? I suspect one or two might simply refer to the fact that I have dragons in my book and little else. But on the whole, I don’t see anything for me, as an author, to object to here.

Reviewers then: That’s easy though – you’re job is to serve readers, so you don’t get an opinion :-p

And as a reader, yes, I’ll take a comparison. I like things that are new and I like things that are familiar, and some days I want one and some days I want the other, and if I’m after something familiar, then why not try an author who’s (allegedly) similar to another that I like? It’s patently obvious that the bulk of what people read is driven by a desire for more-of-what-I-had-before-that-I-liked, and that’s exactly what these comparisons serve.

So I have no problem with comparisons at all, provided they’re done well. The point of a review is largely to tell the audience enough about a book that they’re able to draw a conclusion as to whether they’re likely to enjoy it, and if the review is thoughtful and well-crafted, that conclusion ought, largely, to be correct. Comparing X to Y is a perfectly acceptable shorthand for doing exactly that. Fussing about the rightness or wrongness of doing so strikes me as missing the point: A review with a poor or lazy comparison is a poor or lazy review, and those who are minded to fuss about such things would serve the rest of us better if they fussed about that instead.

None of which is to say that they’re not Halloween masks for crical thought – merely that they don’t have to be, and if you take a mask away from a man who wants to wear one, well then he’ll likely just pick up another one instead.

“Though you will immediately notice the depth of this world, it has not been given the attentions it deserves yet. However, that is what gives The Adamantine Palace its tempo, and I’m unsure if that’s such a bad thing.” Ranting Dragon. Interesting comment. Haven’t seen anyone say anything quite like that before, but that’s definitely the choise I was making when I wrote it.

Also, what amounts to a ’suitability for its target audience’ review for Thief-Taker from Readplus in Australia: The novel does contain positive messages and meaningful themes for teenagers about growing-up too fast and wanting to live in an adult world before they are fully prepared to deal with the full consequences.

There’s an interview up at Literary Musings, in which you can find out one or two little snippets about where the dragon books are going, although I should point out that nothing is certain until it’s published. In a possibly more interesting interview (in that it involves monsters and eating people), Sarah Pinborough interviews Alex Milway on her blog today. In theory.

Have finally started writing again after what’s been month off altogether now. The Black Mausoleum rumbles onwards once more. And yes, I’ll put up an page for it in the bibliography at some point. Maybe when it’s done.

And an assortment of review for Thief-taker that have piled up over the last few weeks.

“…Berren’s imaginary city is full of recognizable people and emotions all of which are brilliantly conveyed in Stephen Deas’s spare and powerful storytelling” www.lovereading4kids.co.uk

“any reader, young or old, should give this a try and see what I am talking about.” Literary Musings

“…gripped me enough that I want to read the sequel! Great, unique storyline with well-crafted characters.” Chicklish

One from Australia too: “The characters are interesting and even mysterious … a good, well-written story for teens.” Ysfetsos

But the world is a big place, filled with diverse opinion. “‘The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice’ by Stephen Deas is another example of mediocrity that shouldn’t have been let past the editor’s desk,” Yes. Stupid editor. Blame him, but don’t worry, the hose is quickly turned on me. We could also call it “very soggy and misshapen cake, or book, depending on how far we’re taking this analogy.” Why? Well because it plot has been “thrown against the wall like the proverbial pasta to see if it’ll stick” with “one contrivance after another” and “Nothing is explained, everyone acts entirely unrealistically, and by the end of the book the characters you have been reading have as much depth as a sheen of water on the driveway.”

Crikey, Fantasy Book Review. That sure sounds like a that sucked as a reading experience. And I kept you up late and made you miss sleep and everything, even though you skimmed and skipped large chunks? I do apologise.

Reviewed by an aspiring fantasy author who, I guess (I hope!) reckons he could do a lot better. Well go on then. Let that wasted evening goad you into achieving something and not be wasted after all.

Er.

Ah well. Drawn a blank there, so I’ll wallow in self-indulgence instead. Take this Trudi Canavan (at last)!

There’s also another review that looks at both The Adamantine Palace and King of the Crags: “The first book was a marvellous debut.  The second book trumped it hands down.  The excitement, thrills and spills anticipated in the final book promise to be an incomparable fantasy ride.” Media Culture. Makes me wonder how you reviewer folks deal with trilogies – sure, the first book has to stand on its own, but does the second book? Or does the first book influence how you review the second? Do you go back and re-evaluate the whole trilogy when you’ve read all three? How often do you find yourself thinking differently about the first book after reading the last?

Something for another day. Back to the self-indulgence, and here’s a whole slew of reviews for The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice (the thematic similarity of the covers in this picture says something. I’m just waiting for the local Waterstones to have a special hooded man display (or in the case of City of Ruin not-actually-hooded-but-trying-to-act-like-he-ought-to-be) in their SFF section).

First off, an interesting review from LEC book reviews that tries to consier the novel from both an adult and a YA perspective:

“With writing, plot and characters on par or above any other YA fantasy I’ve encountered, The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is an exciting start to a new series. This book deserves to find its way onto many, many bookshelves, be that of younger or older readers.“

Total SciFi Online have a go at seeing from both angles too: “The characters are solid and the setting believable, and though the story takes a little while to get off the ground, the narrative developments are engaging, and there’s enough action and revelations to keep the pages turning. The Thief Taker’s Apprentice is the perfect adventure story for teens.”

An old fan of The Adamantine Palace: “[Has] the clear potential for a great series if the foreshadowing and hints of much deeper stuff materialize in further installments.” Fantasy Book Critic

There’s something slightly flattering about being in the 200th edition of SFX, even if three stars and “An engaging read” is the best I can get out of an it-was-OK review there. Ho hum. However, I’ve had a pretty good response to my request for younger reviews. All six copies have gone out and a couple more besides and the first review is in:

“I very much enjoyed The Thief Takers Apprentice. I was enthralled by the world, the characters and, most of all, the plot.” F – aged 13.

Probably doesn’t mean all that much to anyone else, but I am insanely pleased.

Finally a review in Locus, stuck at the bottom here because it’s scanned. Hard to pull a quote from it, but rather nice if you read it in its entirety.