‘So, So Much Grinning’

Score: 4/5

I don’t know if this is a cultural thing or not, but my there’s a lot of grinning in these books. He grinned at me, I grinned at her, she grinned... Nobody smiles, nobody fake-smiles, there are precious few other facial expressions ever used, purely because everybody is always grinning.

By the third book in the series it was getting to me. Obviously.

At least there’s some finality now, with the series over. There’s still a lot of ‘Why didn’t he just...’ about some of the plot points, some ‘Well if he’d done that back when it was obvious he should have done it...’ and the occasional ‘You didn’t mention that earlier’.

I enjoyed the series. It did feel like the author was trying to put a smart character in the lead but have him just flawed enough, but it sometimes make him seem dumb.

‘Didn’t Warm To It’

Score: 3/5

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with this book, I just didn’t warm to it. The pace felt slow and plodding, and I didn’t really care for any of the characters (although I think I was supposed to).

So much plot detailed in backstory annoyed me, and the wordy descriptions... Yeah, they annoyed me too. Don’t spend a paragraph describing the object to make me figure out what it is you’re describing, just tell me what the object is!

‘Kindof A Holding Pattern’

Score: 3/5

I often have problems with book 2 in a trilogy. It always seems like the author is spending so much time setting the scene for the third book that they forget they’re supposed to be delivering a story in the second book too.

That applies here. I honestly don’t think I’d have lost much if I just skipped from book 1 to book 3.

‘A Return To Form’

Score: 4/5

I thought this better than the previous book in the series. There wasn’t the jarring shifting-of-viewpoint with the sterile prose for some of the protagonists. And Bob is back. I like Bob. Even if I am watching his slow descent.

Series: Let’s create a routing LND node

• Part 1 - Preliminaries
• Part 2 - Finalising setup and funding
• Part 3 - Opening some channels
• Part 4 - Unsuccessful looping and rebalancing
• Part 5 - Some successes
• Part 6 - Opening more channels
• Part 7 - Probing routes
• Part 8 - Fees
• Part 9 - Loop costs
• Part 10 - Docker
• Part 11 - More failures
• Part 12 - Should I close some channels?
• Part 13 - Loop problems
• Part 14 - Waiting...
• Part 15 - Where are we now?
• Part 16 - Calling it quits
  

Calling it quits

Well, that didn’t work out. It’s time to shut down my LND server.

I’ve been passively running LND for a while, but the time has come to shut it down. I wanted to experiment with Lightning (success!), run a node with balanced channels (success!), see how useful the liquidity I provided was (not very), and maybe even make a profit from that use of liquidity (failed!)

I started out with 0.5BTC. After running it for a little over 9 months, I now have about 0.477BTC. (Costs are purely from opening/closing channels, looping out, and rebalance transactions. Hosting costs for my LND server and full BTC node aren’t included.)

~# lncli closeallchannels
Unilaterally close channel with node 0279c22ed7a068d10dc1a38ae66d2d6461e269226c60258c021b1ddcdfe4b00bc4 and channel point
 9fddce358a9aed15a4c79a52bfdedf5107a0d6a31aafe69283d0463b8ad1632a:1? The closing transaction will need 600 confirmations
before the funds can be spent. (yes/no): no
Unilaterally close channel with node 02ad6fb8d693dc1e4569bcedefadf5f72a931ae027dc0f0c544b34c1c6f3b9a02b and channel point
 b5a711a72f798e1a6d0818da127345df30841a55c2041ba14a392cb91801a5fa:0? The closing transaction will need 144 confirmations
before the funds can be spent. (yes/no): no
{
        "remote_pub_key": "021607cfce19a4c5e7e6e738663dfafbbbac262e4ff76c2c9b30dbeefc35c00643",
        "channel_point": "13bef6bf96c12cb3ded80ae4fa4050c4961dd1650fcddf588b75384aa9033f0d:1",
        "closing_txid": "34a45ecc6f5551970196bf052ff572d6924a9c892fc97732b33fc5a8290fada3",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "0242a4ae0c5bef18048fbecf995094b74bfb0f7391418d71ed394784373f41e4f3",
        "channel_point": "ba7d1229f8269a1815e350fa576dd8165194dfef1fde542f4876540467076886:0",
        "closing_txid": "6313623b81706214be0da863ee9386ee30033d981304e7629f0c443f05d82477",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "03864ef025fde8fb587d989186ce6a4a186895ee44a926bfc370e2c366597a3f8f",
        "channel_point": "6a084acfdbcf69b0bf6f48e41352c75598a3f9a21d94871c7e6cebb5c572b824:1",
        "closing_txid": "ed26354f42058d22233e67c20bbf1e9b77681ebf6ad35df34c20bf69012704d7",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "023337498d36817170316a6f3c64f5cb80ec5d4d7a1229f1a3cb2a2c0a8d99aba5",
        "channel_point": "7384ae66a98e0e43a7a06ef0cb4a53c8fee5699d0dca40494f9a7f9884ef77c5:0",
        "closing_txid": "be6fbd5e8787c8fe3bb860686d73995a314ddee5508b28d2e5fcbe37522a4f54",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "028a8e53d70bc0eb7b5660943582f10b7fd6c727a78ad819ba8d45d6a638432c49",
        "channel_point": "eb37a431d987bc31885ea8b966b8239e1714c2a71d84aa8f201d1bf93d2cd3c5:1",
        "closing_txid": "866f2b550f16776277cff6e12b256fb0669d67fdd32e7a7329c25e76b6fc151e",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "03d06758583bb5154774a6eb221b1276c9e82d65bbaceca806d90e20c108f4b1c7",
        "channel_point": "741485a46249508e633a6630483f22887c81c5069271971285d5f995ac74ece8:1",
        "closing_txid": "42269d71e92502d4c201596017662cb52b6ec49aee1ce3323eb6a177c0e81cac",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "0298f6074a454a1f5345cb2a7c6f9fce206cd0bf675d177cdbf0ca7508dd28852f",
        "channel_point": "365e192389443d9184808eb40cc28e869f77d203b82b3b97f2dd5693eaf9a1f6:0",
        "closing_txid": "27e87a46788a8f3cc4209df22511508783ce6dc861b816cc6460aad385911566",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "02c12b5459cf107ee0440cae41902f1189db50fa003a077f3a6fbe6b5760218695",
        "channel_point": "57cddf23d40a5926c2ea178aa35207fcd9fc0fea273e02f053c6f0361743aad4:1",
        "closing_txid": "6532f2f3eea4cd6f4d2e4f1ffb4df7165f86a120dca1b1105377fce08855ecdf",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "030995c0c0217d763c2274aa6ed69a0bb85fa2f7d118f93631550f3b6219a577f5",
        "channel_point": "93c65402f0650834aeef61836a13f2cd58c25d5299790efe709ae0d2e2648438:0",
        "closing_txid": "dfa22d8fa2ec3cd87ab14c329b15ac23b07a5a870329bb09fa532fbcb6d9f24f",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "030196f24a59674ee494b97e2905968585f86a1fc5d238734ca44eed83d9b50fe6",
        "channel_point": "3454fe40af9d045274364114dcf857602ff9bdfe0418b579f7a2722e21dc847b:0",
        "closing_txid": "ee353f3353cd6f8fc7366fdbbaf6f1285fb3fe5eb1e23878d5d7bb48b3e30f71",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "031678745383bd273b4c3dbefc8ffbf4847d85c2f62d3407c0c980430b3257c403",
        "channel_point": "9ccdac4a53d8f2328595acbfbe2323f2e0ea396bc4dc3f7ddc0490c3b915c8d0:0",
        "closing_txid": "30dc7f02fd65aa7fd4d688a64e0b672f32894a8ff58c148ea76fbe06f5a6a517",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "029bf3edd752470fb554330e8d40f7f10d73e9f9838898117cdc7b4f04eced9d11",
        "channel_point": "c629bb4532822404a162786d6342a7b7f3302b923575b7cef0ee3968b331c3f6:0",
        "closing_txid": "d728ad446eb6cf87583e95289f4ffa902d130303b6691f9df7c40a1fc47b5492",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "033d8656219478701227199cbd6f670335c8d408a92ae88b962c49d4dc0e83e025",
        "channel_point": "7b43a3e7de10d05245e671fa756306f50ee7f6617a04205449370d687aab6ad7:1",
        "closing_txid": "96df40da8283cae48589f6865e62da8f9e723485ada76364b4e6606cbd4c80ba",
        "error": ""
}
{
        "remote_pub_key": "034ea80f8b148c750463546bd999bf7321a0e6dfc60aaf84bd0400a2e8d376c0d5",
        "channel_point": "677e07353e4400f373fd5e12d3f1432e875376728dda9c5ea7e7708afbedc043:1",
        "closing_txid": "6ecb98b21cfa34f89ea10f4d8d52d5d4fbd2f56ae1c16c015462a89d8a34cd86",
        "error": ""
}

(I’ll close those first 2 channels manually later.)

No quibbling here - the fault lies with me. Others quite successfully run nodes and make some money at it. I didn’t. That’s more a reflection on me than on the technology.

It seems that the choice of who you open channels with is key. I didn’t find an easy metric to say who would be useful to open channels with (although a bunch of folks have non-concrete, nebulous advice here). Channels I thought would be busy saw only occasional use. Most channels other folks opened with me rarely saw any use.

The use my channels did see usually led to unbalanced channels, and a task (and expense) to rebalance them. For me, the average forwarded payment was high relative to channel size and balance. I never saw the many-but-frequent small payments Lightning does so well, just occasional payments of hundreds of thousands - or millions - of sats.

For instance, the last payment I forwarded was ㋛484,723 (from SatsRoubini to bfx-lnd0). The SatsRoubini channel of ㋛1,000,000 was 50% balanced, and that single payment means it’s now hugely unbalanced at ㋛984,723 / ㋛12,547. Rebalancing that could cost more than the unbalancing forward made.

That could be a result of my fees. My fees were set automatically (hourly) according to a sliding scale with the following command running every hour:

~# lntoolkit update-channel-policies --policy-above-percent-0 "m㋛50000 + mm㋛100 / 40" --policy-above-percent-10 "m㋛25000 + mm㋛75 / 40" --policy-above-percent-20 "m㋛5000 + mm㋛50 / 40" --policy-above-percent-80 "m㋛5000 + mm㋛20 / 40" --policy-above-percent-90 "m㋛1000 + mm㋛10 / 40" --quiet

But even that didn’t work the way I’d hoped. The problem here is that fees are determined by the current balance, not the scarcity of the liquidity used. For example, a forward that moves the balance ratio from 50%-50% to 49%-51% is charged at the same rate as one that moves it from 50%-50% to 1%-99%, when I would prefer to charge the latter more for exhausting liquidity on one end of the channel and making me work to rebalance it.

Here’s a handy rebalance script I used, now that lncli supports circular routes. (It annoyed me that lncli wanted the outgoing channel ID but not the incoming channel ID. I find it easier to work with channel IDs.)

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -o errexit
set -o nounset

function Usage() {
  cat >&2 << UsageOutput
Usage: rebalance --amount  --from <18-digit-channel-ID> --to <18-digit-channel-ID>
  -a or --amount:
    The amount (in sats) you want to move.
  -f or --from:
    The outgoing channel you want to move funds FROM.
  -t or --to:
    The incoming channel you want to move funds TO.
  -h or --help:
    Output this usage information.
UsageOutput
}

AMOUNT=""
FROM_CHANNEL=""
TO_CHANNEL=""

while [[ $# > 0 ]]
do
  option="$1"

  case $option in
    -h|--help)
      Usage
      exit
      ;;

    -a|--amount)
      AMOUNT="$2"
      shift
      ;;

    -f|--from)
      FROM_CHANNEL="$2"
      shift
      ;;

    -t|--to)
      TO_CHANNEL="$2"
      shift
      ;;

    *)
      # unknown option
      printf "Unknown option: ${option}\n" >&2
      Usage
      exit -1
      ;;

  esac
  shift
done

if [ -z "${AMOUNT}" ]
then
      printf "amount is required.\n" >&2
      Usage
      exit -1
fi

if [ -z "${FROM_CHANNEL}" ]
then
      printf "From is required.\n" >&2
      Usage
      exit -1
fi

if [ -z "${TO_CHANNEL}" ]
then
      printf "To is required.\n" >&2
      Usage
      exit -1
fi

LAST_HOP_PUBKEY=$(lncli listchannels | jq -r ".[][] | select(.chan_id == \"${TO_CHANNEL}\") | .remote_pubkey")
printf "Last hop pubkey is: %s\n" "${LAST_HOP_PUBKEY}"

INVOICE_JSON=$(lncli addinvoice "${AMOUNT}")
PAY_REQ=$(echo ${INVOICE_JSON} | jq -r .payment_request)
printf "Paying: %s\n" "${PAY_REQ}"

lncli payinvoice --allow_self_payment --outgoing_chan_id ${FROM_CHANNEL} --last_hop ${LAST_HOP_PUBKEY} ${PAY_REQ}

printf "Done.\n"

And you use it like so, specifying just the channel you want to move balance from, the channel you want to move balance to, and the amount of balance you want to move.

rebalance --from 667196849977491457 --to 677502572480036864 --amount 500000

In the end maybe my fees just made it unreasonable for small payments so only large payments that failed on other channels succeeded on mine? Maybe.

In any case, it has reached the stage for me that the bitcoin sitting on my LND server could be put to better use elsewhere. So I’m shutting down the LND server.

I’m disappointed Lightning hasn’t taken off as quickly as I expected. The technology still seems great, and there are a lot of people working on it, but I’d expected to see more real-world use by now. Maybe my expectations were out of whack. I’ll be keeping an eye on Lightning, and I’m still hopeful, but I won’t be paying as much attention as I did. Maybe that’ll change if I see traction elsewhere.

It’s a shame because I did have some interesting ideas and code prototypes. There are a lot of Lightning wallets now as well as add-ons and plugins, but nothing really did what I set out to do. That may, of course, mean that no-one wants what my prototype does... Still, I might come back to this later.

I’m no longer as sure as I once was about LND as my server of choice. Containerisation seems a natural fit for services that require high availability and resilience, and especially ones that transfer money. Docker support in LND wasn’t great - what I wanted (and I don’t think I’m alone) was a docker repo I could pull and run, produced by the project team just the same way they sign binary releases. That didn’t happen. And while LND had a nice Dockerfile system for building the docker images, it was often out of date. (It still looks out of date now.) Other folks built LND docker images but why would I trust them?

Even if that were fixed, though, just being able to run the server in Docker isn’t enough. If that container crashes, the whole thing needs to restart and nothing is available until the restart is complete (which can easily take minutes). Highly available and highly scalable services these days mean running services under something like Kubernetes, and I just don’t see LND working in that scenario. LND maintains too much state in One Giant Process, so I can’t see any way to split LND in its current form across several pods for failover and load balancing. C-lightning seems to have a better approach here but I’ve even never tried running that.

In the meantime, I’m in the market for a nice Lightning wallet - any suggestions? And the domains lntoolkit.com and lnchain.net are now Free To A Good Home - if you’re interested let me know.

Here’s the final report from the server. You can see how little the liquidity was used, as well as how just 3 forwards in the last couple of days managed to render 2 channels unbalanced.

OpinionatedGeek ⚡ - synced: ✅
Total Balance: ㋛47,778,110, Wallet: ㋛10,357,231 (㋛10,357,231 confirmed / ㋛0 unconfirmed / ㋛0 limbo)
Fees: ㋛100 this month, ㋛59 this week, ㋛29 today
Channels: 15 active, 1 inactive, 0 pending, containing: ㋛37,437,563 satoshi (㋛16,684 future commit fees)
Version: 0.9.0-beta commit=v0.9.0-beta
	URI: 023c5b5667b16cd7fcca5591a8c0f47beb76c9405e16a4f2d6b42c7b9904a7f0e6@95.179.191.59:9735

Forwards:
	Monthly:      9 forwards,       ㋛8,768,318, fees:     ㋛100
	Weekly:       2 forwards,       ㋛1,968,277, fees:      ㋛59
	Daily:        1 forwards,         ㋛969,417, fees:      ㋛29

Most Popular Channels:
	In, with 3 forwards this month:  LiteGo.io liquidity [648776731693481985]
	Out, with 9 forwards this month: bfx-lnd0 [667196849977491457]

Pending:
	None.

Unbalanced - High:
	✅ 👪 SatsRoubini: 676662545572954112 (Last update: 07:20 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   030196f24a59674ee494b97e2905968585f86a1fc5d238734ca44eed83d9b50fe6
	Fees:     m㋛1,000 + mm㋛10/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛0/4
	Forwards: (M) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕] ㋛984,723 / ㋛12,547 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 lightning-roulette.com: 631563877105729536 (Last update: 19:32 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   031678745383bd273b4c3dbefc8ffbf4847d85c2f62d3407c0c980430b3257c403
	Fees:     m㋛1,000 + mm㋛10/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛1/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛499,445 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛499,445 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕] ㋛936,284 / ㋛60,986 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]

Unbalanced - Low:
	None.

All Channels:
	✅ 👪 bfx-lnd0: 667196849977491457 (Last update: 21:39 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   033d8656219478701227199cbd6f670335c8d408a92ae88b962c49d4dc0e83e025
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛1/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛4,384,109 [9], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛984,109 [2], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛484,694 [1]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛6,820,608 / ㋛9,953,877 [capacity: ㋛16,777,215]
	✅ 👪 LNBIG.com [lnd-12]: 648469967958441985 (Last update: 21:49 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   034ea80f8b148c750463546bd999bf7321a0e6dfc60aaf84bd0400a2e8d376c0d5
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛3,202 + mm㋛3,998/30
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛7,490,608 / ㋛8,506,510 [capacity: ㋛16,000,000]
	✅ 👪 yalls.org: 636507281470259201 (Last update: 05:36 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   03d06758583bb5154774a6eb221b1276c9e82d65bbaceca806d90e20c108f4b1c7
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛2,500/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛4,363,688 / ㋛5,633,430 [capacity: ㋛10,000,000]
	✅ 👪 BB2K19: 649402353822072832 (Last update: 00:22 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   023337498d36817170316a6f3c64f5cb80ec5d4d7a1229f1a3cb2a2c0a8d99aba5
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,059 + mm㋛416/288
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛3,687,279 / ㋛4,918,245 [capacity: ㋛8,608,500]
	✅ 👪 LNBIG.com [lnd-33]: 676047918525186049 (Last update: 03:11 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   028a8e53d70bc0eb7b5660943582f10b7fd6c727a78ad819ba8d45d6a638432c49
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛2,000/30
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛2,700,000 / ㋛5,297,271 [capacity: ㋛8,000,000]
	✅ 👪 LNBIG.com [lnd-28]: 648594212745510912 (Last update: 04:55 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   030995c0c0217d763c2274aa6ed69a0bb85fa2f7d118f93631550f3b6219a577f5
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,001 + mm㋛3,998/30
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛2,537,232 / ㋛2,460,038 [capacity: ㋛5,000,000]
	⭕ 👪 ln1.satoshilabs.com: 661310064630235137 (Last update: 23:32 GMT on Saturday, 22 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   0279c22ed7a068d10dc1a38ae66d2d6461e269226c60258c021b1ddcdfe4b00bc4
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛1,000/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛2,900,000 / ㋛2,091,681 [capacity: ㋛4,994,039]
	✅ 👪 LiteGo.io liquidity: 648776731693481985 (Last update: 13:52 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   02c12b5459cf107ee0440cae41902f1189db50fa003a077f3a6fbe6b5760218695
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛100 + mm㋛100/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛2,600,029 [3] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛1,920,253 / ㋛2,077,017 [capacity: ㋛4,000,000]
	✅ 👪 SatsRoubini: 676662545572954112 (Last update: 07:20 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   030196f24a59674ee494b97e2905968585f86a1fc5d238734ca44eed83d9b50fe6
	Fees:     m㋛1,000 + mm㋛10/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛0/4
	Forwards: (M) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛484,723 [1] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕] ㋛984,723 / ㋛12,547 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 lightning-roulette.com: 631563877105729536 (Last update: 19:32 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   031678745383bd273b4c3dbefc8ffbf4847d85c2f62d3407c0c980430b3257c403
	Fees:     m㋛1,000 + mm㋛10/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛1/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛499,445 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛499,445 [1] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕] ㋛936,284 / ㋛60,986 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 BCash_Is_Trash: 654674512064151552 (Last update: 07:05 GMT on Tuesday, 17 December 2019)
	Pubkey:   0298f6074a454a1f5345cb2a7c6f9fce206cd0bf675d177cdbf0ca7508dd28852f
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛2,893 + mm㋛22/14
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛579,350 / ㋛417,354 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 CoinGate: 631562777641943040 (Last update: 01:41 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   0242a4ae0c5bef18048fbecf995094b74bfb0f7391418d71ed394784373f41e4f3
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛1/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛576,398 / ㋛420,720 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 Molon Labe: 677502572480036864 (Last update: 05:28 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   029bf3edd752470fb554330e8d40f7f10d73e9f9838898117cdc7b4f04eced9d11
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛1,000 + mm㋛1,000/40
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛500,000 / ㋛497,271 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 ln.BitSoapBox.com: 668015986116984833 (Last update: 05:01 GMT on Tuesday, 25 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   021607cfce19a4c5e7e6e738663dfafbbbac262e4ff76c2c9b30dbeefc35c00643
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛4 + mm㋛56/144
	Forwards: (M) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛500,000 / ㋛497,271 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 rompert.com🔵: 668782345847439360 (Last update: 13:36 GMT on Monday, 24 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   02ad6fb8d693dc1e4569bcedefadf5f72a931ae027dc0f0c544b34c1c6f3b9a02b
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛0/9
	Forwards: (M) ㋛400,006 [2] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛493,979 / ㋛503,093 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]
	✅ 👪 ACINQ: 632050960761552897 (Last update: 10:33 GMT on Thursday, 20 February 2020)
	Pubkey:   03864ef025fde8fb587d989186ce6a4a186895ee44a926bfc370e2c366597a3f8f
	Fees:     m㋛5,000 + mm㋛50/40 / m㋛0 + mm㋛0/144
	Forwards: (M) ㋛400,006 [2] / ㋛0 [0], (W) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0], (D) ㋛0 [0] / ㋛0 [0]
	Balances: [🥝🥝🥝🥝🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕] ㋛447,161 / ㋛550,109 [capacity: ㋛1,000,000]

‘Short But Not Sweet’

Score: 4/5

Lots of ‘dubious advice’ here, and I enjoyed every bit of it!

‘Just Not That Compelling’

Score: 2/5

There are a bunch of ‘blurbs’ on the cover of this book. They’re all things like: ‘The best thriller writer alive’ (from Ken Follet), ‘A master of storytelling and suspense’ (from Candice Millard) and ‘John Grisham is the master of legal fiction’ (from Jodi Picoult).

I should have taken it as a warning sign that none of the blurbs are actually about the book.

It has been quite a while since I read any John Grisham books - decades maybe. I remember tense legal thrillers with lawyer-heroes in peril. This isn’t really like that. The main character seems fine enough, but I just didn’t feel any particular tension throughout the book. There’s a lot about legal processes here, and the book tries to keep the pace out by leaving out the weeks between court appearances or legal actions, but it just really wasn’t that compelling to me.

‘Some Seriously Sterile Sections’

Score: 3/5

I like the Laundry series. I like that sometimes the author sometimes changes writing styles with viewpoints - sections from one character’s viewpoint are in that character’s ‘voice’, sections from for a different character can have a different style. But it causes problems for me when some of the styles just don’t flow.

I didn’t like the sections about Agent First. The writing there was deliberately quite sterile but I found it really hard to read. I felt like skipping entire Agent First sections rather than read them, which kindof defeats the purpose of me buying the book. (I didn’t skip. I wanted to, but I didn’t.)

Maybe the next book will be better.

‘Just A Placeholding Scene-Setter’

Score: 3/5

I get the feeling that this book is the dull-middle-of-a-trilogy book. The first book is exciting, creating the world and characters, with lots of conflict and ending with a heroic victory. The final book is the culmination, the battle between the Big Bad and the Heroes - a battle bigger than the battle in the first book, with more at stake. The middle book is... Well, the middle book is just to get the characters from the victory in the first book to the start of the third book, and maybe make them lose some critical battle along the way.

Well, I haven’t read a third book here yet, but this fits the second book profile quite well.

I really enjoyed the first book, but now I’m not sure I even want to bother with the third. Hmm.