Of sex and science fiction

I attended a local science fiction convention last weekend. It was interesting to observe the way that the fans seemed to be split into two groups: (1) those who were interested in the readings and panels presented by the scheduled guests, and (2) those who were interested in the insular, self-referential world of "fandom". The latter seemed to be in the majority at this particular convention, and seemed to have little interest in the Guests of Honor other than the "Fan Guest of Honor", who apparently had quite a fan club of women he had slept with.

The Fan Masquerade was entertaining, as such things usually are. Several young and female fans took advantage of the opportunity to wear scandalously scanty outfits in an environment where they were relatively unlikely to get arrested or accosted. So did some male fans, not all of whom were young. My lingering tendencies toward puritanism kept me from inspecting the young lovelies' costumes in very great detail. I was intrigued by the construction details of one guy's costume. He had built a complicated but sturdy set of "hooves" to wear with a classical-era faun outfit. It included not just hooves, but ski-boots mounted to a set of metal fittings, and surrounded by fake fur, that mimicked the distinctive, backward-bending shape of a deer's lower leg. It was mechanically inventive, but clearly difficult to wear. He was visibly relieved to take them off and pass them around for people to examine. One daring soul tried them on and promptly toppled to the floor several times before managing to stagger about the room, wobbling his arms for balance.

I scavenged among the gewgaws and knicknacks of the dealers room and found some things worth rescuing and taking home. Most notably, I was able to fill out the set of Lord Dunsany's tales of Jorkens, and get all but one of the collected William Hope Hodgson volumes that Night Shade Books has released. Someone I didn't know pressed upon me a gift of an audio CD of recorded pulp-era SF & fantasy stories that he swore were public domain. I also rescued some other knicknacks which will probably become gifts to other people at some point. (Beware!)

There is a small collection of convention photos on Flickr. None of them feature me, although I was just out of frame to the left of one of them. Perhaps someone with extrasensory perception will be able to detect my unseen presence.

Unfortunately, being unseen was all too common a feeling. There aren't very many things more fundamentally lonely than wandering around aimlessly among crowds of people who all know each other but don't know you! I did get to meet up briefly with the Lethal Librarian and the Librarian Avenger, though.

Amusing anecdote: One of the room parties on Saturday evening featured something called "Elvin Toast". It's a variation on old-style toasting customs, in which everyone in the room offers a series of toasts to their favorite god, favorite goddess, "dearly departed", hope for the future, and greatest boast. This gave me the perfect excuse to bellow out, "To Hel with you all!". In a friendly way, of course.

I enjoyed the con. It was worth the price of admission. But I don't think I'd ever want to be a professional Fan-with-a-capital-F like some of the folks I met.

Politics and reasoning

...or lack thereof.

"Fanboy heaven"

Wouldn't it be nice to live next door to this?

A posting from a library jobs listserv indicates that they're looking for an archivist, but unfortunately they require two years' previous experience in archival management. No indication of any requirement that the applicant have any interest in the contents of the archives.

News of the weird

Don't steal Tom Waits' songs. Or try to sound like him. Especially if you're an advertising agency.

Robert Louis Stevenson tales "too revolting to publish" rediscovered.

Daniel Dennett asks in The Chronicle of Higher Ed.:

So what is the prevailing attitude today among those who call themselves religious but vigorously advocate tolerance? There are three main options:

* The disingenuous Machiavellian: As a matter of political strategy, the time is not ripe for candid declarations of religious superiority, so we should temporize and let sleeping dogs lie in hopes that those of other faiths can gently be brought around over the centuries.
* The truly tolerant: It really doesn't matter which religion you swear allegiance to, as long as you have some religion.
* The benign neglecters: Religion is just too dear to too many to think of discarding it, even though it really doesn't do any good and is simply an empty historical legacy we can afford to maintain until it quietly extinguishes itself sometime in the unforeseeable future.

Over at National Review, Peter Suderman likes Battlestar Galactica. John O'Sullivan sees Canada's political history in a Monty Python song. One which has a happy ending by the lights of NR, at least for now. David Gratzer opines about the election up north:

The turning point of the campaign occurred ironically when neither candidate was out on the hustings — Boxing Day. In downtown Toronto, gang violence literally spilled out on to the busiest street in the city, killing an innocent bystander, a 16-year-old girl. Prime Minister Martin criticized the "culture of exclusion" and promised a conference with minority groups; Stephen Harper talked about justice and proposed minimum sentencing requirements. The Conservatives surged ahead in the polls.

Being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the present

I have finally surrendered to inexorable destiny and the luring blandishments of certain friends like Carlos. I signed up for Netflix. So far, I've been pleased. The first two DVD's on my list showed up within two days. Although I was a little surprised by the skimpy mailing package, they both worked flawlessly and showed no signs of damage.

The Constant Gardener is a stylish thriller, based on John Le Carre's book. It's brutally cynical about the machinations of governments and businesses, but has at its core a tragically romantic story of a man who failed to fully appreciate the woman he loved until it was too late. Now she's dead, with her apparent lover, and he's left to pick up the pieces. Some of those pieces don't quite fit together, though....

This is not a movie to watch while distracted with other activities. Fleeting but repeated images, unusual turns of phrase, and casual comments by minor characters are more important than they seem. Pay attention.

I was tremendously amused by the basic premise of Black Books, a situation-comedy from our friends across the pond. The first scene with Bernard Black, proprietor of the eponymous bookstore, had me laughing uncontrollably. You see, Black goes beyond ignoring his customers or resenting their placid, bovine browsing in his dusty, cluttered domain. He hates them. Really, really hates them.

Pompous customer: "Is this genuine leather?
BB : "It's genuine Dickens."

BB : [selling a book] "Enjoy. It's dreadful, but quite short."

Other than that, Black's customer-service skills seem to consist of using a megaphone and broom to chase them out the door when he feels like closing. There are times when I feel the same way at the library, although I'm more likely to use a mock bullwhip and quote the theme song from Rawhide.

Unfortunately for me, the bookstore is almost completely ignored in most of the episodes of the first season in favor of improbably surreal situations involving the three principal characters' personal eccentricities. Black is a misanthropic drunk; old freind and neighbor Fran is temperamental and sexually frustrated; shop clerk Manny is childlike and naive. All of them have a tendency to burst into violent physical flailing and shrieking whenever the scriptwriter thinks that would be funny or runs out of other ideas, and the suggestions of homoeroticism between the two male leads become a rather tiresome running joke. (On the other hand, it would explain Fran's frustration.)

That said, it was entertaining enough that I'll put the second season on my want list from Netflix.

If anyone's curious, I might post the current contents of that list on this blog, but be warned that you might find out things about me that you didn't want to know. (Death Race 2000, anybody?)

The Poe Toaster

No, it's not a kitchen appliance that makes cute little raven-shaped pieces of bread. CNN explains.

A sad day...

... for those who enjoy the weird, the bizarre, and the surreally subversive. Loompanics Books is closing. (See also here.)

Where, oh where, will we thought-criminals get our books now?

Dictionaries just ain't what they used to be.

From Noah Webster's 1828 first edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language:

Cat, n. (...) 1. A name applied to certain species of carnivorous quadrupeds, of the genus Felis. The domestic cat needs no description. It is a deceitful animal, and when enraged, extremely spiteful....

How's that for dispassionate objectivity?

The edition of the dictionary from which I retrieved the definition poses an interesting question in library collection development, by the way. It's a reprint put out by a publisher called the Foundation for American Christian Education. "American Christian History Education Series" appears prominently on the cloth cover (the dustjacket was apparently discarded by the owning library.) It includes an introduction entitled Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary needed to restore an American Christian Education in the home, the church and the school.

Libraries ordinarily avoid purchasing editions of historical works which slant the interpretation of those works for purposes of political propaganda or religious proselytizing. But what if (as in this case) such an edition is the only edition of a historically significant work which is in print and readily available?

And you thought Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura was weird.

From the great state of Minnesota, via YahooNews:

A man who calls himself a satanic priest plans to run for governor on a 13-point platform that includes the public impaling of terrorists at the state Capitol building....

I'm going to be totally open and honest," said the 41-year-old leader of the "Vampyres, Witches and Pagans Party."

"Unlike other candidates, I'm not going to hide my evil side," he said.

In Minnesota, anyone who pays the $300 filing fee can get on the gubernatorial ballot and it seems that every year a few eccentric candidates make the rounds.

Sharkey raises the bar. For one thing, he told the Star Tribune in an e-mail that he drinks blood.

Including the impaling of terrorists, rapists, drug dealers and other criminals, Sharkey's platform includes emphasis on education, tax breaks for farmers and better benefits for veterans.

Sharkey said he worships Lucifer and, while he says he has nothing against Christians, he calls the "Christian God the Father" his "mortal enemy."....

There's a new blog in town

Some Chick, formerly known as S. and "Anon", presents.... Apartment Carpet.

Al Gore, the ... firebrand orator?

In an absolutely stunning King Day speech, he rips furiously into the Bush Administration's arrogance and disregard for the Constitution. (Text here; podcast here; commentary here and elsewhere.) If he'd displayed this kind of clear-spoken, remorselessly logical ferocity in the 2000 presidential campaign, he might very well be president now.

Political bloggers are taking note of the speech and forwarding it around the blogosphere at a fevered pace, although the "mainstream" media seems disinclined to pay attention. (Check Technorati.) I think Gore has struck a nerve. And I don't think the country can afford to ignore his warning.

Silly things people say at the reference desk

"There's something wrong with the first DVD in this set. There's no sound."

The DVD in hand: Volume one of Edison : the invention of the movies (1898-1918), a compilation of Thomas A. Edison's early experimental films and short features.

Spirited away to Earthsea?

Locus and other sources report that Goro Miyazaki, son of Hayao Miyazaki, is producing an animated adaptation of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea tales.

I always thought Earthsea had a kind of mystical, eastern feel to it, and I always imagined Earthsea as having the same kind of sparse, misty beauty as much Japanese art. If Studio Ghibli refrains from inflicting silly alterations on LeGuin's characters and world, this could be much better than the recent SciFi Channel live-action miniseries, which was visually gorgeous but differed from both the letter and the spirit of the original stories enough that Ms. LeGuin officially disowned it. The artwork from Studio Ghibli's webpage looks promising -- will the other aspects of the production live up to the story?

(Aside: Check out the Unshelved Book Club's take on Ged -- the titular "wizard of Earthsea" -- versus a certain young wizard of England.)

Fiendish Books!

Thanks to Fiend for her holiday generosity! Three books, three well-chosen books which I enjoyed immensely.

Playing with Trains, by Sam Posey. A memoir of one man's experiences with model railroading. Posey describes both his own experience in constructing a model railroad (with some help) and the different reasons that people -- mostly men -- become obsessed with such an odd hobby. Along the way, he interviews modelers with wildly different approaches and wildly different layouts. His old schoolteacher loves busy, busy Lionel layouts crowded to a circus-like degree with action figures and accessories. Meanwhile, out in the New Mexico desert, artist Malcolm Furlow constructs wild, phantasmagorical landscapes that resemble hallucinogenic impressions of the mythic Old West more than they resemble actual railroads. Elsewhere Bob Hayden and Dave Frary build layouts tailored for photography; George Sellios reconstructs the towering city buildings and grimy streets of the 1930s in painstaking detail; and Model Railroading editor Tony Koester and his buttoned-down cohort meticulously research their favorite historical railroads in order to recreate them in faithful miniature and operate them according to prototypical rules.

Proving, I suppose, that model railroading is not just a hobby; it's as many different kinds of hobbies as there are model railroaders.

Most amusing -- if logically dubious -- observation from the book:

Not only are trains for men, it seems that among modelers at the top level they may be only for men who are the oldest (or only) sons in their family. Incredibly, Tony Koester, Jim Hediger, John Pryke, Malcolm Furlow, Bob Hayden, Dave Frary, and George Sellios were all oldest boys -- that is, seven out of seven of the big-time modelers I visited.... This is because if the dad likes trains himself, he bought them at the first appropriate moment for, naturally, his oldest son....

The other startling commonality among the top modelers I met is that they have beards! Forget my friend's thought that the world of model railroading is populated by geeks or nerds -- it's a world of the hirsute. John, Malcolm, Bob, and Dave have beards, while George has a mustache. Only Tony and Jim are clean-shaven.

The connection between beards and trains is obvious. Consider the front of a steam locomotive. It is strikingly anthropomorphic.... Virtually all steam locomotives have narrow steel ladders, one on each side, that begin at the sides of the big round smokebox (the locomotive's "face") and extend down to the top of the cowcatcher. This combination of ladders and cowcatcher unquestionably resembles a beard.

What a bearded modeler sees when he looks in the mirror each morning is nothing less than a locomotive.

Like I said. Amusing but logically dubious. Now excuse me while I go look into the mirror and make chuffing noises.


Weight, by Jeannette Winterson, and The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. These two books are parts of the Myths Series, which Atwood, in this essay, describes as "ask[ing] a number of writers from around the world to retell a myth, any myth, each in his or her own way and in his or her own language, at a length of roughly a hundred pages."

(more on these two books later)

Christmas Reads

Well, I had to read something on the airplane, didn't I?

The Carpet Makers, by Andreas Eschbach. (Written in German; translated by Doryl Jensen; introduction by Orson Scott Card)
In the city of Yahannochia, as in all the other cities of the world, the social structure, economy, and religion are geared toward the production of incredibly finely-woven, intricately patterned carpets made out of human hair. Each carpet is the work of a finely-skilled carpetmaker who uses the various-colored hair of his wives and daughters to weave a design which takes him a lifetime to finish. The carpets, we are told, are to decorate the Star Palace of the Emperor, who is revered as a god. This is their sacred duty, as well as their livelihood. Those who doubt the god-Emperor, or question the production of the carpets, or attempt to deviate from their hereditary calling, are blasphemers and heretics who attack the very basis of their family, their nation, their God, and are treated accordingly.

The premise sounds bizarre, but Eschbach develops the economy, religion, and social customs of his world in meticulous and plausible detail. We see it through the eyes of generations of sympathetic and believable characters, both natives and offworlders. We see their lives being shaped and controlled, and on occasion brutally destroyed, by this culture and its singleminded economy.

Meanwhile, in a parallel storyline, rebels have deposed the Emperor and occupied his enormous, sprawling Star Palace. There's not a single hair carpet in sight. No one has even heard of such a thing. But from the fringes of known space come reports from perplexed scouts who keep discovering planet after planet after uncharted planet, all populated by millions of human beings who profess religious loyalty to the dead Emperor, all frantically producing fabulously labor-intensive human-hair carpets by the hundreds, the thousands, the millions.

The answer to the mystery of the hair carpets may lie somewhere in deep space, or somewhere on a planet where uncountable human lives are expended over thousands of years to produce these strange works of art. Or it may lie buried somewhere in the vast, convoluted imperial archives, which no rebel can even begin to unravel.

I won't reveal what's going on, but the ending is profoundly affecting and disturbing. Eschbach is one of those rare writers who can create situations in which a mere two-word statement can leave the reader mentally gasping as if a chasm of gaping eternities has suddenly opened up beneath his feet.

Highly recommended. It's unfortunate that this appears to be the only book by Andreas Eschbach to be translated into English. I hope that does not remain the case.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is one of those futuristic books by a lit'rary author which are not classified as science fiction because... because... well, just because. Like Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty Four or The Handmaid's Tale, it's social science fiction in everything but its spine label and marketing campaign. Because everybody knows that authors of Serious Litrachoor don't write science fiction, now, do they?

It begins innocuously enough, with a group of intelligent, healthy and talented young people growing up in an idyllic boarding school. They experience all the things that growing adolescents experience: friendship, heartbreak, the first stirrings of romance, the frustrations of failures and the satisfaction of successes. And, of course, they are baffled and intrigued by the mysteries of the adult world and the motivations of those older than themselves. Along the way, they gradually learn what the adult world will expect of them, and what they will be expected to sacrifice. And, just as in other coming-of-age stories, they accept it.

There are darker currents flowing beneath the surface, but you should discover those on your own. They sneak up on you through the course of the novel, just as they do to the protagonists. I can't even recall whether the fundamental premise of the novel is ever explicitly stated, or whether the reader, like the three protagonists, must piece it together by being "told and not told". The most disquieting part of the novel is the way the protagonists passively accept their destiny, even as they desperately, hopefully weave fantasies and myths that might allow them to escape from it. Like the emotionally straitjacketed butler of The Remains of the Day, they obediently march toward the abyss because it's what they believe they're supposed to do, what they were taught to do.

I would try to go into more detail about my reactions to the book, but I find that this reviewer, from Reason magazine, has already said most of what I would wish to say. (Beware of spoilers, though. If you plan on reading the book, do so before reading that review.)

Death cheats us all in the end, doesn't it? And aren't we supposed to accept that, taught to accept that? A cynic might say that we invent desperate and hopeful fantasies to allow us to escape our fate, too.

Recommended.

(Next up: Fiendish Books.)

Stupid things people say in bookstores

Bookworm Droppings. (From the Bookfinder.com Insider list)

Belated Christmas and New Years Post

Well, better late than never!

This year's annual family-visit holiday trip was pretty uneventful. No bizarre airline schedules; no car wrecks; no lost luggage. Went down to Dallas, up to Missouri, back to Dallas, down to Austin, back to Dallas. Got on airplane. The end.

Miscellaneous highlights:

* Due to a family feud too complicated to detail here, there were three "sides of the family" to visit in Missouri this year. Don't ask.

* Pablo recently purchased a very amusing game called Munchkin. It's great fun, except for those pesky "rule interpretations".

* Yam and S.'s new house in Austin is a glory to behold, with expansive views of downtown Austin and a wooded greenbelt area. The modifications they're making -- although undoubtedly expensive -- are decided improvements over the previous owners' wretched taste. (Before: blue shag carpet and salmon-pink walls in the bedrooms. Blue wallpaper and white tile in the kitchen, with one randomly-selected wall painted a deep blood-red. After: Hardwood floors, granite counters in the kitchen, much discussion of new paint colors....)

* Austin's network of greenbelts, which abuts the backyard (or, rather back-cliff) of said house, promise endless hours of exploration and discovery, as well as pretty views. Yam & I (plus the Dynamic Doggish Duo of clever Sebastian and the aptly-named but mentally-challenged Monster) spent a few hours hiking it from one end to another, past waterfalls and woods and tumbledown remnants of old stone walls. Our trails' end, at Barton Springs, was host to hundreds of enthusiastic Austinites happily splashing about in the balmy weather. No skinny-dippers, though. The Zilker Zephyr is cute.

* Austin has some excellent places for food, including one where a certain member of the family gets a very useful employee discount. Yam: "It's a theme park, not a grocery store." But an enjoyable one.

Traded in Christmas presents which duplicated other Christmas presents. Acquired spiffy new Disreputable Brown Hat. Spent too much on sorely-needed new clothes and new shoes. Spent New Year's Eve with Yam & S. over at the home of an old college buddy and his wife. Old College Buddy had his usual batch of entertaining and unusual home modifications to show off. S. looked like she was getting ideas which Yam may or may not enjoy implementing. Watched Sherlock Holmes deftly solve the mystery of the Blue Carbuncle.

New Year's Resolutions? I'm still thinking about those....

Recent Reads wRapup 2005

Other books I've read and intended to comment on during the year. Sic transit gloria.

Sailing to Byzantium, by Robert Silverberg
A projected future of Postrellian dynamic destruction and a society -- like Iain M. Banks' Culture -- in which production is so ridiculously cheap that the greatest concern of humanity's descendants is how to amuse themselves. A person from the 20th century is an amusing diversion. For a while.

Seven American Nights, by Gene Wolfe
Wolfe's novels are always based on intriguing premises, although readers sometimes must resort to cryptological methods to figure out what they are. In this short novella, bound dos-a-dos with Silverberg's Sailing to Byzantium, he projects a future in which American society has imploded due to widespread, slow-acting environmental contamination resulting in pervasive mental retardation and genetic dysfunction. The Middle East (somewhat improbably) has not been affected, and has built a thriving civilization that regards the former superpower with negligent disdain. Nonetheless, certain restless and curious young men remain fascinated by its decaying remnants....

Half in Shadow, by Mary Elizabeth Councilman
All but one of these short stories were originally published in Weird Tales, alongside the more sanguinary exploits of Conan the Barbarian and H.P. Lovecraft's neurotic, doomed protagonists. Many of them are set in the backwoods of the author's native South, and this infuses them with a different atmosphere than Lovecraft's grim, grey, haunted New England or R.E. Howard's imaginary Hyperborea. The author says, in her preface, that "the Hallowe'en scariness of the bumbling-but kindly Wizard of Oz has always appealed to me more than the gruesome, morbid fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and those later authors who were influenced by their doom philosophies." Even so, one is hard-pressed to find a story with a happy ending. Some of the stories ("The Twister", "A Death Crown for Mr. Hapworthy", and "Night Court", for example) are merely competent reiterations of rather tired themes of occult fatalism. But there are some gems buried here as well. "The Three Marked Pennies", "The Shot-Tower Ghost", and "The Tree's Wife" are minor classics, and well worth seeking out. The only non-WT story in the collection, "A Handful of Silver", might make a good story for a certain kind of Christmas storytelling party.

Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books, by Azar Nafisi

The Callahan Chronicals, by Spider Robinson.
Tipsy, ironical fun with time-travellers, space aliens, and others who somehow manage to stumble onto the ultimate good-time bar. Great fun.

Spiritwalk, by Charles de Lint.
I enjoy de Lint's book reviews in F&SF, but for some reason I've never found his books particularly compelling. The writing is quite competent, but his characters, although appealing, all seem to be cast from the same mold of good-hearted New-Agey urban bohemians, and I find the rather fuzzy mysticism that appears in most of the stories to be unconvincing. I enjoyed this one because of its setting in de Lint's hometown of Ottawa and the mountains and lakes of Gatineau Park. Even so, I couldn't figure out quite what was going on with Emma/Esmerelda's "split personality", and the mixture of native-American and European mythology never seemed to make sense.

Moonlight and Vines : a Newford collection, by Charles de Lint.
On the other hands, de Lint's short stories are consistently excellent. Perhaps I have a problem with my attention span. Or perhaps Jilly Coppercorn and company are best enjoyed in small doses.

A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
I enjoy Bujold's Vorkosigan books, even though I frequently suspect her of stacking the deck in favor of her physically-stunted but hyperintellectual protagonist. In this installment, Miles Vorkosigan-- after being burned in a number of cross-cultural romances -- sets his sights on matrimony with a young widow from his own planet. Unfortunately, sex-selective genetic engineering has caused a grievous lack of marriageable women in Barrayaran high society, and every other testosterone-soaked young blade in the relentlessly competitive capital city has the same idea. Meanwhile, the Emperor's controversial impending marriage is causing political chaos. And there is that slight problem of Miles being involved in the death of the lady's husband....

A Bookman's Fantasy : how science fiction became respectable / Twenty four essays by Fred Lerner
Many years ago, part of Mr. Lerner's essay on the possibilities of model railroads set in fictional worlds like Middle Earth, Lake Wobegon, or Islandia was quoted in a column in a model railroading magazine which I read and promptly mislaid. Finding that essay reprinted in its entireity was the most pleasant surprise I encountered in this slim collection from NESFA. There are plenty of other pleasant surprises: a proposed (but admittedly inadequate) system for classifying science-fiction, reflections on how libraries should respond to floods of newly-published material, commentaries on Heinlein and Lovecraft, the proposed charter of the Vermont Council on Tackiness, and a whimsical account of a day in the Commonwealth of John Myers Myers' Silverlock. Well worth seeking out for librarians, readers of fantasy & SF, and anyone else who loves books.

Meditations of a Great Lakes Sailor : a novel, by Stanley B. Graham
I picked this up because I was curious about the everyday lives of the men who live and work on the freighters that ply the Great Lakes. According to the preface, many of the characters and events in the book were closely based on the author's experiences during a summer working on just such a freighter. I got what I was looking for -- the descriptions of the ship's quarters and crew are convincing and detailed -- but it's also a good coming-of-age story. Even though the writing is a bit clumsy at times, the inherent interest of the story kept me forging onward as the protagonist encountered dangerous tasks, impossible physical demands, exhaustion, rough humor, petty backbiting, and the complications of shoreside relationships with women. And eventually, through the problems of a crewmate, found himself drawn involuntarily toward his eventual profession. Anyone who's considered ditching the academic or professional career track for a blue-collar job should read this book.

How did I get to be 40 & other atrocities, by Judith Viorst.
Slight but amusing free verse about the vicissitudes of marriage and family life, circa 1973. "Leonard the Liberated Husband" sticks in my mind more than the others.

Red Dwarf : infinity welcomes careful drivers, by Grant Naylor
Novelization of the famed British SF comedy. Like the show, it's funny and satirical, especially about the professional and hygeinic shortcomings of its protagonist, Lister. It also has some of the casual, Douglas Adams-inspired nihilism of the TV show, and follows that to its logical conclusion. I was surprised that the book's ending took this approach. I don't recall ever seeing the final episodes of the television show, so I don't know whether it concluded the same way.

My Mother's Body : poems by Marge Piercy
"The Good Go Down", "Your cats are your children", "Return of the prodigal darling", and "Why marry at all?" are standouts.

The Ordways, by William Humphrey
A Faulknerish treatment of the East Texas frontier, told through the experiences of one family.

Rockets, Redheads & Revolution, by James P. Hogan
A collection of essays, memories, and minor stories from a prolific SF writer, mostly humorous (as when he claims credit for destroying Communism at a total cost of $8.43) but occasionally deadly serious (as when he argues that accepted means of treating AIDS are wrongheaded.) Unfortunately, I don't remember many more details, although I did enjoy it. (Honest.)

What is this thing called love : poems, by Kim Addonizio
Addonizio seems to have put aside the sonnet-form that she occasionally used in her previous collection Tell Me, although she still uses traditional poetic forms more than many other modern poets. That's ironic, because her subject matter is anything but staid. She's still fascinated by sensuality, by sweaty bodies, gin glasses, loud music and self-destructive excess. Her poems are often sexual and occasionally vulgar, but she regularly hits emotional bullseyes. In this collection from 2004, she seems to be increasingly aware of the passage of time and its effect on human lives and bodies. In "Ex-Boyfriends",

...they're over
you now. One writes a book in which a woman

who sounds suspiciously like you
is the first to be sadistically dismembered
by a serial killer. They're getting married

and want you to be the first to know,
or they've been fired and need a loan,
their new girlfriend hates you,

and they say they don't miss you but show up
in your dreams, calling to you from the shoeboxes
where they're buried in rows in your basement....

From "31-Year-Old Lover":

... He stands naked in my bedroom and nothing
has harmed him yet, though he is going
to be harmed. He is going to have a gut one day,
and wiry gray hairs where the soft dark filaments
flow out of him, the cream of his skin is going
to loosen and separate slowly, over a low steady flame
and he has no idea, as I had no idea,
and I am not going to speak of this to him ever,
I am going to let him stretch out on my bed
so I can take the heavy richness of him in
and in, I am going to have it back the only way I can.

Is it one of our unacknowledged rites of passage to realize that songs and poems about young love and young lovers can no longer apply to oneself?

Shadow of a doubt, by William J. Coughlin
Noirish tale of a washed-up Detroit attorney who has one last chance at a high-profile murder case. The shocking revelation at the end of the trial is not so much of a shock now as it was when the book was published in 1991, but it's still a good read.

The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane.
This is one of those stories that I was supposed to have read in high school. I didn't, of course. I just picked up enough from the classroom discussions to fake my way through the exam. It's just as well; I probably wouldn't have appreciated the protagonist's talent for self-deception at that time.

The Kedrigern Chronicles, Vol. 1 and 2, by John Morressy
A pieced-together series of stories about the wizard Kedrigern of Silent Thunder Mountain. They were originally published separately in F&SF and (perhaps?) other magazines, and although this sometimes makes for rather disjointed transitions, they fit together reasonably coherently. It's pleasant to read, once in a while, about a fantasy-world hero who is cranky, opinionated, and stubborn, and whose greatest desire is to make a reasonable amount of money and be left in blessed peace in his idyllic mountain cottage. Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a story. Nor would it keep his beloved wife Princess happy. (She's flighty. Really. Has wings. Pretty ones, like a butterfly. When she's not been turned into a frog by some dastardly curse, that is.)

I've enjoyed the Kedrigern stories that I came across in F&SF, and this collection is enjoyable light reading.

The Castle of the Louvre, by Michel Fleury & Venceslas Kruta
A gift from Yam and S. after their late-2003 honeymoon trip to Paris. They know me well enough to know that I'd be more interested in a historical and archaeological dissection of a defunct castle than in a coffeetable book of paintings.

Nekropolis, by Maureen F. McHugh
Hariba, a young Muslim woman in a near-future version of Morocco, has been biochemically "jessed" to be a perfectly loyal, perfectly subservient houseslave. Akhmim is another valuable possession of the merchant who purchases her, an artificially-engineered man designed to be a perfectly skilled, perfectly amoral synthetic lover. What could possibly go wrong?

The Old Spanish Missions of California, by Hubert A. Lowman
A belated souveiner of my interview trip to southern California, found in a library discard sale here in Michigan.

The Calling of Bara, by Sheila Sullivan
Eh.

Star Soldiers, by Andre Norton.
Military space opera. Eh.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde.
I like the premise of Fforde's novels about Thursday Next, Literary Detective. And I enjoyed this book. However, I don't think it will become a part of my long term personal collection. The story's enjoyable and funny but I can't imagine wanting to read it again. It's like a sugar puff.

The Swordswoman, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
A disappointing novel about a woman swordfighter from Earth who is transported to a fantasy world where she has various & sundry adventures. It's disappointing because I've read the author's website and some of her posts to listservs, and I know she's capable of being much more witty and stinging than this. There are a few interesting ideas in the book, but they're rendered unpalatable by the clunky third-person prose. The rather stiff and amateurish illustrations don't help -- they're below par even for 1970s book club editions. Maybe she Did It For the Money.

Little, Big, by John Crowley.
I love the premise of this novel. I love stories about big, eccentric, mysterious houses with big, mysterious gardens and forests, and I love stories about whimsical and eccentric families, and I love stories about elusive creatures of myth co-existing with the modern world. Unfortunately, for some reason I simply could not stay focused on the slow-moving plot of this book. I'll set it aside to try again later.

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine
It's been said by several different people on several different listservs that many of the best fantasy books being published nowadays are in the young-adult market. This book supports that assertion. It's clever and thoughtful and funny. (For the uninitiated: At her birth, Ella was given the "gift of obedience" by an airheaded fairy. Consequently, she must follow any command, which causes grave complications when her mother dies and her father remarries a vicious woman with two equally vicious daughters, who order her to give them her possessions and do kitchen work like sweeping up cinders. Yes, she's *that* Cinder-Ella.) In a recent discussion on the FictionMags listserv, it was pointed out that a similar plot was used by a story published in the 1940's. It was also pointed out that the movie version was tacky and tasteless and vulgar, a view with which I must reluctantly concur.

Differing with Dr. Donne, by Neill Megaw
These two sonnets published in the online magazine The New Formalist demonstrate that the sonnet is still a useful poetic vehicle.

The Pendragon Banner, by Sylvia Hamilton
Another Christmas gift from 2004. I enjoyed the beginning of the book, with its description of the aging Queen Guinevere and of King Arthur's legendary war standard falling into the hands of Viking raiders. The rest of the book is a reasonably good medieval adventure/detective tale but doesn't sustain the same level of interest.

Down the Road, Worlds Away, by Rahila Khan
Stories of young Muslim women and thick-headed young English men both trying to survive and find some kind of satisfaction with their lives in modern Britain. Originally published as part of the Virago Upstarts series of young female writers. The publisher was embarrassed when "Rahila Khan" turned out to be the pseudonym of a male Anglican vicar, rather than an Indian or Pakistani woman. (As Theodore Dalrymple points out, it seems they might have noticed that all the stories about young men were written in the first person, while all the stories of the Indian and Pakistani women were written in third person.) The publisher's spiteful response -- destroying all unsold copies and refusing to reprint it -- makes the book hard to obtain. I had to get it by interlibrary loan and then photocopy it in order to have a copy to refer back to. It's worth the effort, mostly for the stories about the young women and their difficulties in dealing with the gaping chasm between traditional (and frequently repressive) families and the culture around them that offers freedom mixed with prejudice. "Bleeding Hearts", in which a young Muslim woman tries to find spirital solace -- a "god for women" -- in a Catholic chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is one of the most effective. One can't help but think that the author drew on personal experience in writing that story.

The Moffat Road, by Edward T. Bollinger and Frederick Bauer
The Denver and Salt Lake Railroad was one of the most exciting stories in western railroad history. It was born out of the desire of Denver merchants to have a direct route to the Pacific. All the other transcontinental railroads -- even Denver's own Denver & Rio Grande -- had dodged the Rocky Mountain's formidable Front Range that towered west of Denver. No matter. The D&SL (then known as the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific) attacked the mountains head-on, scrabbling its way up a route that most dismissed as impossible. It crossed the continental divide at more than 11,000 feet elevation with a hair-raising "temporary" route that strongly resembled a roller-coaster built by a deranged giant, and used some of the first articulated steam locomotives ever built to haul freight and passengers over that "temporary" route from 1905 until 1928, when it was finally able to reroute its traffic through the Moffat Tunnel and avoid the worst of the mountain grades and winter snowfall. Meanwhile, its founder fell victim to financial ruin; speculators looted the public purse through contemporary versions of public-private partnerships; and the railroad eventually came under the control of its archrival the Denver & Rio Grande, which finally gave it a western connection for through traffic. A great railroad story, with plenty of atmospheric black-and-white photographs. I would have appreciated a more complete and better-organized set of maps, though.

Fiddle Hill, by James McCague
This story seems to have been inspired by the tales of the D&SL's terror-inducing "temporary" line over Rollins Pass. The fictional Fiddle Hill of the title is the most mountainous section of a transcontinental railroad, which has lately been rendered superflous by the construction of a tunnel that bypasses its stiff grades and a corporate merger that routes traffic away from it. The novel has an elegiac feeling and a smoky, atmospheric setting. The author has a feel for the ponderous, bulky gravitas of the articulated steam locomotives that trod such mountain paths, and for the stoic determination of the men who piloted them, forever vigilant against the dangers of runaway trains and wild weather. If his feel for the internal lives of the female characters is somewhat less sure, well, that goes with the territory.

The Black Diamonds, by Clark Ashton Smith
A curiosity. Smith wrote this Arabian-nights-influenced novel when he was a precocious teenager. It was never published during his lifetime. In truth, it's really not that good a novel. It's good for a teenager, but anyone other than the CAS completist needn't bother seeking it out.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling

Casa Loma : Toronto's Fairy Tale Castle and its owner, Sir Henry Pellatt, by Bill Freeman
I do enjoy some coffee-table books.

The God File, by Frank Turner Hollon.

Late addition: Enlightenment and Jigsaw, by Douglas Smith. These two chapbooks -- "For your consideration for the Aurora Awards" -- were handed out at the SF miniconference that Fiend & I attended in Sarnia earlier in the year. They're both built around the old-fashioned SFnal motif of the protagonist solving a problem. In Enlightenment, the population of a colonized world refuses to explain the purpose of its strange sculptural constructions, even under threat of death. Until the colonizers force their hand by threatening something *really* important.... I enjoyed the story but found the ending unconvincing. That's the problem with stories about enlightenment. Unless the author really is a bodhisattva, it's impossible to describe it. Jigsaw was a more satisfying story, possibly because it aims lower (both literally and metaphysically). It's an old-fashioned problem-solving exercise in story form. There's one rather embarassing engineering blunder in the story, involving a power failure on a spaceship:

The ship lurched again, and the light from the glowing walls blinked out. People screamed. Cassie stumbled and fell. And kept falling, waiting for the impact against the floor that never came, until she realized what had happened.

"The ring's stopped rotating," she thought. "We've lost artificial gravity."

She floated in darkness for maybe thirty minutes, bumping into others, surrounded by whispers, shouts, and sobbing. Suddenly, the lights flicked back on. Cassie felt gravity returning like an invisible hand tugging at her guts, followed by a sudden heaviness in her limbs....

Just why this is a blunder is left as an exercise for the interested reader. The main puzzle-problem in the story is better thought out, though. I enjoyed it. Sadly, though, I would not have been eligible to nominate the story for the Aurora Awards even if I had read it before the deadline and felt inclined to do so.

Th-th-that's all, folks. Next up: a scintillating account of my annual Christmas trip and associated reading. Also, a belated New Year's post. (Yay.)

Been there, done that....

From DCBiblioGoddess, via the Library Underground listserv:

Date: Fri, Dec 16 2005 8:00am
From: "DCBiblioGoddess"

Please don't give them any more ideas for shit to tack on to job requirements for librarian positions paying $30K a year. I can see it now:

Reference Librarian opening at Lackamoney Univ. Required for the position: a master's degree from an ALA-accredited institution. Five years' experience in an academic library with absolutely no support from faculty or the administration. A second master's degree in an esoteric liberal arts topic. Fluency in Olde Mongolian and German. Practical experience with spinning straw into gold. Ability to work 15-hour days. Commercial driver's license and three years' experience driving 18-wheelers.