Does the Emperor of Information Literacy have no clothes?
If I thought there were the smallest snowball's chance in hell that I would be able to go to the ACRL conference in New Orleans this summer, I would be interested in this debate. Perhaps someone with some professional-development support can fill me in. (Carlos?)
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Recent Read:
Califia's Daughters, by Leigh Richards
I admit it. I'm a sucker for postapocalyptic novels. Earth Abides; Alas Babylon; On the Beach; great stories all. Perhaps it's because I enjoy seeing how the characters overcome the difficulties of surviving in a world turned hostile, or how they try to preserve some semblance of civilization in the fact of savagery. Perhaps it's because I feel a kind of sentimental self-pity at seeing the great work of human society come to nothing. Or perhaps it's because I have some kind of mean-spirited resentment of most of the human race and would just as soon most of them went away and left the earth in the possession of a few surviving decent and intelligent people.
In Califia's Daughters, the wreck of the world has occurred many years ago, and the characters in the story are several generations into the process of survival and recovery. Nearly all of them are female, like the mythical Amazonian queen to which the title refers. One of the plagues that wrecked the world of "Before" was a virus which selectively wiped out men, leaving a ratio of ten or more women for every surviving man. Now in some puerile imaginations, this might create a world in which every man had a harem. Richards is more pragmatic than that. In her story, the women have taken over the functions of life and society, and the surviving men are relegated to the role of property to be carefully managed and hoarded. If they're lucky, they're cherished and guarded like prized breeding stock. If not, they're imprisoned and treated as slaves.
Both the author and her characters do good jobs of world-building. The world resented by the author is believable, and devoid of silly utopian theories about women being somehow morally superior to their male counterparts. The women in Califia's Daughters cover the full spectrum of human character from generous to ferociously greedy, from kindhearted to sadistic.
Recommended, especially for anyone who enjoyed any of the books I mentioned in the first paragraph.
Califia's Daughters, by Leigh Richards
I admit it. I'm a sucker for postapocalyptic novels. Earth Abides; Alas Babylon; On the Beach; great stories all. Perhaps it's because I enjoy seeing how the characters overcome the difficulties of surviving in a world turned hostile, or how they try to preserve some semblance of civilization in the fact of savagery. Perhaps it's because I feel a kind of sentimental self-pity at seeing the great work of human society come to nothing. Or perhaps it's because I have some kind of mean-spirited resentment of most of the human race and would just as soon most of them went away and left the earth in the possession of a few surviving decent and intelligent people.
In Califia's Daughters, the wreck of the world has occurred many years ago, and the characters in the story are several generations into the process of survival and recovery. Nearly all of them are female, like the mythical Amazonian queen to which the title refers. One of the plagues that wrecked the world of "Before" was a virus which selectively wiped out men, leaving a ratio of ten or more women for every surviving man. Now in some puerile imaginations, this might create a world in which every man had a harem. Richards is more pragmatic than that. In her story, the women have taken over the functions of life and society, and the surviving men are relegated to the role of property to be carefully managed and hoarded. If they're lucky, they're cherished and guarded like prized breeding stock. If not, they're imprisoned and treated as slaves.
Both the author and her characters do good jobs of world-building. The world resented by the author is believable, and devoid of silly utopian theories about women being somehow morally superior to their male counterparts. The women in Califia's Daughters cover the full spectrum of human character from generous to ferociously greedy, from kindhearted to sadistic.
Recommended, especially for anyone who enjoyed any of the books I mentioned in the first paragraph.
More losses to F/SF
John Moressey, best known for the chronicles of Kedrigern the cranky wizard.
And Jane Yolen's husband.
John Moressey, best known for the chronicles of Kedrigern the cranky wizard.
And Jane Yolen's husband.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
David Feintuch
Over and over again, I find out about good authors who live just down the road from me only after they've died. The latest one is David Feintuch, best known for his science-fictional series about Nicholas Seafort, a spacefaring naval officer.
Over and over again, I find out about good authors who live just down the road from me only after they've died. The latest one is David Feintuch, best known for his science-fictional series about Nicholas Seafort, a spacefaring naval officer.
Misplaced Priorities (again)
There's been much blood and thunder (not to mention thud and blunder) from the Bush Administration about the supposed need for the President and his minions to have unrestrained "unitary executive" power to spy on everybody, all the time. It's to fight the terra-ists, ya know.
Well. What kind of terra-ists are they fighting?
The Quakers.... the Raging Grannies... and, most recently, the Thomas Merton Center, a Catholic group that seeks to honor the life and spirit of its namesake by promoting peace.
Ya gotta watch out for them pacifists. They're a grave threat to... well, something or other.
There's been much blood and thunder (not to mention thud and blunder) from the Bush Administration about the supposed need for the President and his minions to have unrestrained "unitary executive" power to spy on everybody, all the time. It's to fight the terra-ists, ya know.
Well. What kind of terra-ists are they fighting?
The Quakers.... the Raging Grannies... and, most recently, the Thomas Merton Center, a Catholic group that seeks to honor the life and spirit of its namesake by promoting peace.
Ya gotta watch out for them pacifists. They're a grave threat to... well, something or other.
Words of Wisdom
Reference librarians at any library that offers any kind of computer access to the general public are constantly bombarded with the need to help out people who are completely clueless about computers. Phil Agre, of the UCLA Dept. of Information Studies, offers some useful reminders about how to help such people.
"Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer...."
Why, that's almost as cynical and useful as blaming everything on the great god Policy! But, speaking pragmatically, it is good advice, especially considering the befuddling and nonintuitive way that most user interfaces are organized.
Reference librarians at any library that offers any kind of computer access to the general public are constantly bombarded with the need to help out people who are completely clueless about computers. Phil Agre, of the UCLA Dept. of Information Studies, offers some useful reminders about how to help such people.
"Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer...."
Why, that's almost as cynical and useful as blaming everything on the great god Policy! But, speaking pragmatically, it is good advice, especially considering the befuddling and nonintuitive way that most user interfaces are organized.
News from inside the Bush Reality-Distortion Bubble:
From the BBC: Bush denies that Iraq is in civil war.
In other news, President Bush declared that Up is Down, Straight Ahead is Sideways, and his economic policy involved hiring illegal aliens to pick money off of trees.
From the BBC: Bush denies that Iraq is in civil war.
In other news, President Bush declared that Up is Down, Straight Ahead is Sideways, and his economic policy involved hiring illegal aliens to pick money off of trees.
Billions for Halliburton, but not one cent for....
FBI can't afford e'mail accounts for its agents
Does this mean that someone with a Hotmail account who claims to be an FBI agent might be telling the truth?
Now a reasonable person, faced with a serious cash shortage, would look for ways to increase their cashflow. Unfortunately, the Bush administration just can't seem to find the time to collect the $35 billion that is owed to the nation by their corporate cronies.
Just one more case of the Bush administration's priorities in action. Effective terrorism-fighting on the one hand; handouts to corporate cronies on the other hand. No contest.
"Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." -- George W. Bush
FBI can't afford e'mail accounts for its agents
Does this mean that someone with a Hotmail account who claims to be an FBI agent might be telling the truth?
Now a reasonable person, faced with a serious cash shortage, would look for ways to increase their cashflow. Unfortunately, the Bush administration just can't seem to find the time to collect the $35 billion that is owed to the nation by their corporate cronies.
Just one more case of the Bush administration's priorities in action. Effective terrorism-fighting on the one hand; handouts to corporate cronies on the other hand. No contest.
"Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." -- George W. Bush
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Random updates
It's been busy in Felix's World lately. For anybody who's fallen out of the loop and still remembered to check this obscure little blog, I'm still living in southeastern Michigan and working two jobs, at places I choose to call Suburban Public Library and Busy Bee College, neither one of which is willing to staff its library with full time professionals.
I recently returned from a perfectly lovely trip to the Great White North, where Fiend and I managed to go cross-country skiing without inflicting any self-injuries graver that bruised dignities.
Tomorrow I'm headed off to a symposium at the University of Michigan which I hope will cast some light on the perplexing world of mass digitization projects such as the ones that Google and Yahoo have famously undertaken. After which I'll abscond across the border like a 1920s bootlegger goin' back for more of what keeps him goin'.
It's been busy in Felix's World lately. For anybody who's fallen out of the loop and still remembered to check this obscure little blog, I'm still living in southeastern Michigan and working two jobs, at places I choose to call Suburban Public Library and Busy Bee College, neither one of which is willing to staff its library with full time professionals.
I recently returned from a perfectly lovely trip to the Great White North, where Fiend and I managed to go cross-country skiing without inflicting any self-injuries graver that bruised dignities.
Tomorrow I'm headed off to a symposium at the University of Michigan which I hope will cast some light on the perplexing world of mass digitization projects such as the ones that Google and Yahoo have famously undertaken. After which I'll abscond across the border like a 1920s bootlegger goin' back for more of what keeps him goin'.
I'm a published ... indexer.
Today marks my first contribution to Bill Contento's and Phil Stephenson-Payne's admirable FictionMags Index. Now perhaps all those old issues of Railroad Magazine that clutter up my humble abode will become useful.
Today marks my first contribution to Bill Contento's and Phil Stephenson-Payne's admirable FictionMags Index. Now perhaps all those old issues of Railroad Magazine that clutter up my humble abode will become useful.
Over the Transom
Miscellaneous news stories that have caught my attention lately:
Phyllis Chesler discusses The Failure of Feminism in a Chronicle excerpt from her recent book.
The title of this upcoming action movie is about as straightforward as they come: Snakes on a Plane. I guarantee you, people will still ask what it's about.
Meanwhile, Canadian customs officials are warned by this CBC story: "[A]nyone who handles imported goods should call the authorities if they spot anything slithery."
Crunchy Cons, a book-length followup by Rod Dreher to an earlier article in National Review, seems to be arousing some discussion both on the NRO website and from local blogger Dave of Suds & Soliloquies. I'm not going to comment until I get a chance to read the book, but it seems likely that I'll find something to agree with.
Jonah Goldberg, naturally, wants to excommunicate Dreher from the One True Church... er, I mean, the Bushite Republican party.
Miscellaneous news stories that have caught my attention lately:
Phyllis Chesler discusses The Failure of Feminism in a Chronicle excerpt from her recent book.
Because feminist academics and journalists are now so heavily influenced by left ways of thinking, many now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils, the chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female genital mutilation is either "imperialist" or "crusade-ist." Postmodernist ways of thinking have also led feminists to believe that confronting narratives on the academic page is as important and world-shattering as confronting jihadists in the flesh and rescuing living beings from captivity....
The title of this upcoming action movie is about as straightforward as they come: Snakes on a Plane. I guarantee you, people will still ask what it's about.
Meanwhile, Canadian customs officials are warned by this CBC story: "[A]nyone who handles imported goods should call the authorities if they spot anything slithery."
Crunchy Cons, a book-length followup by Rod Dreher to an earlier article in National Review, seems to be arousing some discussion both on the NRO website and from local blogger Dave of Suds & Soliloquies. I'm not going to comment until I get a chance to read the book, but it seems likely that I'll find something to agree with.
Jonah Goldberg, naturally, wants to excommunicate Dreher from the One True Church... er, I mean, the Bushite Republican party.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Huzzah for Mad Science!
Avigon : Gods and Demons, by Che Gilson and Jimmie Robinson. Several years ago, I browsed through a comic book store in a suburb of North Dallas. I was looking for the hardbound collections of Will Eisner's The Spirit which had recently been reviewed in library trade journals, but something else caught my eye while I was there. It was a slim, dark graphic novel titled Avigon, by Che Gilson and Jimmie Robinson. The style of the artwork was unique and strange, with a kind of surreally playful Gothic style to it. (Robinson, in an afterword, refers to the style of the book as "the Tim Burton thing".) More importantly, the story was considerably more subtle and morally complex than one usually finds in this type of publication. When I looked for further information on the web, I found reference to an upcoming expanded version of Avigon's tale, to be published under the title Avigon : Gods and Demons.
I waited for it. And waited. And then waited some more. At one point I even looked up the telephone number of the publisher and called them. No information.
Finally, in 2005, the expanded book appeared. I have some mixed reactions to it, but I'm glad that I can enjoy it and try to get it into a library or two for other people to enjoy.
The titular character, Avigon, is a "clockwork" -- a mechanical being who possesses no rights, but does possess the ability to think. She also possesses the ability to wonder why she has no rights and whether she would be better off escaping from her circumscribed life in the mansion of her creator, the serenely egotistical "clockworker" Pulsifer. Outside the doors of that mansion lies a world of baronial indulgence for the privileged aristocrats, of Machiavellian patronage-games for the most skilled artisans, and industrial chaos for everyone else. A world in which "clockworks" are treated as disposable chattels, the lowest of the low, who can be used and degraded shamelessly or set to destroy each other in gladiatorial combats for the amusement of their "betters". After all, they have no feelings and no souls. Or that's what all the authorities say, anyway.
I won't reveal the twists and turns of Avigon's tale, nor the outcome of her curiosity. But it's an intriguing and atmospheric tale with a number of surprising twists in it. The original publication of Avigon left the story hanging after a critical moment in Avigon's quest, a bitter disappointment that left everything about her nature and her future in doubt. The expanded version provides both more background and a continuation of her tale that leads to a resolution of sorts. It's something of a disquieting resolution, but it can be read as a kind of redemption.
Disquietude notwithstanding, it's highly recommended for anyone who enjoys atmospheric, moody graphic novels.
Girl Genius : Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank (A Gaslamp Fantasy with Adventure, Romance & Mad Science, by Phil & Kaja Foglio).
Poor Agatha Clay. She's a poor student, in both senses of the word, at Transylvania Polygnostic University. The University's motto -- "Know Enough to Be Afraid" -- suggests that its curriculum involves something more menacing than calculus and Renaissance poetry. That suggestion is right, for Agatha lives in a world ruled by Mad Science, in the person of eccentric and megalomaniac inventors possessed of "the Spark", or the ability to create robotic creatures called "clanks".
Old-time readers of Dragon magazine will no doubt remember Phil Foglio's long-running cartoon feature, What's New with Phil & Dixie. Since leaving Dragon, it appears that Foglio has worked a spell doing similar cartoons for the company that produced Magic : The Gathering, done covers for books, and embarked upon several comic and graphic-novel ventures. One of those ventures -- the "Xxxenophile" series -- appears to be, shall we say, a Very Graphic Novel indeed.
Happily, the Girl Genius graphic novel series doesn't fit that definition. It's an enjoyable and adventurous romp through a strange, steampunk-ish world in which the grim reality of murderous realpolitik mingles with the bizarre whimsy that characterizes all of Foglio's work. Agatha, of course, is more than she appears to be, and the conclusion of the first volume points toward all kinds of interesting complications. I'm looking forward to the subsequent volumes.
Recommended for anyone who enjoys whimsical adventures.
Avigon : Gods and Demons, by Che Gilson and Jimmie Robinson. Several years ago, I browsed through a comic book store in a suburb of North Dallas. I was looking for the hardbound collections of Will Eisner's The Spirit which had recently been reviewed in library trade journals, but something else caught my eye while I was there. It was a slim, dark graphic novel titled Avigon, by Che Gilson and Jimmie Robinson. The style of the artwork was unique and strange, with a kind of surreally playful Gothic style to it. (Robinson, in an afterword, refers to the style of the book as "the Tim Burton thing".) More importantly, the story was considerably more subtle and morally complex than one usually finds in this type of publication. When I looked for further information on the web, I found reference to an upcoming expanded version of Avigon's tale, to be published under the title Avigon : Gods and Demons.
I waited for it. And waited. And then waited some more. At one point I even looked up the telephone number of the publisher and called them. No information.
Finally, in 2005, the expanded book appeared. I have some mixed reactions to it, but I'm glad that I can enjoy it and try to get it into a library or two for other people to enjoy.
The titular character, Avigon, is a "clockwork" -- a mechanical being who possesses no rights, but does possess the ability to think. She also possesses the ability to wonder why she has no rights and whether she would be better off escaping from her circumscribed life in the mansion of her creator, the serenely egotistical "clockworker" Pulsifer. Outside the doors of that mansion lies a world of baronial indulgence for the privileged aristocrats, of Machiavellian patronage-games for the most skilled artisans, and industrial chaos for everyone else. A world in which "clockworks" are treated as disposable chattels, the lowest of the low, who can be used and degraded shamelessly or set to destroy each other in gladiatorial combats for the amusement of their "betters". After all, they have no feelings and no souls. Or that's what all the authorities say, anyway.
I won't reveal the twists and turns of Avigon's tale, nor the outcome of her curiosity. But it's an intriguing and atmospheric tale with a number of surprising twists in it. The original publication of Avigon left the story hanging after a critical moment in Avigon's quest, a bitter disappointment that left everything about her nature and her future in doubt. The expanded version provides both more background and a continuation of her tale that leads to a resolution of sorts. It's something of a disquieting resolution, but it can be read as a kind of redemption.
Disquietude notwithstanding, it's highly recommended for anyone who enjoys atmospheric, moody graphic novels.
Girl Genius : Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank (A Gaslamp Fantasy with Adventure, Romance & Mad Science, by Phil & Kaja Foglio).
Poor Agatha Clay. She's a poor student, in both senses of the word, at Transylvania Polygnostic University. The University's motto -- "Know Enough to Be Afraid" -- suggests that its curriculum involves something more menacing than calculus and Renaissance poetry. That suggestion is right, for Agatha lives in a world ruled by Mad Science, in the person of eccentric and megalomaniac inventors possessed of "the Spark", or the ability to create robotic creatures called "clanks".
Old-time readers of Dragon magazine will no doubt remember Phil Foglio's long-running cartoon feature, What's New with Phil & Dixie. Since leaving Dragon, it appears that Foglio has worked a spell doing similar cartoons for the company that produced Magic : The Gathering, done covers for books, and embarked upon several comic and graphic-novel ventures. One of those ventures -- the "Xxxenophile" series -- appears to be, shall we say, a Very Graphic Novel indeed.
Happily, the Girl Genius graphic novel series doesn't fit that definition. It's an enjoyable and adventurous romp through a strange, steampunk-ish world in which the grim reality of murderous realpolitik mingles with the bizarre whimsy that characterizes all of Foglio's work. Agatha, of course, is more than she appears to be, and the conclusion of the first volume points toward all kinds of interesting complications. I'm looking forward to the subsequent volumes.
Recommended for anyone who enjoys whimsical adventures.
Monday, March 06, 2006
You can't take the sky from me
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?
Shiny. Thanks to the Itinerant Librarian for the link.
You scored as Serenity (Firefly).
You like to live your own way and don’t enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you.
Serenity (Firefly) 88%
FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 69%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 69%
Enterprise D (Star Trek) 69%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 63%
Moya (Farscape) 63%
SG-1 (Stargate) 56%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 3%
Thursday, March 02, 2006
The Future Is Now
If anyone wants to outfit their apartment to resemble 10-Forward, give this guy a call. Better do it quickly, though. An unconfirmed listserv report indicated that his interior-design company has declared bankruptcy and the STNG-themed flat is up for sale.
If anyone wants to outfit their apartment to resemble 10-Forward, give this guy a call. Better do it quickly, though. An unconfirmed listserv report indicated that his interior-design company has declared bankruptcy and the STNG-themed flat is up for sale.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Censorship and censorship
There's been much discussion in the news and on the web about the famous/infamous Danish cartoons and the mob violence of fanatical Islamists who demand worldwide censorship powers over them and all other publications in all nations everywhere in the world.
Whether the cartoons are any good, in terms of artistic or humorous merit, is entirely beside the point. The demands for censorship, and the mob violence, are the only political issues here. There are several theories about the reason for these riots.
One: Muslims (or at least the ones involved in rioting or instigating riots) believe that they have the right to censor any idea, anywhere, that they dislike because Muslims are divinely ordained to rule the world. It goes without saying that anyone who wishes to live in any other type of society than a Taliban-style theocracy must categorically reject such demands just as they must reject similar claims coming from self-styled "Christian" theocrats and all other would-be absolute dictators.
Two: Radical Islamist imams and cynical politicos in Islamic countries have deliberately whipped up a demagogic frenzy in order to promote themselves and keep the attention of the discontented mob focused on something other than the dismal social, intellectual and economic failures of Islamist societies. As Eric Hoffer argued in the True Believer, mass movements can arise without belief in God, but never without a belief in a Devil. Hatred is a great unifier. "And slime had they for mortar...."
Three: The Islamist mindset is simply incapable of understanding the concept of intellectual freedom. Like the dogmatic Marxists of the twentieth century or the Inquisitors of the medieval Christian church, they can see only whether a particular publication is useful to their party or not, and assume that anything that is published must represent the political agenda of some kind of ruling class. This theory is supported by the actions of Islamic governments in condemning the Danish government. They appear to be completely ignorant of the possibility that anything could be published which does not represent the views of the government in power. Islam's historical insistence on religious control of government, like the old-style Communist insistence on the worship of the Party to the exclusion of all other religions, may create a mindset which is simply incapable of understanding that freedom can exist in other cultures. (Those who wish to apply this dismal analysis to the Bush Administration's foreign policy are free to do so, but that's just too depressing for me to address at the moment.)
Those who know me will not be surprised that I'm no more inclined to give Islamist demagogues veto power over my mind, or anyone else's mind, than I'm inclined to give such power to purportedly "Christian" demagogues or to secular censors.
Quite simply, a civilized society that wishes to have any intellectual freedom or tolerance of any kind cannot afford to surrender to thuggery. Rewarding thuggery leads to more of the same. And more. And more. And more. If fanatical Islamists can successfully silence newspapers or cartoonists by threatening mob violence, why shouldn't fanatical "Christian" fundamentalists do the same? Or fanatical devotees of any other sect or political faction? Or, for that matter, political parties or business corporations that find certain facts or ideas to be contrary to their interests? After all, they'll be left behind in the war for absolute supremacy if they fail to use every weapon at their disposal.
This is not a hypothetical question. There are any number of individuals and groups that would happily use such power to intimidate and silence others. Consider the Eric Rudolphs of the world, as well as the Osama Bin Ladens. Consider all the potential Unabomers and EarthFirsters and Operation Rescue-ers and Weathermen and Timothy McVeighs and Fred Phelpses out there.
Does anyone, other than bloodthirsty fanatics and would-be dictators, really want a society in which anyone who threatens to incite violence is rewarded with the power of censorship? A world in which the most violent fanatics set the rules for everybody else?
It's freedom, or censorship. A pretty simple choice. The only real question is whether the civilized part of the world has the guts to stand up to the fanatics who demand censorship of all thoughts other than their own.
Meanwhile, in Austria....
Unfortunately, it's not only would-be Islamist censors that have made the news lately. Consider David Irving, who was recently sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison for stating in 1989 that the Nazis did not murder Jews at Auschwitz. (Note: Irving has since changed his position, according to the current version of Wikipedia's entry about him. He apparently continues to claim that the Holocaust was exaggerated. He's widely regarded as a racist loon, although some more generous interpreters think he just wants attention.)
Censorship of dingbat conspiracy theories is just as misguided as censorship based on religious fanaticism. Worse, it gives ammunition to the slippery-tongued apologists for Islamist demagoguery, who argue that European censorship of Holocaust-deniers justifes Islamist censorship of anything and everything else.
A bad show all 'round, except for the saving grace that European governments have, so far, refused to cave in to the would-be Islamist bullies. Let's hope that Europe someday manages to embrace intellectual freedom consistently. Letting the loons have their say, and be openly debunked, is healthier than letting them fester in secret and cultivate an insular, self-referential sense of apocalyptic, "righteous" martyrdom.
Another flavor of censorship
... may be on its way to your Internet connection if your freindly telecom conglomerates get their way and eradicate the principle of "net neutrality". It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Will the telecom conglomerates succeed in holding Internet content hostage for ransom payments? Will the mega-corporations succeed in using a pay-for-play Internet to block everybody else's content but their own? Wait and see. Or not, if you're so inclined.
There's been much discussion in the news and on the web about the famous/infamous Danish cartoons and the mob violence of fanatical Islamists who demand worldwide censorship powers over them and all other publications in all nations everywhere in the world.
Whether the cartoons are any good, in terms of artistic or humorous merit, is entirely beside the point. The demands for censorship, and the mob violence, are the only political issues here. There are several theories about the reason for these riots.
One: Muslims (or at least the ones involved in rioting or instigating riots) believe that they have the right to censor any idea, anywhere, that they dislike because Muslims are divinely ordained to rule the world. It goes without saying that anyone who wishes to live in any other type of society than a Taliban-style theocracy must categorically reject such demands just as they must reject similar claims coming from self-styled "Christian" theocrats and all other would-be absolute dictators.
Two: Radical Islamist imams and cynical politicos in Islamic countries have deliberately whipped up a demagogic frenzy in order to promote themselves and keep the attention of the discontented mob focused on something other than the dismal social, intellectual and economic failures of Islamist societies. As Eric Hoffer argued in the True Believer, mass movements can arise without belief in God, but never without a belief in a Devil. Hatred is a great unifier. "And slime had they for mortar...."
Three: The Islamist mindset is simply incapable of understanding the concept of intellectual freedom. Like the dogmatic Marxists of the twentieth century or the Inquisitors of the medieval Christian church, they can see only whether a particular publication is useful to their party or not, and assume that anything that is published must represent the political agenda of some kind of ruling class. This theory is supported by the actions of Islamic governments in condemning the Danish government. They appear to be completely ignorant of the possibility that anything could be published which does not represent the views of the government in power. Islam's historical insistence on religious control of government, like the old-style Communist insistence on the worship of the Party to the exclusion of all other religions, may create a mindset which is simply incapable of understanding that freedom can exist in other cultures. (Those who wish to apply this dismal analysis to the Bush Administration's foreign policy are free to do so, but that's just too depressing for me to address at the moment.)
Those who know me will not be surprised that I'm no more inclined to give Islamist demagogues veto power over my mind, or anyone else's mind, than I'm inclined to give such power to purportedly "Christian" demagogues or to secular censors.
Quite simply, a civilized society that wishes to have any intellectual freedom or tolerance of any kind cannot afford to surrender to thuggery. Rewarding thuggery leads to more of the same. And more. And more. And more. If fanatical Islamists can successfully silence newspapers or cartoonists by threatening mob violence, why shouldn't fanatical "Christian" fundamentalists do the same? Or fanatical devotees of any other sect or political faction? Or, for that matter, political parties or business corporations that find certain facts or ideas to be contrary to their interests? After all, they'll be left behind in the war for absolute supremacy if they fail to use every weapon at their disposal.
This is not a hypothetical question. There are any number of individuals and groups that would happily use such power to intimidate and silence others. Consider the Eric Rudolphs of the world, as well as the Osama Bin Ladens. Consider all the potential Unabomers and EarthFirsters and Operation Rescue-ers and Weathermen and Timothy McVeighs and Fred Phelpses out there.
Does anyone, other than bloodthirsty fanatics and would-be dictators, really want a society in which anyone who threatens to incite violence is rewarded with the power of censorship? A world in which the most violent fanatics set the rules for everybody else?
It's freedom, or censorship. A pretty simple choice. The only real question is whether the civilized part of the world has the guts to stand up to the fanatics who demand censorship of all thoughts other than their own.
Meanwhile, in Austria....
Unfortunately, it's not only would-be Islamist censors that have made the news lately. Consider David Irving, who was recently sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison for stating in 1989 that the Nazis did not murder Jews at Auschwitz. (Note: Irving has since changed his position, according to the current version of Wikipedia's entry about him. He apparently continues to claim that the Holocaust was exaggerated. He's widely regarded as a racist loon, although some more generous interpreters think he just wants attention.)
Censorship of dingbat conspiracy theories is just as misguided as censorship based on religious fanaticism. Worse, it gives ammunition to the slippery-tongued apologists for Islamist demagoguery, who argue that European censorship of Holocaust-deniers justifes Islamist censorship of anything and everything else.
A bad show all 'round, except for the saving grace that European governments have, so far, refused to cave in to the would-be Islamist bullies. Let's hope that Europe someday manages to embrace intellectual freedom consistently. Letting the loons have their say, and be openly debunked, is healthier than letting them fester in secret and cultivate an insular, self-referential sense of apocalyptic, "righteous" martyrdom.
Another flavor of censorship
... may be on its way to your Internet connection if your freindly telecom conglomerates get their way and eradicate the principle of "net neutrality". It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Will the telecom conglomerates succeed in holding Internet content hostage for ransom payments? Will the mega-corporations succeed in using a pay-for-play Internet to block everybody else's content but their own? Wait and see. Or not, if you're so inclined.
RefGrunting in retrospect
I was going to RefGrunt this morning at Suburban Public Library. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to sit down.
So far, in the first hour, we have:
8 requests for "temporary" internet passes
1 tax question
1 inquiry about a library program
1 relatively quick reference question ("how do birds fly?")
1 extensive reference question ("looking for average home heating costs for this county")
1 person who couldn't figure out how the printing system worked
1 person who first asked for an internet pass in the mistaken belief that the internet terminals were the only library catalog access
1 "where are the bathrooms"
2 complaints from library timesheet clerk who is processing last week's timesheets and objects to me working during hours when she thinks all decent people should be asleep
1 request for local newspaper's classified ads
Too much work to do to keep RefGrunting, unfortunately, so that will have to serve as a snapshot of my life.
I was going to RefGrunt this morning at Suburban Public Library. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to sit down.
So far, in the first hour, we have:
8 requests for "temporary" internet passes
1 tax question
1 inquiry about a library program
1 relatively quick reference question ("how do birds fly?")
1 extensive reference question ("looking for average home heating costs for this county")
1 person who couldn't figure out how the printing system worked
1 person who first asked for an internet pass in the mistaken belief that the internet terminals were the only library catalog access
1 "where are the bathrooms"
2 complaints from library timesheet clerk who is processing last week's timesheets and objects to me working during hours when she thinks all decent people should be asleep
1 request for local newspaper's classified ads
Too much work to do to keep RefGrunting, unfortunately, so that will have to serve as a snapshot of my life.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Utterly corrupt
So here's how arrogant and utterly corrupt the Republican party is. They've appointed indicted crook Tom Delay to control the ongoing investigation of himself.
No kidding.
Bill Moyers has more, as usual. I'm a bit dubious of his proposed solution, but he does an unparallelled job of describing the current situation.
So here's how arrogant and utterly corrupt the Republican party is. They've appointed indicted crook Tom Delay to control the ongoing investigation of himself.
No kidding.
Bill Moyers has more, as usual. I'm a bit dubious of his proposed solution, but he does an unparallelled job of describing the current situation.
Don't like the facts? Just classify them!
To no one's particular surprise, the Bush administration has been secretly re-classifying thousands of documents previously released, declassified and even published by prevous administrations.
Thanks to Library Underground and to Louise, who supplies more detail in her blog.
The fundamental difficulty that the Bush Administration seems to have with these documents is that they represent politically-relevant information which is not subject to dictatorial censorship and spin-doctoring. And that's something that would-be dictators just can't tolerate.
I wonder -- will they be confiscating the published volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States from the nations' libraries?
To no one's particular surprise, the Bush administration has been secretly re-classifying thousands of documents previously released, declassified and even published by prevous administrations.
Mr. Aid [a historian] was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous contents of the documents — mostly decades-old State Department reports from the Korean War and the early cold war. He found that eight reclassified documents had been previously published in the State Department's history series, "Foreign Relations of the United States."....I guess that's one way to avoid embarrassing factual revelations. Just classify them. Except, of course, for the identities of intelligence agents whose spouses who fail to parrot the company line.
While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago.
Thanks to Library Underground and to Louise, who supplies more detail in her blog.
The fundamental difficulty that the Bush Administration seems to have with these documents is that they represent politically-relevant information which is not subject to dictatorial censorship and spin-doctoring. And that's something that would-be dictators just can't tolerate.
I wonder -- will they be confiscating the published volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States from the nations' libraries?
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Look out, there are bloggas!
The Laughing Librarian supplies a musical tribute to library "bloggas". It's... it's... it's....
The Blogga Song!
Enjoy on a computer that has sound enabled.
The Laughing Librarian supplies a musical tribute to library "bloggas". It's... it's... it's....
The Blogga Song!
Enjoy on a computer that has sound enabled.
A book I haven't read
Since I can't find time to blog about books I have read, logically I should blog about books I haven't read.
Prayers for the Assassin, as described in this CNN story, sounds like a potentially interesting what-if story. Apparently taking a cue from Max Barry, the author has set up not only a website to support sales & discussion of the book, but a "news channel" for stories and an upcoming "election" set in his version of the year 2040, in which the former United States is split between Islamic and Christian theocracies.
Oh, and speaking of Max Barry, it looks like he snuck out another book while I wasn't looking. Anybody read it?
Since I can't find time to blog about books I have read, logically I should blog about books I haven't read.
Prayers for the Assassin, as described in this CNN story, sounds like a potentially interesting what-if story. Apparently taking a cue from Max Barry, the author has set up not only a website to support sales & discussion of the book, but a "news channel" for stories and an upcoming "election" set in his version of the year 2040, in which the former United States is split between Islamic and Christian theocracies.
Oh, and speaking of Max Barry, it looks like he snuck out another book while I wasn't looking. Anybody read it?
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Recent Viewings
Wonderfalls is another of those clever, quirky shows that the Fox network inexplicably greenlighted and produced just so that they could have the sadistic thrill of murdering it in its crib. In this case, the geniuses at Fox Central Headquarters cancelled it after showing a mere four episodes, out of order, in constantly-changing timeslots. Presumably this was so that they could devote its broadcast time to airing yet more episodes of Who Wants To Marry A Transexual Billionaire Who Has Sex With His Daughter's Pet Hermit Crab On Temptation Island While Eating Live Cockroaches, or some such quality entertainment.
Jaye, a cynically disenchanted slacker with an Ivy League degree in philosophy, works in a tacky gift shop in Niagara Falls and lives in a trailer park, much to the dismay of her high-strung, overachieving family. One day, to her great shock and dismay, she begins hearing voices. Animal figurines in the store, cartoon drawings on the television or on the sides of packing boxes, stuffed animals, start inexplicably giving her cryptic commands which inevitably prove prophetic, although maddeningly vague in their use of pronouns.
Since Jaye's a confirmed skeptic about matters of religion, this is quite unnerving. "Are you God? Are you the devil?" she asks. She doesn't get an answer. Only more cryptic, vague, prophetic commands, which inevitably alter either her life or the lives of the people around her, whether or not she obeys them. I found myself wondering whether Jaye's name was meant to be an oblique allusion tothat other young lady who heard voices, Joan of Arc, or possibly to Job, whose life was turned topsy-turvy for inexplicable Godly reasons.
Similar tropes have been used in other programs, such as Joan of Arcadia, which Fiend has discussed elsewhere. I haven't seen those shows and can't comment. But Wonderfalls is definitely worth checking out. The show's jaunty but unsettling theme song sets the tone for the characters and the plot. It's by turns satirical, romantic, dramatic, and deeply weird. And always funny.
I would have loved to see how later episodes would have developed the story further, but I am glad that at least the first year's worth of episodes were issued on DVD rather than being buried forever in the dungeons of the Evil Empire. Or would that be the Stupid Satrapy? The Dumb Domain?
Xanadu. Okay, okay. This one's definitely a guilty pleasure. The leading actor seems to be barely capable of reading his lines, let alone acting, and the dialogue among the secondary characters is so head-thumpingly awful that it makes After School Specials look like Oscar material. Most of the dance sequences and the "glamorous" costumes worn by the dancers are howlingly tacky. The plot... well, let's just say it involves an errant muse, a Sensitive Artist, and roller disco. 'Nuff said?
And yet there is a kind of pleasure to be found here. A few of the dance sequences, especially one nostalgic number involving an aging but still amazingly graceful Gene Kelly, do have a kind of surreal magic to them. Some of the visuals, like the strange, Art-Deco exterior of the abandoned theater, have a kind of otherworldly look about them. And I'll admit that there's a sentimental and self-indulgent side of me that likes the idea of a Sensitive Artist-Type Guy being inspired by a supernaturally beautiful and mysterious muse from far, far away.
Death Race 2000. This one I consciously rented as a Bad Movie. I had seen it once, years before, and remembered it as being the kind of movie that one laughs at, rather than with. The kind that you watch with friends so that you can gleefully mock its ineptitude and bad taste. After all, how much more ludicrously awful can you get than a movie about a cross-country road race in which the drivers get points for running over pedestrians? ("It's Euthanasia Day at the Geriatric Ward!")
Amazingly, it's even worse than I remembered. (And hence, in some ways, better). Nine-tenths of the movie is hilariously low-budget and cheesy, like the race-starting scene, in which the "futuristic" city in the background looks like a painted backdrop from a high school play. And just when you think the scenery can't possibly get any less convincing, a glowing-green smear that's apparently supposed to represent a monorail train goes gliding across it. The titleboard at the beginning of the movie literally looks like someone drew it with a magic marker. The only things in the movie that seem to have had any serious effort expended on them are the racecars, which are glossy, shimmering, ridiculous stereotypes sculpted in fiberglass. The Mafia-themed car has machine guns pointing out of its grille. The cowgirl-themed car has big, shiny, sharpened cow-horns mounted on the hood. The Nazi-themed car, driven by "Matilda the Hun", has a V1-style rocket engine mounted on top. And so forth.
It's also absurdly violent, even by modern standards. There were several scenes that actually made me & the other folks watching it wince, while the laughter literally died away to guilty, shocked silence. But for the most part the violence is so outlandishly cartoonish -- literally stealing a gag from Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in one case -- that one can't help but laugh, guilty feeling or not.
David Carradine, as "Frankenstein", the nearest thing to a hero in sight, spends most of the movie wearing a squeaky black latex-and-leather outfit and squinting and sneering through an S&M-style mask. (You see, he's a repeat competitor who lost various body parts along the way. "He lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99 ... With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!" Or so the official story goes.)
Sylvester Stallone goes way, way over the top in portraying the worst of the racers, a stereotypical Tommy-gun-toting gangster. The rest of the cast suicidally follows him right over the top like so many thespian troopers maniacally charging into the qualitative equivalent of a B-52 carpet-bombing.
There are, of course, the usual 1970s Z-movie gratuitous nude-scenes and frightening amounts of blue eyeshadow.
The movie actually does have a few moments of effective satire on blustering politicians and inane television broadcasters. Watch for the fascist Mr. President's rant about the "treacherous French."
On the whole, it's prime MST3K fodder. Enjoy. If you don't mind the sight of guys being speared through the crotch by giant knives bolted to cars, that is.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A very atypical outing for both Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett. What are we, really? Do we get to choose what we want to be? Pick and choose those parts of our past that we want to acknowledge, and eliminate the rest? If we could do so, would it be wise?
A thought-provoking movie that I'd discuss further if I weren't about to fall asleep at 3:30 in the morning.
The books, I think, will have to wait until later.
Wonderfalls is another of those clever, quirky shows that the Fox network inexplicably greenlighted and produced just so that they could have the sadistic thrill of murdering it in its crib. In this case, the geniuses at Fox Central Headquarters cancelled it after showing a mere four episodes, out of order, in constantly-changing timeslots. Presumably this was so that they could devote its broadcast time to airing yet more episodes of Who Wants To Marry A Transexual Billionaire Who Has Sex With His Daughter's Pet Hermit Crab On Temptation Island While Eating Live Cockroaches, or some such quality entertainment.
Jaye, a cynically disenchanted slacker with an Ivy League degree in philosophy, works in a tacky gift shop in Niagara Falls and lives in a trailer park, much to the dismay of her high-strung, overachieving family. One day, to her great shock and dismay, she begins hearing voices. Animal figurines in the store, cartoon drawings on the television or on the sides of packing boxes, stuffed animals, start inexplicably giving her cryptic commands which inevitably prove prophetic, although maddeningly vague in their use of pronouns.
Since Jaye's a confirmed skeptic about matters of religion, this is quite unnerving. "Are you God? Are you the devil?" she asks. She doesn't get an answer. Only more cryptic, vague, prophetic commands, which inevitably alter either her life or the lives of the people around her, whether or not she obeys them. I found myself wondering whether Jaye's name was meant to be an oblique allusion tothat other young lady who heard voices, Joan of Arc, or possibly to Job, whose life was turned topsy-turvy for inexplicable Godly reasons.
Similar tropes have been used in other programs, such as Joan of Arcadia, which Fiend has discussed elsewhere. I haven't seen those shows and can't comment. But Wonderfalls is definitely worth checking out. The show's jaunty but unsettling theme song sets the tone for the characters and the plot. It's by turns satirical, romantic, dramatic, and deeply weird. And always funny.
I would have loved to see how later episodes would have developed the story further, but I am glad that at least the first year's worth of episodes were issued on DVD rather than being buried forever in the dungeons of the Evil Empire. Or would that be the Stupid Satrapy? The Dumb Domain?
Xanadu. Okay, okay. This one's definitely a guilty pleasure. The leading actor seems to be barely capable of reading his lines, let alone acting, and the dialogue among the secondary characters is so head-thumpingly awful that it makes After School Specials look like Oscar material. Most of the dance sequences and the "glamorous" costumes worn by the dancers are howlingly tacky. The plot... well, let's just say it involves an errant muse, a Sensitive Artist, and roller disco. 'Nuff said?
And yet there is a kind of pleasure to be found here. A few of the dance sequences, especially one nostalgic number involving an aging but still amazingly graceful Gene Kelly, do have a kind of surreal magic to them. Some of the visuals, like the strange, Art-Deco exterior of the abandoned theater, have a kind of otherworldly look about them. And I'll admit that there's a sentimental and self-indulgent side of me that likes the idea of a Sensitive Artist-Type Guy being inspired by a supernaturally beautiful and mysterious muse from far, far away.
Death Race 2000. This one I consciously rented as a Bad Movie. I had seen it once, years before, and remembered it as being the kind of movie that one laughs at, rather than with. The kind that you watch with friends so that you can gleefully mock its ineptitude and bad taste. After all, how much more ludicrously awful can you get than a movie about a cross-country road race in which the drivers get points for running over pedestrians? ("It's Euthanasia Day at the Geriatric Ward!")
Amazingly, it's even worse than I remembered. (And hence, in some ways, better). Nine-tenths of the movie is hilariously low-budget and cheesy, like the race-starting scene, in which the "futuristic" city in the background looks like a painted backdrop from a high school play. And just when you think the scenery can't possibly get any less convincing, a glowing-green smear that's apparently supposed to represent a monorail train goes gliding across it. The titleboard at the beginning of the movie literally looks like someone drew it with a magic marker. The only things in the movie that seem to have had any serious effort expended on them are the racecars, which are glossy, shimmering, ridiculous stereotypes sculpted in fiberglass. The Mafia-themed car has machine guns pointing out of its grille. The cowgirl-themed car has big, shiny, sharpened cow-horns mounted on the hood. The Nazi-themed car, driven by "Matilda the Hun", has a V1-style rocket engine mounted on top. And so forth.
It's also absurdly violent, even by modern standards. There were several scenes that actually made me & the other folks watching it wince, while the laughter literally died away to guilty, shocked silence. But for the most part the violence is so outlandishly cartoonish -- literally stealing a gag from Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in one case -- that one can't help but laugh, guilty feeling or not.
David Carradine, as "Frankenstein", the nearest thing to a hero in sight, spends most of the movie wearing a squeaky black latex-and-leather outfit and squinting and sneering through an S&M-style mask. (You see, he's a repeat competitor who lost various body parts along the way. "He lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99 ... With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!" Or so the official story goes.)
Sylvester Stallone goes way, way over the top in portraying the worst of the racers, a stereotypical Tommy-gun-toting gangster. The rest of the cast suicidally follows him right over the top like so many thespian troopers maniacally charging into the qualitative equivalent of a B-52 carpet-bombing.
There are, of course, the usual 1970s Z-movie gratuitous nude-scenes and frightening amounts of blue eyeshadow.
The movie actually does have a few moments of effective satire on blustering politicians and inane television broadcasters. Watch for the fascist Mr. President's rant about the "treacherous French."
"It is no coincidence, my dear children, that the word sabotage was invented by the French...."Prescient, no? There's also a touchingly creepy Frankenstein Fan Club, whose president is a dead-on parody of the kind of zealous fan who claims to understand her idol's "inner pain" by consulting "dreams, and letters from other fan club members". And you don't feel guilty at all when a certain annoying hipster finally gets what he has, literally, asked for.
On the whole, it's prime MST3K fodder. Enjoy. If you don't mind the sight of guys being speared through the crotch by giant knives bolted to cars, that is.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A very atypical outing for both Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett. What are we, really? Do we get to choose what we want to be? Pick and choose those parts of our past that we want to acknowledge, and eliminate the rest? If we could do so, would it be wise?
A thought-provoking movie that I'd discuss further if I weren't about to fall asleep at 3:30 in the morning.
The books, I think, will have to wait until later.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Late, late, late
Well, I was going to head home after checking in those last four boxes of books for Suburban Public Library. But then I looked at the pile of books and videos that I've been meaning to comment on for the past couple of months, and my conscience got the best of me. Not to mention the fact that several of them are overdue and the circulation staff will get mad at me if I don't return them.
Well, I was going to head home after checking in those last four boxes of books for Suburban Public Library. But then I looked at the pile of books and videos that I've been meaning to comment on for the past couple of months, and my conscience got the best of me. Not to mention the fact that several of them are overdue and the circulation staff will get mad at me if I don't return them.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Books noted
Loredana : A Venetian Tale, by Lauro Martines. Machiavellian maneuvers, sensuality and skulduggery in early-Renaissance Venice. I skimmed all but the first few chapters, I'm afraid. The titular heroine was just too much of a prattling ninny to keep my attention.
Marvel 1602 -- by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, et al. This was a fun excursion, not only from reality, but from the canonical other-reality of the Marvel comic-book universe. What if the mutant powers of Marvel's comic-book characters had arisen several centuries earlier, in the Elizabethan era?
I probably missed some of the insider allusions, since I have only a minimal familiarity with the mythos of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, et al. I'm completely unfamiliar with the character of Nick Fury, for example, who in this excursion into counterreality is cast as Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, a role seemingly modeled on the historical Sir Francis Walsingham and charged with foiling the plots of the dastardly Inquisition and others who seek to harm Good Queen Bess. Some of those enemies seek power for its own sake; others, like James of Scotland, the Queen's nearest relative, fear and hate the so-called "witchbreeds" and seek to eradicate them.
The story and the characters are vivid enough that I had no trouble following the story, despite my unfamiliarity with the prototypes for certain characters. The artwork is excellent, dark and moody, and there's plenty of action and surprises and tragedy as well as occasional humor. (There's an amusing running joke about a young apprentice named Peter "Parquaugh", for example.)
Very nice. I did have one unanswered question by the time I reached the end of the story. There's a ship in the story that bears the name of "The Eagle's Shadow". Is this another example of Gaiman playing homage to James Branch Cabell, or is he making the same point as the author of this book?
Loredana : A Venetian Tale, by Lauro Martines. Machiavellian maneuvers, sensuality and skulduggery in early-Renaissance Venice. I skimmed all but the first few chapters, I'm afraid. The titular heroine was just too much of a prattling ninny to keep my attention.
Marvel 1602 -- by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, et al. This was a fun excursion, not only from reality, but from the canonical other-reality of the Marvel comic-book universe. What if the mutant powers of Marvel's comic-book characters had arisen several centuries earlier, in the Elizabethan era?
I probably missed some of the insider allusions, since I have only a minimal familiarity with the mythos of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, et al. I'm completely unfamiliar with the character of Nick Fury, for example, who in this excursion into counterreality is cast as Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, a role seemingly modeled on the historical Sir Francis Walsingham and charged with foiling the plots of the dastardly Inquisition and others who seek to harm Good Queen Bess. Some of those enemies seek power for its own sake; others, like James of Scotland, the Queen's nearest relative, fear and hate the so-called "witchbreeds" and seek to eradicate them.
The story and the characters are vivid enough that I had no trouble following the story, despite my unfamiliarity with the prototypes for certain characters. The artwork is excellent, dark and moody, and there's plenty of action and surprises and tragedy as well as occasional humor. (There's an amusing running joke about a young apprentice named Peter "Parquaugh", for example.)
Very nice. I did have one unanswered question by the time I reached the end of the story. There's a ship in the story that bears the name of "The Eagle's Shadow". Is this another example of Gaiman playing homage to James Branch Cabell, or is he making the same point as the author of this book?
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Random stuff noted:
Chris Bertram, of Crooked Timber, is offended. (Much as "JSM" of Adequacy.org reminded people of the real lesson of September 11.)
Appalling romance covers. They're strangely fascinating. Like train wrecks.
Chris Bertram, of Crooked Timber, is offended. (Much as "JSM" of Adequacy.org reminded people of the real lesson of September 11.)
Appalling romance covers. They're strangely fascinating. Like train wrecks.
Added to blogroll:
Norma,The SF Hub , Conservator, FIRE (and blog).
One of my colleagues at Busy Bee College recognized "Norma's" website when she espied it over my shoulder. Should I be concerned?
Norma,The SF Hub , Conservator, FIRE (and blog).
One of my colleagues at Busy Bee College recognized "Norma's" website when she espied it over my shoulder. Should I be concerned?
Thursday, January 26, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
"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.
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.:
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:
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.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
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.
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?)
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?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.
BB : "It's genuine Dickens."
BB : [selling a book] "Enjoy. It's dreadful, but quite short."
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.
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?
... 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:
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?
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?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
And you thought Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura was weird.
From the great state of Minnesota, via YahooNews:
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."....
Monday, January 16, 2006
There's a new blog in town
Some Chick, formerly known as S. and "Anon", presents.... Apartment Carpet.
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.
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.
"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.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
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.)
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.)
Friday, January 13, 2006
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:
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)
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....Like I said. Amusing but logically dubious. Now excuse me while I go look into the mirror and make chuffing noises.
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.
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)
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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.)
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.)
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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....
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....
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
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",
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:
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.)
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 overFrom "31-Year-Old Lover":
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....
... He stands naked in my bedroom and nothingIs 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?
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.
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.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.
"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....
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:
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.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Lately I've been grazing my way through a bunch of VHS tapes of older movies which the library discarded.
The Philadelphia Story was good, but not great.
On the other hand, The Ice Storm was simply a waste of time -- mine, the actors, the directors, and everybody else's who was involved with it. Who knew that sex and death could be so boring? Perhaps Ang Lee was making some kind of subtle point about sleepwalking suburbanites. You could appreciate the point just about as well by watching two hours of daytime television, except that it would be more exciting and better acted.
The Philadelphia Story was good, but not great.
On the other hand, The Ice Storm was simply a waste of time -- mine, the actors, the directors, and everybody else's who was involved with it. Who knew that sex and death could be so boring? Perhaps Ang Lee was making some kind of subtle point about sleepwalking suburbanites. You could appreciate the point just about as well by watching two hours of daytime television, except that it would be more exciting and better acted.
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