Archive for the ‘books’ Category
The Ivory Horn
July 28th, 2010 | 
Author: Readers with long memories may remember that I loathed Neil Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan". The links in that entry have gone offline and I can't find replacements, but it's a short story (collected in Fragile Things) about CS Lewis's Susan Pevensie and what happens to her after her three siblings die and, cough, go to Narnia. That part of Gaiman's story is fine and well-imagined, as far as I recall, but there's also a section that's needlessly disgusting.
In that story Gaiman is taking a similar line to Philip Pullman's acidic public criticisms of Susan's fate. For what it's worth I agree with them, albeit with a somewhat more sympathetic understanding of Lewis's fear and hatred of adult women (which is, after all, a product of his religion, upbringing and time as much as the silly ideas he put into his head later in life). What happens to Susan is entirely consistent with the Narnia uni(/multi)verse, and considering how badly other characters were screwed over in the last book, not all that exceptional, other than for the petty-sounding reasons given in-character.
Anyway, that is the background.
Now, if you have read Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy and also know a little of Narnia, you must now read The Ivory Horn, the best crossover fanfiction I have ever read. (Not that I have read many, because I hate the very idea, which should tell you how special I think this this one is that I'd praise it to the skies.)
My daemon's a red panda because I say so. It is currently asleep. Possibly this is a result of salsa cashew nuts, which may, it is airily theorised just now by
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Eagalité et sororité news trawl
African-American women struggle to overcome wealth gap
Meanwhile, UN to set up agency promoting women's rights. I hope the 'gender' part of the title doesn't apply only to women. We should always aim for no discrimination based on gender, not 'gender equality' between the two mainstream groups.
'Big budget' porn film shot in London hospital. Yes, apparently the offence is mainly over the fact that the film's budget was higher than the NHS's. Ditto occupational health standards. Zing.
Taiwan chocolate art exhibition. That 'jade' cabbage is beautiful. And the dice and mahjongg pieces, so cute! Exit through the gift shop… NOM.
Close encounters with giant harpy eagle of Venezuela, who very effectively sorts out a nasty ape that is trying to climb towards her nest. In the second clip, another young man stares out a different filthy ape and takes the mickey out of its walkie-talkie.
Meanwhile, webcam viewers freak out over human hands appearing in their shot of an osprey nest.
Respect is due to this badass lady, who chose to remain conscious during an operation to remove a tumour from her brain.
Dangerous dogs bill 'does not go far enough'. I disagree with the criticisms in the main…
Changes proposed include more emphasis on the owners' responsibility, attacks which take place on private property becoming a criminal offence, and legislation no longer being breed specific.
I don't fully understand the part about attacks occurring on private property (the interview clip seemed to suggest the opposite of what I understood from the article, and I haven't bothered to look up the details yet), but as for the other two changes mentioned, they're completely sensible. A person's race is never an excuse for criminal activity; childhood abuse and upbringing, on the other hand, certainly do shift the blame onto the family. Besides, you can't end up with a situation where you're forced towards genetically testing a litter of crossbreeds, and even ending up with brothers and sisters coming under different laws because of the exact proportion of Staffie in their blood.
The Bahá'ís just can't seem to catch a break. It looks likely that those in Iran (where, I will point out, their religion originated, unlike Islam!) are due further terrorisation and mob violence with the silent collusion of Ahmadinnerjacket's jackboot cronies.
The coalition government is sticking with Labour's Equality Act, apart from the bit about forcing employers to make public how much less they pay their women employees than men.
Inequality just isn't going away. The gap in life expectancy between rich and poor is widening, and somehow I don't quite trust the Tories to close it, even with their collective arm twisted by the yellow contingent.
'Hidden obscenity': Older men grooming teens for sex
Signs of child sexual exploitation 'being missed'
Neil Gaiman (video) on comics and literary success…
"Do you think being a comic writer means you've not been taken seriously?" "I think that coming from a comics background has meant that I have never cared at all about being taken seriously. … I come from comics. That's not even the gutter: that's the drain that the gutter runs into."
Good Omens is still the best thing I've ever read from Gaiman. It was co-written with Terry Pratchett, with the result that both loopy writers bounced off each other magnificently, to glorious results. (The worldbuilding in American Gods and Anansi Boys was enjoyable too, but only because Pratchett's Small Gods – which, unlike Gaiman's books, I can find really scary – had burrowed into my brain during a formative stage.)
I never knew Gaiman's family members were Scientologists. That must help with horror writing.
Speaking of living in a controlled environment, how do you fancy life in a village where children are banned?
30% of children feel scared when they see adults drunk or drinking too much, – which I suppose makes me 30% child, because I know drinkers terrify me. I'm more disturbed by the proportion of children ("nearly half") for whom drinking to excess is a normal, non-frightening sight.
I'll cheerfully admit that I don't know who Justin Bieber is, but 4chan has sent him off to North Korea. Well done, /b/uddies. Can he stay there?
The Barking Ghost, reviewed
Another blogger has reviewed The Barking Ghost [warning: complete spoilers], a Goosebumps book that I picked up a while ago from a used book stall.
It's the shortest and lamest member of my Black Dogs book collection. I'm currently trying to muster the energy to start The Kettle Chronicles: The Black Dog again; it's historical fiction about the Bungay Black Shuck incident, which ought to be epically fabulous, but it's written somewhat densely and the story is mostly about some human characters for whom I have little interest, so I only got partway through.
*skims the rest of the Wikipedia article* WAIT WHAT Shuckie is mentioned in Northern Lights? One of my favourite books of all time mentions one of my favourite historical persons of all time and I somehow have not NOTICED THIS?
Oh, since you're here, have some Black Dogs in popular culture.
Attic-dwelling news trawl
Were the 'mad' heroines of literature really sane?
Tch, woman! To the attic with you.
edit: Inserting two I forgot: USA, we don't hate you any more and elusive assassin-kitty caught on film
Bolivia backs circus animal ban
Australia plans tough Great Barrier Reef shipping laws
Two girls saved from forced marriage. Sadly, their brothers had already been forced to marry – otherwise, it looks like the court wouldn't have been able to rule that the girls were in sufficient danger.
Friends 'more important than family' in retirement
Bolivia hosts talks on rights of Mother Earth. Apparently she's to get the vote, as long as she can prove her age.
Behavioural rewards 'work like drugs' for ADHD, a study involving a computer game has indicated.
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Without citing-and-shiting any particular studies (let's just say there have been some painful test cases very close to what passes for my heart), I've known computer games to act as rewards in themselves – and addictions. MMORPGs in particular; I don't see ADHD brats having any problems concentrating on levelling six of their deathknight alts to 80, kek chiz chiz.
(Cult speak above was used for great justice as a hint as to which game particularly annoys me at the moment. Translation of the last clause into non-culty-speak: "I don't see any ADHD brats having trouble concentrating while they're making lots of stupid 'characters' and wasting huge amounts of time making them more powerful.")
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Alice in Wonderland quickie film review
Main impressions of Alice in Wonderland (2010). Not massively spoilerish but I'll put them behind a cut:
Fairies are boring.
No, I'm not talking about gay boys, although you could say I am something of a fairy in that sense (and vaguely proud of it), and also sometimes quite boring.
No, I mean the other fairies. The little winged gobshites.
So some people love cute little fairies. Some other people are into the dark, sinister side to fairies (which, when you think about it for more than a second, ARE bloody scary).
I just don't engage with the concept of fairies/faeries/fae/fairfolk on any level. They bore me and – well, they do repulse me, but in an unemotional way (since even hating or being scared of them would still be some kind of reaction, whereas they don't grab me in any way).
I suppose it's partly the "small humanoid" angle that totally turns off any sympathy, interest or engagement that I would have in abundance for any animal creature. I don't know. I've just never had any interest in fairies.
I actually stopped reading the Harry Dresden books because they degenerated into "whee, fairies fairies fairies and more bloody fairies I'm so cool, oh and just to turn Mutt completely off, let's add a knight prat who's so pure and Has Faith and wields a Magic Sword of Faith". (Well, that and it got boring seeing Harry get beaten half to death every book without fail and still pull some magic whupass out of his arse.) Shame, because the writing in the books is really pretty OK, the wisecracks are excellent and I do like the hardboiled genre.
But yes, fairies. They don't do it for me. I tend to hate anything with them in. The one exception I've found is Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, which is at least a very complete and competent treatment of the idea, explicitly drawing them as personalityless (an important angle for me) as well as the usual cruel, feline flibbertigibbets.
(Next time, maybe: why Tolkien-D&D-style elves are boring. Or maybe why prats with swords are boring. Then, that selection probably leaving basically nothing in the genre of fantasy for me to read, I'll have to think of some sci-fi things I find hackneyed.)
(Oh, and just in case: I don't actually expect other people to change their interests/writing styles based on my opinion. Hell, somebody go off and tread some genuinely new writerly ground with the idea and I promise I'll be happy you've made boringness into a topic that I can actually enjoy…)
News and other stuff mini-trawl
Found a cool new real-time blog, like the Dracula one but non-fiction.
Lolz, we're gonna pwn the Antarctic!
Dog 'saves' sleep condition woman
Ooh, here's one for the wishlist next to Cold Reading by Ian Rowland…
And now, Windows tips via someone on Yammer.
Clicking Start > Run (or pressing Windows key + R if, like me, you are a keyboard man) and typing the abbreviation "clipbrd" will bring up the clipboard viewer.
Clicking Start > Run and typing "flipbrd" will bring up a picture of Bill Gates giving you the finger.
Beaver-call news trawl
Egypt to become den of vice and harlots with visible eyes
Saudi to become den of vice, mixed-sex conversations and literate car-driving harlots
Witch schools. I wonder why this upsets me so much less than Christian missionaries doing the same. Probably some ill-defined idea of cultural naturalness.
World's oldest POWs returned home
These people are spawning 10+ mini-mes and imbuing them with their Invisible Magic Friend disease while Brits raise one or two apiece and teach them about things like open minds. Something's going wrong here. Something's going very wrong.
In shock news, several gay Conservatives have been found to be able to live with themselves.
Book meme from Almost Witty
Another book meme. Is it just me or do these keep morphing?; I'm sure I see some here that I haven't on previous ones. Also, this meme is nothing to do with the BBC, whatever you've read.
Mark off the books you've read with an X.
1 Pride and Prejudice X [Don't believe the haters. It's good. If you smile at the first few lines, it's a good indication that you'll like it. I find comedies of manners so darkly funny. My late kitten was nicknamed Mr. Arsey. Anyhow, what I really want to read next is Pride and Prejudice With Zombies.]
2 The Lord of the Rings X [You've got to read LotR For Great Heritage if you're a fant writer. No desire to read it again, though, and I didn't see the films.]
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte X [read for school, it's worth reading]
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee X [read for school, it's very good]
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman X [first book is stand-out fabulous]
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
A list of my recent purchases
Goosebumps: The Barking Ghost by RL Stine
I've read this one already: it's a children's book, and not particularly noteworthy, but has an amusingly silly twist and a bonus shapeshifting angle. Not scary for me. (Goosebumps is a churned-out series of scary books aimed at young readers. I sorta admire Stine's ability to put out so many words.)
Ghost Dog by Eleanor Allen (Young Hippo Spooky)
The Dog who Knew Too Much by Carol Lea Benjamin
and A Hell of a Dog by Carol Lea Benjamin
(These are billed as "Canine Murder Mysteries", no joke; if these two are good I'll collect the rest)
Dogs (1976) horror film
The Ghost Dog by Pete Johnson
Ghost Dog by Dick Cate
My library, let me show you it.
Reviews shall come. At present I've almost finished reading Hellhound Magic, which deserves an entry to itself.
WTF!
WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!
Nooo, Watson, I'll protect you from the nasty Madonna-toyboy.
All the pieces missing!
I dreamed we were setting up a new board game, but I was tired and knew I wouldn't be able to take in the rules.
This dream confirms two things:
- My Tuesday night activities are seeping into my subconscious,
- I am feeling professionally insecure.
I also recall someone in the dream saying this was a cooperative game (i.e. "players against game", not "players against each other" – e.g. Pandemic), which tantalised me, because I've never played a co-op and would very much like to try one. If only to keep from inadvertently pwning Phil.
Currently reading: Women's Work for Weft. Just finished Elizabeth Bear's Dust, about which I hope to post more in future.
Currently wondering: if it makes sense for a hypothetical humanoid, pre-industrial silk-based economy to make some kind of toy that was a hybrid of spindle and yo-yo.
Puppy news with puppies.
Even now, in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and gleamed in the darkness.
"Phosphorus," I said.
"A cunning preparation of it," said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal.
Glow in the dark pups aid science
("Critics argue it's playing god, but scientists point out that what we're looking at is in fact playing dogs.")
Mini news trawl
Oh Buddha, not… effeminately-shaped eyebrows!!1onetynine11!!!
Children's Laureates choose best books of all time. Just William ++, Treasure Island of course, Harry Potter nowhere on the list.
Also, I want a Psammead. They're rewarding companions. Just don't get them wet or feed them after midnight.
I think I finally know what I want to be when I grow up
Yes! I want to be a slush reader while I work on one or another of my embryonic novels. :D
(Actually, I like my current job a lot.)
Klassik Lichrachur
I've just spent I don't know HOW long going through Project Gutenberg's children's extexts for my brother, who's doing some work to do with children's books for my mother. Urg. MUST SLEEP. Suspect also that he'll be too lazy to deal with most or all of them. Hrrrnh!
The Velveteen Rabbit for the win.
Discworld and gaming
Wincanton, the Roundworld twin town of Ankh-Morpork, steps further into geekdom (join us, come with us, we will teach you things).
So Monday night was Werewolf night, this time at the Space bar (I still can't work out if that's an intentional pun) off Oxford Road. A new chap turned up there; he goes to a gaming group that meets on Tuesdays at a place a short walk from Slen's house. This is games in the board-game and cards sense; they play lots of obscure things straight out of Essen that I've never heard of. Which is ace.
So I went along, stayed over at Slen's house and dragged him to the group. We played Tribune, which that dark equus of a brother of mine won, and then a few minutes of Master of Rules before the end. The others were playing some kind of Battlestar Galactica board game.
Lots of fun, lots of serious geeks there. Apparently they sometimes play MTG and often Werewolf. I'll give the MTG a miss, because I'm opposed to things you have to keep paying for, but Slen owns a starter deck which he's never opened, so that'd be fun for him.
edit: Miss Nobili told the BBC that the transformation from lap dancer to nun happened gradually.
