I'm sorry there haven't been any posts recently. Life has been busy and then I was out of town for a bit. So below are some random thoughts and events from the past few days.
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First on the British election, boy howdy did everyone screw that up! Talk about your Shy Tory effect in the polling. When the BBC exit poll came out showing the Conservatives gaining seats, I like everyone else was convinced it was completely wrong since it flew in the face of all of the final polling. But as I sat there watching the results coming in and it looked like they were right I just couldn't believe it. And even the Beeb's prediction that there was still going to be a hung parliament turned out to be wrong.
There are a lot of pollsters in the UK with egg on their faces still. It will be interesting to read the most mortems on that subject over the next few weeks. Polling is not an exact science but for so many operations to miss by that much is stunning.
At any rate I would like to offer my condolences on the next five years to my friends in the UK. Chins up, guys. It will get better eventually.
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One of the reasons I hadn't posted is that I took a long weekend and went to visit friends in the Bay Area. I needed a change of scene and I needed to be in a real city. So I went and hung out with my friend Elaine in Oakland and we had a chill weekend playing games. We went into San Francisco do some shopping. She wanted some new lingerie for a trip this week and I was there to offer my advice. I know, it's a dirty job but someone has to do it.
We stopped in at an independent bookstore (yes, there are still a few left) and I bought myself a copy of The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft. On the long drive back into Oakland (traffic was worse than usual for SF) Elaine asked me to explain who HPL was and after explaining that he was the father of modern horror I came to the realization that it is really hard to explain the attraction of his work to the non-fan. Between his hyper-materialist worldview, his racism and anti-semitism and his incredibly verbose style of writing he doesn't sound all that appealing to the non-fan. I need to work on a better explanation.
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On Sunday, after leaving Oakland I stopped in Sacramento to have lunch with my friend Jen and her fiance, Matt. This was something like the first time in 20 years I had seen her and it was so nice to catch up with her. It was even more nice to see that not only had we both grown up over the past two decades but also that we were both still the very same twisted people underneath.
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Lastly I'm going to sign off with a few Hugo related links. Consider yourself duly warned.
The first is a post from John Scalzi on just why the Hugos are not actually being destroyed. Basically Scalzi echos my argument that they found a flaw and exploited it but now that it's been exposed it can be fixed. There may be a couple years of pain in the mean time but in the end the Hugos will come out stronger. Of course since Scalzi is an excellent writer he says it better and with more wit than I could ever muster.
The second is a post from Jim C. Hines about how the Sad Puppy campaigns have broken a recent trend towards gender balance in Hugo nominations and that calls into question the whole puppy premise of promoting "good stories" rather than defending a white, male preserve. As someone who is a statistician I think the Ns are too small to draw a really effective conclusion but he makes a good argument on the face of it.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
The first preview video of the BBC's seven part adaptation of Susanna Clark's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has been released.
It looks visually beautiful and I am looking forward to it being broadcast on this side of the pond.
Which is rather odd because I really detested the book. When I first heard about it my thought was "Magic in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars? Where do I sign up?" But I have tried on three occasions to read the novel and don't think I've ever gotten farther than a hundred pages. The problem, as far as I'm concerned is Ms. Clark wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell as a pastiche of the novels of Jane Austen. And I detest Jane Austen!
I couldn't get past the mimicked writing style. There was a good story there, I could tell. I just could not enjoy it.
That is why I'm looking forward to this adaptation. While the dialogue appears to ape Jane Austen's (and hence Regency) style because it is a visual medium I won't get bogged down in various descriptions of people, places and things in Austenesque novels that I find so tedious and can sit back, watch what was previously, tediously described in words and enjoy the story.
It looks visually beautiful and I am looking forward to it being broadcast on this side of the pond.
Which is rather odd because I really detested the book. When I first heard about it my thought was "Magic in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars? Where do I sign up?" But I have tried on three occasions to read the novel and don't think I've ever gotten farther than a hundred pages. The problem, as far as I'm concerned is Ms. Clark wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell as a pastiche of the novels of Jane Austen. And I detest Jane Austen!
I couldn't get past the mimicked writing style. There was a good story there, I could tell. I just could not enjoy it.
That is why I'm looking forward to this adaptation. While the dialogue appears to ape Jane Austen's (and hence Regency) style because it is a visual medium I won't get bogged down in various descriptions of people, places and things in Austenesque novels that I find so tedious and can sit back, watch what was previously, tediously described in words and enjoy the story.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Heinlein and me
One of the common complaints from the Sad Puppies is that nowadays Robert Heinlein could not get published. I think this is nonsense, at his best he was technically an excellent author and a great storyteller. But this isn't about Puppygate but rather how Heinlein got me into science fiction.
My dad was always a big science fiction fan and when I was growing up there were always books by Heinlein and Isaac Asimov (his favorites) lying around the house. When I was nine years old I picked up his copy of Starship Troopers and devoured it. At ten I swiped his copy of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and fell in love with it. At this age I was too young to really pick up on the problematic parts of both books and just considered them good space stories. That these were my first two SF novels probably explains a great deal about me.
Nevertheless I think dad was slightly appalled at my choices and pushed me towards Heinlein's juveniles. I know I read most if not all of the juveniles at this time but most don't seem to have stuck with me. I remember enjoying Space Cadet but was not overly impressed with The Rolling Stones. Eventually I moved on to SF by other authors but whenever I was bored I kept coming back to my first two books. When I was in eighth grade we had an assignment to do a book report and create diorama based on the book. Mine was the battle with the Skinnies in the first chapter of Starship Troopers. This probably explains a lot about why my teachers thought about me the way that they did,
About this time I got interested in board wargaming and again RAH via my dad is to blame. Dad had a copy of the old Avalon Hill Starship Troopers wargame. He never really got into it but I thought it was really cool and basically appropriated it for myself. In fact I still have it stored away someplace. It hooked me on the hobby and I was soon saving my money to buy my own hex map and cardboard chits wargames. First on SF&F themes but later historical ones too and I still enjoy the hobby.
I didn't get back to reading more Heinlein until I went to college. I read the Future History short stories. I loved Time Enough For Love, especially the Notebooks of Lazarus Long sections. I was disgusted with the sexism of Glory Road. And I tried several times, then and since, to read A Stranger In A Strange Land but I could never get into it despite everyone saying it was his master work. Apparently RAH thought it wasn't his best work either, so I guess I'm in good company.
I was in college in the mid-Eighties and this was when his later, weirder works were coming out. I liked the setting of Friday if not the actual story. While he had always had a tendency towards author tracts in his books it became more obvious near the end as the story gave way to the characters philosophizing. In short, I got bored.
And it was in college that I finally became aware of the really problematic, if totally polar opposite, politics of Starship Troopers and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and they became less and less of my go to reads when bored. Basically I finally grew up and grew past Heinlein. I haven't really read any thing by him in about fifteen years when I re-read Number Of The Beast shortly after moving to Nevada and was mildly amused by the fact that the major characters get married in Elko.
So while I owe Robert Heinlein and my dad a great deal for getting me into both science fiction and wargaming, I find that I cannot really be one of his defenders. As I said the man could write a good story in his prime but he just became too weird and too controversial for my tastes.
Two final notes. First, I have never seen Paul Verhoeven's film adaptation of Starship Troopers nor do I ever intend to. Aside from pumping up the already fascist elements of the novel up to eleven, when I found out the Mobile Infantry wasn't going to have power armor my immediate and continuing reaction was "What's the point?" After all it was the only real cool thing in the book,
The second is the only RAH novel I still own a copy of continues to be The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. I still have something of a week spot for it. Yes, I recognize it as a completely unrealistic libertarian fantasy but Manny and Mike the Computer are still two of my favorite characters in all of science fiction.
My dad was always a big science fiction fan and when I was growing up there were always books by Heinlein and Isaac Asimov (his favorites) lying around the house. When I was nine years old I picked up his copy of Starship Troopers and devoured it. At ten I swiped his copy of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and fell in love with it. At this age I was too young to really pick up on the problematic parts of both books and just considered them good space stories. That these were my first two SF novels probably explains a great deal about me.
Nevertheless I think dad was slightly appalled at my choices and pushed me towards Heinlein's juveniles. I know I read most if not all of the juveniles at this time but most don't seem to have stuck with me. I remember enjoying Space Cadet but was not overly impressed with The Rolling Stones. Eventually I moved on to SF by other authors but whenever I was bored I kept coming back to my first two books. When I was in eighth grade we had an assignment to do a book report and create diorama based on the book. Mine was the battle with the Skinnies in the first chapter of Starship Troopers. This probably explains a lot about why my teachers thought about me the way that they did,
About this time I got interested in board wargaming and again RAH via my dad is to blame. Dad had a copy of the old Avalon Hill Starship Troopers wargame. He never really got into it but I thought it was really cool and basically appropriated it for myself. In fact I still have it stored away someplace. It hooked me on the hobby and I was soon saving my money to buy my own hex map and cardboard chits wargames. First on SF&F themes but later historical ones too and I still enjoy the hobby.
I didn't get back to reading more Heinlein until I went to college. I read the Future History short stories. I loved Time Enough For Love, especially the Notebooks of Lazarus Long sections. I was disgusted with the sexism of Glory Road. And I tried several times, then and since, to read A Stranger In A Strange Land but I could never get into it despite everyone saying it was his master work. Apparently RAH thought it wasn't his best work either, so I guess I'm in good company.
I was in college in the mid-Eighties and this was when his later, weirder works were coming out. I liked the setting of Friday if not the actual story. While he had always had a tendency towards author tracts in his books it became more obvious near the end as the story gave way to the characters philosophizing. In short, I got bored.
And it was in college that I finally became aware of the really problematic, if totally polar opposite, politics of Starship Troopers and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and they became less and less of my go to reads when bored. Basically I finally grew up and grew past Heinlein. I haven't really read any thing by him in about fifteen years when I re-read Number Of The Beast shortly after moving to Nevada and was mildly amused by the fact that the major characters get married in Elko.
So while I owe Robert Heinlein and my dad a great deal for getting me into both science fiction and wargaming, I find that I cannot really be one of his defenders. As I said the man could write a good story in his prime but he just became too weird and too controversial for my tastes.
Two final notes. First, I have never seen Paul Verhoeven's film adaptation of Starship Troopers nor do I ever intend to. Aside from pumping up the already fascist elements of the novel up to eleven, when I found out the Mobile Infantry wasn't going to have power armor my immediate and continuing reaction was "What's the point?" After all it was the only real cool thing in the book,
The second is the only RAH novel I still own a copy of continues to be The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. I still have something of a week spot for it. Yes, I recognize it as a completely unrealistic libertarian fantasy but Manny and Mike the Computer are still two of my favorite characters in all of science fiction.
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