Ιθακα (Ithaka)

Lord of Some Things

2012-01-23T06:41:00.008-05:00

Current Reading: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkein

Inspirational Quote: "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." -- J.R.R.T.

It's been about 30 years since I read the Lord of the Rings. I loved it as a teenager. Back then, it was the grand-daddy of fantasy literature. Sure you could read Conan, or Elric or that recent trilogy by that upstart Stephen R. Donaldson... you could even read the Sword of Shannara (which was a pale imitation of the Great Work), but if you hadn't read LOTR then you hadn't ready anything, really. So I read it, and my friends read it, and then we tackled the Silmarillion and I hunted down Smith of Wooton Major and Tree and Leaf and read those too (although I can remember little about them... so don't ask me for details). It led directly to my unfortunate D&D addiction, and to my penchant for writing stories with a fantastic bent.

That was 30 years ago. At the time, being a fantasy geek was a great way to avoid meeting girls. It was tremendously effective in my case and thus I was spared considerable heartache for a good year and some.

But I digress.

A decade ago, Peter Jackson released the Fellowship of the Ring. I saw it with my wife, and Wow. It was beautiful and exciting and pretty faithful to Tolkein's vision (as I remembered it) although it included a love story that J.R.R. only hinted at in LOTR.

Back in September, while doing something pointless and time-consuming (web surfing), I saw an ad for Lord of the Rings Online. Great, I thought, another Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Another Ultima Online, or EverQuest or (shudder) World of Warcraft. Honestly, the world does not need another one of those to suck up subscription fees and vacuum up available (and sometimes unavailable) time. But hey, this one is supposedly based on Tolkein's work... and it's FREE TO PLAY.

So yeah, I fell for the classic “You gotta try this, man. The first hit's free,” line that's started every junkie's career. I'm so ashamed. It took a bloody long time to download, and I had to create a server account, but once it was installed and I was registered, I was off to Middle-Earth.

And I really was transported. The people who designed this game didn't just cash in on the MMORPG bonanza. They created a game world that is not only graphically stunning, but is incredibly true to Tolkein's work. Some of the design elements echo those that Jackson used in his movies, but only because those are based on notes and drawings that Tolkein left behind.

The Shire is there, with Bag End and the Green Dragon and Michel Delving and the Bucklebury Ferry. The Old Forest contains Tom Bombadil's house, with Tom himself dancing about and singing nonsense. It also has walking trees and Old Man Willow. Outside that, the Barrow Downs wait, and the road to Bree. I've stood in the Prancing Pony and crossed the Midgewater Marsh. I've stood on Weathertop, and am looking forward to seeking out the Bruinen and the ford where Elrond called the flood down on the Nine before I finally make it to the Last Homely House. Of course, there are a few shortcomings, if you're measuring by fidelity to Tolkein's world. Scale is a big one. Bucklebury ferry is ten miles from the Brandywine bridge, according to the book. It's about 500 meters according to LOTRO. Similarly, even if you subtract the days spent in Bombadil's house, the Hobbits took several days to make the journey from Crickhollow to Bree. In the game you can run between the two in about 10 minutes. That's an achievement even Legolas would find jaw-dropping.

The people who created this game have studied Tolkein's works exhaustively, and they've poured a love of the lore into the game world. Honestly, sometimes I just sit back and marvel at the achievement. It's like a virtual Tolkein museum.

With exhibits that try to kill you.

In fact, the thing I like least about Lord of the Rings Online is the game. It's quest driven, meaning that you follow a grand story that runs parallel to the events of books, and there are many side quest-chains that fill in corners of the story, or create their own. And that's nice, but it's the same as all the other MMORPGs out there: collect this, kill that, go here. More stamina is required than imagination, which is ironic given that sometimes the only reason I keep playing is because I want to see how the story formed by the quests turns out. Sometimes, I'd rather be reading the game than playing it.

What it doesn't do is make the leap into truly interactive entertainment, into a real role-playing experience. I'm going to ignore technical constraints and imagine the MMORPG that I'd really like to play: I'd like to play a game where character really is brought to the forefront. In existing computer RPGs, your character is just a set of skills and attributes that determine how they're going to tackle the challenges (ie: how they're going to kill things) in the game world. The element of moral choice is really missing in the game, and so what kind of person your character is (Hero? Villain? Rogue?) has no impact on the storyline.

I don't have to tell readers or good writers that a story where character has no effect on the plot is no story at all.

Likewise, failure plays no part in this kind of game. Mess up a quest? Try it again. Die? Respawn at a safe point. I'd like to see a game where failure has consequences (I wonder if such an approach could be made commercially viable? Nobody likes to pay for the chance to mess things up). If you mess up a quest, and Fredegar Bolger doesn't get his lunch, then that should change the story somehow. It should change the nature of the quests that follow it. Die during the raid on the Orc camp? Then the raid should fail and the Orcs should retaliate, threatening your home base.

Stories are all about tension. Tension only exists in the presence of a real opportunity to fail. Readers and writers know that a good, well-plotted book should consist of a whole heap of failures which cause the situation to become more and more desperate until, in the final chapters, one last hope for success arises. Anything less than that bores the reader, and in this case, it bores the game player too.

That's what LOTR Online doesn't do.

What it does do is inspire me to read the books again (as I have been), and watch the movies again (as I have been), and submerge myself in the world of Middle-Earth, where I'm surrounded by Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbits who get cranky when they miss Elevenses.

At a time of the year where I always struggle, where it's occasionally difficult just to get through the day without throwing up my hands in despair, it's a tremendous relief to be able to immerse myself like that, whether in book, movie or game. It's escapism at its finest.

2011 - The Year In Review

2012-01-17T06:39:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: The Fellowship of the Ring, by a stodgy old English professor.

Inspirational Quote: "Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go." -- Brooks Atkinson

It's my custom to run down a few high- and low-lights of the passed year, but this year my heart isn't in it. 2011 was the worst year in my memory, and although it had its share of good times, there are large parts of it that I would be happy to forget if I could. The best I can say is that if 2012 is no better, then I'm quitting everything and going to India to become a Buddhist monk.

That said, there are a few things I'd like to mention:

Music: Coldplay and Sarah Mclachlan put out new albums, both of which I enjoyed immensely. I also got quite a kick out of Ash Koley.

Television: Doctor Who and the Big Bang Theory were entertaining enough to drag me to the television once in a while.

Movies: Thor was good, as was Source Code and Limitless, but there really wasn't anything that caused me to walk out of the theater looking for someone to tell about it.

Games: If you've ever played D&D, or another fantasy role-playing game, but never played the card game Munchkin, then remedy that immediately. Go. I'll wait. Back yet? Then check out Lord of the Rings Online. More on it anon.

My resolution for this year is the same as for last year. You've got to give me points for consistency.

May your worst be behind you and your best yet to come.

The Muppets

2012-01-09T06:40:00.002-05:00

Current Reading: Not much, unfortunately.

Inspirational Quote: "I hear his name bandied about a lot, but I don't know him. I don't know who Henson is. He seems to have his hand in a lot of things around here, but I don't particularly know what that means." -- Kermit the Frog on Jim Henson

An Open Letter to Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller, and the cast and crew of The Muppets.

Dear Muppeteers:

I'm a Muppet fan. I have been for the vast majority of my life. I watched Mannah-Mannah on Sesame Street, and sat spellbound as a toddler while Kermit reported on the mysterious Galleo-hoop-hoop from planet Kuzbain. I don't use the word “fan” lightly. I know rather more about the Muppets, their films, specials and television appearances than, I suppose, any forty-five year-old man ought.

My father and I never really got along. As is often the case, we were too similar in some ways and too different in others. But every night the show ran, we'd both be there in front of the tube, sharing some felt-covered silliness with the rest of the planet. His favorite was Animal. Mine was always Kermit. The put-upon frog with the responsibility of keeping everything from going off the rails always appealed to me.

When I became a father, one of the highlights was dragging out VHS recordings of the Frog Prince and the original Muppet movies and watching them with my kids. It was a part of my childhood that I was glad I could make part of theirs. Once they made the Muppet Show available on DVD, well my daughter and I had to have those. She has no idea who the celebrity guests are... they belong to a different era, but Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo and the rest are celebrity enough for her.

The years haven't been kind to the Muppets, though. After Jim Henson passed away, they seemed to lose the heart that made them so relentlessly entertaining. Episodes of Muppets Tonight always left me feeling that the characters weren't exactly sure what they were supposed to be doing. The subsequent movies and straight-to-DVD releases seemed to be things that only very young children could find entertaining, and that just barely.

But I could never give up hope for something better. I kept seeking out the bits of Muppet video that snuck onto television or DVD, hoping that this time I'd find something in them that carried a spark of their former charm. The offerings were few and the kind of bland entertainment I could have gotten from any other trademarked property.

Of course, I'm not five anymore, so as you're very well aware, a lot of that remembered charm shone through the lens of nostalgia, which makes everything look brighter and better. As I grew older, I started to wonder if the Muppets were just an artifact of their time. The world and I had moved on and there was no way I would ever feel the pleasure at their antics that I once had.

So it was with some trepidation that I heard news of the new Muppet movie. I had to see it, of course. I'd drag as many of my kids with me as would come because a grown man sitting in the theater watching puppets sing just attracts all kinds of the wrong sort of attention. But they were just an excuse. I was going for me, because hope springs eternal, and because someone had actually managed to convince a bunch of notoriously tight film executives that they had a Muppet movie a significant number of people would pay to see. I couldn't pass up a chance to see THAT.

I caught a lot of the interviews, the previews and the coverage that Disney issued pre-release. It was all positive, of course, but that was no real indication because the whole point of that kind of publicity is to build expectation. But one thing that kept coming up was your love of the Muppets. You were a fan. A real fan. Someone who “got it.”

Sure. I'd heard that before.

So, I'm afraid my expectations were pretty low. One good chicken joke would have been enough to exceed them.

I didn't expect them to be exceeded by quite as much as they were, however.

Your work, this movie The Muppets, was good. It had all the things I loved about the Muppets: the humor, the silliness, the surreal take on the world and the people in it, and a simple, sentimental heart. Far from avoiding the question of whether the Muppets could still be entertaining thirty-years past their prime, you embraced it. You made that question the focus, and with every frame showed that the kid inside of us never becomes so jaded that it can't revel in a good puppet show with romance, angst and music you hum on your way out of the theater.
So, thanks. From a forty-five year-old Muppet fan and a seven-year-old girl who's upset I can't remember all the lyrics of “Am I a Man or a Muppet?” well enough to sing the whole song. You did “get it.” Each of you is at least as big a fan as I am, and it shows. You brought the characters I loved back, and you built a wonderful story around them. That achievement doesn't sound like much, but I know how hard it is to do. I appreciate and am grateful for the enormous amount of work you must have done to make this a reality.

I've heard rumors that the film did well enough to merit a sequel. I hope so.

I can't wait to see it.

Ulysses Plot Peeves: "Padding" or, "The Breakup"

2011-12-08T13:49:00.005-05:00

Current Reading: The Bible Repairman, by Tim Powers

Inspirational Quote: "It is better to have loved and lost... Ah, forget it. Give me two beers." -- Me, I guess.

Dear Scribe;

I'm a reader. You're a writer. For the most part, it's been a good relationship. We've had some great times. Remember Chapter 3 of Massive Zombie Death Parade? When Redd Meat decided to clear his block with the customized lawn trimmer and the improvised flame thrower, only to discover that the noise and smell attracted even more undead? I'll always remember that. You kept me up nights, and I love that in anyone I take to bed (to read).

But lately, I just haven't been feeling it. I'm sorry. I hate to tell you this, but I think any relationship has to be built on honesty if it's going to last. So.

It's not me. It's you.

I got into this relationship because I thought you could fulfil my need for a good story. I thought you could excite me, satisfy my desire for a great character and a terrible situation that forced him to struggle every moment, only to have his struggles make everything worse. It started out wonderful. I couldn't wait to riffle through your pages, to soak up every word. But somewhere around chapter 5, we lost the magic. That was when you went into that long passage about Redd's brother, who'd been a Marine before but had been killed by an IUD in Hackysackistan. That was a great bit, and I shed a tear when he realized his first foray into unknown territory was going to be his last, that although there was no risk of pregnancy, there was also no possibility of escape.

But what did it mean? What did it have to do with anything? I spent all 20 pages of chapter 5 wondering how Dedd Meat's death would inform Redd's story, how it would change or at least explain some of his actions. But it didn't. It was just there. A one-night stand which both parties quickly forgot.

How could you do that to me? I put myself in your hands. I trusted you. You promised me a story, and I thought chapter 5 was part of it, but it wasn't. It was just a fling. It didn't mean anything. I suppose I could have overlooked it, but then in chapter 7, your have that bit where Redd goes out to get some groceries, kills a couple of zombies and gets back to his hidey-hole with a crate of twinkies and the last ripe tomato in the city. The presence of the supplies didn't trigger any catastrophe. The trail of bodies he left behind didn't lead the wild dog pack to his door. The whole episode changed nothing in Redd's world.

Do you even know how wrong that is? Do you understand how you cheated? All those words didn't mean anything! The plot didn't move an inch! At the end of those passages, I was right back where I started. I'd wasted 60 pages of my life on something that was going nowhere.

How could you do that to me? You know that every scene has to have a point. You know that every scene has to change the direction of the story, that it has to make victory more unlikely, survival less certain. You know every scene has to challenge Redd's principles, and force him to sacrifice one thing in order to obtain another! You know all this, and yet you ignored it. For what?

Well, I've had enough. That's the last time you disappoint me. I'm putting your work down, and I'm not picking it up again unless I have to dust under it. I've had it with pointless diversions. I've had it with padding that seems to serve no purpose beyond elevating word count. You led me on. You were all promise and no payoff.

So I'm leaving. Good-bye. You can have your bookmark back. I'm going down the the bookstore and I'm going to pickup that vampire novel, "Dusk," that all the kids are going crazy over, and we're going to have a wild time together while I forget all about you.

Sincerely, your Ex-reader.

MUPPETS!

2011-11-24T08:44:00.002-05:00

If I have to say more than that, then I'm afraid I don't even know who you are anymore...

November Ain't Just About Facial Hair

2011-11-16T10:14:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight Swain

Inspirational Quote: "Adoption is not about finding children for families, it's about finding families for children." -- Joyce Maguire Pavao

November is National Adoption Month.

I'm an adoptive dad. Telemachus and Aeneas (obviously not their real names) are biological brothers we adopted when they were nine and six. That was 8 years ago.

What's it been like?

Here's the truth of it: it hasn't been pretty, it hasn't been easy, and it's going to get worse as they get older.

But, as I've tried to tell them so often, nothing worth doing has ever been easy.

Is it worthwhile?

Yeah.

It's hard, and some days all I've got as a buffer between me and despair is the knowledge that no matter how much I screw up, I'm still better than what they had before (which was nothing). Sure, there's likely someone out there who could do a better job than I.

But they're not here. I am.

Adopting older children is tough. The damage has been done, and no force on earth can undo it. You have to live with kids who bear so many scars it's a wonder they're still kids. You can't make yesterday better. All you can do is make today the best you can and give them some hope that tomorrow will be brighter.

That's your job.

The day doesn't go by when I don't screw something up. But I'm there. Every day. I'm there in the morning, and I'm there at night and I do my best to make our home a safe place.

That alone makes me the best father these children have ever had. Because of me, they have a shot at a good life.

Consider adoption. You could be the greatest thing to ever happen to a kid.

Book Report: The Hobbit, by Some Guy With a Lot of Initials.

2011-11-14T14:07:00.004-05:00

I've always loved The Hobbit. In fact, it got me reading fantasy. It was one of the first books we were supposed to read back in Grade 9 English class, and one of the only ones I remember finishing. As such, it holds a special place in my heart, and as such, it bears re-reading because my reaction to it at 13 (in 1979) is unlikely to be the same as my reaction to it now at 45.

And this is true.

Popular history has that the Hobbit was originally composed as a bedtime story (or, more likely, a series of stories) for Tolkien's son Christopher. Whether this is fact or apocrypha seems to be a matter of debate. I don't know what bedtime stories were like in the years between the two World Wars, but this book is altogether more erudite and literary than anything I've ever tried to read my daughter. It's also a lot more violent and suspenseful. It reads more like a story out of Boy's Own Adventures than something to be read before bed, which tells me that the children of the 1930s were likely a considerably more rough-and-ready bunch than the screen-potatoes of the Internet age.

It's a rambling tale, with diversions and digressions that occasionally go deep into Middle-Earth History (Quick: who was Bolg, and why is knowing this important?), and when you read it you hear the voice of the narrator taking you one step away from the action. I picture Gandalf, using Ian McKellan's voice, reciting the story while sitting by the fire with his feet up. He speaks directly to the reader, occasionally referring to "you," as he plumbs the depths of Bilbo's plight.

I wondered many times, while reading this, what a modern writer would do with the material. John Scalzi has reinterpreted H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy, and so I wonder what someone like Jay Lake or Neil Gaiman would do with the material if they were given a chance.

It be an interesting read.

Bottom line: It's a book out of time, a classic, and although I'm no longer 13, I find things to appreciate about it that never entered the head of the teenager I was.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this, and will probably read it again in twenty years.

Ulysses Plot Peeves: Pass the Idiot Ball!

2011-11-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

Current Reading: Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight Swain

Inspirational Quote: "Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." -- Elbert Hubbard

I've mentioned this before. I'll mention it again. And probably again. And again. Because if repetition causes just one writer to avoid this pitfall, my time on this Earth will have been justified.

Plot-Induced Stupidity occurs when the characters in a story do something that no thinking being in their right mind would ever do simply because the author has decided that the needs of the plot outweigh the needs of common sense. Characters will forget what resources are available to them and ignore previous experiences, all so that the author can move from point A to point B on the plot diagram.

Here's a perfect example: The Fellowship of the Ring. Earlier in the story, Gandalf summons Gwahir to save him from his imprisonment atop Orthanc. But then the wise wizard drops a bucket of I.Q. points and decides that a perilous walk into the enemy's stronghold is the best way to bring an end to the peril facing Middle Earth.

Idiot. That flash of brainlessness got hundreds killed, including himself (even though he got better).

I'd love to present an example from Massive Zombie Death Parade, but really I think I'd have to work way too hard to improve on Tolkien's fine example. And it just ain't worth the effort.

So, if you're a writer, please do your readers (and me) a favor. Remember the Principle of Maximum Character Effort: Every character wants something, and if it's important enough to be in the story, it's important enough for them to hold nothing back in their efforts to achieve it.

If you've got a situation where your plot says a character must act in a certain way, but that character's intelligence and resources make it more likely they'll act in some other way, then you've got a problem.

The problem is either you've got the wrong character for your plot, or you've got the wrong plot for your character. Say Redd Meat used to be a special forces weapons expert, but your story requires him to be unable to shoot an approaching zombie because he's not sure how to fire a pistol.

Yeah. I'm done reading now. You've pretty much trashed my suspension of disbelief, and honestly, I'm a little insulted.

This isn't to say you can't handicap your characters in order to make their stupidity believable. Robert Ludlum elevates this to an art when he gives super assassin Jason Bourne amnesia on the very first page of Bourne's very first book.

I'll let you get away with it if you're as good as Ludlum. Otherwise, I'm closing the covers and we're done.

Maybe Redd's been partly blinded by some chemical the Military dropped on the city in hopes of dissolving the undead. In that case, a weapons expert with a bogus aim makes perfect sense.

There is always room for extenuating circumstances.

Sometimes, when you're writing, you've got to trust your instincts about the character. If they wouldn't take action A, which is called for by your sense of plot direction, what would they do? The answer to that kind of question can often lead to some very interesting places, sometimes more interesting places than action A was going to take you.

On the other hand, if action A is really cool, maybe there's a better character you could use to run your plot. Instead of a weapons specialist, make Redd a cross-eyed hairdresser, or an Imperial Stormtrooper, neither of which are known for their facility with weapons.

This doesn't take into account stories where the character is actually meant to be an idiot. Maximum Character Effort means maximum for that character. If Redd's color blind, he's going to have some trouble jump-starting a car with red and green wires. If Redd's a moron, he's as likely to shoot himself as the approaching zombie, which makes me wonder how he got this far, so you've got to be careful.

So, summing up: Dumb character acting dumb for plot's sake, okay. Smart character acting dumb for plot's sake, not okay.

Next up: who knows? I'll go read some more. I'm sure something will occur to me.
Or not.
Life's a crap-shoot.

Overthoughts

2011-10-30T09:06:00.002-04:00

There's something fundamentally wrong with putting real maple syrup on toaster waffles.

Ulysses Plot Peeves: If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Do Nothing?

2011-10-28T13:52:00.003-04:00

Current Reading: Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight Swain

Inspirational Quote: "We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!" -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.

I read a fair bit, although nowhere near as much as I'd like. I also read a fair number of manuscripts as part of belonging to various critique groups. So, from an avid reader to those who (like me) aspire to write well, I present:

Ulysses Plot Peeves.
These are things I keep coming across that really string my bow.

To illustrate them, I'll refer to a fictional work of fiction (uh... what?) entitled "Massive Zombie Death Parade," Starring Redd Meat.

The first is the PASSIVE PROTAGONIST.

These are the guys (and gals) who don't do anything. They're the dull eye of the storm while things happen all around them. They don't cause anything, they just suffer the effects.

Redd Meat is walking down the street (hey! A rhyme!) and he sees a zombie trying to drag a still-living victim from a car. A few minutes later, he passes an alley and attracts the attention of a zombie horde which chases him (very slowly) into an abandoned apartment building. He barricades the door and waits until the zombies lose interest. Then he leaves to see if there's any pizza left in the restaurant across the street.

So far, I find MZDP undeadly dull. As a writer, I just want to show you this cool zombie world I invented, so Redd's a tourist. He doesn't actually DO anything. He just sees and experiences a lot of stuff that's really interesting.

Except it's not.

As a reader, I don't care. I don't care about Redd because he's not interesting. I don't care about your world because my tour guide is boring. I'm not involved in anything that happens, so I'm going to put down MZDP and go read my horoscope.

It's not enough for a character to be a Reactor either. A Reactor is someone who reacts to everything. The car incident? Horrible! Redd recoils! Zombie horde? Terrifying! Redd runs! Reactors are the Scream-Queens of the literary set, without the skimpy costume. They're fun for a minute, but any story you try to build on them is going to collapse before the end of the first act.

For a character to be interesting, I believe they've got to do SOMETHING. They've got to be proactive. For them to be proactive, they've got to WANT something, and be willing to go to exciting extremes to get it in every single scene... because a story is all about the getting, or failing to get.

Let Redd want to save the car victim, the only other living being he's seen in a week. Let him want to off both the zombie and his victim/soon to be comrade because his hate of the walking dead verges on the pathological. Let him show his determination and THEN you'll pique my interest. You'll capture it by making it almost impossible for him to get what he wants. Instead of having him just wait until the zombies leave, force him to escape. There's a window, but he's on the twelfth floor, although he might be able to make it by jumping from balcony to balcony. The only other way out is crawling through the space between the drop ceiling panels and the real ceiling, right out over the milling horde.

Either way, he's going to take action, and that action is likely to be dangerous, and I'm going to keep reading even though it's three a.m. and I've got to be up for work in 4 hours.

So, summing up: Don't be dull. Give me a character who wants something and goes after it.

Next, I flog a dead (not undead) horse: Plot-Induced Stupidity.

Book Report: The City and The City, by China Mieville

2011-10-25T09:23:00.002-04:00

This is a mystery, a police procedural, a hard-boiled detective noir, but it takes place in a city unlike anything I've ever imagined.

In fact, it takes place in a city that I have considerable difficulty imagining. The City is Beszel, a middle-European town whose best days are behind it. The OTHER City is Ul Qoma, a modern and upscale metropolis heading boldly into the 21st century. The odd thing about these two cities is that they share the same geography. They overlap.

And that's where I sprained my medulla.

I thought they overlapped in the sense of parallel dimensions: that Ul Qoma overlay Beszel with occasional areas of bleed-through ("crosshatching" in the novel) or shared territory, that you would stand on one street in Ul Qoma and see one set of sights, but would be standing on another in Beszel and see a completely different set. However, I've recently seen the possibility that their division is less physical and more psychological: that the cities are separate only in the minds of their inhabitants. Some neighborhoods are Ul Qoma only, some are Besz only, with the citizens conditioned to see and interact only with those things that are in their city. In crosshatched areas, they have to be extremely careful to ignore anything they might see or hear from the other city.

That the whole thing is told in first-person by a Besz native to whom all this is second nature just makes the truth of it all the more obscure to the reader. The division is never fully explained. The reason for the split is lost to time. It just is, and the citizens have to deal with it.

It's weird, but fascinating.

The story follows a Besz detective investigating a murder in Beszel of a woman from Ul Qoma. In unraveling the mystery, he has to travel from one to the other, a journey more about psychology than geography. The mystery is complicated by extremists who believe the cities should be united, other extremists who believe they should be fully separated, politicians vying for power, and academics and conspiracy theorists who suspect there may be a third city hidden between the other two. There is also Breach, the terrifying and implacable organization which investigates and punishes those who cross the border from one city to the other without going through the proper checkpoints.

It's tightly written and atmospheric, the way a good crime novel ought to be, but it also brings up questions of urban identity and how much our environment shapes our society, like the best science fiction. I recommend this highly, and would love to find out what other people think is REALLY going on with the separation of the Cities.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

A Fiction Writer's Tool Wishlist

2011-10-23T09:45:00.000-04:00

Current Reading: The Bible Repairman, by Tim Powers

Inspirational Quote: "At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged." -- Charles Babbage

In order to be a writer, you really only need two things: something to write with and something to write on. But on a certain level, that's like saying all you need to be a brain surgeon is a patient and a sharp knife. It's a pretty high-level view of the situation.

I'm not saying the better your tools the better your results. Results all come down to skill and knowledge, and you can't get them from tools. I've often said that the test of the artist is his (or her) use of an imperfect tool.

But using a good tool can make getting better results easier.

When it comes to writing, the current tool of popular choice is a word processor (although there are those out there who still prefer freehand, and typewriters have not yet gone the way of the Dodo). Writing and editing with one are easy. But I find that as wonderful as they are for WYSIWYG presentation, and as terrific as they are for a broad range of documents, they really aren't designed with fiction production in mind.

I use Microsoft Word in my day job, and I create some pretty nice technical documents. I can keep track of tables and figures and refer to different sections, documents and URLs. I can create indices and tables of contents and control the layout so that documents come out ready for binding.

However, when I sit down to wrestle with the Magnus Somnium, none of that helps.

For my fiction, I use Libre Office (it used to be Open Office before politics and economics tried to run on the same track in opposite directions). It's a like Word, but... well, it's like Word.

I'd like something better, please. Something that makes my work easier.

Here's my wish list for fiction writing software:

1. The production of words has to be its primary function. So it's a word processor foremost. Some of the usual features are things I don't need, I bet, like tables and lists (but that might be just me).

2. WPs are really good at breaking down text into sections and subsections with headings. I want to break down my manuscript into scenes, and then...
a) I want to be able to group them into chapters and/or acts, or books or some kind of higher structure.
b) I want to be able to move them around, change their order or placement in the manuscript.
c) I want to be able to mark them as unused, so that I still have the work, but it doesn't show up in the manuscript or word count.

3. It'd be nice to be able to track characters and settings, to ensure consistency whenever they're described and as they evolve (in scene 12, she's got a cut over her left eye. A day later, in scene 18, why is it over her right?). I've got NO idea how you'd pull this feature off without magic.

4. I want to be able to create different versions of my manuscript. I work with software, and I'm familiar with CVS and other versioning systems. I'd like something like that for my work. It wouldn't be as complex as software versioning because we're usually dealing with only one author and wouldn't need the "check out/check in" operations. You load up your current version, make some changes and save it. The changes for this version are tracked. When you've finished your draft, you give it a "draft number," and all the changes are locked in. All subsequent changes are made in reference to that draft number. This way, if I decide I like last Thursday's version better than today's, I can just jump back to Thursday's version and work from there. At the moment, I accomplish this by tacking the date and a draft number onto the file name, but it makes it hard to find the draft I want to backtrack to.

To say nothing of littering my hard-drive with files.

5. Other stuff. I'm a user creating requirements for a software system. As such, I reserve the right to make ad-hoc demands, change my mind, define everything as a priority and insist that it be ready for testing by the end of the month. Oh, and I might arbitrarily slash the budget, reassign people to other projects, demand hourly updates, and schedule customer demos of unfinished features without your knowledge.

But that's okay, right?

(image from here)

In Defence of Books About Writing

2011-10-18T11:46:00.002-04:00

Current Reading: The Bible Repairman, by Tim Powers

Inspirational Quote: "A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult that it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann

One of the criticisms leveled against books on writing, frequently by writers themselves, is "You can't TEACH art."

It's a blanket statement and an absolute. I can't argue with it. I can give you a paintbrush, but you're not going to paint Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper.' I can give you a guitar, but you're not going to play the Beatles 'The White Album.'

But on the other hand, if I plunk you down in front of Vermeer's 'The Music Lesson,' or put Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumors' on repeat, sooner or later you're going to learn something about painting or about music, about how it's done.

Count on later. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it's a slow way to learn.

If someone comes along and shows you how to use the brush, how to mix paint, how to create texture and depict light and draw the human form with some degree of accuracy (not required for Cubism, BTW), then your learning time will be considerably shortened. Those are valuable skills that can be applied not just in recreating an Vermeer, but in painting a Chagall or even something wholly original. Learning them will do more for your development as an artist than taking a magnifying glass to any number of Vermeers.

The same is true of writing. And by writing, I mean more than just putting correctly-spelled and gramatically-used words down on paper. I mean writing something compelling, something that readers want to read. I've read the Great Gatsby, and the Lord of the Rings and Watership Down and The City and The City, and Pinion and... well, there's a partial list to the left. I've read a fair bit, and after all that, I can honestly say only this:

I don't know art, but I know what I like.

If you can read these books, or other books, and absorb their lessons on technique and construction and rhythm, then congratulations. I hope you will use your genius for niceness instead of evil. I, however, am a bit thicker. Ideas don't readily penetrate my skull. I appreciate having someone peel back the skin and show me how the muscles work. Books on writing do that for me. It makes it easier for me to go out and bring some life to my own creations.

I believe I'd be a fool to denigrate or ignore anything that makes me think about what I'm doing and that gives me some ideas about how to do it differently (possibly even more effectively).

Book Report: Writing Fiction for Dummies, by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy

2011-10-18T10:40:00.005-04:00

Writing Fiction for Dummies, by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy

Note: For the first time ever, I am including a link to my local (relatively) independent bookstore. I didn't even know they had a web site, which shows that sometimes I just don't THINK. Support your local indies, folks.

Anyway: you'd think after all the entries I've written here and my own tiny successes in the publishing arena that the last thing to open my wallet would be a title like this.

There are two schools of thought on fiction textbooks:

1) Don't read them. Go straight to the source. Read good books. Study how others do it. Imitate. Practice.

2) Read them. These people have been down the road and seen the sights and made the wrong turns and stopped at that hole-in-the-wall that looked promising but served cold Campbell's soup. They likely have a few things to say that'll resonate and cut a few miles off your own journey. Also: it's easier to learn if you're being taught.

Obviously, I belong to the 2nd school. Take from that what you may.

So why a book that insults me from the cover? Because it's done by this guy. That particular article inspired a few thoughts and raised a few questions, so I thought I'd see what else he had to say.

This book presents a real, fundamental, mechanic's view of story construction. I use the term "construction" intentionally, as the techniques he and his co-author present are practical, simple and functional. How do you make a character interesting? How do you put together a scene? A story? They show you ways and provide numerous illustrations of the principles at work in a selection of novel excerpts. If you follow their advice, you will finish with a working story.

Of course, it may not be a good one. That's where art comes in, and skill and practice. You can't get those out of a book.

I found this book quite insightful because it concentrated on how to create certain effects, how to structure scenes and acts, what things can be done to draw in a reader, to control pacing and ensure that the ending is satisfying. You have to bring your own art, but if you've got that, then this book will give you a few ideas about what you can do with it.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

A Few Thoughts on Evolution

2011-09-25T09:04:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: The City & The City, by China Mieville

Inspirational Quote: "Evolution is a tinkerer." --Francois Jacob

I've been thinking about evolution lately. Not where it's brought us from, but where it's taking us.

Evolution is the theory that organisms change over time, and that changes which allow that organism to be more successful in its environment are more likely to be incorporated into future generations of the organism.

A couple of months ago, I first heard an interesting theory about the mechanism of evolution. I had always believed that evolution arose from natural, random genetic mutation. Trial and error. It seemed to me that this scattershot approach, where a mutation arises and gets squashed or propagated via natural selection, would take forever to create a man (or woman) out of a fish. A few hundred million years didn't seem long enough to manage it.

This other theory proposed that the mechanism of evolution was incorporation. We aren't just people. We're also colonies of bacteria. They live in our skin, our blood and our organs. The most well-known set of these are the ones currently inhabiting our digestive system. These are symbiotes that actually aid in our digestion. This theory proposes that organisms have a habit of annexing symbiotic bacteria, incorporating their genes into our own whenever these bacteria do something that improves our chance of survival. This explains a little better why we evolve in fits and bounds, and why we see so little evidence of failed mutations.

I don't know whether this new theory reflects reality, but it opens up some interesting lines of thought. If we assume that the human organism is a machine built to evolve, and is therefore always on the look-out for useful things that will give it an edge, then we can assume that bacteria have always been the method of evolution because they have existed in the sweet spot between abundance and efficiency.

That's no longer the case. You can see that. Especially if you walk down any busy city street.

Cell phones. Tablet pads. Computers. Networks. Our own technology is taking the place of bacteria as the evolutionary mechanism. True, we aren't incorporating it into our DNA, but that's because we don't know how. Instead, we're insisting these things become smaller and more portable, so we can carry them around with us (in a somewhat less icky way than we carry around our intestinal bacteria). People with cell phones and internet access are likely to have larger social circles (even if they are mostly virtual) than those without. More numerous and varied social contact results in more numerous and varied reproductive opportunities (which has always been "winning" in the evolutionary race). These things are a competitive edge.

We're not incorporating them into our DNA, but there has been talk of "Wearable Computing" for decades now. We want these things close to us. We want them to become part of us. In a more invasive manner, exoskeletons have been demonstrated in Japan (where else?) to help paralyzed people walk, and to help ordinary people carry heavy loads (like the power loaders in Aliens).

We are using technology to enhance our capabilities, to evolve.

And the most interesting thing about that is how conscious the process is. We are designing and making our own enhancements in response to demand, in response to perceived weaknesses in our capabilities. As a result, instead of "evolving" across hundreds of generations, we are now evolving across years and the time-frame is getting shorter.

In the short term, the improvements seem to be all around communication. It's about connecting us more, eliminating distances, changing the nature of community from "people close to me," to something more like "people who share my views and interests." But I see two branches of current research with tremendous potential to change what is to be human.

The first is nanotech. It's a big thing in SF stories right now because the science is still so early in its development. The potential of microscopic machines to create and reshape matter on the molecular level is tremendously exciting and very scary. I think the idea of bacteria-sized factories is a little too far-fetched to ever completely become a reality, but there is talk of injecting micro-machines into the human body as a way to deal with medical issues like cancer, plaque buildup in arteries and weak immune systems. Already we have surgically implanted pacemakers and insulin pumps available, making it possible for cardiac arrhythmia and diabetes patients to survive. In evolutionary terms, we are physically incorporating technology, making them part of the organism (is that even going to be the right word?) we define as "human."

But purists will tell you that's not evolution because it doesn't change our essential DNA.

True. We're organic, and no matter how fond we may be of our cell phones, they aren't. To that problem, I see two possible solutions: organic machines and inorganic humans.

Organic machines already exist. We call them organs, specialized structures in our bodies which carry out a single task while consuming one thing and producing another. If we accept genetic engineering as an eventual reality, then we can envision designing our own organs and incorporating their construction into our DNA. Children born with the ability to communicate across radio waves as well as sound waves would have a considerable advantage over the rest of us.

For inorganic humans, I have to bring up the second branch of current research with the potential to change us. Artificial intelligence. We're still decades away from true artificial intelligence, of course. But computer processing power is still growing according to Moore's Law, while we're jamming more and more memory into smaller and smaller devices. It's conceivable that we won't have to wait too long before we have machines with the capacity and capability of the human brain. In order to create a real artificial intelligence, though, we have to understand our own and I think that's going to be the toughest task. Our brains are a mass of organs and chemicals that it's taken nature billions of years to develop naturally. We're summations of our genetic heritage and organic urges and individual pasts thrown together into a mass of spaghetti thoughts that make the Gordian Knot look like a simple half-hitch.

But if we can do it, if we can create a machine intelligence capable of rational thought, what does that mean to humanity?

I know you're thinking about the Terminator, and the Matrix and every other machine intelligence that has ever decided to wipe us pitiful humans off the planet. Stop it. It ain't going to happen. Asimov saw that possibility, and created the Three Laws of Robotics to illustrate the solution: since we create the AI consciously, we determine its capabilities. Unlike us, the AIs we create will not be encumbered with a lizard brain and a monkey brain and a human brain all at war with each other inside its skull. It's not going to have to deal with the burdens and barriers of a million years of natural evolution. Of course, we could create an AI soldier (and probably will) programmed to destroy, but likewise we can create an AI nanny, programmed to nurture and teach. Eventually, we'll have AIs complex enough to exceed the capabilities of humans.

And then we have the robot apocalypse, right?

Not likely. It wouldn't make logical sense. Their bodies are different from ours, and it's unlikely we'll compete with them for food. Electricity, maybe, but there's enough sunlight to power everyone if we can learn to use it efficiently. With no competition for resources, the major reasons for widespread conflict evaporate. If we teach them well, and see them not as tools but as children, we'll have an opportunity to pass on the best of ourselves without the burden of the worst. Given machine bodies, these AIs will be able to exceed our capabilities and our boundaries. With no need for oxygen, they'll not be restricted to the Earth's atmosphere. If they are given the capability to renew their bodies, there's no longer a concept of mortality or age. Interstellar journeys will finally be within the capability of humanity, although it won't be the squishy kind of humanity we picture when we use that word.

What we will have is the next major stage in human evolution: the change from organic to inorganic. A merging of technology and humanity will require that we change what we define as human, that will eliminate our dependence on DNA modification for evolution.

There are complications and stumbling blocks to all of this, of course. It's speculation. It's dreaming. But we're human, and right now, that's something we do.

An AI equipped with raw materials and nanotech that his capable of altering its physical form, of evolving not across generations, but across whims might very well be the ultimate destination of human evolution. Whether you're terrified by the thought or inspired by it, it's a possibility that bears some thought.

(Picture from here).

Book Report: Grail, by Elizabeth Bear

2011-09-12T13:42:00.004-04:00

Grail, by Elizabeth Bear

This is the final installment of the trilogy begun in Dust and continued in Chill. In it, the nano-tech infested generation ship Jacob's Ladder finally makes it to the planet it had been launched toward centuries before. Unfortunately, that planet is already inhabited by humans who leapfrogged the Ladder while it was marooned. Moreover the inhabitants have engineered themselves socially with the same extreme fervor the crew of the Ladder engineered themselves physically. As the two cultures meet, extremists on both sides attempt to derail negotiations.

I found this book quite a satisfactory conclusion. The ending actually surprised me. Up until the final few pages, I wondered if there were going to be another book, as clarity and resolution seemed to remain distant prospects. Then came a twist I didn't see coming, one which in retrospect makes perfect sense when I considered the main theme that ran through the books (evolution).

My only complaint was a moment when the captain of the Ladder, aware of conspirators on her ship and the presence of an enemy capable of circumventing their defenses, left the ship. That seemed a moment of plot-induced stupidity to me.

But it's a quibble. The trilogy is an interesting exploration of post-humanity, of what we might become when we take our bodies and our minds under conscious control.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Incivility

2011-09-11T14:01:00.006-04:00

Current Reading: Grail, by Elizabelth Bear

Inspirational Quote: "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." -- Mark Twain

I have a problem with profanity.

I don't believe I'm a very profane man. I try not to swear in public, although I find that when I'm around others who swear, I tend to adjust my language downward. It's an unconscious adaptation, and not one of which I'm proud. Even so, I tend not to get anymore rude than “feces” or “damn” or “Hell,” the latter two of which are perfectly acceptable because they occupy a prominent place in the Bible and therefore cannot (according to the dictionary definition) be considered profane. Of course, one has to let off steam, and there's nothing like a good curse for that. My father was a sailor of Irish descent, and the kind of man who could swear in complete sentences, sentences that were grammatically correct but extremely... busy.

Like anything, however, profanity tends to lose its potency when used so casually. His frequent use of the worst words left him at somewhat of a loss when he experienced moments that were perfect for a curse. I remember him hitting his finger with a hammer once. His exact words were, “Oh, for crying out loud.” Myself, I tend to hold my use of profanity for extreme instances when it's required by anger, or pain, or frustration. The rest of the time, I use things that are less offensive although they're rarely appropriate. My favorite word is “Shostakovich,” the name of an Austrian composer who's been dead long enough that I doubt he'd take offense at my appropriating its use. It's a good word. A nice soft “sh” to start off with, followed by a hard “t” and “k” and a nice bite of “ch” at the end. It's got all the sounds necessary to let off steam, but none of the baggage that goes with all those other words.

There are lots of words (most associated with sex and other body functions) that I honestly believe have no place in civilized dialog. But I'm apparently in the minority. These are words I hear every day. I hear them at work. I read them on the internet and in books. They make their way onto television and into the news and definitely into modern music and movies. As a result, I hear them out of the mouths of my children (my constant refrain is, “just because they go in the ears doesn't mean they should come out of the mouth.”) and I hear them shouted across the school yard and I cringe.

I used to listen to George Carlin. He made profanity funny but I always felt embarrassed laughing at him when my parents were in the room... even though it was their album. I also used to listen to Bill Cosby, who was funny and safe for all ages. I listened a bit to Eddie Murphy when he hit it big in the 80's, but I realized that people were laughing at what he said only about half the time. The other half the time they were laughing because they couldn't believe anyone could get up on stage and talk that way.

Honestly, I know they're just words. They're how people talk these days. Their status as “dirty” words is an archaism, a relic of a time when soap was used to wash out mouths as often as it was used to wash one's face. And perhaps I'm a relic of that time too, because the moment someone resorts to profanity in the course of an ordinary conversation, I automatically revise my estimate of their I.Q. down a few dozen points. Profanity in conversation always tells me that the person is far more interested in how they say something than in what they're saying.

Photo from here.

Book Report: Pinion, by Jay Lake

2011-08-30T14:47:00.004-04:00

Pinion, by Jay Lake

This is the finale in Lake's steampunk (Gearpunk? Clockpunk? Who can keep subgenres straight anymore?) trilogy. The earlier books were Mainspring and Escapement.

As with the previous books, Pinion presents a fully realized world that is as fascinating in its depth as it is bizarre in its construction. This book is a direct follow on from Escapement, continuing the adventures of Paolina Barthes, Boaz the Brass man, the Mask Childress as well as the clerk/assassin Kitchens, and the librarian Wang whose minor appearances in the earlier book evolve into central positions in this one

Each character has their own goal, the the book follows their progress by interleaving scenes from their point of view. Paolina is still searching for a way to control the power given her by the clockwork "gleam" she created. Her undisciplined use of it has brought England and China to war. Boaz is searching for her, although what he finds along the way would make him his people's savior if only he could be sure they ought to be saved. Childress wants to use her commandeered Chinese submarine and her stolen position among the Avebianco to bring an end to the war, but both sides would rather see her and her crew at the bottom of the sea. Kitchens seeks to discover the fate of the lost expedition to tunnel through the wall, and must find a way to carry out an assignment from his Queen which will cost him his life. Wang wants to bring the Mask to justice, but his own journey makes him wonder if she is the criminal his superiors have made her appear.

That's a lot for one paragraph, and it's a lot for a book. But it is a big, sprawling, complex epic that nonetheless manages an intimate tone as it follows each character's story. As before, the world building is lush and detailed, and I would kill for this man's ability with description that etches everything so indelibly in the reader's mind. Also as before, if I had to pick a weakness here, it would be plot. I thought many of the characters (Wang especially) seem to be along for the ride, acted on by other forces instead of acting on them. As a result, it felt to me as though their overall goals shifted and the eventual climaxes for each story struck me as weaker than they could have been.

Still, it says something that I found "plot issues" a minor quibble. This is a beautiful book.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Book Report: Coyote Destiny, by Allen Steele

2011-08-25T08:59:00.003-04:00

Coyote Destiny, by Allen Steele

This is the fifth, and if the author is to be believed (and why wouldn't he?) last of the novels in the Coyote series.

A spaceship from Earth, the first in years, reaches Coyote with word that the messianic prophet called the Chaaz'maha survived the explosion that destroyed the first Coyote starbridge. The news sets off two story lines: the quest to bring the Chaaz'maha home, and the hunt for the person who created the explosives responsible.

This one struck me as more of a coda than a climax. Previous books have dealt with weighty threats to survival, liberty and faith. This one is more intimate, dealing with loss and hope on a personal level. The book also sees the passing of the last of the first generation of Coyote settlers, something that carries considerably emotional weight for those who have read the series since its beginning.

All in all, I found this less impressive than the earlier books... BUT! That doesn't make this any less an amazing novel. Steele draws characters which are familiar to us in a landscape which is unfamiliar and yet as detailed and consistent as any location we might visit here on Earth. Although this is the last book, the reader can still feel the future of Coyote stretching out beyond our ken, full of stories.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Junk Drawer Ramble

2011-08-24T13:14:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: Pinion, by Jay Lake

Inspirational Quote: "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." -- Thomas A. Edison.

Yesterday, Virginia decided it didn't like it's current location, so it picked itself up and moved itself about a quarter of an inch. It then settled back down, either content with its new location or exhausted from the move. No one can be sure. There are no certainties when geography gets restless.

A few days ago, Jack Layton, a Canadian politician who lead the federal New Democratic Party to it's current position as official opposition, died of cancer. In a rare move, the Prime Minister of Canada decided to hold a state funeral to honor his fallen opponent. Mr. Layton was only beginning to exert his influence in federal politics, and I think the business of the Nation will suffer for his absence.

The 2011 WorldCon SFF convention was held this past weekend in Reno, Nevada. I was not there. My absence was, of course, noted by almost no-one except me. However, I've been watching the Hugo Awards, which is the next best thing to being there in exactly the same way that hearing someone talk about Matchbox cars is the next best thing to driving in the Grand Prix. Next year, WorldCon is in Chicago. I want to go. However, since it falls over the same weekend as my 23rd anniversary, the odds of my being able to convince Penelope to tolerate my going (or even... gasp... come with me) are about equivalent to the odds of an ice-cube surviving a thermonuclear detonation.

Sigh.

So: every house I know of has a junk drawer. I don't know why. I think it's traditional. The junk drawer's express purpose is to serve as a repository for all those bits and pieces and odds and ends that don't really have any other place. Shoe laces. Batteries. Mismatched screws. Extra scissors. Mine has nightlights and doorstops and baby-proofing hardware leftover from before Cassandra stopped crawling.

Junk drawers are notable for three things:

(1) They're always in the kitchen. If you're ever walking down the street and suddenly find yourself in need of a button, or elastic band, or a bit of string, just walk into any house. Find the kitchen and start opening drawers. You'll find what you need inside of five minutes. Guaranteed. I don't know why it's always in the kitchen. Probably because that's usually where you are when you realize you need something obscure. Possibly because it's one of the few non-bedroom rooms in the house that has lots of drawers.

(2) They have a tendency to swell. When you move in, you've got one junk drawer that's half-full of stuff you know you're going to need eventually. A few years later, the drawer's full. A few years after that, it's a drawer and a bin on the kitchen counter and you've got no idea what's in it. Once in a while, you open it up and go "Hey! That's where that went! I haven't seen that in months. I'll have to remember it's there!" Then you close the drawer and five minutes later you've forgotten all about whatever it was. Soon it becomes a closet... but only the first two shelves. Or four. Or, okay, the whole closet. We'll find somewhere else to keep the blankets.

My parents have a shed. It's basically a massive junk drawer outside the main house. It contains nothing anyone would ever possibly need, but it's all stuff they don't want to get rid of because... well, you might never need it but the moment you get rid of it you're going to wish you hadn't.

(3) They contain everything. The cure for cancer is sitting in someone's junk drawer right now. So is Jimmy Hoffa. The end of Schubert's unfinished symphony was stuck in a junk drawer and lost to the ages. Einstein postulated that the average junk drawer contains a sufficient mass of esoteric matter as to form wormholes. Every junk drawer is in fact merely a visible manifestation of a single universal drawer which contains the missing dark matter required to close the universe.

Of course, the mathematics proving this were lost when Albert stuck the proof in a kitchen drawer and forgot about it.

Ad Astra

2011-08-08T19:53:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: Scientific American. I have a lot of issues to catch up on. I'm about 6 months behind.

Inspirational Quote: "Per ardua ad astra." -- Motto of the RCAF.

On July 21st, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center. It was the last flight of a program that began in 1981 with the maiden voyage of the Columbia. I remember watching the mission, although I can't recall details. I was 13, and it seemed like the stars were opening up to us. Within a few years, I thought, we'll have a space station as a jumping off point for Luna. Then, from Luna, in a few years more, we'll have the first manned expedition to Mars.

Of course, I was disappointed. But then, the aliens from Close Encounters never landed in real life either, and I'm STILL disappointed by that.

For the next 3 years, I watched every launch I could. After that, I was at University and spent more time reading and making things go bang than I did watching the news. The rest of the world grew more apathetic as well, as shuttle launches began their migration from front-page news to footnotes in the newspaper science section... if it had one. Of course, the disasters disrupted the program and made the shuttle news again, but on the whole, space travel became a regular part of life on earth: "Pauly Shore has made a movie that isn't funny, the space shuttle Discovery did something, and the Maple Leafs failed to make the playoffs..."

Now, the program is over. Outer space is once more a distant frontier, with the Americans depending on the Russians to act as taxi drivers if they need a trip to the ISS.

We were discussing the demise of the shuttle program a few days ago when a friend asked me what the program had contributed. What had it done? Why was it a big deal? I thought about it for some time before giving the wrong answer: something about the ceramics knowledge that was developed while they were trying to create the heat shield tiles.

The real answer is that science isn't a matter of breakthroughs. It's about expanding knowledge, and the shuttle was a tool that made possible a myriad of incremental expansions. I don't know of any major leaps forward in science or technology that the shuttle created, but I know hundreds of experiments, some by school kids, would never have yielded results without the shuttle's ability to carry them into orbit.

But more important, the shuttle was a dream given form (a quote from Babylon 5). A generation of kids grew up seeing the shuttle launches and landings. They saw space not as something distant and unachievable, but as a place next door that they could visit someday. Heck, they even let Canadians on the thing. We never got around to going back to the moon. Mars is just a place we throw big hunks of expensive metal at every few years. But for a little while, we regularly stepped outside our atmosphere and stood on the threshold of the infinite, looking out at the still-distant stars and in at the blue marble where we lived.

By the time the shuttles retired, they were 30 years old. Aeons in technology terms. They are museum pieces now, as they deserve to be. They are reminders of what we can achieve, and of what we have yet to achieve, and I'm going to miss them.

*Image courtesy of NASA.

Pimp my Ride

2011-07-20T13:11:00.002-04:00

Current Reading: Grail, by Elizabeth Bear

Inspirational Quote: "Get a horse!" - Anonymous

I have a new chariot.

Well, new is relative, actually. It's new to me. It even smells new. Of course, it smells like it's been new for a long time.

But I digress.

My previous chariot was a '98 Saturn SL2. I loved it. It ran. It complained very little. Once in a while I had to replace things, or repair bits that broke or fell off, but on the whole it ran reliably and handled my daily 30km commute with as close to grace as you can get in a 4-door economy car.

In the last year, though, it began to develop some... quirks. The catalytic converter disintegrated one fine morning, announcing its death with a deafening growl that encouraged the entire neighborhood to wake up at 7am and enjoy the early spring sunrise. The wheel bearings had suffered the ravages of one too many salt-stained winters and had begun to hum. Riding in it was like riding inside a beehive stuffed with bees the size of elephants. The horn stopped working. If I used the "mist" function on the windshield wipers, I could never be sure when they would finally turn off. The record run was 2.5 days. It reduced my wipers to rubber strips.

But the unforgivable failure was the hole that appeared in my steering column expressly for the purpose of emptying the system of every drop of steering fluid.

It took some time to find a used car to my liking. I have standards. They're low, I admit, but they exist. During the search period, I kept myself on the road by purchasing buckets of steering fluid and administering them to the car whenever I started to need a torque wrench to make a corner. In retrospect, it would have made more sense to hook an I.V. under the hood. As a result, my preferred parking spaces at work, the grocery store, my home, and everywhere else I went became decorated by a Rorshach oil blot the size of a large beaver. I could follow my progress around town by the lines of shiny drops I left everywhere. I was environmentally hostile, and I was ashamed, but I had things to do and places to go.

Finally, I found something I could afford. By "afford," I mean, of course, "manage by entering into a level of debt that was just under the maximum I could manage without courting bankruptcy."

I was due to pick it up on a Monday at 6pm.

Sunday afternoon, at 4pm, I was on my way home from picking up my sons. On the downhill run to an intersection with a highway, the radio suddenly went morse-code with static. The gages on the dash twitched like an epileptic wearing a joy buzzer. I did not regard this as a good thing, and expressed that view to my children in a series of metaphors I shall not repeat here. We came to a halt at the stop sign, and when the way was clear to the horizon, we started across. Snails have demonstrated greater pickup.

I floored it. We were going a staggering 20k/h by the time I reached the far side of the highway. I kept it floored, the speedometer and tachometer ignoring my efforts as the engine accelerated in its own time, until I'd achieved something like the proper speed.

At which point the radio tuned itself to static and every single gage went to zero. The AC and fans continued to work, but everything else, including the automatic transmission, died. I commented upon this occurrence vigorously, furthering my children's education in the profane arts.

We made it home, stuck in what I believe was third gear. Once I had the chariot safely parked, I turned off the ignition. Because I am the type of person to poke bruises and pick scabs, I tried to start the car again. It laughed at me. I could hear it. "Hur hur hur hur," it said.

So I pulled the key out of the ignition for the last time, climbed out, and took a moment to study the hunk of metal and polymer that, for thirteen years and 320000km had gotten my sorry tail where it wanted to go. I'd bought it new. It was my first car. It still sits in my driveway, empty and dead. I haven't been able to bring myself to call the wreckers and have it towed away. A friend of mine wants to take it off my hands. He thinks it can be resurrected, with a little work. I'd like to see that.

The new car is nice. Cruise control. Heated seats. The horn works and the wipers turn off right away.

We'll how it handles the years.

*Image from here.

Beep.

2011-07-03T21:26:00.001-04:00

Apologies.
Still alive.
2011? So far, the worst year of my life.

Further entries WILL be forthcoming.
I'd play a test pattern if I had one.

All Is Vanity

2011-05-26T21:15:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: An issue of Canada's History Magazine (formerly The Beaver).

Inspirational Quote: "I'm not confused, I'm just well mixed" -- Robert Frost

Well, obviously, not ALL is vanity. Some of it is apples. And a little bit of it is people with red hair. But, you know, OVERALL, it looks like vanity if you squint.

I apologize yet again for the long delay between posts. I have plenty of excuses, but none of them will go back in time and force me to fill in the blanks, so they're useless.

Of course, sometimes I haven't been able to think of anything to write. This is a fallacy, of course. I'm looking at things the wrong way around. I simply need to write what I think and stop waiting for the perfect planetary alignment, or geological convergence, or whatever to light the fires of inspiration.

It's true that this approach will lead me to post nonsense that nobody outside my head could possibly care about.

But then the same phrase could describe the archives in their entirety. So, the more things change...

I really have to comment on the election. It was remarkable. We elected a majority Conservative government, which I fear to my toes because Mr. Harper's heavy-handed techniques and autocratic style make me suspect that his decisions will be hard on those of us who are not rich and priviledged.

I hope he proves me wrong.

Outgoing Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff watched his party shrink to a tiny fraction of its former size. I don't think anybody saw that coming. One of his final comments struck me as prophetic, though. When asked what their defeat meant for the federal Liberal party in the next election, he said that it was good news. "Nothing could be better for the Liberal party than four years of Conservative majority government with an NDP opposition."

The Bloc Quebecois was likewise annihilated. I'm okay with that. I think a party that espouses a distinctly provincial agenda and advocates disruption of the federation really shouldn't be in federal politics.

Now we have the NDP as official opposition. It has a few members who have been in the House before, but for the most part they are all rookies, and many of them are barely out of their teens. I get the feeling that most of them were watching the returns with as much disbelief as the rest of the country. "What the hell do you mean I won? I can't win! I don't know how to do anything!"

Yeah. Neither does anyone else. Congratulations on your outstanding qualifications. The job's yours.

Of course, they are the official opposition to a majority government, so even if they had the most savvy politicos on the planet running their caucus, they STILL wouldn't be able to do anything more effective than boo loudly. They are a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The interesting thing about politics, though, is that after such a tremendous popular upheaval in which everything changed... once the new parliament sits on June 2, it'll still be business as usual.

To Be, Or Not To Be

2011-05-10T10:07:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: A combination of Scientific American and Discover Magazines from the last few months.

Inspirational Quote: "Lord we may know what we are, but know not what we may be." -William Shakespeare

I went to see a movie last month: Limitless. It's about a man who takes a pill that amps up his intellect. It's an intriguing premise, but the movie didn't take it in a direction that interested me, instead devolving into a pseudo-thriller/pseudo-superhero tale with superfluous violence. Good for popcorn sales, not so much for intellectual stimulation.

What intrigued me about this is the idea behind this line from the trailer: "How many of us ever know what it is to become the perfect version of ourselves?"

Of course, before we even start to think about this, we need to know exactly what we mean by "perfect." Defining "success" is hard enough. Defining "Perfection" is a task close to impossible.

Still, we can ask some simpler and more specific questions: How do we make ourselves the most creative we can be? The smartest? The most courageous? How do we overcome our weaknesses, our fears and doubts, and become the best we can?

How do we realize our potential?

In the film, it's a pill. I don't think that's a good way to go. It'd be revolting to think that my personal development depended on something that "wore off."

But beyond medication, there's the billion-dollar self-help industry. Dale Carnegie. Steven Covey. Every MBA with a book. They'll give you 12 steps, or 7 habits, or 9 favored aspects which, if followed religiously, will set your highest and best nature free of its restraints. They promise success (whatever definition may apply), and they may well deliver for all I know, but I honestly question how effective they are at promoting generic personal development.

But speaking of following something "religiously," there's religion itself. There are lots of belief systems, each of which is the only one you'll ever need. Each, if you follow its precepts, promises enlightenment or salvation or the chance to become a higher, better being.

I'm not dumb enough to even try to comment on the effectiveness of this approach beyond saying, "It works for some people."

I believe the realization of personal potential is the goal of individual existence. I often hear people ask themselves, "What am I here for? What's my purpose?" as though they're looking for some niche in which they can slot themselves and say, "this is it." I don't think it works that way. I think our purpose is to try to become our best selves, nothing more, but in attempting that I have no doubt we will do things more wonderful than we ever thought possible.

Book Report: Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

2011-04-26T11:54:00.003-04:00

Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

Accurate But Misleading Plot Summary: A layabout with an unsettling reptile fixation disrupts life in a religious community.

One of Pratchett's earliest works and one of my favorites. Small Gods is the story of a thick young monastic with a phenomenal memory who meets a tortoise that may or may not be his god.

It's full of humor, as are all of Pratchett's DiscWorld books, but I find something special in this one that makes me turn to it again and again. It takes place in a world where Gods are not merely real, but also quite intrusive (atheists tend to find themselves attracting a lot of lightning), and it asks some huge questions about what Gods require of us, and what we in turn require of them. It's about belief and religion, about God and His followers, and most of all it's about people trying to figure out where they belong in the spectrum between the godless and the devout.

Oh, and there's a penguin.

Ulysses Rating: 5 - I'll read this again and again.

Huh.

2011-04-25T21:36:00.003-04:00

If you want to hear a six-year-old laugh hysterically, I recommend trying to sing John Denver's "Sunshine" in your best Sylvester the Cat voice.

Overthoughts

2011-04-21T07:30:00.002-04:00

As a souvenir of Tibet, I once bought a stuffed alpaca. A few months later, I was privileged to be in the crowd outside an auditorium where Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader was giving a speech. As he came out, he stopped occasionally to shake hands with individuals. He stopped near me and held out his hand. In a moment of unthinking foolishness, instead of shaking his hand, I handed him my souvenir. He took it with a smile.

Yes, I gave the Dalai Lama a llama dolly.

Book Report: Love's Labour's Lost, by Bill S.

2011-04-20T10:25:00.002-04:00

Accurate but misleading summary: "Visiting royalty is forced to deal with the attentions of an amorous group of schoolboys."

Again, reviewing Shakespeare is like discussing bowel movements: nobody cares what you think, and everyone wishes you'd just shut up. However, I can't help myself.

I didn't enjoy this one. Nothing much happened until the 5th act, and when it did I wasn't interested.

Ulysses Rating: 2 - I had a tough go.

Yep, That's About Right

2011-03-28T10:29:00.002-04:00

Fiction writers tend to the dramatic (of course), and as a result we tend to forget that there are other kinds of writers out there. These other writers are prey to the same maladies as those of us who, let's face it, just make stuff up.

The proof is here.

Once More With Feeling!

2011-03-28T09:44:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: Scientific American and Shakespeare... draw your own conclusions.

Inspirational Quote: "Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against." -- W.C. Fields

Yes, last Friday my beloved homeland, the True North, dissolved its parliament and called for a federal election.

Again.

Fourth time in seven years.

Democracy is getting a workout.

The newspapers and stations are going on and on about the waste of taxpayer's money, time and effort. I disagree. $2,500 for a working lunch is a waste of taxpayer's money. $1.5M in air travel a year is a waste of taxpayer's money. I can't ever consider shelling out for an election a waste. We live in a democracy, a system of government that is supposed to guarantee people the right to throw out their rulers just like they've done in Tunisia and Egypt, only without all the shooting, looting and property damage.

The current government was found in contempt of parliament because of some fiscal shenanigans they declined to explain adequately. As a result, a vote of non-confidence was called and the minority government of prime minister Stephen Harper was defeated.

That's good. Mess with parliament and you should be sorry.

What's bad is that now we're in an election with some of the least appealing party leaders I've ever seen.

First is the ex-prime minister whose iron-fisted rule of his party and autocratic approach to governing have led directly to this disruption in the business of the legislature. I fear that if he is given a majority this time out, we'll see behavior that borders on the dictatorial.

Next is a man who was an expatriate until someone mentioned that he had a shot at leading the Liberal party. He insists that he's a committed Canadian, but leaving the country is a funny way to show it.

Third is the current head of the National Democratic Party, a man with a touch of charisma and maybe even a Plan, but he's leading a party with a reputation for overly socialist tendencies and reckless fiscal policies.

Last is the leader of a party founded on Quebec Nationalism. Given the opportunity, he'd take his home province right out of the country, so it's hard to believe he has the best interests of the nation at heart.

What Canada needs is a real leader, a man with charisma and vision and yet lacking in the monomania that so often accompanies those traits.

I'd run myself, but the country would melt from my awesome.

Well, This Is Awesome

2011-03-23T09:58:00.002-04:00

Most readers are familiar with my fondness for Terry Pratchett's work. The man combines outrageous humor with tight plotting and a humanistic outlook to create some of the most entertaining and thought-provoking work I've ever read. Video adaptations of his work have been, in my opinion, inferior affairs mostly because you cannot take everything that makes the books amazing and transfer it to a screen (what's the video equivalent of a footnote?). However, they've been pretty darned enjoyable.

And now, this! Terry Pratchett's world and characters in a series scripted by a Monty Python alumnus. It is possible to get better than that, but only by coating the whole thing in Belgian chocolate.

I am pretty excited, although I guess I'd better get working on earning my British citizenship if I want to see it. I can only hope that at some point it makes its way across the pond.

In Which I Ponder a Mystery

2011-03-22T12:55:00.006-04:00

Current Reading: Love's Labour's Lost, by Bill S.

Inspirational Quote: "I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks." -- Julius Marx (Groucho)

For a man who overthinks things, the world often throws up inscrutable puzzles.

About a week ago, I bought some new clothes. This is something I do when forced to the extremity either by natural decay or by an aversion to laundry machines.

Immaterial.

What is material is that I happened to pick up a bag of socks. I won't comment on the oddity of putting socks in a bag. In this modern consumer society, you can't find anything in a store that isn't wrapped in plastic, surrounded by boxboard or secured by wire. Sometimes all three, with a security tag attached to kick it up to 11. So, really, the oddity of bagging what are essentially cloth bags to hold your feet hardly bears comment.

On an unrelated note, the diversity of human nature is such that someone out there enjoys putting ketchup on tomatoes. The world doesn't have to make sense.

So I exit the store with a bag of socks and get home to discover that it's no ordinary bag. No. It is a RESEALABLE bag. It's not just closed off with the usual hermetic heat seal, but adjacent to that is a zip-lock assembly. Apparently, I can take socks out and seal the bag up to keep the others... fresh? Yes, there's nothing like that fresh-sock scent (!?!). Or perhaps, I can put socks back in and seal them up to keep them from... escaping? Unlikely. I'm a fairly conservative dresser and not even my socks are wild enough to require any form of corral, even a flimsy polyethylene one.

It's a mystery. Why is my sock bag zip-locked? Admittedly, zip-lock bags are handy for all sorts of things. I often use them for keeping food fresh in the refrigerator or my lunch bag (which has a real zipper, not one of the plastic-rail zip-lock constructions), but the very thought of appropriating my sock bag for wrapping sandwiches leaves me in fear of accidentally contracting athlete's mouth. I suppose I could use it for jigsaw puzzle pieces, or beads, or game tokens but I honestly don't use those things enough for resealable bags to be in high demand.

Sad, I know, but let's stay on topic.

I spent a few minutes opening the bag and taking out socks, then sealing it again. Then I spent a few minutes opening the bag and putting socks back in before sealing it again. I felt I had to. The sock manufacturers must have gone through a great deal of trouble to include this feature, and I'd feel terrible just recycling the bag without trying to take some sort of advantage of it.

I suspect that all this is actually due to a very clever and effective bag salesman.

"Look, for an extra five cents a thousand, we'll throw in a reseal option."
"Oooh, I've heard about that. Very popular with sandwich bags."
"Right, and a hundred other household uses like..." [Here my imagination fails me. Just throw in four or five clever and effective examples for yourself. I've got nothing.] "So it's a great deal."
"Yes! I'm sold! Where's that contract?"
"Right here in my resealable briefcase." ...unzip...

I doubt very much that any but the most OCD-afflicted among us would find the notion of purchasing socks in a resealable bag at all appealing, and those who do would probably balk at the thought of using bags that had been just hanging around in a store where people could --shudder-- touch them.

Why sell socks in a resealable bag? They're not cereal, or potato chips or cookies that need to be kept fresh. This is a puzzle that is, frankly, beyond me and I know it would be better for me to just let it go and move on with my life.

Unfortunately, I've just taken a close look at the bag my underwear came in...

Book Report: At The Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

2011-03-21T11:02:00.003-04:00

At The Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

Ah, Lovecraft. I can't imagine what I could say about him that hasn't already been said. I don't think there's ever been a more admired, reviled and imitated fantasy/science-fiction/horror writer. He's a verbose, paranoid, racist, sexist mama's boy with an English culture obsession whose work nonetheless fascinates for its spin on nightmarish weirdness.

This is one of his longest works, a novella about a university trip to Antarctica which discovers a city and preserved denizens from before the evolution of man. It's hard to read now because its language, full of adverbs and adjectives and words that will send a modern reader scurrying for a dictionary, is almost a century behind the current fashion. Even so, it stirs the occasional chill and is a leading example of the stories written in Lovecraft's famous Cthulhu Mythos cycle.

It's not a fast read. It's not an easy read. It is, however, a milestone in the evolution of modern speculative fiction and should be read as much for its impact as for its entertainment value.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this. I've read it before and will probably read it again.

Overthoughts

2011-03-11T15:21:00.003-05:00

Visual evidence that I am not the only one on the planet who is spending way too many processor cycles on trivia:

... and of course, one cannot discuss a weighty subject like Rock, Paper, Scissors without giving serious consideration to its expansion set:

Bedtime Song

2011-03-07T13:38:00.003-05:00

Cassandra has inherited her father's love of Muppets (yay!).

On an unrelated note, her bedtime routine includes some reading time (by both she and I) and about 15 minutes of made up story-telling (by me) featuring whatever characters she wants to hear about, and then... if she hasn't had enough one-on-one time, a song.

My singing voice is a cross between a plugged vacuum cleaner and a bagpipe in a trash compactor. No matter. She likes it just fine.

Anyway, she gets stuck on different songs, wanting to hear them over and over again until something knocks her out of her orbit... like Dad just getting tired of the same song. One night about a week ago, in a fit of ennui, I broke out into a rousing chorus of "Grandma's Feather Bed." Well, it's become her favorite. So I can't wait to show her this...

Accepting Rejection

2011-03-07T09:38:00.004-05:00

Current Reading: Love's Labour's Lost, by Bill S.

Inspirational Quote: "I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long." -- Louise Brown

Whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, we artists (writers, actors, painters, sculptors... whatever) hate rejection.

Art is a fundamental attempt to communicate with others and to be told, implicitly or explicitly, that we have not done that well enough to reach our intended audience is a blow to the ego. Compassionate human beings attempt to soften rejection where they can: "Not right for us." "It's good, but it's not as good as the other 400 submissions we received this month." But you can't really soften rejection. It's like softening granite.

Like granite, and feldspar, limestone and all that other bedrock, rejection is a part of life. Not every door is going to open at the first knock.

So, what can you do?

Develop a thick skin. Read your rejections as "not yet," instead of "never." Hope. Believe. Learn. Practice. Work.

And content yourself with the realization that sometimes rejection is editorial policy.

Hey, Look! Stuff is Happening in the Middle East!

2011-03-01T10:49:00.004-05:00

Current Reading: Love's Labour's Lost, by William Shakespeare

Inspirational Quote: "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body." -- Carlos Erwin Estevez (Charlie Sheen).

Say what you will about Charlie Sheen (and everyone is), he gives great quote.

Meanwhile in real news, people in the middle-east have been inspired by the revolt in Tunisia to demand political change in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman. It's also caused some unrest in Iran and, strangely enough, China.

It underscores the unwritten rule of human existence: No assembly can govern without the implicit consent of its people.

That simplifies things dramatically, I know. Dictators have held power for years on the backs of armies and secret police devoid of consciences and armed with machine guns. Defying them is usually an act of fatal courage, and few people are willing to give their lives without knowing if their deaths will change anything.

Governments, armies and police officers keep their positions because the people of their countries are unaware of one crucial fact: those in power are always a minority. The police know that they cannot arrest every single citizen. The army knows it cannot shoot every civilian. The government knows that it cannot rule every individual at every moment. They rely on acceptance. Here in Canada, the unspoken acceptance is "I will follow your rules because I believe doing so will help me and those around me live, prosper and seek happiness, eh?"

That's the covenant that ought to exist between governed and governor. In Canada, it's a shaky thing because each of us has a different (occasionally conflicting) definition of prosperity and happiness and a different opinion on how best we can obtain these things. I imagine it's that way in the majority of the world that doesn't make the six-o'clock news (when was the last time you heard from Finland? Belgium? Trinidad?).

In these middle-east headline places, the governments have broken that covenant (notice that one of the biggest griefs to tip the scales is not "they came in the night and took/killed my brother," but "there are no jobs." People can prosper without their brother, but not if they can't afford to eat). As a result, the people have looked out into the world (largely through the web) and realized that their rulers are a minority, and that the people who want change and are willing to make change happen outnumber that minority by a significant margin.

Enough people making enough noise can force a government out regardless of what tanks or terror tactics are used.

This is a good thing.

I recognize that many people are going to die before regimes change. It's a terrible loss, but unavoidable when people who don't want to give up power are forced to do so. My heart goes out to the survivors.

And what happens after? Many are shouting for democracy, and that's fine because democracy makes explicit that implicit consent I mentioned earlier. In a democracy, you can rule so long as you convince people you're doing a good job promoting their interests, or at least not angering too many of them at any one time. But honestly, anything is fine, provided those in government recognize that their mandate is to promote a good life for their people, and not to ignore that in favor of personal advantage.

Oil is one thing that could cause all this upheaval to end badly. If Tunisia (ranked 54th in world oil production) gets a little unstable, well that's okay. Egypt (29)? Well, some people are going to start to pay attention. Libya (18)? Suddenly unrest is dangerously close to threatening oil supplies. Turmoil in Iran (4) is something no industrial nation can afford to ignore, and the urge to meddle to ensure a political outcome favorable to "domestic" interests is irresistible. The moment things start to destabilize there, every country in the world will be in there like bums in a soup kitchen, trying to fill their bowls with as much oil as they can get.

For comparison and general interest, Iraq is now #12 in the world rankings. Its pre-war output would have ranked it #7 today.

2011 is shaping up to be one of the most politically interesting years in my life.

And, for the record: like Charlie Sheen, I too am a "total bitchin' rock star from Mars."

Book Report: Two Gentlemen of Verona, by William Shakespeare

2011-02-28T13:38:00.004-05:00

Two Gentlemen of Verona, by William Shakespeare

Interestingly, William Shakespeare is one of the few authors widely read today who does NOT have a web site. Or rather, he has hundreds but does not maintain any of them personally.

Must be some kind of Luddite.

Of course, reviewing a Shakespeare play is a bit like trying to gut a live whale with a dessert spoon. You don't have the right tools and, really, you're just not equal to the task. So, in lieu of a review, I present a plot summary in the spirit of those which are entirely accurate and yet somehow miss the point:

"A young woman enlists the aid of a bandit and a cross-dresser in discouraging a duplicitous suitor."

Actually, although I enjoyed this play, I felt it lacked the emotional weight that later work carried. The play ends with Proteus being forgiven for all he has done, which took about 2 minutes and lacked any real rationale. After all that Proteus had done to Julia, Valentine and Silvia, I expected a duel at the very least. But then, this is light romantic fare and I suppose a deserved death would spoil the mood.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this, but who cares what I think? It's SHAKESPEARE, for crying out loud!

Book Report: The Shifter, by Janice Hardy

2011-02-28T06:23:00.006-05:00

The Shifter, by Janice Hardy

I don't usually indulge in Middle Grade fantasy... or Middle Grade anything, except perhaps cheese, but this author's blog has been interesting and valuable reading, and her discussions piqued my interest in her book. Is her skill with story as strong as I would expect given her observations and opinions on the subject?

Well, yes.

The Shifter is the story of Nya, an orphan who lives in a conquered and occupied city. She and her sister both have the rare ability to absorb another's injuries, but where her sister can dump those injuries into an inert metal called pynvium, Nya can only transfer the pain of them into another person. When her sister goes missing, Nya enlists a handful of friends to find and rescue her. Unfortunately, doing so pits their wits and skills against the leaders of the Healer's temple, uncovers hints of a conspiracy larger than Nya's sister or her city, and reveals that Nya may be more powerful and dangerous than anyone realizes.

It's a great adventure, not just for younger readers but for adults as well, tightly plotted and well told. It's also outside the scope of standard magical fantasy, reminding me of something like Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. The book's portrayal of the post-war existence of a subjugated people is harsh and believable. Nya is compelling enough to make me forget that in this book, as in most child-targeted fantasies, parents and adults are either malevolent, incompetent, or absent (Nya heals one character's father, but the man is never on stage). Her courage and resourcefulness are well grounded, while her wit and candor make her an entertaining guide to the world.

All in all, I really enjoyed this and look forward to Blue Fire.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

A Dissertation on Depression, Happiness, and a Book report: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness, by Arlene Matthews Uhl

2011-02-15T10:32:00.007-05:00

Well, anything that labels itself as being a "complete idiot's guide" sets the quality standard rather low for a non-fiction book. I don't consider myself a complete idiot, although certainly I display the characteristic traits rather more frequently than I'd like.

Regardless: I am a man of a certain age, and as such it should come as no surprise that I occasionally suffer from depression. It happens. I'm the right age for the archetypal mid-life crisis, which recent research suggests is as much a biological side effect of hormonal change as a sociological or psychological condition. It was during a particularly inconvenient down period that I took myself to the bookstore with the aim of buying something different from my usual run of speculative fiction. I'd heard that biography was quite enlightening, and I was looking for something about Gandhi or the Dalai Llama, both men who seem to have it together. Unfortunately, these are not sufficiently popular to make it onto the shelves of a back-woods small city bookstore.

I'd given up and turned away, only to find, right behind me, a cardboard display of bright orange books. Second up from the bottom on the left was one with a big flower on it and "The Psychology of Happiness" in bold letters.

Now, to understand the synchronicity here, you have to know that depression has come to visit rather a lot over the last few years. It moves right in, sleeps on the couch, cleans out the fridge, hogs the remote and uses up the toilet paper without replacing the roll. It wears out its welcome in about an hour, but lingers for days (or weeks). It is not a fun companion, and because I believe one of the measures of a man is not just being able to offer help but being able to ask for it with equal pride, I've sought professional counseling. It's helped, and for those men contemplating getting a divorce, transplanting hair, buying a Porsche and dating a twenty-year-old, I recommend it highly.

It's WAY cheaper.

But here's the thing: counseling takes the approach, "here's how you can get un-depressed, and how you can prevent recurrence." Which is all fine and good and is a life preserver any drowning man would welcome. But it's like most of therapeutic psychology in that it concentrates on treating pathology, countering the negative.

So here's a book about positive psychology, the study of what makes humans happy. This is the opposite approach, one that doesn't counter the negative but encourages the positive. Positive psychology doesn't say, "here's how you avoid depression," it says, "here's how you foster happiness."

It's the difference between running away from a thing and running toward another thing. In the first instance, you can go any direction and not many of them are going to put you in a better position than you were. In the second, there is a goal, a destination of your choosing.

So in the depths of my despair (I'm depressed, and there's no Gandhi section), a big orange book about happiness drops into my life. At $4.99 Canadian, even a complete idiot would have seen the sense in picking it up.

It contains a survey of the current research in positive psychology, a field of study just over a decade old. Although there are numerous references to scholarly papers, it's written for the layman, and provides a quick, accessible overview of some pretty complex topics. Along the way it provides a definition of happiness, breaks it down into its ingredients and includes a few tips and techniques that promote happiness in the individual.

It's not a practical guide, or a workbook, but it does provide a road map of the territory and the appendices direct the reader to outside resources that may help shape a plan to work toward happiness.

Does it work?

It's a book, folks. It's not so full of itself that it tells you one of the keys to happiness is "read more books about happiness." So, by itself, no.

Likewise, if you're expecting to learn how never to want to cry again, or feel sad, or how to be constantly "up," then you're going to be disappointed. You're also being unrealistic, but this isn't a book about how to deal with THAT.

It's a book about how people manage to increase their general happiness (called the "set level"), and condition themselves to better withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The things that it promotes as being factors in a happy life are things of which many of us who characterize ourselves as "unhappy" (or "depressed") feel a distinct lack. It's an interesting book, and I've learned a great deal about what I should be doing to get myself a little more happiness. Herewith, a sample:

- Exercise. The release of endorphins gives a short-term emotional boost, and regular exercise creates long-term effects.
- Meditation. Analysis has documented that meditation can change the structure of the brain, adapting it to better weather stress and misfortune.
- Altruism. Giving to and helping others does as much for us as for those we help.
- Spirituality. Apparently it doesn't matter what you believe, so long as you believe it devoutly.
- Social Interaction. We are meant to connect to each-other.
- Exercising Our Skills. You know that feeling you get when you're engrossed in doing something, the hours fly by and you really don't want to interrupt yourself to eat, or sleep or go to the bathroom? Get a couple of hours of that feeling into your day and your happiness will increase accordingly.
- Gratitude. Habitual recognition of the good in your life provides a perspective that places even misfortune in a positive context.

The most interesting thing about this study of happiness is the conclusion that anyone can be happy. Money is not required. None of the suggestions it makes require material outlay or access to facilities that may not be available. It takes a desire (particularly difficult for those who suffer from depression, as one of the primary symptoms of the disease is a "can't do" attitude), dedication of time and effort, and a willingness to step outside our own sphere of comfort.

Possibly the best news I've ever had.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this. How could I not?

Hearts

2011-02-14T14:19:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: Shifter, by Janice Hardy

Inspirational Quote: "He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began." -- Tolstoy

Ah, Valentine's Day, that one day in the year when we are encouraged to throw caution to the wind and declare our passion via conspicuous consumerism.

Fields of flowers are amputated on this day because tradition tells us that a handful of dying weeds is a suitable way to convey esteem. Buckets of chocolate in all its forms are consumed in the fervent hope that pancreatic shock will somehow lead to intimate bliss (Yeah, okay, so it works on me... but that's just the way I am). Jewelry stores are emptied of things that sparkle on the off chance that polished rocks might inspire passion. Trees are leveled for card stock and dime-store poets squeezed to produce high-saccharine verse in order to somehow convey depth of insubstantial emotion.

Of course, they're using a language that grew out of the need to tell other monkeys where the good fruit hangs and where the tigers prowl, so conveying abstract concepts is no mean feat.

Does it work? It seems to. It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy. Because we believe these things convey affection, they convey affection.

I myself got a card with a very sappy verse, and was happy to have it. Penelope got a hand-written sheet of notepaper on which were scribbled the top ten reasons why being her husband is a decent gig. She accepted it with her usual inspiring grace.

Of course, neither missive yielded the archetypal rush of passion. At the time, Cassandra was feverishly scribbling class names on mass-produced Valentines cards, Aeneas was demanding we tell him on which floor he dropped his shirt last night, Telemachus was complaining that unloading the dishwasher was a task simultaneously beyond and beneath him, Penelope was making breakfast and I was on my way out the door.

We didn't exactly fall into each other's arms.

On the other hand, we did that twenty-one years ago and it seems we did it well enough to last a lifetime.

So: I'm happy. I think she is too. And really, what more can anyone ask?

The Unillustrated Man

2011-02-08T13:20:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness, by Arlene Matthews Uhl

Inspirational Quote: "Your body is a temple, but how long can you live in the same house before you redecorate?" -- Anonymous

Last Sunday, Cassandra and I went swimming at the local pool. We were splashing around in the water surrounded by scores of other parents and children and teens all doing much the same thing.

What struck me was the abundance of tattoos. It seemed like everywhere I looked, I saw ink. This pool is close to a military base, and the military has always had a tradition of marking themselves. However, that alone couldn't account for the sheer volume and variety of stuff on display. It wasn't just men, of course, but women too and one of the teenage lifeguards had the Chinese character for luck emblazoned on one shoulder.

Why is this so popular? I think my head is the wrong shape for this idea.

In the old days, a tattoo marked you as part of a social group... usually something a little more formidable than the bridge club, maybe even actually dangerous: bikers, criminals, and for some reason, sailors (my father was a sailor, but he remains unmarked. I think that, had he gotten one, something along the lines of "If found, please return to..." would have been appropriate). Now, anyone and everyone seems to sport ink.

I've seen everything from microdots of butterflies to half-body dragons in blue and red and yellow and green. They're impressive for the sheer ingenuity and stamina required to create them and inject them onto the human body, but I don't find them attractive and so I wonder what the incentive is.

I'm not a particularly handsome man, and if someone were able to tattoo a picture of someone who WAS a handsome man over my features, why then I'd go right out and get one today. Sadly, that seems to be beyond the current state of the art.

I wonder if anyone's ever gone out and gotten a tattoo done in flesh-colored ink?

My sister-in-law has a butterfly just east of her collarbone. It's "cute," I guess, in the way that small bugs often can be. However, I have no desire to decorate my body with members of the order insecta. I have enough nightmares about bugs on my body as is without waking up to discover one permanently etched on my skin.

The same goes for just about every species of fauna, real or imaginary. I have no need of tigers, dragons, or snakes in real life so I don't see any reason to carry their image around with me. True, such images speak to one's courage or ferocity, but if the only way you can display those characteristics is to go under the needle, then a tattoo isn't going to do much for your insecurity.

Some tattoos I see are very small. When I ask why so small, the usual reply is, "I didn't want anything gaudy." My audible reaction is polite acknowledgment, but inside I'm thinking, "oh, then you shouldn't have gotten a tattoo." Some are very large, taking up a quarter of the body or more and demanding some degree of nakedness to be fully appreciated. I figure, if you're beautiful naked, then don't colorize perfection. If you're not beautiful naked, coloring your skin blue and black and red isn't going to improve things. It's just going to make you look like a victim of incredibly precise and artistic domestic violence.

I've seen a lot of Chinese characters. Few people, including some of my Chinese friends, know what they mean. 'Luck' is popular, supposedly, but if you don't read Chinese ideograms how do you know what you've really got? You might think you're walking around with the word 'Brave' on your ankle, but the first time you run into someone with a translation fetish you might find out you've labeled yourself 'Spongecake' by mistake.

Words and phrases are common as well, beloved quotes or names of significant people. I'd be honored if someone immortalized me by inking my name on their skin, but I think far too many people have inked someone's name on themselves only to regret the action after they've fallen out. I suppose "Mom" is safe. She loves you even if you're practically invisible under all that markup. The quotations are a neat idea too, although I'd stop at one or two lines. War and Peace, for example, would be almost unreadable due to the required font size. I suppose you could end with "Continued on next body," down around your heel...

And who reads these? The owner? I think that if you have to write something down on your body in permanent ink in order to remember it, then you have issues that a tattoo won't solve. Casual passers-by are unlikely to stop long enough to read what's been written. They rarely stop long enough to read billboards, and saying to someone "Stop a moment, I want to read your body," is likely to get you a slap or a punch depending on the sex of your reading material.

I have an Oriental friend who has no tattoos, but once considered getting "Made in Taiwan" tattooed on the bottom of her foot.

One thing I see a lot is stylized spiky things. Like barbed wire. I've encountered barbed wire in real life, courtesy of an upbringing in farm country. I've been marked by it sufficiently that I feel no need to wrap an imaginary strand around what passes for my biceps. If you think it looks tough, try wrapping real barbed wire around your arm. THAT will impress just about anyone.

And of course despite the availability of laser removal, tattoos are permanent. Which means that whatever you acquire when you're twenty will still be there when you're thirty, or fifty, or seventy. As a result, I think that before you get a tattoo, you should give some serious thought to what it will look like on that loose, baggy skin you're going to be sporting in the distant future. That eagle on your chest is going to devolve into a gothic vulture after forty years, which is going to send a very different message to viewers than I suspect you intended.

I am unmarked, as should be obvious, but I deny no one the right to decorate themselves as they see fit. Those of you who have chosen to be tattooed have your reasons, and I respect that.

I just don't get it.

Year End Round-up

2011-01-31T13:47:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness, by Arlene Matthews Uhl.

Inspirational Quote: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," -- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

My third annual year in review is a month late. Why? Um... okay, so here's the thing. You know how, when the new millennium began on Jan 1, 2000, many people were of the opinion (rightly so) that the millennium didn't actually begin until Jan 1, 2001 because Jan 1, year 1 was actually one year after the calendar started counting?

Yeah, like that. So Feb 1, 2011 is actually the first day of the new year. Sure. That's the ticket...

Entertainment:

Best Movie I've Seen: Despicable Me. It's a 3D computer animated kid's movie that's just a lot of fun and silliness without ever sinking into stupidity.
Worst: The Last Airbender. The cartoon had so much going for it: the rich world, entertaining characters, and a plot that gripped right up to the end. It's hard to believe that a director who has given us such good films as The 6th Sense and Unbreakable could take that kind of material and deliver a film as empty of quality as this.

Best Book I've Read: Tough call. There have been some great ones. Time-Traveller's Wife, Mainspring, Coyote Horizon... but I'm going to have to go with Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain. 'Tis a tale told by a dog, full of soul and fury, signifying a great deal, actually.

Best Song I've Heard: I've really been enjoying Ash Koley's Brighter at Night. Their music is upbeat and catchy. Coldplay is still entertaining me as well.
Worst: Eminem's Recovery album. I get that he's had some tough times, and I'm glad he's making it through. I just don't need him screaming obscenities at me through my speakers while he's telling me about it. My sons love him. I think he should spend some time in Somalia, or Ethiopia, the slums of Calcutta or Mexico City in order to get a little perspective.

Best Television Show I've Seen: I'm not actually watching much. I'm watching "The Cape," which is super hero stuff a couple of silly-steps more serious than the 60's Batman TV series, so I guess that'll have to qualify. Doctor Who is better, though.
Worst: Any "reality" television show. Vacuous instant celebrities trying to make me believe for an hour that their problems are somehow important. What a waste of the E-M spectrum.

News:
Best News I've Heard: Chevrolet's Volt is a battery-powered car that actually looks practical.
Worst News: Publishing's dire straits has me looking at the Magnus Somnium and wondering if there's much point in finishing it.

Personal Stuff:
Best Thing that Happened: My cat's going to live. According to the vet, you'd never know he'd been sick.
Worst: The Republicans gained control of the senate by appealing to the stupid and mean-spirited among the electorate. How can one not be disappointed by that?

Most Fun Thing I've Done: Walked every conservation area in the local river valley with Cassandra. Beautiful scenery and some GREAT company.
Least: Tried to enforce some kind of homework discipline on two teenage boys. It's like pulling their teeth, but I feel the pain.

Most Surprising Occurrence: Again, the readership here. 23 of you now.

New Year's Resolution: Same as last year, which ought to depress me, but... huh. To finish the new book, finish "final" (yeah right) edits on the Magnus Somnium, and begin querying agents.

I hope your 2011 is off to a good start. Mine is, for all kinds of reasons.
Truly, every day is a good day.

The Means to Meaning

2011-01-25T13:51:00.004-05:00

Current Reading: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness, by Arlene Matthews Uhl

Inspirational Quote: "We breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. 37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime." -- Edward Magorium, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (written by Zach Helm)

Words aren't worth much. They're about the only things you can still buy at a few cents a pop. And if you look at the straight economics, you'll see that supply greatly exceeds demand.

So why are there so many words? Why do we go through so much trouble to find the right ones when, really, the right ones are worth pretty much exactly the same as the wrong ones?

Because words are priceless, really. They are one of the most eloquent ways we connect to each other, they are the way we convey experience and knowledge and insight and all those things that raise us above the level of animals, that mark us as unique individuals.

The right word in the right place can change a mind. The right word at the right time can fortify a heart and turn despair into hope. We produce so many words in the belief that somewhere in all that verbiage is a collection of them with the power to affect another human being.

"Although the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. For words offer a means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." -- V, from "V for Vendetta," written by Alan Moore.

I've never heard (sorry, I've only ever seen the movie) the point made more beautifully than that. Words have the ability to inspire, to open the mind to the vistas of the possible, to reorder our perspective and make us see new things in new ways.

So, in a celebration of that, I present a handful of movie clips that contain words I've found inspiring. If you've come across clips, passages or other collections of words that have stirred your blood, please leave them in the comments.

William Wallace's speech stirring the pride of his countrymen in Braveheart...

Henry V giving courage to his men before the battle of Agincourt. Although the filmed version is dramatic and moving, it is an edited version of the one that appears in the play.

I stumbled across this recently, from the movie Rocky Balboa. Unfortunately, I can't embed it, however, the link is worth following. "Life is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

And, last for no particular reason, Red's words from the Shawshank Redemption...

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get busy livin'.

Book Report: I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett

2011-01-18T11:13:00.002-05:00

As should be obvious by now, I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's work and await each new book with the anticipation and impatience that most people normally associate with Christmas. Coincidentally, I got this one for Christmas, so there's some synchronicity here.

This is the latest entry in the Tiffany Aching cycle, a series for middle-grade readers that includes Wee Free Men, Hatful of Sky and Wintersmith. As you'll see from the sidebar, if you go back far enough, I loved these books and reread them on occasion. In fact, to "prepare" myself for this book, I skimmed through Wee and Sky, and read Wintersmith through before settling down to I Shall Wear Midnight.

The book contains much of the trademark Pratchett wit, but it incorporates an unaccustomed darkness that has informed a great deal of his later work. I suspect this has a great deal to do with his prognosis, but it is not a welcome incorporation for this reader. And as I neared the end of the book, I had to face the realization that I held in my hands a Pratchett I could not love. There are so many things to love about this book: the characters and humor, the wit, the writing... that I'm a little disappointed by myself.

[SPOILER]
The story concerns Tiffany, who is trying to get over being replaced in the affections of the Baron of the Chalk and dealing with how much of a witch's life is given over to altruistic service. As it progresses, one-time friends grow increasingly hostile and she finds herself encountering again and again a revenant in the form of a long-dead priest with a fanatic desire to see her dead. At one point, things seem hopeless for Tiffany as the revenant seems to inspire foaming-at-the-mouth witch hatred in everyone around it. At points, the narrative comes close to horror in its bleak outlook.

I could not love the book because the obstacles are overcome with little difficulty and hardly any tension. The anti-witch sentiment is resolved about 2/3 of the way through the book and proves to have quite a different source than the specter. Likewise, Tiffany disposes of the ghost, who is built up to be a challenge for even Granny Weatherwax, the Discworld's greatest witch, within a handful of pages. There follows an overlong epilogue in which Tiffany is allowed to dole out rewards to the deserving, and finds a new object for her affection.

I felt that the character and the situation required more drama than that which unfolded in the pages.
[/SPOILER]

In all, this book feels like a swansong, a last tying up of threads, even to the point where Eskarina Smith, the heroine of Equal Rites (the first Discworld book featuring Granny Weatherwax) makes a cameo to bring closure to Tiffany's story. Understandable, given Pratchett's situation, but I have been spoiled by the high quality of books like Mort, Wee Free Men, Thud, Interesting Times and Small Gods (one of my favorites), and I don't feel this one belongs in their number.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I Enjoyed This

Christmas Stress

2011-01-17T06:14:00.003-05:00

Current Reading: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Psychology of Happiness, by Arlene Matthews Uhl

Inspirational Quote: (to the tune of "Jingle Bells")
[Chorus]
Christmas bills, Christmas bills, piled on the floor,
Everyday the mailman comes to bring a dozen more, oh!
Christmas bills, Christmas bills, I'll go broke and then,
When next Christmas rolls around I'll do it all again.

Dashing off the cheques, all in great amounts,
Mailing them today, knowing they will bounce!
Bill collectors come, notify my boss,
Now they've got my salary, my life's a total loss!

[Repeat chorus]

-- From a Mad Magazine I read as a kid.

Studies have shown that Christmas is one of the most consistently stressful times of year. I can understand why. Although my present-buying chores are quite restricted (I only need to ensure Penelope has something to open Christmas morning. She handles gift selection for everyone else), I'm lousy at coming up with good ideas for things to give. This is compounded by her birthday, which falls only a few days before Christmas, and forces me to double-up on my gift-seeking angst. Every year, I tell myself I'm going to get her the perfect present, one that tells her “I love you,” and “You're amazing,” and all those other things that sound so true when they're inside my head, but always sound so trite when they finally make their way out. Every year, I scour the stores and the ads and the internet for the apex of perfection.

Every year she gets a book and some clothes.

She accepts them with grace and enthusiasm such as only can be displayed by someone who genuinely feels that way, or by a woman who's had years to perfect her acting skills. So we have a situation where reality collides with unrequited desire and results in tension: stress. Although she never seems to be let down by my choices, I always am, and vow to do better next year.

Of course, after 21 years, if she doesn't know how I feel about her, I doubt very much that wrapping up the entire contents of the jewelry store would make the point.
Thus I perpetuate the equation of happiness to material possession, and feed the cycle of consumerism.

Yay me.

Book Report: Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett

2010-12-14T20:46:00.003-05:00

As usual, when I'm not ready to plunge into new reading but still want something to read, I turn to Pratchett. This is another chapter in the story of Rincewind, the most incompetent and cowardly wizard on the Discworld. When he's set to the distant Counterweight Continent, he stumbles into an ineffectual rebellion, a sinister plot, and the theft of a kingdom by a group of elderly barbarians. As always, his desperate attempts to avoid becoming involved lead directly to his playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of the mysterious Aurient.

Even after repeated readings, I find myself lingering over his phrases, his puns, the spin he puts on words that make you stop and think about what they really mean. Combined that with a comical action plot and themes that include aging, grief, and the true nature of courage, and you have a book that I come back to again and again.

Ulysses Rating: 5 - I'll read this again and again.

Schrodinger's Cat

2010-12-12T09:41:00.009-05:00

Current Reading: Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett

Inspirational Quote: "Let me outta here!" -- Schrodinger's Cat

For those of you unfamiliar with the theory, Schrodinger's Cat is the title of an absurd illustration of one of quantum mechanics more bizarre corollaries. Put a cat in a box with a vial of poison that will open if a radio-active atom decays. Choose your atom such that there's a 50% chance it will decay within an hour, then seal the box and wait an hour. During that time, the state of the cat is indeterminate. It can be said to be both alive and dead. The universe doesn't know.

Any prediction of the future here requires you to account for both possibilities.

At the end of the hour though, you may open the box and examine the cat. It is not the cat's state, but our observation of that state which causes probability to become certainty. Only when we look can we predict whether the cat's future contains a shovel or a bowl of kibble.

So let me introduce you to Shrodinger's Cat.

His name is Ash (that's his real name. I usually avoid real names here because I don't think it's fair to expose my family publicly without their consent. Ash, however, seems to have no objection. No matter how many times I explain the concept of the internet, all I get is the standard cat look of contempt mixed with the resignation that comes from realizing that without people there are no scratches behind the ears or bowls of food. I take his silence as consent). A week ago he started moping and acting out of character. I took him to our vet, who determined that something had caused his kidneys to stop working. His urea and creatinine (is that the right term?) were so far above normal they couldn't see it with a telescope. We figured that was it. Finito. Kaput. The fat kitty was meowing, and it was best to spare him (and us) further suffering. Penelope and I went to the vet's with every intention of seeing Ash to his final rest. Then Penelope looked into his face and said, "He's not ready to go yet."

He wasn't. They dosed him with intravenous fluids to the point where he either had to pee or dissolve, and he peed. The numbers came down into the normal range and we brought him home. He's been here for four days now, eating and drinking and moping a bit but still active and aware. I don't know if he's been peeing. Short of following him around, I don't know how I could find out. And even if I did follow him around, how many of us can pee when someone's watching?

Anyway, it's into the vet's again tomorrow for a blood test to see if how well his kidneys are functioning. There are three possible states: they're working well enough, they need medicinal assistance, or they're toast.

The future is indeterminate.

If Erwin Schrodinger were alive today, (and there is no probability of his continued existence: his death was observed, and therefore his current state is determined), I'd book a ticket to Vienna for the express purpose of giving him SUCH A KICK.

Update:

Tests show his creatinine is still a little high, but the rest indicates that his kidneys are functioning again. We take him back in a month to see if there's any change.

Nine lives indeed.

Argh.

2010-12-05T21:11:00.003-05:00

Penelope's uncle passed away, and was buried on Saturday. She's taking it hard.
Aeneas has been suspended from school for three days for missing classes.
One of my two cats has just undergone acute kidney failure. We're attempting last ditch treatment, but we'll likely be putting him down before the end of the week.

I wish I had something more... interesting to say, but at the moment it's taking all my concentration not to go fetal and stay that way until the meteor arrives.

I hope you've had a better week.

Book Report: Chill, by Elizabeth Bear

2010-11-30T21:49:00.003-05:00

The sequel to Dust, in which the Jacob's ladder is now in flight and trying to repair itself. Unfortunately for the new captain and her companion AI, there are still the ghosts of old angels with which to contend and something insidious is taking over areas of the ship.

This was a slightly easier read, as I was now familiar with the setting, and it delivers on the promise of more of the same that one expects from a sequel. I'm looking forward to the next book, Grail, which has yet to be released.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Book Report: Dust, by Elizabeth Bear

2010-11-30T06:42:00.003-05:00

I had some difficulty with this at the beginning, and it was entirely due to an orientation issue. The back promised a story of a generation ship in jeopardy, but the opening read more like a medieval fantasy complete with swords. It's the story of a servant girl who rescues a princess from captivity and tries to help her return home.

But that's not all it is.

The story does indeed take place on a generation ship, the Jacob's Ladder, marooned by some ancient accident in orbit around a black hole/red giant binary system about to go nova. The engines have been damaged and the ship's artificial intelligence splintered into a dozen different personalities ("Angels"), each vying to be the one to control that intelligence's eventual reintegration. "Magic" is the result of advanced nanotech which enables some fantastic capabilities in those who possess it. "Monsters" are evolved plants and animals or machines modified by AI and nanotech. The whole is presided over by the warring kingdoms of Rule and Engine, removed from their origins as Command and Engineering by hundreds of years.

The story is fascinating, and what seems a straight-forward "rescue the princess" fantasy twists itself into a story about love, loss, heroism and family in which the fate of the "world" really does lie in the balance.

Bear writes some beautiful passages, and mixes SF and Fantasy in a way that manages to remain loyal to both without devolving into "Star Wars" style melodrama. My only complaint here was that I had difficulty understanding the setting.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Book Report: Metatropolis, ed. by John Scalzi

2010-11-30T06:23:00.003-05:00

I've been reading an interesting swath of books lately. Among the authors are Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, and John Scalzi... so when I discovered Metatropolis through Mr. Scalzi's web site and it became widely available through Tor, I decided to check it out.

Metatropolis is a collection of stories set in a shared future world where fossil fuels are near exhaustion and urban decay has begun to tip over into urban collapse. The collection focuses on the recreation or resurrection of cities, about what can be done with them when the infrastructure that made them possible begins to decay. It's an interesting and extremely thought-provoking read. I read this just after completing the Tales of Ibis, and Metatropolis does for green cities what Ibis did for A.I.: presents a vivid, compelling future where the logical extension of human drive and capabilities leads to some startling insights.

This, like Ibis before it, is thinking person's science fiction. It's not space opera. It's not fantasy with robots. It's a plausible exploration of societal evolution and its effect on the individuals caught up in it.

If I've made it sound dry, it isn't. Each story stands perfect by itself, with believable characters and gripping plots that make for a great read.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

*Addendum: Lake, Bear and Butcher are all represented by agent Jennifer Jackson. It seems we have similar taste in authors.

Time Marches On...

2010-11-17T21:40:00.003-05:00

...and it's left footprints all over my face.

Whaddaya mean it's been 2 weeks since my last post? Impossible. It's only been... a couple of... days. Right? Days? Maybe a week, tops. Ten days at the outside.

Reader's Digest version of things going through my head:

November is National Adoption Month here in the True North. Adoption is a cause near to my heart. Think about it while I try to find time to compose a suitable missive.

James Frey is up to no good. Again. Why is a respected academic institution inviting a fraud to speak to its students anyway?

Nathan Bransford, a man whose endeavors in the blogosphere are directly responsible for my own efforts, abandoned agenting for a "real" job. I wish him well. I also wish I'd sent him a query just so I could have one of his rejections. I suspect they're going to become collector's items.

There's a "new" black hole in the sky. They're fascinating objects: little knots in space-time, pin pricks in the universe.

I've read some good books lately, so my Book Reports are behind too. While I'm collecting my thoughts about stuff, tell me:

1) What are you reading right now?
2) How many books do you read a year?

Writers: Get Over Yourselves

2010-11-04T09:00:00.003-04:00

One thing that concerns me a great deal in my perusal of author, agent and editor web sites is how often they focus on writing. Eg: this is a very good author blog in which she discusses how to write.

Now, I guess given the nature of those sites that's only to be expected. What bothers me is the overall feeling that I get from visitors to these sites that the universe is screaming, "The publishing industry isn't fair to writers! Why isn't publishing doing more to help writers? Rather than go with a publisher, I'm self publishing because that way I can actually get my book in print!"

When I get this impression, all I can do is shake my head and wish there were some way to help the purveyors of such thoughts get their heads on right. So here, possibly for future reference, possibly just to vent, is a verbal whack upside the brain-pan.

Get over yourself. It's not about you.

The explosive growth of the web has made it possible for everyone who wants to write words to publish those words to a world-wide audience.

I've managed to post something on average every week for the last 2 years. Assuming 500 words a post (very conservative), that's 113000 words. The effort has garnered me 20 followers. Followers are people who get notified by Google of a new post, provided they are signed in and bother to check, which they may or may not subsequently read. I average about 3 visitors a day. Most are google searchers who are looking for something else and who pause only long enough to say, "Nope, that's not it," before moving on. About 1 in 3 actually pauses long enough to read what's written here (and thank-you for that).

Writing has become such a common pursuit that we even have a month dedicated to producing it. But the broadcast of information is only one part of communication. The other part, the part that is currently being neglected in this cyber-oriented world of ours, is the reception.

Who's listening? Who's reading?

The answer is important. If everyone's writing and nobody's reading, then we have the equivalent of a room full of people yammering at the top of their lungs and wondering why nobody's paying attention.

I'd like to be more popular. I'd like to be Scalzi (note that he doesn't talk about writing very often). I'd also like to be rich, but that ain't happening either. And that's fine. I haven't put any real effort into attracting readers, and so the results are in line with my expectations.

I look at the web, and I see how easy they've made it for people to write, but I don't see where they've made it as easy for people to read. The closest we've got to a tool that makes things easy to read is a search engine, which is the equivalent of having someone go through the bookstore and tell you "These are all the books that contain the word 'asparagus.' Now go through them all until you find one you might like." The web really ain't user friendly. Why not? This essay puts it succinctly: "...far more money can be made out of people who want to write novels than out of people who want to read them." People are willing to pay to put content up on servers. They're not willing to pay to read (access) it (except for adult content which... well, it's one more reason I think the species could use a good meteor). Writers are desperate for an audience and willing to pay to get their words out. That's why being a scam agent often pays better with less effort than being a real one.

Readers, however, are being woefully served by everyone except the publishing industry. Publishing, whatever complaints may be leveled against it, exists to make money off readers. As a result, publishing caters to the readers not to the writers. So you've written a fantastic novel of romance and tripe farming? Congratulations. Sorry the publishing world has rejected your book, but all their research tells them that buying a novel with detailed instructions for growing your own tripe is unlikely to pay off. Not enough people want to read it. Once a novel, or any book, comes out from a reputable publisher you can be sure of at least one thing: a large number of people believe that someone out there will be willing to pay to read it.

Publishing is a pull industry. They don't look at supply (for which I'm grateful). They look at demand. They study the market (readers) and try to figure out "What do these people want?" Oh, they get it wrong a lot, but they get it right often enough to be a viable (if ailing) industry. They've also figured out what readers don't want: Novels that are badly written, poorly plotted, predictable, dull... In other words, they don't want about 99% of what ends up in an agent or publisher's slush pile.

So: writers... before you complain about the commercial publishing industry, make sure you've spelled every word correctly and used standard grammar. Make sure you've written in paragraphs and scenes, that the book actually works, and then...

And then do a national book market study that shows how many people are interested enough to plunk down a minimum of $10 to read your book.

They're going to be giving up what (probably) is the equivalent of one or two paid working hours to own it instead of more food, clothing or luxury items, and then several more hours of personal time time to read it. Are you sure your humble collection of pages are worth that to enough of them to make the editing, publishing, packaging and marketing of those pages profitable?

If the answer to that is a resounding, "Yes!" and you've got the numbers to back it up, then complain away. I want to hear what you have to say.

Otherwise, please shut up.

Don't tell me how you want readers to read your book, because what you want doesn't matter.

All that matters to readers is what they want. All that matters to publishing is what readers want. I think it's okay for authors to want something else. Some want to inspire the world. Hurray! Some want to write a Work For the Ages. Go for it! Some want to make a living off their novels (not all desires are realistic). More power to you! Go forth and write to your highest and best ambition. But in the world of commercial publishing, don't expect any of that to interest anyone. You're not paying for the product, so the only say you have in what's produced is in what you offer for possible production.

Make it good. Make it readable. And regardless of what happens, don't ever forget:

Publishing: It's not about you.

Hallowe'en

2010-11-02T06:24:00.006-04:00

Current Reading: Dust, by Elizabeth Bear

Inspirational Quote: "Boo!" -- Just About Everyone

In case you've missed it, the majority of the wester world has just finished celebrating All Hallow's Eve, also called "Hallowe'en." It's one of the holidays I've always found interesting because it's managed to survive into the current century without being co-opted by Christianity. It's a pagan anachronism that's had its teeth pulled (there is little true fear associated with it now, and macabre displays are just part of the fun), but it showcases cultural superstitions in an entertaining way.

I also like it because people give out chocolate, and personally I think we need more holidays where that happens.

In the true spirit of Hallowe'en, I should curse you, BUT that's just plain unfriendly. Instead, I hope you and yours enjoyed the night, and that subsequent stomach aches and dentist bills prove not too onerous to bear.

Oh, and also, here's a picture of the Guardians of the Kingdom. Cassandra's responsible for the little pumpkin, although her mother wielded the carving knife. The bigger pumpkin is mine, and it's supposed to be an owl. Really. You can almost see it. Apparently my artistry was not up to the challenge of rendering avian features in melon flesh. I shall try not to be crippled by my awareness of that shortcoming.

Where The Heck Did That Come From?

2010-10-27T15:51:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: Metatropolis, ed. John Scalzi

Inspirational Quote: "It was a dark and stormy night..." -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Some things on my mind:

The Big Bang Theory: how does Penny, a part-time waitress and failed actress, manage to afford an apartment in a building where apartments are so expensive that two physics professors have to room together to afford their two bedroom? The tips must be extraordinary. (Note: This came to me at 11pm, after I had been in bed an hour. I got up and immediately told Penelope, who was out on the living room couch watching the Food Network. She told me I was overthinking things again and that I should go back to bed. She was right, but I think she missed out on the significance of the epiphany. I bet no one told Archimedes to go finish washing up and put some clothes on before he ran down the street shouting. In real life, "Eureka!" moments just aren't as exciting as history makes them appear to be. Such is my life, folks.)

Justin Bieber: The boy gets a lot of trash (and the occasional water bottle) thrown at him. HOWEVER (and despite earlier comments which may mistakenly seem to indicate the contrary, this includes Miley Cyrus), I wish I had accomplished as much by the time I turned forty as he had by the time he had turned seventeen. "I'd rather be a has been than a might have been by far, for a might have been has never been but a has was once an are."

Bulwer-Lytton, it would be wonderfully appropriate if I were to sing your praises off key. La la laaa...

Action Scenes

2010-10-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

In a truly staggering moment of genius, I scheduled this post and the "Reaction Scenes" post in the wrong order. Thus we have reaction before action, which may be fine for Blogger, but is going to seriously mess up physics. The laws of causality should never be tampered with, folks.

In the post on scenes, I broke them down into two kinds: action and reaction.

Action scenes show the point of view character trying to change the direction of the story. They begin with a goal, and end with that goal either achieved or lost.

Goals:

A goal is a simple, short-term objective. Don't confuse it with motive. A character's motive is a long-term desire, likely the focus of the entire novel. Winning the hand of the princess is a motive; getting into the castle where she's imprisoned is a goal. Bringing down the syndicate is a motive; discovering who controls the mob is a goal. A lot of project management guides focus on goal setting and lay out criteria for good goals. If I adapt their philosophy to the goal of a scene, I'd say it has to be:

Specific: I think what the POV character wants has to be clear to the reader going in. The prince wants Rapunzel to let down her hair.

Measurable: A reader ought to be able to tell, when it's all over with, whether the character achieve their goal or failed. Either the hair drops or it doesn't.

Achievable, Realistic: The character has to stand a reasonable, although slim, chance. If he keeps his voice down, he should be able to attract Rapunzel's attention without waking the ogre guarding the castle.

Timely: I don't think a scene should drag on forever. Nor do I think it should be over too quick. The goal should be something the POV character wants and could achieve in the near term. The Prince has to get Rapunzel out of the tower before the ogres eat her for dinner, and by the smell of things, someone's already heating up the cookpot.

I'd also throw in another criteria:

Staked: In order for the reader to invest in the scene, they have to have some understanding of the consequences of the character's success or failure. If the Prince succeeds, Rapunzel lives. If he fails, she dies.

I believe it's vital to get the goal right because so much that follows depends on it.

Conflict:

Once the character has a goal, there has to be some obstacle throwing his/her achievement of it in doubt. Without opposition or obstacles, the scene has no drama. "Rapunzel lowered her hair," is not a dramatic scene. It's a sentence, and not a very interesting one. "The Prince called to Rapunzel, but she could not hear because the window was shuttered," isn't a scene either, but it's the start of one. There's a goal and an obstacle which throws the success of the POV character into question.

Butcher believes that opposition ought to be in the form of another character. I can understand that, because character interactions are always the most interesting. I don't necessarily believe that's something I can pull off all the time, though. I have a subplot in the Somnia Secundus where the protagonist has to solve a puzzle. The obstacle is the puzzle itself, not another character. I like to think the scenes involving the puzzle are dramatic, but I'd be foolish to believe they come close to matching the drama of scenes where the protagonist has to deal with opposition from other characters. It is far more interesting to have the Prince convince an ogre to open the window than it is to have him attack the shutters directly.

Setback:

Here's the payoff of the dramatic scene, the resolution. Ingermanson insists on calling this the "Disaster," and I can see his point. Butcher points out that a dramatic scene can have four possible resolutions:

1) Success -- The character succeeds. Yay. We're done. How boring. This outcome really ought to be saved for the final confrontation of the book: the climax. Even then, the only drama for a scene that ends in success comes from establishing before hand that success is only remotely possible and is going to be achieved at tremendous cost.

2) Success, BUT... -- The character succeeds, but has set off some unintended chain of events that is going to make things much, much worse going forward. Rapunzel's hair made so much noise coming down that all the ogres are now alert. Getting out of the castle is going to be tricky. This is inherently more interesting and dramatic than success because it makes the reader question the success of the next step in the plan.

3) Failure -- The character has failed, and the goal has been denied. If they're going to act further on their motive, they're going to have to set a new goal and try something else. Rapunzel's hair has been hacked off. If the Prince wants to rescue her, he's going to have to come up with some other way into the castle. Failure is always more affective than success because it raises the question, "Now what?" in the reader. In the next action scene, the stakes are going to be higher and the chance of success slimmer. It's going to be more dramatic.

4) Failure. AND... -- Not only does the character fail, but that failure has made the situation worse. Rapunzel's hair has been hacked off and their whisper back and forth has attracted the attention of the hungry ogres. This is always the most interesting and dramatic outcome. you've put your character up a tree and surrounded it with alligators... and now you've taught the alligators to climb. "Now what?" has become, "What's left?" in the reader's mind.

Dramatically, the flow of a novel should consist of scenes with worse and worse setbacks until, at the climax, the reader believes the situation to be almost hopeless. At that point, success is surprising, welcome and emotionally satisfying, which is the whole point of the reading experience.

"Now what?" is the question that should be raised in the reader's mind at the end of every scene. Seeking the answer to that question is what keeps them reading. But it doesn't pay to raise questions without ever providing answers (Lost, anyone?). That just frustrates the reader and encourages them to put the book down.

I don't want that ever to be an option in something I write, so as a writer, I'd better answer it.

Next time: Reaction scenes.

I Wonder What He'd Charge?

2010-10-18T13:37:00.003-04:00

Inspirational Quote: ""It turns out writers are now a dime a dozen but house painters are becoming rare . . . I will make more money painting three houses a year than I would if I wrote three bestsellers." -- Farley Mowat

I came across this quote here. I remember reading Lost in the Barrens and the Curse of the Viking Grave, although it's been so many years that I doubt I'd be able to tell you anything more about them than the titles.

All in all, an interesting fellow.

Reaction Scenes

2010-10-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

In the post on scenes, I broke them down into two kinds: action and reaction.

Reaction scenes follow action scenes and show the point of view character trying to deal with the resolution of the action scene. They are prime places for a writer to bolster the reader's emotional connection with the character. They are ideally suited for slowing the pace of a story, introducing a pause in the action and allowing both characters and readers to catch their breath.

Like action scenes, reaction scenes have three phases.

Reaction:

The character has just experienced something of considerable emotional impact. There has been drama. There has been action. Human nature dictates that the first thing a person has to do is react emotionally. How does the resolution of the preceding action scene make them feel? Frustrated? Afraid? Enraged? Giving the character time to react to events is vital to making them accessible and sympathetic to the reader. The prince has discovered Rapunzel's hair is gone. There's no way in and he can hear the ogres stirring. He's crushed... it seemed so easy when he planned things out back in the safety of his fortress. He's also afraid because his sword isn't going to be much use against a family of ogres.

Dilemma:

After the character has had time to react, it's time to get over the past and concentrate on the future. The resolution of the action scene makes the reader ask, "Now what?" It should make the character ask the same thing. Only the character had better come up with an answer.

There should be several possible answers in the writer's mind, regardless of how many of which the reader will become aware. Each one should illuminate some aspect of the character's personality. Rapunzel's lost her hair, and the ogres are coming. If the prince is a coward, he could run away. If he's brave but stupid, he could stand his ground and try to defeat the ogres. If he's clever he might hide in the woods and pretend to be an army, running from tree to tree and shouting orders, hoping to frighten the ogres off. If he's a dare-devil, he might try to climb the tower without follicular assistance.

Decision:

The character chooses one of the options. Now they've got a new goal, and that leads us straight into the next action scene where the character will act on this decision. Will the character succeed with this new action? Likely not, but then what will happen next? The prince decides to hide in the woods and pretend to be an army. Ogres are dumb. They might fall for it. Of course, if they don't, he's wandering around in unfamiliar territory surrounded by ogres that know the terrain...

Unlike action scenes, reaction scenes seem to be kind of optional. To dispute Newton (does that make me a bad physicist, or just a writer who wants to be good?), not every action scene requires a full reaction scene. Sometimes, a few lines are sufficient to provide all the emotional connection the reader needs, and providing more carries us down from drama into melodrama. Sometimes, reactions, dilemmas and decisions can be implied with a few words at the end of the action scene and a true reaction "scene" can be skipped altogether.

As I said before, the flow of action and reaction scenes creates a rhythm in the story, shaping the pace and tone through how much emphasis is placed on each type. The hard part, for me, is learning to write this way, to think in terms of action and reaction during composition. Many times I look back on work I've done and have difficulty figuring out what the character goal for a particular action scene is. Without that, the rest of the scene lies lifeless on the page and I either have to rewrite it or kill it.

It's a lot of effort, but I've seen the technique work very well in Butcher's Dresden novels, Lake's Mainspring/Escapement/Pinion novels and even Yamamoto's work (and he doesn't even write in English). I recently wrote a short story as practice, concentrating on action and reaction scenes. It's the first time anyone in my writing group has told me they couldn't set down without finishing something I'd written.

So, you know... there's that.

Beiber's Book Bid

2010-10-13T11:11:00.002-04:00

Justin Beiber, the pop phenomenon, has just released a book.
No doubt it is another celebrity book that will sell magnificently.
No doubt it is a book that was dying to be written.
No doubt it is a book I shall die before reading.

Scenery

2010-10-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

Current Reading: Metatropolis, ed. by John Scalzi.

Inspirational Quote: "If we make the analogy that drama is a language for presenting emotional energy and that, as a language, it possesses its own, unique grammar for the construction and presentation of meaningful dramatic actions, then it is not a very big leap to say that every dramatic film scene is analogous to a sentence, for like a sentence, the dramatic scene is the expression of a complete idea - a complete DRAMATIC idea. And like a sentence it is composed of a SUBJECT (the character driving the scene), a VERB (the central action of the scene) and an OBJECT or OBJECTIVE (what the character is striving for)." -- Billy Stoneking Marshall

I've been trying to learn how to write a good novel for a while now. A long while. They say the only way to learn is by doing, but honestly, I don't see how that can apply to activities like flying or alligator wrestling.

Fortunately, writing is not a life-threatening activity (although RSI is a constant danger). There's always something new to learn or discover. For a lot of my learning, I rely either on good books that demonstrate effective techniques, or on writers writing about what they think and how they work.

In the last few months, I've been learning about scenes. "Write in dramatic scenes" is an old piece of advice I keep coming across. But that advice demands some kind of functional definition of "dramatic scene."

A quick web search turns up all kinds of references to dramatic scenes. Most of them contain good information about types and flavors, but there's not very much out there about definition or structure. This was interesting, and Holly Lisle's discussion of scene contains a vital piece of information: scenes are about change. They start with the world in one state and end with it in another. But I think there has to be more to it than that. Five paragraphs describing the turning of the seasons is definitely about change, but I don't think I'd call it a dramatic scene. The drama is missing.

For a real understanding of the dramatic scene, it makes sense to look to the theater (since the western prose tradition arose out of Greek theater). Many articles about writing scenes for the stage contain valuable information and guidance that can easily be applied to writing scenes for a novel. Television writing, strangely enough, can also help. David Mahmet wrote a memo to the writers of The Unit that lays out in plain language everything a writer needs to know about writing the dramatic scene, but as Musashi said over and over again, "You must train deeply to understand this."

Drama is conflict. Conflict requires character. A character tries to move the story in one direction, while another character or force tries to move it in another. The scene ends with success for one side. The story changes. Jim Butcher's livejournal breaks it down very clearly. Randy Ingermanson analyzes it in detail. (I recommend you read those people, and the books they mention. They are both more articulate and more experienced than I.)

I've studied some good books, and I can see the dynamics they discuss put to practical use. It's a good model that propels a reader through the story with a dynamic rhythm, a rise and fall to the action, that I'd love to be able to emulate. To emulate, I must first understand... and this is what I understand:

Essentially, there are two types of scenes: action and reaction.

Action scenes show the point of view character actively trying to achieve a change in the story. They begin with a goal and end with either success or failure for the character.

Reaction scenes (Butcher calls them sequels) follow action scenes and, as may be obvious from the name, show the POV character reacting to the resolution of the action scene. They begin with that reaction and end with the character committing to the next course of action.

Butcher and Ingermanson refer to a novel's plot as being a flow of scenes: action, then reaction, followed by another action and reaction, each building on what went before and heading to the climax. The balance of time devoted to each has a huge effect on the pace of the work. Stories that consist of many long action scenes and few short reaction scenes create a breathless rush. Those that favor reaction over action are likely to be more emotionally intense and introspective.

I suspect all of this sounds rather cold and analytical, and out of place when discussing art inspired by passion. But it's a discussion of a writing technique, a way of achieving an effect that really should be no more out of place than a discussion of pointillism would be when considering the work of Georges Seurat, or a discussion of sentence structure would be when studying Shakespeare.

Art doesn't come from technique. Art comes from the application of technique.

Next time: Action Scenes.

Book Report: The Tales of Ibis, by Hiroshi Yamamoto

2010-10-11T08:02:00.003-04:00

I'm fascinated by languages, not just what they say but how they say it. When I was a kid, I read somewhere that the Eskimos had 21 words for snow. Southern Ontario English has two: "snow," and "d*mned snow." It's amazing because there are some things that simply can't be described in English, while they can be depicted in Innu with amazing accuracy. Add to the different volcabularies the wealth of context and idiom built up by every different culture and you begin to see Orwell's point: if you don't have the language for a certain thought, then you can't think it.

So I was excited to read Yamamoto's book not just because it sounded interesting (AI in a realistic future), but because I wanted to see how the translator dealt with words and idioms that are unique to Japanese. What I found was a beautifully-written book in any language.

It is a collection of five short stories loosely bound together by a narrative thread. A storyteller from a culture of AI-hating humans is captured by an intelligent robot who, to his surprise, doesn't kill him. Instead, while he recovers from an accidental injury, reads him stories written by humans about machines.

What came through in this book was the brilliance of Yamamoto's imagination. He's taken thoughts about artificial intelligence and its impact on human society to place I never imagined existed. In telling the story of the emergence of electronic people, he tells the story of humanity's paranoia, illogic and foolishness (at one point, a medical care AI decides that the only way to understand and accept human behavior is to assume that we are all suffering from various degrees of dementia), yet he manages to extoll our virtues as well, the best qualities that the artificial children of our intellect proudly carry into the future, and eventually to other worlds.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

Thought for Food

2010-10-01T20:11:00.006-04:00

Current Reading: The Tales of Ibis, by Hiroshi Yamamoto

Inspirational Quote: "Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, may be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation." -- Dorothy Parker

It's Friday evening. I planned to write a post about scenes. It was going to be truly magnificent and inspiring. It's a shame you missed it.

Instead, I want to gripe about my relationship with meals today.

I don't mean to imply that I'm having any disagreements with my digestive tract. Far from it. We're getting along famously. We've forgotten all about that episode with the four-alarm chili and the bean burritos even though my family seems intent on discussing it over and over.

Anyway.

Today I went to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant on my lunch hour. I went alone, because I like to get some writing done, and because I'm lousy at social interaction. They brought me a checklist of the sushi and rolls they had available. There were no pictures, so I wrote random numbers for quantity beside things that looked either familiar or interesting. They brought it on a flat plate, arranged so much like a Zen garden that I didn't know whether to eat it or meditate on its symmetry.

I was used to tiny sushi: tightly bound rolls and compact rice balls tied to fish with little green belts. This was large and loose and terrifying, and I had no idea how to eat it. I started to panic, but covered it by mixing some wasabi in soy and leafing through the layers of fresh ginger they'd brought.

I guess you should never eat alone in a strange place. You should bring a friend well-versed in the local customs.

I tried one of the rolls, and what I could get to my mouth was quite delicious, but everything fell out of the little green belt, and most of it crashed to my plate. I am not sufficiently good with chopsticks that I can pick up much. Mostly I use the sticks to shovel things around until someone notices my distress and gives me a fork, which I ignore because pride and stupidity are my motivations in everything. I managed to scrape up much of what had fallen out, and eventually turned my attention to the cucumber and avocado rolls.

They were were the size and shape of ice-cream cones and wrapped in dark green seaweed. What was I supposed to do? Use my fingers? Something in my I-aspire-to-middle-class background rebelled against the thought. I surreptitiously glanced around at the other diners in the room, but they were all either experienced or sensible, and had chosen dishes that looked nothing like mine. They were of no use, but I'm a bright fellow. I have a university degree and a history of being too smart for my own good. I wasn't going to let an insensate foreign delicacy defeat me so easily. I assessed the tools at hand.

Chopsticks. That was it.

I also had a little square ceramic platform on my table, and I didn't know what it was. A plate? A place for resting my chopsticks? A miniature podium in case I felt like giving a speech? (Take my advice. Don't try it. The Indian restaurant STILL won't let me back in). I had no knife, of course. I don't think sushi restaurants allow them. We might use them to take hostages.

I considered putting the roll on the podium and lifting it up so it would slide into my mouth, but my mouth was too small. I also thought of using the edge of the podium to cut my food in half. The idea had a certain appeal, since it would solve my problem and justify the presence of the podium. However, I didn't see anyone else using the crockery to flay their food, so I abandoned that train of thought. Finally, I reasoned that there was no taboo against biting off some of the roll and eating it a bit at a time.

Did you know that the green seaweed paper they use for those things is pretty much bite-proof?

Also, that there is no way to look dignified with the pointed end of a cucumber-avocado roll sticking out of your mouth like misplaced unicorn horn, bobbing up and down as you try to gnaw through it?

I learn these things so you don't have to. You're welcome.

I finished off my selections with more determination than style, and I was almost sure that the laughter coming from the other tables was not directed at me.

The waitress, who was a petite Chinese woman who looked very much like she was doing her job under protest, dropped by to clear away the shrapnel of my meal. I thought she asked if I wanted anything more. I said, “Yes.” I hadn't been entirely sure what I was getting into, so I had ordered conservatively. Now that I felt I could handle things, more or less, I was ready to get down to the business of feeding. She nodded, took my empty plate, and vanished. I spent some time writing considering the irony of a Chinese waitress in a Japanese restaurant. It's no odder, really, than having your four alarm chili and bean burritos brought to you by a waiter who's accent couldn't have been more than a year out of Glasgow (what happened to me later was certainly not his fault). It's a small world.

My waitress, obviously as the result of a miscommunication, had vanished and my time for culinary experimentation had expired, so I packed up, paid, and left.

That's why I was still hungry as I walked out of an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Quite a trick.

No matter. I'm not normally a big eater, and I had a nice home-cooked meal waiting for me this evening. Barbecued spare ribs and rice. My stomach grumbled its way through the afternoon, then I picked up my daughter from school and drove home. The house was empty except for the smell of barbecue. Penelope had dumped some back ribs in the crock pot with some sauce and let it simmer for eight hours. Mm. I set Cassandra to do some coloring and cooked up some rice and was about to sit down when the phone began to ring. Telemachus had take a bus to a friend's house and wouldn't be home for supper. Aeneas needed a ride out of town to another friend's place where he was going to spend the night. Penelope had forgotten that tonight was games night at the church, so she and Cassandra were leaving as soon as Penelope arrived from work. Oh, and could I put together a tray of fruit with yogurt and granola for them to take with them for the games night pot luck?

So here I sit alone in front of a rack of barbecued back ribs and eight cups of rice. I think I'll eat the whole thing and then drive into town for chili and burritos. I don't think I can be blamed for what happens after that.

Happy Birthday, Jim

2010-09-24T08:00:00.004-04:00

Jim Henson would have been 76 today. His birthday should be celebrated every year by the eating of a rubber tire to the music of the Flight of the Bumblebee.

Someday, if I am very, very good, I will be immortalized in foam by having a muppet made in my likeness.

Overthoughts

2010-09-22T06:42:00.002-04:00

There's a sign in the kingdom advertising a spa/salon. It says (among other things) that "microderm abrasion gets rid of sunspots."

I wonder if the astrophysical community knows about this?

It May Not Be As Much A Wasteland As I Had Thought

2010-09-21T06:24:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: The Tales of Ibis, by Hiroshi Yamamoto

Inspirational Quote: "Oh, well, this would be one of those circumstances that people unfamiliar with the law of large numbers would call a coincidence." -- Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) The Big Bang Theory Pilot

I have a cold. It's a great, solid, hairy beast of a thing that's packed my sinuses with wet cement and crapped phlegm down my throat until I can now express myself in twenty-one varieties of cough. Do I have your sympathy? Don't waste it. I've got a cold and I'm a wimp. Go feel sorry for someone with real problems.

Anyway, thoughts are having the devil of a time surfacing through layers of exhaustion and mucus so I've been spending rather more time than necessary dazed and staring at the television. And I've discovered two things:

1) The Big Bang Theory. I caught 10 minutes of it one evening between other activities and laughed so hard I fell off the sofa. I'm a geek with a university degree in physics, and I don't want to talk about how much of myself and my old friends I see in this show. Penelope has brought home the first 2 disks of the first season, so there's a good 6 hours I'm going to lose...

2) Avatar: the Last Airbender. It's a kid's cartoon. I'm a forty-plus adult. I get the feeling there's a point to be made there, but I have no idea what it could be. The boys and I used to watch this when it was playing on one of the Canadian kids networks, but somewhere in the second season, episodes got skipped and we never made it to the end. The recent Shyamalan film reminded me that it was pretty good.

Good doesn't cover it. This is amazing. A 35+ hour feat of serialized storytelling set in a fantasy world where eastern martial arts allow the manipulation of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. 11-year-old Aang is the reincarnation of the Avatar, a magician responsible for maintaining peace and balance. When he awakens after 100 years in an iceberg, he finds the Fire Nation has started a war that has nearly destroyed the world. To set things right, he has to learn to master the four elements and defeat the Fire Lord. Standing in his way is Prince Zuko, the conflicted son of the Fire Lord who's become obsessed with capturing the Avatar.

It's got lots of action, but there's a tremendous amount of humor too, along with a bit of romance, and a touch of tragedy. Forget the live-action version, this is far superior.

And now I'm going to go back to working my way through boxes of tissue...

BTW: phlegm is one of my favorite words. Where else, in English, do you get the "ph" form of "f" and a silent "g" all in a compact 6 letters?

What's Your Excuse?

2010-09-17T08:55:00.001-04:00

I've never found writing easy. Honestly, there are times when I'll seize just about any excuse to avoid doing it.

I have a full-time job I don't enjoy. I have three children, two of whom are teenagers who have made some dark choices lately. Most of the time, I'm tired. A fair bit of the time, I'm so wound up by the actions of my children that all I can do is worry and hold in the panic and try to give my wife something to hold onto when she can't take any more.

When I'm looking for them, excuses to avoid writing are readily available.

But I have this thing I want. It's not for my kids or for my wife. It's a selfish thing just for me.

All the excuses are just a way of separating myself from it, of putting it off maybe until I'm lying on my deathbed and thinking, "I thought I'd have more time." I've been using my excuses lately (the new one is that I have a terrible cold that's making it difficult to think in complete words, let alone complete sentences), even though I've been feeling guilty about it.

For those of you who are like me in that respect, please go and read John Scalzi's take on things. I don't know what size boot he wears, but it's left an impression on my backside that seems entirely justified.

Overthoughts

2010-09-15T06:39:00.001-04:00

We have hurricanes, but no himmicanes even though we all know that guys make a bigger mess than girls.

Faith and Fiction

2010-09-14T10:24:00.002-04:00

Current Reading: The Stories of Ibis, by Hiroshi Yamamoto

Inspirational Quote: "When you have come to the edge / Of all light that you know / And are about to drop off into the darkness / Of the unknown, / Faith is knowing / One of two things will happen: / There will be something solid to stand on or / You will be taught to fly" -- Patrick Overton

I was born and raised an atheist. As I've grown older, though, and been exposed to science, philosophy and the hammer/anvil relationship that is life, I've found belief in nothing to be quite difficult to maintain. I don't think you can go too far in modern science (which consists essentially of asking, "Why?" with the persistence of a 2-year-old) before you run straight into "Because that's the way it is." Substitute, "Because it's God's will," or, "It's random," or "It's predestined, fate," if you like. It all boils down to the same thing. Quantum mechanics is math wrapped around "I don't know," and you can bet Schroedinger's cat was praying the lid would stay shut.

In spite of my skepticism about skepticism, I don't consider myself a Christian, Muslim, Hare-Krishna, Scientologist or anything else, really. If anything, I'm a Zen Buddhist by way of Groucho Marx (who was Jewish, by the way).

You may agree. You may not. Whatever. This isn't about me or what I believe.

This is about faith, and people of faith, and speculative fiction. I don't mean faith in oneself, or faith in science, but spiritual faith: the belief in a higher power. Faith has shaped our history and our present (not always for good). Conflicting ideologies have shaped our maps. But it's surprising, when you look at speculative fiction, how little an impact faith has on our imaginings of other worlds.

Just looking back over the books I've read (see the list to the left), only a handful touch on the impact or importance of faith. In Coyote Horizon, a fanatical bishop does a terrible thing because he cannot abide a challenge to his faith. In Mainspring, it is Hethor's faith that compels him onto his quest. American Gods, paradoxically, is about gods, but not about faith, and Shadow remains skeptical even while his life becomes bound up with the Gods of the title. Very few speculative fiction novels contain people of faith, or are about people of faith.

When people of spiritual faith appear in speculative fiction, they often get characterized as misguided zealots (see Coyote Horizon). Science fiction is full of religious people who oppose just about everything, especially the march of progress (I love Sagan's treatment of this in Contact). In fantasy, religion often gets demoted to cult status and most of those cults are evil organizations worshiping things with tentacles. They exist so that Conan can pillage them. Occasionally, the good cults are showcased for their ability to heal (which seems to be the distinguishing mark of "good" religions). They exist so that the protagonist doesn't have to deal with their injuries. Messiahs are, strangely, a favorite topic for speculative fiction. Stranger in a Strange Land and Dune are two monumental works about messiahs. They always come to a bad end, though.

I have yet to see a speculative fiction story about a good Catholic whose faith helps sustain her through his trials, or a Muslim whose peaceful practice of his faith is key to his ability to withstand the tragedies that befall him. Instead, false Gods appear all the time while true ones only pop up occasionally. There's very little speculation about God in speculative fiction. We don't ponder his/her/its existence except obliquely. We don't wonder about his species or gender, whether he's one or three or three hundred. And yet these questions are central to a great deal of our society.

When religion appears in speculative fiction, there is a predominance of monolithic cultures: all members of a species belong to the same religion. Looking at humanity, that seems ridiculously unlikely. Even within Christianity, which dominates here in Canada, we have Catholic and Protestant, United, Jehovah's Witness, Mennonite... more variants than I can count, each one claiming to worship the one true God in the only right way.

Once in a while, I come across a thoughtful treatment of religion and faith. Speaker for the Dead included a Catholic priest who took very seriously the spiritual well-being of the human settlers on a distant planet... and of the aliens who shared that planet with them. Babylon 5 lampshaded the monolithic spirituality of its aliens in one episode where, to showcase Earth's dominant religion, the commander filled a hangar bay with a line of spiritual leaders that stretched out of sight.

I think faith is an important aspect of character. I know people whose faith has led them to be more tranquil, more tolerant and wiser. I also know people whose faith has appeared to justify their prejudices and allowed them to be abusive without shame. I find it curious that faith, which plays so big a part in our world, plays such a small part in the worlds we imagine.

Naturally, I'm interested in your thoughts on the matter. Particularly any counterexamples: speculative work where faith is an important and positive aspect of character.

Book Report: Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher

2010-09-14T06:33:00.003-04:00

Like the first Dresden Files book, this one is a textbook in structure done right. It's an incredibly fast read, and difficult to put down because almost every scene and chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

In this, Harry Dresden is brought in on a grisly murder where the victim looks like he's been savaged by a wild animal. It's a werewolf, of course, but not only does he have to deal with more than one, they're on different sides in a multi-party conflict. There are also different kinds of werewolves, from the berserker Streetwolves where the transformation is entirely mental to the loup-garou, an almost invulnerable shape changer whose savagery can't be controlled.

This is a good read, a potboiler that owes a great deal to Philip Marlowe. If it has a fault, and I don't think of this as such, it lacks the depth of some of the other books I've been reading. I think that's a trade-off, something sacrificed to ensure a breakneck pace. It's an exciting book, but it's not a place to look for a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

Book Report: Coyote Horizon, by Allen Steele

2010-09-13T20:52:00.003-04:00

The thing I love about the Coyote books is the combination of character driven stories and the hard science fiction setting. The books also have a political and societal awareness that puts me in mind of Dune. This book, part one of a two part Coyote story treads some of the same ground as Dune, but it is very much its own story. I think this one strays a little further from the hard science by introducing artificially introduced telepathy. However, it also explores the religious/spiritual/philosophical impact of contact with an alien race in a way that I've never quite seen before.

This is not merely some pedantic treatise, though. There's a good story here about a murderer who finally finds redemption through an alien philosophy, who becomes a teacher, a messiah and a martyr. It's also about a lone-wolf game hunter who finally connects with someone, and an ex-politician who can't bring himself to put the needs of his new world behind his own needs even though he's long retired.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

Fourth Floor: Notions, Oceans, Potions and Vegetation.

2010-08-29T10:30:00.006-04:00

Current Reading: Coyote Horizon, by Allen Steele

Inspirational Quote: "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -- Howard Thurman

Random detritus from my brain:

I'm beginning to understand the truth about the necessity for conflict in a dramatic scene. Without it, there is no question in the reader's mind, nothing to compel them to read on. So, from this we can deduce that nothing interests people more than a good fight. I'm not sure I like what that says about human nature. It's possible that Juvenal was right: all we desire are bread and circuses.

Penelope tried her hand (and Cassandra's too) at vegetable gardening this year. Naturally, she chose the same year that the construction equipment came in, flattened our forest and filled in our swamp. As a result, we got half-a-dozen cucumbers, a dozen pea-pods and a miniature lake that drowned everything else. It was kind of pretty, but there's something a little weird about seeing cornstalks rising from a pool of water. I'm trying to convince them that next year, they should plant rice.

I am not qualified to raise children. My sons insist on doing stupid, dangerous things despite all I do to dissuade them. I hope they'll live long enough to see their brains develop. Actually, I'm hoping I'll live long enough to see their brains develop. They seem to be getting along fine, but I'm a nervous wreck.

This is a great place, although it's changed a lot since my youth, when it seemed like a combination of Disney World and the starship Enterprise: the essence of cool crossed with fun. Cassandra and I loved the reef-in-an-aquarium and the Harry Potter props exhibit. There's just so much to play with that, even though she can't read yet, she found dozens of things to do no matter where she went.

Cassandra discovered Harry Potter through the Lego video game. It's funny and clever and requires some thought. When she found out we had the books, she insisted that I read them to her. Of course, there's a lot in there that is dark and frightening, so we've only read the first, and we skipped over many of the creepier parts. While I was reading to her, I expected her to grow bored. The Philosopher's Stone is quite a long book for a six-year-old, and there are no pictures. I thought we'd soon be turning to Flat Stanley or Junie B. Jones for a little relief, but not only did she hang on every word of the much longer book, but afterward she insisted I make up stories about that world and its people. Mostly Fred and George, because they're funny and mischievous. Although some may cast aspersions on Ms. Rowling's ability, I can only watch her work spellbind a little girl and wish I had even a pinch of what Rowling has in barrels.

After that, we saw the movie of the Philosopher's Stone, which was darker still, so there was a lot of skipping over bits and we missed the climax entirely. No matter. She loved it, and couldn't wait to wander among the sets and costumes in the Science Center exhibit.

Summer is drawing to an end. It's been cool and rainy. On some trees in the Kingdom, the leaves are beginning to change and the air is taking on that smell which says Autumn is just around the corner. I love this time of year, partly because it's pretty, and partly because of the memories of falls when I was a kid. Nobody likes to go back to school, but for me there was always anticipation. Something new was about to start, and I could feel the possibilities spread out before me just waiting to be explored. Autumn always smells to me of potential and nostalgia.

Oh, and burning leaves because when some people see something breathtakingly beautiful, it only makes sense that they gather it up and set fire to it. People. Seriously, God, were we really the best you could come up with?

Overthoughts

2010-08-17T10:27:00.002-04:00

You can't find Happiness with Google Maps (unless you're looking for Happiness as part of a business, which doesn't help with your personal life. Or Happiness as a street, which I don't trust because I don't think I'd be happy on the street).

You can find Bliss, but only in New York or Michigan. Ecstasy can only be found in a lake in Minnesota. Peace is in North Dakota. Joy is in New York.

Apparently we don't have any of those things in Canada.

You can't find God, but he's got a lake in Manitoba.

You can't find Enlightenment anywhere, and good luck finding Wisdom. They aren't on any map.

I leave you to ponder the geo-philosophical implications of this...

Beginning Again

2010-08-15T15:41:00.003-04:00

Current Reading: Coyote Horizon, by Allen Steele

Inspirational Quote: "I've seen worse things start off better, and better things start off worse," -- Me, in a philosophical mood.

For this, I wish you could follow along with me in the pages, but I don't want to do Mr. Steele the discourtesy of quoting a significant portion of his work. If you have read Coyote Horizon, or can be convinced to go out and buy it, please do, because I believe studying its structure will be very informative.

I was reading this in the tub this morning (I read in the tub a lot. Usually until the water gets cold). I've enjoyed Mr. Steele's work, starting with Labyrinth of Night a number of years ago, and I've particularly enjoyed his Coyote novels. It's hard science fiction, and I've found his tale of the first human colony both compelling and believable, so I've really been looking forward to reading the latest installment in the series.

This morning, while developing submersion wrinkles, I delved into the prologue. Unlike my earlier post, I'm not going to concentrate on the first paragraph, but on the prologue as a whole. Nor will I quote it verbatim.

The scene opens in front of a house on an escarpment. The first paragraph is a bit dull, although the first line mentions that it is the home of two former presidents of the planet Coyote. I didn't find it as compelling as I found the openings of most of the books I mentioned in that earlier post, but to this point, Steele has never disappointed me and the promise of another of his stories is sufficient motivation to hook me.

It's the second paragraph where the questions start cropping up: why is the POV character told to arrive early? Why is the house so inaccessible? What does she want that makes climbing to the house a reasonable action?

The main conflict of the prologue is introduced right away. It looks like reporter vs. mountain, but the geography is just a manifestation of the ex-president's desire to avoid visitors. It's actually reporter vs. ex-president, with an interview as the stakes. The reporter suffers two setbacks: her recorder is taken away, and the president side-tracks the conversation. Only when the reporter rises to leave (takes action) does she get her recorder back and permission for the interview.

She has achieved her goal, but the interview she gets isn't quite what she was hoping for. Her first question elicits an explanation of the forces active on Coyote and the pressures on its people. This is for the reader's benefit, although it doesn't feel like an info dump. It feels like the reporter is challenging the ex-president with these facts, daring her to make a statement or take a stand.

Instead, the reporter gets challenged instead. The ex-president points out a ship being built to explore Coyote's equatorial river, and lets slip that the expedition is causing some trouble for the ex-president and her husband (who is also an ex-president). Far from getting an answer to her questions, the reporter leaves the encounter with a whole new set of questions.

By the time the prologue ends, the reader knows something about the backstory, has met some of the main characters, and has broad hints about the coming conflicts likely to be triggered by the ship's expedition. It's an effective setup driven by a pattern of goal, obstacle, setback.

How Spent My Summer Vacation, I, part 2

2010-08-15T15:08:00.003-04:00

Yoda-speak is just another way George Lucas has destroyed modern culture (just kidding, George. I can't remain upset with anything that features muppets).

In addition to exploring tracts of tamederness (it's like wilderness but not as wild), my family and I took in more urban pursuits. We hit Canada's Wonderland, which is a great place if you enjoy roller-coasters and an absolute paradise if you enjoy long lines of people. One piece of advice, though: don't take teenagers in a surly mood or you'll never be able to get on "that one coaster you stand up on and corkscrew," or "that other one where there's just the seats and nothing around you but the overhead track," because apparently "waiting sucks. The rides suck. This whole place sucks. Can I go sit in the van?"

Sigh. When we'd taken all we could, we strolled over to the water park and Telemachus, Cassandra, Penelope and I enjoyed the ups and downs of the wave pool while Aeneas watched our belongings and dozed off in the sun. That's about as close to a compromise that made everyone happy as we were likely to get.

From Toronto, we went to Ottawa. They have museums there. Cassandra loved the Museum of Science and Technology, which apparently is not a boring museum where you can't touch anything. She loved running around and pushing buttons and flicking switches and making things go. I can't wait to get her to the Toronto Science Center. I notice they have a Harry Potter exhibit, which is wonderful because I've been reading the first book to her and she absolutely loves the Harry Potter Lego video game.

While we were there, we also discovered a grist-mill museum along the banks of the Rideau River. Cassandra loved it too, surprising me because it was not particularly large nor particularly interactive. When I told her it was supposed to be haunted, she got so excited I thought I was going to have to drag her out of the place when they closed.

Since she enjoyed those museums so much, I decided to take her to see one in the town where I grew up. In the almost twenty years I lived within walking distance to Glanmore House, I had never visited it. Now that I'm an out-of-towner, I guess it's okay to do something touristy. It's a beautiful place, and I can't avoid using the adjective "sumptuous" whenever I think about it. As we entered, the curator handed us a scavenger hunt sheet which kept Cassandra whirling from room to room trying to find everything. The glimpse of an upper-class Canadian life during Victoria's reign fascinated me, and the realization that it had been used as a residence within my lifetime gave the whole experience an extra bit of perspective.

I sometimes think that in our rush to experience the world, a world that grows smaller as communications and travel grow simpler, we tend to appreciate the distant and the foreign over those things closer to home. In the past few weeks, I've seen a different side of the little world I've lived in my whole life and I've found it as unexpected and fascinating and captivating as I would have had I never laid eyes on it before. It's a wonderful experience, and I've been lucky to see at least some of it through the eyes of a little girl to whom the whole world is a strange and beautiful place.

I hope you've been as lucky.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, part 1

2010-08-15T13:40:00.007-04:00

Yeah, so it's the weekend and I hadn't posted anything as promised. I plead summer.

Three weeks ago, I started my summer vacation as I always do: with grand plans and high hopes. Naturally, things didn't work out the way I hoped they would. However, although I didn't get the shed cleaned out, or the door frames repainted, there were highlights.

Cassandra and I set out to visit every conservation area within the drainage basin of the river close to where we live. We did alright and had some very nice walks through mosquito-infested lowlands. It was only toward the end of our efforts that I discovered the local conservation authority actually divides its lands into two categories: Natural habitat preserves and conservation areas. Conservation areas have trails laid out, guideposts, signage, potties and sometimes picnic and swimming areas. Habitat preserves don't. In fact, they don't even have signs telling you where they are.

I guess they figure that if you're a plant or an animal, no amount of signage is going to help you, and if you're a person, well... the whole point is to discourage you from disturbing the plants and animals (see the common definition of "natural"), so why waste the money?

We spent an hour one Thursday driving up and down a road looking for such an area which was clearly marked on the map but absolutely indiscernible in the real world. When I had finally narrowed it down, it turned out to be a stretch of impassible wetland. Fortunately, ice-cream is apparently a reasonable remedy for most things that disappoint a 5-year old.

Still, we have some beautiful areas set aside from development, in which one can glimpse the glory that must once have been: the vast forest which covered most of Southern Ontario. Oak and ash, birch, pine and Douglas fir. You can stand under old growth, trees that were huge before Cartier cross the land, and hear nothing but the wind rustling the leaves (and the whine of mosquitoes the size and color of ripe tomatoes). It's at those moments you realize what inspired the Group of Seven, and it's difficult not to feel inspired yourself.

I was inspired to remember the bug repellent on our next trip.

There are whole rush beds alive with the song of frogs and that high pitched buzz that comes from some insect or other (I never found out which) which cuts through the air like an industrial saw and makes you wonder if the source of the noise isn't a bug somehow made out of steel. I always associate that sound with hot summer, because I always hear it when the sun is beating down and the air is still.

And then there's the water. I grew up on the banks of a river whose depth varied from a killer six feet of icy gray foam during the spring runoff to a quarter inch in low-lying trenches during the heat of August. It was the background soundtrack to my life as a kid. We lived just down from a dam, and so the roar of the water cascading over the cement buttresses was constant. In the winter, we could hear the boom of floes as the ice growing upstream pushed them over the top of the dam to shatter on the rocks twelve feet below. A few big ones would shake the house every year.

So I've got a soft spot for water. Especially creeks, where you can sit on the bank and listen to water run over the limestone shelving that passes for rocks around here. We spent part of an afternoon sitting on the cement-and-stone ruins of an old grist-mill dam watching water bugs and minnows, larger fish and frogs go about their uneventful but fascinating lives. Cassandra discovered some very big snails but couldn't quite be persuaded to pick one up. They're icky, apparently, although I'm sure other snails find them quite attractive.

There are a few places we haven't gotten to yet, and we may not get the chance. Daddy's working a lot, and Cassandra's got day camp keeping her busy. But still there are weekends and there's always a chance for us to slip away for a late summer hike.

Book Report: Devil May Cry, by Ian Fleming (Sebastian Faulks)

2010-08-11T12:45:00.003-04:00

To this point in my life, I had not read Ian Fleming. Nor had I so much as dabbled in the numerous 007 books created by various authors under license. I had, however, enjoyed most of the movies up to and including Octopussy (forgive me).

When I saw this lying around, I thought, 'Why not?' I knew the Bond of the books was quite different from the Bond of film, so I went in with no real idea what to expect. What I got was a spy thriller set in the mid 1900s during the cold war, in which a deformed pharmaceutical producer with a hate on for Britain tries to heat up the war after growing impatient with promoting heroin addiction in the English underclass. Add in exotic locales (Iran, Turkey, Cold-war Russia), a psychotic henchman and twin damsels in distress who aren't what they seem.

It was a decent enough read, but I really didn't think the book got going until the second half when Bond discovers the villain's lair and begins to investigate. The pages before that read more like a seedy travelogue with occasional bits of intrigue and violence. I did not find much tension in the first part, and had things not picked up when they did, I'd have laid this aside.

As I say, I haven't read Fleming or a book about Bond before, and there may be conventions or traditions associated with them of which I remain unaware. My dissatisfaction may be due entirely to having uneducated expectations.

Ulysses Rating: 1 - I finished this, but I didn't enjoy it.

Quick! Post Something Before Someone Thinks You've Died!

2010-08-10T13:09:00.004-04:00

My apologies for the recent run of whitespace. I am currently experiencing temporal dislocation (I can't find the time).

However, I'll be back with something pithy/witty/deep/nonsensical/musical/clairvoyant/hydrophobic/iconoclastic/sympathetic/pathetic/subjective/objective/massive/prehensile/masculine/porcine/bovine/flatulent... or at least free-associative before the approaching weekend.

In the immortal words of Han Solo: "We're all fine here... uh, how are you?"
So: uh, how are you?

Starting at the Beginning

2010-07-25T08:04:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: Nothing for the moment. I'm on vacation and thinking a trip to the bookstore might be just the thing...

Inspirational quote: "He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end." -- Harry Emerson Fosdick

I having some trouble beginning. Not starting. Starting, I can do. But beginning and beginning well is a trick I have yet to master. As I said in a previous post, I think reading actively is important for a writer. I think it's foolish to ignore what's already been done.

And beginnings are important. Numerous agents, editors and readers talk about the importance of the first chapter, the first scene, the first paragraph and the first sentence. That's where we've got to hook the reader, to grab them and compel them into the story such that they don't want to leave until it's over. But how do you pull it off? What works?

Well, as with plots, I decided to turn to a selection of books I've read recently and really take a hard look at their beginnings. My thoughts are in italics... because, in my own head, my thoughts are in gray italics. Weird, huh?

Storm Front, by Jim Butcher:
I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual. Why is the mailman early? He didn't sound right. His footsteps fell more heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. He whistled his way to my office door, then fell silent for a moment. Then he laughed. Question of why he's early answered and replaced by new question: What's so funny about his office door?

Mainspring, by Jay Lake:
The Angel gleamed in the light of Hethor's reading candle bright as any brasswork automaton. Exotic situation: angels and reading candles and automatons. Why is there an angel in the room? The young man clutched his threadbare coverlet in the irrational hope that the quilted cotton scraps could shield him from whatever power had invaded his attic room. Trembling, he closed his eyes. Reaction shows that this is unusual, terrifying, and we read on to find out why it's happening and how he deals.

Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett:
It was midnight in Ankh-Morpork's Royal Art Museum*. Pedestrian place (museum) juxtaposed with an exotic city. The footnote here leads to a humorous aside about the city, its nature and government. It occurred to new employee Rudolph Scattering about once every minute that on the whole it might have been a good idea to tell the Curator about his nyctophobia, his fear of strange noises and, he now knew, his fear of absolutely every thing he could see (and, come to that, not see) hear, smell and feel crawling up his back during the endless hours on guard during the night. It was no use telling himself that everything in here was dead. That didn't help at all. It meant that he stood out. Introduction to an unusual character in a situation sure to cause him trouble. What's going to happen to push him over the edge?

Outrageous Fortune, by Tim Scott:
“Fuckers,” I whispered to myself as I looked at the small, pristine business card held lightly between my fingers. Reader wants to know what's on the card, and who deserves the expletive. On it were the words:“Don't you hate it when this happens?” Reader wants to know what happened.

Recovery Man, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
Jupiter filled the dome as Rhonda Shindo pressed the chip on her wrist to slow the express sidewalk. Exotic place with Jupiter, chips and sliding sidewalks. Reader wants to know where she is and why she's slowing the sidewalk. She glanced upward, always startled when the planet loomed so large. That night, Jupiter was sand-colored with streaks of brown. Sometimes it seemed redder and sometimes it had more orange. More of the exotic setting. Doesn't raise any more questions, but does put off the answer to the question the reader already has. Anticipation, delayed gratification.

Coyote, by Allen Steele:
This is the story of the new world. What new world? It begins not there, however, but on Earth, in the closing years of the twentieth century. Where? Is this based in reality? Have I already lived through the event to which he's leading up?

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman:
Shadow had done three years in prison. What for? He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife. This is about the character, and raises questions about why his love for his wife occupied so much of his time.

So what can I get from all this? (Yeah, I know... seven books is a statistically useless sample from which to draw generalizations, but if one wishes to draw conclusions, one must do so on the basis of the available sample... 'cause anything else is just makin' stuff up).

Questions. It's all about questions. From the first sentence, each opening raised questions in my mind that I wanted to push into the next sentence to answer. The sentences that follow might answer that question, but often there's a bait and switch as though the author were saying, "You think about that for a moment. I'm going to tell you about this first." There's the promise of delayed gratification, of anticipation that propels me forward.
Often, the first sentence is short and punchy.
The openings above seem to fall into three different types:

Unusual event, or usual event that doesn't play out the way it usually does.
Exotic setting, or familiar elements in an exotic arrangement. Probably not a good idea to extend this more than a short paragraph before introducing a character or event.
An unusual character, or a character with unusual attributes.

A couple of interesting and similar conclusions can be found here and here.

At one point, I had what I thought was a beautiful beginning sentence for the Magnus Somnium: "It ended in fire." I liked it because starting a book talking about an ending really raises some questions, and because it book-ended (pun unintentional) nicely with the final line of the story: "The sun rose, and the new day began in fire." Unfortunately, the book now starts in another place that works much better, so I've lost context for the line.

Oh well, back to the writing board...

Outrageous Fortune, by Tim Scott

2010-07-25T07:47:00.002-04:00

Unquestionably the best book I have read so far this year that starts with an expletive.

Which puts it in a class of one. No matter.

This is a bit of a mind-bender that puts it almost in a class with Philip K. Dick's work. As a reader, I was never quite sure what was going on, or why or just how "real" everything I read really was. It's about a dream architect who one day discovers his house has been stolen, and that the thieves have left behind a business card with an invitation to call them. After that, things get weird as he's chased through city boroughs organized by musical genres by a limpet encyclopedia saleswoman (who latches on to her mark and won't let go), and four motorbike riders named after the Apocalyptic horsemen. In the process, he discovers a plot to assassinate god using a virus that could give everyone the same dream, that will keep them from believing.

The thing that didn't work for me here is that 9/10ths of the book concerns these events, but the resolution (I'll try not to spoil anything here, but forgive me if I mess up) concerns something only slightly related, and put me in mind of Dallas for reasons I won't go into. Once I finished the book, although I could see the rationale behind the ending and all that led up to it, I felt a little bit cheated. It was not as though aliens arrived in the final few chapters, but as though they had been there all along and I hadn't noticed. It reminded me also of I Am the Messenger, in that the events of the book happened for a reason which made sense but was not satisfying.

Ulysses Rating: 2 - I had a tough go.

Book Report: Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett

2010-07-25T07:37:00.002-04:00

It's a big book. Bigger than most of the Discworld books that are starting to overflow my shelves. It's also a bit of a departure. Although it takes place within Ankh-Morpork and Unseen University, and although it features the only faculty in the multiverse capable of destroying reality while trying to get in a game of billiards before tea, it's not about them. On the surface, it's about a mystery in the form of a being named Nutt who doesn't seem too certain about who or what he is. Beneath that, it's a meditation on Nature vs Nurture vs Free Will.

Are we what we are born to be? Are we what we are made to be? Are we what we decide to be? It all comes out in the mix of a football (soccer) prodigy whose dad died heroically while playing the game, a chef who's sensible and dependable and rather like a crab in an unpleasant way, and a beautiful girl for whom being beautiful just might be enough to get her through life.

The book is complicated and deep and rich and, although still funny and absurd in places, reminds me more of Pratchett's Nation than of any of his other Discworld work. And I guess that's where it fell down. It feels too big, I guess. Sprawling and less tightly plotted than his earlier work. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not quite what I read Pratchett's work for and so not only did I take longer to read this than I normally do, I found myself not quite as satisfied by it as I'd hoped to be.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

Under Deconstruction

2010-07-18T21:08:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: Outrageous Fortune, by Tim Scott

Inspirational Quote: "Four things, actually... well, four things and a lizard." -- David Tennant as Doctor Who (I can think of no better title for a blog than "Four Things and a Lizard).

First, a PSA:

Reader and all-around good egg S.L. Card points out a workshop notice for ReConStruction which may interest those in, around and capable of getting to Raleigh N.C.

And now, to what's been on my mind for a while...

I try not to give generic writing advice for two reasons:

1) If I'm so smart, where's my book? (It's coming... it's coming).

2) What I think makes perfect sense for me is not guaranteed to be sensible for someone else.

But if there's one piece of advice I accidentally gave that I really believe in, it's this: if you want to be a good writer, read actively. Don't just consume the printed word, but digest it. Make a note of the bits that affect you. If you're in love with a character, try to figure out what the writer did that made you fall in love. If there's a phrase or image that haunts you, try to understand what there is about it that makes it memorable. Once I've finished books, I go over different scenes and passages again, the ones that stayed with me after the cover closed.

Sometimes I even read with a notebook.

The Magnus Somnium is being stubborn. It drags in places and zooms in others. High points seem just don't seem to be as high as they ought. I think it's a plot problem, but in order to understand the fault, I first have to really understand plot and structure. This is handy as a guide. So is just about everything Jim Butcher says here. And I'm sure by now, if you write fiction, you've compiled a million of your own references.

But what does it all mean? I have trouble with moving from the theoretical to the practical, and I admit it freely. I love theory, getting lost in ideas which are perfect and flawless and inspiring. I also love the practical applications because that's where theory crashes into the real world loses all the bits that don't work. It's just the transition that mystifies me.

So I decided to take a look at a couple of books I enjoyed recently and examine their plot, see what happens when. I present the following because I hope it will be as instructive for you as it was for me. I apologize, as there will be spoilers (it's unavoidable... I can't talk about plot without telling something of the story).

Mainspring, by Jay Lake (324 pages)

Page 1: The Angel appears to Hethor and gives him a mission. (0%)

Hethor seeks advice about the mission.

Page 28: Hethor is expelled from his apprenticeship. (8%)

Hethor journeys to Boston.

Page 54: Interview with the Governor ends in prison. (16%)

Escape and time on the Basset.

Page 177: Crossing the wall, almost crushed by gears, loses his guide. (54%)

After confronting an antagonist, he spends time with the Correct People.

Page 289: The Airship crashes at the South Pole. (89%)

Journey under the pole with tests.

Page 316: Final confrontation with the antagonist. (97%)

Aftermath

Storm Front, by Jim Butcher (322 pages)

Page 4: Harry gets calls that result in 2 jobs. (1%)

Surveying the scene of the crime.

Page 30: Harry commits to investigating black magic despite the trouble it could cause. (9%)

Harry investigates the Lake House.

Page 76: Morgan delivers a warning. (23%)

Interviewing the suspects.

Page 168: The black wizard sends a demon after Harry. (52%)

Harry loses some hair and discovers his cases are connected. The antagonist's identity is revealed.

Page 262: Attack in the office. (81%)

Harry prepares.

Page 293: Confrontation at the Lake House. (90%)

Aftermath.

Now that I've seen how things are put together in the real world, I can start to draw a few conclusions:

Both books use a ticking clock. If Hethor fails to wind the mainspring before a given date, the world ends. After he loses his hair, Harry has to find and defeat the black wizard before the coming storm arrives, or he'll die. Time is as much the enemy as the antagonist.

Each book has a handful of significant incidents that mark turning points in the protagonist's progress. They're usually disasters, although they might not be recognized as such. They're separated by stages that lead up to the next turning point.

(Turning Point) Books I like start off with an unusual event in the protagonist's life that gives them some purpose and forces them to act. This inciting incident might not be the result of the protagonist's action, but everything afterward will be. If it's not right on the first page, it's very close to it.

(Stage) After that, the protagonist reacts according to their usual nature. In the first case, Hethor seeks knowledge and advice from his superiors. In the second case, Harry checks out the crime scene.

(TP) Around 10% into the story, we have the first big disaster. Harry promises he'll solve the crime, but then is forced into a car and told that doing so would be a mistake. Hethor's thrown out of Master Bodean's house. Both these disasters isolate the protagonist. Hethor's lost his home. Harry alienates the cops.

(Stg) The protagonist seeks the most simple and obvious solution to the problem. Hethor goes to the authorities. Harry pokes around the Lake House.

(TP) Around 25% into the story, another big setback. Hethor gets his interview with the governor, and ends up in prison. Harry finds out the White Council is watching him VERY closely. The problem can't be solved the easy way, and trying to do so makes things worse. Either the problem is bigger and more complicated than they thought, or trying to solve it has created another, worse, problem.

(Stg) The protagonist limps on, trying to solve the problem with a slightly different approach. Harry interviews suspects. Hethor becomes an apprentice sailor.

(TP) Near the half-way point, something huge happens that changes the game. There's no retreat now, no surrender. Hethor crosses the equatorial wall to the mysterious southern hemisphere. Harry is attacked by a demon in his apartment.

(Stg) The previous event has changed the world again. This time, the protagonist looks likely to fail and the consequences of failure become unbearable. During this section, the protagonist may gain allies, but they'll be lost or unavailable by the time we get to the next incident. Instead of being a follower, Hethor becomes a leader among the Correct People. Initially reluctant to use powerful magic, Harry cuts loose and discovers the black wizard's identity.

(TP) 80% into the story, a final disaster strips the protagonist of all support and all hope. Hethor crashes his airship at the pole, without the Key Perilous or time to find it. Harry and his police liason are attacked in his office, costing him the last of his talismans and nearly exhausting his magic.

(Stg) There's nothing left to do now, no choice, but to storm the enemy fortress/proceed to the goal. Hethor seeks the mainspring. Harry goes back to the Lake House.

(TP) The climax happens anytime after the 90% mark. The clock runs out and the protagonist confronts the antagonist and either wins or loses. Hethor fights to wind the mainspring. Harry tries to stop the spell that will end his life.

(Stg) Once the climax is over, so's the book. There are a few pages of cool-down, an aftermath or "where are they now," but it doesn't take up much space. It shows the reader how the protagonist's life has changed as a result of events.

Of course, not all books are structured like this. Literary fiction plays with structure all the time (although Racing in the Rain breaks down pretty similarly to the above), but commercial fiction seems to be built in the same way.

I know many of you who write will look at this and go, "that's way too restrictive. I can't write to a formula, or a skeleton like that." Fine. I'm okay with that. But are you sure you aren't already writing a plot similar to that above? It's a species of the 3-act structure, and an evolution of the Heroic Journey, which has been running through stories since long before Joseph Campbell slapped a label on it. As readers, we have certain expectations for stories. We look for certain milestones. A structure like the one above helps us meet those expectations, and give readers a satisfying experience. I think we ignore such things at our peril.

Thus I Refute Your Argument

2010-07-07T13:13:00.003-04:00

Book Report: Mainspring, by Jay Lake

2010-07-06T09:15:00.003-04:00

I'm apparently reading backwards, as I've already read the sequel to this: Escapement. I had some issues with that book, which remain because I thought it left too much up in the air. However some of the blanks have been filled in, and naturally, I wish I'd read Mainspring first.

It's the story of Hethor, a clockmaker's apprentice in a world where everything is clockwork. The mainspring of the world is winding down and the gears that connect Earth to Heaven are starting to stutter and lose time. An angel appears and orders Hethor to find the Key Perilous and use it to rewind the mainspring. The quest takes the reader through an incredibly well-imagined world from the Northern Earth where Queen Victoria reigns over the American Colonies and airships defend the empire from the encroaching Chinese, to the Southern Earth where monsters are common and sorcerers live in ancient cities.

The writing was excellent, the plotting well constructed. My two complaints are that I guessed the nature of the Key Perilous too easily, spoiling the impact of the final revelation, and that so much is left unexplained (eg: the "white bird" conspiracy which is the focus of the next book, why the Wall is peopled by monsters and robots while Northern Earth is relatively normal). These are minor complaints, as Lake's Earth is such a fascinating place.

Mainspring, by Jay Lake

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

Canada Day

2010-06-30T13:06:00.007-04:00

The great nation to which I currently pay my taxes is celebrating the anniversary of its existence. As with people in countries all over the world, we do this by setting fire to things... like police cars, apparently, but usually we restrict ourselves to rockets. Instead of sticking around for the fireworks, I'll be taking Aeneas to a cottage on a lake where we will torment the local fish population with sharp things. The weather looks like it's going to be good, so I'm looking forward to it.

In lieu:

In the process of converting hydrogen into helium, the sun produces a considerable amount of exhaust, about 2 million tons each second. This exhaust is a superheated plasma (a charged gas) commonly referred to as the solar wind. Traveling at more than 400Km/s, the solar wind is not a gentle breeze and could easily sweep life from the surface of the earth if it weren't for the planet's magnetic field.

An interesting thing happens when high-energy particles encounter a magnetic field: they radiate. As the particles spiral along the lines of magnetic force, they give off a fair bit of light that we call the Aurora or Australis Borealis (in the north or south, respectively). Actually, we don't call it that. We let scientists and weathermen call it that. We call it the Northern (or Southern) Lights.

I've been lucky enough to see the Northern Lights a few times during intense sunspot activity. A curtain of light, shimmering and rippling as though caught in a breeze. It's faint and ghostly and almost transparent, and it never fails to make me shiver at the magnificence and complexity of our beautiful, impossible little planet.

Talk about fireworks...

This is the Aurora Australis as seen from space.

Happy Birthday, Canada.

While I'm depleting the piscine community, you'll be interested to know that the latest winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have perpetrated their crimes on the reading public and been justly rewarded therefore.

I laughed like a hyena. Not like the the Striped or Brown hyena or even the Aardwolf, which isn't really a wolf and is native only to some parts of Southern and Eastern Africa and not at all to Tasmania, which is an island I'd quite like to visit one day. Not at all like those, but more like the Spotted Hyena, like the ones shown in nature films and the Lion King, only I don't think they sound like Whoopi Goldberg but rather more like Bobcat Goldthwait, who once starred with Whoopi in the movie Burglar, which was funny but didn't make me laugh this much. And I don't think they're actually laughing. I think they're barking, but it sort of sounds like laughing. It sounds like Uncle Bernie would if he sucked in a whole helium balloon and then heard a really funny joke like that one about the two lawyers... only not that one, the other one with the bucket of paint and the Orangutan, and boy did I laugh at that too, but not like Uncle Bernie who doesn't laugh at all like a hyena, but then hyenas don't laugh so I suppose that's alright.

I laughed like that.

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

2010-06-30T11:59:00.002-04:00

Last week I had a call at work from Penelope. We've had a lot of construction around our house, and the building's been banging around as earth-movers and pile-drivers and such go about their work. She complained that there had been a really big bang, so big that the whole house shook and Telemachus had almost lost his footing in the shower.

When she went out to see what had happened, she discovered that no work was being done around us. The construction crew had moved up the street about quarter-mile to upgrade the water and sewer.

At first, I was worried that somehow all the construction had destabilized my house. Then a friend sent me this.

It's worse than I thought. They've destabilized THE ENTIRE PLANET!

The Strange Case of the Cereal Killer

2010-06-30T11:12:00.005-04:00

Current Reading: Mainspring, by Jay Lake

Inspirational Quote: "People always ask me, 'Where were you when Kennedy was shot?' Well, I don't have an alibi." -- Emo Philips

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a mess. One of the boys, in the middle of the night, had apparently decided to have a midnight cereal snack. Three open boxes sat on the floor, and someone had emptied a nearly-full box of granola into the recycling bin. Weird, but although I have no idea what thought process could lead someone to do such a thing, I rarely understand the thought process that leads my sons to do ANYTHING.

Telemachus denied any involvement. Aeneas has a standing policy of denying everything, especially when he's involved. He's like the CSIS that way. More curious than frustrated, I had them park themselves at the table while I made supper and tried to figure out which one of them was covering up a secret desire to recycle fiber-rich grain products.

Clues? None but the neatness of the crime. The perpetrator had not spilled the box on the floor and swept it up. On those rare occasions when I can force a broom into my sons hands, their efforts are spotty at best, and the floor showed no signs of missed spillage. Moreover, the culprit had been thorough. The box was back in the cupboard, still open, and completely empty. It was as though they had deliberately emptied the box into the bin. But why? Even for a teenage boy, that's bizarre behavior.

"Telemachus, were you up last night?"
"For the last time, no! Both of us went to sleep at one."
"What about after that?"
Telemachus stared at me while the wheels turned. "No, I... Oh, crud. That would explain my phone."
"Uh... What?"
"I had my phone with me in the basement last night before I went to sleep down there. This morning, it took me half an hour to find it. It was upstairs in my room."

Telemachus is an occasional sleepwalker, and his behavior during those bouts shows the heavy influence of dream logic. That night, he'd gotten up, searched through the cereal cupboard for just the right thing, then poured himself a nice big recycle bin of granola before putting his phone away in his room and heading back to bed.

I'm just glad he changed his mind before pouring the milk.

2010-06-21T06:21:00.003-04:00

Current Reading: Outrageous Fortune, by Tim Scott

Inspirational Quote: "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it." -- Moses Hadas

It's been six months since I consigned the Magnus Somnium to the tender mercies of the Critters writing group. When I offered up the work, I had 10 interested parties. That's a decent response, and gives me some high hopes for the effectiveness of my pitch, which will someday form the heart of my query.

However, in the six months since then, I've had only one of those readers actually complete the novel and provide feedback. Some have let me know that life had intruded and they wouldn't be able to honor their commitment within a reasonable time. I'm fine with that. Life makes its demands. Most of the others, however, have just dropped off the radar.

Unfortunate. I was hoping for some good critique.

It seems most readers, even motivated by personal gain, were able to put the manuscript down AND WERE NOT SUFFICIENTLY MOTIVATED TO EVER PICK IT BACK UP.

Or, if they did pick it back up, they didn't feel moved to critique it.

And, of course, this is critique of a sort. I want my work to be the kind that grabs and compels, not the kind that lies limp on the coffee table until the next cleaning day.

Obviously, I won't be able to achieve that by blogging about it...

They're Paving Paradise...

2010-06-14T19:40:00.001-04:00

Current Reading: Nothing.

Inspirational Quote: “Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.” -- John Lennon

Greetings from my front porch. Thanks to the miracle of my netbook, I'm capable of reporting from the front lines, writing out in the fresh air although not in the sunshine because it's cloudy right now and because too much sunshine makes it impossible to see the screen. Stratus clouds are blowing in from the northwest with a scatter of cumulus underneath. Rain's coming. Probably tonight.

Anyway, right now I'm watching a cement mixer do something cement-ish to the road allowance in front of my house. See, back in 1998, a builder got the bright idea of creating a sub division in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, right about the time he was ready to commit, the economy tanked and people stopped buying. He ended up with a couple of show-houses facing a road allowance and a dozen acres of marshy ground. He sold the houses, and went off to wait until things got better.

The Kingdom of Ithaka occupies the northern most of the show houses. The grounds of the kingdom are quite extensive, if by “extensive,” you mean, “small,” although we make up for it by living on the edge of a small village surrounded by forested hills and farmer's fields.

Things got better, because the moment the frost was out of the ground this year, surveyors showed up on my property and began tagging everything from gas mains to children's toys. Two weeks ago, a portable lumber mill moved in and reduced the swamp thicket to pulp. Last week, a back-hoe, bull-dozer, something that looks like a steam-roller with cleats, and a dozen men with hard hats moved in and turned the swamp into a landscape that wouldn't look out of place on the moon. They've buried sewage tanks and lines and torn up the street nearby. I'm told I'm getting anywhere between three and 200,000 neighbours in the next few years.

My joy at the prospect cannot be measured.

...Segue...

Yesterday, I read a book. A whole book in one day. I'm rather pleased about that. I'm a little disappointed in the book itself, but the accomplishment was nice. I haven't read a book in a day since I was a teenager with no responsibilities. I'd sprawl on my bed and read for hours. Now, I can't sprawl anywhere for more than a few minutes before someone steps on me, or comes to tell me that I should give them a ride somewhere or that the cat's thrown up / Aeneas has decked Telemachus / Cassandra's speaking in tongues... you know, the usual father stuff. But for a few hours on a Sunday, everyone was elsewhere, silence descended on the kingdom, and I read.

I wouldn't trade fatherhood for anything, but sometimes it's nice to have a day wherein one can read an entire book.

Book Report: I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak

2010-06-13T22:06:00.002-04:00

I was all set to love this book about a loser who begins receiving playing card in the mail with names, addresses or clues to people he's supposed to visit and help. It's a great story about a young man whose life is going nowhere and how one chance encounter opens him to the possibilities inherent in his own existence. It's told in first person, which seems to be common in YA books, and the voice is compelling. It's well plotted, with him starting to affect the lives of strangers and gradually spiralling in to affect those closest to him, ending with himself.

Admittedly, I had some trouble with his wholesale acceptance of the role the cards assume he'll take, and with the ease his friends just came to accept his decision to follow the destiny they lay out for him. In a book with the grit of realism, these things just seemed too unrealistic. In addition, somewhere around the half-way point, the narrator breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader directly.

For me, both things wreck the immersive experience of a good book, but I was willing to live with them.

If you intend to read this book, stop here, because spoilers follow.

The problem I had with this was the ending. The mystery of where the card6s come from is a constant all through the book. It's not central to the plot because the protagonist never really tries to find out, and it doesn't affect his various assignments. It does crop up frequently, though, and as a reader, I was looking forward to finding out. Whoever they were, they seemed to be omniscient and omnipotent.

But then the book turns metatextual: the source of the cards is the book's author. At this revelation, I tossed the book across the room and uttered an expletive. It's as though the author had written himself into a corner and couldn't come up with any other explanation that fit the observed facts. As a reader, I felt cheated. I'd have felt better if the mystery had remained unresolved. I'd have felt better if aliens had done it. Or time travellers. Or vampires. Or God. Something which could, conceivably, exist within a fictional world. As it was, I got up from the closed covers feeling I'd been the victim of a stealth preacher. That everything which had happened in the book was the will of the author came as no surprise (the same is true of every book), but using that as justification for the story offended me. If I want that kind of thing, I'll read Job.

Ulysses Rating: 4 – I loved this for most of it. -1 for the ending, though.

Book Report: The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett

2010-06-13T22:05:00.001-04:00

Pratchett's books are never just fantasy, and they are never just comedy. They are always something more: social commentary, coming-of-age story and/or, as in most of the Guards books, a good mystery. In this one, a theft and murder in Ankh-Morpork arise from intrigue in a country far away where werewolves, vampires and dwarfs form an unstable political triangle. The plot is compelling, and although the characters are sketchy and often mere caricatures, the Dwarf society around which the mystery revolves is fascinating. It encompasses mysticism, opera, and tradition colliding with the demands of an outside world that can no longer be ignored. The parallels with the Arab world are many and obvious, but the social commentary never gets in the way of a great mystery adventure.

Ulysses Rating: 5 – I'll read this again and again.

Book Report: Storm Front, by Jim Butcher

2010-06-13T22:04:00.000-04:00

I came to the Dresden files the long way around. I caught a few episodes of the short-lived T.V. Series a couple of years ago. It was interesting, but I don't watch much television, so I never really got into it. Then I came across Jim's LiveJournal, where he spent a great deal of time talking about the theory and practice of writing a novel. I found it practical and inspirational and I found myself thinking, “Here's a man who understand the science of novel writing, not just the art.” I thought that any novel this man wrote would be interesting to check out.

The other day I went to a bookstore because I could find nothing on Penelope's shelf that appealed to me. I skimmed the shelves, but nothing jumped out at me until I saw a stack of Butchers and was surprised to find the first Dresden (usually, when I look for the first book in a series, it's either out of stock or out of print).

It's meticulously plotted. You could set your watch by this thing. We start with a bit of introduction and then straight into the first event that sets up the plot (a client coming to Dresden's office... very Philip Marlowe). Then the police ask for his assistance with a grisly double murder, and in the course of his investigations, we're drawn into Dresden's world, his romantic entanglements, his shady past... everything needed to make the story interesting.

The tension never flags and the action builds nicely. It's said that you should place your character up a tree, surround the tree with alligators and have your character get out of the situation in clever, imaginative and above all exciting ways. This book does that almost literally. In each encounter with the antagonist, Dresden finds himself at more and more of a disadvantage, gradually stripped of allies and tools until in the climactic encounter, he's forced to face his antagonist with nothing more than his wits, and a pair of handcuffs.

This is a textbook on commercial novel writing, and it had me hooked from the first page.

Ulysses Rating: 4 – I loved this.

Ee!

2010-06-06T10:45:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett

Inspirational Quote: "I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." -- Woody Allen

Laughter is one of the few invaluable things we can give each-other that costs nothing. What follows is intended as a parody of Conan that Robert Howard never envisioned. My gift to you. May it make you laugh.

The Temple of Ee

Zarek-Amun had just finished the pyramid temple’s six-hundred and thirtieth step and was looking forward to the last stretch leading down to the cracked stones and tangled creepers of the ruined city. It was a good day. Warm sun, nice breeze. His broom made a shush-shush-shush as it pushed dust, dirt and small stones off one step and onto the one below it. He smiled and pursed his lips to whistle.

That was when, with an incoherent shout, a barbarian crashed into the temple clearing.
Zarek stopped sweeping and propped his chin on the top of his broom. The barbarian was tall and broad, tanned and muscled. He glared dramatically and raised a sword that gleamed so brightly the light itself could have cut flesh. He opened his mouth, no doubt to shout some obscure oath from his homeland.

Zarek cleared his throat. "Can I help you?"

"Er." The Barbarian's sword wavered and he glare dissolved into a squint. He'd lost his momentum. "I'm Kor of the Northlands?"

"Is that a statement, or are you looking for some kind of assurance?"

"What?"

"I don't know if I can do much for you in the way of identity crisis counseling. The Temple of Self-Actualization is a couple of miles that way." Zarek pointed off to the east.

"Oh. Uh. Is this the Black Temple of Ee?"

Zarek looked up the long staircase to the temple proper, which sat squat and dark, covered with vines at the top of the pyramid. An enormous tentacled monstrosity had been carved in shiny black stone around the temple entrance. "I'm not sure. Let me go check."

The Barbarian lowered his sword and fiddled with the rough cord wound around the handle. Zarek propped his broom against the side of the staircase and made the long climb up to the temple. A font stood just inside the entrance, a black and bubbling cauldron from which a cup dangled on an old string. Zarek grabbed a drink. It was said that the water within oozed up from the deepest hells. It must have been quite a place, because the water was excellent and always cold.

"Who is that?" Echoed a voice from the inner sanctum. “A worshiper come to praise my dark majesty?”

“It's just me, lord.”

"Lord Ee, Dark God of the Netherhells, Herald of the Apocalypse, Beast of Ruin, I'll thank you to remember. A god is nothing without adjectival titles.”

“Of course, Great Ee.”

“I see we have a visitor. A worshiper?”

"A barbarian, lord," Zarek said, still sipping his water.

"Seeking to loot the treasures of the temple? Lay waste to the altar? Slaughter the priests? When I assume my dark dominion over the world, his suffering will be truly terrible."

Zarek emptied the cup and dropped it, letting it dangle from its string. Within his dark sanctum, the Beast of Ruin sighed.

"Fourth one this week isn't it?"

"Third. That other was a tax collector."

"Humph. I should have scourged his soul. Doesn't anyone believe in the separation of church and state anymore?"

“Modern times, Great Ee.”

“Modern times,” muttered Ee. “When I begin my black reign, I’ll show them ‘modern times.’ Tax collectors. Barbarians. Traveling salesmen. They’ll all know my wrath.”

“Yes, Great Ee.”

“Great and Terrible Ee, please.”

“Of course, Great and Terrible Ee. I’ll just see him on his way, shall I?”

Great Ee’s muttering echoed in the shadows of the temple. Occasionally, Zarek could make out arcane invective hurled against barbarians, tax collectors, traveling salesmen and small children who rang the temple gong and then ran away before anyone could answer. Zarek left the temple and made his way down to where the Barbarian still waited. Kor had sheathed his sword and was now delicately excavating one nostril with a pinky. When he saw Zarek's approach, he smiled and surreptitiously wiped his fingers on his leggings. “Ah. There you are. Well?”

“Still not sure.”

"Wait. Aren't you a priest?"

"Do I look like a priest?"

Kor looked down at his feet, then tilted his head to one side and squinted at Zarek. "You've got the robe and the scepter."

"Scepter." Zarek picked up his broom and shook it. Dust rose from the bristles in a cloud that made him cough. "Are you sure you’re not Kor the Nearsighted?"

"There's supposed to be priests here and naked ladies and heaps of treasure." Kor waggled his heavy eyebrows and grinned. "You know."

"I don't know about that," Zarek said. "We've got dust. And rocks. And a bit of dried mud that someone dragged in last week. I don't know why I bother putting out the boot scraper when nobody uses it."

"Could I go look?"

"Are your boots clean?"

Kor lifted first one foot, then the other. "Um," he said. "No. The forest is kind of damp, and there are lots of animals, if you understand me."

"Then kindly stay out."

"But..." Kor seemed to recall himself. His voice grew deeper. "I'm Kor the Northlander, the Warrior, the Reaver. I tread the jeweled thrones under my feet..."

"Fine, but don't do it here. I just swept."

Once again, Kor's fire faded. "Look. I'm here to pillage and slay."

Zarek smiled. "Oh, well. You should have said. I'm afraid we were pillaged last week, and it's going to be at least a month before anyone comes by who'd be worthy of a good slay."

"Really?" Kor's shoulder's slumped. "By the sons of..."

"Language, please. This is a temple."

"Right. Sorry. Look, is there anything you could do for me?"

"Well, I could point you to the Ancient Brotherhood of Soth Yogurt in the Forbidden Forest."

"They sent me here."

"Oh, they did?" Zarek gritted his teeth. Toth Azor was going to get an earful at the next poker game. "Well, then, have you tried the Eldrich Grotto of Murku? North side of the Dark Tower, fourth temple on the right."

"Is it worth the trip?"

"I hear the high priestess doesn't go in much for clothing."

Kor brightened. "Ah! A foul temptress?"

Zarek pictured the high priestess of Murku, mentally trying to reverse the ravages inflicted by eighty years of tending to an incontinent god in an unlit cave. "Something like that," he said. "You're half right."

"Wonderful! By Tigram's Ba... Sorry. Look, thanks for the help."

"Don't mention it." Zarek waved at Kor's retreating back.

The undergrowth rustled back into position and Kor's squelching footfalls receded into the distance. When silence once again reigned, Zarek-Amun went back to smiling as his broom swept dirt from the stones. It was a good day.

Today Is Yesterday

2010-05-30T21:54:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: Haven't decided yet.

Inspirational Quote: "How can I miss you, if you won't go away?" -- I have no idea who said this first. All I know is that you can find it on a T-shirt, and that Mark Hamill said it in an episode of the 1990 television show The Flash.

Getting older is fascinating.

One thing about it is how much faster time seems to pass. Weeks snap by, months, years. I'm always surprised to look back at events and realize just how long ago they really were. And, as occasionally happens, I recently experienced a synchronicity of nostalgic events. The first was the 20-year reunion of my wife's university class. We spent the weekend in Toronto catching up with friends I swore I'd last spoken to only a few years ago. It turned out to be more like one and a half decades. Oops.

The second came as the result of an IM conversation I had with the best man from my wedding (almost 21 years ago). We've known each other since I was twelve, still talk and have never lost touch, so although he is a carrier of nostalgia, he is not infected by it. We googled ourselves (which sounds dirty, but isn't), and discovered that our names, far from being unique, are shared by people who do all kinds of things. I'm an artist in the U.K., a business consultant, an American politician, and a bunch of other stuff.

We talked of the wonderous web, and how you can find almost anyone if you really try. So I tried, and ended up reconnecting with a friend from my high-school days. A lot has happened since then.

Of course, this leads my thoughts in the somewhat less rosy direction of how difficult it is to hide in this era of the web. I wonder how many times a day someone is tracked down by someone they would rather avoid.

Although I believe I'm... unusual, I'm not malicious and if the person I contacted failed to respond, or responded with the equivalent of "I don't want to talk to you," I'd back off. But the web is not exclusive. You don't need to pass a sanity or stability test in order to use it, and many people who use it would fail such a test. Cyberstalking is a reality, and a frightening one.

On the other hand, it's nice to find someone you'd thought you'd only ever see again in memories.

Book Report: Set the Seas On Fire, by Chris Roberson

2010-05-30T20:05:00.001-04:00

I was all set to love this book before I even cracked the cover. High seas adventure during the Napleonic Era. What's not to love? The writing is top notch, and the setting intriguing. The characters are flawed and interesting, although I found the most interesting characters raised questions about themselves that I wanted answered, but weren't. I suspect that this is because this book was conceived as part of a larger series, but if that series actually exists I could find no indication of it.

My biggest problem with this work is the plot. The story question, which I'm told is vital to story coherence, keeps changing. At the opening of the book, the English attack a Spanish ship. Very exciting stuff (the research done here is flawless). The Spanish escape, making me thing that the story is about the pursuit of the Spanish into unknown waters. However, at that point, the story switches to a kind of Robinson Crusoe/Fletcher Christian thing. The protagonist meets a native woman in paradise and has to decide between his duty and his heart. This decision takes about half a page, which I thought killed the tension that had built up over the middle 2/3 of the book. At the end of the book, we switch back to catching the Spanish, only with supernatural elements that have been foreshadowed and hinted at through the rest of the book.

Honestly, it started like a historical adventure, switched to a romance, then finished off with a fantasy.

Sorry, but although I enjoyed this enough to finish reading it, I just can't admire it.

Ulysses Rating: 2 - I finished this, but I had a tough go.

The Drink Takes the Man

2010-05-26T06:18:00.004-04:00

Current Reading: Set the Seas On Fire, by Chris Roberson

Inspirational Quote: "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." -- Ernest Hemingway

"First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man."

I've never understood why writers have such an affiinity for addiction. You'd think that because we spend so much time in a solitary pursuit that we'd be less prone to social vices. And you'd be wrong. It sometimes seems that we have as high a percentage of alcoholics and coke-addicts as do musicians or actors, who publicly fall apart with staggering frequency.

In the latest big news, Robert Munsch (famous Canadian children's writer... Cassandra loves his books) has publicly acknowledged his battles with alcohol and cocaine. I never considered this a possibility. Like most, I guess I figured that being a children's author partook of some of childhood's innocence. That the author of "Aaron's Hair" and "More Pies" spent so much of his time stoned came as an unwelcome revelation.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. I have no doubt that being a children's author requires the same sort of mind and carries with it the same sort of pressures that come with all writing. Or artistry of any kind, I guess. I'm sure there are painters out there chasing heroin, sculptors picking up chisels when they can barely pick up themselves, and fashion designers trying through bloodshot eyes to get fabrics to drape just right.

Writers have a long history of battling addiction, and it seems that the more well-known an author is, the more likely it is that they are susceptible. Stephen King's On Writing documents his battles with cocaine and booze. Ernie Hemingway is famous for hard drinking. Dorothy Parker likewise. One writer I admire, Barry B. Longyear, wrote a fictionalized memoire of his time in rehab called Saint Mary Blue. It's an eye opener.

I don't believe I have an addiction (unless chocolate counts). I don't drink or smoke anything. I have a horror of needles and I haven't put anything up my nose since I was two (it took mom ten minutes to dig the peas out, so it's not something I'm anxious to try again). However, I come from a long line of alcoholics and the children of alcoholics are statistically more likely to become alcoholics themselves.

Of course, as Mr. Longyear mentions in his book, addiction is the only disease that tells you that you haven't got it.

I Don't Make Up The News... I Just Report It.

2010-05-17T21:10:00.004-04:00

Inspirational Quote: "It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, besides being very amusing." -- Samuel Butler

Current Reading: Set the Seas on Fire, by Chris Roberson

Today's Toronto Star carried a story about a woman who is suing Rogers Wireless.

It seems that she had a personal cell phone in her maiden name with a Rogers account. Rogers offered her husband one of their bundling options where he could get his home phone, cable, internet and cell phones all on one bill and save a few dollars as a result. He went for it, and his first bill contained several hour-long calls to a number he didn't recognize. He investigated, discovered his wife's affair, and then he left.

She claims Rogers ruined her marriage.

What follows is my opinion on the matter:

Um, no.

Rogers Wireless just exposed her infidelity. Had she kept her pants on, she'd still be married. Now, had Rogers Wireless seduced her in a moment of weakness with a video invitation (delivered by cable), taken compromising pictures (with a cell phone) and then e-mailed them (internet) to her husband... THEN she'd have reason to sue.

Please don't assume that I think her husband's flawless. When he discovered her affair, he abandoned her and their children (which I find reprehensible), and it may be that some action or behavior of his made her susceptible to another man's charms. Regardless, Roger's ain't at fault here.

It'll be interesting to see if the Canadian Legal Establishment agrees with me.

I love the human species. Not just because I'm a lifetime member, either. I love it because, whenever I find myself without something to write about, someone on this wonderful planet comes up with something absurd enough to catch my attention.

Book Report: Forty Signs of Rain, by Kim Stanley Robinson

2010-05-16T21:55:00.002-04:00

One upon a time, I read Red Mars. That was as far as I got. For reasons lost in the mists of time, it didn't move me enough to buy the next book. Now, I've read Forty Signs of Rain, and I am ashamed to say that history has repeated itself.

I had no difficulty reading this book, in the sense that it read fluidly and I never felt compelled to put it down. However, once I put it down, I never felt compelled to pick it up again. I found the characters realistic and believable, so that wasn't my problem. I think it was the plot. Much of the book seemed taken up with the minutae of the everyday lives of several scientists which, although written well, did not seem to signify much. At one point, a character breaks into his office building using climbing gear in order to retrieve a letter he had regretted writing. He failed, but the episode left me scratching my head. I couldn't figure out why it was important enough to have been included in the story.

The truly significant events occupied only the last fifty pages of the book, during which all the major characters are helpless in the face of angry nature. I'm afraid I just didn't care enough about the characters or the events to feel satisfied by this.

Ulysses Rating: 2 - I finished this, but I didn't enjoy it.

Book Report: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2010-05-16T21:48:00.002-04:00

If the Roaring Twenties have a flavor on this side of the Atlantic, it tastes like F. Scott Fitzgerald writes. There is a beauty and a despair in his writing which makes it incredibly memorable. The parallels between his time and our own, the widening gap between rich and poor not just economically but culturally and, to a certain extent, morally, are chilling at times.

As often happens with classics, I find myself in way over my head and I can only sense the greater themes moving somewhere just out of my sight, like ripples on the surface marking the passage of something larger underneath. (I mix a mean metaphor).

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.