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Would you believe it? A Watership Down fanfic that sends a chill down the spine!
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A far better idea for reforming the Upper House than the government's current proposals.
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"A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask. Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye."
Torchwood – The Lost Files
Torchwood is on British TV again this evening, our transatlantic friends having already seen the new episode; but we’ve also had three new Torchwood audios over the last few days, broadcast on BBC Radio Four and downloadable from the Beeb’s site, featuring John Barrowman as Jack, Eve Myles as Gwen and Gareth David Lloyd as Ianto (which gives you an idea of the setting in continuity).
The first thing to say about them is that, unlike in the three Torchwood audio plays broadcast two years ago, John Barrowman appears to have woken up and discovered how to act without the visuals. All three of the regulars are on form here, and most of the guest cast are too.
And all three plays deal in slightly different ways with cheating death, which I suspect ties in to the theme of the new television Torchwood as well. Looking forward to it.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-14-2011
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Avoiding the ripoff prices on Eurostar.com!
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"Nursery is run for working parents: open 8-6, three meals a day provided, flexible arrival and departure time, and one itemised monthly bill. School is very different: closed 14 weeks of the year, and finishing around 3pm the other 38."
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Republicans fail in bid to defend freedom from energy-saving lightbulbs.
July Books 10) The Glamour Chase, by Gary Russell
This is one of the best New Who books I have read, and certainly the most mature of the standard range of Eleventh Doctor novels (which I felt generally have been written for a younger readership). The plot is an alien conflict being played out in rural England in 1936, but the point is the rather good exploration of the regular characters – particularly Rory, from a point in time shortly before his wedding to Amy – and a lot of squeeful continuity references. And I detected a load of other literary allusions in the story as well: I don’t think I’m completely imagining either Lady Chatterley’s Lover or Agatha Christie (I almost wrote that Russell did The Unicorn and the Wasp, but of course that was Gareth Roberts). Anyway, this one is highly recommended to those fans of previous ranges of Who novels who have felt something a bit lacking in the New Series Adventures.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-12-2011
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"Pratchett was very much aware of some of the dreadful sexism in his source material, and the female characters he wrote were often in direct response to what he saw in the fantasy genre. His intentions to point out the silliness of the portrayal of women in fantasy, sadly, backfired somewhat."
July Books 9) The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
A rather bold novel which merges the Harry Potter books with The Secret History by Donna Tartt with a certain amount of Narnia too. I liked the basic ideas a lot, especially the subversive concept of making the central characters at wizard school a bunch of maladjusted students in their late teens and early twenties; and some of the individual scenes and plot twists are very well executed. But it is rather annoyingly structured, with the plot taking a long time to get going and then seeming not very clear about when the story is over.
Another of the books included in the Hugo Voter Package to help us make up our minds how to vote in the John W. Campbell Award For New Writers. I liked The Magicians much more than Monster Hunter International, and sufficiently more than I Am Not a Serial Killer to be fairly sure that I will rank Grossman ahead of Larry Correia and Dan Wells, but behind Lauren Beukes. (Which still leaves me with the short stories of Saladin Ahmed to go through.)
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-11-2011
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Use of "genre" as a particle.
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" For those of us already concerned about Amazon's internal ethics, this anti-competitive takeover is worrying" – too right!
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I am privileged to have participated in this project an early stage.
July Books 8) The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
It is not all that long since I read The Canterbury Tales, which comes from the same century and draws from the same roots (the Reeve’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale are indeed both in the Decameron in slightly different form). But I was struck by how much more enjoyable the Decameron is. For a start, it is actually complete – ten days of ten people telling a tale each, to give a hundred short stories and a framing narrative. It is also striking that the dullest of Boccaccio’s stories (the ones from Day Six with the untranslatable punchlines) are still better than the worst of Chaucer (the Monk’s Tale, the Parson’s Tale, and for my money the interminable Knight’s Tale). Boccaccio’s geography is also generally better than Chaucer’s, including even in Europe north of the Alps – one character ends up in Strangford, County Down; I’m not sure that Chaucer even mentions Ireland.
These are almost all great tales of incident, and I think anyone with an interest in the mechanics of storytelling would find useful material here. While almost all stories are set in fourteenth century Europe, with humour depending on an understanding of society’s expectations of marriage and the Church, a lot of it I think is basic commentary on the human situation and could be easily transferred to other situations; or simply updated to the idiom of a new century, as Shakespeare did in All’s Well That Ends Well. I am sure there are better translations out there than the 1982 Musa/Bondanella version for Penguin which I read, but even that gets a very strong recommendation from me.
Septuple time
Here’s a series of songs with seven beats to the bar:
The Beatles, “All You Need Is Love” (the verses only, the chorus seems to be in 4/4):
Rather more frantically, “Mother”, an early song by The Police:
On a different plane, the chorus “Old Joe Has Gone Fishing” from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes:
Probably even more famous than “All You Need Is Love” (and qualifies better for this list since it is mostly in 7/4) – “Money” by Pink Floyd:
If you watch none of the others, do watch Dave Brubeck’s joyous “Unsquare Dance”:
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Russians
1) Good lines
On why he is addressing centuries of barbarian activity in one short chapter, having devoted three long ones to the few decades of the rise of Islam:
If, in the account of this interesting people [the Arabs], I have deviated from the strict and original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity: the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages, who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual emigration. Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful, their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valour brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan under the dominion of a foreign tyrant.
That last statement is a grand rhetorical flourish, but it wasn’t at all true of the Russians at the time Gibbon was writing, and not really true of the Hungarians though a better argument could be made. It’s fair enough comment on the Bulgarians, and possibly the Ukrainians if we allow them to be the Scythians and the ruled rather than rulers of Kiev (Kiow as Gibbon calls it).
2) Summary
Another short chapter (30 pages) which does what it says on the tin, taking the Bulgarians, Hungarians and Russians in turn and looking at their interactions with the Byzantine Empire over its later centuries. Gibbon is clearly taken with the scholarship of the Hungarians, and the romance of the Russians; rather less so with the Bulgarians. Essentially this is a chapter of three short national histories, each with a different ending – the Bulgarians end up dominated and partially assimilated, the Hungarians assertive and free, and the Russians gain Christianity but become ever more isolated.
3) Points arising
Hungarians as libertarian heroes
Gibbon is puzzled because the Hungarians are related linguistically and ethnically to the apathetic inhabitants of Arctic Scandinavia:
With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race, of an obsolete and savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western confines of China; their migration to the banks of the Irtish is attested by Tartar evidence; a similar name and language are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; and the remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. The consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle. Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace!
There is of course a confusion here between the Ugric languages, of which Hungarian is one, and the Uighurs of western China, whose language is actually Turkic.
But my point is that the Hungarians are here anointed by Gibbon as passionate about “arms and freedom”, thanks to their “vigorous constitution”, a word definitely chosen to reflect political debate as well, as we can tell from the end of the Hungarian section:
…the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the state.
Gibbon is a bit ambiguous about whether that last bit is a good idea – back in Chapter VII he was rather defensive of the hereditary principle, but he was writing that before Britain lost the American war.
4) Coming next
Gibbon Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Russians
Another short chapter (30 pages) which does what it says on the tin, taking the Bulgarians, Hungarians and Russians in turn and looking at their interactions with the Byzantine Empire over its later centuries. Gibbon is clearly taken with the scholarship of the Hungarians, and the romance of the Russians; rather less so with the Bulgarians. Essentially this is a chapter of three short national histories, each with a different ending – the Bulgarians end up dominated and partially assimilated, the Hungarians assertive and free, and the Russians gain Christianity but become ever more isolated.
RIP Betty Ford
When we stayed in Washington in 2005, the table where we ate breakfast at our hotel was beside a tremendously vigorous picture of Betty Ford dancing on a table in the White House. I kid you not.
Anyway, it’s a sad reason to revisit my various stats.
Longevity of women married to American Presidents and Vice-Presidents (top twelve, including the two oldest still living, above the cut):
Bess Truman: born 13 Feb 1885, died 18 Oct 1982, aged 97 years and 248 days.
Ann Gerry: born 12 Aug 1753, died 17 Mar 1849, aged 95 years and 217 days.
Lady Bird Johnson: born 22 Dec 1912, died 11 Jul 2007, aged 94 years and 201 days.
Jane Wyman: born 4 Jan 1914, died 10 Sep 2007, aged 93 years and 250 days (divorced Ronald Reagan before he became President).
Betty Ford: born 8 Apr 1918, died 8 Jul 2011, aged 93 years and 91 days.
Ilo Wallace: born 10 Mar 1888, died 22 Feb 1981, aged 92 years and 348 days.
Jennie Hobart: born 30 Jan 1849, died 8 Jan 1941, aged 91 years and 343 days.
Tod Rockefeller: born 17 Jun 1907, died 21 Apr 1999, aged 91 years and 308 days (divorced Nelson before he became Vice-President).
Caro Dawes: born 6 Jan 1866, died 3 Oct 1957, aged 91 years and 271 days.
Eliza Bowen Jumel: born 7 Apr 1775, died 16 Jul 1865, aged 90 years and 100 days (married and divorced Aaron Burr after he had been Vice-President).
Judy Agnew: born 23 Apr 1921, still living, aged 90 years and 77 days.
Nancy Reagan: born 6 Jul 1921, still living, aged 90 years and 3 days.
Ellen Hamlin: born 14 Sep 1835, died 1 Feb 1925, aged 89 years and 139 days.
Edith Wilson: born 15 Oct 1872, died 28 Dec 1961, aged 89 years and 74 days (married husband while he was President).
Anna Harrison: born 25 Jul 1775, died 25 Feb 1864, aged 88 years and 214 days.
Sarah Polk: born 4 Sep 1803, died 14 Aug 1891, aged 87 years and 344 days (married husband while he was President).
Edith Roosevelt: born 6 Aug 1861, died 30 Sep 1948, aged 87 years and 55 days.
Muriel Humphrey: born 20 Feb 1912, died 20 Sep 1998, aged 86 years and 213 days.
Barbara Bush: born 8 Jun 1925, still living, aged 86 years and 31 days.
Lucretia Garfield: born 19 Apr 1832, died 14 Mar 1918, aged 85 years and 329 days.
Happy Rockefeller: born 9 Jun 1926, still living, aged 85 years and 30 days.
Lois Marshall: born 9 May 1873, died 7 Jan 1958, aged 84 years and 242 days.
Abigail Adams: born 11 Nov 1744, died 28 Oct 1828, aged 83 years and 351 days.
Rosalynn Carter: born 18 Aug 1927, still living, aged 83 years and 325 days.
Frances Cleveland: born 21 Jul 1864, died 29 Oct 1947, aged 83 years and 100 days (married husband while he was President).
Mamie Eisenhower: born 14 Nov 1896, died 1 Nov 1979, aged 82 years and 352 days.
Helen Taft: born 2 Jun 1861, died 22 May 1943, aged 81 years and 354 days.
Pat Nixon: born 16 Mar 1912, died 22 Jun 1993, aged 81 years and 98 days.
Dolley Madison: born 20 May 1768, died 12 Jul 1849, aged 81 years and 53 days.
Mary Breckinridge: born 16 Aug 1826, died 8 Oct 1907, aged 81 years and 53 days.
Joan Mondale: born 8 Aug 1930, still living, aged 80 years and 335 days.
Eliza Hendricks: born 23 Nov 1823, died 3 Nov 1903, aged 79 years and 345 days.
Etty Garner: born 17 Jul 1869, died 17 Aug 1948, aged 79 years and 31 days.
Grace Coolidge: born 3 Jan 1879, died 8 Jul 1957, aged 78 years and 187 days.
Eleanor Roosevelt: born 11 Oct 1884, died 7 Nov 1962, aged 78 years and 27 days.
Louisa Adams: born 12 Feb 1775, died 1 May 1852, aged 77 years and 79 days.
Julia Grant: born 26 Jan 1826, died 14 Dec 1902, aged 76 years and 323 days.
Carrie Sherman: born 16 Nov 1856, died 5 Oct 1931, aged 74 years and 323 days.
Ellen Colfax: born 26 Jul 1836, died 4 Mar 1911, aged 74 years and 221 days.
Floride Calhoun: born 15 Feb 1792, died 25 Jul 1866, aged 74 years and 161 days.
Anna Morton: born 18 May 1846, died 14 Aug 1918, aged 72 years and 88 days.
Martha Washington: born 2 Jun 1731, died 22 May 1802, aged 70 years and 354 days.
Letitia Stevenson: born 8 Jan 1843, died 25 Dec 1913, aged 70 years and 352 days.
Sophia Dallas: born 25 Jun 1798, died 11 Jan 1869, aged 70 years and 199 days.
Lynne Cheney: born 14 Aug 1941, still living, aged 69 years and 329 days.
Lou Hoover: born 28 Mar 1874, died 7 Jan 1944, aged 69 years and 284 days.
Julia Tyler: born 4 May 1820, died 10 Jul 1889, aged 69 years and 67 days.
Caroline Fillmore: born 21 Oct 1813, died 11 Aug 1881, aged 67 years and 294 days (married husband after his term as President).
Cornelia Fairbanks: born 1848, died 24 Oct 1913, aged about 65.
Eliza Johnson: born 4 Oct 1810, died 15 Jan 1876, aged 65 years and 102 days.
Jacqueline Kennedy: born 28 Jul 1929, died 19 May 1994, aged 64 years and 295 days.
Dorothy Barkley: born 1882, died 10 Mar 1947, aged about 65.
Laura Bush: born 4 Nov 1946, still living, aged 64 years and 247 days.
Florence Harding: born 15 Aug 1860, died 21 Nov 1924, aged 64 years and 98 days.
Peggy Taylor: born 21 Sep 1788, died 14 Aug 1852, aged 63 years and 327 days.
Hillary Clinton: born 26 Oct 1947, still living, aged 63 years and 256 days.
Mary Lincoln: born 13 Dec 1818, died 16 Jul 1882, aged 63 years and 215 days.
Annie Curtis: born 24 Dec 1860, died 20 Jun 1924, aged 63 years and 178 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Tipper Gore: born 19 Aug 1948, still living, aged 62 years and 324 days.
Elizabeth Monroe: born 30 Jun 1768, died 23 Sep 1830, aged 62 years and 85 days.
Marilyn Quayle: born 29 Jul 1949, still living, aged 61 years and 345 days.
Rachel Jackson: born 15 Jun 1767, died 22 Dec 1828, aged 61 years and 190 days (died just before husband’s term as President).
Jill Biden: born 5 Jun 1951, still living, aged 60 years and 34 days.
Caroline Harrison: born 1 Oct 1832, died 25 Oct 1892, aged 60 years and 24 days (died during husband’s term as President).
Ida McKinley: born 8 Jun 1847, died 26 May 1907, aged 59 years and 352 days.
Lucy Hayes: born 28 Aug 1831, died 25 Jun 1889, aged 57 years and 301 days.
Jane Pierce: born 12 Mar 1806, died 2 Dec 1863, aged 57 years and 265 days.
Cornelia Clinton: born 19 Nov 1744, died 15 Mar 1800, aged 55 years and 116 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Abigail Fillmore: born 13 Mar 1798, died 30 Mar 1853, aged 55 years and 17 days.
Ellen Wilson: born 15 May 1860, died 6 Aug 1914, aged 54 years and 83 days (died during husband’s term as President).
Jane Barkley: born 23 Sep 1911, died 6 Sep 1964, aged 52 years and 348 days.
Letitia Tyler: born 12 Nov 1790, died 10 Sep 1842, aged 51 years and 302 days (died during husband’s term as President).
Mary Wheeler: born 1828, died 3 Mar 1876, aged about 48 (died before husband became Vice-President).
Theodosia Burr: born 5 Oct 1746, died 28 May 1794, aged 47 years and 235 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Michelle Obama: born 17 Jan 1964, still living, aged 47 years and 174 days.
Hannah Tompkins: born 28 Aug 1781, died 18 Feb 1829, aged 47 years and 173 days.
Harriet Wilson: born 21 Nov 1824, died 28 May 1870, aged 45 years and 188 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Ellen Arthur: born 30 Aug 1837, died 12 Jan 1880, aged 42 years and 134 days (died before husband became Vice-President/President).
Evelyn Colfax: born 1823, died 10 Jul 1863, aged about 40 (died before husband became Vice-President).
Sarah Hamlin: born 2 Nov 1815, died 17 Apr 1855, aged 39 years and 166 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Hannah Van Buren: born 8 Mar 1783, died 5 Feb 1819, aged 35 years and 333 days (died before husband became Vice-President/President)..
Lucy Morton: born 22 Jul 1836, died 11 Jul 1871, aged 34 years and 354 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Martha Jefferson: born 30 Oct 1748, died 6 Sep 1782, aged 33 years and 311 days (died before husband became Vice-President/President).
Neilia Biden: born 28 Jul 1942, died 18 Dec 1972, aged 30 years and 143 days (died before husband became Vice-President).
Alice Roosevelt: born 29 Jul 1861, died 14 Feb 1884, aged 22 years and 199 days (died before husband became Vice-President/President).
Betty Ford ranks ninth (or eighth if you are literal) of those who survived their husband’s terms as President:
Mary Harrison 54.8 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was President)
Frances Cleveland 50.7 years
Julia Tyler 44.4 years
Sarah Polk 42.4 years
Edith Wilson 40.8 years
Edith Roosevelt 39.6 years
Lady Bird Johnson 38.5 years
Lucretia Garfield 36.5 years
Betty Ford 34.5 years
Jacqueline Kennedy 30.5 years
Helen Taft 30.2 years
Bess Truman 29.7 years
Caroline Fillmore 28.4 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was President)
Grace Coolidge 28.3 years
Abigail Adams 27.7 years
Julia Grant 25.8 years
Louisa Adams 23.2 years
Anna Harrison 22.9 years
(Nancy Reagan – still living – 22.5 years)
Pat Nixon 18.9 years
Mamie Eisenhower 18.8 years
Jane Wyman 18.6 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was President)
(Barbara Bush – still living – 18.5 years)
Eleanor Roosevelt 17.6 years
Mary Lincoln 17.3 years
Lou Hoover 10.8 years
(Hillary Clinton – still living – 10.5 years)
Lucy Hayes 8.3 years
Eliza Johnson 6.9 years
Jane Pierce 6.7 years
Ida McKinley 5.7 years
Elizabeth Monroe 5.6 years
Martha Washington 5.2 years
Laura Bush – still living – 2.5 years)
Peggy Taylor 2.1 years
Florence Harding 1.3 years
Abigail Fillmore 0.1 years
But surprisingly she is two places lower, eleventh, of those who survived their husband’s term as Vice-President, though could again be counted as eighth if you are literal:
Eliza Bowen Jumel 60.4 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was Vice-President)
Ellen Hamlin 59.9 years
Julia Tyler 48.3 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was Vice-President)
Edith Roosevelt 47.0 years
Mary Breckinridge 46.6 years
Lady Bird Johnson 43.6 years
Jennie Hobart 41.1 years
Ellen Colfax 38.0 years
(Judy Agnew – still living – 37.7 years)
Bess Truman 37.7 years
Betty Ford 36.9 years
Ilo Wallace 36.1 years
(Happy Rockefeller – still living – 34.5 years)
Ann Gerry 34.3 years
Grace Coolidge 33.9 years
Floride Calhoun 33.6 years
Pat Nixon 32.4 years
Abigail Adams 31.7 years
Caroline Fillmore 31.1 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was President)
(Joan Mondale – still living – 30.5 years)
Muriel Humphrey 29.7 years
Caro Dawes 28.6 years
Anna Morton 25.4 years
(Barbara Bush – still living – 22.5 years)
Tod Rockefeller 22.3 years (possibly doesn’t count, as not married to husband while he was Vice-President)
Sophia Dallas 19.9 years
Carrie Sherman 18.9 years
(Marilyn Quayle – still living – 18.5 years)
Eliza Hendricks 17.9 years
Letitia Stevenson 16.8 years
Jane Barkley 11.6 years
Eliza Johnson 10.8 years
(Tipper Gore – still living – 10.5 years)
Etty Garner 7.6 years
Cornelia Fairbanks 4.6 years
Hannah Tompkins 4.0 years
Abigail Fillmore 2.7 years
(Lynne Cheney – still living – 2.5 years)
Letitia Tyler 1.4 years
Edited to add: Living individuals now added to second and third lists.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-9-2011
July Books 7) The Day I Swapped My Dad For 2 Goldfish, by Neil Gaiman
Fun and yet somewhat creepy short graphic novel about a boy who gives away his dad in return for his friend’s goldfish. Dave McKean on form as illustrator too. Though one does wonder what is going on in town that makes so many kids anxious to acquire a father, even one who only sits and reads the newspaper.
Google Plus
I appear to be on it now. Feel free to add me if you are there too.
July Books 6) The Faerie Queene: a selection of critical essays, edited by Peter Bayley
I have not read a single line of Edmund Spenser’s late sixteenth century epic, The Faerie Queene, but I am uncomfortably aware that if I am ever to try and grasp the history of Ireland in Spenser’s time, I must some day give it a try, and this collection of scholarly essays on the poem seemed a plausible way in.
Perusing academic analysis of a work which one has not actually read risks being as boring as hearing about other people’s hilariously funny dreams, but the editor chose well here, and most of the essays are at least comprehensible and some even interesting. The ones that stood out for me were by Rosemond Tuve (who I hadn’t heard of previously), C.S. Lewis, Frank Kermode, and the editor himself (Peter Bayley). But they all gave me useful pointers to navigate the poem when I do get around to it.
I did wonder about Spenser’s possible influence on two later writers; I don’t think I have seen him cited as such in either case, but both must have read The Faerie Queene given what I know of their careers. The first is Tolkien, of course, who shared Spenser’s goal of writing a national epic for England, and like him succeeded to an extent. There are of course differences – Spenser was vehemently anti-Catholic, Tolkien quietly pro – but I sense a congruence in the political/cultural goal of the work. The second is Roger Zelazny, whose Amber books, though rooted in a framework which owes a lot to Arthurian influences, wander around rather like Spenser’s knights seem to, without really reaching a conclusion but with some very pretty writing along the way. My eye was caught by Spenser’s character Florimel, also the full name (or maybe nickname) of Zelazny’s princess Flora.
Anyway, it’s a short book, and more digestible than many such volumes.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-8-2011
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Skull of 1879 murder victim found in David Attenborough's garden.
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Short answer: yes, it was.
July Books 5) Doctor Who Annual 1986
This was the last of the old Doctor Who annuals, a series which started in 1966 and ended in 1986. It is one of the more interesting ones – not a huge variety of material, with just seven stories and a feature piece about the work of a make-up artist on the show, but the stories are fairly better than those in the 1985 season which preceded this annual; the Doctor / Peri relationship seems rather more on track, and both are drawn in loving detail; there are two stories featuring the Master, obviously the Jonathan Pryce incarnation from The Curse of Fatal Death judging by the art. Going back to 1966, I was struck that one story, “Beauty and the Beast”, reads like an obvious rewrite of The Savages, and another, “The Radio Waves”, has significant borrowings from The War Machines
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-6-2011
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Hooray! "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction to be published online, with text available free – The third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the definitive reference work in the field,
will be released online later this year by the newly-formed ESF, Ltd, in association with Victor
Gollancz, the SF & Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, whose support will enable the
text to be available free to all users." -
Alex is 10 years old… Google is basically just going to delete his last two years of email messages (they don't offer any way to log in and export his messages), and plans to cut him off from his family until he turns 13.
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Big Finish Productions is thrilled to announce that it has signed a licence deal with B7 Enterprises to produce original audiobooks and novels based on Terry Nation’s popular science fiction series Blake’s 7.
Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles will be launching in Spring 2012 on CD and download, and will be performed by the original stars of the TV series.
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"I came to it expecting nothing in particular and have been thoroughly bowled over. It is quite out of range of the common space-and-time writers; away up near Lindsay’s *Voyage to Arcturus* and Well’s *First Men in the Moon.* It is better than any of Stapleton’s. It hasn’t got Ray Bradbury’s delicacy, but then it has ten times his emotional power, and far more mythopoeia." (Thanks to Andrew Hickey for alerting me to this.)
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"From today I will no longer be reading any articles, whether online or in the paper, published by The Sun, The News of the World or The Daily Mail."
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Really bad news as Amazon buys The Book Depository. I'm finding eBay a better and better source for my books.
Doctor Who Rewatch: 24
I’m a over a week late late with these, mainly due to tech problems and pressure of other business. But I should also say that the 45-minute episodes rather threw my rhythm; I had got nicely into the habit of finding 25-minute slots during the day, and the longer episodes were surprisingly disrupting. This also inclines me to make a further strategic decision: once I have finished my Old Who run, I will take a break before I try a similar exercise with New Who. Anyway, on with the shows.
There’s a decent story in Vengeance on Varos, and particularly some good guest performances by Martin Jarvis, Nabil Shaban, and Sheila Read who plays Etta, and decent special effects at a period when these were sometimes a bit embarrassing. But it is rather spoiled for me by the violence, which I am now realising is a consistent problem with this season; by the silly subplot of Peri being turned into a bird and then magically cured in about five seconds; and by a number of under-rehearsed scenes where actors stand around with their hands limply at their sides, always a bit of a red flag for me.
As discussed after my write-up The King’s Demons, George Stephenson is the first actual historical figure to appear in Who since Doc Holliday and Kate waved goodbye to the First Doctor, Steven and Dodo in 1966. But that is largely irrelevant; Mark of the Rani also features a new renegade Time Lord, and actually she is a new twist on the old theme – fascinatingly amoral, and utterly immune to the Master’s attempts to seduce her to galactic domination. It is a shame that her plans make so little sense, and that she doesn’t get better special effects and music, though she is hardly unique in the history of Who in that respect.
The Two Doctors is most of the way to being a good story. It is a delight to see Troughton and Hines again, working through yet another wrinkle on the Time Lord mythos which Holmes had done so much to develop. The Sontaran / Dastari plot doesn’t make a lot of sense but does actually make more sense than the Rani’s or indeed several other recent examples. There is no strong plot justification for setting the Earth bits in Spain, but no reason not to, and it’s good to see that alien invasions don’t only happen in England. Jacqueline Pearce is delicious as ever.
The problems with The Two Doctors are quite serious, though. The gratuitous killing of Oscar at the end is of a piece with the rest of the season and with Holmes’ more horrific instincts, but that is really no excuse. Worse to my mind is the depiction of the Androgums as irredeemably savage and evil, and yet also comic relief; it’s not too difficult to read as racism, and is the sort of essentialism that Who at its best preaches against, rather than endorsing. (Yeah, I know, Daleks and Cybermen are irredeemably evil; but Cybermen are never comic relief, and Daleks rarely are and anyway don’t look like people with odd facial features and curious turns of phrase.) I am more relaxed about the inconsistencies with continuity of the Second Doctor and the Time Lords.
One of the things I didn’t like about Timelash was the same essentialism – the Borad being evil at least in part because he looks evil. Another is the fact that the time travel part of the plot is rather botched (I am a fan of the twelfth century and would have liked to see some action there). But actually the story as a whole, and Paul Darrow, annoyed me much less on this viewing. Most of the plot makes sense, and is in keeping with the spirit of Who. While the production values are rather poor, everyone does seem to be aware of this and carries on as best they can in the circumstances. And having had almost 19 years with no real historical figures portrayed as a speaking role, now, with H.G. Wells, we have two in the same season. But I think he is the last in Old Who. (The Queen and Courtney Pine in Silver Nemesis don’t count, as neither speaks and the latter is not portrayed by an actor but by himself.)
I do agree with those who see Revelation of the Daleks as one of the best Sixth Doctor stories. It is full of fun stuff to watch – the Kara/Vogel interaction, the Jobel / Tasambeker relationship, Grigory and Natasha, and of course the DJ. And the fundamentals of the plot are fairly sound by the standards of this period of Who; it is the first time, I think, that we have seen the Daleks attempting to propagate their race by converting humans, though Terry Nation had hinted at this in one of the Dalek Annuals. It is a bit odd that the Doctor and Peri are present for so little of the action, and someone less kind than me would say that that is one of the story’s strengths.
To round out my numbers I watched In A Fix With Sontarans, the ten minute segment of Jim’ll Fix It which was shown on the same day as the second episode of Revelation of the Daleks. I don’t think I had seen it before. It is nice to see Janet Fielding as Tegan again, making her I think the only character other than the Master to appear with all of the first six incarnations of the Doctor. The interaction between Tegan and the Sixth Doctor seems somehow healthier than what we have seen with Peri lately. And the rather brief plot seems to make sense, though from the vantage point of 2011 we know that the Sontaran invasion of Earth was missed by the newspapers of the time.
Added much later: And of course now that we know what we know about Jimmy Saville, it is simply nauseating.
This is not a great run. Revelation of the Daleks is more or less OK, The Two Doctors is almost a good story with serious flaws, and while I liked Timelash more this time than last time I watched it, that really isn’t saying much. A consistently disheartening aspect of this period of the show is the poisonous Doctor/Peri relationship, which really kills most of any resiudual enjoyment I might have for the stories.
< An Unearthly Child – The Aztecs | The Sensorites – The Romans | The Web Planet – Galaxy 4 | Mission To The Unknown – The Gunfighters | The Savages – The Highlanders | The Underwater Menace – Tomb of the Cybermen | The Abominable Snowmen – The Wheel In Space | The Dominators – The Space Pirates | The War Games – Terror of the Autons | The Mind of Evil – The Curse of Peladon | The Sea Devils – Frontier in Space | Planet of the Daleks – The Monster of Peladon | Planet of the Spiders – Revenge of the Cybermen | Terror of the Zygons – The Seeds of Doom | The Masque of Mandragora – The Talons of Weng-Chiang | Horror of Fang Rock – The Invasion of Time | The Ribos Operation – The Armageddon Factor | Destiny of the Daleks – Shada | The Leisure Hive – The Keeper of Traken | Logopolis – The Visitation | Black Orchid – Mawdryn Undead | Terminus – The Awakening | Frontios – Attack of the Cybermen | Vengeance on Varos – In A Fix With Sontarans | The Mysterious Planet – Paradise Towers | Delta and the Bannermen – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy | Battlefield – The TV Movie >
Otto von Habsburg
It is a bit mind-boggling that the eldest son of the last emperor of Austria-Hungary was living until just the other day. When I first moved to Brussels in 1999, he was still an MEP, and I saw him vigorously participating in debates about NATO’s campaign in Yugoslavia. Of course, if the first world war had gone the other way, he would probably not have had to settle for being a mere member of the European Parliament.
Multiple negatives
Reading de Saint-Exupéry’s Terre des Hommes I came across a sentence with a triple negative:
Il devenait plus évident que Lécrivain non seulement n’avait pas atterri à Casablanca, mais que jamais il n’atterrirait plus nulle part.
It was becoming clearer not only that Lécrivain had not landed at Casablanca, but that he would never again land anywhere.
It struck me that standard English rather loses out by not repeating negatives. In informal speech one can imagine someone saying that the pilot “wouldn’t never land nowhere again”, but it looks very odd in written form. In the original French, de Saint-Exupéry is able to construct a powerful climax of negatives – “jamais” “n’atterrirait plus” “nulle part” – which is simply not available to translators into English.
July Books 4) Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
A really good novel of a young black man who is expelled for bizarre reasons from his university in the American South, moves to New York and finds himself embroiled in Harlem’s community politics as an organiser – getting to grips with how his society and even his supposed comrades and allies are traumatised and damaged by systematic repression. I couldn’t help but speculate that President Obama must have read it; I felt that there were some reflections of it in his own autobiography, though of course he is constrained by the facts to separate his experience of New York from his experience as a community organiser, and also Obama’s book has a happier ending. Ellison is not great on the women characters, but otherwise this is well worth reading.
July Books 3) I Am Not A Serial Killer, by Dan Wells
Another of the novels by newly published authors included in the Hugo Voter package, this time a YA tale about the fifteen-year-old son of a small-town mortician, who has an obsession with serial killers, and then discovers that his mild-mannered neighbour is actually a man-eating demon. It is a little unpolished in places but I think the basics are there and that Wells will go on to better things.
July Books 2) Manufacture and Uses of Alloy Steels, by Henry D. Hibbard
This short book was published in 1919 but I think written some years earlier (the flyleaf states that it was originally issued as a bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and the statistics and bibliographies have a 1913 end date) summarises the state of the art of American steel-making – none of the theoretical background which I studied in the Part Ia Crystalline Materials module of the Tripos, just a set of chapters detailing what happens if you add more, or less, chromium or manganese or nickel or vanadium to the mix and what it is then useful for (mostly either automobile manufacture or the arms industry). It is not my usual reading, but it did give me a slightly better insight into Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged which of course features a magic new steel. Unfortunately the book must have been finished just precisely at the point that stainless steel was making its appearance, and so misses the major development in the industry of the start of last century – there are only three pages on chromium steel, compared to eighteen on manganese steel. The author also had a family interest in manganese steel, in that he and its inventor, Sir Robert Hadfield, had both married daughters of a Pittsburgh steel man, Samuel Wickersham, and indeed I happen to know that Hibbard’s own daughter was brought up by the Hadfields to an extent; and I know this because she was my grandmother, which explains my own family interest in reading the book.
July Books 1) The Brilliant Book (of Doctor Who) 2011
Having read all but two of the Old Who annuals, and most of the new ones as well, I can say this is one of the best large-format annual-style books to be associated with the Who franchise. The core of it is a combination of two-page reviews of the 13 episodes of 2010, plus interviews with the cast and crew; but there are lots of joyous extras as well, including a page of teasers for the 2011 stories (only two of which I recognise) and a rather joyous look at the past appearances of vampires and other blood-sucking horrors in Who (including a lovely reference to The Chase).
There are also two original short stories, one of them being a brief but effective retake by David Llewellyn of Malcolm Hulke’s prologue to Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, the other a story of mind-altering drugs, exploration of inner space and a corrupt political system by none other than Brian Aldiss, who I had not identified as a Who fan before I got this book. Not totally successful as a story – Amy sidelined, Doctor slightly out of character, and odd pacing – but interesting all the same. This engagement of some of the major figures of the genre has happened under Moffatt rather than Davies; to pick only the most obvious examples, while ten years ago a Who novel by Moorcock and an episode by Gaiman would of course have seemed impossible, they would not have seemed a lot more likely five years ago either. Looking forward to the Second Doctor novel by ******* ******.
June Books
This month’s tally helpfully inflated by a few graphic novels, which are generally quicker to read.
Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue With His Century, Vol 1, by William H. Patterson Jr
The Business of Science Fiction, by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg
The Complete Book of Thunderbirds, by Chris Bentley
The Spanish Inquisition: A History, by Joseph Pérez
Questioning the Millennium, by Stephen Jay Gould
Fiction (non-sf) 4 (YTD 25)
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
Hunger, by Knut Hamsun
Fleshmarket Close, by Ian Rankin
sf (non-Who) 8 (YTD 37)
Blackout, by Connie Willis
China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh
Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock
Man Plus, by Frederik Pohl
Irish Magic II, by Morgan Llewellyn, Barbara Samuel, Susan Wiggs and Roberta Gellis
Monster Hunter International, by Larry Correia
When Santa Fell To Earth, by Cornelia Funke
Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane 7 (YTD 40)
The Taint, by Michael Collier
Something in the Water, by Trevor Baxendale
Short Trips and Side Steps, edited by Stephen Cole and Jacqueline Rayner
Wraith World, by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
The Doctor Who Annual 1985
The Left-Handed Hummingbird, by Kate Orman
Demontage, by Justin Richards
Comics 7 (YTD 15)
Fables Vol 14: Witches, by Bill Willingham
The Unwritten, Volume 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, by Mike Carey
The Unwritten Vol 2: Inside Man, by Mike Carey
Grandville Mon Amour, by Bryan Talbot
Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, by Howard Tayler
Autonomes, by Santi-Bucquoy
Eerste Keer, by Sibylline
~9,100 pages (YTD ~42,400)
8/31 (YTD 27/149) by women (Atwood, Willis, McHugh, the Irish Magic II authors, Funke, Rayner, Orman, Sibylline)
0/31 (YTD 9/149) by PoC
Owned for more than a year: 14 (Man Plus [reread], The Complete Book of Thunderbirds, Irish Magic II, When Santa Fell to Earth, Demontage, The Taint, History of the Spanish Inquisition, The Left-handed Hummingbird, Fleshmarket Close, Great Expectations [reread], Eerste Keer, Short Trips and Side Steps, Questioning the Millennium, China Mountain Zhang)
Also reread: None (YTD 20/149)
Programmed reads: 16 from 15 lists
a) History of the Spanish Inquisition (non-fiction in order of entry)
c) Questioning the Millennium (non-fiction by popularity on LJ poll)
d) Hunger (non-genre books by entry order)
g) Irish Magic II (sf anthologies in order of entry)
h) When Santa Fell To Earth (sf non-anthologies in order of entry)
i) Chasm City (sf in order of LT popularity)
j) Mythago Wood (sf by popularity on LJ poll)
k) Man Plus (Nebula winners in sequence)
l) The Left-Handed Hummingbird (New Adventures in sequence)
m) The Taint, Demontage (Eighth Doctor Adventures in sequence)
n) Something in the Water (New Who books by LT popularity)
o) Short Trips and Side Steps (other Old Who by popularity)
q) Fleshmarket Close (Rankin’s Rebus novels, in order)
u) The Complete Book of Thunderbirds (unreviewed books acquired from 2006 on in entry order)
v) Great Expectations (books I have already read but haven’t reviewed on-line, ranked by LT popularity)
Coming next, possibly:
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (already started)
Spenser’s The Faerie Queen – A Selection of Critical Essays edited by Peter C. Bayley (already started)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (already started)
I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells (already started)
The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish by Neil Gaiman (if I can find it)
The Lost Road and Other Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Terre Des Hommes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Glamour Chase by Gary Russell
Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett
State of Change by Christopher Bulis
Western Shore by Juliet E. McKenna
Conundrum by Steve Lyons
Last Call by Tim Powers
Timescape by Gregory Benford
Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Old Goriot by Honore Balzac
Full House by Stephen Jay Gould
The Plot Against Pepys by James Long
The Naming Of The Dead by Ian Rankin
Jewels of the Sun by Nora Roberts
The Little Book of Thunderbirds (if I can find it)
2nd Interzone Anthology edited by John Clute
Revolution Man by Paul Leonard
Primate Robinson: 1709-94 by A.P.W. Malcomson
June Books 31) Eerste Keer, by Sibylline
Translated from the original French (Premieres fois), and also avalable in English (First Time), this is a collection of ten short erotic stories told in graphic form, all written by French author Sybilline (Sibylline Desmazières to her friends) and illustrated by a variety of artists. I have seen other reviewers wildly acclaiming Dave McKean’s depiction of a visit to a porn cinema which closes the book, but I have to say it left me rather confused as to what was going on; the two standout pieces for me were the very first story, a sweet doing-it-for-the-first-time tale, and Cyril Pedrosa’s illustrations of ‘Submission’ about two thirds of the way through. It’s a very mature rather than smutty collection, though I think you would still need to be careful about who might see it lying around the house.
June Books 30) Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
A long time ago I read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, and rather bounced off it; perhaps, in retrospect, it was because I read it towards the end of a long work trip and simply wasn’t in the mood. Since then, the recommendations of friends and also amicable encounters with Reynolds himself at a couple of sf cons persuaded me to give him another try, and I was not disappointed.
Chasm City starts as a space operatic story of the central character pursuing a grudge against an old enemy in the eponymous city, while also suffering flashbacks to the memory of a notorious early colonist. But it develops into a gritty examination of memory, identity and shared pain in a future society. (Fortuitously I was also reading Justin Richards’ Doctor Who novel Demontage, which features a differently disturbed and disturbing future urban environment, at the same time.) It kept me reading, and has converted me to Reynolds, whose style is reminiscent of Banks but calmer.
I may even give Revelation Space another try.
Whitney Ellsworth, 1926-2011
My US-based colleagues are attending the funeral today of the Chair of our Board this morning; he dies two weeks ago, aged 75, after a life of doing good both on the literary scene and in the humanitarian world. He created the New York Review of Books, helped found the London Review of Books, and also revolutionised Amnesty International USA’s fundraising as well as helpign to set up Human Rights First and my own employer.
He also was a near-namesake of a major figure in comics history. The last time I saw him, I asked if in fact he was related to the other Whitney Ellsworth, who was twenty years older and died thirty years ago. The younger Whitney (who was A. Whitney Ellsworth, the Batman and Superman guy being F. Whitney Ellsworth) told me that as far as they had been able to work out, it was pure coincidence – he had met with his namesake many years ago in order to establish precisely that.
I did not realise at the time that I would not see him again, and part of my mind is in Connecticut today.