Rain and Roses

As yesterday was a holiday celebrating (depending on the nationality of the person you ask) either the courage and bravery of America's military servicemen or the soon-to-be-horrifically-failed treaty that ended World War I, Brian and I took the opportunity to spend yet another day exploring Tucson. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that we still haven't gotten around to doing a number of the activities we mean to (visiting the Desert Museum, having dinner at Janos, etc.), but I'm sure we'll get there - we seem to be visiting on an at-least-once-weekly basis. (It's still a little odd, thinking that there's an actual city only a medium-length drive away, when for so long the only way for us to visit large cities was to spend two and half hours on a plane.)

Meantime, we've found all sorts of nifty or interesting places, including the HEUUUGE cheese section at Costco (quite a change after the single tiny fridge-case of it in Juneau), a bakery called Beyond Bread that does the most amazing bread, sandwiches, and desserts you can imagine, and a mall that's got (maybe) three open stores in the whole thing. That last was rather eerie to walk through - at first we thought it had just closed early, but then we realized that the various shops weren't just closed, they were also empty. The mall itself was still well kept up and had security patrolling the corridors, but aside from a Target, a Ross, and exactly one independent store, the whole thing was deserted. Pretty creepy stuff. (Fortunately there was a bigger one down the way that was completely full, so we soon determined that the economic crash hadn't been *that* bad in Tucson.)

One of the reasons I'm liking Tucson quite a bit - it's apparently a literary enough town that it can support two used bookstores in a single shopping center. In the same complex as Beyond Bread, there's a gigantic used book/movie/game place called Bookman's, and a much smaller new/used bookstore called Mostly Books. We visited the latter yesterday and brought back quite a haul - the new translation of Don Quixote that Brian's been looking for (true story: when we went to the local Hasting's and asked if they had "the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote", the girl behind the counter gave us a blank look and went, "Is that a book?" Augh...); a Charles Dickens compendium that included A Christmas Carol and two books of his I'd been meaning to read, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities; a nice illustrated hardcover version of Journey to the Center of the Earth that Brian couldn't pass up, and a copy of Rebecca (another classic I'd been meaning to read for some time, and was recently reminded of when NPR had a segment on haunted house stories for Halloween). $50 total, mostly for hardcovers too. I love used bookstores, even if they are hard on my bank account.

At the past urging of Brian's mother, we also hit up Trader Joe's across the way. I'm still continually amazed at the general cheapness of wine down here; I realize a lot of it is simply that it doesn't have to go so far and therefore shipping is much, much cheaper. Still, though, $5 wine (especially perfectly decent $5 wine) is completely unknown in Alaska, but seems fairly common here. I think there's more wine in our cupboard right now than there has been in years. Come summer I may need to get one of those portable wine-cellars to keep it all cool.

Then it was to the multiplex to catch a matinee of Zombieland (which was quite enjoyable), and to the Olive Garden for a tasty (if humongous) dinner, and then back home. All in all, a perfectly pleasant day - and now I have books to read!

Perhaps I should look around town and see if there are any used bookstores here that could use a knowledgeable employee. It wouldn't pay as well as secretarial work, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more.

Terry Pratchett's Nation: In the past, Terry Pratchett and I have had a comfortable sort of relationship. No one will dispute his cleverness as a writer, and I've generally found his stories enjoyable, but there was always a certain gentleman's agreement there, a certain emotional distance maintained, into which the cleverness was often pressed into service. I think we all have that friend who maintains a front of goofiness as a means of keeping others from seeing how vulnerable they really are, and we love them in part for their goofiness but even more for the rare moments when they let themselves genuinely connect without it. Story-wise, Terry Pratchett has been like that friend - I like his books, but I've read so many of them less because of the merits of the stories themselves as for those few brief moments when the goofiness falls away and the true storyteller shines through.

Nation is the book I've been waiting this entire time for Pratchett to write. The cleverness and the satirical tone are still there in bits, but this story contains more risk-taking, more warmth, and more genuine human emotion than any five of his previous novels. In more than one way it's appropriate that it doesn't take place in Discworld, as that series has always been characterized by a preponderance of the aforementioned satire. Nation mostly dispenses with that and focuses entirely on telling its story, one that is filled with the pain of loss, the sweetness of love, the joy of discovery, the fear of the unknown, and all of those other wondrous things that make us human.

On a more personal note, I can't help but wonder if recent events in the author's life are in part responsible for how abrupt the leap in quality was, although there were certainly signs of the master storyteller starting to show through his last few Discworld books, too. Perhaps it just took a new story-setting for him to feel free of expectation, I don't know. But no matter the case, I'm happy and (in an odd way) proud that he had the courage to not only find that core of human truth that all truly amazing storytellers (actors, writers, newscasters, puppeteers, or what have you) tap in to, but also the devotion to his art to take this kind of risk in bringing it to the fore, when his legion of fans would have been perfectly happy with more of the same. Mr. Pratchett, you are a true artist, and I applaud you. A++ with cherries on top

Seems like I've been doing a lot more reading, lately. Or maybe just writing about it more.

Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself: This book came highly recommended to me by a couple of friends, but I must admit, I wasn't too taken in with it at first. For the first hundred, hundred-and-fifty pages, I honestly couldn't tell what was so great about it - the narrative was scattershot, the characters stereotypes, and the plot (what there was of it) a dreary slog. Especially troublesome to me were the characters - stock origins aside, only one of them was remotely likable, and he was the one we knew the least about. The rest were all various nasty people in various stages of depression or cluelessness, and frankly I didn't see why it was I'd want to spend any more time with them.

Somewhere along the line, however, that changed somewhat. The plot was still lacking in action, the revolving point-of-view approach still scattershot, but the people populating the story grew on me. One's plain-black internal monologue gradually got blackly humourous, another's arrogance became tempered with a small dose of self-awareness, and I found myself liking them rather more - to the point where I was disappointed when the book was finished, because I'd been enjoying the time I was spending with them.

Structurally, the novel is a bit of a mess; the author was obviously focusing on launching a series rather than telling a single story, and the slow start and lack of any real climax belie that. But plow through the narrative housekeeping, and as the voices of the various characters become stronger and surer, you may well forgive those deficiencies and find yourself looking forward to the next book rather more than you thought you would. I know I did. B-

I'm not sure which surprises and delights me more - that my local bookshop has three copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for sale, or that they're shelved in the "Classics" section.

David Keck's In the Eye of Heaven: When I first picked this book up, I found it distressingly uneven. I liked the Dark-Ages aesthetic (here's a book where the protagonist thinks nothing of sleeping on flea-infested mattresses and regularly cowers in terror from threats both human and supernatural), and certain bits definitely left an impression - a rather agonizing description of a medieval trip to the dentist especially has stuck with me. But the main character never grabbed my attention; frankly, he reminded me of a heroine in a romance novel in that he seemed a passive placeholder through which the reader could experience the world rather than a person in his own right. While I admire the author's skill at world-building, I far prefer character-driven stories, and the characters just weren't that interesting - they seemed to be little more than sketched-out archetypes, driven by the whim of their environment.

Having given it some thought, however, it strikes me that this was probably the author's intention; such a style has any number of "classic" literary antecedents (Stephen Crane and The Red Badge of Courage come to mind, especially). But frankly, I find said style to waver between "tiresomely pretentious" and "just plain annoying", so I think on the whole I'm the wrong person to be judging it.

Taking the above into consideration, I give it a C+ - it didn't grab me, but I think the author did at least a moderately good job achieving what he set out to do. C+

Because really, who doesn’t love talking about themselves?

The Rules: Comment to this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

Interests chosen by alexmegami. If you want to hear more about me after all of this, I'll happily do others.


Bibliophilia: I love books. Always have, always will. When I was a kid, going to the library was one of my favorite activities – pulling books at random off the shelf and paging through them, scanning for the names of characters I could meet, or looking at the due date stamps to see how long it the book itself had been in the library, wondering about the lives of the people who had checked it out before me. Even the smell of them was interesting; the old, musty smell of books that had been on the shelves for years, the fainter but distinctive smell of recently-returned books. And, on special occasions, the crisp, fresh paper-smell of a brand new book of my very own.

As I grow older and become pickier about what I read, I sometimes miss the exuberant unrestrained quality of my early-life library jaunts. Now I’m much more likely to look at a book with a critical eye – “Do I know this author? Am I interested in the subject matter? Who’s recommended this book to me? Does it seem to be a well written story?” And, of course, there are the constant back-of-the-mind nagging thoughts – “Will I be able to finish this before the due date? Do I have the money to buy it right now? What about the sixteen other books sitting on my shelf waiting to be read? Will I actually read this or will it just sit around collecting dust? Is this book good enough to merit hauling along on my next move?” But every once in a while, usually while standing in the fiction section of a library, I’ll be able to let go of all of that and just appreciate the feeling of being surrounded by so many stories.

In the more specific sense of the term, I’d consider myself a bit of a collector; obviously, financial and space considerations have kept me from achieving anything particularly noteworthy in that arena. We do, however, own a signed first printing of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, two first printings (one of each cover, hopefully to be signed in the future) of The Name of the Wind, a signed slipcased collectors’ edition of Anansi Boys, the first three volumes of Absolute Sandman, the Subterranean Press editions of the first two Dresden Files books, and a few other nifty tomes I feel rather proud to own. Obviously, Brian and I are both fans of speculative fiction; should we ever become moderately wealthy, we have plans to build a real library (complete with fireplace and wing-backed chairs) and track down some first printings of the real classics in the genre – Frankenstein, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Dracula, etc.

Connections: This is more something I’ve noticed about myself recently – I have the sort of brain that likes to find large-scale patterns and the connections between things that make up those patterns, rather than focusing on individual details and instances. It makes me a rather poor bureaucrat, because I have trouble remembering all the fiddly little details needed in any given bit of paperwork, but it’s a useful talent for impressing one’s friends – more than once I’ve had people ask me how I get from A to B to C to D to E when they can barely recall A and B, and the answer is usually that I’ve figured out some connection or similarity between them and therefore have links between them in my head. I guess you could say that my brain works sort of like a webpage that way.

Oddly enough, it was Alice In Sunderland that really caused me to realize that about myself – I felt like the morass of information presented should be completely impenetrable, and yet I had no trouble whatsoever following it, because the whole thing was about the connections and influences between these seemingly-random events. (On the other side of the spectrum, when I’m faced with bunches of random information that have barely any theme or connection whatsoever, as was recently the case with O Lovely Glowworm, it drives me bonkers because I keep trying to organize it into some coherent whole and I just can’t do it. As Brian put it after the show, “I feel like someone’s spent three hours beating me about the head and shoulders with a pillowcase full of words.”)

Debate: Yes, I’m the daughter of a lawyer. :) I use the term “debate” (rather than “discussion” or “argument”) because it implies a certain level of formality in the proceedings. I very much like to discuss the pros and cons of various issues with people, and I’m all for arguing subjects people are passionate about, but people who let their emotions overwhelm them to the detriment of their argument annoy me – and people who refuse to logically debate things and instead resort to personal attacks or other stalling/misdirecting tactics piss me off, especially in forums like cable news networks (for a textbook example, look up the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire). You expect a certain amount of that kind of thing on the Internet or in real life, because making personal attacks is an easy way to get a rise out of people and avoid having to go to the trouble to logically make your points, but – theoretically – the whole idea of having a cable news show is to have rational, reasoned (and reasonable!) debate on a subject. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way Fox News discovered that people yelling and screaming at each other for no real reason gets better ratings than people debating stuff that might be important, and since then it’s all pretty much gone to hell.

Mixology: I think if anyone’s been reading my blog for the last month or two they’d have guessed at this one. :) I like mixing drinks. The sheer variety of ways people have come up with to manufacture and serve alcohol across cultures amuses me, and I find the creative side of mixology quite attractive. I like trying out new ingredients and thinking “This would taste fantastic with XYZ”, and I love the “Eureka!” moment of figuring out the perfect ingredient ratios to get the flavor I want. I like the way stirring and swirling and lining and layering and pouring and garnishing is a form of performance art.

I also like the social aspect – it’s fun to ask someone what kinds of things they enjoy, make them a drink they’ve never tried before and have them be surprised at how much they like it. I like getting feedback from folk on how to make things better, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling when someone tries a drink I’ve devised myself and says “What’s in this? This is my new favorite drink!” And I like that all of this only takes a few minutes of effort, at most. (I joke with Brian that I like making drinks for all the same reasons he likes cooking, except I don’t have the patience to cook.)

Musicals: I like theatre as a whole, but I have a soft spot in my heart for musicals. Sure, they’re completely unrealistic, but that’s the idea – they’re supposed to be a representation of what the world would be like if our emotions were reflected around us in song. Besides, some of the most classic tunes in our culture were written for musicals. They’ve stuck around because they speak to universal human experience – sheer joy (“I Could Have Danced All Night”), despair and loneliness (“Memory”), amused frustration (“How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?”), seduction (“The Phantom of the Opera”), enchantment (“Bali Ha’i”), just to name a few off the top of my head.

Singing: The above is probably an extension of my love for singing in general – watching musicals as I grew up gave me catchy and meaningful songs to sing around the house (over and over and over, according to my mother). I still do harbor dreams of making some kind of regular career as a performing actor/singer, and have had some moderate success doing karaoke (at least before the Viking quit having karaoke on Saturday nights). I figure when people around town start to recognize you, it’s a sign you’re doing something right. Unfortunately, other opportunities are a tad limited where I live. Hopefully this will change when I move somewhere with a larger musical/theatre community.

Witty humor: I had a friend tell me once that I have a wit, which Dictionary.com tells me is “the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure.” I’m not exactly certain how to apply that to my personality, but since I was saying above that my mind finds connections easily, and since it’s true that I’m good at articulating things, I suppose it would make sense that my sense of humor is witty. (Dry and sarcastic at times, too.) Humor is a hard thing to quantify, but a while back I found an online quiz that did a surprisingly good job of categorizing it, and (no surprise) my sense of humor and I came up as the wit. And, given that most humor I enjoy seems to fall under the category of “witty” (and/or British), I figured it made sense to put it down as an interest.

Seems like it's been a while since I did one of those random bits-of-life updates that nobody else really cares about, most people don't read, but that often grow in personal value as time goes on. I guess that means it's time to do another one. So, without further ado:

• Ever since the yoga class I was taking ended, I've been slacking off on it. Still doing a routine a few times a week, but with significantly less frequency - and I'm starting to feel it when I wake up in the morning (stiff sore muscles and joints = boo). It seems like lack of variety might have something to do with it, so I ordered a couple new DVDs, each of which includes a slightly more varied selection of routines. I'm also thinking that if I can do at least one routine per day for the next month, I'll get myself one of the super-nice thick yoga mats they have at the Balance store (a local climbing/yoga supply place that's located in the Rock Dump).
• Things are looking fairly good financially. I finally got car repairs and taxes and things paid off, and (with some not-insignificant thanks to my mother) we've got a fair chunk of cash stashed for the wedding. We should be able to do the wedding and possibly the honeymoon without having to go into debt, which makes me very happy. This wouldn't be a middle-class financial story, however, without something ominous on the horizon; in this particular instance, Kitty needs her front bumper cover replaced, as one of the particularly nasty crop of potholes this year has de-attached the already-weakened right side. She seems to still be in drivable condition, but I should probably get it checked out nonetheless, and I'm sure that's not going to be cheap to replace. Sigh. (On the plus side, if/when I get it replaced, all the scuffs and dings and dents she's collected from previous years of plowing through snow drifts will be gone. Yay!)
• Had my one dental appointment today, which ended up requiring three shots of novocaine - it all wore off only about an hour ago. I also finally got down to the DMV to trade in my old-school laminated driver's license for a spiffy new solid plastic one. Hopefully now the bouncers at Seattle clubs won't think it's fake (I nearly had my old one confiscated, but I think at the last minute the guy decided not to bother 'cos I was from another state). I think the picture came out cute, too, in a girl-next-door sort of way. Although, given that the entire left half of my mouth felt stuffed with cotton, I'm surprised my smile isn't crooked.
• On that note - holy carp, has it really been five years since I got my license? I guess it has. Which means I've been keeping this blog (for a given value of "keeping") for about five and a half years. Dayum.
• Brian read me Neil Gaiman's latest novel, The Graveyard Book, which is absolutely one of the sweetest and most authentic stories I've ever read. I'd say it absolutely deserves to have won the Newbery medal, and I highly recommend it. I know I'm a big Gaiman fan so my recommendation might be viewed as biased, but I'd like to think that's not the case - there are several stories he's written that I admire but that haven't grabbed me in the way this has. And while The Graveyard Book isn't quite a spit-and-polish perfect story, it has that emotional resonance that makes it feel like it's about real characters who are important to you. Which, I think, is what separates a perfectly decent story from a truly great one. 
• Brian invented a drink recently and requested I put it up here, which I'm happy to do because it is simple and delicious.  So, here it is:

Stygian Sunrise

1 oz vodka
1 oz pomegranate liqueur
orange juice

Build over ice in a short glass.  Fill with orange juice; garnish with a maraschino cherry or an orange slice.

As those who follow my Goodreads page will know, I've spent much of this month working my way through Dan Simmons' latest doorstop of a novel, Drood. I'm not what you'd call an expert in Victorian literature or Charles Dickens, but I have a bit of grounding in the subject from college Brit Lit courses, and am enjoying it quite a bit as a result. Even though it's far from a perfect work, it's interesting in that some of its biggest flaws are directly responsible for some of its most surprising successes.

I may get into a more detailed analysis later; for now, I just want to angst a bit. You see, the whole reason I knew of the book's existence was due to Subterranean Press' announcement that they were publishing a limited edition; thanks to a combination of my recent efforts to stem discretionary spending and a higher-than-usual price tag, I managed to avoid purchasing it blindly and instead got a copy of the regular hardcover from the local library. And as much as I've enjoyed reading it, I don't think I'm going to buy the limited edition. It would certainly fit right in with the vague theme of first-editions-of-speculative-fiction-novels-I've-enjoyed on which I've been building my collection, but I'm just not certain I'd read it again anytime soon. And as cool as it would be to have in my collection, I'm not in a place financially or available-space-wise where I can see dropping $80 on it right now.

Ah well. At least I'm enjoying reading it. Imperfect storytelling or no, I do believe I can quite honestly say that I've never read anything else like it - and that counts for quite a lot.

Thanks to mounting pressure (not to name any names), I've signed up for Goodreads. We'll have to see if I end up keeping up with it. Fingers crossed, though - I do like the star rating feature, among other things.

Hooray for more ways to waste time on the Internet!

Having just placed a (somewhat larger than intended, but what else is new?) Amazon order, I was realizing that I've been remiss in my usual habit of writing a bit about the various books I've read. Admittedly, my usual voracious level of book consumption has been put on hold slightly by taking a job where I don't end up sitting around for half the day reading and waiting for the phone to ring. But I've still been reading, both for myself and to Brian. Here's what's been on my plate recently:

A. Lee Martinez's The Automatic Detective: It has all the classic noir tropes - a strong and snarky protagonist who can barely pay his rent but never gives up on a case, a wealthy, brainy and gorgeous dame who can't stay out of trouble, a mobster who quietly controls things behind the scenes, a vast and far-reaching conspiracy with the potential to cost thousands of lives. The catch? Meet Mack Megaton, a seven-foot-tall humanoid robot built for destroying civilizations but instead trying to make it as a cab-driver-cum-private-eye in Tomorrow's Town, a 1950's-pulp paradise of flying cars and robot servants ("drones", as opposed to sentient citizens like Mack), along with all the toxic sludge and genetic mutation and other problems you'd expect in such a place. Not exactly great literature, but one of the most joyously, genuinely fun reads I've ever come across. A-

Jim Butcher's Backup: A droll little jaunt into the mind and daily life of Harry Dresden's vampire half-brother Thomas, I found this story to be simultaneously enjoyable and unsatisfying. While not every new Dresden adventure has to be a grand sprawling five-course meal of friendship, love and betrayal, this particular concept felt like there was originally more to it but the actual writing got sandwiched in between deadlines. That said, there's still enough here for a perfectly tasty snack, and it was good to see some of my favorite fictional characters again - even if the penultimate effect was only to get my mouth watering for more. (...no, I'm not at all hungry right now, why do you ask?) B

Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds: Master Li and Number Ten Ox, a Holmes/Watson-esque duo who live in "Ancient China That Never Was", make their debut appearance in what has to be one of the most delightful adult fairy tales I've ever read. Stylistically, the book is a masterpiece - a lighthearted mélange of Chinese fables, tall-tale adventures, trickster archetypes, and childrens' stories, with a good old-fashioned mystery at the heart of it all. And yet, thanks to a thorough grounding in plain human nature, it all works together; for all the plot twists and turns, the tone and the characters never feel inconsistent. And if some of their escapades seem to stretch one's disbelief suspenders a tad far, well, one must remember that we're reading Number Ten Ox's memoirs, and perhaps a few of his adventures have grown in the telling. (Especially recommended for reading aloud - Hughart's vividly drawn characters and occasional use of oral-story tropes such as alliteration and repetition make it a sheer joy to share.) A++ with cherries on top

Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon: A while back, I tried to make up a rubric to give a general idea of how I judge books (and stories in general). However, a large part of said rubric simply came down to subjective enjoyment - we read different stories at different times in our life, and what speaks to us profoundly on one reading may simply seem pointlessly preachy years later, and sometimes stories that seem like they should be just fine completely fail to capture our attention. Furies ended up falling into that last category for me. I can't for the life of me find anything in particular wrong with it; the story/characters could be accurately called derivative, but no more so than any number of other novels I've read and enjoyed. And (as you can probably tell from the above review of Backup) I completely and irrationally adore Jim Butcher's other major series. Perhaps I'll pick this one up again in the future, but for now it honestly doesn't work for me. C

Jim C. Hines' Goblin Quest & Goblin Hero: One of the more comical entries in the Unlikely Hero genre, Goblin Quest chronicles the story of Jig, a runty member of his race who has nonetheless been gifted with smarts above the average goblin (not that that's saying much, as he thinks to himself during any number of bitter moments). Almost as amusing is the story's ruminations on what, exactly, goblins do when they're not getting whacked by adventurers (part answer: sing about getting whacked by adventurers). Goblin Hero expands the conceit as well as the cast, and both are surprisingly charming (if ultimately insubstantial) stories. B+

Jane Lindskold's Through Wolf's Eyes: Just as I didn't really enjoy Furies of Calderon despite there being nothing particularly wrong with it, I found myself enjoying Through Wolf's Eyes quite a bit despite there being nothing particularly right with it. It's overlong, just as derivative, with a meandering plot that never seems to quite find its focus, and characters who seem to grow in fits and starts rather than naturally over the course of the story (admittedly, a tricky thing to pull off, and something that Butcher does exceedingly well in The Dresden Files). And yet I found myself reading it all through Thanksgiving weekend (and not for lack of other reading material nearby - my mother's almost as much of a bibliophile as I am, although her collection leans more towards religious studies). I even read the preview of the sequel at the back, which I never do. I honestly can't figure out what it is about the story that's kept me coming back to it, but something has to be working. If nothing else, the writer definitely shows promise; I stuck the second book in my Amazon order on a whim, so we'll see. B-

That's it for now; however, a certain subscriber to this blog may well be interested to know that I found a copy of Dead To Me at the local bookstore today, which I fully intend to read just as soon as I've finished my current book. (An accompanying librarian-costume pin-up photo may or may not be forthcoming, depending on my ultimate impression of the book and Brian's willingness to do the portraiture ;). Anton Strout, the author, is apparently Patrick Rothfuss' mortal enemy, although they've both been a bit fuzzy as to why. Judging by the apparent chronological closeness of the "pre" and "post" pictures, however, Brian came up with the following explanation:

Between the first picture and the second, Mr. Strout sneezed and grew a beard even more beardly than Pat's. In a fit of jealous rage, Pat tore off Strout's beard follicle by follicle (but blazingly fast!), and demanded an apology since he is, after all, the Beardliest Fantasy Author. Stout apologized, but Pat, still incensed, has never truly forgiven him.

But the truth will likely never be truly known...

Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic, but the highlight of my weekend so far?

Finding a hardback copy of The Name of the Wind at a local Borders. With the original cover (there were two) that I didn't have.

And it's a first printing.

(Background for non-book-collecting geeks: first printings are A Big Deal for collectors, and get progressively harder to find as a book gains popularity and multiple printings are issued. In addition to being one of my favorite and most frequently-bought-for-people books, The Name of the Wind is currently on its fifth or sixth printing, which means that the only way to guarantee getting a first printing is to either order one from a reseller at AbeBooks [who know that you'll pay more for it and charge you accordingly], or to luck out and find one at a local bookstore.)

Now I just have to track down Patrick Rothfuss at a convention and get him to sign them. Or I could mail them, but it would be much cooler to get it done in person...

Either way, though. Between that and my signed first printing of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and a few first editions of later Gaiman works and my Subterranean Press books, I'm starting to feel like I have the beginnings of a real collection...

Some of you might remember that a couple years back I posted a short review of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, having found it to be a more or less enjoyable if slightly uneven guilty-pleasure read. In the interim, as I'm sure that you've noticed unless you're deaf, dumb, and blind, it's become a bestselling series and something of a teen culture icon.

While I certainly understand the story's appeal to teenage girls - Ebert pretty much pinpoints it in his review of the movie - something has always bugged me slightly about its popularity among that demographic in particular. And now, browsing through reviews of the movie, I think I've managed to figure out what it is.

Stephanie Meyer's story bills itself as a vampire romance, and it is - but one that has far more in common with Lolita than with Casablanca. Which is to say, it's not a story about two equals who fall in love; it's a story about an obsessive relationship where one member holds all the power. There's a fairly significant difference there, both in the dynamic of the relationship and in its healthiness for both parties. And while I've not read past the first book in the series, I'm told that the controlling and abusive aspects of the main characters' relationship get stronger as it goes on.

Don't get me wrong; stories about obsessive romance can be very good ones, and at times extremely hot. And vampires are an excellent means by which to explore such themes, since the vampire by its very nature represents a codependent relationship. What bothers me a bit more is that Twilight, at least, doesn't seem to recognize that it's a story of obsession - it's presented as an almost idealized teen romance, and there seem to be far too many young girls out there who are perfectly willing to accept such a dynamic as a normal and healthy part of a relationship.

Just to be clear: I'm not calling for censorship. I've never understood people who want to censor popular stories because they contain "immoral themes" or whatnot. Obviously they don't realize that they're confusing cause and effect - in this particular case, young women have been and will continue to be attracted to the idea of obsessive relationships. Look at the popularity of The Phantom of the Opera, for instance. Ebert again hits the nail on the head: "Should a woman fall in love with a man because he desires her so much? Men seem to think so. It's not about the woman, it's about the man's desire." Sadly, this particular dynamic, dysfunctional and sexist as it is, is strongly encouraged in our culture. Twilight's popularity is merely a symptom of such.

I knew that subscribing to Subterranean Press' newsletter would be dangerous to my pocketbook. I'm an amateur book collector and sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, and they're a small-print-run publisher who do extremely high-quality editions of classic and modern science fiction and fantasy stories. So I was braced for temptation. And so far, aside from one or two editions of works that I'm already familiar with and know I will enjoy quite a bit, I've managed to resist.

But!

As some of you might remember, Brian and I have an eventual goal of building a book collection on the theme of Victorian science fiction/fantasy (as well as Victorian- and steampunk-themed modern literature). So, being the obliging folks that they are, Subterranean Press is coming out with The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives, a collection of stories by James P. Blaylock, one of the first steampunk writers to popularize the genre. While I'm not familiar with any of his work offhand, everything I'm reading about him leads me to believe it would be right in my line of enjoyment.

So here's the kicker (by which I mean, "the part I'm kicking myself over"): It comes in two editions. The trade edition is $38 ($25 off Amazon), and is a cloth-bound hardcover and likely excellent quality (all of the SubPress books I've ordered have been). And that's pretty justifiable for an impulse purchase.

But!

This being a printer that caters to bibliophiles, there's a limited edition bound in full leather, numbered, and signed by the author. Which, collectibility aside, would look *perfect* in our hypothetical-future library in our hypothetical-future steampunk house. And it's "only" $60. (A lot for a single volume, I know, but the limited editions of better-known authors sell for hundreds of dollars, so it's really not that bad, especially given the quality involved.)

So despite the fact that I'm intentionally trying not to buy things right now (both for budgetary and space reasons), it looks like we're getting another book for our collection. I guess I'll have to sell or donate some things to make up for it...

In a style termed by the author as "dream documentary", Bryan Talbot takes us through the religious, political, cultural, and literary history of his home town of Sunderland (as well as bits and pieces of knowledge from all kinds of other places and fields). Far from a paper-dry chronological listing of names and dates, however, we jump from place to place, subject to subject, and event to event often without preamble or warning, always colorfully illustrated by drawings, photos, collages, or paintings. It truly is like falling down the rabbit-hole.

To Talbot's credit, the conceit works surprisingly well. I was completely unfamiliar with most of the subjects presented in this work, but I never felt lost while reading; and while I occasionally consulted Wikipedia for more information on a subject mentioned, I never felt like doing so was necessary in order to follow the story.

What makes the whole concept work, despite its incredibly ambitious scope, is the theme of connections. Talbot constantly shows us the influences of one event on another: the values of one family being passed to its succeeding generations, the re-invention of folk stories and myths as shows or popular fiction, the art style of an invading culture commingling with that of the previous settlers, the de-evolution of a centuries-old blood feud into an equally vicious (if supposedly more civilized) football rivalry. Nothing "just happens"; everything is preceded by numerous related events, and everything has its own effects on what follows, which are often surprisingly far-reaching.

While his approach may at first seem more scatterbrained than structured, attentive readers will soon notice how meticulously Talbot has composed his story so that everything fits together. Half the joy of reading the later pages comes from discovering the import of clues hidden in the earlier parts; equally surprising is how infectious the author's passion for the subject becomes. In interviews, Talbot claims that the only goal for his four-years-in-the-making masterpiece is to entertain. By that standard, he has succeeded wildly - as well as, perhaps, educating thousands of readers on subjects that they might otherwise never have known existed. A++ with cherries on top

...

Ho-ly cow.

What a ride.

I've been experimenting lately with different ways of quantifying what makes a story work or not work, both in general and for me personally. In a lot of ways, it's almost impossible to do so objectively. Stories themselves are not objective; they require someone to read them, and a huge portion of how we react to stories has to do with a concept my college literature classes called intertextuality: the context that we bring with us when we read, or watch, or otherwise process the story. Who hasn't had the experience of enjoying a story immensely at one point in one's life, only to come back to it a few years later and find it trite or boring or annoying (or vice versa)? Intertextuality plays a huge role in determining what a person likes or doesn't like about any given story.

That said, I've found that there are certain elements that recur in stories consistently rated as "good" or "classic", as well as in stories that I personally enjoy. So attempting to separate those out into a checklist of sorts for my own personal reference when I'm trying to decide what I think about a particular book. (For the purposes of simplification, I'm focusing on novels, here. But the same concepts apply with very little tweaking to movies, as well as the storytelling aspects of games, etc.) Bear in mind, however, that the weighted percentages given are approximate, and can vary from book to book.

All those caveats aside, here's the criteria by which I find myself most often judging a given book, sorted by category:

Plot: 20%
--Is the plot internally consistent? Do the events as presented feel believable within the context of the story?
--Does it feel like circumstances progress logically, or does stuff just happen because the plot dictates?
--Do events rush by in a blur? Do they get bogged down in unnecessary description or other padding?

Character: 25%
--Do the characters stay true to their personalities?
--Do the main characters develop and change at all? When they do, is it in line with their initially established personality traits?
--Does the dialogue sound natural to the ear? Does it follow the usual flow of conversation?
--Do the characters act in ways that are believably human (or nonhuman, in speculative fiction)?

Structure/Style: 15%
--Does the author show us what's going on in his characters' minds, or just tell us straight out?
--How well does the story flow? Is there a sense of cause and effect to the events presented?
--Is the beginning of the story intriguing? Does it set the stage well enough to give a sense of things to come?
--Does the ending provide a sense of closure?
--Does the author's voice ever sound trite or cliché? Is there reliance on snappy one-liners or familiar situations over actual dialogue or description?
--Is there a lot of repetition in phraseology?
--If the author uses a device such as an intrusive narrator, does it fit with the tone of the story?

Subjective enjoyment: 40%
--Do I care about the characters? Do they feel like real people to me?
--Is the plot believable within the context of the world in which it's set?
--Does the story inspire any kind of emotional reaction? How strongly? Why?


Obviously this is a malleable list, and will vary from book to book (and story to story). I'm interested in input - do you judge stories by different criteria? put different weight into these criteria? Why?

Had a bit of a scare regarding my eyesight this weekend; fortunately, however, I went to the ophthalmologist this morning and everything seems to be fine. So now I'm 30% of the way towards having paid my deductible and another paycheck away from getting out of debt. Huzzah.

I guess I've been pretty quiet lately. There hasn't been much of interest happening locally; we have yet to receive one of the Drastically Increased Electric Bills, so we don't know how much our conservation efforts have helped. I've been making my way through The Dresden Files at a pretty rapid clip; I've had a bit of a piece churning around in my head about why, exactly, I like the series so much, but there's about even odds on whether I'll actually write it. Same with Lies My Teacher Told Me a most excellent book on American history - specifically, the bloody bits that they leave out of your high school history classes. I've got lots of thoughts on it, but not much motivation to get them down.

I don't know. I just haven't felt like writing much recently. Hopefully that'll change sometime soon.

Given the structure of The Eight, which is basically a series of eight monologues (not that you'd guess that from the title or anything), I've ended up with some spare time to kill in between the opening dance number (Alicia, our director, has a very strange sense of humor) and my turn, and then again between my turn and the closing bow. So I've been reading Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which was a Totally Non-Denominational Holiday present from flewellyn.

I'll admit to a bit of skepticism when I first received it ("You should read this! It's by a friend of mine!" recommendations haven't always turned out well, in my experience), but I've been pretty pleasantly surprised. Ms. Priest has a far-above-average talent for both vivid imagery and creepy atmosphere, the two major components in any good ghost story. The pacing (which seems to be the downfall of many otherwise-good authors) has also been pretty good through the first half, and the beginning was quite engrossing. So the only real obstacle that remains is the ending, something that's always tricky in storytelling, and doubly so when it's a story of people coming in contact with the supernatural. But the first half of the novel has given me high hopes. I just hope it doesn't end up like Twilight...

Anyway, I'll be sure to post my thoughts when I've finished it. Because I'm sure everyone here knows how hard it is for me to remember to give my opinions on something. =D

While on the subject of The Eight, I actually had a very nice middle-aged woman I didn't know stop me on the way out of the dressing room last night and tell me she really enjoyed my performance. I was sort of surprised - Blitzen's monologue is funny, but not nearly so much as a couple of the others - but pleased nonetheless. She said that she'd like to see me on stage again, so I told her I'd mention that to whomever I auditioned for next. So, yay - I guess I have my first fan. (Though I suppose there's a good chance she said that to everyone, and I just didn't see...)

In other news, it looks like I'm scaling back my new-computer plans some. My computer here at home has been well into old age for some time now, and has reached the point where it's very close to unusability. Of course, it would do this at the least convenient time, i.e. just after I've bought everyone's Christmas presents, but whatever. Anyway, instead of the $2500 MacBook Pro that I'd really love but probably only occasionally fully use, I'm thinking I'll just get one of the nifty black MacBooks. The main things that turned me off of them were the smaller screen - my current computer has a 15" screen, which made the 13.3" screens on the MacBooks feel positively claustrophobic. They're nice for all that, though, and since I'm no longer using my computer as my main entertainment system anymore (yay for being out of college!), it'll work just fine for plain ol' Internet, email, blogging, instant messaging, etc. - as well as paper-writing and such if I do end up re-enrolling in college.

So the main question is how I'm going to pay for it. I have roughly $500 in savings that isn't spoken for, but I'd prefer to leave that there as a cushion. The Apple Store is running a special where if you sign up for their Visa card and buy something over $1000 on it, you get six months with no interest; that's tempting, but I really prefer not to have any more credit cards than the two I already have, and I hate the idea of using credit for something that's essentially a luxury item. Of course, I could just wait and not have a computer at home until I've saved enough, which would probably be the most reasonable thing to do, but I admit to being distinctly in the tech generation - to quote a friend, I am a computer-using person in the same way I am an air-breathing person, and I have a really hard time when I don't have on-demand access to the Internet. But at the same time, I know that I can live without a computer, which means that it's not a necessity.

A final alternative, and probably the most attractive to me at this point, would be to dip into Brian's and my joint savings account to buy it, and then simply make payments back to it. Brian's already said that he's cool with the idea, and we'd still have a fair chunk of change in it even after buying a MacBook, but I'm sort of hesitant, simply because that's our moving-away-from-Juneau fund. But then, we're not planning on moving for a year or two yet anyway, and I know I could pay it back if I simply disciplined myself, so...yeah. No living without computer for six months = happy!Rose. Plus 1500 airline miles from my Visa card. I can live with that.

I'm currently reading a paperback copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which I'm enjoying immensely. So I'm thinking I'll pick up a hardback version for my collection.

After some research, I discover that I can get a hardbound edition used for roughly $4.

After further research, I find I can get a new-condition signed first edition/first printing in the special cream-colored dust jacket for $40.

(After even further research, I learn that there's a signed/numbered/slipcased/leatherbound special edition out there, but those change hands for several hundred apiece. And I'm not quite that book-crazy. Yet.)

So now the thrift-store-shopper part of me is arguing with the bibliophile part of me. I'll give you all two guesses as to who's winning. ;)

(Also, no one's signed up for my pay-it-forward thingy. Does no one want a gift from me? Or do they just not want the responsibility of having to do it themselves?)

Last night, in preparation for the bout of bibilophilia (and therefore bibliovisacharging) I've been going through, I cleaned out the bookcase in our bedroom. This might not seem like a huge project, but it was a very large bookcase - one of those tall oak double-width dealies. Additionally, both Brian and I probably qualify as bibliophiles - we both love books, and love collecting books. This bookshelf had far more than books on it, though. There were all sorts of CDs, DVDs, knickknacks, and other paraphernalia; not to mention the not-insignificant accumulation of various scraps of paper and other bits of garbage. All covered with a layer of dust, as happens when you don't clean a bookshelf for two years.

Among the discoveries I made during this project: An old hardcover copy of James Clavell's Shogun, which I intend to read at some point; CDs for Fallout and Fallout 2, which Brian wants me to try playing; a "Jake the Alligator Man" souvenir penny from the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum; a possible first edition of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (unfortunately rather worn and missing a dust jacket).

I also made the most surprising discovery that the owners of this bookcase are very definite sci-fi/fantasy fans, as evidenced by the preponderance of books by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, William Gibson, and Larry Niven. =)

Unfortunately, Brian and his camera are currently in Anchorage, so I was unable to get "Before", "During", and "After" shots. Suffice it to say, however, that it was an impressive collection of items, which made an equally impressive pile on the floor once they were all removed for sorting. The books and many of the knick-knacks have been replaced and the bookcase as a whole looks much nicer. Unfortunately, this also means that the rest of the house is in disarray, as there are piles of things to be sorted through and either got rid of or integrated with other collections in other parts of the place.

But hey - at least the bookshelf looks nicer. And has room for more books - hurray!

Tonight's project: The living room bookshelf. (Which should be much simpler, as it's been cleaned recently - just needs a bit of reorganizing.)