Weblog | I don't like the word blog, it's ugly. Anyway, new content happens here. (Swedish dito)

About me and the site | Twenty-something male who likes text. Obsessed with things such as books, reality, communication, and one or two tv-shows.

Archives | Things written here since... well, 2001. Some of it is good, some is utter shait.

Books | Books read, not books written. So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

Photo | I like my camera and it likes me.

Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

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Hicks

Bought and now read all of Love all the people by Bill Hicks. It contains transcripts of a lot of shows he did, treatments for the Counts of the Netherworld as well as letters to both Letterman and Leno. And gosh, wow. It’s good. It’s really good. The man was — and I’ve said this before — a genius.

Sure, it’s not a laugh out loud funny through his whole act like Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill — but then again, not even Izzard himself can live up to that show as he’s never been that funny earlier or later for that matter.

But Hicks had a message, and among comedians that is something rare and wonderful. Instead of just screaming or asking and pondering inane questions, Hicks looked at society with a critical eye and said some uncomfortable things to his audience. We could need him right about now.

A Big Book

Speak Up made me aware of Michael Hawley’s book. It’s quite a big book (152,4 x 111,76 x 15,24 cm) and I want to know how the hell they made it. Where did thay print it? What paper did they use? How do one carry it in the backpack?

Needless to say, no one I know can afford it since it’s priced to a whopping $10 000 — you know, for charity. But damn. The book is huge. Huge! Does there exist a bookcase out there that can handle it without much hassle? I suspect not.

Powers New Book Update #999

Tim Powers update (from the timpowers mailinglist at Yahoo): “So far the only big event is that somebody’s VCR burned up a videotape of _Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure_ that they were trying to watch.” Having said that, I’m sure the book will be weird and facinating and just as Tim Powery as we expect — but in a whole other way of course. His research contains Kaballah, the Deep Sea Scrolls, and a few biographies about Einstein. He insists that this “implies a much more lively and fascinating book than the one I’m actually writing.” I bet he’s wrong, but since I’m a huge fan you might be a bit sceptical about this if you like (to be wrong).

The UEB book hunt

Sometimes the timing is impeccable. I had ordered Emma who Saved My Life, the only book by Wilton Barnhardt that I didn’t have, from the UEB. All in hopes that they’d be able to succeed where everyone else had failed. It’s apparently not an easy book to get a hold of. Today, they had it in. Today, and not in January as I had planned it. Today. Damn. Now it’s there, taunting me until I return after the holiday, hiding in their shelf behind the counter. But still, they managed to get it, which says a whole lot.

books and their shape and form

Åka sent in the link of a book survey made at Fantastic Metropolis to the Fanac-list. It’s a few months old by now, but I hadn’t seen it before. Some of the answers the authors gave was a bit of a surprise. On question the first, “What do you most like about the book as a physical object?”:

Cory Doctorow, who seems like a nice chap in other respects, hates the books physical form and prefers ASCII. ASCII. If this gets out, millions of Boing Boing-groupies will do the same. It must be stopped or else the book as we know it is an endangered species.

But Neil Gaiman answered that “The smell of paper, the way the book feels, the look of it, the heft.” See, I’m not crazy. Neil likes the smells of the paper in books too — albeit appearantly not as much as Peter Crowther of PS Publishing.

Set This House in Order

Unless you hound rec.arts.sf.written, chances are that you’ve never heard of Matt Ruff. He’s not exactly famous. Yet anyway. Well, let’s be painfully honest here: the fault is yours. Totally. This is the person who recommended Wilton Barnhardt — something I’m very grateful for, as he’s written one of my all-time favourite books. (If you must pry into my private life, the title of Barnhardt’s book is Gospel)

I bought his latest novel today: Set This House in Order⊗. Not in the American hardcover version though, but if I had seen it in the shop, I would have. Just for the cover. Just look at it. Doesn’t it... pop? And his site contains lots of fun thing. Such as deleted scenes to the book and a soundtrack-listing that he listened to when he wrote it. And the worst part is that it came out way back in March, although I guess the trade paperback is rather new.

Oh, and he watched Buffy.

The Soonish Return of Vlad

As of Thu Oct 16th, when Steven Brust, PJF gets his XEmacs up and running like he wants it to, the next Vlad book is not far off. He still has to actually write it, but then at least ha can. And a new Vlad book will make everyone happy. No exceptions allowed. You will be happy.

Watch the pattern

When rummaging through the Book-game at Mornington Crescent In Other Space I found this: — how could I have missed it up until now? Anyhow. Gil walked around and photographed all the London locations in William Gibson‘s Pattern Recognition.

Picador Marketing Trick

Down in the local book shop I found Spring into Picador 2003 in a box by the door. A free book sampler with 270 pages. That is, it contains excerpts from books that Picador published in 2003. Did I mention that it was free? I like the idea, much easier to decide which books to buy or not. It’s also a neat way to find new authors.

Steven, son of Dumas

Finally, after years of long wait — or well, a month and a half and then some to be more precise — I have in my hands — grubby and greedy hands — the Paths of the Dead and the Lord of Castle Black by Steven Brust. I haven’t really started to read the Paths of the Dead yet, but so far it is a rollickingly good read. The publisher page went by like there was no tomorrow and although I had a bit of difficulties with the dedication, it had already gained momentum at the acknowledgments.

And for some reason I’m far better at writing about books I have yet to read than books I’ve read. Weird.

Update: Neil Gaiman‘s afterword in The Lord of Castle Black was fun. Not as much fun and brilliant as Teresa Nielsen Hayden‘s in The Path of The Dead, but fun nonetheless.

A thin paperback

It’s that time of the year. After flipping up and down on So New Media, PS Publishing and Tense forms, my fingers have started to itch. Not just my fingers. Even my ears and toes are in on it. They all want the same thing, and so do I. I really really consider the option of starting up a small press — in the minimal format that is. I guess some thoughts and ideas jusdt won’t leave you alone.

Quicksilver

People have said that the new Neal Stephenson book (Quicksilver — big and cover in silverish grey) doesn’t have anything in common with science fiction at all. These people also claims that it is a non-genre book, but that’s obviously because they miss the finer points of genreness definition. The book in question has two — I’ve counted them — maps. It’s clearly fantasy, no doubt about it. Oh, the the main charatcer is called Enoch. Gee, supernatural in volume two or three? Yeah. Probably not lots of much, but some must occur.

Weird fictionwise

For those inclined, there is a thread at the TTA Press messageboards about the new British weird fiction “movement”. It is long and extremely interesting. Authors in the midst of it all — such as M John Harrison, Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson and Steph Swainston — write about their point of view on the whole thing. Genre flaws and “mainstream” reception comes into it as tat seems to be a pretty important part of British literature. Apparently even more so than in Sweden or the USA.

(And you can meet mr Reynolds in person and have a chat about this and other things the 15-17 August in Uppsala..)

Re: That Kafka book

About “Kafka Americana” which I mentioned earlier. It is good. Some of the stories are better than others, as these things work and per usual. My two favourites are:

1) The Notebooks of Bob K. Bob K is of course Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman. It consists of small notes from a Batman as created by a Kafka character as well as the writer is Batman. It is bizarre and the symbiosis between the two levels is hard to explain.

2) Receding Horizon. The Capra story. It is amazing and far, far to short. Here and there the story is put on hold and we get to see a glimpse of the interaction between the both authors. It is more than likely that these snippets of dialogue are made up on the spot, but they’re damn fine reading. I want to know more. More about the movies they made. Meet Joe K. with its five different endings. The wonderful ideas of Kafka’s Miracle at Progress Falls. The downfall of American cinema being heralded by Frank Capra’s failure to realise the scripts provided by Kafka.

The rest of the book is also worth reading, metafiction when it is good. Perhaps it occasionally swims out a bit too far in the pool of postmodernism, but even then it manages to stay a float.

Kafka

I have a soft spot in my heart for people who do weird things with Kafka. My first experience of this was when I read the Jackdaw’s Last Case where Paul Di Filippo made him into a costumed superhero. It is not the best of the stories collected in Lost Pages, but it spoke lengths to me at the time.

This of course explains why I’m right now, even though I have hardly opened the pages and let air in between them, I’m almost beside me. Kafka Americana by Lethem & Scholtz, a short short story collection all about this Kafka guy in bizarre situations. I mean writing the script to It’s a Wonderful Life? (However, I doubt it can top previously mentioned Di Filippo’s tale about Anne Frank as the star in the Wizard of Oz.) Being put on trail by Orson Wlles and Jerry Lewis? Anyway, I’ll report more as I indulge myself into the book.

The annual book-sale

The great beast February — to steal a phrase from Clive Barker — is here again. This means that most bookshops have their annual sale. Me, I don’t rush. I’ve been there and learnt my lesson. Initially it is impossible to find anything at all, too many people running up and down the aisle, picking up and then dropping the books somewhere else as far away from the other copies of the same book as possible.

But mainly I wait because many of the books they’re offering are not interesting and far too many of them shows up year after year. Well, either that or they just look the same.

I want to find the books no one wants, the ones in the bottom, pushed aside for bestsellers, the ones that aren’t mentioned anywhere in their sales catalogue. The weird scrawny books everyone scoffs at because they do not fit in the usual categories. These are hard to find the first days, so I’ll wait for the heap of rubbish to be bought and carried away by others.

Almost anyway. I had to submit an order at SF bokhandeln so that I might at least get one of the books they listed.

The second part of of book three is finished

While I have yet to read Steven Brust’s Path of the Dead — bad, horrible me — or even acquire it for that matter, I still jump up and down when I read that Lord of Castle Black is due in August. Wonderful news.

When I found some new authors that popped up onto the buy in hardcover, I contemplated about removing someone. Brust was one of the few whom I never even considered. While the cost/paper count-ratio isn’t the best, that served as a important part of why. People who write short books should be encouraged as much as possible — even more so when they write fantasy. (I would buy and read laminated restaurant menus if Brust had written them.)

It turned out I didn’t need to revise the list. Most authors on it take their time writing, they don’t throw out a book every year. Sometimes it takes even longer than that. (Question: would the books of Tim Powers be just as good if he spent less time with them? Probably not.)

I am under orders to update my web log so that I can talk about my toe fungus. Unfortunately, I lack toe fungus, and thus have little to say.”
-- From Steven Brust’s web log.

Book information up front

The best page in Ben Schott’s Schott’s Original Miscellany is page 152. Mr Schott understands the usefullness of font history, baseline used, what paper the book was printed on and even the points in the dotted tabs (6pt) and the margins of the book itself. This is useful information. Not everyone understands it, but this should be in every book. Perhaps not quite as far as the little snippets of statistics at the bottom of the page, but if included that is allowed as well.

Fantasy tie-in products

Gormenghast lego. I wish it was my own idea but it isn’t. Some unknown person searched for it and ended up here. But think about it for a minute or two. It is brilliant. It will, I suppose, not be cheap since the castle is quite huge. Lots of small parts and hinges so that one can open it up and get inside. See Swelter in his kitchen. Flay asleep in the hallway. The cats all swarming over the room of the Countess. The now secret rooms where Fuchsia dwells when she wants to escape. All the birds in the Tower of Flints.

My only wish is that they make it out of real lego and not the newer three-pieces-and-it’s-done crap. The perfect gift to people like... well, me I guess. Wicker Man Lego wouldn’t be a bad idea either. A huge yellow wicker man. Huge.

Books of 2002

I honestly believe M. John Harrison’s Light was one of the best things I read this year. I say believe because it’s compeating with works such as At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien. (Read more about Light in the booklog.)

Among the top layer of books I’ve read this year, these are the ones I liked best beside the two mentioned above:

Philip Reeve: Mortal Engines
Michael Marshall Smith: One of Us
Clive Barker: Weaveworld (first time read in English, read in Swedish translation around 1992)
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
Tim Powers: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace
Tim Powers: On Stranger Tides
Peter Ackroyd: Milton in America
Terry Pratchett: Night Watch
Chris Wooding: The Haunting of Alaizabel Clay
Haruki Murakami: Sputnik Sweetheart
Richard Garfinkle: Celestial Matters

Best foreword and afterword in a book must go to On Pirates by William Ashbless.

Worst thing I read was The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch. It was... almost as bad as last year’s To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Not quite, but almost, and that’s bad.

What’s your best/worst read during the year?

Favorite cover no. 6: The Art of Looking Sideways

I’ve got a cold and I didn’t get my copy of Re-Animator in the mail today. But no matter, there are more important things afoot here, such as the sixth favorite cover.

I can hear you mumbling to yourself, “What’s so special about this then?” For starters there are words, lots and lots of words. In fact words are all there is on it, which is a plus in my book. Another plus is that the typeface was rather neutral and not intrusive. Besides this, the sentences on it are taken straight from the contents within. If you like what you see at the cover, you’ll probably love the book.

Favorite cover no. 7: The Sun, the Moon, & the Stars

 
(Orb 1996 edition)

Old fashion star charts and diagrams over planets is what comes to my mind, and not the paintbrushes in the center of the cover. The brushes looks old and used, but it is the circles that add life to an otherwise rather boring production (I’m not talking about the contents of said novel, you hear? The content is Near Fine Major.)

The charts are in German. At least it looks that way, the über was a bit of a giveaway. They also remind me of the manual to Zork: Nemesis, a straightfaced and far to Myst-influenced Zork game (who would have thought that was possible?) where the manual was the best thing, handwritten notes of the bad guy as well as lots of doodles in the margins.

Bones?

Favorite cover no. 8: A Liar's Autobiography

 
(Methuen 1999 edition)

Lots of pink and Graham Chapman in his army uniform holding a syringe. What is there not to like? There is that little blob of yellow down in the bottom-right corner that proclaims an afterword by Eric Idle. The afterword does, however, exist but why did they have to put it in a yellow ugly circle on the cover? I guess normal text wasn’t good enough.

Favorite cover no. 9: The Sprouts of Wrath

 
(Corgi 1997 edition)

It has a pentagram on it, as well as embossed sprouts. It is in a twisted way pure genius, because if you think about it you realise that sprouts and the forces of evil have a lot in common. For instance, you’d be much better off if you don’t have to eat any of them. Embossed covers are generally nice as well. They add a new dimension to an otherwise rather limited depth in images.

Favorite cover no. 10: Pleasure of Ruins

Perhaps it’s the shear size of it that makes me like it so much (it is after all about 27 x 36 cm), but I don’t think so. It’s in the contrast. Black and white areas separated by a big, nice ruin. Now, I have this thing for ruins. They get me excited and I jump around like a kid. My eyeballs pop out of their wet icky sockets and I tend to forget the world around me. In an insensitive way to put it: it triggers my ADD.

Another thing is that the title is pushed aside to the corner at the bottom. It doesn’t try to force itself upon the viewer. It’s almost as it tries to say: “The ruin is the important thing, look at it instead of us down here.” You can just about see it, but there is this white glow around the ruin that creeps into the black area. Amazing stuff.

Filed under surname play

Reading the etymology chapter in David Crystal’s The Encyclopedia of the English Language for class tomorrow and suddenly a brick hits me straight in the face. Not an actual brick, but it had the same effect. I pushed the book away from me as if that would make me see thing clearer, I even tried to tilt the book. But it was there. Mervyn Peake was mentioned in the same sentence as Dickens, and it seems as if the esteemed Mr. Crystal actually have read the Titus Groan books.

This shoudln’t be much of a surprise really, but latley I’ve begun to wonder. One of my lecturer, the one resposible for literature, had read Peake but never heard of Titus Groan. For a while there I thought I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone (the black and white series thank-you-very-much), because the Groan sequence is what made him known uptil this day. Of all the books in the world, how can one have missed Titus Groan?!

Did I mention that etymology is fun? Well, it is.

Mortal Engines

Thanks to the books I’ve been assigned for the English course, I have turned into a slow reader. The books I’ve read outside of the assignments are carefully chosen so that I know I will like them. This is a necessity for my well-being.

Today, I’ve finished Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. It’s published as young adult and is far too cheap in hardcover. It is also quite good. Just read the opening sentence:

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

It’s set in the future, the seas are gone and much has been devastated by a great war (great in terms of destruction, the war lasted for about 60-minutes). It is a city eat city world, literary. Most of the towns move around on huge tractions and they “eat” smaller towns for fuel, building material and historical artifacts. It’s fun, engaging characters and I believe I’ll expect a lot from Mr Reeves in the future. Don’t let me down. (Update: his next book isn’t scheduled until next year. Bugger. I’ll have to settle for Brust, Harrison, Banks, Noon, Pratchett and Priest. It could be a lot worse.)

Massive reading list

I’m considering to embark on a small quest: I really consider, after reading about the same idea at Bookslut, all the books at a best 100 books-list. Not all in one go of course, as that would force me to push back such authors as — can you guess? — Flann O’Brien for indefinite time. I wouldn’t like that, not one bit.

At first I too looked at the list at Modern Library I concluded that I won’t touch the readers’ list even if someone paid me. Just looking at the top ten makes me want to turn my head away in disgust. That list makes me scared shitless, I tell you. I’m allergic to Ayn Rand, I hate El-Ron and To Kill a Mockingbird was dreadful. James Joyce at eleventh place? Eleventh?

Basically, it is the Bookslut list with a lot of changes. That allows me to fix some errors: Dune for instance is not Great Art. It may be fun to read once or twice, but apart from that, no. Despite better judgement, I will leave Lord of the Flies alone, and keep it in the list. So far, ten books have been replaced.

I’m not even entirely sure I will read them in any particular order. Since I already own some of the books, why shouldn’t I start with them?

Update 3/8: I’ve finished a list of 100 books that I’ll read. The compilation comes from Bookslut, Modern Library and Radcliffe Publishing Course’s list. I’ve also read through mailinglists, Mornington Crescent Good Books-discussion (yes, all of it. The people there have good taste, you know?) as well as used common sense. Please comment if something seems wrong, because I would be surprised if everything on it were perfect. (I tried to keep as many authors as possible that I hadn’t heard of. Anyway, the selection process was hard.)

Literary fiction that's also a meta-book

For once I didn’t hesitate and got indecisive. I simply stretched forwards and pulled Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds from the bookshelf. You know, the one that blocks the window. As I read it, line-by-line, I wonder why I didn’t read it immediately when it arrived a month ago.

So far, and for once I take it really slow as the book is rather short and I want it to last as long as possible, it is wonderful. The language. The characters. The way he builds everything up. Once again, I know I’ve said so elsewhere, I wish we could have had something of O’Brien’s books as course literature. (Still, I hesitate a bit to begin reading The Poor Mouth for obvious reasons.)

“Whether in or out, I always kept the door of my bedroom locked. This made my movements a matter of some secrecy and enabled me to spend an inclement day in bed without disturbing my uncle’s assumption that I had gone to the Collage to attend my studies.” (p.14, Penguin, 2000)

I’m starting to believe that it can’t be much better than this. And why is it that all the really great writers are dead? (Well, almost. Gene Wolfe still lives just to prove this theory wrong.)

I found Mr Barker sitting on a shelf

Found Clive Barker’s Books of Blood in the local used bookshop — omnibus one and two — for 35 skr a piece (approx. $3.5 / £2.5). I couldn’t believe it at first, but no, they were, to steal a phrase from the Frantics, “actually actual.” A month ago I’d only read him translated into Swedish. I had thought about getting some English copies before, but after the con I thought I’d at least check him out a bit better. (I bounced off the translated Damnation Game, much to another con-member’s dismay.)

First I thought that I should read whatever I already owned. As I only had a copy of the Thief of Always, that was a rather easy thing to do. It was also, from another point of view, much easier to accomplish than my previous idea to work my way through the unread Philip K. Dick — after a while you just want to read something else before reality flushes itself down the drain while you watch and wave bye, bye.

So, I ordered Weaveworld and Imajica in pocket from Voyager — the classics imprint which looks really good. Weaveworld, which was issued last year and had much better paper than Imajica, is still my favourite of Barker’s works so far.

And now these two books. I’ll probably wait a bit. After all, I have that non-genre short story-collection with M. John Harrison on the shelf as well as Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines. Priorities, priorities...

'The mind shapes reality'-fiction

Right now I’m in a Philip K. Dick-phase. No, I haven’t seen the Minority Report yet so that has nothing to do with it. The thing is that I had a tower of unread books that I thought that I should read. — and I wanted to read something paranoid realism deconstruction. And who was better at that the Dick?

I like the idea of his that reality isn’t static, tha we need to find out what’s real and what’s not for ourselves. As each and one of use create and recreate our reality constantly, we can’t as anyone else. To me, this is not some crackpot theory without substance. I’ve seen this in action myself to various degrees. Part of this phenomenon is also visable in politics where everybody sees the world through a different spectrum.

Yesterday, in a related story, Tommy told me that he was given a promotional t-shirt for the game Ubik. Neither he nor I knew anything about the game itself, wich is probably just as good. But the t-shirt sounded rather spiffy when he described it. I’m sorry old friend, I will have t kill you now. Or, maim you horribly... Okay, taunt you like never before till you give me the t-shirt. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

Some words are better than others

I like words. No, on second thought I don’t. “Like” is far too bleak and half-hearted to be used here in. “Adore” is much more suitable.

(Today, in this vast boiler we call literature, words don’t matter much, much to my chagrin. They’re being used as Lego in various mismatched colours. “It’s a medieval castle, who cares if it look as if a colour-blind graffiti-painter had snapped and wrecked havoc on its walls? What’s important is that it has the shape of a castle with towers and all. Right?” But I digress.)

I’m extremely happy that I found a copy of The Word Lover’s Dictionary by Josefa Heifetz — it’s still in print so it wasn’t that hard, but anyway. It is filled with words that you never knew existed and a few that you did. After all, some of them have returned to use since it was first edited in 1974.

forel n. a book jacket.

mytacism n. using the letter M incorrectly or to an extreme.

nimious adj. extravagant.

poiesis n. creation; creative power or ability.

I almost question how I could ever have lived without it. It’s sad that things that once had a proper name has been forgotten and now only can be described by long, awkward sentences. I feel like a complete wampus.

A Pandora's box

I’ve fallen in love. Well, not with a person but more of a place. Pandora’s Books. They’re the greatest, ranking even far above that Ali guy. The reason is many of course. That they have books I want to buy is one of them. Another reason is that they had some books I wanted, books I ordered and books I now own. Good books.

• James P. Blaylock: Elfin Ship
  
• James P. Blaylock: Disappearing Dwarf
  
• James P. Blaylock: Night Relics
  
• James P. Blaylock: Paper Grail
  
• Ray Bradbury: Green Shadows, White Whale
  
• John M. Ford: Growing up Weightless
  
• John M. Ford: Scholars of Night
  
• John M. Ford: Web of Angels
  
• Nick O’Donahoe: Too Too Solid Flesh
  
• Tim Powers: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace
  
• Tim Powers: On Stranger Tides
  
• Christopher Priest: An Infinite Summer
  

I’m happy. Happy, happy, happy. Even though I’ve only read one of them — the Bradbury one — I’m fairly sure each and every one of the others are equally good.

This is going to feel awkward, as none of them is by a female author. Female postcolonial authors are most important of all, according to the current Eng.Lit-class. Two lectures of authors from Africa, and then two minutes that basically consisted only of namedropping Poe, Hemmingway, Faulkner and their ilk. Sure, the title of the class was American and postcolonial literature, but what about America?

It is as if you’d give a speech about the important literary figures in England and then brushed over Shakespeare, Jane Austen by casually mentioning their names out of context and then continue to talk about the oh so important Jack Greasemonkey, a cockney who wrote poems during the industrial revolution, never to be published until his poor relatives fifty years after his death finds these poems while after his death going through their loot.

She allegedly even used the phrase “she’s important because she was a woman” which doesn’t mesh at all with my high and apparently lofty opinion of important works. (To make a long story short, it’s not about the gender but the way you use the words, the character and the story. Everything else is irrelevant.) I say “allegedly” because I wasn’t there, but it seems very likely to be something she would say.

Late night reading

Yesterday night, that is until four this morning, I read China Miéville’s new book, The Scar. It was... I can’t really express it in words but it was ver very very good. Set in the same world as his big-ass-sized Perdido Street Station, only a bit thinner (it is still brick-sized though). Best described as fantasy set in a secondary world, very little magic and they have reached steam industrialisation. The quality of his books still goes upwards, I can’t even begin to imagine how good the next one will be.

Danger!

To a biblioholic like me, ABEBooks is really really dangerous. I mean, I find thing sthere, things I’ve only been able to dream about seeing in real life. This is one of the reasons why I try to stay clear and avoid searchin catalogs from used bookshops online.

If this turns out the way I think it will, I’ll have to Make Room! Make Room! and reorganise the shelves. I had thought about doing that anyway, as I’m trying to find a way to sort the book according to the thematic treatments they deal with instead of the boring the works of this author fits here. There are a few problems, as for instance Terry Pratchett will be all over the place. There is a solution, I’m fairly sure of that, but I can’t figure it out.

Unused resources

The Big U wastes resources. It pains me to see them doing so, as there should be a law to prevent this sort of neglect. I mean, if you got books by Flann O’Brien — Irish Genius — then you’d better use them properly and use them in classes such as English. Especially in the course entitled English and Irish Literature, anything else would be sacrilege.

But that would be to ask too much. The teachers probably can’t spell his name, and that is damn shame. Where is the Flann O’Brien Appreciation Society when you need them? (Of course, since nobody seemed to care about the books I had to borrow three of them today. Do not believe the lies who claims I did it because of some other reason.)

Essays lost and not found

Question: why is it so hard to find the collected essays of Beatrice Warde? The books are not available at all any more. And everything you can find on the net is the same one: The Crystal Goblet.

Pratchett times two

It appears that there will be another book by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen due in the beginning of May. The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, and I think I got to have it. Not now, but perhaps later in the summer. Pratchett and Stewart are always entertaining. It seems the next proper Discworld novel is entitled Night Watch. Dare I guess even more nocturnal creatures in the Watch?

Complicity to everything

In a way Iain Banks is right when he said this about Complicity: “A bit like The Wasp Factory except without the happy ending and redeeming air of cheerfulness.” In a way, a small way, and that is only about the ending. The Wasp Factory ends happily although the road there is very, ehm, horrible. Complicity is better in that regard, up until the ending. You know the phrase “the truth shall set you free?” Forget that.

Unlike the Wasp Factory, the main character of Complicity isn’t an insane sociopath and as such the book itself is less disgusting. The violence, however, is brutal, naked and conceived by stark realism. It is not an easy read, Banks experiment and here he has the murderer presented in second person. The result is intense and rather much better than it could have been.

A good book, but Banks has proven that he can so much better.

No anxiety yet

I read Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks yesterday, rather good but probably one of the weaker sf-books he’s written. It was nowhere as good as his non-M works. This got me into the vicious circle of reading those books of his that I own but have left unread. (Currently: Complicity)

It also made me buy the Business today, a purchase which I’ve managed to push ahead of me until now. I mean, it had been standing there on the shelf for so long, alone and cold. I just had to do it.

How reading Banks is related to studying for the exam tomorrow? Easy. Point on, and this is almost such a small point that it is peripheral, he is actually mentioned in the last chapter of the Penguin-book. And second, Consider Phlebas is taken from a part of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. All these things matters in English Literature through the Ages, at least if you ask me.

Miles Errant Update

To all those who are Google-guided here by the search words “Miles” & “Errant”, this is the deal. According to Baens Bar, and I trust them in these matters as it is a part of Baens website, it is an omnibus. Content is as follows: Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, and a sort story from Borders of Infinity. Ok? Ok.

The rest of you can start reading the series with The Warriors Apprentice or btter yet, the trade omibus titled Young Miles. My brother did, now he’s hooked and he simply doesn’t read much.

Book debate at BBC

I’ve just read the Self v Littlejohn transcript. (Found through Plasticbag.org (”where else?” he asked suspiciously, not expecting an answer.)) Two writers of each political side (left and right obviously) in the studio at the same time. Hilarious jinx are bound to ensure. I wish I could have heard it myself, but alas, BBC doesn’t transmot those things to the rest of the needing world.

Thanks to this I think I’ll move up Will Self’s How the Dead Live a notch on my to read pile. No, wait. It’s already at the top. What should I do? Might as well start to read it right away.

Two books the same year? No, that can't be true

I’ve written about it before, but I myself has shunned it like the plague. Reminiscence of the teaser chapters from the last book still freshly in mind, I tried to steer clear from that place. I didn’t want to go there again. In the end, it won me over, I couldn’t stop myself as I typed in www.baen.com in the address bar.

I clicked on Schedule and then I got a shock, twenty thousand volt straight into my spine. Miles Errant? Has she been forced to change name on this book too? Then I looked at the date and got another shock, forty thousand volt into my left kidney. September?! What the fuck?

I scrolled down to May and there it was: Diplomatic Immunities by Lois McMaster Bujold. Thank you $Deity. It still had the same name and was to be published in May as planned. I could breath calmly once again. Oh, and I read the sample chapters. Damn me to hell.

But the name Miles Errant haunted me. I fired up Google but found nothing about this book except a clean slate pre-order on Amazon.com. Nothing at all. I think it is an omnibus of previous novels, but I’m not entirely sure. I both hope so and I don’t.

“Seems damned odd to go to all that trouble to remove the body but leave the blood, though. Timing? Tried to get back to clean up, but it was too late? Something very, very strange to hide about the body?”

Maybe just blind panic, if the murder had not been planned in advance. Miles could imagine someone who was not a spacer shoving a body out an airlock, and only then realizing what poor concealment it really was. That didn’t exactly jibe with a subsequent swift and handy outside pickup, though. And no quaddie qualified as not-a-spacer.

He sighed. “This is not getting us much forwarder. Let’s go talk to my idiots.”

Horrors at the used bookshop

After the coffee I went roaming around in my lonesome, drifting from place to place, back alley to back alley. Not that Växjö has many back alleys worth the name but those that do exist looks pretty nice. So it’s just more of a bunch of alleys. Topic drifting here. Lets get back to the point. So I went to the used bookshop and turned on a few books here and there.

I found among other things a hardcover edition of a P.G. Wodehouse. I looked at the spine. I blinked and then looked at it again. Who in their right minds would sell something like that? I seriously considered to search up the previous owner and give it back. But then I thought about it some more and decided to keep it for myself instead.

Down the stairs came two goons. Long coats and junk in their hair to keep it in place. It still looked ridiculous. They looked at the politics-shelve and I decided that this was my que to ascend upstairs. Later, I’m still in the used bookshop, they popped up through the hallway and walk forwards to the counter. They had found some book and I thought nothing of it. I mean, it didn’t sound as something I would like to read anyway, and who am I to criticise them?

Then it comes. The needle, the bullet that makes me shiver as if someone had aimed and fired right at me. They asked the store manager for another book, this one by none other than Ayn Rand. I was horrified. They had the look of someone who really believes in her teachings. Now, I’ve meet nice people who have believed in Ms. Rand before, but they don’t seem to have bought the whole thing like these. They where not old enough to read Ayn Rand, they should have an age limit so that the reader won’t be dragged into the whole Objectivist-cult. The used bookshop didn’t have the book though, thank God for that. The last thing we need is some naive economics students turned into fullblooded Rand-freaks running around at the big U.

(This has been entry number 200 here at the Lost Pages.)

Reading the wrong book

Just now, I realised something. I will never learn, never. I have as usual an exam on Saturday; the next Saturday that is, the twenty-third and the exam are about linguistics. I should be studying, but I am not. Instead, I sit here and device plans to circumvent this horrendous fact and read other things. Such a thing is the Anatomy of Bibliomania by Holbrook Jackson (who according to me should be dubbed Sir Holbrook Jackson even though he’s deader than a can of beans).

Why should he be knighted? Well, this is just one of three meta-books, just one and this is about 660 pages or so. Where else is one to find an essay that deals with the moral approach about books or discussing the proper time for reading? Or when he deal with the greatest question of all, to lend our or not to lend out books to friends and family. He is as he was, a philosopher in his heart dealing with the troublesome and undiscovered problems about the tomes that fill up the space provided within bookcases. How to behave and what to do, this is as close to a manifesto a bookman has ever come both before and since Jackson left the material plane.

If that isn’t enough to be called Sir, then nothing is.

Oh, lookit the bump

I have hardly opened it yet, but already I’ve found interesting things in The Art of Looking Sideways. For instance that less and less people have a bump in the back of their head.

So, right now it seems I’m one in a million (I got me bump). Who would have though? Not me, that’s for sure. But whether it’s one in a million good or one in a million bad, that is an entire other matter which I’ll stay out off as much as possible. (Oh, and I don’t live in the London area, so I might not count at all. Shait.)

Faster than a speeding bullet

It is now proven, Amazon.co.uk is faster than the Swedish Postal office. It took just as long time for the package to arrive to me from England than from “Any Swedish Town Of Your Choice”. It’s ‘masing.

(Completely off the topic, why has never anyone tried to give Superman a ticket for speeding?)

To the street station in the centre

There are times when one stumbles across something extraordinary good. China Miévilles Perdido Street Station is one of those things, a book that closest can be described as a synergy between Mervyn Peake, Stanley Kubrick and H.G. Welles. This is of course an oversimplification, as in the end it is nothing more than a creation from Miéville himself.

The book is thick and could probably do a lot of damage, but not in the usual sense. It is justified, as it doesn’t feel too long. The tale demands this length to be told properly and unlike most books, there is not too much padding.

It is brutal to the end; a harsh tale where the questions still hang in the air after it is finished.

Dangerous ideas

Those dangerous thoughts are back again. Those who lift me up just to later drop me down on top of long, pointy and sharp nails. As if that wasn’t enough, they’ll probably be rusty too.

The think is that I want to write a book. I have tons and tons of ideas, characters and whatnots that just lay there inside closed notebooks waiting for release and the small possibility of being used.

Why don‘t I have better self-control and more patience? Because these two things stand in my way to successville, they hold me back as without these it is mighty hard to actually finish writing the damn thing. I believe, and don’t laugh, that once I’ve learned how to do this something might be published one day.

The Quicksilver mine

According to the the latest lists Neal Stephenson’s quasi-followup to the earlier Cryptonomicon, that thick-as-hell tome, is due in march. Yes, this is the book entitled Quicksilver that Amazon had given a July 2000 release. They too have caved in and changed the unofficial date, which makes me a bit sceptical about the whole thing. It won’t be released then, will it? Amazon, by difinition, can’t be right about the shipping date.

The thing is I want to read it as fast as possible, this time I can’t hold back. I have to buy it in hardcover, as soon as I can and not wait two months like last time.

Salute for the lemon within you

After I’ve sat down and gazed through Robert Anton Wilson’s Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults and Cover-ups I realised that I too wanted to believe a real nutcase conspiracy theory.

I could join The Holy Order of the Lemon, but that one seems mostly open for Irish persons with hats. They do have a nice pledge though:

“Razorryn orderruin, XTCitronny rocket, Leminotaurquellemon, John Lemon, lemon soda pop, lemoon, Billemon Laswellemon, Lemon Flash, Irish Spermanent lemonadelic, AC/DCitron, Vincent Van Gogh: Teller und citronen, The Lemonheadfucks, Babellemon, Prince:Lemon Crush, Better Lemonde, Citroniclonic (lemon Epilepsy), Yourquellemonde, Ellemon/luimon, Paul Citroen, Foolsgarden: Lemon Tree, Lemondo bizarrothustra, Make Lemon not Orange, Mellemon (the Garden of) Rappers Dee-Lite, The Yellow River, The Lemon Sea, Urrain, the Yellemon, lemoonwalk, Lemonde d’Hier, Psycho Lemon (Schizoid Orange), Parlament Lemondelic, Laswellemondelight, CCitron (Chocolate City), lemonic Bombing, La Bellemon et la Bíte Orange, Lemorangel Falls, Lemontravolta river, Lemon DADA, you’re name should be Lemony cos your personality is so Lemonic, Bootsybillemona Lisa,Lemon Toilet Dickaprickabullemontrash, Lemon savonnegans (lemonnegans), spermicidal lemonology (Jif, Lif & Love lemons), Atomic Lemon, The Wilson Planet, The Lemon Order P-Funk Ul-sters...“

This sure seems as a good year

When I’m out of the loop, I’m really out of the loop. In may the next installment in Lois McMaster Bujolds series about Miles the hyperactive little git is out. For those of us that can’t wait there is the first chapter of Diplomatic Immunity on Baens website. (But don’t bother anything else, Bujold is one of the few good things that is published by Baen. I’m not too fond of militaristic science fiction.)

Deletion

My wrist — the left one — hurts since the get-rid-of-the-damn-snow-incident, or grotdsi for short, earlier today. I also struggle with producing something worthwhile, but there seem to be little use even trying right now.

I wrote a long piece about the book amongst books but I erased every word of it. Somehow the recent fantasy book turned into a moving picture kept sneaking into it, and really, Gormenghast is something completly different and shouldn’t, in my totally arrogant opinion, be compared to the other author’s minor work. But if I know myself well enough, I’ll probably pick it up and have another go soon.

A Christmas greeting

SF-Bokhandeln in Stockholm, they specialise in science fiction and fantasy and other good literature, have received a Christmas-greeting from Robert Rankin to their customers.

Now, Rankin being from “tribes of the south and slightly west” as he puts it — that is London, England — he has a remarkable sense of humour. He even manages to make the greeting fun desipte using the horrible “christmas”-word. And he is even more fun in person. Amazing.

In recommendations

When I entered Amazon.co.uk today, this greated me as recommendations:

Paradox by John Meaney
The Completely Incomplete Graham Chapman by Graham Chapman, et al
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Salt by Adam Roberts
Monty Python’s Big Red Book by Graham Chapman

Am I really that predictable? I’ve never heard of Adam Roberts or John Meaney, but the rest I would probably end up buying in a heartbeat.

YABL - Searching dust

Well, it was unavoidable. Sooner or later I would have started yet another log, ao why not do it sooner. So, here it is, the book-log. The main idea was to write something about every book I read. Perhaps it would make me read a bit more even, and since that’s been on the decline the last few months, I’d be happy if that really happens.

The promised scans

An opening (600x403 popup) from the book Pleasure of Ruins. Unfortunately the book was a bit too big for my scanner. In times such as these, I wish I had a digital camera.

No, wait. I always wish that. Sorry.

It's all in ruins

If you have the chance of buying the pictorial book of Pleasure of Ruins, do so or you’ll regret it later. Text from the regular book with the same title written by Rose MacAulay accompanied with stunning photos taken by Roloff Beny. Broken cities in their later prime displayed in a way that leaves no one untouched.

The only problem is the size. It’s huge, about the same dimensions as the Ugly Red Book That Won’t Fit on a Shelf, but apart from that, every thing is great. Expect a shrunk sample-scan where some details won’t show up tomorrow.

Just go with the noise

I had a slippage yesterday, back to older times and danced around in the room to punk rock. Which is a bit weird, as the song was new and I have this sort of aversion against most new, so called punk-music. But the fact remains The International Noise Conspiracy has a good beat, in a certain kind of way. Today, I’ve got a headache and wish I could say as Satan in Edward Savio’s brilliant Idiots in the Machine: “I was hit in the head by Jimmy Hoffa.” And what happens next is exactly how I want to experience my next Christmas.

“I don’t understand why I can’t disseminate this information. I happen to think this is an incredible story. I might even sell it to the National Enquire.” He glanced at Kelsey. “Listen... Ion didn’t make us late. I was at the hospital this morning--”

Ion took the meatless forkful and smaked him in the head with it.

Barris looked up. “Who’s in the hospital?”

“Hospital? What happened?” Kelsey asked, waving Barris off.

Satan explained every excruciating detail — including the Indian guy, the bloated nurse, the vagrant, and the midgets... until he realized midgets was last year’s Christmas debacle.

And the types fall down

Earlier, about 15:25 or so, I walked through the doors to Växjö’s now only used bookshop. The air had that certain tension that occurs sometimes, the one that tell you that today is your lucky day. As usual, it was correct, because down there, in the lower floor it was: Grafiska Yrken vol. 1 from 1956, a huge hardback edition, they didn’t have the other two volumes, but my wallet couldn’t handle more than this anyway so it was for the better.

I silently flipped through the pages four times before I actually decided to buy it. When I got home I sat down and just forgot everything about time. The pictures! Amazing how old things just looks cool. That they often lack proper chassis, and you actually see every spring and gear might be a cause. Take the linotype-machine for instance. Can it get more arcane than this?

Probably, but it’s quite hard. And this was only the beginning, there where about sixty pages that only were on the subject of the different type machines and their ilk. Great stuff.

Too little time, too many books

All though I can and will read long books at anytime, anywhere I can still have fun for hours with the Book-a-minute. There is something special with a site that can summary Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens with: “Five billion people almost DIE, and it is FUNNY.” Marvellous.

Ban everything?

As if protecting the children from dubious “harmful matter” wasn’t enough, even in this day, books are banned. Or at least tried to get banned. And here I thought that freedom of speech must be equal to all, no matter how awful the message is, or else it wouldn’t be freedom at all. Silly me.

Anyway. From the list of banned books — the words fill my mouth with a bad taste and I’ve only typed them so far — the following piece was found. It’s hilarious.

»Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings. D.T. Suzuki. Doubleday. Challenged at the Plymouth-Canton school system in Canton, Mich. (1987) because “this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion.” The last thing we need are a bunch of peaceful Buddhists running around. The horror.«

Further more, the Narnia-books was on the list, which is bizarre to the tenth degree. The same goes for Ibsen where the goons of hazard motivated it by being offended by the feminist propaganda. And how anyone even could consider to add Ray Bradburys anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451 is beyond every ounce of sanity. It’s so far off and into the land of ironic stupidity that they would have to eat the map in order to not starve to death.

About the future of the book

In Den Sista Boken [trans. the Last Book] by Johan Svedjedal, the author have some minor radical and interesting ideas about what a book is and its future — for the convenience of others I’ll translate the quote into English, m’key?

»The pessimists say that the computerisation might kill of the book made on paper. But right now, the biggest threat is over-publishing to the degree that the books will hide each other. They don’t risk extinction because of a hunting game where they get shot down. No, instead the computers might do something that’s akin to an environment catastrophe — too much nutrition which leads to a violent invasion of algae that kills everything else.« (p 32).

In the next chapter he continues to talk about how the books will evolve into digital form, but unlike most other he maintains that the book will continue to exist, as it’s only a new medium that has been introduced. In my opinion he puts way to much trust in hypertext and its possibilities. It has so far done nothing to the state of being of book other than changing the way we buy them.

He ignores the faults of the system in order to prove that compact and liberty to choose the level of depth in the writings are superior to that we have now; he never thinks much about the how this might be negative. Ignorance might grow as no one wants to learn about disturbing things. Or the fact that what he calls the last book probably won’t last longer than microfiche, quite the opposite. We already have things from old computers rendered unusable thanks to an absence of means to actually read old file formats. He has forgotten the main rules about technology and progress: just because it’s new, it doesn’t have to be good. Just because it’s good, it doesn’t have to survive.

Papyrus library cards anyone?

So, after a few years of downtime the Library of Alexandria will finally be reopened again. It’s about time too. They have a better fire alarm this time, but in order to inspect it, you’ll have to wait until the official opening day on April 23th next year. I really hope their library cards will be made of oldfashioned papyrus. (Davezilla)

New things here and there

The world is not as it used to be. Dave Eggers tour de force A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius has been translated into Swedish, with a weaker title but that was obvious from the start. But I shouldn’t complain, a good — wow, I just made the understatement of the year — book deserves to be spread as far and as much as possible. I will not recommend it, because if I did, no one would ever read it.

The “new” X-Files with Robert Patrick has just begun over here, five minutes ago. I hope they’re better than the last few seasons, which imo has been rather pale and, to be painfully frank, unwatchable. So far, so good though. I’m positively surprised.

Bad things happen

I’ll never finish a book again in my life.

This weekend I read Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks, it was pretty good actually. Shortly after I was finished, on the other side of the globe, she fell during a performance at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. And broke her arms — badly.

I’m usually not this self-centred, but just in case it really is my fault that bad things happen in life: I’ll never finish a book. Well, perhaps not. But just in case, I’ll try it out on this God awful literature we had to read last semester in media and communication-class.

This is how they should look

It arrived a couple of days ago. No, not the Flash Girls cds, but thanks for pushing me back into the gutter. What arrived is related to one of the duos members though. The Orb-imprint edition of Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks.

To put it like this: it is gorgeous. No it’s better than that, it’s perfect. I don’t know what they are doing at Tor that other don’t, but I can’t really complain. They’re the best at trade paperbacks, bar none.

For instance, if I saw it in the store instead of mail order, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Now, this is not that uncommon, I buy books like other people recycle air. But I dare say that even some of my friends would buy it. Especially if they opened it and saw with their own eyes how it looked inside the covers.

I wish every book would be like this, but as usual we — in general terms — have to live with the drawbacks of reality.

If compared to other new-bought books, it is clear that Tor is at the top of the field. Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke (Jonathan Cape-edition) is nicely designed while Edward Savio’s Idiots In the Machine is less so. Idiots is too compactly designed, the line height is far to small and the outer margin is remarkably uneven.

(I will not comment upon Homunculus by James P Blaylock. Ah, hell. The print is not top of the line quality, but it is a small press and it brings back works that has gone out of print, so I will not complain. Much. They’ll bring back more of Blaylock’s books so look for them in the future.)

A search for a pulpier mass

All I can say is wow. The paper used in the Gollancz edition of Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle is outstanding. It suck down the ink into the pages, so that when you put your thumb or whatever over the text, the risk of smudge is really low. It isn’t as nice to touch as it’s a bit too smooth, I want paper to feel more rough — without losing in quality of course. But I can live with that. The persons responsible for the choice of paper in the trade paperbacks for various publishers usually agree with me. And those who don’t agree, who cares? They’re wrong, the choice of paper is important and nothing to ignore.

Once, not so long ago as it might seem, I got this idea. How about an old-fashioned fanzine? You know, the ones made with an extinct machinery commonly called “mimeograph”. The problem was, and still is I might add, that I do not have any mimeo. And the ink for these heavy machines is almost impossible to find.

So I had to cross that idea over and that’s when it hit me. Something even better would have to be a fanzine copied onto really old pulp paper. The kind that’s already yellow of age. If I thought the first idea was though to realise, this would be ever harder. For instance, did you know that paper shops don’t store paper for about fifty years? In the aftermath, which was filled with disillusionment and sorrow, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions:

a) Mimeo ink is impossible to find.
b) No one, and I truly mean no one, sells old paper.
c) While recklessly pursuing two impossible dreams,
sometimes you just have to breath in fresh air.
d) It is more than possible to wander around,
aimlessly for hours and hours, in a good paper shop
and at the same time have a great time.

The Library Factor

Libraries are wonderful places. There is a special kind of air, an aura that brings peace to the troubled mind. It’s something with the shelves and the contents in them, the way they are lined up and sprawling from wall to wall, brimming and humming silently of dust. It feels good to aimlessly wander down the narrow artificial aisle and just exist in the moment.

But it all comes down to how the shelves are arranged. At the university the library is in a state of chaos. In the second floor they runs diagonal and the line-up is not particularly good. The first and third floor however is blissfully different. The third is really good, with small tables and comfortable chairs, and as if that wasn’t enough, one can look down on the people and the books on the floor below.

The thing is, I thing far too few libraries uses the Stonehenge-arrangement. I want more circles instead of squares.

I'm a quote person, you may quote me on that

I have several weak spots that digs deep down into my psyche and makes me do strange things. I’m pretty sure all do, but most are probably better at hiding them than I am. I say probably because I’m not too certain about that, some of my friends are rather transparent in some ways and closed about others; one of them is really into collage movies from the 80ies, preferably from “that fucking guy” John Hughes.

Me, I like dictionaries. I really like dictionaries. At a stf-con last year I came this close to buying a dictionary about the Russian language, but the lack of both small change and crispy green bills in my back pocket forced me give up the pursue. To the joy of someone else that ended up with the red clothed book — no pun intended, the book was actually red.

My current goal, which is not expensive at all, it to buy all the neat Wordsworth Reference-books. If you plan to buy only one, I recommend Dictionary of Phrase & Fable — the one stop for words like Sanchoniathon, Bye Plot and even, I kid you not, Potato. The last word even has a quote from Shakespeare. The book has some blind spots, but that’s only to be expected from a work, which was last updated in 1970.

Other things I like, which most people can’t seem to understand, is typography, remote controls, old Rik Mayal tv-shows, Mallrats and Bad Religion — which has a new cd out soon, next year. I also like movies such as Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension, but let’s not go there right now.

These are in no way supposed to be mistaken for obsessions. No, my obsessions are Curve, The West Wing, old typewriters, The Frantics (the comedy group from .ca) and metabooks. Yes, that’s even fictional metabooks or fiction that features famous authors as the main character.

So it’s hardly my fault that I from time to time leap into quote-mode where I pull out phrases from the radio show Frantic Times like a mad magician who just recently discovered the old rabbit/hat-trick.

Metabooks are fun

In the brilliant book entitled Bizarre Books by Russell Ash and Brian Lake there are many things to be astounded over. For instance, there is a book called Pogonologia; or, a Philosophical and Historical Essay on Beards that was written by a Jacques Antoine Dulaure in 1786. He seems to have been French so I’m not even going to try to pronounce his name. But anyway, it’s one of those entries that have a very small except and judging from that, people in 18th century France had a weird notion of natural and unnatural.

“A man without a beard would be much less surprising now-a-days, than a bearded woman, which proves how unnatural our tastes and customs are.”

As if that’s not enough, one does not have to go that far back into history to find idiotic ideas. Doing an instruction video was not enough, as not everyone owned a telly, so in 1950 Watson Davis sat down and wrote Atomic Bombing: How to Protect Yourself. “Curl up in ball as you hit the ground” indeed. I wonder how much that would have helped?

Probably as much as my fifth grade teachers advise that if an atom bomb stuck down at the church — fifty metres away — we’d better hide under the windows so that we a) avoided the shattering glass and b) the wall absorbed the pressure wave. He was a nutter too.

Let it be reprinted

Fuck and God damnit! Why, I ask, why did the publisher let Zod Wallop get out of print right now? And if William Browning Spencers Résumé With Monsters is anything to go by, why letting anything of his go out of print ever? He is a delight to read, even though I was not particulary fond of the typography in RWM from the start. But it got better — after all, it’s not everye day one reads a romantic boy-meet-girl with Lovecraftian monsters.

“They had both worked at MicroMeg, where they had met and fallen in love, and where, finally, the ancient, implacable curse that his father had called the System or sometimes, Yog-Sothoth or simply the Great Old Ones, had torn them asunder. He was here now to win her back, and he knew he had to proceed with caution.”
-- William Browning Spencer,
Résumé With Monsters (paperback p13)

Oh, and by the way, not because I think somebody have tried them before, but if so, the comment system is now fully functionable.

The chin that could stop Jay Leno

Damn, damn, damn. Why, oh why is it in a hardcover and not a simple trade paperback? I have nothing agains harcovers at all, I probably like them more than the next guy. But there are some books that I just don’t want to buy when it’s downright too expensive. My wallet can’t handle this in addition to the rest of things on my soon-to-buy-list. It’ll burst.

If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor is one of these books that I’d like in paperback. Even though it is Bruce “The Bruce” Campbells autobiography. From what I’ve heard it’s fun. I want it now.

Ray and the White Whale

I have an exam in mass media on Tuesday. I really should study the literature, but Ghu damn. It’s boring. And as if that’s not all, the book is published by Bonnier. Bonnier is, for those of you who don’t follow the Who’s Who in Swedish media corporations, the company who not only owns a publisher; it also owns a very large part of the big national magazine distributor. (Can we say: “We don’t want to distribute thing we don’t like”?)

Ray Bradburys Green Shadows, White Whale is much more interesting, not to say better written. The dialog is, as usual, exquisite.

-- Your reason for being in Ireland?
-- Reason has nothing to do with it.
-- That’s a grand start, but what does it mean?
-- Madness.
-- What kind would that be?
-- Two kinds. Literary and psychological. I am here to flense and render down the White Whale.
-- Flense. Render down. White Whale. That would be Moby Dick, then?
-- You read!

Mussings in the summer

I sat on the porch, the weather was decent and the sun was about to set. The sky invoked thoughts within me; this could be the last time I got to see it. Freak accidents happen all the time, although I don’t plan to leave the material world behind me anytime soon. After all, I’ve got to experience how it is to be a mean old man with a stick before that airplane runs me over — hey, I like to plan what matters, and how I die matters to me. It’s also the only thing I’ve planed in years, but rest assured, I don’t think of death often, five times a week at most. Except around Christmas when I pray — despite being a die-hard atheist — several times a minute for five hours that a huge meteor should crash down and destroy my relatives, all in one swift blow.

But this was none of the things on my mind this evening. Instead I thought about books. Besides being an atheist, I’m also a experiencing the neverending joy of being a biblioholic, so yes, I think of books fairly often. And I came to the conclusion that Norman Spinard was right in his essay “Science Fiction Versus Sci-Fi”, a small part in the book “Science Fiction in the Real World” (Spinards Philip K Dick-essay is well worth the money all by itself). The genre lacks true tragedies. Steven Brust almost gets there in his Vlad Taltos-cycle, although the end is still far away so it’s all a bit uncertain.

Even Stephen Donaldson, whose work can drive the happiest human alive to the verge of slitting the wrists, manage to fail and produces a upbeat ending. Wait! Oh my. I got one sf-tragedy, by Jeff Noon. Damn. Why didn’t I think of “needle in the groove” before? I mean, the book got my hooked on playing bas and literary experiments. I think this means it’s time for a re-read soon, after I’ve finished Wilton Barnhardt. Oh yes.

Much sadness

Since the theory test this morning I’ve felt a bit distracted. My brain and attention span — which was short even to begin with — has felt liked hacked cornflower, old soggy cornflower. That I found out about DNA didn’t help at all. It’s starting to loosen up now, finally; thanks to This is Spinal Tap on the vcr and a very small play list of mp3s.

Memo to self: Convert more songs, dammit. And if possible, burn as many of them as I can onto a cd — to free up space on Yvaine, for the uninitiated that’s my laptop. Remember that name, if you’ve read Neil Gaimans Stardust, you might already do that.

Right now, the tape in the vcr doesn’t run, the music has stopped coming out of the speakers, and I eat tacos chips and salsa while watching a documentary about ABBA on the tv. The day could be worse, a lot worse. But I will, as I’m a being of fabulous taste, ignore the swill that’s on the other channels.

DNA has died

I just read that Douglas Adams — co-author of Last Chance to See and The Meaning of Liff and the biography-subject of Neil Gaimans wonderful Don’t Panic — died in a heart attack as so many other people in the business of humour. I wrote these titles because although he’s most famous for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, I don’t like it as much as I once did. Mostly the humour hasn’t aged that well, and some parts feel just juvenile in a rather uncomfortable way. Last Chance to See has however a lasting effect, it is genuine or, as it would be called in a movie by the Coen-brothers: bona fide. That book contains the finest writing the man ever did. It’s also true to life without any porn-bits or obscene language, which is quite remarkable. In the end he did some of the finest stuff ever done.