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 So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.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

Search the site

PKD

The Philip K. Dick-site have gon through a change. Fan-related material has been moved to the www.philipkdickfans.com while the old site will focus more on PKD’s own stuff.

And this is very intersting:

His three children, Laura, Isa and Christopher make up the Philip K. Dick Trust. In celebration of the launch, they are making available online previously unpublished writings and other content from Mr. Dick’s voluminous archives. This includes illuminating letters, family photographs, “Blade Runner” concept sketches given to Dick by the movie studio, an unwritten book proposal, rare interviews, and pages from the Exegesis - the holy grail of Philip K. Dick musings which has only been published in excerpts.

Oh, and there’s a movie-adaptation spotlight in Wired.

A Mike Poem

This oldish poem by John M Ford makes me wish that I didn’t have a Moorcock blocking up the que. It produced the kind of feeling that I almost had to run across the room and rumage through the pocket-box and dig up some of his novels.

Short stories

I’ve been reading the Avram Davidson Treasury. It is good. No, it’s better than good. It is brilliant. Utterly brilliant, and it pains me because I’ll never be able to write like that. The Golem, the first use of American Dental Association as secret agents, he even manages to bring quality to a “let’s kill tghe aliens”-story. But most of all his use of language. At times it almost feels as if I’m reading something by Peake — but different of course. In Davidson the language serves as a backdrop, not an active character within the story. If you understand what I mean.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The book in question, one of the few things from Avram’s pen currently in print that isn’t published by a small press publisher, is set masterfully in Garamond. Don’t know which version only that it is not the ITC bastardisation.

Re: fantasy

Johan Anglemark wrote about fantasy — in Swedish though, so all of you can’t read it — and he had some thoughts that I agree with. Genres are not there for the readers, but for the marketing departments. I’ll translate a small quote below (and he’ll probably hit me in the head with a blunt instrument the next time I meet him because of the small but significant errors.)

When I think of fantasy, the authors that comes to my mind are people like Guy Gavriel Kay, Peter Beagle, China Miéville, Mervyn Peake and John Crowley. Books that are well written, very complicated and intelligent. Nevertheless, the fact that they’re marketed as fantasy has the effect that they never receive a real chance to reach out to a wider scope of readers. All this because people are driven away from the genre thanks to the more known authors.” (Before this he described how good fantasy authors tend to completely disappear under all the swill. /Nicklas)

For some it doesn’t help that the book isn’t released as a fantasy. For instance, Tim Powers’ latest book Declare (excellent author, excellent book) was labelled as a thriller by the publisher. I don’t think it had more sales because of that, which is sad because it deserves it.

And yes, I think that the genre — after all, this imaginary idioglossa of literature hangs over us all — needs help from its readers to lift up the good stuff and make it easier to find. It won’t happen by itself. Now, I believe the publishers would want to do this themselves if they could, but I doubt they can afford too. It is easy to keep Robert Jordan in print as he sells lots and lots of books, while a book by John M. Ford only have the initial printing and then the books are gone. You can’t write “an epic by the next Tolkien” and expect millions of sold copies for a singleton about mobster elves with suppressed feelings like Ford’s “The Last Hot Time.” (It did however have a blurb by Robert Jordan for some reason, but then again, he’s a blub slut and the book was published by Tor.)

Two gone, eight left

Michael Moorcock is recovering from his surgery. He seems fine and according to Ansible #178, only lost two toes. They will not be sold on e-Bay as planned as the doctors kept them to themselves. Some people are just too greedy for their own good.

But all in all, this is good news considering the death ratio of April. Please stop with this, it is not funny at all.

Mr Knight

I’ve seen it elsewhere too, but this is the best place to link to.

Damon Knight has died. I think I’ll reread Humpty Dumpty: An Oval. You lot, that is those of you who doesn’t already own it, should run and buy it as fast as you can.

Raise of the online Short story quality

There is a spankingly new short story by Paul Di Filippo over at Fantastic Metropolis. Go there and read it. Why? Becasue it is by Paul Di Filippo, don’t you pay any attention? The very same man that gave us Kafka as a superhero and Anne Frank as the star of The Wizard of Oz. Just go there and read it already.

Literary approval and disapproval

I found the following piece in my scrapfile and since it reasemle a somewhat coherent thought in the midst of it, I though I might just as well post it here.

A while ago on a mailinglist there were a wild discussion about the acceptance of science fiction in the literary world. This is a topic that some people have very strong views about, mostly of them stand on the side of those who feel that the genre is marginalised.

I have been giving this some thought and come to the conclusion that both sides are right. Science fiction is at the same time both marginalised and accepted. Some authors move seamlessly in and out of the genre without being torn to pieces., while others are simply being ignored. This has its reasons. Most hard science fiction is thrown aside because from a literary point of view it isn’t interesting. A story where the science is more important than both plot and characters isn’t going to attract a wide audience outside those who really are interested in the science bit. Those which focuses upon the characters and plot are going to get more readers and much more acceptance outside the genre.

I think this is a fair trade off. It is not the whole world and I can’t understand why people whine about why the literary cabal never includes Isaac Asimov or (Sir) Arthur C. Clarke, aka The Boring As Hell Twins, into their canon. Strictly speaking, most hard sf is just manic masturbation over a glossy NASA-manual.

The ilk of Lewis Shiner, Iain Banks and Jonathan Lethem on the other hand, are storytellers. They write about people with more than one dimension and they dare to experiment without being afraid of total stylistic failure. They get credit where credit is due because they’ve earned it from a literary point of view. That is the important bit, because if you do not care about producing solid literature with depth, there is no way in hell to gain acceptance in the literary circles. This should be elementary knowledge.

(For the record: I like some hard sf, but I feel this obsession with plausible physics and God know what is a bit misdirected. Literature should be about more than a shiny object that with plausible physics can lift a car fifteen inches above the ground.)

Bookish things

It might not be updated every hour, day, week of the year but that doesn’t matter. Steven Brust — one of the two authors of Freedom & Necessity, the best book ever — has one of these journalish things. And, oh great joy, the book with the title The Viscount of Adrilankha is getting along nicely. Paarfi is back with the first part of three in the last part of the trilogy. (Sounds confusing? Read up on Dumas.)

Look at the pretty light

Point number eight is proof number one that Apple was way ahead of their time. Philip K. Dick must have owned one of those Pixar/iMac hybrids and he died 1982. This means that a prototype has been in the works for well over twenty years now. Wow. Gosh. Now I’m impressed.

Fantastic Metropolis

I hadn’t noticed Fantastic Metropolis before, which probably makes me the last person on earth to do so. However, at first glance it seems to be a rather interesting webzine. They apparently intendto publish a short story (or something else) by China Miéville.

But in the meantime, they have short stories by John Sladek and Patrick O’Leary, an essay by David Langford, another by Bruce Sterling which is all good enough for me.

Oh, and they had one essay by Michael Moorcock about Mervyn Peake too. (You didn’t see that one coming from miles away, did you?)

Ang Lee, awards and japanese cartoons

From the 170th issue of David Langford’s Ansible, the following things where learnt:

1) That Ang Lee is even cooler than previously known. “Ang Lee had sent a witty note of thanks and apology for not being present[...]”, as he couldn’t be present to accept his Hugo for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Which is more than winner for best novel did — it use to be the other way around. Usually directors and their associates ignore awards from the stf-field.

2) Even though I don’t like Anime, this is kind of neat. The Japanese animation studio responsible for Princess Mononoke are working on an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle. Diana Wynne Jones. Wow. I mean, it can’t be worse than the anime version of E.E. Doc Smith’s Lensman.

3) Jhonen Vasquez won a horror award for his comic I Feel Sick. Which I think is more than fine. He should win something every week.

-- Oh God!
-- Shut up! You’re here for a reason! Serve your purpose!
-- But I didn’t do anyth...
-- SHUT UP! I’ve got some questions for you. You will answer truthfully! You lie... and I CUT YOUR FILTHY THROAT. Is this milk still good?!
-- Huh? [sip, sip] Uh, yeah.
-- This lettuce! How crisp is it? HOW CRISP GODDAMMIT?!
-- It’s fine!
-- These fudge-pops! Freezer burn?! FREEZER BURN?!
-- Umm...
-- Eat the fuckin´ weenie!!!
-- Mmph... It tastes okay.
-- Whew! Thanks. I haven’t cleaned my fridge out in awhile. And, well... You know.
-- Jhonen Vasquez, Johnny the Homicidal
Maniac: Director’s Cut

The China man

I’m a bit ecstatic right now, as I’ve just found out that an almost local stf-con next year (Warning: link goes to a foreign page which will rot your brain) will have China Miéville — according to some sources dubbed “the sexiest man in politics” by the Evening Standard — as Guest of Honour. Finally an author I’ve read and whose books I’ve enjoyed.