Words by Frances Rowat
I understand that there’s going to be an announcement about the Hugo voter packages very soon. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a coherent list of links to what’s available online, you could do a lot worse than check out John DeNardo’s roundup at SF Signal. It’s huge.
Myself, I’m keeping a list here, Continue reading “Hugo helpfulness”
I saw The Last Unicorn tonight. On the big screen, with Peter S. Beagle in attendance and answering questions, and signing books afterwards (and taking pictures with people! I have a picture of myself with Peter S. Beagle now). And before I get any further I will note that tour dates are here and it would be lovely if you could pass that along to anyone you know of who’s interested.
I thought I might not cry this time, which is foolish. I never forget that I cry when I hear the theme song. But I always forget how sure it is, the tears coming up as smooth and sure as a stone drops down through water, and I thought that since I listened to the music last night as well the effect might be somewhat muted, and so I was sitting down to watch and thinking maybe this time I wouldn’t cry, and…
Yep. Tears. 🙂
(Did you know that the composition of your tears differs based on the emotion that evokes them?)
But yes. Peter S. Beagle was answering questions before the movie, and Connor Cochran[1] was… was maître d‘-ing or toastmastering or whatever the term is, and interjecting little anecdotes. And one of them was that when he first met Peter thirteen years ago, Peter thought he was a failure.
I… just hearing that was like the split-second of freefall confusion when our dog once yanked me off our front steps. Not the moment where I landed on the edge of the step and bruised myself purple-black for weeks. But the sudden absence of ground where there’d been that solid unquestioned presence only a second before.
Peter S. Beagle ever thought he was a failure.
Peter S. Beagle.
I would expect that sentiment no more from him than I would expect it from Ursula K. LeGuin.
I came home with more books than I went out with, and they are signed. And I am happy, and teary, and a little giddy, and so very very glad I got to tell him thank you for everything he’d written. And I’m sitting here, doing a little reading and being glad that things seem to be going better for him, and trying to wrap my head around how he could ever have believed…
I hope things keep getting better for him. I truly do.
—
[1] I am 95% sure this is the man, but I checked with the light of my life, and he never gave his name, and I meant to ask. Actually I am 99.8% sure, and I would be surer except it takes me a while to learn people’s faces and I did not see him for long. But 99.8% sure is not bad, so I set it down.
I like Westerns. Not as much as I like noir, but I like them. (I actually think there’s something to be said about the overlap between the two genres, but that’s a sidepoint.)
However: I love Weird Westerns, from the steampunk through the fantastic to the straight-up horror–admittedly with a strong preference for the horror end of things, but that’s just me. And there’s a new anthology possibly coming out, and the list of contributors is kind of making me wonder why I have heard almost nothing about it.
(What I have heard? Lucy A. Snyder tweeted about it. That’s it. I realize I may have missed some things, but…)
I am trying not to gush too much about that list, but one of the people on it wrote a scene in a horror novel that left me light-headed and faint. Another has written the only zombie story that made me cry. And there are thirteen authors on that list, and at the lowest pledge level that comes out to 77 cents a story and that’s not even counting any other contributors since it’s going to be open for submissions, and…
I get that genre fiction is one of those weird niche things, and Weird Westerns are the teeny-tiny cross-section of the genres that get the least space at our local public library.[1] I get that cash is often tight. I do.
But dammit, this is the Weird West, that place of high-noon glare and shrieking steam, of voices on the wind and grinning horrors in long black coats, of long shadows and bootheels clocking off the hours to midnight. And I believe with the heart of a hopeful fan that there are more than sixty-seven other people who want to get their hands on this anthology. So I figure that some people who would like it simply have not heard about it, and I am trying to pass word along.
Dark Trails. That link right there.
Maybe it’s not your thing. But if you know someone who’d like it, maybe pass the word along?
—
[1] It’s true. It’s sad. A bookshelf unit has six shelves each, and the horror/western paperbacks only take up three shelves combined. It kind of makes me happy that they’re next to each other, though.
I’m working my way through The Weird[1], and there are these lovely moments when I’m just browsing through it and I recognize something. (It’s way more fun, I think, to browse through the book than to look at the table of contents. I am better with snippets of text than with titles, many times.) Today I reread “The Summer People”, and deliberately held off on “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles”, because it is a cuddly sort of story that I will save for tonight, in case I am tired.
In other news, that is totally not actually news, I am going to Loncon 3. This is not a surprise; I have been saving for the trip since I heard about the bid, which was way back in May of 2010. It just seems a lot realler now that I’m in the calendar year that the convention will be occurring in. It will be my first WorldCon in five years, and I hope it is as much fun as the last one, and I will probably be flailing gently at practical details over the next couple of weeks.
(I realized that I own a ton of things I would love to have signed by people who are likely to be there, but the trouble is that those things are largely books. As a result, they weigh… well, not actually a ton, but I’m guessing quite a lot, and definitely more than I would like to carry. I am not fussed about this, because I have lots of time to figure out what I’m going to do.)
—
[1] This book, combined with the collected Gormenghast in one volume, is why I’m only aiming to read eighty books this year.
I have been stress-inducingly behind on a few things lately. The last couple of days have resulted in my managing to clear up some of them; hope to continue to make progress (touch wood, smile, move along to other topics before something comes up to throw a wrench into the works).
I’ve found I do fairly mechanical things (knitting, sorting, or repetitive coding) much better when there’s a familiar movie in the background, so I was able to make fairly good progress on a day which involved two run-throughs of Trick ‘r Treat (mentioned back here), a playing of Coraline, and a playing of The Shining. (I may not use The Shining for this purpose again; the soundtrack is too prone to blaring.) The length of a movie also provides an excellent cue for when it’s definitely time to get up and take a break.
I’ve drinking a mix of teas from David’s Tea lately–a place that sells fairly normal blends, and interesting herbal blends, and then blends which have little gold sugar confection decorations or pieces of popcorn or candy sprinkles. This is quite lovely, except for the bit where a fair number of the blends are tea, which is not a caffeine-free substance, and thus is not conducive to drinking in great quantities a few hours before bed. (I’ve recovered. I’m sure someone with a less ragged sleep schedule than me could come up with something quite pithy to say about (1) tea and (2) the sun never setting on the British Empire.)
I read Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep in three days, and yes that is an unusually long time for me to take at it. Pleased overall, looking thoughtfully at a couple of details, more thoughts in a bit.
I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying and really quite loved it, just saying. Dreamy, dark, sharp, and oh dear god I need to get back to writing proper reviews again because this one so deserves it. (It’s here on GoodReads, for those so moved to add it to their shelves.)
Several more things I am hoping to get done today; am going to take a short break (possibly until the tealight in my cute bat holder finishes burning down; it’s chilly and rainy and dark and wet out here, and candles do improve the mood), and then get back to it.
The stuff I tend to read has certain common qualities, and that’s fine. (I occasionally make deliberate efforts to mix it up, which I suspect helps. Although I do continue to bemoan the lack of an anti-recommendation button on any sites I frequent–you know, “absolutely no-one who has read the stuff you read has also read this popular book” or something.)
The stuff I read also has a certain common look, which occasionally perplexes me. I mean, if you look at my Goodreads widget, down in the lower right-hand corner (which I have for the moment switched from “currently reading” to “read”), there’s a bit of visual sameness. Black, red, and grey or blue-grey, mostly, with the occasional touches of yellow (hi, Elmore Leonard) or sickly green (either Scottish crime or Cthulhu). Killshot and Joyland are the brightest things I’ve finished lately, and they’re both pitched in a very classic-pulp-pop-crime style. (Joyland isn’t that at all – I would call it literary adventure ghost story if I had to call it something – but that’s not what the cover says.)
In the absence of a particular craving, am sorely tempted to determine the next book I pick up out of the ones I have on hand by colour of cover. Something bright or cheerful or at least atypical. (Possibilities include the nigh-solid lilac of Provender Gleed[1], the cheerfully bright green of The Manual of Detection, or the Northern Lights-evoking blue-and-purple-and-white of Tales from Earthsea.)
Do you read in patterns? How do you break out of them?
—
[1] By James Lovegrove; at this point, I feel compelled to once again mention that his novel Days is a brilliant work, absolutely worth reading.
I got my copy of Tales of Jack the Ripper today. I stopped by the mailbox on my way out to grab a fluffy coffee, and there was a giant padded envelope in it, and I was gleeful (what with recognizing the return address, and knowing what it was). So I took it along with me, thinking I would sit down with it over the aforementioned fluffy coffee[1] and read a little.
I ordered my coffee, and opened up the envelope, and discovered there was a small lump in it, in addition to the book. I was standing up against the serving counter to stay out of people’s way, so rather than step back to have room to peer down into the envelope, I just reached in and pulled it out.
I kind of wish I’d had a camera to catch the look on my own face. Continue reading “Dear Boss…”
Well, I submitted a story.
I… well, let’s be generous and say I haven’t done this much. I actually think I’ve submitted one story in the last two years, and not for years-that-get-into-double-digits before that and… well, let’s say I hold no malice whatsoever for the rejection and move along.
On a semi-related tangent: I keep using the phrase “mule puke” to refer to bad writing, as long as it’s my bad writing. “Oh god, I thought it was mule puke.” “It’s okay if this is mule puke, just keep typing. I can edit later.” “Why do I bother if it’s all mule puke?” This amuses me, a little, since I know exactly where I picked up the phrase–it’s from Dean Koontz’s Lightning.
This is a little funny, because… Seriously, I read that book about twenty years ago, it has twisty plots and dramatic death scenes and time-travelling Nazis, for crying out loud, and what do I remember? The author finding that her husband has gone out after reading her first novel and being convinced that it’s mule puke and he’s gone out to get enough liquid courage to tell her.
(He actually went out to buy her a (Lalique?) crystal bowl with leaping frogs for handles, which he was certain they could afford because her book was awesome and would sell millions. “Would you for god’s sake stop being the shattered young artiste and open your present?” He was right.)
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
As usual, four stars is my “recommend to anyone who’d like the genre” marker, but I’m not sure what the genre is. Dark and lovely and exquisitely written adult fairy tales I suppose, although it feels a bit odd to call them adult. (I mean, there’s clearly sex going on, but it’s a little distant, hardly ever explicitly referred to, and the emotional entanglements and compulsions are sad and/or creepy four times out of five.)
(It reminds me of Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & other Horrors a fair bit, actually.)
Ultimately, I think it’s the sad distance in the tone of so many of the stories that keeps me from going for four stars; the writing was amazing and beautiful and evocative, but so many of the stories left me feeling a little like I was having a sad day, and couldn’t tell anyone why. Definitely worth looking at, if fairy tale retellings are at all your thing, but be warned of possible disconsolation.
Wow, I’ve been talking a lot about the stuff other people write here lately, haven’t I? Will try and mix that up a bit; starting to feel a little like an echo chamber.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the story of a boy whose mother is sick, and the monster that comes to call.
It is a sad book, and a true one (in that it speaks a truth, not the truth; I think it is smart enough to realize that the topic it is addressing is not one it can fully dress down in words). I have not decided if it is a kind or a cruel book; if it is kind, it is a terrible sort of kindness.
I wrote, once, privately, seven-months-and-change ago, about how there is a dearth of narratives for accepting that you have finished grieving. This is not about that, but it speaks to the shunning–of aspects, of truth, of a person entire–that arises in response to apparently terminal illness, and I think the topics are related.
It strikes me as very worth reading, and I recommend picking it up most strongly.