Tag: books

I’m telling you stories.

By then serials were dying anyway, and of what use was a green suit with a long cape and wings on the sides of its cowl? In the real world, there was no room for Green Falcons.

Got to work this morning and I couldn’t get “Night Calls the Green Falcon” out of my head. It’s from Robert R. McCammon’s Blue World collection, or at least that’s where I first read it.

A shriek like the demons of hell singing Beastie Boys tunes came from the speakers.

So I went looking, and bless the man, he has the whole thing up on his website. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s written as a serial, it really suits being posted online.

“No, I haven’t seen him for a while, but I know what his name was.” He grinned, gapped-tooth. “John Smith. That’s what all their names were.” He glanced at the Green Falcon. “Can you breath inside that thing?”

It’s about a man who used to play a hero in the old movie serials–you know the kind, right? Ten chapters to a story, dramatic cliffhangers, come back next week for the next thrilling episode in this dynamic mystery, “The Star and Question Mark”!

“Hey, amigo,” the man said, and flame shot from the barrel of the small pistol he’d just drawn.

I mean… okay, it is not entirely surprising that I am a sap for stories about people trying to live up to the stories; ones about the power of stories to change the world. Galaxy Quest. Shakespeare in Love–not the romantic plot or subplot or whatever it was, but the sheer weight of the theatre, the “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” Hogfather, and the difference between the sun coming up and a giant ball of flaming gas illuminating the world.

He kept going to the stairs, burdened with age.

“‘Dear Davy,’” the voice rang out. “‘I am sorry I can’t come to Center City this summer, but I’m working on a new mystery…’”

The Green Falcon stopped.

I’m not saying it’s great art. It’s a four-colour story, bright and simple and clear. It has a grim and bloody moment or two, but then of course it does; they always did.

Who was he? somebody asked. The Green Falcon? Did he used to be somebody? Yeah, a long time ago. I think I saw him on a rerun. He lives in Beverly Hills now, went into real estate and made about ten million bucks, but he still plays the Green Falcon on the side.

Oh, yeah, somebody else said. I heard that too.

I heard that too.

Matter of time.

I can’t find my copy of The Feminine Mystique.  This has been on my mind–not overwhelmingly so, but definitely noticeable–every day this week.

See, there’s this one part that mentions a study on the time spent housekeeping; what I remember, loosely, is that when the work was given to another household member, it got finished in half the time.  Sometimes less.  And combined with how quickly I was getting through physical filing when I had to concentrate on it (due to the lack of a computer), and how quickly work seemed to go when I started the job…

I want to reread it.  Right now I have the impression that (1) the household chores are feeling alot more overwhelming than they actually are, and (2) maybe I can get over this if I can change it up somehow.  Maybe the time it’s taking isn’t really the time it takes.

(Maybe I just want to read about someone cleaning an entire house and making lunch and doing groceries and still being done by mid-afternoon.)

Long weekend coming up.  I’ve gotten a lot of work done, and some of it’s stuff that isn’t even necessary, it’s in the “I said I would” category.  But it sems there’s been very little time for what I want to do, or that when I’ve done it I haven’t gotten any lasting enjoyment out of it.

Know this kind of thing comes and goes.  Just really don’t care to sit back and wait for it to go if there’s something I can change to make it go, preferably sooner rather than later.

Helps a little to articulate this, at least.

Settling through

I had a couple of ill-advised over-enthusiastic book purchases this year, and my number of owned-but-utterly-unread books is edging uncomfortably close to triple-digits.  (In fact, I think it might be over triple digits, but I am not checking at the moment; the list of eighty-six is quite unnerving enough without entering the books from one particular bookcase.)

(The list was actually at eighty-nine as of April 30.)

In light of this, I’m making a serious effort to read what I own.  I liked them enough to buy them, and as flip as I may occasionally be about this, that’s not a casual thing.  And an untouched book strikes me as a horribly sad thing.

I just finished Terry Lamsley’s Conference with the Dead yesterday. I discovered I’d read a couple of them before–this isn’t atypical, I’ve read horror anthologies and magazines for a couple of decades, and it’s actually getting a bit hard for me to find an anthology or collection that doesn’t have something I’ve read before. Still, it was long enough ago that I decided it was worth a reread.

His writing seems quite plain–not in a bad way, but plain in the way M.R. James is quiet. The later stories in the book are slightly weirder; there’s the same calm explanation as always, it’s just relating how reality is doing a quiet little fever-dream melt and slip. They never quite end up portraying the misunderstandings of a character as reality, though–it’s something I associate very much with Ramsey Campbell, and with him writing the introduction, I was a bit anxious about the possibility.

Overall, a very good read.

(Please understand; I like Campbell’s writing, but I’d settled into the quiet ghost story mood of he collection, and I don’t think the style would have fit.)

Not wanting to turn out the light.

Let’s be clear: this is not being afraid to turn out the light.  This is knowing that when you turn out the light, you will spend a moment (and moments can be very long) lying in the dark, listening to your breathing, and thinking about what you just read.  And what you just read is creepy, and not relaxing, and you can’t quite stop dwelling on it.

(Awesome feeling, really.  Right, where was I?)

I was browsing through my list of currently-being-read books and noting most of them don’t have that–or at least, I don’t expect them to have it.  Still working through them, after all.  Of the two that might, one is a brick of an anthology from ’85, and one is a limited-edition collection.  (Yes, both are a pile of short stories; I find those tend to disturb much more easily than novels.) Both are hardcovers.  Neither lends themselves to being read comfortably in bed.

This is probably a good thing at the moment, since I need to be up early tomorrow, and do not want to be awake thinking about how wonderfully Michael Shea handles shoggoths and limited-omniscient POV voice.  But I still rather regret not having more quietly unsettling things to read.

In the meantime, however, I’ve finished Horns (yes, I know; started it yesterday and had it all-but-done the same, read the epilogue-ish moment today) and am looking around for something to relax with.  I may dig out some Stuart MacBride; I’m not sure why the Logan McRae novels are always soothing, but at this point I’d just like to be able to unwind and read enough to get to sleep.

Surprise reads

Light of my life found a hardcover copy of Horns (horror novel by Joe Hill) on clear-this-out discount sale last time we were at Chapters. I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and couldn’t sleep, and thought reading for a bit before lying back down might help, so I picked it up.

(Also, honestly, I can’t find “The Library Policeman” and I knew enough about the premise of Horns that I thought it might have some decently plausible writing about a guy coping with an impossible situation.)

Anyway, I promptly got hooked. Read through the entire first section and a few pages into the second before deciding I was tired enough to be put the book down, wander out for a glass of milk, and poke the keyboard. As one does.

The first section really grabbed me. The second section, however, is a digression-back-to-childhood or prequel or something else that I can’t remember the name of right now, because it’s 3:30 a.m. and I’m going back to bed. I found it a lot less gripping; could practically feel the momentum of reading screeching to a halt. Not sure how much of that has to do with being tired again, though.

More later.

Achey and tired.

I’ve had a headache for about ten hours now.  I mean, I realize I am having this headache on a day when a good friend of mine is having a migraine, and that does a lot to put it in perspective.  But it’s starting to wear on me.

I got a story rejection today.  I was expecting it, and it was very polite.  Still… what can you do?

(ObAnswer: Pick up and carry on.  I know, I know.  Goal for tomorrow: two new pages.)

Watching Game of Thrones and comfortably hating Theon.  I do love the Greyjoys and the Iron Islands; they make me think of King Hagrid, cold and drawn and grey, standing by the sea and watching the waves they rule. Blood and salt and iron.

And the Cthulhu shout-outs don’t hurt either.

Started two new anthologies–End of the World and Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead–and neither one is really grabbing me yet.  I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will clear things up.  Whether or not the extension goes through tomorrow (and I expect it will; early next week if not), at least there’s only six work-hours left until the weekend.

I’m very sorry.  I wish I could come up with something more interesting to say.

Juggling duties.

Looking forward to the long weekend.  I wouldn’t say my time’s already booked, but I expect I know how most of it is going to go.  Hoping I can get a couple of hours in to sit down and write, and a chance to goof off and relax so I actually feel up to same.

(Running around an alien mothership without your faithful canine companion: totally relaxing.)

I need to reorganize my office again.  My London-and-Mythos shelf needs to become just a Mythos shelf; with the latest anthology, there’s no more room for them both.  Even if I relocate the London stuff, there’s only about another foot of space, but it’ll last for a bit.

Have work for at least a few months, which is nice, since I just found out that Pelgrane is putting out another sourcebook in the vein of The Dead White World. Mind, I’m not sure I would ever actually get to run anything; all the gamers I know aren’t local or wouldn’t be interested.  I wish gaming books were something you could get at the library; it seems like a waste to buy one and then not do anything with it.  They’re not like most books; they’re not just for reading.  More like recipe collections or knitting books.  Buying them and not doing anything with them is sad, and rather cluttered.

Notes from a dying laptop.

Huh.  822 words in just a bit under 57 minutes.  I think that’s actually pretty close to the “two hundred and fifty words every quarter hour.”  Mind, half of them need to be dragged out and shot, but there are words!

Had an interesting discussion about Dale (of Walking Dead), Glen Bateman (of The Stand), and Bobby (from Supernatural) with John, earlier today.  I was frustrated because I didn’t have quite the right words for them, and couldn’t pin down the common elements.  (Besides, you know, all three of them have made me cry once.  Damn characters.)

It’s hard to get into this without getting into spoilers, and my laptop is telling me “shut it down, dummy, you have 8 minutes left”, but the end result of the discussion was that we started with the idea of father figures and what they mean the hero has to do, and from there went through the concept of homemakers on to culture heros, tricksters, and civilizing influences.  TV Tropes has failed me, and that’s okay, because while it’s a nice thing to check in on occasionally I am actually perfectly fine with opinions that aren’t pre-listed on it.  (Still need a better breakdown of pet monster idea, too.)

4 minutes power left, warning light blinking, more later.