Christmas: This Time It's Orthodox has passed into history now, and I have a lovely stack of books to show for it. They are mostly from the library. Except for the Serenity graphic novel, which I get to keep forever or until it disappears in my stacks, and Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which I think someone must've recommended as a bit of odd history.
I got through Spook Country pretty quickly, finding to my surprise that it had a genuine honest-to-deities plot. A William Gibson novel! With an arc! Who knew such a thing was possible? But I had to keep putting it down, lest the temptation to lick those delicious wicked sentences overwhelm me. When he's on his game, Gibson's balance of dry wit and perfect alienated observation jacks straight into the pleasure center of my brain and makes me cackle like an idiot. Pattern Recognition got me a couple of times, mostly with the text of the letters from the illicit archaeologist in Russia (thanks, guy who looked uncomfortable sitting next to me on the Metro! next time just switch seats!), but Spook Country was chock with lines that had me yeeping with delight. Fans of pure old-school cyberia will be disappointed, but people who like a cocktail of current events and black humor should have fun.
John Varley's Mammoth was another fast read. It rolls along at a good clip, mammoths and time travel and survivalism and animal liberationist movements. The ending ticked me off, though, because Varley basically waved his hand, said, "Eh, that bit's ineffable and nobody can figure it out," and seemed to cop out on explaining his looping logic and technological gizmo. Which, you know, fair enough, it's sciencey rhubarb and no real explanation would work, but it felt a little cheap. I'm glad that it was a library book.
I have read only the first page of the book of Clark Ashton Smith stories, but already I know (a) that the Inquisitors of Ong should really be the name of a post-punk band fronted by someone dressed as Ming the Merciless and I would pay a lot to see that show and (b) who Jim Theis was aping in his infamously horrible slush novel The Eye of Argon. "Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the gods of all proper and well-ordered lands; but there are no such gods in Yondo, where live the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells." I jolly well bet that they have. Yondo: Set Up Camp!
"O villain! O rogue! O slave! O rascal!"
"I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue." —G.K. Chesterton
8 comments:
Amen. And yet.
And yet the embarrassment of riches that is the stack o' new books after Christmas has also its down side. I flit between the book at hand and every single other one that I want to read right now.
For me it's the (3pj approved) C.S. Lewis, but then also the Cochrane biography, the Stephen Colbert, the book of Catholic apologetics, and the woodworking manual on making boxes.
Oh, the humanity.
When you got your Serenity graphic novel, did you also joke that you almost bid on a copy signed by Joss?
100% in agreement with the ending of _Mammouth_, although it's part of the paperback collection chez moi.
I got through Spook Country because the book I had actually gotten, a Tom Shippey anthology of SF from Wells on, was promptly coopted by others. I was not inconsolable. If other people steal most of your books, you've got an excuse for focusing on another one (although the traditional shriek of "Excuse me, I WAS READING THAT" works if the preferred volume has been sharked).
Is anything else by Varley better? I liked his writing style well enough, just not his loser ending. Weebat, I forgot to tell you about the date with the guy who had met Joss several times at Wesleyan. Hell and death, I was jealous of that.
Merry Christmas! Again!
I was just thinking about you, as a result of this post, the first part of which I think you'd appreciate.
Merry belated Christmas to you as well! Wow, the film is sort of hypnotic. I didn't expect the shutter speed (screens per second? whatever it is that makes movement look smooth) to be so high in 1908.
Did you see the Prokudin-Gorskii color photos of prerevolutionary Russia? The four-color process must've taken time, but seeing the past as another country that comes in colors other than B&W is very touching.
С Рождеством Христовым!
I hope that says what it`s supposed to say. ;)
It does, and thank you! I am glad to be somewhere warmer than Russia.
Ahahahahaha: Some people had the best Christmas carols!
Post a Comment