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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Sunday, May 18th, 2008 |
ktsparrow
|
7:56a |
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| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 |
ecmyers
|
7:35p |
I'm back! I finished the first chapter of Quantum Coin! And it's about time (literally and figuratively). I've been dawdling on this for a while, reluctant to start it while I was still tinkering with Fair Coin (which ain't done yet, folks). It's been so long since I wrote actual fiction, I was starting to wonder if I ever would again. But still! I just wrote about 1200 words, which makes me very pleased indeed. It's more or less the way I've been planning it for many many months, but will obviously need much revision when I get to that stage. I hope to keep the forward motion going as long as I can. In other news, work has been kicking my ass. Long hours, very busy days, and a hectic social calendar means I've been falling behind on everything. I'm gearing up for the Clarion West Write-a-thon again this summer (more on that later), so I expect to re-prioritize writing, as much as my day job will let me... Current Mood:  happy |
catrambo
|
4:27p |
Reminders As I was sorting slush today, something came up that I mention here in the hope that it will prove useful to a few of you.
Don't post stories online, unless it's behind password protection. Otherwise it starts looking already published. Jed Hartman's posted about that here. Allow me to repeat that again: posting a story publicly counts as publishing it. Things like private critique groups, which are password protected, are fine and dandy. Public forums? No no no!
Along the same line: we do not take multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions, and I will bounce things back to you quickly if they fall into either of those two categories. Current Mood:  hopefulCurrent Music: Dengue Fever - Tiger Phone Card |
| Friday, May 16th, 2008 |
ecmyers
|
11:51a |
the good, the bad, and the ugly I think it's fairly obvious which is which: Dollhouse has a trailer ( alternate link until the official site gets its, ahem, kinks worked out). The City of Ember movie trailer is up! Not sure how I feel about this. I don't remember a lot of this from the mostly excellent book, but maybe I've just forgotten the details? It looks to me like they've made it into a junior Da Vinci code with a timer counting down. Cast looks cool though. Butterfly Effect...3. Dear God, why? I actually thought the first one was more or less solid, but made the horrible horrible mistake of renting the sequel--which really made me wish I could travel back in time. I can't unwatch that, but I can avoid this sequel one like the plague. OK, back to work. ETA: The YouTube link to the trailer for Dollhouse is already defunct (they work fast!) but here's a clip from the show. |
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 |
velourmane
|
1:19p |
San Fran Mayor's Spokesman: "We won!" CA joins MA as the second state to allow gay marriage. It's so nice to have GOOD news! From the San Jose Mercury News: A sharply divided California Supreme Court today legalized same-sex marriage, a historic ruling that will allow gay and lesbian couples across the state to wed as soon as next month and inflame the social, political and moral debate over gay unions.
In a 4-3 ruling written by Chief Justice Ronald George, the Supreme Court struck down California laws that restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, finding that it is unconstitutional to deprive gays and lesbians of the equal right to walk down the aisle with a marriage license in hand.
The California and Massachusetts Supreme Courts are now the only top courts in the country to uphold the right of gay couples to marry.
"The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples," the court observed in a 121-page decision.
The reaction was immediate.
A spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a simple e-mail to his press staff: "We won."
When the news was signaled to the more than 100 people gathered on the steps outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco by a thumbs up, they let out whoops of joy, and some broke out in tears. From the ruling written by Chief Justice Ronald George: "Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation like a person's race or gender does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental consitutional right to form a family relationship, the California constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples." |
catrambo
|
9:35a |
Today In Transit Dropped off car for repairs, caught bus home, calculated bus route into Seattle, now I'm off again. Whee! Current Mood:  busy |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 |
catrambo
|
2:31p |
Gabcussion Boards Yes, I do know the Armageddon MUD discussion boards are currently down. The problem is apparently at Dreamhost's end. Do not panic and remain in your seats. They will be back. Current Mood:  optimistic |
krisname
|
11:28a |
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  |
| Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 |
catrambo
|
9:34p |
Snausages I don't usually engage in technolust, but this is tempting me sorely for next time I have cash to burn.
Some of the Armageddon staff are reading Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds and getting ready to discuss it. I'm hoping to make that a regular thing and contemplating Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun for the next book. I keep hitting passages in the Bartle book and going "Oh, that's so on the mark, I never thought of it that way." Highly recommended if you're interested in game design.
Does anyone in the LJ hivemind have Connie Wilkins' e-mail? I'm moderating a WisCon panel she's on, and I'm trying to contact the participants for some beforehand discussion. If you have it and could let her know mine and that I'm trying to reach her, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Current Mood:  amused |
crowleycrow
|
8:28p |
Conversation Hearts II ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) joculum advises: The signed limited edition (250 copies) can only be ordered on the Subterranean Press website, and then only through the page that contains the description of the book. Their catalog order page lists only the 1000 copy edition. The general edition is clothbound, the limited signed edition is leatherbound. |
crowleycrow
|
5:21p |
Conversation Hearts It appears that Amazon.com is prepared to sell any interested party a copy or copies of a new small work of mine, Conversation Hearts, published by Subterranean Press in a signed limited edition, in two bindings. The work (story? Novelette? Thingie?) is a sort of centaur or hybrid, story-within-a-story, which parttimedriver and others heard me read at SUNY last spring (fall? Sometime) but which has otherwise never been put before the public. Actually it does not yet exist, however, as I have yet to sign all the signature sheets that will be bound into the finished book, which I am about to do. Those who (for one reason or another) do not wish to purchase a signed limited edition will have to wait even longer, but surely the piece will appear in some less exquisite form somewhere else sometime. |
catrambo
|
10:37a |
And how war yore maggies? Some catching up:
1) I came back from vacation to a wealth of discussion on "The Stolen Word", the story by Lisa Mantchev we ran while I was gone. I thought much of the discussion was informative*, and I appreciate a swift kick in the assumptions from time to time, since that's often a good way to learn. Personally I tend to be gentle when challenging other people's assumptions since my belief is that people listen better that way, but a case for effectiveness could be made on either side of that. I'll note that "Lighten up" or "This is just fantasy" don't work well for me as responses - for one thing, I don't believe you can look at a piece of writing as something divorced from the material circumstances or culture that produced it. I like the story and look forward to seeing more from Lisa.
2) The Russian specfic magazine, Esli, will be reprinting "Kallakak's Cousins". Since my college Russian is extremely rusty, I'm going to try to knock some of the rust off by reading the story.
3) I'll be at Wiscon in a couple of weeks and look forward to seeing people there. After that comes the Locus Awards and the beginning of Clarion West, where I'll be volunteering once a week in the classroom again. Somewhere in the summer comes ReaderCon, which krisname has talked me into attending.
4) I got my copy of the SteamPunk anthology, which has many lovely zeppelins drawn in the front by the dashing and dynamic Team VanderMeer. Looking forward to reading it. You've got a couple of days left if you want to take advantage of their sale price and special personalization.
5) I highly recommend this Barth Anderson story appearing in Strange Horizons.
6) I'll be participating in the Clarion West Write-a-thon again this year. More on that when the page is up and ready, but I'm promising a story a week and will be doing the weekly mailing with snippets for supporters once more.
7) The OBX trip was awesome, overall. My favorite moment would be the Beatles karaoke session, since there's something touching about a roomful of people belting out "Hey Jude" in unison.
8) And now I need to go finish up the terrorism study guide.
*My only major irritation in the thread is that it's scummy to not attach your name to a comment attacking something. That's cowardly and mean-spirited. You know who you are. Current Mood: busyCurrent Music: Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart |
velourmane
|
8:50a |
Migraine, Migraine, Go Away
You know, I almost never took my migraine medication when it was an option. I preferred to sleep through the buggers. (My medication was expensive -- about $6/pill -- and I always wanted to make sure I had some on hand in case of real emergencies.)
These days, I'm taking another medication that conflicts with my migraine meds. The possibility of the two drugs interacting in a bad way is relatively low, if I understand correctly, but one of the possible side effects is death, which I prefer to avoid. Now that I have no way other than sleep or caffeine to combat the headaches... god, I long for the damn pills.
Of course, I think my migraines are also worse now, which may actually be caused by the drug that prevents me from taking my migraine meds; I'm not sure. I'm sound sensitive where I never used to be, and the headaches have started waking me up instead of putting me to sleep. So I end up waking after three hours sleep, having no concentration to do anything, being cut off from most brainless activities by sound and light sensitivity, and not being able to fall back asleep. Luckily, despite their inconvenience, my migraines are pretty mild, as evidenced by the fact that I'm using the computer at all. The light sensitivity makes it painful, but not impossible.
One-word post summary: kvetch. |
ecmyers
|
9:42a |
... I had the usual fluffy LJ post planned for this morning, but I just read about last night's devastating earthquake in China, and I'm kind of stunned. If you have friends or family there, I hope you hear from them soon and that everyone's all right. I just can't wrap my brain around the death toll on this one, especially on the heels of the Myanmar disaster. As fearful as we all are of terrorist attacks in today's world, these natural catastrophes frighten me more. Current Mood:  shocked |
| Monday, May 12th, 2008 |
countesslovlace
|
9:30p |
Helix has just accepted my spec fiction sonnet, "Kafka Respun".
I seem to be on a roll here. |
ecmyers
|
6:11p |
quantum Do you like Dean Stockwell? Do you want to hear Dean Stockwell rap? His "Alphabet Song Rap" from Quantum Leap surprised me when it popped up on my playlist at the gym. I had completely forgotten about it, and it's kind of...bad. I suppose it's kind of funny too, so I tried to find it on YouTube to share with all you Brother Cavil fans out there. YouTube failed me. I did however discover a bizarre "video review" that is either really creepy or really pathetic. You decide! (Warning: there are some spoilers for season 3 and 4 of the show, if you haven't seen the series yet...but I doubt you'll get far enough in the video to have to worry about it.) And if you want to hear a snippet of the Alphabet Song Rap from the television soundtrack, check here. I warn you, it's not much on lyrics, but you'll never look at the Number One Cylon again. (Side note: just realized that the Battlestar Galactica episode title "Six of One" and Cavil being designated as Number One is a total reference to The Prisoner! Someone should update Wikipedia.) I'm having a weird day at work. It's busy too, but not so you could tell from my updates here. Whatever it takes to get through the week... Be seeing you. |
velourmane
|
3:08p |
Another review of an older anthology: The Faery Reel, eds. Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow At some point -- I think in Locus? -- I read an interview with Gordon Van Gelder in which he described his reaction to elves as being like lactose intolerance. "I'm elf intolerant," he said. I am also elf intolerant. And that extends to fairies. Actually, I don't bother to distinguish between "under the hill" elf stories and "under the hill" fairy stories; they strike me as basically the same equation. So, consequently, I wasn't really expecting to enjoy the anthology The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm, despite its excellent editors and dazzling array of author names. And I didn't. In my (biased toward giving low ratings) personal rating system, I gave the stories in this anthology the following splay. I didn't read the poetry. Five stars: two Four stars: two Three stars: three Two stars: two One star: eight There were two stories in this anthology for which I ran out of energy before the author ran out of story, and another that I skimmed heavily. I certainly can't blame the authors for this. It was definitely the subject matter. One of the stories I failed to finish reading was "Elvenbrood" by Tanith Lee, who is one of my favorite authors. I devour most of her stories voraciously. Add elves, and I take a nap. There are problems with writing elf stories -- or, rather, there are problems with elves and fairies as those cultural constructs generally appear in modern American fiction. (Western) elves, like vampires, are super-cool. They're impossibly powerful, impossibly beautiful, impossibly impossible. And also diffident. Worse, the concept of the changeling lends itself too easily to a sort of immature wish-fulfillment, an all-to-easty metaphor for growing up an ugly duckling surrounded by powerful and beautiful swans. There are intriguing angles from which to approach western-style elves, certainly... but I think it's fundamentally a challenge. The narratives we draw around them tend to be pretty tired, and I think it's hard to riff on the concept while still preserving the feel of "elf-ness," which itself seems to be derived in large part from the tired use of tropes. The anthology does touch on some non-western creatures that fall into the concept of fairies, such as Japanese kitsune. These stories have a bit more original space in which to work before running into the cloy of elfness. As with most themed anthologies, I appreciated those stories that went further afield from the subject to draw their material. The most literal and traditional elf stories -- like "Elvenbrood" -- were significantly less interesting than the riffs that deconstructed and built anew the older tropes. Although the anthology as a whole left me flat, there are some very nice pieces in it. My favorite was Kelly Link's The Faery Handbag" which deservedly won a bunch of awards. I first read this piece in Kelly Link's collection Magic for Beginners. Even among Link's generally amazing work, "The Faery Handbag" stands out as particularly good. The narrator's playful voice is compelling; the detail work gorgeous; the non-linear structure intriguingly woven but still sharp by the end. This story doesn't stir me emotionally the way some of Link's other work does ("Magic for Beginners" from which her second collection draws its name is my favorite of her stories -- unfortunately, I don't think it's still available online), but it's a delightful and original read. I also really enjoyed Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Immersed in Matter" which follows a half-elf boy as he flirts with the edges of human civilization, for subconscious reasons that are only partially clear to him. This story is pretty traditional and the elves in it fit within most of the stereotypes of elves, but the story really worked for me, which I suppose just goes to show that anything can work when done well. I think the keys to this story's success, at least for me, are the ways in which it slides around the themes of "How do I grow up awkward?" and "What does it mean to be human?" The main character does end up playing out some of the angsty changeling themes, but does so in a way that's subtle rather than self-pitying. The theme emerges naturally from the story, rather than feeling hammered in or overt. The story benefits greatly from what I felt was nicely rendered and subtle characterization. Jeffrey Ford's " The Annals of Eelin-Ok" is a fake sort of academic essay in which a scholar describes the lives of fairies who live their lives in sand castles, ending his essay with the translated text of a memoir by one such fairy. This story -- with its classification of fairy types, and concentration on how the fairies interact unseen with human children -- seems clearly a riff on the idea of fairies at the bottom of the garden, but Ford's voice is strikingly clear and compelling, and he uses modern storytelling techniques to create a real sense of emotional involvement with the character. By the end of the piece, a naturally evolving theme of ephemerality has appeared, and despite the fact that fairies often lend themselves to a sort of saccharine tone, Ford doesn't flinch from his ending, instead pushing to a darker and more ambiguous place. Hiromi Goto's "Foxwife" is another of the anthology's particularly interesting pieces. My favorite thing about the piece is that it seems to take on a fictionalized Japan similar to the way most western authors take on a Defaulty McBland fictionalized England. It doesn't cater to western assumptions about society, or western assumptions about Japan -- which disoriented me a bit early on, in all the best ways. The imagery here is vivid, and the scenes unexpected. The piece doesn't quite tie together for me, and the ending was weak, but I enjoyed taking the journey of reading it. I also enjoyed Emma Bull's "De La Tierra" and Bruce Glassco's "Never, Never," although neither is the kind of fiction I usually seek on my own. "De La Tierra" is urban fantasy, following a biologically modified sort of private security agent for the fairy population of LA. This story reminds me of Greg Van Eekhout's "Osteomancer's Son," which will be appearing on PodCastle next Tuesday: action centered around a very shiny idea with lots of eyeball kicks. In the case of "De La Tierra," there's also a strong political subtext which I went back and forth about as a reader... I wasn't sure if the message was a little reductive of the complexities involved, or on the contrary a fairly brilliant way of expressing the political ideas involved. In the end, I settled on a bit of both, and I liked that the story had room enough for me to sustain that ambiguity. "Never, Never" is an engagement with Peter Pan, told from the perspective of Captain Hook. The story relies heavily on the reader's sense of nostalgia for the Peter Pan books... which I have to say I don't have nostalgia for. Still. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it, and I like the way the piece stretched my imagination. And the tender, slightly melancholic scene between Captain Hook and Tiger Lily enchanted me. Besides, there's something all too true about the idea that an omnipotent, ever-young Peter Pan would act like an enfant terrible, filling his island at turns with vicious pirates, gigantic war robots, ninjas, and aliens. I'll also give a shout out to another story: "The Night Market" by Holly Black is a sort of feminist fantasy short for a YA audience that doesn't break a lot of ground plot-wise, but has some strikingly cool imagery in the night market scene itself. I thought this story was online, but I'm not finding it at a glance. If someone else knows the link, toss it to me, would you? A number of the stories in this anthology attempt to come up with some original elf feul by using elf and fairy creatures as direct analogues for environmental damage. For me, this ranged from the moderately successful as in Gregory Maguire's "The Oak Thing" which has an intriguing enough main character that the piece doesn't feel heavy-handed, to the unsuccessful "Undine" by Patricia McKillip which took its metaphor too seriously and directly. In general, these weren't pieces that worked for me (except for Emma Bull's, which had a lot of other political stuff going on as well). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for environmentalist messages in fiction or otherwise, but I think it's too easy to make all-perfect all-beautiful elves and fairies a metaphor for voiceless, abused, innocent nature, without really having to examine either the politics of the message or the basis for the metaphor. The prettily written "The Shooter at Heart Rock Waterhole" by Bill Congreve exemplifies this problem for me; the elf who symbollizes nature starts out dead and voiceless. It's all too unidirectional and easy, all too unconflicted. I'm inclined to support an environmentalist message, but I need more than the metaphorical destruction of a beautiful fairy or elven body to care more than I already do. |
charlieallery
|
10:08a |
Feline visitors As mentioned by del_c the other day, I played host to his cats, Rocky and Buzz for a week. Both are black and white tuxedos. Though Rocky is long-haired, being part Maine Coon, Buzz could be Baggy's brother. They're lovely boys, though a little more fond of exploring vertically than Baggy was. :) They were wonderful to have around, though it prompted a few more tears and confirmed that I'm not ready to take on a permanent companion yet ... or two. I can now see the attraction of having more than one cat in a household, though I think when I eventually take the plunge, it'll be in stages. In the meantime, Buzz and Rocky will be back to visit again in a while and I expect more bloggery will happen then. And now, ( pictures ... ) Current Mood:  pensive |
| Saturday, May 10th, 2008 |
countesslovlace
|
7:45p |
|
ann_leckie
|
2:58p |
Mach Go Go Go!
Pitch.
Freaking.
Perfect.
The reviewer for the Post said it was too lightweight, and I thought, "Um? This is Speed Racer we're talking about. Any attempt to add weight would be...perhaps misguided is the kindest word."
The obligatory schmalz moments did not make me want to puke, and were over quickly, which is saying a great deal; my tolerance for obligatory schmalz moments is really, really low. Whoever said it was like they'd melted Starburst candies and poured them in your eyes? Bang on target. And if they'd paced it even a hair faster it would have been incomprehensible. And possibly triggered seizures.
Oh, and the Paidhi Kids enjoyed it greatly. |
| Friday, May 9th, 2008 |
catrambo
|
12:04p |
Last Day of Vacation The ocean is made of marvelous stripes of teal and greeny-brown and farthest out, a chill serene blue. I just came in from taking pictures of the dolphins swimming along the beach, and was lucky enough to have a vee of pelicans swoop and dive through the frame at one point. The weather is contradictory - sunlight while rain is falling, undiluted sun, and then clots of heavy, solid rain. It's the day for everyone doing their last things - finishing up conversations, stocking up on salt water taffy for friends back home, a final walk along the water.
Tomorrow is for traveling, but Sunday I'll catch up on e-mail and discussion boards and all the other bits and pieces I've been away from this week. I just wanted to let you all know how marvelous the dolphins are. Current Mood:  thankful |
velourmane
|
11:53a |
Totally Timely Review of The Coyote Road I recently read through Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling's anthology The Coyote Road, which isn't a new release or anything. But hey. Since I took notes on the anthology, I thought I'd share them, for whatever they're worth (probably not much). I thought this was an excellent anthology. Anything edited by Ellen Datlow has, in my opinion, a high chance of being excellent, but I was especially impressed by this one. I've been reading through the Datlow/Windling fairy tale anthologies recently as well (and may blog about them), and I thought Coyote Road shone in comparison. I don't know why that is. If i had to take a guess, I'd say that the rewritten fairy tale genre represents territory that's more trod, particularly by the time Datlow and Windling hit book 5 or 6. That's not to say I don't enjoy the fairy tale anthologies, and particularly some of the stories -- I do very much like the fairy tale anthos. But I thought that the Coyote Road had a higher overall quality. In my personal rating system (which is not at all a fair; it's tilted severely toward giving things low ratings), I rated two of these stories with fives (total adoration), one with a four (strong enthusiasm), eight with threes (enjoyment), two with twos (competent stories that didn't appeal to me personally for whatever reason), and nine with ones (stories I didn't particularly like for one reason or another). My favorite piece from the anthology is Kij Johnson's Nebula nominated novelette, " The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change." Diatryma says she adores the character, and there is nice character development here of both humans and canines, but I was particularly impressed by the weaving of different types of narratives into this story. It's an extremely well-rendered balance of scene, meta-fictional intrustion, and mythic stories, all of which add up to an extremely moving piece. The other story I rated a five was Kelly Link's "Constable of Abal," the story of a woman and her daughter who keep ghosts on ribbons. This story has all the best hallmarks of Link's work: extremely vivid imagery, appealing strangeness, a carefully constructed mood. My most common complaint about Link's stories is that they are sometimes structurally weak, or have trouble finding an ending, but this story is plotted extremely well and ends satisfyingly without losing the imagery or the mood. I also enjoyed Ellen Kushner's "Honored Guest" which makes me want to check out her Swordspoint series. For some reason, I've never read any Kushner before. I'm missing something. Many of the stories in this anthology are well-written, engaging, diverting reads. For instance, Pat Murphy's "One Odd Shoe" and Delia Sherman's "The Fiddler of Bayou Teche" are both very entertaining stories that play with interesting characters, settings, and voices, even though neither felt totally fresh to me. I enjoyed reading them, and I'd read them again. Barzak gives some gorgoeus details about Tokyo in "Realer Than You" and Caroline Stevermer made me laugh in "Uncle Bob Visits'swith her ghost who hates diagramming sentences. I adore Elllen Klages's work, which may be why I was a trifle disappointed in "Friday Night at St. Cecilia's," the perfectly nicely written and entertaining story of a private school girl who plays a board game with Queen Mab. The story as a whole is diverting and fun and was a pleasant read, but I missed the feeling of emotional resonance I've found in most other Klages stories. There were two stories in the anthology -- Jebediah Barry's "The Other Labyrinth" and Jeffrey Ford's "The Dreaming Wind" -- that I wanted to like more than I did. Both had absolutely gorgeous imagery. I'm a sucker for labyrinths of roses and mirrors, not to mention winds that can recreate people in the image of goats or parrots in the image of baby dolls. Unfortunately, I didn't feel either story was able to bring their stories to a conclusion that suited their vivid beginnings. "The Other Labyrinth" seems to set up one kind of story, and then switch tone in the middle. "The Dreaming Wind" establishes a phenomenon so cool that I never quite forgave the author for refusing to let the event actually happen. Like "The Other Labyrinth" and "The Dreaming Wind," Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "The Listeners" had an extremely compelling beginning -- though in the case of that story, I was drawn to characterization and world-building rather than imagery. Unfortunately, I also felt this story tapered off at the end. The stories in Coyote Road are supplemented by author's notes, which I love. Will Shetterly argues in his author's note that author's notes in general reduce a story's appeal to that of a "show" with its backstage tricks revealed -- I absolutely can't agree. One thing I enjoy about fiction is being able to enjoy it through multiple facets. Seeing a story from a writer's perspective does not dim my ability to see it as a reader. In my usual persnickety way, I read through this anthology haphazardly instead of straight through -- and as usually happens, there were a few stories left at the end whose first pages I kept glancing at and going "I don't want to read that" before flipping to the next piece. I always end up reading those stories last, and it's possible that I was just done with the anthology's theme by the time I got to them -- but, as always, I enjoyed those stories least. There were four stories in this anthology that I had to push myself to skim. I abandoned those four at their halfway points. There are a number of stories in this anthology that take on trickster myths directly, particularly a number that engage with Coyote. Of these, I thought the best was Pat Murphy's "One Odd Shoe." However, in general, I wasn't as fond of the stories that took a direct look at the trickster myths rather than finding different ways of engaging with trickster legends. I love coyote stories -- but I love them enough that I'd rather read the originals than derivatives. Kim Antieu's "The Senorita and the Cactus Thorn," for instance, was perfectly competent and entertaining enough, but it was sufficiently similar to the style of the original legends that I found myself wanting to go back and reread those instead. The authors in the anthology take on a number of different kinds of tricksters, from Hermes, to a labyrinth maker descended from Daedelus, to Louisiana fiddlers. I think the anthology would have been improved by a little bit more diversity in terms of the tricksters that authors chose to work with. For instance, I was surprised that no one engaged with Odysseus or Anansi ( Edited to add: Over at Alas, Ellen Datlow has kindly pointed out that while no stories took on Anansi, there is a Jane Yolen poem in the anthology that works with the spider trickster). I was also disappointed in the only piece that worked with the historically complicated Brer Rabbit narrative. For me, the most successful stories were those that found unique ways to engage with trickster mythology. Kij Johnson's is the msot obvious example. In her piece, she's directly engaging with trickster myths -- and with Coyote -- but she's doing so in a way that engages with and recontextualizes the trickster myths, deconstructing them to investigate their cultural traction, and then rebuilding them to create new insights. This was a really cool anthology, and I highly recommend it. |
ecmyers
|
9:46a |
altered fluid on the "it's so late it's early show" My writing group Altered Fluid will be on Jim Freund's radio show, Hour of the Wolf, this Saturday morning at 5:00am on WBAI 99.5 FM. Unfortunately, we will be live on the air, which means I won't be getting much sleep tonight. Standard operating procedure for me, natch. If you are an insomniac, an early riser, or a good friend, you can listen to mattkressel read his new short story, then hear the rest of us tell him what's wrong with it--just like an actual meeting! The only difference is we might be using bigger words in our critiques, and we'll probably stick to the imposed time limit. And we'll yawn more than usual, which is likely not an indication of the quality of the story, but our sleepiness. If you're lazy or forget to tune to the right station or something, you can also catch a streamed recording of the show after the broadcast in the WBAI archives. This will be our third time on the show, and as crazy early as it is we've always had a great time with it. Enjoy! Current Mood:  tired just thinking about it |
velourmane
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6:55a |
New Rules for Titling Things 1) If your story title is the same as the title of a Star Trek episode, then your title does not work. 2) Made-Up-Word's Fantasy Object is not a good formula for obtaining a title. Grigzlnack's Sword, Salaphine's Mask, The Dragon Throne of Elynn -- no. Now, if it's not a fantasy object, if it's not sword or mask or dragon or throne or wings or ring (etc.), then we might be back back on board. Corrolary to point 2) Please mercy, try pronouncing your made up fantasy names outloud before using them in titles or in any other capacity. I don't even care if they're unpronouncable. It's just that they shouldn't sound like body parts, every day objects, or insults. If the people you've made up is called the Ecordians, then expect the reader to be imagining accordian pumping every time it comes up. |
charlieallery
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8:48a |
Not a sale, but .... My story Self Defence placed 3rd in this year's Jim Baen Memorial contest!! http://www.williamledbetter.com/contest.htmAgain, it was a story written to a theme. I conceived the idea some time last year while at work, as a near-future concept that I knew would fit the contest. I finally dragged it out 3 days before the deadline as part of the launch of 'Charlie's Attack Year' and forced myself to finish it. Interestingly, this is similar to the way I finished the story I sold to the anthology. I wonder if there's something about completing a story in a shorter timescale/ to deadline, that works better for me? But mostly I think it's confirmation that my newer stories are improving and that the Attack Year approach of writing and submitting and entering as much as I can, is a good one. Because only the winner gets published in JBU, I now get to submit it to other places. It'll be interesting to see how well it does or if it was just the 3rd least-worst story they received. :) In any case, I've won a year's membership of the National Space Society and a load of NSS and JBU merchandise and some Baen books. And, yeah, I'm pretty chuffed! *g* Current Mood:  happy |
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