Marginalia

[coalescent]

Russell T Davies on Today this morning, enthusing about the new Who. The man is a big ol' dork and we love him for it. I have a copy of the first episode downloaded, but in deference to Stewart's pleas I'm going to hold off on watching it. Warren Ellis has positive reaction here; Ain't It Cool News, if you trust them, have slightly more ambivalent reactions here (the second one at AICN also seems to be highly spoilery, so I haven't read it).

Angel S5 analysis: Postmodernism, chaos and Illyria.

Cool thing: Make your powerbook's motion-sensor work for you!

Ariel has posted some of the feedback he's received to his post about reviewing (the discussion from yesterday continues).

Reviews of Never Let Me Go: The Independent, ('uses a science-fiction framework to throw light on ordinary human life'; eerily similar to the end of Matt Cheney's Strange Horizons column as discussed a couple of days ago), Sunday Times ('a scenario that wouldn't be out of place in science fiction'), and The Guardian (probably the only review of the book to reference Spares).

A good interview with Ian R Macleod. Interesting thoughts on the relative merits of short stories and novels, and the good news that the novel-length version of The Summer Isles is being published later this year.

Ill-conceived rant of the day: "Here’s a thought: The reason for that argument that “if it's good, well, then it can’t be Science Fiction” is quite simply that it’s true." I can see Su and Dan nodding along as they read. Further discussion here.

You know, something's not right when I find myself supporting the House of Lords. Also slightly unnerving, this piece from yesterday's Independent suggesting that maybe recent American policies aren't going to be a long-term disaster after all.

Fiction roundup: 'The Spear Carrier' by AM Dellamonic at SCIFICTION and 'La Malcontenta' by Liz Williams at Strange Horizons. And two short-shorts: a new irrational history, and 'A Modest Proposal...' by Vonda N Mcintyre, from Nature.

[Poll #451255]

And finally: That's no moon!

Comments

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

That's no moon, agreed :D

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It was a definite double-take moment when that popped up in my feed reader yesterday. :)

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

I can see Su and Dan nodding along as they read.

I shall read the article when I don't have work to do, but you know very well I would never say anything of that sort!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Maybe I quoted the wrong bit...

It’s our very own Catch-22, an irrational “We-like-it-so-it-must-be-SF” rule which glosses over the gaping disjunction between formulaic drivel and fiction which takes genre by the balls, squeezes hard and says, “We play by my rules.” The truth is, the good stuff treats the genre as its bitch. It takes a sledgehammer to the formulae. It tears pulp into bits, chews it up and spews it out in huge spitballs to be sculpted into extraordinary forms. It is not genre but anti-genre.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

But surely you can't argue with that, either?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The original post is a full-on, no-holds barred rant. There are bits I agree with and bits I disagree with. In the case of that quote, well, no, I don't disagree exactly. I just think that attitude qualifies something as good sf, rather than not sf. :p

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Which is a fair enough perspective. Of course, if something is a genre, at what point does the circumvention of the 'rules' of that genre disquality a work from belonging to it?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to WALK AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD now. :p

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Curses!

;)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm proud of myself. I feel that I've grown as a person.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I'm really quite pissed off that you even suckered me into reading that piece of contentless attention-seeking behaviour: there are only a limited number of beats in a heart before it gives up, and you made me spend some of mine watching somebody else masturbate in public.

I could say there were bits I agreed with, but that wouldn't be true. There were bits that agreed with me, but there was no thought in it I haven't had myself. I'm sure the silly boy thinks he's being original and iconoclastic, which is fine, but kindly don't present silly boy's wanks to me as original thought again.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that--I should have made it clearer that I didn't take it particularly seriously.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I was expecting something better than what I got, so there was an element of spitting a mouthful across the restaurant involved. Peeve over.

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

Actually he presented it as 'Ill-conceived rant of the day'. How is that not fair warning?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

No, I just added that disclaimer. :)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Perhaps worth mentioning that as well as M. John Harrison's review The Guardian also had an extract and a very good profile. In the profile Ishiguro comments:

"There was this idea, which felt almost like a conspiracy, that a writer in his 30s was early in a writing life. But I realised you should think more in terms of the length and timing of a footballer's career. Your best chance of producing a decent book comes somewhere between 30 and 45 and I suddenly saw my life as a finite number of books."

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Thanks for those. There's also the digested read (likely to be spoilery, I guess).

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

I know that if I had a copy sitting on my computer, I'd be too tempted to watch it. I've half a mind to download it, and leave it there until after the broadcast, because I know I'll want to watch it again and again; however, I'm fairly sure that the version that's out there isn't the final cut, and why would I want something inferior after I've seen the proper version? I know the broadcast version will show up on UKNova almost as soon as it airs, so I think I'll just wait for that.

My mindset now is to pretend that the leak doesn't exist, and instead to try and allow myself to get sucked into the sense of wonder created by those appetite-whetting teaser trailers... Two-and-a-half weeks' wait is going to be a slog, but it's going to feel so good sitting in front of the telly at 7pm on the 26th having not spoiled it...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I can wait because in two and a half weeks, luck permitting I'll be at Eastercon, and rumour has it they're going to rig up a big screen. For that kind of mass geeky one-ness, I figure it's worth waiting. ;-)

Actually, I did just watch the first ten seconds, just to see what the credits look like.

My mindset now is to pretend that the leak doesn't exist, and instead to try and allow myself to get sucked into the sense of wonder created by those appetite-whetting teaser trailers...

See, I'm avoiding those too, because I know they'll just sap my willpower. :)

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

If someone were to give me a video file of the opening credits, I'd watch it without question. That, I really want to see, and I know it won't ruin it (although it might lose some of the spine-tinglyness that, say, the TV movie's opening credits brought on the first time I saw them). But if I had the whole episode, I know I'd watch the credits, then go "Oh, I'll just watch the opening scene", and then "Oh, I'll just watch the next one", and before you know it I wouldn't be able to resist seeing Eccleston's first appearance, or the TARDIS interior, or anything like that. So it has to be all or nothing for me... I'm weak like that.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I guess I have the 'advantage' of not actually being a Who fan--I hardly ever watched it when I was a kid, and wasn't very impressed by the TV movie. fba has tried to make me watch older episodes, with (to date) only limited success. On the other hand, I'm a big fan of Russell T Davies' work--Dark Season, The Second Coming, and I've got to track down Queer as Folk at some point.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Queer as Folk

You may actually like QaF - it is kinda like SatC - but in Manchester with actual gay men rather than New York with women *acting* like gay men...

You may find the sex scenes a bit uncomfortable though...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I can handle them. Or I'll just close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears and go 'LALALA'. Whichever. Do you have DVDs? :)

[fba.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I can handle them.

While they are pretty strong you don't actually see *that* much - generally your mind fills in the gaps though... It does proove that most slash writers are women that don't have a *clue* what gay men do in bed...

Do you have DVDs?

I do have the QaF1 DVDs - I keep meaning to pick up QaF2 (which was only a 3 episode miniseries) if I see it cheap, but I wasn't that impressed when it broadcast...

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

We also have a copy of Doctor Who. cantabulous says it's crap. I'm resisting until the 26th.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

And how sound is cantabulous? Can we trust their judgement?

[majuran.livejournal.com]

gashinryu on the other hand loved it... so much so that he might "have found a jolly good reason for watching teevee again".

[andrewducker]

I agree with bits of what he's saying - that being SF doesn't make something great or terrible, any more than having a plot revolving around a romance, or a crime, or being a musical does.

There's a _lot_ of terrible Sci-Fi out there, and I think that people clinging onto things that are clearly terrible is one of the things that brings the whole genre into disrepute - if a Barbara Cartland fanatic waved a romance novel at you, you'd run away - yet in SF it's somehow ok to like some truly awfully written novels just because they've been around for ages.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Ill-conceived rant of the day: "Here’s a thought: The reason for that argument that “if it's good, well, then it can’t be Science Fiction” is quite simply that it’s true." I can see Su and Dan nodding along as they read. Further discussion here.

Well, like Dan, I'm surprised you'd think I agree outright with *that* statement. But... yes, I was nodding along with much (most) of what he wrote (despite not recognising many of the author's names, obviously :-p). I was also giggling madly; you'll be unsurprised to know that Our Sci-Fi slut mother is a crack whore who gives blowjobs for ten dollars a pop, or We made our bed and now we’ve got to spread our legs on it, bite the pillow, and think of England are just the sort of metaphor that would appeal to this filthy old woman :-)
For reference, three paragraphs resonate particularly with me:

"Catch-22 is a novel set in wartime, but it’s not a member of some strange genre we might label War Fiction... To call Catch-22 War Fiction would be just plain silly."

The whole hamburger/McDonalds/steak tartare thing

"There’s a trade-off between the social stigma and squalid trappings of the SF ghetto and the freedom that it gives to work outside the dreary, tight-ass, uptown strictures of contemporary realism. Screw the Booker, we say. I’d rather have a hookah."

You know, something's not right when I find myself supporting the House of Lords.

Ditto.

Also slightly unnerving, this piece from yesterday's Independent suggesting that maybe recent American policies aren't going to be a long-term disaster after all.

Scariest headline ever. *shudder*

Tom thinks I should start calling these posts 'varia' instead of 'marginalia'. What do you think?

I think you shouldn't use those two words in such close proximity :-p

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Scariest headline ever. *shudder*

It's like ... ok, I do want the world to get better, really, it just makes me feel very uncomfortable that the means Bush used might have led to good ends.

I think you shouldn't use those two words in such close proximity :-p

What's wrong with them? Is there a filthy resonance I'm not spotting?

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Is there a filthy resonance I'm not spotting?

Yes. Possibly only in my mind, but yes.

[(Anonymous)]

Not only in your mind.

It's an interesting one, actually; yes, there is one word that you can make by splicing the start of one onto the stock of the other, then trimming off the tail, that would widely be considered rude (although i always have a hard time finding latin rude - even the most obscene stuff sounds sonorous and dry in latin), but i don't think it's that - somehow, the phonemes set up strange resonances which call to mind all sorts of filthy technicalities. And the Virgin Mary.

-- tom

PS To all wrongheads - i pity you, fools!

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Somehow that explanation *almost* makes it sound like I wasn't being a smutty-minded filthmonger. Thanks dude :-)

[hawleygriffen.livejournal.com]

Reviews of Never Let Me Go: The Independent, ('uses a science-fiction framework to throw light on ordinary human life'; eerily similar to the end of Matt Cheney's Strange Horizons column as discussed a couple of days ago), Sunday Times ('a scenario that wouldn't be out of place in science fiction'), and The Guardian (probably the only review of the book to reference Spares).

Oooh. When it comes out in paperback, I'm there. :D It's been a while since I've read any Ishiguru.