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

[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. :)