Today I learned that this
is a cover of this
(Did you know that?)
Blog
Review: The Collapsing Empire
Cross-posted on Goodreads, sans footnotes.
Every time I read a John Scalzi novel, I’m reminded what a good writer he is.* This one’s no exception. He handles the big picture and the small, personal details with equal deftness.
After I finished the epilogue, I jumped back to the prologue. With the knowledge of everything else that happens in the book, it was fun to see how this little piece of the story — largely unconnected to the events in the remainder of the novel, featuring characters we wouldn’t see again — still added to the whole.**
When I started reading the book, I wasn’t sure if it was a stand-alone novel or the launch of a new series. When I got to the end, it was pretty plainly the opening volume in a multi-volume set. (Don’t get me wrong — the novel is complete in itself, but the ending indicates there’s more to come.) Under normal circumstances, I’d have felt a twinge of irritation at this, but in this case I was relieved. I want more time with these characters, and I want to know just how they’re going to deal with an empire in collapse.
The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi
- McNally Robinson Booksellers
- Indigo.ca
- Amazon.ca
- Or, if you live in the Westman area, the Brandon branch of the Westman Regional Library has a copy.
One final note: Peer review is important. Read the novel and you’ll see what I mean.
* In a lot of ways, John Scalzi’s writing reminds me of Joe Haldeman, who is one of my favourite writers.
** A note on prologues: Elmore Leonard famously wanted writers to avoid them, and generally speaking he’s right (IMHO). But any list of “rules” of writing are really guidelines, and usually reflect what works best for the author writing the list of rules. I’ve read a lot of Elmore Leonard’s detective novels, and I can’t recall ever running into a prologue there.
I don’t skip prologues when I read, but I do notice when they really don’t connect at all to the story. When that happens, I agree, it would have been better to excise the prologue entirely.
The Collapsing Empire’s prologue was fun enough — and connected enough to the overall story — that I read it twice.
New lens
With my birthday money, I bought myself a new lens—a Tokina 11–16mm f/2.8.
It works pretty well. I can’t wait for a darker night; I’m looking forward to trying to get some galaxy photos.
Westering 2017
For Christmas, Kathleen and I bought my mother a trip out west, to Alberta, to visit relatives. We went along with her. You know, to make sure she behaved.
Some of the places we visited:
The Calgary Zoo.
Indescribable
A couple years ago, I had an epiphany while reading Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, when the narrator Severian pointed out that
It is always a temptation to say that such feelings are indescribable, though they seldom are.
Today, though… Today I was finishing Wolfe’s superb 1988 novel There Are Doors, and I happened upon this on page 294:
Which is it, Mr. Wolfe? Which is it?
I must admit, though, it’s nice that, immediately after he calls the sound indescribable, he proceeds to describe it with delightful economy. Wolfe may be fond of unreliable narrators, but his prose is reliably amazing.
A Truism
When someone says (especially on a website) “More information to come”, it generally never comes.
Share-Alike
From the ever-fattening file folder titled “Places I Never Expected My Writing to Turn Up”:
- An English-language quiz on a Taiwanese website.
- A village (parish? church?) newsletter.
- (Unattributed) on a charter school website.
Most of this is kosher, per the Creative Commons license that the stories were published under.
Public Domain Pictures from the Met
A lot of art falls in the public domain. Now the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made it easier for you to use some of it. (And by “some” I mean “quite a lot”.)
For example, a high-resolution photo of Van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers is available for me to use free of charge. You too.
And if Munch’s The Scream is more your cup of tea, well, they’ve got you covered there too.
Have a look for yourself. If one of the 400,000+ pieces of art in their catalogue strikes your fancy, check for the Public Domain icon (a little 0 in a circle) and the download link. It appears that the public-domain content comprises 375,000 images, which, I think you’ll agree, is a lot.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look at some J. M. W. Turner paintings.
The Lake of Zug, 1843
British,
Watercolor over graphite; 11 3/4 x 18 3/8 in. (29.8 x 46.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Marquand Fund, 1959 (59.120)
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/337499
Thanks, The Met!
Thanks to my friend Kelly for pointing out this Engadget article on the topic.
And yet it moves
Or, as Galileo put it (albeit apocryphally), E pur si muove.
Let’s Talk
Hey. Just a warning: This isn’t an easy read. It wasn’t easy to write, either.
Today is January 25th, when Bell, inspired by a spirit of boundless compassion*, will give a pile of money to mental health initiatives, so long as you tag your discussion correctly. So… here’s my 5¢ worth, I guess.
As some of you know, my dad recently died. He was in a nursing home for years before he left us, a victim of pretty severe dementia. So in a way, he died twice: once in the mind, slowly falling away over years, and then in body, later, more quickly.
Even before the dementia became apparent, there were hints of depression. Maybe things could have been different if he’d spoken up, or if we’d asked the right questions. (Let’s talk, Dad.) Hindsight is, of course, always 20/20, but Dad just wasn’t the type to talk about these things. (Neither am I, really. Not usually.)
I’m like Dad in a lot of ways. I look like him, I sound like him, and many of his mannerisms and turns of phrase are deeply ingrained in me too. We both love science fiction. We both lack a spleen, thanks to a genetic condition whose name I never learned.
But I’m also unlike him in a lot of ways. I do my best to go to the gym, which I think he might find a foreign concept. I don’t like canned peas (grey salty sadness pellets), I enjoy kiwifruit and yogurt, I read the occasional fantasy novel.
Sometimes—not very often, but sometimes—I wonder if his fate is my fate. People tell me that it’s not, and I do my best to listen.
–
* I imagine there are tax benefits, too.