…to quote one William Gibson.
Bonus photo:
Photos taken at Crow’s General Store, Brandon, MB.
The color of rust, gone a certain way
Books
The Tao of Pratchett
Over on Tor.com, a discussion of Sir Terry Pratchett’s works, and how there’s more to them—far more—than just silly puns and goofy characters.
Terry Pratchett is best known for his incompetent wizards, dragon-wielding policemen, and anthropomorphic personifications who SPEAK LIKE THIS. And we love him for it. Once we’re done chuckling at Nanny Ogg’s not-so-subtle innuendos and the song about the knob on the end of the wizard’s staff, however, there’s so much more going on beneath the surface of a Pratchett novel.
Read the whole article; it’s worth it.
Today’s library haul
I can’t decide which one I want to read first. I really like Join Scalzi’s writing; I loved Son of a Trickster and I’m looking forward to reading more of Eden Robinson’s prose; but man, Sara Gran’s last novel ended on such a cliffhanger, so I’m leaning towards The Infinite Blacktop.
Review: Son of a Trickster
I read Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster this weekend.
It’s the story of sixteen-year-old Jared, who’s doing his best, trying to balance baking weed cookies, caring for his elderly neighbours, keeping his dad from losing his home, keeping his aggressive mom off his case, and generally just trying to not fail grade ten.
It’s not real helpful that he’s started hearing crows talking to him.
Continue reading “Review: Son of a Trickster”The game’s afoot
A quick quote for Throwback Thursday:
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
From Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
William Gibson: Grand Master
It’s got a nice ring to it.
Congratulations to William Gibson, one of my favourite authors, on the announcement that he has been named the latest Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award recognizes “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.” Gibson joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as C. J. Cherryh, Peter S. Beagle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 54th Annual Nebula Conference and Awards Ceremony in Woodland Hills, CA, May 16th-19th, 2019.
Via Tor.com, here’s the official announcement.
Header photo by Nikki Tysoe, used under a CC-BY license.
Morning coffee
In my banned books mug.
As it heats up, the black REDACTION bars fade, revealing the titles of books that have been banned and challenged through the years.
Get your own copy here. They don’t sell the mugs anymore, it seems, but Out of Print does have some other “banned books” products available.
Down in Fraggle Rock
Today I learned that…
Dennis Lee, Canadian poet, author of childhood favourite “Alligator Pie”, was also the co-founder of the venerable Canadian press House of Anansi Press (which, even though I’m ill-versed in CanLit, I’d heard of).
And he wrote the lyrics to the theme song for Fraggle Rock.
And he co-wrote the story for the movie Labyrinth.
The book as physical object
So this is a real thing that I can hold in my hands now. I have a real, actual, physical copy of Parallel Prairies.
Maybe soon you will too.
The Themis Files review
Thanks to my local library, I read Sylvain Neuvel’s The Themis Files trilogy:
- Sleeping Giants
- Waking Gods
- Only Human
As a young girl, Rose Franklin falls into a hole and discovers a giant mechanical hand. As an adult, she goes to work on what has now been named Themis: a giant robot of alien origin, which, for unknown reasons, traveled to Earth sometime in the distant past, only to be disassembled and scattered around the globe.
Along the way she teams up with a couple of military pilots, a man who claims he’s descended more or less directly from aliens, a rogue geneticist, and a mysterious stranger who wields more power than literally anyone else on Earth.
But no one’s ready for what happens when the robot builders show up. Or what happens when a handful of people are transported to the builders’ homeworld.
Turns out an invulnerable giant robot can have a profound effect on the geopolitical landscape.
The novels are epistolary, told in the form of transcripted interviews, news broadcasts, personal journals, letters, and the like. Sylvain Neuvel is a master of propulsive storytelling—I read books 2 and 3 in a couple of days apiece (normally it takes me between a week and a month to read a book), and the story itself had me laughing more than once. I especially enjoyed the tone of the Mysterious Stranger’s dialogue, even though he was sometimes not a very nice person. (There are no shortage of not very nice people here, and everyone’s flawed, just like the real world.)
The story examines the consequences of discovering that, not only are we not alone in the universe, but there exist aliens quite capable of wiping out the entire human race without breaking a sweat. How do you fight against a threat like that? And what happens when flawed human beings get access to that technology?
Well, you’ll have to read the trilogy to find out. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Highly recommended, especially if you’re into first-contact yarns, sardonic humour, giant robots, or geopolitics. Oh, and linguistics.