A while back I noted the Pattern Recognition annotation effort. t.rev pointed out that it sucked so far. It continues to be more criticism than annotation, but you know, it’s the kind of thing obsessives like me read. And it’s done, except for the Themes section.
Category: Culture
E! Online has this to say about Polanski’s Oscar: “Only in Hollywood can Roman Polanski be a convicted felon and an Oscar winner.” True enough, since — as far as I know — Hollywood is the only place they give out Oscars. It would be difficult to be any kind of an Oscar winner in, say, Des Moines.
Not much else to do with my night but mock the Oscars; I wasn’t gonna, but the opening montage reminded me of how painfully bad some of the Oscar winners have been. Thus, they deserve it. It’ll all go in this post so anyone reading this on Livejournal is missing all the fun.
Whoof, that was a whole lot of Malazan Empire. Yep, you betcha. I liked Deadhouse Gates a lot, and I am pleased to report that it continued to progress along lines quite different than Gardens of the Moon. The differences in setting and characters are most obvious, but around halfway through the former I realized that whereas Gardens is a novel about places, Deadhouse Gates is all about journeys. The centerpiece of Deadhouse Gates is the deeply harrowing march known as the Chain of Dogs, while Gardens revolves around the struggle for Darujhistan.
I can’t say I agree with Erikson when he talks about how his novels confound expectations about who’s good and who’s evil; I guess compared to the banality of Robert Jordan they’re pretty revolutionary, but Erikson’s far from ground-breaking. Indeed, at a certain point, the desire to subvert the reader’s expectations regarding such matters becomes fairly pedestrian itself. The Malazan Empire books aren’t there, but I do hope Erikson continues to focus on interesting plots and characterizations and doesn’t get too deep into making sure everyone has a dark and a light side, yatta yatta.
I’m going to take a break before the next book. One could overdose.
So, how are those wacky Bush-hating Dixie Chicks weathering the storm of controversy surrounding their recent comments about our fine President? Sales plummeting? Losing money?
Well. Actually, no, not in any sense. Their newest album is still #1 on the March 22 Billboard Country charts. That album, Home, is #3 on the Amazon popular music sales chart — and rising, up 11% from yesterday according to JungleScan. Wide Open Spaces is #39 on the Amazon charts, and Fly is #49.
I added Wide Open Spaces and Fly to JungleScan, just for the fun of keeping track.
Edit: Bah, Atrios scooped me. Props to the mad liberal.
I bought some Dixie Chicks CDs today. If the best argument one can think of is “I don’t agree with you so I’ll punish you economically,” one doesn’t really have much of a case, does one? Come to think of it, one would — in that hypothetical case — mostly be pouting. The only thing which could make it complete is calling one’s antagonist names.
The last Mr. Sterling of the season and probably for good aired last night, and you know what I did? I watched it. You bet.
Most of the hour was spent on the deeply gripping and action-packed story of the Senator’s filibuster, most of which was delivered to an empty Senate. There was a tense little subplot about whether or not he’d be able to go to the bathroom. I think the message of the episode was that if you don’t care whether or not you get reelected, and you can talk for 24 hours straight, you may be able to screw up the budget and cause the United States to default on loans. But the cost will be your hot actor girlfriend.
In retrospect, I should have been recapping the show like this from the start.
I think any pen and paper RPG designer could warn these folks about the perils of their idea. But it’d be more fun to watch them cope with finding out themselves.
“Hey, let me tell you about my character!”
I got a spam today entitled “bryant, Housing market may be cooling – Rates Tick Up”. Inside there was a lengthy screed regarding Prime Minister Howard Wilson and the CIA. Some investigation on the Web revealed that it’s an excerpt from Chapter 15 of the Unauthorized Biography of George Bush, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin. This appears to have some connection to David Icke. There is no visible connection at all to the housing market.
If I never post again because I’ve been kidnapped by giant reptiles posing as the Rothschildes, you’ll know why.
I got sick and tired of reading people talking about this cool Steven Erikson guy, so I drifted on over to Chapters.ca and picked up the first three books of his Malazan Empire series.
It’s scheduled to be a 10 book series when all is said and done, with each book standing alone to a certain degree. When I got the first three, I found myself with about 2,800 pages of fiction sitting in front of me, which was a bit offputting. Stubborn, I tucked into the first one. Three chapters in and I was totally hooked.
The plotlines echo Glen Cook, and in particular the Black Company and Dread Empire books. Erikson attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and Glen Cook hit pretty much every SF convention in that area; I’d be surprised if Erikson wasn’t a Cook fan. However, the writing style is quite different: Erikson’s prose has an elegant sheen which betrays his history in the mainstream literary arena. (Erikson is a pseudonym; his other publisher asked him to use one for his fantasy work.)
I am in the blissful state that comes with knowing I have around 10,000 pages of this stuff ahead of me. A sample, now:
Tattersail tracked the man as he joined his comrade at Hairlock’s side, striving to see through the muck and blood covering his uniform. “Who are you people?”
“Ninth squad, the Second.”
“Ninth?” The breath hissed from her teeth. “You’re Bridgeburners.” Her eyes narrowed on the battered sergeant. “The Ninth. That makes you Whiskeyjack.”
He seemed to flinch.
Tattersail found her mouth dry. She cleared her throat. “I’ve heard of you, of course. I’ve heard the —”
“Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, his voice grating. “Old stories grow like weeds.”
She rubbed at her face, feeling grime gather under her nails. Bridgeburners. They’d been the old Emperor’s elite, his favorites, but since Laseen’s bloody coup nine years ago they’d been pushed hard into every rat’s nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, undermanned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Malazan armies on Genabackis, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Onearm’s Host. Detoran, Antsy, Spindle, Whiskeyjack. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.