Recent Reading (and some not so)

I kept meaning to get around to writing about what I'm reading for weeks, and kept not doing it, too. So finally I am, as I procrastinate away my Saturday (I should be drawing, or writing).

Non-Fiction:

3. A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel. The may have taken the place previously occupied by Into the Looking Glass Wood (same author) on my desert island reading list. Depending on the size of the bookshelves on my hypothetical desert island, I might take them both. There is simply so much to think about in this book, that I'm going to have to read it over and over. It's comfort reading for a reader, a nice thick book that says "You are not alone" and then shows you hundreds and hundreds of years of readers, and the way readers use reading, and the way reading is done. I'd read anything Manguel wrote or edited, but currently this is my favourite (mind you, I haven't read a lot of his stuff yet).
   
4. Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight by Pat Shipman. This is another example of my favourite kind of science book. Or one of my favourite kinds. It explores the development of the various ideas about the evolution of bird flight, carefully describing the possibilities in a way that is not too technical for the non-palaeontologist, but has enough meat and details that the reader can begin to evaluate the evidence for themselves. Shipman presents both (or more) sides of each issue fairly. I'd often find myself agreeing with the first idea presented, and then having to re-evaluate when the next one was described. And the writing is well done, pleasant to read, and only technical where it needs to be (but not overly simplistic anywhere). If you're into birds or dinosuars or the history of life, read this. It's not cutting edge, being a few years old (late 90s, if I remember right), but it's still good science. Plus archaeopteryx fossils are probably the most beautiful fossils ever found (though I'm also partial to ichthyosaur fossils).
   
5. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004 edited by Steven Pinker. This was one of my purchases from Bolen Books, made with my assorted Christmas gift certificates. I chose it because I thought it would have a nice range of different kinds of science writing, and it certainly had. Not only that, but the writing in all of the essays was absolutely top-notch. I found myself thoroughly enjoying essays on topics I wouldn't normally seek out. There was one essay I had already read--the one on multiple universes that was published in Scientific American (I think; maybe it was Discover). It was interesting to see it without all the sidebars and visual aids the magazine adds in, and I had forgotten a lot of the details, anyway. This was definitely a good choice, and I'll probably be looking for previous editions.
   
6. Explore Fairy Traditions by Jeremy Harte. I'm supposed to review this book. The author sent it to me, all the way from England, and it's taken me unforgivably long to get to reading it, even though it's on one of my favourite topics. It's a well written, intelligent exploration of different aspects of fairy traditions in the British Isles, and the meaning of the stories for the people who tell them. I kept thinking how useful it would have been when writing my Master's thesis. If you want a good general book on fairy lore to start with, this would be a good choice. You'd probably have to order it from the publisher though (their website is here: http://www.hoap.co.uk/), or maybe from a UK bookseller.
   
7. Making and Playing Marionettes by James McMahon. Puppets! Not long after I first mentioned my growing puppet obsession, I logged on to the library website and requested a few books. This is one of them. It's really meant for teachers wanting to get their students into puppetry, but it assumes the students are capable and relatively mature--that they could do basic carpentry and sewing and work togther in a team in a professional manner--so it's a decent book for interested adults, too. Most importantly, it has diagrams and plans for the basic form and stringing of marionettes, which is exactly what I was looking for. There will be notes and sketches made from this one.
   

Fiction:

2. A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright. This is one of the books I got at the recent books sale at the Duncan Mall (which has approximately five stores, plus WalMart at one end and Staples at the other). I thought it sounded kind of neat. It ended up to be one of the best novels I've read in a while. It's not easy to write long stretches of a novel with only a single character, and no one for them to interact with, without losing the reader's interest. Wright pulls it off though--at least half of the book has only the main character all by himself, and much of the rest is so closely focussed on his viewpoint (being in first person), that we only see interactions through him. But it works. It's a beautiful book, and I am going to be searching out more by this author. Plus, everyone I know should read it. I think you'd all get something out of it. (Well, maybe not everyone I know, but most of you.)
   
3. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I found this thing at Superstore of all places. Mostly they have overpriced cookbooks and overpriced books about God. And an odd selection of other stuff. This is one of those books that feels magical without having anything particularly fantastic actually happen. It's a story about books and love and writing and families, and I thoroughly adored it. It has a Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Probably almost everyone I know should read this one, too.
   
4. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. This is so short, it maybe shouldn't count, but it is over 100 pages. So there. I hadn't read Pinocchio since I was a kid (thanks to my parents, or some gift-giving relative, I had a copy of the originial--though translated, of course--and not one of those "retold for children" horrors). This isn't the copy I had back then, but I think it might be the same translation, and it has lovely, super-detailed illustrations by Roberto Innocenti. I love his cityscape panoramas, especially. I decided to read this because of my recent puppet obsession. I'd forgotten how moralistic the story is, but it has enough beautiful writing and clever comments to make it a good read nonetheless.
   
5. The Mammoth Book of Werewolves edited by Stephen Jones. If you've read this blog much, you'll know I have a weakness for werewolves and other shapechangers. I thought, for some reason, that the Mammoth Books of . . . were best-of volumes, rather than ordinary themed anthologies. Turns out they're a mix of reprinted and new material, and pretty much as mediocre overall as other themed anthos. Which isn't to say it was a waste of time. Most of the stories were all right, and a few were very good. Plus there was a long Manly Wade Wellman story that I hadn't read, so it was worth reading for that alone.
   
6. Awful End by Philip Ardagh. I'm not sure when this was published (don't have it to hand), so I don't know if it belongs in the "jumping on the Lemony Snicket bandwagon" category, but it looks like it from the cover, and it feels like it when reading. It's not a bad read. The writing is good, and some of the characters are pretty fun, but overall, I think it just tries too hard. Mind you, I'm not remotely the intended audience, but for me, a lot of the wordplay (things along the lines of "He took the seat across from her. 'Don't steal that!' she shrieked, so he put it back and sat down." That's not the actual words, but you get the idea) was so over-the-top that it detracted from the actual story, which was otherwise fun. Basically, I got jarred out of the story so much I ended up not being particularly interested in what happened to any of the characters. Perhaps young boys would like it for the sillyness alone, but I can't imagine more sophisticated kids getting into it. But what do I know?
   

Sequential Art:

11. Rurouni Kenshin volume 1 by Nabuhiro Watsuki. I really liked the anime made from this series, so I thought I'd try the manga, and it's just as good (maybe better in some ways). The series in general (manga and anime) is a fun mix of serious more-or-less historical (early Meiji) action and rather slapstick humour, and mixes more and less realistic art styles.
    
12. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 2 by CLAMP.
    
13. Wish volume 2 by CLAMP.
    
14. Ranma 1/2 volume 5 by Rumiko Takahashi.
    

Looks like it's all manga this time, and only one new series. I haven't been comsuming comics at quite the insane rate I was, but I've been trying to finish off some of the stuff I've already got on the shelves before buying more. Actually, I've been trying to do that for books in general, though I've been less sucessful with fiction and non-fiction thanks to Value Village, thrift shops, book sales, and the remainder section of Chapters (good thing the nearest Chapters stores are in Nanaimo and Victoria). I have to say, though, I've picked up some really cool books.

I've also been having one of my periodic magazine cravings, and have been continuing to work my way through back issues of Geist (only one left, and then I have to decide whether or not to subscribe again). I've also been reading Scientific American and Discover, as well as the usual anime and gaming magazines (I've not been picking up any PC gaming mags, though, since I don't intend to have a PC for very much longer, and there are no Mac gaming mags).

More Thought

After more consideration, I think I'm going to stick with my original MacMini plan, and just go buy a monitor at Staples. They have a decent 17" for around $150. And that way, I can keep playing my games (I hadn't even had a chance to install some of them) until the Mac is shipping more quickly than "3-4 weeks." Still, if anyone knows of a used Mac with decent specs, let me know.

Fey page 33: About Bloody Time

Right, so here it is. This morning, after blazing through scanning, reassembling and cleaning up the edges of today's page, I was thinking of calling this blog entry "Fey, Now With Fewer Crashes." Aside from the laptop shutting itself off in protest in the middle of scanning the second section (it does that some times, when it thinks whatever I've asked it to is using too much memory, or something), everything behanved perfectly, though it did get slower the farther I went. Oh, I thought, I should have switched to this machine ages ago (remember, my desktop machine is currently without a functioning monitor). That was before Photoshop kept shutting down for no particular reason (the usual "illegal action" error that never seems to bear any connection to what you've been trying to do). I finally managed to finish the last thrid of the text by typing the text for a single bubble, flattening the layer and saving before going on to the next bubble.

I'm looking at used iMacs on eBay. I figure if I'm going to need a new monitor (not yet determined, but I haven't found a place in town that actually fixes monitors; plenty fix computers, just not the part you see what you're doing with), I might as well get a machine with a monitor already attached. Plus I love the look of the old G4 iMacs (they're the ones with the half-spherical base and the monitor on a steel arm coming out the top). Not that I would turn down a G5 of any description, if I could get one. Or a G4 PowerMac with a separate monitor, as long as it had one. Even used Macs aren't cheap. At least ones with sufficient power. On the off chance someone I know happens across a used Mac, I'd like the following:

• at least a G4 processor
  
• at least a 1 GHz processor (though I'd go for 800 MHz is it was cheap enough)
  
• at least 512 MB of RAM (again, 256 would be okay if cheap)
  
• at least a 40 GB hard drive (more is better)
  
• a 3D video card with at least 32 MB (64 is better)

Pop! Goes the Monitor (and Crackle, Too)

So I was playing Tomb Raider III, finally, and just getting back into it, when I hear this sort of "pop"--kind of like a lightbulb makes when it goes, only quieter. Then my monitor starts making these funny crackly sort of noises, then it powers down like it does when I've left it on too long, or turned off the computer without turning off the monitor. Oh, greeat.

Pluging the monitor into the original monitor port (instead of the one on the 3D card) makes no difference. Same crackle, same powering down. So it's not that the somewhat aged second-hand 3D card went wonky, it's the monitor itself. (To make sure, I'll see if Sue will let me plug her machine into it tomorrow). Crap. Crap. Crap. Now I need a new monitor.

Well, okay, maybe I can get this one fixed. But that "pop" was kind of ominous (though I know pretty much nothing about monitors, so maybe it's only a minor thing). Oh how I'd love to buy an Apple flat screen to go with the new Mac (whenever it is I get that), but they start at approximately twice the price of the Mac Mini (it is a 20" flat panel, but still . . .). Crap. I wonder if Sneakers fixes monitors, or if I need to take it to a special monitor place.

Lucky for me, I have my important work stuff on my laptop (thought it's not exactly a reliable machine, either). Crap, again.

Fey page 32

Here is is: page 32. Bad day for computers, today. First my laptop decided to shut itself off while I was trying to answer an eBay question, then there was the usual struggle to keep the desktop from freezing up while Photoshopping today's page of Fey. Sigh.

You Know You're From British Columbia When...

You Know You're From British Columbia When...

You know the provincial flower You consider that if it has no snow, it is not a real mountain. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Blendz, and Tim Horton's. You know how to pronounce Squamish, Osoyoos & Nanaimo. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Thai food. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark - while only working eight-hour days. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation. You know that Dawson Creek is a town, not a TV show. You can point to at least two ski mountains, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover. You notice "the mountain is out" when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 5, but still wear your hiking boots and parka. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 10, but keep the socks on. You recognize the background shots in your favourite movies & TV shows. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you can't find the old ones after such a long time. You use a down comforter in the summer. The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder The local wine doesn't taste like malt vinegar Your $400,000 Vancouver home is 5 hours from downtown You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations You've been to a deforestation protest If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash It's November, it's raining, but you're still wearing birkenstocks You go broke just paying rent. You don't own a heavy winter coat You can't figure out why Manitoba is considered part of Western Canada. You wouldn't be caught dead on Vancouver Island or Vancouver without your umbrella and plastic shoes. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from British Columbia.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here



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I Am Not Scary

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How scary are you?

No Longer Late

With page 31 now posted, I'm no longer behind on pages-to-post (well, except for the cover to part 2, maybe). I am, however, still behind and falling farther on pages-to-draw. Oh well. I'll catch up eventually.

Fey: Better Late?

I finally got the machine to work long enough to finish page 30. With luck, I'll be able to finish page 31, too, and post it on time (which is to say, tomorrow).

Beta Reading

So I finished my NSCAD admissions essay. I'm pretty happy with it. I went for a somewhat more creative angle rather than a strict "here's why I want to go to your school and why I think you should let me in approach." I hope that doesn't count against me. So anyone want to beta read it for me?

Crust

The day we broke
up I couldn't get out
of my mind the food
stuck in the corners
of your mouth.
All I could see
was that bit of orange.
And, Christ, I thought
as you tried to convince
me to go back,
Couldn't he at least wipe
his face?

Word Obsession

And speaking of words that catch my imagination, sometimes I get obsessed with a particular word. For some reason it sticks in my brain and won't go away. It fascinates me, and soon I have to do something about it--make a story or a poem, read a book about it, say it so many times I get sick of it. Right now the word is "puppet." Why? I have no idea. I think it may have started with an episode of InuYasha that involved demon puppetry, and the phrase stuck. Or maybe it wasn't that at all. I've always been fascinated by puppets. My grandfather used to have an old suitcase full of hand puppets, and a rack of marionettes hanging in the basement, many of which he'd made himself. I was especially enamoured of the skeleton marionette. I still am. That's one cool puppet. And kind of creepy, too, which is even better. I think Granddad might still have a few of those puppets, but I don't know if the skeleton is among them. Perhaps I should ask.

The weird thing about word obsession is that, if it's a good word, I don't even want to make it go away. "Puppet," I think to myself. "How cool. Puppetry. Puppets." Just say it out loud. That repetition of "p" sounds is fascinating, isn't it? Or maybe I'm just weird. I wonder if there's a good online tutorial on puppet-making. I could make a marionette to photograph for my NSCAD portfolio (I'm supposed to be devoting this week to getting that done). That way I could exorcise the puppet obsession and not feel like I was wasting time. Then again, "puppet" is such a fun word to have stuck in your head. Or in mine, anyway.

Fun With Words

I was flipping through my mostly-neglected journal, looking for the notes I made for my NSCAD admissions essay, when I found some lists of words I'd made. They almost sound like poetry.

eldritch dirigibles, poulpe-shaped
sundry savants dancing
tenebrous tentacular antennae
cetaceans
bioluminescent sleepy steam calliope
aerodynamic piezoelectric
antediluvian aeronaut

Invisible Library

The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.

I love this. It makes me want to go through all my books and find more things for them to add. I know there are some in Charles deLint that they don't have listed.

Cool Stuff

I'm sitting at the dining room table, wasting time because I really don't feel much up to working (Darwin's going to be fine, but I'm still pretty frazzled). Blog reading leads me to this site: I Want One Of Those (via Diane Duane's Out of Ambit). Some of the truly cool stuff you can buy there: the Binary Watch, the Write Light, the USB Swiss Army Knife, Emergency Cufflinks, the Death Clock, the Pet Doorbell, and many other strange and wonderful things. I can't take it all in.

Of Hellhounds and Fey

I suppose it was inevitable. One of our neighbours' dogs, Daisy the evil bitch dog, charged Darwin on our way back from the mailbox and took a chunk out of his left hip. So Darwin's at the vet getting stitches (for which the neighbours will be paying), and I'm completely frazzled. I'm not even going to try to get the new page of Fey up (I'm having enough trouble with basic spelling; don't want to fight with Photoshop and cranky computers). I'll try to get it up tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be having a long, hot bath and a cup of tea before I have to go pick up Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome dog.

Big Book Score

Well, I'm back from the book sale, have had some food and tea, hauled broken branches out of the garden, looked at stuff on eBay and am now ready to bask in the cool books I brought home. I didn't get to Staples (opting, instead, to buy groceries), but I'll go tomorrow when Sue and Selena go to take back their videos. Which is better, because now I can balance my chequebook and see how much (or rather, how little) I can actually spend on a scanner.

But anyway, the books. Here's what I got for donating to help fund diabetes research. First, the fiction:

• A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright. I've no idea if this author is any good, but the cover blurb mentioned H.G. Wells' time machine, Egyptology, Victorian machinery, time travel, and jazz, and made it sound really cool. I'll probably read this one very soon. I might even start it this evening.
  
• The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. A retired Sherlock Holmes meets his match in a modern young woman? Or something. I think I saw a mention of this somewhere recently, and thought it sounded interesting.
  
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here's something for the League of Extraordinary Reading. It's a Reader's Digest book (shudder) but the copyright page says it has the complete text of all the stories. Also, it's actually rather a handsome book, with pictures, and looks nothing like the usual RD edition. It just better have all the words.
  
• The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. I've been meaning to read more Wilde for ages. I've been meaning to read this particular book for ages. Now I can. I think it qualifies for the League of Extraordinary Reading (at least via the horrible LXG movie, if nothing else).
  
• The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Kinda funny I found this, considering the poetry I got (below). I've never read this author, but she uses Sir Walter Scott as a character, so it should be interesting, at least.
  
• He Shall Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters. This is one of her "Amelia Peabody" mysteries. They're set in Victorian times and have lots of archeaology (Peters, aka Barbara Michaels, is an Egyptologist, or at least has a PhD in the field). I've only read one or two of them, and I really want to start at the beginning and read them in order. Now I have to find the earlier ones (back to the library, I suppose).
  
• Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within by Jane Jensen. This is maybe kind of a silly one. It's based on a series of acclaimed adventure games (computer games, that is), created by Jensen. I wasn't going to get it, but I've had adventure games on the brain lately (trying to play all the ones I have before I get my new Mac). I thought it would be silly fun, and might even surprise me by being good. Plus, it has werewolves in. You may have realized by now that shapechangers are one of my minor obsessions. They keep showing up in my fiction.

Next, the poetry:

• The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. I should probably read more poetry. Actually, I should read more contemporary poetry, but old stuff is good, too. Plus, it's got fairies. Or a fairy. Maybe.

And finally, the non-fiction:

• Eight Modern Essayists edited by William Smart. Short pieces by the likes of George Orwell, E.B. White, Virginia Woolf, and others. It includes Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," which I've been wanting to read again lately.
  
• The Periodic Kingdom by P.W. Atkins. It's good to understand the periodic table of the elements, right? Actually, I was thinking of picking up one of those nice laminated tables they make for highschool and college kids, to put on my wall. (I really was, that's not a joke. I'm a geek, remember? A nerd.)
  
• Armor by Sean Morrison. If you know me at all, you probably know that another of my minor obsessions is swords (and if you somehow managed to visit my house and not realize this, I seriously question your powers of observation). Swords and armour (or "armor" if you're American) go together.
  
• In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall. Here's another of those "been meaning to read for ages books," along with Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist and Birute Galdikas' orangutan book(s).
  
• Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento. I'm a little dubious about this one--it's one of those "environmentalists are hugely overracting (or else part of a conspiracy)" books (or it sounds like it, anyway), plus the guy's other book is called The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. But, I'll give it a fair read (carefully balanced by checking reviews and such in the science press). It should be thought-provoking at least (or maybe just provoking).

And, just so you don't wonder that I'm being buried in my wealth of books, but not actually reading them, I'll have a "recent reading" post soon. Just not yet. I need to bask some more.

The Obscure Cities

Connections and coincidences. I was reading some stuff on the Just Adventure+ website (a good place for adventure game geeks), and discovered that François Schuiten, who co-created The Great Walls of Samaris is going to be working with Benoit Sokal, of White Bird Productions. This is one of those odd, but cool, coincidences that pop up now and then: I read and blogged The Great Walls of Samaris some while ago, and vaguely remember commenting that I'd like to read more French comics, if that was a good sample. It turns out that Samaris is only one volume in a series called Les Cités Obscures (aka The Obscure Cities). Alas, only three of them have been translated into English (though the website provides text translations for some of the others). Guess I'll have to look for the other two. The other part of the coincidental connection is Sokal, who created two of my favourite adventure games: Amerzone and Syberia (and also Syberia 2 which I haven't played. Whatever those two come up with, I'll have to get my hands on, whether it's a game or a comic, or something else entirely.

Fey Page 29, and Other Things

Today, my computer behaved relatively well running PhotoShop (only restarted four times, I think). So here's page 29, featuring Maeve (deceptively pretty winged pond faery) and Pier (dark, broody, kind of weird elf in a long black coat).

And in computer-related news, I got a nice email from the Apple Store with a coupon for $40 off $399 or more, if I use it in the next two weeks. So I hope Mac Minis start shipping in a reasonable time within the next two weeks--that way I can get $40 off my order (which amounts to a free keyboard and a little extra) AND get the $100 rebate for buying a printer at the same time. I've already splurged on a couple of adventure games for Macs on eBay (well, "splurged" is relative--they were really cheap).

In only-somewhat-computer-related news, tomorrow there's a used book sale at the mall, to which I and Sue and Mum will be going. How many books I come home with will depend partly on the selection (naturally) and partly on how much they're charging. Funds benefit the Diabetes Association (or Society, or whatever they're called), so that's good. Always nice to have an excuse to spend more on books. The computer-related part is that afterwards, I'm going to go to Staples to see if I can find a decent USB Mac-compatible scanner on which to use my $20 off $100 or more coupon before it expires at the end of the month (I am rich in coupons today). There was a perfect one on the website, but who knows what they'll actually have in stock. So if anyone needs/wants a rather aged but still functional Mustek 600 III EP Plus scanner that plugs into a printer port (you can then plug your printer into the scanner and run it through) and only works with Windows, let me know.

Mail From the ESA (or, I Am Such a Geek)

So I got a big envelope from the European Space Agency today (I got mail from the European Space Agency!). Inside was my copy of Tales of Innovation and Imagination: Selected Stories from the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Competition (which, if you want to read it, is available here in pdf format, or you can go here to try to find the appropriate link for ordering it [it's SP-546, September 2004]). Of course, I found a typo. And the formatting is the same as the pdf version, which I hoped it wouldn't be. There are no indents at the beginnings of paragraphs, so the only way to tell it's a new paragraph is if there's a lot of space at the end of the previous paragraph. I dunno what style format they were following . . . Anyway.

I'm published in a thingy put out by the European Space Agency (have I squeezed "European Space Agency" in there often enough? No? Here it is again: European Space Agency). I read my story through again (it's not very long) and it definitely has flaws, but I still kind of like it. Not in a "this is a masterpiece" kind of way, but in a fond sort of "here's a fun little trifle I wrote" way. But I realized, with slight embarassment, that I sent a story about winning an arts contest to an arts contest. But I wrote the story way before I knew about the contest. I wrote it for an Arts and Technology class I did when finishing my writing degree. I originally did it as an illustrated book (kind of a Griffin and Sabine sort of thing, in the form of the narrator's journal), then rewrote it for the contest (the orignal didn't have much middle).

I think this is my first print publication of fiction. Weird. It's not a professional publication, since I didn't get paid for it and it was for a contest, but still. It's from the European Space Agency.