The Blog

 My teeth hurt...

One of these days I'm going to pick up a "fabulously witty" romance novel, about a woman whose been in a relationship with the man she loves and has been with for five years, and it's not going to be about how she "comes of age" / "comes to terms" / "comes to grief" / "comes to realise that she never needed him and is much better off with this fling who has wandered into her life and has a giant schlong". Some of those "going nowhere" relationships work out just fine, I'm sure.

Also, I'm going to pick up a book in which the author isn't the best friend / housemate character who helps our leading lady through. Because not everyone has a best friend /housemate who just happens to be a writer / poet / famous female comedian with a taste for being crude (really, Wendy Harmer? Did you think that was subtle or something?). Some of us have childcare workers and personal assistants and students for best mates, and we get along fine.

I think a week off work may be too much. I'm going insane here.

Labels: books, desperation in action, sending our love down the well, sickly-Cat

And another thing...

I got a new book:

Eoin Colfer was charming and funny and very Irish, and I liked that he was just as appalled at the thought of writing this book as the rest of us were at the announcement that someone else was writing a Hitchhiker's book. He's only doing the one (because damnit he has to write more Artemis Fowl right now), and he kinda hopes that someone else will pick up the mantle, so that it's not just him and DA to compare. I have to say I kinda agree. They did it for Sherlock Holmes, why not for Arthur Dent? Oh, and Eoin is a mac. *grins*

Of course, now I need to find a way to fit this thing in my suitcase.

ETA: I had completely forgotten I already had a HHGTTG tag on my blog. This makes me inordinately happy.

Labels: almost but not entirely unlike tea, books, cambridge, trip09

Huh...

There's another iBook G4 in the library today. I feel less outdated all of a sudden.

In good news: I've done by Annual Review paperwork, and it's not even lunchtime yet.

In bad news: I saw part 2 of the new BBC adaptation of Emma last night, and it was terrible. I hated it, and it's my favourite Jane Austen, so I'm usually forgiving of most flaws in the adaptations because I want to see new spins on the story. Very disappointed. (I may still watch part 1 on iView tonight because I can.)

Labels: bbc, books, cambridge, iCatherine, jane austen, paperwork, trip09, university politics have got me down

Hey, Amazon...

I was kinda expecting that whole "2 days until we dispatch it + 3-5 days for delivery", thing to mean my stuff would be here next week (when the landlady's away and I don't need to feel guilt about getting a box). Not, you know, two days after I ordered it.

Ah well, stuff, due on Thursday. Woo!

Labels: anime, books, comics, movies, tv

Yuletide, woo!...

What does it say about me that the fandoms I requested were Mordant's Need (Stephen Donaldson), the Legendsong (Isobelle Carmody), Mina de Malfois and Battle Royale? Worse, that Princess Tutu was only cut at the last minute because I realised that it was overrepresented in the requests and that I could probably find the fiction I wanted elsewhere on the internet?

Clearly I'm a crazy fantasy fan who is into meta and also loves laughing at fandom. When I'm not trying to kill everyone.

Anyway, anyone reading this who is a fan of something but believes that no one else on the internet is into it should totally go to the Yuletide site and sign up for the fiction exchange. It's great fun and you meet all sorts of interesting peoples. And get fanfiction out of it.

Labels: books, childrens literature, yuletide

  Dear Authors...

I present first this comic.

Then I point out that the fantasy novel I'm currently reading has 300 pages of young-adult prose, and 100 pages of glossary/encyclopaedia/appendices. Not even the vaguely dickensian setting is enough to fully redeem it.

ALSO: if your monsters are 'bogles', do not have your protagonist 'boggle' while talking about them.

***

In other news, I somehow got my story for x2009 done in the nick of time.

And the CLAMP in 3-D land series 7 figures arrived. Will photograph them at some point.

Labels: books, damn you CLAMP, fantasy, monster blood tattoo, steampunk, toys, writing

   Damn, blast and a muddy bucket of pitch...

Neil Gaiman did a panel with Isobelle Carmody in Melbourne, and I can't even get into his Sydney reading because I quite stupidly thought "maybe it was someone else's turn" and didn't book until it was too late and all booked out. It's just not bloody fair. My favourite hermit and my favourite author-about-town chatting about what inspires them, and I didn't even know it was on until it was over.

I so would have blown off work for a few days if I'd known. *sighs*

Anyway, have maths papers to mark. Bye blog.

Labels: books, isobelle carmody, Neil is our god

   And I thought the books I read as a kid were geeky...

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi: A Math Adventure
The scary thing is there's a whole series of these stories.

Labels: books, childrens literature, geeks

   A thought experiment...

Close your eyes for a moment and think about the Harry Potter books. The first ones were great, and a new one came out every few years as soon as the author finished writing it.

Then imagine that the author got to the end of the penultimate book and got distracted, and she wrote a whole bunch of other books from different stories, instead of the ending of the series that made her famous. And that the two year wait between books became three years, then four, then five and eventually you just decided that you'd give up on waiting and check the internet every six months or so to see when the final book would come out.

Then imagine that finally you find an announcement saying that the book is done and due in a few months and you start getting so excited that you barely even notice the caveat ("it's not the last book in the series, really sorry about that, but I'm done on the last one as well, I just didn't notice how long it was getting"). You realise that in another six months you will finally know how this story will end, and you've been waiting for that since you were 14 and first hooked on this book.

And then there's an announcement: "Sorry guys, but I missed the editing deadline, it'll be another few months", and that'll make it nine years since the last book, but it's okay, because finally you'll know if the good guys make it through.

Then imagine that you snuck off work early yesterday, because there were rumours on the internets that a few bookstores had put it out already (even though the official release is monday), and now you have the (second-to-last,-but-at-least-the-last-is-done) book in your possession, but you have to suffer through a day of work before you get to read it.

*rolls eyes*

All I have to say is that this better be an improvement over book 4, Isobelle, because I've been waiting since I was a kid for this book and I'm going to be really unhappy if it's just more filler.

Labels: books, isobelle carmody, misfits, obernewyn