Random thoughts from a disordered mind
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Chuck, The Pizza Snob" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:36 am
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Another Fine Myth / Myth Conceptions, by Robert Asprin
As a side note, there seems to be an idea in the publishing business that no book can ever be under 300 pages. That, I assume, is the reason for this volume, a reprinting of what was originally two books in one cover. I've seen quite a few of these, as some of the older sci fi/fantasy books were only around 200 pages. I don't quite get it, but I suppose there is some sound economic reason for it. And back to the book.
Another Fine Myth is the first of Robert Asprin's "Myth" series. Skeeve, a young apprentice wizard who really wants to be a thief, annoys his master, who decides to show him what true power is by summoning a demon. But soon after the demon appears, Skeeve's master is assassinated, and the real problems begin. Aahz, the demon, takes young Skeeve on as his apprentice and the two have a variety of adventures including assassins (including a very friendly and curvaceous one), Imps, Deveels, a dragon (who is tamed by the mighty Skeeve) and a mad wizard who wants to take over the world.
Myth Conceptions tells the story of how Skeeve, with Aahz's help, becomes the Court Magician to Possiltum, and how he, with the help of a gargoyle, an imp, a salamander, a gremlin, an archer, and the afore mentioned curvaceous assassin defend the kingdom from an invading army.
The "Myth" series is one of fantasy's humor series. Asprin sprinkles in many puns, and Aahz has appreciation for modern American culture which is completely lost on his fellow characters. Skeeve, the narrator, has a wry sense of humor. And, of course, there is the "quotes" at the head of the chapters, such as: "One must deal openly and fairly with one's forces if maximum effectiveness is to be achieved." -- D. Vader. In addition, the plots are pretty good, if sometimes on the silly side. And Asprin actually develops the characters, so that you care about them and the insane situations they find themselves in. In all, it's a good, quick, light read.
Tags: books, reveiws
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04:37 pm
[Link] | Hmmm, ochen interesny.
I may be getting a car.
It'd be cheap, cheap enough so that I could also probably afford a new computer, and it looks to be in decent condition.
It is a stick shift, which I haven't driven in, oh, 20 years or so.
But ... a car of my own. That would be nice.
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01:07 am
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World Made By Hand, by James Howard Kunstler
Some time in the future, America (at least) has fallen apart. First, oil became harder and harder to find. Eventually, there was a war in the Holy Land, the exact nature of which is kept vague except that it was bloody and unpleasant for all involved. Then nuclear weapon was smuggled into Los Angeles and set off. The resultant security scare effectively shut down all foreign trade. Deprived of oil, electricity starts to become scarce. And despite the attempt to seal off the borders, another bomb takes out Washington. And some time in there, a series of highly virulent epidemics sweep through the country, and because of the weakened infrastructure, the mortality rate is high. After some years, all order above local authority vanishes.
Most books I've seen about post appocolyptic periods focus (such as my favorites, the Changed World series by Stirling) on the heroes and villians, those who gather people together to get things done. This book really doesn't. It's set in the town of Union Grove, north of Albany, NY, along the Hudson. The people of Union Grove have been living their lives in this different world, a world without electricity, gasoline, or anything like what they (and we) had once known. They live, but as if they're sleep walking. The narrator, Robert Earle, was a vice president and now is a carpenter. He lost his wife and daughter to the flu, and his son left to see what was out there and never returned. His best friend is the town's minister, and every Thursday he have desperate sex with his friend's wife. The town constable is a drunk and no one cares. The water supply, which they are fortunate to have nearby and gravity fed, is slowly falling apart. The old town dump is controlled by a former bikers who sell their scavanged items for food.
Into this town one hot and sweltery summer comes the New Faith, and group of Christian fundamentalists who are leaving the troubles of Virginia for the quite place that Union Grove has become. And then one of the town's folk is killed at the dump. These set a series of events in motion that eventually wakes the town up and at least some of them, including Robert, out of their sleeping state.
This is a fascinating book, a look at how people with perhaps no great talent for leadership would react in a world where modern amenity were to suddenly disappear. The people of Union Grove, having lost their immediate methods of getting news, lose all tract of what happens outside their little corner of the world, and they keep on thinking that the world will get back to normal, which seems unlikely. They survive, but with no enthusiasm, until events get them started again.
I can't help but think that there will be a sequel to this book, as there are certain things that appear near the end of the book that beg for more explanation. Yet at the same time, I like the smallness of it. The events take place over a couple of weeks, perhaps less than a month. The book ends with still some tension in the air, as most seasons do, with not everything nicely tied up in a bow. But things are starting to look up for the town.
Tags: books, reviews
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04:07 pm
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Science Fiction Review Sites
Since I order Sci Fi/Fantasy for the library, I try to read some reviews. I check out SF Site, but I was wondering if anyone has any other sites that they check out?
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11:23 pm
[Link] | Today, I went to the Carlisle Historical Society, after having been asked to go there by one of the members. I figured that it was so that I could finish a project I started a couple of years ago, of putting some old books they have in phase boxes. When I got there, I was told, "Well, the archivist we used to have left a couple of years ago, and we're not sure what exactly she did, or what we have, and we really need everything done."
End result, I seem to become the volunteer archivist.
Huh.
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12:14 am
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Some random stuff on the day
1) The Celts won. Game 1 only, but whew. Close game. People kept on making a point that LeBron only scored 12 points, but then two of our three scorers had crappy games, too, with Ray Allen being shut out for the first time in like a decade. I suspect next game will be higher scoring.
(But Celts, when you start having trouble scoring, drive into the basket and make them foul you!)
2) Sox won. Tim Wakefield had a great game. He can do that, if his knuckle ball is really, er, knuckling. He easily moves from being unhittable to pitching four or five innings of extended batting practice, often from game to the next. I mean, he's great for a season, where you know he'll win at least 10, lose at least 10, and the remaining 10-12 will be up in the air, but it's scary in any one game, because you'll never know which you'll get.
3) A girl at work was upset. Don't know why, because I don't know her well as we generally don't work together (she was subbing for the normal kid), and I didn't ask, although the boss tried to find out. I hope it was something that had nothing to do with work, but I have an uneasy feeling that she was upset at me. I don't think I said anything outrageous, which would mean that she got upset because I pointed out some stuff that she hadn't done yet. In other words, that she got upset because I was actually telling her to do all of her job, instead of doing portions of her job, which is generally the case. If I did something inappropriate or it was something outside work, then I have sympathy. If it was just me making her do her job, then screw it.
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04:30 pm
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The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
I just finished "re-reading" it. Actually, I don't really read it any more, but listen to it as an audio book (read by Robert Ingles); one of the libraries around here has a copy of each of the books. I like listening to it somewhere around once a year.
I still find it a great book, despite a few of it's flaws. By them I mean a couple of potential threads that I don't think were ever fully excercised (such as the whole comment that Maggot was wiser than he appeared and then he never appeared again, or that Bombadil is described as the oldest living being, then that designation being given to Fangorn) or suddenly appearing (such as the Cotton's popping up in the last book with no previous mention). I like his style of writing, and find it interesting how the style changes depending on where the hobbits are; when out in the world and especially in dealing with the War, it is a high style, taken from medieval sagas; while in the Shire, it is much more rustic.
I also like the way you can see the way Tolkien influenced fantasy writing, and yet no one has really ever matched some of his formula. For one, unlike a lot of quest-stories, the main character is not a noble. Frodo, at best, is only tangentally related to the closest thing the Shire has to nobility (the Took Thanes), and can best be considered "upper middle class," or a country squire. He never has nor makes any claims on being anything else than what he is, and yet the entire actions of the "great nobles" in the story (Aragorn, Theoden, and others) is effectively a side note, a great distraction to the main action, the quest of Frodo and Sam.
Another thing I find interesting is the relationship of Sam and Frodo, which was seriously altered in the movies. In the book, Sam is most definitely Frodo's servant and Frodo is his Master, from beginning to end. In the movies, they are much more friends.
Then there is the way that Tolkien does NOT create a new world. Every one else makes their own worlds up, but Tolkien didn't, and perhaps was the last of the fanatasists to do so. Middle Earth is Earth, just much earlier in "history." The most obvious examples of it (other than the fiction he writes into the Introduction and Appendices that the story is a translation of something he found) are two fold. The first occurs when the hobbits are in the Shire and are taken by Gildor and the elves to their "hall" above Woody End. The place is rather quite until a certain constelation rises, "the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt." Does that sound anything like a well known constellation, say Orion? The second is how, after the War and the fall of Sauron, the year would always begin when Sauron fell, that is, on March 25. This was not a random date Tolkien picked, but for a long time, THAT was considered when the year began, and it lasted in financial times much longer. (Why do you think your taxes are do on April 15?)
The final thing, of course, is that Tolkien has his hero fail. The *quest* succeeded, but at the end, Frodo succame to the lure of the Ring, and he refused to destroy it. It was only the action of an evil character, Gollum, that allowed the quest to succeed. However, it was only because of the good things that Frodo had done (the Taming of Smeagol) which got Frodo into Mordor and set up the situation that allowed the Ring to be destroyed. Which I think shows Tolkein's skill, in that he set the story up in such a way that Frodo ultimately fails, but his actions are still the cause of Ring being destroyed.
Tags: books, reviews
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06:19 pm
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Song for the Basilisk, by Patricia A. McKillip
The story begins in ashes, in the burnt ruins of the Tormalyne Palace, in what we would eventually learn is the city of Berylon. A child, named Caladrius, has survived the massacre, and is sent north, to the island of Luly, where th bards come from. For the next three decades, he learns music and forgets himself, until his dreams force him to the hinterlands, where he learns power and who he is. He returns to Berylon, where Arisio Pellior, called the Basilisk and ruler of the city after he massacred the Tormalyne's, is preparing to celebrate his birthday. There, Caladrius does what he feels need must be done.
McKillip has a fascinating style of writing, almost dreamlike or mythic, yet still accessible. A high style, similar to "The Lord of the Rings" when dealing with Aragorn. For example,
The ancient school on Luly, he learned, was older than the name of the rock, older than the language of humans. It rose out of rock like something sculpted by wind, shaped by storm. It was never silent. Sea frothed and boomed constantly around it. Gulls with their piercing voices cried tales passed down from bards who spoke the foreign langauge of birds. Seals, lifting their faces out of the waves, told other tales to the wind. Wind answered, sometimes lightly, sometimes roaring out the northern hinterlands like the sound of all the magic there, if it had one word to speak, and a voice to speak it with.
I thought that this was a good book, but the ending was ... unexpected, as one of the characters turned out to be different from what I was expecting. It made for an interesting take, yet somehow unsatisfying. It was not as good as the Riddle Master trilogy, although that's an unfair comparrison. But still, it was a better story than many things I've read.
Tags: books, reviews
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11:04 pm
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Why? Why??
Why are the Celtics allowing the Hawks to stay in this serious? I mean, come on! It's like the Celts have listened to all the hype that the Hawks are easy, so they're not actually playing for half the time. But let's be honest, folks. The Hawks were a SUB-.500 team in the regular season! They now have a better record in the PLAYOFFS than that!
Grrrrr.......
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05:35 pm
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Things done over weekend
I actually did stuff that wasn't reading.
On Friday night, went to see ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) saxikath in "Brigadoon" in Belmont. A good show, given the size of the stage and that they didn't have enough men in the ensemble. And of course, given what I heard from her during the last event, that saxikath didn't have nearly a big enough role. (You can see her next weekend, too!)
On Saturday, after a breif stint coming in at the small country store, I cooked pizza for my mother and brother. The recipe is something my father used to make when I was a kid, and I need to work on it abit. I thought I was cooking for my other brother, too, but there was a mix up somewhere. So he came over, supposedly to watch old family movies, but instead just ended up talking until my brothers went home.
Today, went to 3 Trolls and had Krueger beat up Fionna on a 500 point Circle vs. Pirates.
And now I'm updating my LJ.
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12:06 pm
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Dust, by Elizabeth Bear
In some far future, there is a crippled generation ship orbiting around a binary star system. The descendants of the command structure (Rule) and the descendants of the engineers (Engine) have been in conflict since whatever happened that crippled the ship. They live, along with certain others, in habitable parts of the ship. Humanity is further divided into Means, average people and servants, and Exalt, the nobility who have symbiotes that heal them and keep them clean. And then there are the Angels.
The story centers around Rein, a Mean of Rule, and her half-sister, Sir Perceval of Engine. Perceval begins the book as a captive of Ariane of Rule, who captured her and cut off her wings. (No, not all Exalt have wings, just some of them.) Rein doesn't know at first that she and Perceval are sisters, but Perceval does, and eventually Rein helps the captive knight escape before Ariane can consume Perceval's symbiote. There are also two angels who have taken an interest in the two fugitives, Jacob Dust, the Angel of Memory, and Samael, the Angel of Death (or is it Forced Evolution?). They have see Perceval and Rein as tools in their own power plays, but both are worried for the safety of the ship.
It's a good book. There is a high degree of medievalism in it, as Perceval was out on "errantry" when she was captured, and there is a basilisk and a necromancer, as well as angels. But the characters are not ignorant savages; they know there are in a space ship and they understand the technology that surrounds them (as well as you understand, say, the computer you are reading this on); they are just prevented by numbers and politics from fully repairing the ship. I like the plot and how it unfolds, and the eventual resolution. It is an interesting world with some interesting characters, although none other than the angels, Perceval, or Rein are well articulated. Just from reading the ending, there will be at least one sequel, although the book does end neatly; no dangling plots, just more to discover, such as what exactly happened to cripple the ship.
A good book.
Tags: books, reviews
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10:48 pm
[Link] | So...
Take some 5th grade boys. Add a games like Dance, Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, which gets their blood pumping. In order to let them see the screen, turn off most of the lights in the building. Put it in a library where they normally have to be quiet and tell them they don't have to. Result?
"Gee, I wonder why we can't get these boys to calm down?"
But it was fun.
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04:48 pm
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Plan for tonight
Tonight at the Gleason Library:
Dance, Dance Revolution! & Guitar Hero contests!
For 5-8th graders.
I'll be there, being "adult." And volunteering OTHER people to test out the games. And bringing board games.
On an interesting side note, last year the teen librarian set up a group of middle schoolers as a teen advisory board. They chose as their name: the Teens Of Gleason Advisory; i.e., TOGA. Which means when they get together, it's a TOGA party.
I doubt alot of 5-8th graders have seen "Animal House," but...
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08:23 pm
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Light over a darkness
I was just reading one of the slew of emails that pour out after every Prophecy event as we all sit down and pool our collected knowledge from the weekend. Someone just typed out a prophecy they found in the Sanguimancy cache. When I read it, bells went off in my head, the sky opened up, light shown on my, and angelic voices sang, "Ahhh!"
Things make alot of sence to me now. I can't wait until I get onto a real computer so I can send my responce, unless someone else also has the light dawn over Marblehead for them, too.
Death: Hobitaud
Disease: the Miasma (does it have another name?)
Corruption: Usvangor
Hunger: ?? did it have a name?
The Final Doom: the Devourer of All
And... I've got it's name written down. :) Now if we can only find someone to tell us how to pronounce it.
edit
And, of course, there are still many details to be sorted out.
Tags: pii
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09:39 pm
[Link] | Prophecy recap:
Friday night:
-Learned a partial story, need to ask about more of it; 1st called "Sage," by a player. (!?!)
-Explored complex under a temple of Hyst.
-Learned what Ferrick fears most. Because they attacked the tavern.
Saturday:
-Picked flowers in the morning, learned about an academic conference between the Kingdom and the Grith.
-Fought a bunch of random crap: undead looking for the Silver Book; lachellans looking for the Miasma book; random "bloody ears" who came ... for some unknown reason; more lachellans with Miasma tainted; sea critters attacking a kedethian.
-Helped restore a book with Silver.
-Became a temporary traitor as I went over to the Staff Side for a brief time: a) the Eaten in an enclosed place coming from the back can be NASTY; b) never follow Ken upstairs...
-Heard from a whole bunch of people who want to be Duke.
-Watched a baron being humiliated by the Iron Guard, approved when we rescued him.
-Attacked by nasty undead who wanted the Silver Book, and failed to get it; realized that we have TWO prison books...
-Approached by a spirit of Watersong that it needed help on Sunday.
-Assisted in the assault on the Sanguimancy cache; a nasty battle.
Sunday
-Defended Watersong! Beat up a lot of random stuff, went under the knife for the first time, as a lachellan hit me in the back with a Critical.
-Watersong was cool, but a bit wrenching. Just went because I was able. Ended up becoming a Protector of the place; that was unexpected!
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09:16 pm
[Link] | To cthulhia:
Hippopatamus / robin / female sheep / female sheep
Hippopatamus / robin / female sheep / female sheep
Hippopatamus / robin / buck / cthulhia
Hippopatamus / robin / female sheep / female sheep!
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09:01 pm
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Oh, right -- Reality.
Got back from Prophecy. Tired. But good weekend; the wheather was generally cold, but it didn't rain on us. Took an unusual turn at the end.
And, now, back to not-the-end-of-the-world.
Tags: pii
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12:13 pm
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More on Gary Gygax
On NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday today, there was a small piece on Gygax. One of the NPR reporters actually went to Lake Geneva and played in a D&D session run by Gygax. The piece wasn't about the game so much, but about how Gygax as a person, how he would recite Monty Python or tell about a dream he had during the session. In other words, how the most important thing about RPGing is really about the rules, but about the companionship. About a bunch of people getting together and hanging out.
I know that it's probably on line somewhere, so if you can find it, go listen to it.
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08:41 pm
[Link] | I'll add to the outpouring, for any of those on my F-list who haven't heard.
Gary Gygax is dead.
As a gamer geek, I owe alot to him for inventing D&D and (and I may be absolutely wrong about this) RPGing in general. I only played a couple of sessions of D&D as a kid, but my brothers had the books and, being the youngest brother I wanted to do everything they did, so I got hooked on it. While looking back, AD&D was overly simple, the idea of D&D still floats through the back of my head whenever I think of RPGing. It also helped fuel my interest in history, since part of what got me into it was researching medieval Europe for game settings. And, of course, Greyhawk is still to me the quintessential gaming world.
I never met the man, and have heard some contradictory things about him. And he didn't seem to come out with anything interesting after D&D. But still, his passing is an important one to all us geeks.
Anyone know a 9th level cleric?
Current Mood:  melancholy
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12:07 pm
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The Proud Tower, by Barbara Tuchman
I just finished rereading The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914. It's a pretty good book that I first "read" as an audiobook, then picked it up at the library and finally in a used book store. It is a series of essays on various aspects of the "world" (i.e., Europe and America) in this period, including two on England which talk about the end of the patrician era, one on the Anarchists, another on Socialists, one on the U.S. and it's growth into empire, an essay on the Hague peace conferences, one on Richard Strauss and late German romanticism, and one on the Dreyfus Affair in France (not necessarily in that order). While admittedly not an exhaustive survey, they do give a good glimpse into the general mindset of the West.
There are many aspects of that period that resonate today. For one, there is Anarchism, an ideology that sought to change the world for repressed populaces by acts of violence against those in power. (Hmmm, sound like anything going on today?)
Then there is the first essay on England, which gives some statistics, including the idea that in the 1890s, 15.5 million people technically lived under the poverty live, and these included postmen and policemen, while another 3 million lived just above it (less than 1.5 times it), and they were "clerks, shopsmen, tradesmen, innkeepers, farmers, teachers". (This was before the welfare state and regulation of business.)
One of the more interesting aspects of this period was the Dreyfus Affair. If you don't know what it is, it can be summarized thusly: in 1894, Captain Dreyfus, an officer in the French General Staff, was arrested and convicted of being a German spy. The only problem was that he wasn't. But because he was personally unpopular and Jewish to boot, everyone who investigated the case was convinced that he was, and when it looked like he might be found not guilty at first, they began to fabricate evidence. They then put this "evidence" into a "Secret File," and forbade other people, including those who would defend Dreyfus, from seeing it. As time went on and more and more people became convinced that Dreyfus was innocent and demanded that the case be reopened, the Army said that to do so would damage the Army (and thus, "national security"). Eventually, Emile Zola published an letter ("J'Accuse") accusing the government of the cover up. It was only when a Minister of the Army who had scruples came in, who felt that a gross injustice was worse than damage to the reputation of the Army. He actually looked at the Secret File and realized that the convincing evidence were forgeries, and reopened the case. Eventually, Dreyfus was found not guilty and returned to the army, where he eventually became a Colonel and fought bravely in WWI.
It's a good book, and while it's long, the fact that its a collection of essays makes it easy to put down and take up again. Take a gander at it.
Tags: books, history, reviews
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